Board of Education Parent Community Advisory Council Committee Meeting June 3, 2026

001And so everyone that sits on the BAC, they sit in one of these committees, and so a lot of the work that is done is done in committee based on your area of emphasis. Let's continue on to just some additional efforts, prevention efforts that we have made concerning our staff back in the fall on one of our systemic professional development days, everybody, all staff within Prince George's County Public Schools received professional development training around bullying, what it looks like in the classroom, how to prevent it, how to respond to it, because when we get to the annual report for the last two years Possibly 3, but I know the last 2 years, the number one location where bullion is taking place is in the classroom. So that was another reason why we had to just

002say push pause if bullying is taking place in the classroom We need to deal with it with everybody, with strategies for improvement coming out of that training. Each building has an equity lead, and so some of the equity leads signed up to be a part of their school-based bullying, harassment team, just to be an extra set of hands and support to the administrators. And then we've gone from quarterly technical assistance trainings to now monthly trainings to be able to support the school-based staff As it pertains to prevention for students, as I mentioned before, October is Bullying Prevention Month. So throughout the month of October especially, we, assemblies are hosted, progress assemblies. We definitely use that as an opportunity to spread messaging, as it pertains to bullying. We have PBIS, social-emotional learning lessons, character development lessons,

003and then one new partnership that we had with the University of Maryland College Park where they were able to lead a bullying literature research project in two of our elementary schools. And so that research has been conducted. We'll be reviewing it on next week to be able to see what are some of the lessons learned to be able to share Research shows nationwide that it's in the middle school years where the bullion numbers are the highest, and so we wanted to target 3rd, 4th, and fifth grade to be able to see what can be some prevention strategies that we implement while still in elementary school That could potentially carry on over so that hopefully in time we'll start to see an incremental decrease in bullying, harassment, and intimidation in middle school because of the preventative

004work and measures that we would have taken in elementary. So we are excited to start somewhere. I don't have, like, the research to be able to prove that it worked just yet, but you gotta start somewhere. So we're really excited about that effort. Let's continue on to discuss just recent changes And we had a review the Boolean Advisory Council conducted this review of AP 5143 and the 2 significant changes was that we added 2 sections. One was around the reporting of sexual harassment allegations And we really did that alongside the Title IX office to make sure that the Title IX administrative procedure was in alignment with 5143. But then because of good input from our parents or the VAC especially, we took a moment to look at, what our administrative procedure needed to say as

005it pertains to students who have an individualized education program, IEP or a 504 plan. On the next slide, you will basically see that if and when effective May When a student with an IEP or 504 plan is involved in a BHI incident, that's whether they are the targeted student or the alleged offender student that the 504 team or the IEP team, they must be notified immediately and with either student, whether it's a targeted student or a alleged offender student that a team meeting needs to be scheduled within three days. Granted the school team has to get the prior written notice with the parents, but the school team, the IEP team rather And or the 5014 need to meet, just to make sure that to just make sure that there's no adverse impact on the student's

006ability to learn, that's going to impact the IEP or if, especially if the student is the offender student, that are they really Is it out of response to the disability that is coming out as it's showing up as an offense or not? So there's more when you read the AP 5143, but that's like a good summation that we really wanted to take into consideration. And when you see The data from the annual report, we could see how this change over time should be beneficial to our students as well. So let's get ready to close out with the review. Of the data once again, and this is the review of data from SY 24. No, 25, sorry, 25. All right, yeah. So the outcome of the investigation last year we had a total of 901 incidences

007reported, which was actually 14 percentage points less than the year before of that 901 incidents, 283 of them were truly substantiated as bullying, harassment, or intimidation. The overwhelming majority, 375 of them were determined to be a conflict or other inappropriate behavior and did not rise to the level of bullying, harassment, or intimidation. If we go to the next slide, we'll look at some just some basic demographic data. So on this slide, you'll be able to see concerning alleged targeted students. 221 of those students had an IEP, which was 19 percentage points reduction From the year before, and 46 of the targeted students had a 504 plan, which was 6.5 percentage points. This slide also includes just what were some of the interventions and supports for those students. And so we could see leading Support was

008reaching out to the parent, making that contact with the parent, followed by identifying a trusted adult for those students. We always want to keep children safe, so we got to make sure parents are aware. And then at the same time, while at the school Allowing the children to have a go-to person for them to be able to report things to or get assistance in real time. On the next slide, we will look at the alleged offender students. There was a 1 increase here, of offender students that had an IEP, we were at 221, and then there was a reduction in alleged offender students with a 504 and then the supports there was the administrative conference with the students, so talking with the student, reaching out to the parent, and then also taking on a restorative

009approach. And these were not in for both cases, these interventions aren't just exclusively for students with IEPs or 504s, but these were all of the children That were either targeted or alleged offender students. And then on our last slide Just additional information that I wanted to share. I mentioned before about the primary location being the classroom, followed by the hallways, then the cafeteria, and then you see fourthly, the digital devices, 80%, you know, a lot of times, and the research is out there to the rise in, like, cyber bullying, and you know that's something that a lot of times folks want to immediately run to, and I'm like, I get it, but I really want to run back to the classroom because the classroom is where we really are, you know, experiencing more of our

010bullying than necessarily cyberbullying. We have to continue to address cyberbullying, but we also have to just pay attention to Just what you know continuing to equip our staff with what's happening in the classroom around our students, that it can't just be, you know, boys will be boys, or they just need to suck it up or whatever. Like, that can't be the attitude, but we have to keep our students safe And then the main reasons that students use as to why, what was the motivation behind the incidents was really just to be mean. You see followed by name calling and teasing Physical aggression is in there, and then to impress others. So, you know, it's a simple concept as far as, like, kindness Well, we've got, you know we just gotta work on teaching and demonstrating,

011to our students, you know the importance of being kind or watching what you say with your words. Words can hurt and things of that sort, because those are the top reasons that students have cited As to their motivation behind the incident. So I'm getting ready to be quiet because I really do want to hear from you. I want to seize this opportunity for partnerships. So there's two things here. Built-in is the QR code. So how can you partner share with your constituents. If your student is being bullied, go to the app. You can go to the link, or they can scan the QR code. So take the QR code and spread it widely, because at the same time, if we don't know about it, and I say we, that's at the school level, and even

012at the district level, if we don't know about it school teams can't do anything about it, and we want to know about it. We're okay with school numbers going up, because as sure enough as they're going up, it allows the school team to address it, and it causes the students to be aware of the fact that Oh, this is not tolerated behavior and over time we watch those numbers go down because it's built into the culture that if you report it, it's not snitching. If you report it, some administrator is going to address it and address it appropriately address it appropriately. And so then the question that I have to you guys, is how can we work together based on what has been shared, based on what you know about your constituents, based on maybe

013even what you are experiencing, what more Can we do? What would you like to see happen because the only way that we get better is if we are talking to and with each other. So and then the last slide, I mentioned bullion and attendance. I'm going to take these 30 seconds to say another way that we can partner is we now have attendance ambassadors. I know Ms. Perkins is an ambassador, and I heard another name that I'm like, oh, okay, they're an ambassador, too. But the attendance ambassador is Carletta Lundy Yeah, this idea. This is another opportunity for our local businesses, our community organizations, fraternities, sororities, faith-based organizations, parents to be able to not really come into Prince George's County Public Schools. But it's really Prince George's County's way of saying, hey, can we come

014into you and to your space and equip you with the same messaging? So whoever are your people, whether you're in the presence of 20 people or 200 people, use your platform, use your influence to share in this this message. So that's just another way in which we can partner, but I really do, for whatever time remains, I would like to hear from you guys as to what more can we do, or what would you like to see more of, to be able to help our students, because ultimately the goal is to keep our students safe. That is my commitment. Anybody that works with me alongside me, our commitment is to keep all of our young people safe to the best of our ability. Thank you. Thank you. And so I am very excited about this

015because this was all new information for me I'm very aware about the policy, but had no idea that you all had pretty much been in place for two years now. And so that's very interesting. And Ms. Smith, I see your hand up, but I want to set some ground rules very quickly. We have 10 min that we will do around of questioning I am asking in your this round, you ask one question, right? And so Ms. Smith, and you are quite familiar with it. So as you are on it, so You have the floor briefly. Miss Woodridge, can you put the timer on, please? Yeah. Thank you, Chair Malehouse. I had a question in one, but since I only got time for one. Dr. Dr. Holly, can you share how the district monitors the implementation

016of the safety plans once they become active? Got it. Well, I know at a district level, we will do random check-ins with school teams and or parents. We're not checking in or monitoring at the district level every safety plan. We receive every safety plan, but we do periodic check-ins with parents and school teams to say, you know, how are things? Have things improved Where are we, and what have you? I know that within the school lens with each plan, they are time bound. So on each plan, it will state, you know, in three weeks or in a month, you know, we are going to reconvene to be able to gauge overall effectiveness, and so when reaching out to parents, for the most part, they're appreciative that someone even followed up, and for the most part

017will say, you know, no complaints right now, or if there is a concern, they'll say, I've already voiced it to the administrator, and we're working through X, Y, and Z. And so that's always good to hear that once that plan is implemented, that the parent and the school team are working together for the betterment of the scholar. Thank you. And Vice Chair Smith, I want to be clear. I'm asking for one question from each person to give everybody an opportunity. And so if we don't have any other hands, then we can always come back. Ms. Perkins. Thank you, Chairman House. Dr. Hawley, quick question. So we are preparing to end the school year and walk into a new school year over the summer. What does comms look like for parent engagement? And then two, you

018mentioned PGRAS being supportive of this as well From the inside of the schoolhouse, are they collaborating with the counselor's office? Because I, too, this is kind of like breaking news. Unfortunately, so I just want to make sure I'm checking in with the right entities within the community who should have this resource. To ask that first question Yeah. Yeah, you asked two questions. So the first one was about the communication. I think they both were about communications in one umbrella. Yes. Yeah. Got it. So as far as comms communicating like bullion prevention or as it pertains to just the existence of the bullying advisory Council The existence in general, yes. Got it, got it. So, what I did not necessarily share, like I mentioned, we launched in January of 2024. In October of 2023, our superintendent

019at the time sent out kind of like the superintendent's stance and the district's message on bullying And at that time, in that memo was where it was also announced that the Bullying Advisory Council was being established. And at that time, if you wanted to join, then we had the form attached, and at that time Was when we had the influx of parents, students, staff, and essentially, since then we have not advertised or said, you know, come and join us. However, people get to talking, and they come and join us So it's not a closed off entity. It's just that we've not since then announced enrollment, if you will, but it's not closed off. So if anyone here wants to join, you just send me an email or if you Want to spread the word then

020you know anybody can join. And at the same time, as sure enough as people join at the end of a school year, some people will leave and say, I have other obligations. So really since 2023, no, we've not necessarily announced it But if it's necessary, if that's what you all are telling me, that's fine too. No, but I think Miss Perkins, you also had a part two about pea grass and how it's pea grass working collaboratively with this initiative. Right Got it. Yeah, is this Brown too? I'm not trying to get it. I did, I did. I don't follow rules, I'm sorry. Yeah No, it's… no, it's not, but you did ask two questions at the first time. No, you didn't at the beginning, so it's okay. But you got it, so no other hands

021are up. So we just going to go ahead until your You know Stay really ground too Second question. All right, so when it comes to pea grass, at least two times a year, Mr. Moody will solicit me to come out and address our students. And so some schools have taken it on to say, I'm going to have a club, or we're gonna, you know, just make sure that we spread the message Of, you know, anti-bullying, or what have you. So, really, it's the stance that we take is Here's our message As student leaders, take it back and share it with your peers, however you see fit. And some will treat that as an opportunity to blast it on social media. Others have taken it from the angle of getting a sponsor and then even with

022our goal with our fourth and 5th grade students, they always have to do a scrapbook, and so even our goal student leaders will also champion the cause, and it might be some type of a drawing competition or bulletin board flooding, just at their level of messaging, you know, their stance, their belief In nurturing relationships, kindness, and anti-bullying. So, it looks different in the various schools, but we do seek out, like I said, at least two times a year to be able to use that platform when we have our student leaders together. In addition, I'll attend I want to say last year, I went to one of the PGRAS advisory meetings, and we were able to just have a talking session, so to be able to hear if the approaches and strategies that we are using,

023if they are effective. One other thing that I want to add, it's not necessarily about PGRADS, but just talking about additional programming that we have for our middle schoolers, we have an initiative entitled The Great Conversation. And so it's a three-part series where myself and one of our mental health clinicians host on-site but virtual school-wide assembly on bullying and understanding bullying, bullying prevention, and even conflict resolution, and how to move forward. And so it's a 30 min school assembly that's virtual, everybody is online, but then we're actually on site so that during the lunchtime, if as a result of the assembly students feel empowered to say, hey, I need to report something, or I need some help with something, then they're able to come with the laptops there Fill out the Boolean report or speak

024with the mental health therapist, or even be placed in the care of their professional school counselor to get the additional supports that they need. So that has been implemented in a few of our middle schools, and I've spoken with our new associate, and he's looking for us to even ramp that up some more next year, because he also understands what the data is looking like. So I share that because it's not pea grass, but it's another function of how we are engaging students and professional school counselors on this topic as well. Okay, thank you. I apologize. My child came in. And so thank you for that. Ms. Smith, I see your hand up, but I want to jump in because you asked the question, Dr. Hawley, as it relates to What advice, right? How can

025we advise, support, you know, partner? And one of the things that I see as an opportunity is to communicate that there is a council because as I'm searching on PGCPS website, I don't see any mention of you all And so I don't as a parent, if I'm going to the website to look for any information, you know, there is nothing about you all and your existence and the work that you're doing, right? Because your presentations showed a lot of good Information, right? And then it doesn't show or state If you do put on the website, how a person can be involved. And at some point, the more people that know about it will probably want to be about it, and you probably will have to open up some type of application process to kind of

026streamline so you're not busting at the scene Or it may be something that happens to schoolhouse to schoolhouse. And then back to Ms. Perkins' comment, the communication of it, right? I quickly asked my son, who's in high school, have you heard about this? How are they communicating this? And he was just like, no I haven't heard about it. And so I do appreciate that. Then I went over to 4170 for the discrimination harassment, because I know that policy 5143 reference if it's associated with an adult Or staff for a student to staff, it goes on the 4170. And I think that as you're rolling it out to the schools and communicating it to the students, that there is a lot of staff and student interaction, right, that needs to be addressed that the student may

027feel that it's bullying, but it's that operative word of continuous, right? Or a frequency that happens. But it would fall under 4170. And so, you know, I think that distinction can be made when you communicate it, and it will need to be made so people have a really good awareness of the distinction between the two, but knowing that they have something available to them Yeah. They two separate things Yes, I know. I know Got it. And the only thing that I can respond to, I receive everything that you stated, but when it comes to 5143 and 4170, they say two different houses, yeah, very clear when, you know, speaking about 41, or 5143, you know, that these are student-to-student Incidences the moment is staff is going over to 4170, that is the equity assurance office,

028and actually every 5 years, Maryland State has to update the model policy On bullying, harassment, or intimidation, and so we're in the midst of modifying that right now, and we're having conversation even at the state level, as to do we put the staff versus student piece in there or not? And across All most LEAs were saying, keep them separate because you know it's… we're mixed, because, I mean, I'm student services. I don't have anything to do with the staffing side of discipline and addressing issues and things of that sort. But it's listed in the policy Right Yes. It states 4170 if there is an issue with a student and a staff. So it's in that policy. So I'm just saying the more this is communicated, there needs to be some language, right? Because you are

029going to have that cross between, and they do… What you just stated is the template, like that's the statement that needs to go out that if it falls, if you are reading this and you see that it's that, then that doesn't happen in your house. So I'm just saying because it's mentioned in the policy 5143 That 4170 is mentioned in it That there just needs to, you know, the more people know about it, right? Then that is going to be something that you kind of prepare to have a canned statement about, so they know that, hey, we are here. Yeah, and that's one of the reasons that was one of the first things like I mentioned before about when we updated the app, when a person goes to fill out the app now, it clearly

030states student to student, if this is a staff to student, please see AP 4170 so that upfront when you're going to even fill out the form, you realize this is not the form for staff to student. People still use it, because it's just like, I just want to report it, but, you know, that was one of the first things that we cleaned up so that it's right at the top, but I definitely get what you're saying, because we made that modification two years ago, so that it is clearer. Yeah. Yeah, and that's my first time clicking on a QR code. Sorry. Ms. Smith Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Holly. Yes Dr. Holly, I just wanted to go back to the safety plan question that I had. I wanted to know, and I know it's not Teresa

031wanting to know. I think parents don't understand the difference between having a safety plan in place versus having a BIP in place. So my question is, is there a definition Out there on what a safety plan is, and then how do school teams determine when a safety plan needs to be implemented versus putting a child on a BIP? I'm pleased to find Bib, you're using an acronym that everybody may not be aware of. Sorry, yes. So, BIP means Behavior Intervention Plan Yeah, so as it pertains to a safety plan, as I mentioned before, a safety plan is implemented whenever the case is substantiated. So if it's believed that bullying harassment or not even believe, if it is found after the investigation is completed, if it is found that bullying harassment or intimidation has taken place,

032then both students, the targeted student and the offender student will be placed on a safety plan. That's when a safety plan is put into place. Once again, when we're talking about bullying, harassment, or intimidation, there are other times for other reasons that school teams may implement a safety plan I'm not well versed on that, but for the context of this conversation, that's the reasons why not a behavior, a safety plan would be utilized. Thank you. Okay, and then is the definition, is that published somewhere for parents to know Of a safety plan Yes. Yes, I want to say it's in the AP 5143. I could go on mute, but Okay This is all of these actions are in alignment with the administrative procedure Okay. You're welcome. Thank you. So I don't see any other hands

033raised. And so Dr. Holly, and I'm looking at the policy right now, and I don't see under definitions That's not listed. I don't Yeah, it's not listed. I don't know if it needs to be, but it's not in here, Ms. Smith. But I want to thank you, Dr. Hawley. That was a very insightful presentation. And for those who may be listening, you want to give out your email address? Because you said if they want to join They can just email you. No Got it. Absolutely. I thought it was a chat, but yes, I could be found at TISA. So my first name T-I-S-A.holly, h-o-l-l-e-y, and at PGCPS.org. Okay, this is great. And I'm hoping that you and your team will be having some of the ambassadors that will be spread out. I'm going to be

034great if you had an ambassador to every school that can share the information during the summertime or back to school night Then that way it helps you all with capacity on that reach. So here I go again, Dr. Jackson, you and your team, partnering with Dr. Hawley and her team and get those parent leaders on board, and then boom, just like that, they become ambassadors of this and share the word. Got a bunch of bully ambassadors and attendance ambassadors. Dr. Holly, you see what I just did? I got you a bunch of people to help. Okay. Got it Alright? And so that's all we have, and Dr. Holly, I'm going to allow you to have the rest of your evening, unless you want to stay with us and just, you know. I don't know, engaged

035in any further. But I want to thank you and thank you Vice Chair Smith for making the suggestion. Hi board member Jackson Saunders, how are you Good evening, good evening, I was absolutely listening, and I'm very glad that we're having the conversation about bullying. And I wanted to go back to Ms. Smith. She also asked a question about when is a safety plan or a BIP completed And generally, a BIP is done after an FBA, which is a functional behavioral assessment, because you really want to study the function of the behavior, what is causing the student's behavior before you're able to develop the BIP. And sometimes we omit that step But it is critical, and we try to educate parents to make sure that a functional behavioral assessment is completed so that that behavior intervention

036plan addresses the actual behavior that we're trying to change. So just a little bit of further clarification about the importance of the BIP and the FBA. But good evening, everyone. Thank you. Absolutely. I just Thank you. And so what I also heard you just say is that you will be holding a summer series on this bullying topic and putting in your newsletter. Absolutely, you know, we've had two town halls thus far. And so the next one is going to be about bullying prevention as well as the ambassador program, and we're gonna keep rolling these through as parent university series. That's how I am naming it Because I am committed to the fact that every school, especially in District 9, is going to have an active and engaged PTA, which they do not have at this

037point. And I know that that parent voice is the critical piece that some of our schools are missing, and I'm going to work it Dr. Jackson and the entire team to ensure that we have active engaged PTAs in our schools across this county. So yes, I'll be doing parent university series over the summer, and we're going to take these topics and break them down so that people understand and can advocate for themselves what it is that they need for their scholars Okay, and Dr. Jackson, do you hear that? Okay, I just wanted to make sure that connection was being made again. Dr. Jackson and her team are amazing and they are very probably the most underutilized group that we have. They have all the resources on how to connect with the parent community. They do,

038they do So shameless plug again, but thank you again, Dr. Hawley. I appreciate it. And we are going to move into the next exciting topic, transportation. Director Baldwin, welcome To our final PCAC meeting between you and I. It's been real. Thank you. If you're trying to come off mute, you haven't succeeded yet, but I'm waiting. Not yet Chair Mill House, he better hurry up and come on off because I'm gonna have to tell you about the fantastic job he and the team did at the transportation town hall. They got a lot of tough questions from parents, but they didn't run and hide. So I know he's got some good information he needs to share. So when was this town hall? This past Thursday, we had back-to-back town halls. The first one was on special education,

039parent and family engagement. Dr. Jackson and her team were showed up and answered a lot of questions. And then this past Thursday we did the transportation town hall. They had their own hour of topics Was this in District 9 or was this across the board? And so we advertise to everyone because as I tell anybody, yes, I'm a District 9 representative, but I'm responsible for all 130,000 of these children, scholars and their families. So any and everybody can come But we will do a better job at advertising and wholesale, but we post it on Facebook. And, so we… as I get more consistent, I know that I will engage more community members, but we're always open to any and everybody. This is about education, and so that's open to all. Okay, and so for those

040that are listening, make sure you click on to all of the board members newsletter and stay engaged. And that way you would be able to have access to this information. And Because I was about to say, you know board member Jackson Saunders, I didn't get an invitation to this amazing, you know presentation, but I'm in District 7, so it's okay. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, no. Well, I can make sure that doesn't happen again. How about that? But yeah, y'all go y'all go on and click on all of our emails so that you can get all of our information and join whatever works for you based on the topic Yes, they should, they should. You all should do that. Can you guys hear me now? Yes, we can. It's okay. Oh my goodness, I apologize.

041I'm hitting the share screen, and all of a sudden, everything just went blank for a second, so I apologize. Well, you're here now. You take it over. You got it. Yes. Awesome. Are you able to see my screen as well? Awesome. Well, listen, thank you, chair Milhouse for the invitation again. It's always a pleasure to be in front of this group because I know if I can get in front of you guys and share information. I know it's going to be shared out appropriately. So Thank you for the invitation. I will take A high wind view. of our slideshow, and just basically focus on where we started, where we are, and where we're headed, and pretty much what the ask is of this group and of our parents as well. So I'll begin This tells

042you where we started, where we are now. This begins with our audit that we started back in 2023, December of 2023. And we looked at a total comprehensive audit of our transportation program And as you can see here, we talked about where we were. 20% of our daily trips unassigned, 41% of our seats on our buses sitting empty. We had gaps in staffing, technology, and family communication. As a result, operations and efficiency from an October 23 baseline up until April 2026, some of the highlights that we've done, our AM trip imbalance has gone from 43 To 69. And what this means for you as a parent is that that unpredictable, frustrating mornings where you don't know if the bus was coming. You didn't have any notification. You didn't have any of that. That's we're minimizing

043that. I know we still feel some of that discomfort, but it is nowhere near it was the 23-24 school year and the 24-25 school year We are doing more with our vehicles, with our trips per vehicle. We have consolidated over 2,600 of our bus stops. And we're putting more planning more students riding the bus. But the most fulfilling accomplishment of this time is our staffing and recruitment. As you can see here, September 25 through May 26, 2026, we have gone from an 85% fill rate to a 96.1. Feel rate Where in September 2025, we were at 148 vacancies. Folks were down to 39. And I can tell you, when I started, it was over 200 in 23. Our Hr. Team has done a fantastic job of recruiting and hiring. They've participated in over 33 hiring

044events to date, and this is just the 2526 school year. So with that, we're utilizing our bail time balance, bus stop consolidation, our walk zone safety, the opt out ridership, increasing our family communication and working on our operation process and data To make these continual improvements. Some of it, as you can see here on the screen, we have seven strategic fixes that we have been working on and we continue to work on. We're modernizing our technology. We have a new routing system bus planner. We have a new parent app, Chipmunk. The big piece I want you to understand what we're doing is strengthening our communication. We doubled our communication staff this year. We've added a supervisor, and we're continuing our professional development for our phone bank staff. This is our communications team. These are the

045folks who answer the phones when you call. We're putting more tools in their toolbox to be able to work with our families More consistently. We also added two safe passage coordinators. They are attached to safety and security, but they have been very beneficial in helping to streamline our pedestrian safety concerns, and this has to do a lot with the bus stop, the walk to stop, and sometimes the walk to school that our students are having to face on a day-to-day basis. I would be remiss to tell you we still have challenges. The driver shortage is still real, even though we've put over 100 drivers in place, we still have a shortage from day to day because those folks don't always come to work just yet. And so we're working on that. But understandably that has

046been and will continue to be a strain until we have a more solid plan for retaining our drivers. We've also seen an increase in our McKinney-Vento students and specialized transportation request. These require a flexible supply, and they still require careful coordinations to be able to transport these students effectively. The parent app reliability, we're still working. We implemented the new app, we're still learning as with any new technology, you're going to hit some pitfalls, you're gonna hit some gaps, and what's important that I want our families to know, if you have subscribed to the Chipmunk app and having those concerns We want to know that feedback. I mean, we spent the full year implementing and integrating, and I want to know those issues now so that we can work on them between now and the start

047of the school. So we have very minimum disruption when we start school in the fall And so if you have subscribed to the parent app and have those issues, I need you to use that question mark within the app and submit any concern that you have, whether it's a compliment to the system or where you have a question about a system Please use that. That is something that we get, and it's shared between us and the vendor, and we're committed to working to resolve any and all of those challenges that are presented to us. The call volume is still real. Right now, the call volume outmatches the number of staff that I have, and the calls that we can take in a given day. We continue to work. We're working on a new system to

048receive the calls, to document the calls But just, I want you to know that that's something that's not sitting stagnant in our shop. We are continuing to work to improve on how we communicate and the resources associated with it. And again, these are our challenges, still remain Now, what is the ask for our families? I shared this Last week, we're going to share it again next week, and I'm going to share it with this office, and the last time I was here, we walked through the chipmunk page on the district website. Accessing that page utilizing the resources, the videos, the PDF documents, there's a troubleshooting guide there. We need to continue to push that. Currently, I only have about 16,000 subscribers to the Chipmunk app That's not enough when I know that we have over

04985,000 students assigned to a bus stop. I will tell you that a lot of what I can do within the Chipmunk app is based upon the number of subscribers that are using the parent view app from Synergy. And I got a little word last week that we had over 100,000 subscribers to the ParentVue app That is phenomenal because we've never had those numbers before, even when we had school max. And so those numbers are really great, and I'm dependent on those numbers. I want to have the same number of parents Accessing ParentVue, accessing Chipmunk. And so, we have a little plan, and Dr. Jackson, we're going to be coming to you to help us to promote and recruit more parents to subscribe to the Chipmunk app, because that's going to be the all-in-one source for

050everyone now. To help minimize the phone calls and emails to try to do as much as we can through that app. And so we need to be able to share this with our families how to work within the app To get the information that you are needing Now, I had an opportunity to speak with our pupil accounting team and just asking what's new for next year? What are some things that our parents need to know about So to make their transportation experience a little easier And so here are three big things that they shared with me that, you know, I wanted to share with you Parents have to activate the ParentVue account, obviously, in order to use the chipmunk. If you are moving to a new school, you must do all of your registrations online

051through the online OLA. Module and I believe that's something that is done within the parent view. But anytime what I know really quick, if you are moving to a new building, you have to do some online registration. And and what I what they shared with me. If there's any questions about that, is that to just call the school Call your school to share so they can help you from there. And again, if you're enrolling a new student to PGCPS, you have to follow the student guide through the Student Enrollment Services to get the child registered. What they shared with me is a deadline here. As of June 1st. Now, of course, that's passed. But I know that you can talk with your school, because this is related. In order to Receive a bus stop. for

052next school year, your student must be fully enrolled in the school. And I know that that details out with an online registration, but I know that you have to submit documents to the school as a final check To be fully enrolled. And so that's something again that it's not necessarily in my wheelhouse, but I can refer you back to your individual school to ensure that when your student is enrolled that you check with the school to make sure they're fully enrolled, because any holdup delays the bus assignment. And and I don't want to do that at all. We want to it's good for us to know all the students who need a bus stop at the beginning of the year, or actually before the end of the year Comes about so that we can properly

053associate them with the bus stop and ultimately a bus. And here's some things in talking with my team. We're taking still in between, I would say 700 to 1,000 phone calls a day. Steel. And we ask my team what's information that's needed most? And so when you call in These are some of the things that we would like for you to have in order to serve you faster and more accurate. And again, we're talking about the student ID number the full legal name. Sometimes we get nicknames and we can only go by what's in our system and the data that we get for our system comes directly from Synergy. And so whatever is in Synergy, that's what we see The school assignment. If you know the AM and PM route number, that's always helpful. And

054also the bus stop. It's good to know that the bus number is not the same as the route number. And so we sometimes the schools at the elementary level, they identify our buses by colors or animals, and so when our parents call, they give us the school name, and they say, hey, the blue bus was late, and my team doesn't know who the blue bus belongs to. So we ask that our parents know the route number, even though the school may identify it by a different color number, we ask it's a three-digit number that we want our parents to know. There's a 10 minute grace window before and after each school for excuse me, there's a 10 minute window before the style, actual stop time and after the stop time and waiting for the bus

055that we adhere to And if we have to make changes right now, it's 7 to 10 business days. We're working to minimize that a little shorter. But right now that's what we have to stand on. And so, for you Again To address to start the school year, you know, the first month of school, we really do not make any immediate bus stop changes, because we're trying to gather actual ridership, who's riding. We ask that you Have your child ride the bus Within the first 10 days of school that gives us an idea who's riding. I know at the high school level and some at the middle school level, our kids participate in extracurricular activities, so they may ride in the morning, and they may not ride in the afternoon. We just need to know that

056information, and so that'll be great If your student can share that with the bus driver, we're going to be taking some notes based on our actual ridership this year so that we can better route when we know who's actually riding the bus And then finally is just tracking the bus with Chipmunk. Chipmunk has given us the real-time bus ETAs. That's something that I can't stand 100% on right now because we're still working internally with integrating some pieces, but my goal is to have this up and running for everyone at the start of the school year. So stick with us you know right now things are working good. I'm following I have about 15 kids that I'm following every day, and my phone start starts going off at 6:30 in the morning, letting me know where

057We're the bus is. And so we are actively monitoring the system. We know that we've hit some hiccups. Once we know it, we're working with the vendor to resolve them, and we've been able to resolve many of them very quickly. But again, we're only working with 16,000 families or 16,000 subscribers. And so we need to drive that number up more so that we can truly get a good picture of how this system is working for us. And again, everyone needs a ParentVue account to utilize this system. All right. So that's it in a nutshell. If there's questions that you may have of me, please ask. I'll do my best to answer them. trying to… I don't feel comfortable because I can't, there we go, now I can see you better. Couldn't see you before, but

058If you have those questions, I will entertain them right now. Thank you. Director Baldwin, as always, it's always very exciting to see what you and your team are doing. I have no idea who hand went up first, so Ms. Perkins, I called you first the last time. I'm going to start with Vice Chair Smith And then I'll No, Ms. Perkins, you actually went second. Miss Perkins, you got it. You take it, Ms. Perkins. My memory, Ms. Perkins It's okay. Thank you, Chair Mahalk. Thank you, Director Boland per usual, you're amazing. One question first round. My one question for this round is you mentioned how involved all of our kids are with activities after school Since we're using Chipmunk, can we just build that functionality in the app to note that they're a participant of a

059fall, winter, or spring sport? You know what? See, you're trying to get the cat out the bag for me. We're working on that. Meow, meow, meow. Right? We're working on that. I can't say it's going to be available by the start of the school year just yet, but that is on one of the task list that I've given the vendor. Or a suggestion in the meantime, a comment box. Okay. If I'm working it correctly, we may be able to do it through the feedback. That question mark right now Okay. Let me talk with the vendor to see that type of mold, because right now, I… it's only a select few who are seeing those messages. And so we would want to figure out how we could branch it off and associate that to the proper

060bus lot. So They would know or in schools That's a good suggestion, though. Okay, thank you. And I'll ask my second question around Okay Chair Smith, Vice Chair Smith, are you are you still up? Put your hand. Okay. Yes, yes. I'm sorry, I put my hand down. So my question is Dylan around communication. And Director Baldwin, I will say that the most frustrating thing that a parent can experience is that we sit on hold for about 20 minutes Hmm. You guys pick up the phone, we're explaining the concern, and somehow the call mysteriously drops. So my question is, does your staff have the ability to call that parent back So that that parent is not placed back into that backlog of calls That is a really good question. I will tell you that We, this

061year we have experienced more communication concerns with our phone lines. And I know that we have changed over phone lines, and I've experienced a little bit more than that, because I can myself can be on the phone in my office and all of a sudden the call just drops So I know it's happening in a phone bank and it's very bad that you can be in mid-sentence and it falls. If the phone has to be rebooted, we do can't… they can see who made the last call, and we can call back, providing that that information was stored in the phone. Yep. So listen, I'm trying to get us out of that 20 minute phone call. Like, I only want a less than five minute timeframe when you're talking to parents. And so, but a lot

062of that is building the tools for that team so they can have it right at their fingertips And currently, they don't have all of the tools at their fingertips where they have to literally get up and go to another room and ask questions related to certain topics. So I'm trying to minimize that tremendously. So next year we should start to see a little bit more. You shouldn't have to be on the phone 20 minutes. That's to me is a non-negotiable component. We're not being effective holding a parent on the phone for 20 minutes. I would… listen, I'm sorry, I wouldn't hold on for 20 minutes. I don't have the patience But I know parents Parents do call and they hold and they don't get anything, they hang up and call immediately right back, right? In

063my system, I get that as a call abandonment, right? And that's something that drives us down, because sometimes that number of abandonment kind of outweighs the number of calls that we are taking So that's a good question, but I will bring that back to the vendor and our phone team. Ms. Smith Thank you Okay, and so what Ms. Smith just spoke about, when you say that you were trying to, you know, identify something to close that gap when, you know. A parent is calling, and then when they get that dispatcher, that dispatcher then has to make a phone call. They have to then figure out where the bus is to provide some level of feedback. And so, you know, there are so many different layers to what's happening, because if the driver then doesn't pick

064up then they are calling the bus lot. So I'm hoping that you all are aware of what we are going through when we are making that call and that weight is, you know, the the dispatcher is then calling, and then they have to call somebody Oh, yeah. So then they have a whole phone tree that's going into place. I would tell you, with this new system I get my reports, and it tells me how long each phone call, each phone line… how many calls each phone line has received, and it tells me how long each call was on the average. And so, that's some of the information, some of the data that we're going to be able to use To minimize how long parents wait. And then we have some technology updates to where we're

065going to give the team access to the GPS system That if they know the bus number They can go into our GPS system and actually see the bus themselves to eliminate having to call somebody else to figure out like, you know, you've been online and sometimes they may put you on hold and they may have to call the bus lot if the driver's not picking up in that standpoint, I'm finding a way to eliminate that step I won And so when you say the team, who is that? The dispatchers Okay. So it's our team of you have our communications team, which in our world we call our phone bank. These are all of the folks that answer the phone. And then we have our dispatchers that are right next to our communications team. Okay. So

066the dispatchers managed the bus. These are the folks that talk to each other on the radio. They talk to all of our drivers Okay. Yeah And then you have the bus lot or Yes. Okay So our drivers are follow when they are doing the morning arrival and afternoon departures. We manage the drivers on one main system, one main channel Okay. And that's where we're. It's not the best process, but one step at a time in terms of improving communication. No, and I just wanted to make for clarity purpose for the community as a whole that they understood the layers of when the call happens. Right? Yeah Yeah. Who are we touching? And so you say the phone bank and then the dispatcher and then the bus lot. So those are the layers. And then, you

067know, the driver is in here somewhere who they have to get to, right? So it's about four layers Yes. To get information to get back to the parent Okay. Right. And that's what we're trying to minimize. You shouldn't have to go to all four layers. Okay. Maybe, maybe two, maybe 3 best case, but a lot of this I want my team to have right there at their fingertips to be able to help the parent Okay, thank you, Director Ball and Ms. Perkins. Oh, Ms. Lawrence. Oh, actually, let Ms. Lawrence go first? Yeah. I didn't even see that Miss Lawrence. I'm sorry. I apologize. No, it's okay, I just raised it. So I just had a question. I know you talked about the student and excuse my dog in the background. The student, the passage safe

068passage coordinators Correct. Do they… Can you explain a little bit more about that? Specifically, as we're talking about bullying with our last presentation, just wanting to hear more about student safety on the bus. And I just want to make sure I'm understanding if the safe passage coordinators are Yes. have anything to do with on the bus safety, or they're more for pedestrian safety? Because like what exactly their role is in that? They are strictly for pedestrian safety Right now, how they assist us, like, again, they're housed under safety and security. But if there's any issues about pedestrian safety around the school That's their major focus. From time to time, I ask for their assistance to evaluate a bus stop. If it's in a… we use them as a support, as a secondary support to evaluate

069a bus stop, a potential bus stop, or a current bus stop that the parent has maybe shared that is unsafe for some reason from that standpoint. So we get our teams together, and we go out and we talk about it and make a decision whether or not this is going Continue as a bus stop or not. On the bus. Own the bus safety. I'm kind of glad that Dr. Holly was here because that's a component that I want to jump into with our teams because I've in a past life, I used to Do a lot of PBIS work. And I focus a lot between the cafeteria and the school bus because those are the biggest common areas with least supervision. And we need to be able to teach expectations and have norms in all of

070those areas for our students to maintain. Because of that's the least supervised area we need to have the most I guess expectations in place. And a child can get suspended from the bus if they are not adhering to Yeah That's a great point, Ms. Milhouse. Please, yes, children can be suspended, but transportation, meaning me and my team cannot suspend the child after the bus. We can make the recommendation to the school administration, but it is left to the school administration Okay, so it's the school so the report though has to come from the bus driver Correct. A bus And so what I'm not talking about suspension from school. I mean being suspended from the usage, bus usage. Correct. So that doesn't happen under your umbrella. No. that happens under the schoolhouse Upstairs taking a break

071Oh, you were on mute. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So anything that occurs, behavioral based on the school bus, our duty is to report. So we have incident reports that we complete and we would share it with the school. We keep a copy and we give the school a copy It is upon the recommendation that we may say, or if it's been concurrent referrals that have been shared with the school It is up to the administration to make any decisions related to suspensions off the bus. But your team can make The referral for the action that needs to be taken to keep other students safe on the bus. Correct. But the final say happens from administration Correct. Correct Interesting. Oh. This is a good point. I mean, this is a good carryout that Oh. It is

072not always stressed upon in that manner. You know, I put our teams because we at this stage, and I will give an example. Here we are in the last quarter. The patience level is really high. Right between our staff, between our students and our parents. And I stress to our team that we have to maintain the same way we were the first week of school, we need to be the same way we are going into the last weeks of school. consistency matters. And so if we reported it, if a student was using profanity for the adults on the bus. If you reported it in the beginning of the year, you got to report it at the end of the year, just the same for consistency, right? And then it is mindful that we want our

073schools to be a partner with us to help minimize that type of behavior. And all that we do. Oh, I have so many questions about that, you know, and so I'm going to go I know you do. We can talk about this all day. So Well, yeah, I have some yeah I have some things that could really assist you all right now. I'm going to get into Ms. Perkins and toss it over to Ms. Perkins. Director Bobble, I just wanted to go back to the July 1 deadline for transportation being for the submissions in the system for ParentVue and those that are enrolling and switching schools. Has there been an audit done to ensure that the Receiving and losing schools have completed the transfer paperwork to be able to provide that to you all. Okay.

074Yes, yes, that is an excellent question as well. So last year at the beginning of the 2425 school year we started asking these same questions, and as a result we built an enrollment task force where we combined operations with student support with academics, and I think our first meeting was in November and we met from November through June to talk about the processes of students moving from one school to another, one program to another, and how does that look And going into synergy Right? And because That's where I get all of my data from out of synergy. So if it's not right in Synergy, it's not going to be right in my system. And that's what we brought back to the table. And the teams worked together and we Had Very minimal disruption in terms

075of misalignment of program codes, students not being signed to the right school, right program. We had the largest reduction For the 2526 school year that I've seen in all my years being here. And so it's a continual motion. We've already started that this process to start the 27th, excuse me, the 2627 school year So to answer your question in short, yes, we do have an audit process to minimize any student misalignment when it comes to bus assignments. Okay, so do you know how long it takes for the system to be updated because I just would, like, publicly for parents to have a realistic expectation. Understood. So with, look, I'm going to use the best case scenario with the specialty school lottery programs. There's a deadline for if you are, if you've chosen your school and

076you are accepted, you have to have everything turned in by a certain date From there, they will Excuse me. From there, the teams pretty much review that data, make sure that the acceptance matters and the paperwork trail goes in. And all of that information should be in by June 30th If not sooner Because I'm looking to get it early July. So that I can provide the most the most time for our routing team to route. Yep. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Perkins and Dr. Jackson. Dr. Jackson is going to save the day for everything and she's going to talk about that bullying on the bus watch. Go ahead, Dr. Jackson. Fix the problem, Dr. Jackson. You're on mute, Dr. Jackson Can you hear me now? Oh, yes. Yes, ma'am. Great. I did want

077to address that issue of children misbehaving on the bus. The authority to suspend a child rests solely with the principle of the building. And a lot of times it's because the principal will know That child's history, if that child is on an IEP or a behavioral plan, they have to consider all of those, you know, situations before a determination can be made. And it might not be a suspension, but it might be that reactivation of a 504 Right. Behavior plan. And I know Miss Jackson Saunders probably knows more about this than me. I know other people often wish, oh, I would suspend that child, but you can't. It has to be the authority Yeah of the principal, who then also also reaches out to parents to have that conversation with them. So it can be

078frustrating for our bus drivers, our transportation staff, but there's a process by law they have to follow I tell you all. Thank you, Dr. Jackson. Okay. That's a big part Thank you. Do we have any more hands up Any other questions? And so, you know, I jotted down a couple of things and you mentioned the 10 minute grace period. Is that when the assigned time for the bus to be at the stop, not if the bus comes early Right. you know, and then they wait 10 minutes and then they leave like if they're supposed to be there at 6:45 and they come at 6:20. They don't get to leave at 6 30 Okay No, no. You want them. The grace period is the assigned bus stop time. So if you say the pickup time was

07964 We want our students out there at 635. And if the bus is not at 645, then we want you to wait till 655. Okay. Right? And hopefully that's some of the things that we've been working on that if you are subscribed to the Chipmunk app You will get that properly in the ETA function, so you'll see and see that bus hit, you'll get a push notification, you'll be able to see it on the map within your geofence that you have there, and really make that more accurate that time for our families, especially in the early morning. Okay, and so from an advisory standpoint, I want to share that you said 16,000 subscribers at this point, right? Correct. So I just actually got my son to sign on to make sure he has an account

080Correct. Did I share that last time? I didn't share that last time, did I? Right. No, well, no, you didn't, but it's okay. It's okay. Yeah, that's new. That's new. Yeah, yeah, we just because I kept saying to him, he's like, I don't know about it, but that's the other piece. I don't know when you're looking at your subscribership, you know, can you delineate between a student and a, okay. And so when you're looking at your number, because here I am as a numbers person, what targets are you looking for for family subscriptions, for student subscription and how you working with progress and back to Dr. Jackson. But so that's not a question for really right now for you to answer. It's just for you to think about as you are working out your plan,

081because the more students to know about it, right? And how they could, you know, utilize it, that helps out. And then again with Dr. Jackson, and her team and reaching out to the parent leaders you know, that's a subscribership will increase if we're talking to them about, you know, being, you know, attendance ambassadors, and we're talking to them about bullying, but we're having events throughout the summer and consistently pushing information out about, hey, did you sign up? And there are various ways, you know that we utilize the media. So let's utilize the media to get people prepared for the ridership that you are offering up Because, you know, having 16,000 and you're saying that you want your number to be what I want my number to be at least 70,000. I would love to have

08285,000 to match the number of students, but you know what we can't do is count, you know, if a student, if there are multiple students in one household Right. That was the other question, right? Right Okay, okay. You that's only one subscriber. Now, I would you know my subscriber count is based off parents, not students. But I do have the student count. Who are subscribed Okay. And so that It is doable I just have… my mind is doing this to get you to that 8 because it's doable. It is very, very doable, but I see Ms. Smith's hand is up. Well, Dr. Board Member Jackson Saunders hand is up, and then Ms. Smith Thank you, Chair Milhouse. You actually took one of the questions I was going to ask Director Baldwin to talk more about

083the outreach to get that parent subscription number up and what it would take because he shared a little bit of that on our transportation town hall. So you've kind of moved in that direction The other thing is, and of course the student accounts, that was a… that's a very new thing that he introduced to us as well. But Director Baldwin, tell us a little bit more about parents opting out. That term was introduced to us as well at the town hall What is your vision on that? What do you need to happen? And is that an option that you'll be rolling out as well with all these other initiatives? Right, right. Yeah. Opt in the opt out is what we have right now. And by default every student that is outside of the non-transportation zone

084Gets a bus stop And so if you're not going to use your stop Not going to use the bus that we assigned to you, and you know you're going to take your kid or you have alternate transportation plans. We would like for you to opt out of transportation. That allows better accuracy for our students and for routing. And what that means ultimately is the less stops that bus has to make Then the more increases the chances of it arriving to school on time. And when we have to stop at bus stops that we… that kids are not there, and we kind of know they're not there, that takes away the time. Now, what we're leaning toward, which we probably won't be able to do to start the 2627 school year is move toward an opt-in

085model. Right? And that really is about the number of subscribers and the number of subscribers in payment view. Because if we have that greater number, then we would like to move from the opt-out to an opt-in component where we parents would have to let us know You want transportation, so it wouldn't be given to you by default. And what that does, it builds a model of accuracy when we're routing. It gives us an opportunity to reduce or consolidate more bus stops And… but I also put the precursor out that If you… if you opted out and you need a bus stop, and you need to stop in, you can always let your school know the school registrar, and we will give you that stop back. And primarily we're looking at our specialty schools because the

086specialty schools have out of boundary And we may have… give an example, we may have a bus with 30 stops With 30 students. That's one student per stop, and that bus has a 2-hour ride And it may only bring in 10 students. But because we don't know those students need that stop or servicing that stop, we are still going to each of those stops. And so we talked about having some language within the AP that says after a time period, if no one is at that stop for under a specified time We may remove that stop from the bus. Right? But parents need it back. They can request it back. We don't want to limit our exposure for our kids because we know transportation in a lot of ways is the main source for kids

087participating in any school activities. extracurricular and all. So but we have to get to that point where folks are really true to the game about utilizing their stop or not utilizing their stop. Now, we just we don't want you to hold the stop Because hold a stop and you use it once every 10 days. That's not doing our system justice. So don't let me get started because I know so I'm gonna pause right there. I thank you. And this is going to be the last one, Ms. Smith You're going to close us out with this transportation segment Sure. So, Director Baldwin, this question is coming from the utilization of the app, and I will make sure that I get this because it might be more of a technical thing. I'll make sure I get this

088into Yes, ma'am, yep, yep I think you said the question mark or whatever that needs to be utilized. But what I am noticing, and I don't know if this has anything to do with The tracking of the bus or reassignments of buses, but what I have two children who utilize two different bus routes and there are instances where I, as a parent, have to find the bus via the Versus looking underneath their individual name to kind of see what the estimation is of time of arrival What I'm noticing under their names is that it will state that the bus is too far away, or that the bus is not reporting Right. And for me as a parent, like that doesn't help me at all. That's going to trigger me to either make a phone call

089or sit here and keep hitting the refresh button at the bottom of the screen. Right. So that's okay. So this is what the troubleshooting guide tells us, right? It tells you if the here's one thing we know if you see the bus is not reporting We're going back to the stock finder days and thinking, hey, the app doesn't work. The app is working. It just tells you that bus is either the bus has been has not moved for a significant period of time, so there's not pushing any GPS vents out Or it's actually turned off Right? That's the logic of it. And that's what we chose. If it's too far away, then that means that it may be in the viewing area, the viewing time may be outside the viewing time, right? Or it's too

090far away For us to read Times for your trip Alright, so this is what we want to do more of with our families when we do outreach to the PTA meetings, community events, to really talk about what you see Right? Some of it is right, Ms. Smith. Sometimes, early on, it might have been the substitution. It wasn't substituted right. But that's something internally that we have clamped down, and I'm proud to say that that is a very minimal percentage every day. Our buses are tracking, right? They're tracking. So that's why if you're getting these instances, let us know about it, because I'm trying to eliminate some of these variables and really hone in to what matters most. And so, if I know my team is doing the basic right, and we're still getting issues, then

091that's something I can take back to the vendor to investigate fully. And we know that now, so that we can have it resolved by the time we start school next year. Thank you. So please use that question mark. If not, just email me. And we'll get it there, okay? Thank you, Ms. Smith and Director Baldwin, I want to just thank you for coming on. I just want to make sure that the community also understands that when we get that notice, which seems like two days before school is about to start about bus routes No. Yes. That is not you all holding on to information, that you all have to wait for people to select that route, so there is a union process that is involved. And the union does not pick their routes into what,

092August So let me tell you, around the second week of August we should have information available within the Chipmunk app And also within Synergy. Right? We do this down to the we have a timeline that we're following now. But the earliest that we can give information to parents is going to be around that second week of August. And so we'll get more information. We're going to work with comms to push. We did a lot. We did a big push last year We did weekly letters. I don't know if that's going to be on tap again this year, but we will have notification out. What I know, you know, everybody's done, you know, by the time we finish school, nobody wants to hear any more about school And about information for next school year. And so

093there's always something that will be with comms decision of when we start rolling out parent information again. And as soon as we know that first date, we're going to be in line Hey, we need transportation information pushed out. From there. I appreciate that, because I just want to make sure… I know you all get a lot of, you know, flack about the timeliness of the communication and where information goes out, but again, I believe it's always helpful when people understand that there are various components to what happens and why it happens that way. And when people know more about why it happens that way, then, you all are in a position, especially when you are engaging with the advisory group to receive advice, because people understand the process a lot better. So I think Absolutely.

094in going forward as I transition out this role, I am just hoping that, as we've gotten a lot of people to come and present a lot of things, that Those presentations are really conversations where you all are getting the advice and guidance and it's not just information sharing. Right, right. Yeah. I think I want to lean in that direction too, Ms. Mahouse, because it kind of works both ways because the value of parents is helpful. And we've heard a lot of information from our parents, a lot of comments, and it's sharing right and that's how we get better. And so we're open to that. We may not be able to act on everything Right. But we definitely are here to listen, and if it's something viable that we can work to implement, we're going to

095work to implement. Yeah, and I appreciate that in the group that will be leading this will definitely be in that position to guide and advise Absolutely. And have an understanding that advice doesn't mean you going to take what I have and you're gonna run with it, because there is a whole system that you have to deal with and think about all of the moving parts. So I thank you again, for your time And did I say congratulations and being the transportation guy of the year? Yes. You know, you all know he was on the front of a magazine, right? That he's the guy That's right. He's that guy, so that means you are, you know, it's a lot that we're expecting of you from improvement in this transportation, and so kudos to you for what

096you and your team are doing. Well And, thank you. And I just We're here for the duration. No, thank you. And I want to do a shameless plug and just shout out the Douglas Buslot So let me do that I will have to let them know They do They already know. They already know. They already know Well, awesome. Well, I'm hoping we'll get more shout outs like that as our lots continue to get more involved into the software, hardware. We just, you know, it's a process for us and we've been progressively improving year to year. Awesome. Well, we appreciate you and we're going to let you go back to your family and thank your family for allowing us to have you for this time and we gonna hurry up so we can close out so

097we can get back to our families. But I appreciate you, Director Baldwin. Thank you so much. You guys have a great evening and thank you for the invitation again. And so moving on, thank you, thank you, thank you. It says report of the committee chair. But I don't see any. Oh, I'm sorry, the reporter superintendent designees. Thank you, Ms. Woodridge. You are amazing. Dr. Jackson Thank you so much. What a robust conversation this evening. I just really enjoyed hearing from both of our leaders tonight. I'm going to be very brief because I know that Robin Welsh has some news for us tonight about all the things that have been happening. I just shared, and we're not going through this PowerPoint. I just wanted you all to have it. This is from last night's last Family

098Institute session for the school year. We had a ball. It was about having… helping parents understand How to avoid summer slide for their students. And in that presentation, which I ended up doing because all of the other people from Curriculum instruction just all of a sudden were pulled to do other things We talked about what are the things, what is some slide? How do you avoid it, and what are some of the many things that can be done in the DMV to keep our children from regressing in their learning over the summer And so we had a lot of activities, we had parents sharing. What are some of the things that they do? We have a lot of links in this PowerPoint that you can share with other colleagues, and you can take advantage of

099them yourselves I laugh about, you know, being in the DMV, which is, like, probably the capital of the world with free museums that our children need to be exposed to. We have partnerships with Prince George's Community College, Bowie State University of Maryland Park and planning, the library system. There are so many. Oh, NASA actually has a summer program that our children can be exposed to. So all of that is in the slideshow, and just the talking points that we used But just remembering that, you know, the research says that some children lose 30 to 40% of what they learned in this current school year because of their lack of brain stimulation over the summer So his parents and families, we have… and aunties and uncles, we have to make sure that children keep learning all

100the time. That out-of-school learning is so important. So that's there. I also put in the slideshow the email addresses of all of my staff In case there are any things that come up over the summer that you think of, you may have questions about, and that way we can… we are 12-month employees, so we will be working all summer. We do not mind, talking with or engaging you We're going to be building out our schedule, as you all know, we have a permanent superintendent now, and he already looked at me after his announcement to say Okay, you know what we gotta do. And I appreciate it, because he is really committed to making sure that we build effective partnerships, and we hear from our parents and families. So I look forward, you know, to whatever

101the plans are going to be Quick announcements just thought that aren't in the slideshow coming up, you all will be invited to our partnership breakfast, which is going to be happening on June 18th. The invitation will be coming from Janice Cook We always like to invite our PCAC members to that. It will be an event at the University of Maryland, Marriott Conference Center, an opportunity to just hear about and network with people who give their time, who give their resources To support our schools in various ways. So I'm looking forward to that. And this Janice Cook is in the audience. She's one of the gems on my team who really make this happen every year. Other announcements, so that's June 18th PEAs last day is June 18th, but We have professional development for them next

102week, and they will be working to close out their year and talking about their plans over the summer. What are the things they're planning? We call it future casting. They have a plan already made out for how they're gonna help transform schools and their family engagement next year. So we're excited about that. And there are so many other things happening, as you all know, we have that partnership with the former Maryland MSDE board chair, Reverend Clarence Crawford, who is taking the literacy initiative by like bulls by the horn. He is going to have a summer institute, and I will share that information with you all as well As soon as I have the dates, it will be at Suitland High School. I believe it's going to be Friday, July 18th, but I will make sure

103I get that to you. So many wonderful things happening over the summer. And when we come back, right as we get ready to open schools Our department will be co-hosting our annual back to school drive. That's under development right now at the Sports and Learning Complex. And I know Miss Cook is on the line, and I know she's thinking of all the other things, and she's actually texting me things, too, but I just want to make sure that you all know that just because the summer's coming, the work has not stopped. It will not stop Yes, we want people to take vacations, but we also want them to make sure that we're ready to open up the next school year boots on the ground, running hard. So if you have any questions for me or

104my team, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. You have my email, you have my phone number. Y'all know where to find me if you need anything And just keep us in the loop on whatever you need. But I appreciate all of you all. This has been a phenomenal year. Mrs. Milhouse, thank you so much for your service and leading this organization and fighting for this organization a true champion of this work, and I've been here a long time. My husband was on the original Committee of 100, and I don't want to tell how long ago that was, but to have this committee revived and doing this important work is just so phenomenal. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you all for your hard work, because this is a phenomenal team. Thank you,

105Dr. Jackson. I appreciate that. Ms. Perkins Quick, I promise. Dr. Jackson, for the events that are coming up from the family engagement, can we make sure that they're on the PGCPS calendar? Because we want to point families to places where it's one place for them to click and shop all And Absolutely. Thank you for asking that. And I'm glad Ms. Cook is still here because she helps me with that to make sure that it's there. The big events coming up or the community events that are coming up as well. A lot of schools are planning events that they're going to invite the entire community, too. So we want to make sure all of that's there. Thank you. Thank you Any other questions? Comments Well Thank you, Dr. Jackson. And next we will have Miss Welsh.

106All things policy, all things legislative Get us right, Ms. Welsh. I know, it's a shame that the driest topic is at the very end of the meeting, but that's okay. That's not the driest for me. That's the most exciting for me. So let's have it. Oh, well, good. I'm glad to hear that. That's exciting too for me. So yes, thank you. So just to share with you what is coming up currently, what's happening is that these policies that are listed here under policies for public comment are out until Friday At 5 o'clock PM. So there's the 8301, which has to do with rules and procedures of in appeals and hearings under 6202, which generally has to do with employee actions, with certificated staff, and then rules and procedures of appeals and hearings under 7305 of

107Education Article, and that is specific to appeals and hearings for disciplinary student disciplinary actions And then the rescission of four policies that are actually going to be condensed into the rules of procedures that the board now has. So the ones being rescinded are cost estimates of board resolutions, open meeting open up meeting with prayer, certificates of recognition and proclamation. So they're not really going away, they're just being moved to the rules of procedure. But those are up for public comment, and then the policies that will be voted on at the June 16th meeting that then will be sent out for public comment Our policy 0116 Wellness, nutrition, and physical activity. And Miss Perkins, you had asked about making sure that the middle school parents knew about it. And so took up through the process, I

108think they were informed very close to the day of that meeting where we discussed But it is being the link to the presentation and everything is going to be when this goes out for public comment, along with that, we will have the link to the presentation so that parents, if they want to provide public comment, they can also Listen to the… watch the video of the meeting, but also see the presentation which we had we had actually several supervisors for, like, it was for phys ed and for health That was curriculum. And then we had the health supervisor, and we had the health wellness person who was there. We had numerous people. We had the phys ed… there's a wide variety, plus we had two middle school principals, and they went into great detail about

109what the research shows in terms of the need to have physical activity during the day for a middle school student in terms of really giving their brains a boost so that they can, you know, do well. And the research indicating better achievement and fewer suspensions and things like that, just because they did have the opportunity to move So that policy we'll be discussing on the 16th, and it does have language in it, basically with the board saying there must be movement breaks throughout the day. And it's a little bit more specific, but basically there will be movement during the middle school day, the day of a middle school student And the administrative procedure that will follow this will have much more detail in terms of how they will do that. And then they will also

110send out for comment the policy 8300, which is procedures and appeals and hearings for 4 to 5 hear And that… those are the kinds of hearings like anytime a decision's made by the superintendent or his designee, those decisions can be appealed to the Board of Education under 4-205 of the education article. So that particular policy is addressing the rules to the procedures for the appeals and hearings that come up under 4205. Then policy 3415 is a school-based management teams that'll be coming out for public comment. And then the Disabilities Affairs Advisory Committee, Policy 1700, and then Policy 3170, Annual Audit, which was previously policy 9260 Auditor So all of those, the committee should be voting on the 16th to send them out for public comment, which usually they're out by like the Friday of that

111week, Tuesday 16th is a Tuesday, so by the end of that weekend, then they'll be out for public comment for two weeks And then, and also those rules of procedure, which have the things that we rescinded. And then the new policies are going to be that are going to be discussed will be the Office of Internal Audit. So all about our internal audit and then artificial intelligence will also come up On the June 16th meeting for discussion, and those are new ones. The only other thing I did want to share with you. I'm sort of stumbling through my words because I'm sort of rushing, because I know it's 859, so I don't want to hold you any longer than you have to be here, but So this past year at the General Assembly, there were

112six different bills that passed that impacted policy, school system policy, which is really unheard of because, quite honestly, legislators are not supposed to dictate to school board… school boards what they're supposed to put into policy. But I wanted to just… these will be policy… every one of these will reflect a policy that's going to be addressed for the upcoming school year, and I just wanted to just give you a little insight into that. So the House Bill 525, Senate Bill 928, which was passed as Student Electronic Communication Use Policy And that policy is going to require the school that the Board of Ed to go back in and revise their policy. And it basically says that students may not have their cell phones out from the minute the bell rings in the beginning of the

113day to the end of the day when the bell rings Which is very different than what we currently have in our policy. And it also requires that they are stored in a particular place, which will probably cost the school system money at the elementary and the middle school levels, because high schools have lockers, but that doesn't exist in elementary and middle school And that also lays out specifics in terms of disciplining students if they bring their cell phones. So this is a very, very prescriptive policy. I mean, Bill that is demanding what the… telling the Board of Ed what they must do and put in their policy. So I'm sure we're going to have… and it also has a section that talks about extensive amount of community participation in the development of the policy, although

114the community doesn't get to say very much because the bill itself is so prescriptive. But the fact is, we will definitely do that. So that's a big one that's going to come up within this next year The other one is the Senate Bill 810, House Bill 1341, which has to do with immigration enforcement expanding sensitive locations, notifications and guidance. And that particular bill we just finished the Immigration enforcement policy And now we will have to open it up next year to talk to expand what is considered as the sensitive locations within the school setting. And I know one of the things that has been included, our policy is very broad, but it will also have to include now school buses and a couple other things. So we'll be changing that one And then there's Senate

115Bill 685, House Bill 1168, and that is the State Department of Education Sexual Abuse and sexual misconduct model response policy requirements. So even though we already have a sexual abuse And basically, it's reporting sexual abuse and prevention of sexual abuse. It addresses all the aspects of sexual abuse. This policy, the MSD is required to develop, and as soon as they have it developed them, we will be having to take our policy and revise it to have what they are saying must be in the model policy, and it is absolutely much more expansive than the current policy we have And then the next one is House Bill 575 and it has to do with student attendance and either excusing or providing discretionary absences for civil engagement. And much of that has to do with students participating

116in the General Assembly and being pages For a different, like, legislators and stuff. So that, that'll be a piece that we'll have to address in the attendance policy. And then in Senate Bill 311, Education, the Blueprint for Maryland's future revisions, that particular policy actually Addresses are under the blueprint for community schools. When we have the funding that we receive, we can use it towards wraparound services that are provided at the community schools, and the new additional wraparound service that was mandated through this particular bill is that they could it actually can be used for academic interventions for students Which that was not in the wraparound services. So that's actually very positive, because if you think about how many community schools now we have in our school system, and the money they do receive for community

117schools, that opens up the door for funding for interventionists and stuff to be able to work with our students and provide interventions to the students that, you know to help them, especially in the areas of reading and math. So that'll be great And then the last bill that was passed, Senate Bill 720, Education AI Guidelines, professional development and collaboration, AI Ready Schools Act. So that requires school systems to have a policy on AI. And actually, again, the state will be laying out all the guidelines about what should be included in the policy And also, for our administrative procedures. Now, actually, Prince George's County has been ahead of the game for across the entire country as far as AI. We're one of the first school systems in the country who had an AI policy, and we

118have real that our IT department have worked very hard In terms of keeping the policy updated, and they just completed an administrative procedure, and it is probably one of the most up-to-date, so I'll be curious to see what MSD sends down the pike next year for us to have to make revisions to the policy. But that definitely will be up for revision. So just… just to give you a little couple highlights from the General Assembly and how that's going to impact our policies for the school system for next year And that's it in a nutshell. So I tried to make it as exciting as possible. The other thing is, I do have to say, Ms. Nohouse, I would have to say ditto to everything that Dr. Jackson said Previously, in terms of your leadership, I…

119when I say that when we all first started out, how many years ago it was a little shaky the way everything was going, but I honestly, you had done a phenomenal job pulling things together and really giving purpose to this to this whole advisory group, and really making it more powerful and functional to make a difference for the school system. So you should feel very proud of the work you've done for our students and for the school system. Well, I thank you. I still feel like there's so much more to be done. But Well, there's always a lot to do. Yeah, I'm so excited to pass over the baton, but, you know, I mean, you know you always have access to me. I'm not going. I'm just going back to what I used to do.

120And that way I'm not, you know, in the constraints of PCAC. You know, I'm still here until my last graduates and several more years, so You know, but I appreciate the sentiment and the acknowledgement. And I thank you and such a great segue. And I want to say for you and Dr. Jackson, it's always a pleasure to hear the wealth of information And I can say that based on what you just presented, that is some great information to start off for the legislative day. And then galvanize the families around that to advocate And push back on these legislators to say, no, stay in your role, focus on what you all need to do, and let the school system do what it needs to do. And so the more we educate people about these bills and

121the impact it will have on the schoolhouse The more powerful the voices will be when we go to Annapolis collectively. That's very true. So that's just my advice, my two cents that I'll leave you with before I segue out. And so any questions for Miss Welsh? I can't be the only one that gets excited when she presents, you know So any questions I get excited as well, Chair Milhouse. I'm a policy geek, so I appreciate it. No questions. Okay, you all are just ready to go. So we're going to close out. With the report of the chair and my report is really just a farewell speech. I'm excited to have been able to serve over the past four years The The journey has not been an easy journey It has not always been very rewarding

122either, but it has been very enlightening every step of the way. And so I am going to actually stick to my speech that I wrote so I'm not off script And as I conclude my 4 years of service as chair and vice chair of the Parent Community Advisory Council, I've reflected on a few things in this experience has meant a lot to me PCAC was established to provide something incredible, incredibly important to our school system, the voice and perspective of parents in the community and stakeholders. Not simply to react to decisions, but to help inform them Not simply to be engaged, but to contribute insight that supports continuous improvement. Over the past 4 years, I have had the privilege of serving alongside dedicated parents, community leaders, district staff, and fellow council members who care deeply

123about the success of our students. This work has not always been easy But there have been moments when difficult questions needed to be asked, moments when perspective differed, when perspectives differed, and moments when we worked to ensure that the experiences of families and communities were part of the conversation. Yet through those challenges, I remain grounded in the purpose of this council to serve as a bridge between the community and the school system and to provide meaningful feedback that has strengthened outcomes for students. One lesson I will carry forward is that continuous improvement is strongest when diverse perspectives are welcome And parents and community members bring a valuable lived experience, insight and observations that can help inform better decisions and stronger systems. I am proud of the work that we have done to elevate the voices

124and create opportunities for dialogue. We are more than just a parent and community group. We are a group of Experienced individuals who are here to advise and support the school system. I thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey for me. Serving this council has been both an honor and a responsibility that I have never taken lightly. While my term may be ending, my belief in the power of partnership thoughtful engagement and continuous improvement remains as strong as ever. I pray that you all take away from the time that you have spent with me that we are co-creators in this space. We are here to advise. We are here to support. We go beyond just going back to the communities And speaking loudly, we are not the voice of the school

125system, but we are a powerful voice in the school system. And so please don't forget that. And stay true to what's most important, and that is why we're here, and that's for our children. So thank you all I conclude my time and That's all I have We can adjourn this meeting at 9/11. Can I get someone to Make a motion I We have to adjourn, please. Please. I think it's been moved and seconded a couple of times. Has it been moved and second. And so at this time, we will adjourn, and I want to say that I want to acknowledge Superintendent Joseph on his selection. He now has to move to the appointment by the board And then he has to move through the state superintendent to improve the pro to approve the process before

126everything is final. And as I said to him, the expectation is for him to lead this school system and keep the main thing the main thing Okay. And that is our children. So good night, you all have a wonderful time and be blessed. Good night, everyone.