001spending down really quick. And so, just really thinking through, so if we have funds at that time, we're not spending, then realistically, can those funds be used for other uses because we're not spending it at the beginning of the year? So, we had to make some tough decisions on this slide, which you'll see, and I've presented this several times to the board already, are the programmatic changes I made in terms of discretionary dollars, as well as the impacts. I also took this as a moment to partner with other chiefs to say how we could align work and how we could work together, to eliminate duplicative efforts across the entire system. So then when you go to the next slide, I then also, as a part of my role and responsibility, is to really look at
002the specialty programs that we have, where are we successful, Where we, um, when we talk about low enrollment, or we talk about the amount of funds we're spending and the return on investment. So, one of the things for this group to know is that we believe in every program that we have. There's not a single program that we had that we didn't believe in. We might have just thought that we could approach it differently. So… In our district, the majority of our immersion programs are application-based. However, we have two programs, Pain Branch and Capital Heights, that are boundary-based. Those two programs actually cost the system more money than the programs that are immersion that are application-based. Part of that reason is we need double the staff, because you have students that are in their home
003boundary school, and could drop in at any single grade, so you're trying to staff it for a fourth grader that might come, get dropped into language, not having any. And you want to build around the supports. So, this just shows, like, what we had and what we've chosen as, um, of how to address it. I also had, um, International Baccalaureate. that we 100% believe in, that we are proposing to maintain our high school program, However, at the primary years and the middle years, I felt that it was more about how do you establish culture, How do you establish the skills and dispositions in students? How do you provide them with, um, tasks to keep them engaged and put rigor in front of them? All of those things that I discussed in our primary years and
004our middle years for IB, Our staff creates. They are already in our curriculum, and we create those experiences. We did not get into IB curriculum until our high school years. So when you go to the next slide, We'll talk about AVID. So, AVID also was a program that we had at about 23 of our middle schools. Uh, it was an elective course. It is a course that should be used to look for students who are first-gen, um, in their family to think about college, to think about the opportunity for college. Um, it is where they go and they explore, they're understanding and learning, they're building their study skills, and just… Um, how do you mold them to put the right structures and processes in place to propel them out for college and career readiness? However,
005in our district, and this is what I mean by duplication, with Employee Prince George's, we have an opportunity to have career coaches in every middle and high school. Those career coaches are not about a subset of students that we would touch, But realistically, are for every middle and high school student that we have in our district. So we thought that that would have been money we could save, because now we could touch every single student. When you go to the next slide, This is just where I just wanted to show you the AVID enrollment, and so let's look at the first school, Charles Carroll. So, when I say now, I can touch every student in Charles Carroll with the AVID teacher, they were only touching 49 students. So that's an example of how we look
006at the data and realize, you know, how we can get the biggest bang for our buck and save money, but never cheat children in opportunity. So, let's talk about Abbott. What we're saving, um, and when you're always gonna look to see the fiscal year 2027, you're gonna see an increase, because what we all know is that salaries go up. So, in this school year, it's costing us, for those 23 positions, about $2.5 million. Next year, if we would have maintained it, it was $2.8. So I am saving that back to the district, Um, by moving that out, and by making sure that every school has a career coach. So, immersion. In the immersion boundary, uh, those two schools that I mentioned, Paint Branch and Capitol Heights, Uh, what we chose to do and put forth
007as a proposal, would be to change that model from an equity lens of, um, immersion to more of a world language program. And when I say that, If I were to start a world language program in any school next year, That was not an immersion. You can start at very, very basic. Yours are gonna start it by teaching really, um, language around colors and numbers and just teaching them about the culture of a country. When you've had students who have been immersed into an immersion program, then the world language program that we would be building for those two schools will be more in-depth, more rigorous, Um, it would be more challenging for students, and it would be something that's actually tailor-made to these two schools. So, Scylla by literacy, I just wanted to kind of
008give you some data. So, in our district, in the state of Maryland, actually, students have the ability to leave our system with a seal of biliteracy, so they are, um, have tested and proven themselves to be biliterate in more than just English, it is actually another language. This just shows you the students that we have that have graduated. from our French, Spanish, and Chinese programs. So if you notice, Um, you look at our graduating seniors across that are in our immersion programs, this is what our trend is. You'll notice that more are graduating with French than Spanish and Chinese. So, let's talk about some transition data, because I think this is very relevant to understand. In immersion, I chose to… um, pull back or eliminate, actually, um, phase out, transition. Our Largo High School. And
009I'm gonna talk about some data points that get us there. So, Largo is the final stop for all of our immersion students. So, our two programs that are French immersion, When it gets to high school, they come to Largo. Our Spanish Immersion programs, they train our elementaries transition into kettering, if you choose. And from Kettering, you can go to Largo for Spanish, for high school. Our Chinese program was going through Paint Branch, which then led to Greenbelt Middle School, and then… to Largo High School. So, on this slide, when you look at Paint Branch, which should be transitioning from Paint Branch to Elementary, look from 2020 Through 2025. And if you look at the percentages, These percentages, while students are in That Chinese program, when they go to Greenbelt, they're not choosing to go to
010Greenbelt. They're choosing to go to their boundary. So, when you look at the next slide, This was our students transitioning from Capitol Heights to Kettering Middle School. Look at the percentages. From 2020 through 2025. The number of students that are choosing to now go to the Spanish Immersion Middle School. So then when you get to the next slide, Here are students going from Kettering, Dora Kennedy, and Maya Angelou, which are our middle school programs, to Largo High School. And so, one of the reasons that I'm transitioning Largo out is that every student in Largo High School now, we will complete their programming. We will allow them to stay. However, we will not have any new 9th graders entering in. For Chinese, right now, we only have about 5 students there altogether. Um, so when… and
011I'm gonna show you some… some rates on, um, when we think about what that means in terms of the whole, because we should be able to be at 300 students at Largo, and right now we're at 120. So when you think about the amount of staff I have that we're paying for, but there are no students in the seats. So, when you go to the next slide, Here, the staffing costs for Chinese. Um, for Paint Branch by themselves, It's $1.7 million, which next year would have been 1.8. Greenbelt Middle School is $352,000. Next year, it would have been $534, and Largo, Uh, for this year, which is 19th and 11th grade only, it would be $286,000. The reason it's going down… Instead of going up is because, remember, I said I'm not bringing in 12th
012grade, which would have brought in 3 new teachers, Instead, I'm actually eliminating teachers out of that building. The Spanish immersion cost. So, when you look at Capitol Heights, and remember we said that that school is staffed higher than some of our other schools, and it is the smallest school that we have. Only one class per grade. So on this slide, you can look at the different costs. So, we have some of our immersion programs that the entire building is immersion. You are application-based, they cost less than it does to run Capitol Heights, which is our smallest program. And then here are the costs for our French immersion, which we're not touching our French immersion in the, um, elementary and middle. Um, these are our costs for our French immersion. And I've just given you this,
013you will have an opportunity to go back and look at these numbers, but I just wanted you to have a sense of what we pay for. Now, all of the funds that I'm showing you are staff-only. It has… it does not take into account Any dollar that we put towards programming that's coming out of central office. Dr. White, would you like to also highlight that Central High School phase out for French? Sure, so Central High School, not as a part of this budget, presentation that we did this year. Uh, 3 years ago, we made a decision to phase out Central High School based on the number of students. that was coming to Central High School. So, this is our last culminating year at Central High School. Thank you for that. So, for International Baccalaureate, We've
014already kind of talked about the changes here, um, I mentioned earlier that we believe that we can run an IB model. We're already starting to talk to those schools, and we're already looking at Um, pulling all of the things that we have created into one spot, have an IB specialist and supervisor in the district that will work with our schools where we are eliminating these programs to ensure that the principal can sustain The parts of the program that are built around the culture in a building. And again, remember, our high school program remains unchanged. Any school that has a high school diploma-based program will remain unchanged. And so I've already talked about the middle years program as well, but I just wanted to kind of give you… a look at our IB programs, should be
015completing the culminating activities at certain grades. Here's the percentage of students. that are completing these programs. So when you've listened to board members, Um, or board meetings, and you've heard families get up and they talk about IB, but when you look here, These are our middle schools and our elementary. You don't even see 100% of our students completing these projects. So I just wanted to kind of show you what that looks like on the screen. French immersion is not in the type of program that would have these, that's why they're blank. I don't want you to think that they didn't do anything. their program model, they did not have to do this as they weren't in that phase of accreditation yet. And so here's our IB Diploma trend, which I also think is a relevant
016thing to look at. So, in all of the years here, that you will see from 2016 to 2025, Here are the number of students that have graduated with a complete IB Diploma. Now, you can look and say, wow, all the students that we have, but this is how many, But what I would also say is that as a district, we value a student to take a rigorous course take an exam and pass that exam. So we have students that are earning exam scores that can earn them college credits, even though they do not have the diploma. I'm just simply showing you, though, the amount of students that go through the completion of a diploma. And so here's our staffing cost for international baccalaureate. So, when you look at our middle schools, So you see Dwight
017D. Eisenhower, that's how much we would be saving, um, when we're transitioning out of Central. When you see James Madison. Um, Maya Angelou and Melwood, those are the saving costs that we would have. Um, going into next year. And so with that, um, I open it up for any questions, um, if that is appropriate. Board member Goins McCants at this time. It is. Thank you so much, Dr. White. Okay, committee members, if we have our questions, if you could hit the. hit the button to raise your hand. I can see you all that way, or… we will start with. I can't see exactly who this is, but you've got a bison picture, and it says KH. Thank you. Hi, it's Camila. How you doing? Thank you for that presentation, Dr. White. My question is related
018to the ID program. My question is. Um, in the decision to cancel the IB program. I understand that there are only a certain number of students who have completed the IB diploma, but was there any comprehensive study done over these years since, I guess, 2016? to assess the success level of the students overall. And I note that you already mentioned that some of those students are taking college credit classes, but overall, as compared to other students who have not matriculated through the ID programs. Um, did you all do any comprehensive studying on those programs? And also separately on the immersion programs before making the decisions just to… Sure, so what I would lead in first is that we did not cancel our IB program based on our graduation rate. Again, I was just… I like
019to come and just share data. Um, as it stands. Again, we believe in our IB program. That's why we have maintained the integrity of our high school programs. What we decided… as a system that we could move away from is our elementary program and our middle years program, because What we found is that Melwood and Frederick Douglass, when you look at the scope, it goes from Melwood, it goes to, um, James Madison, into Douglas. Coming from James Madison, you still did not have a lot of students that chose Ivy when they arrived. Um, when you look at that trajectory, You would assume, possibly, one could, that you have students starting so young that they're just exposed to the culture, they're exposed to the language, they're exposed to the dispositions, The belief that we have efficacy,
020the level of rigor. Those schools create… Um, in-house, along with our department, the tasks that… IB wants them to engage in. So by us just pulling away the accreditation, the naming convention didn't change what can go before those students. We as a system own every last one of those tasks, and our job will be to work with those schools to maintain what that can look like. in a building that we actually run. So… For IB, it wasn't about getting on the other side and looking at the diploma. It was more so about, they're already in our curriculum. There was no… funds that we were spending on curriculum for those programs, because they're in ours. In terms of immersion, Again, we believe in immersion. It's just that those two models started as a grant. And when
021the grant ended, our system took those models on, and we tried different ways to make them work. But what we found is that those students were not matriculating even to complete the through line versus a parent who's applying… to an immersion program, Most of those schools have parents that filter through. Um, those two programs did not. And so those are the data points that we looked at, and so that's why we decided, well, what can we still put in those schools So that those students have access to some language. And that's why our first proposal was to create a world language model in those buildings. And Dr. White, if I could also add that the IB program at the high school is not going away. The students at James Madison will have the same opportunity
022that a student at Stephen Decatur would have, should they be interested in at the high school level. Thank you both so much. Dr. Moss. Was your hand raised? Oh, oh no, we've got other participants. I'll get back to Dr. White. I wanted to clarify something, but let's get the other participants. Dr. Cabrera. Good evening, everyone. So my question is, what conditions or data will need to change for the district to remind the immersion program at Largo High School? Because we're talking, we're not saying that the program is not impactful. That is not working, it is working. The students are successful in what they're doing. It's just about enrollment, right? So our enrollment is being stable, is having decreased. I also want to add that we are basically a brand new program. We haven't graduated our
023first class, so we're building our reputation, we're showing what the students can do at Largo High School. So, what could be the options to remind the program open? Um, we don't need to increase the staff. I am the academic deacon at Largo High School. I can guarantee that I can work with six teachers, so it doesn't have to double up to 12 teachers. What other options, what we can do to remind the program open? Sure, so I just want to provide some context, and thank you for that, and actually, thank you for your service in that program. Um, you've done an amazing job. Um, oftentimes, we also deal with our negotiated agreements, our contracts on how many preps teachers can have, and so you have to take all of those things into consideration. So while
024I know you could work with 6 teachers, I wouldn't be able to allow you to work with 6 teachers based on what we have in the contract. Um, I would say Prince George's County is in a very unique position because we have so many opportunities when students get to high school. Immersion at kindergarten is something that a parent chooses for a child. When students start getting into middle school, children start saying what they're interested in, and they have passions, they have STEM, and just all the different opportunities, and so when they have the ability to now Fill out applications and choose. We have so many options that we just are not seeing the trend that they're choosing to go into immersion at the high school level. Again, for the students that are there, it's great.
025You know, I mean, so if the superintendent were to come to me and say, what could we do? We could say we could take the enrollment down 100… from 100 students per grade to 25 students per grade. Right? Because realistically, we should be at 300 students right now at the end June… in our junior year, and we're at 120. Our Spanish students are there the most, Chinese and French are not really attending. So that's how I would answer that. Mrs. Vickery? Oh, I'm sorry, I thought Miss Sawyer was before me. No, the way the… You too. Is that correct, Ms. Lawyer? Okay, no worries. Um, Dr. White, um, sorry I'm not on camera, trying to make sure that my kids eat their dinner. Um, it's good to see you this evening and everyone else. Um,
026so I have two questions, so I'm just going to do my first one, and if we can come back around for my second one. Um, regarding, like, demand versus enrollment breakdown, it looks like from your data that you're seeing applications increase significantly. Yep. But many of the programs still have, like, that under fill rates. Is there a breakdown anywhere in the pipeline between application acceptance and actual enrollment? And then, what do you guys are doing to fix that? And I think you started to hit on that with your last answer when you were speaking about. Yep. The… the, um, choices and opportunities that kids have, right? Like, their parents pick for them first, and then they come up. But I'm just wondering. Do you guys have, like, any true idea around, like, that application acceptance
027and an actual enrollment? And then, like, what could be happening? Yeah, we actually do, but you have to… so let's just say my child, who went through Prince George's County, um, and she was accepted to almost all the programs she applied to, right? And so, if she goes through application, she goes to the lottery, and she makes it in, when it comes April 15th, She has to pick one. And so, you could see a program have this many, and so we do have those numbers that apply, and then we can also tell, based on enrollment, and that is the reason that we give our families a hard cutoff on when to apply, because now you need every program, we need to know where we are. Once we know where we are, If we see open
028seats, we try to run a separate, if in many cases, a separate lottery, a separate application for an extended period of time to try to fill as many as we can. Um, the other data point, just so you know, I asked for this week that's important for me, is when we started, especially in our younger programs, when we started in kindergarten, Were they field? Because that lets me know that when we get to 5th grade, that we had kids drop out, and that the dropout could be because of, like, again, they went to a tag center, or they did another program. So then we… and we also can tell where those students went. Did they remain in Prince George's County, or did they leave the district? For the most part, they're remaining in the district,
029they're just sitting in another program. And so those are all the data points we're chasing. But when I get into programs unlike Montessori and Immersion, where you have to have some level of context, So, for example, my child was in, um… Montessori and our school, they started filled. By the time she matriculated to high school out of 8th grade, they probably had 40 kids in their 8th grade class. And that's because students had gone to so many other programs by the time they finished. And we can't backfill it unless you're Montessori trained at that point in time. Um, but for us, we're gonna keep advertising. I think I need to come to the district to say, hey, I have a tax center that I probably need to be asking to close, and to shift students
030to two other buildings. Um, which we know then when we do that, we're back in situations like this, because you're trying to get the community to understand the why, because we're all possessive over our school. But we have an obligation to look at those things. And so, um, I'll grab some of that data and share it with this team, if that would be helpful. Thank you so much, Dr. White. And if we could, when we raise our hands, like if we raise our hands and put them down, it reshuffles the order, and so it gets out of order. Ms. Sawyer. Hi, um, thank you so much. This is… this is great information. I'm still trying to absorb it all. Um, and what I was remembering from the earlier discussions about the budget was that there
031was, um, agreement that, uh, for at least a couple of the schools, um, Capitol Heights being one, That instead of using it as a boundary school, we were going to look into having it be opened as a lottery program. Since half the school is the Spanish immersion as boundary, and half the school as TAG, Um, I know my daughter's at Capitol Heights, and her second grade classrooms, there's one class of 12 kids and one class of 13 kids. Um, we're coming from much further north. Um, so the schools that are geographically closer, Cesar Chavez, I believe, is over-enrolled. Mm-hmm. Um, and Glen Arden Woods is absolutely over-enrolled, so I thought part of it was giving some of those students who don't have a spot in either of those schools a chance to come down to
032Capitol Heights. and fill out the program. Um, am I misremembering that? Sure. So, you mentioned two things, so I'll separate them. So, the first one is you're absolutely correct. I came with an original proposal to change those schools to world language. We came back with a second proposal. to potentially do an in-house lottery when the Board of Education passed their budget, they passed my first proposal. Until this 90-day work group would conclude, and at that point, we would know Which way we would move. Um… earlier in his presentation, I mentioned that we have some policies that actually hinder us, and I'll give you an example. So, we have a… we have, in the Pupil Accounting Administrative Procedure that says, Um, like, so Agake is a school that's always fuel to capacity. But you have people
033on a wait list. But if you… you can't come to… Capitol Heights, because you're on a waitlist, because it indicates that… you can't move. I think, for me, If we can fill seats because parents want to transport their student to another school, then we should open seats. And so that's one of the policies that collectively, Dr. Straders' team and my team are looking at, is that how… what policies do we have in place that's hindering our own process to fill our seats. Um, and so, a lot of that is because we get… we all have a parent that'll come, and then all of a sudden, and then they'll try to bounce back, and you have a lot of where you're trying to chase where kids are. But at the end of the day, you want
034seats filled, and you want children to have the opportunities, especially when we're funding those opportunities. Um, so hopefully that answered your question. I think boundaries is something that we have to look at overall. Can we push down to the south? Uh, can we close one of our schools and combine students? And I think we have to look at that. Also, an immersion as well. Yeah, I think that the transportation costs in all of the programs are so high, it's… Correct. kind of mind-blowing. Um, are there other schools other than Capitol Heights that have… Multiple programs in the same building. There are, and… Mm-hmm. Um, where… because I… and… and are these numbers, like, is Capitol Heights, when you talking about those numbers, does that include the TAG program? Is it the whole school? Um, I'm
035just wondering, I wasn't able to see that in the budget that I was looking at, so I'm just wondering how that's broken down. Yeah, so when I did one of my presentations earlier to the Board of Education, I tried to separate them, and I tried to go to the board and say, so remember Capitol Heights, and this is all made up right now. Let's say they have 300 students total, I try to bring data specifically on what's tagged and what's emerging, because I want everyone to have a clear understanding Um, that TAG is one grade at every level, and the comprehensive is one grade at every level. Tag classroom stays smaller, and in a comprehensive is at capacity to whatever comes into that boundary. Um, so… we look at that data, I look at that
036data in isolation. I have to… it is not the only building where we have multiple programs that live, and I'm sure when, um, you talk… we talk about blueprint funds and funds coming into the system, I'm sure Chief Howe talked about the implications that we have of buildings that have multiple programs in them in terms of where it looks like they should be staffed and the amount of money that's being hit on that, on the capacity of that building. Thank you so much, Doctor White. Miss Johnson. Good evening. I just wanted to say I'm grateful for the presentation tonight from Dr. White. I wanted to ask a question about AVID. With the dissolution of Avid, I wanted to know how many, um, career coaches would be purchased, and what is the vision for the career
037coach to be utilized or split. Sure. So, um… Sure, and thank you for that question. So, you know, that one slide I mentioned where you'll see Abbott, it kind of shows all the students that are being touched by AVID. And so, for career coaches, When I'm working with Employed Prince George's and in my staff, my college and career ready staff right now, is that they're actually going into interviews this week. Every middle and high school should have a coach. I'm also pushing that we get to a threshold in our middle… in our high schools when you get to a certain number, that they should have more than one. What I would like to see in this role going into next year is I want to be able to say to a parent, every 6th grader
038is gonna have this touch, every 7th grader will have this touch, and every 8th grader will have this touch. I want to likewise be able to do the same thing at 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. And then anything above that was bonus, but we would at least be able to say that every 9th grader in our system did resume writing, or every 9th grader in our system used their school links to identify what their passion is and to pick 3 careers they want to chase through. So I think the more clear we can be with that, and share with parents their children's talents, and for kids to understand that, Then we can build a solid program around that every student, because our superintendent has said it's not just about college, right? We want them to
039be college and career, but they want to be an entrepreneur, Um, if they want to go into the military, we want all of those options available for them. No problem. Thank you, second round, Dr. White. Um, just wanted to, um, kind of know, is there any… are you guys seeing any data that, um. I don't have a better way to say this, but I guess less desirable reasons about why, um, they're choosing to not follow that path. And there's a break in that path line between elementary and middle school. Are we seeing it, like, transportation challenges? Are we talking about programmatic quality issues? lack of support, and um… what I'm really interested in about, um, just having my… myself having two kids in two different specialty pathways myself is like just not maybe understanding the
040program itself, right? You apply as a parent, you get in and you're like, oh, well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes. I didn't even know it was like this. You know what I mean? Like, it's… to keep it real, Dr. Moses is shaking his head because he knows he gets the text from me, so this, um, member is going to camp, so just wondering, is that some of the, um… Yeah, I do think that we're at a place where we need to find out from our families. I will say this, we used Hanover Research Um, I wanna say a year ago, to survey all of our families, um, in all of our specialty programs, because I think it's our due diligence to ask parents, like, we could think we're amazing, which we do, but we can always
041be better, and we always should have opportunities, and we should always be open to the feedback of those who we service. And so, our team has gotten some of that feedback. What I wouldn't know, and Dezanne and Lori would have to answer me, is did we say, is there anything that would cause you not to transition or matriculate? Now, I do believe that this year, because we're not finished yet, In 8th grade, we could ask a family that, right? Um, what would be your reason, or, if we know that Largo is a potential and not an opportunity, we could ask some questions of our families that say, what's your… What was your charge point this year when your child wanted to fill out a specialty program application? What were they saying? Were they still, like,
042hungry for immersion, or did they start speaking to you in seventh grade about different opportunities? So, and I think, honestly, my team is working on a campaign right now that says 7th grade matters. Because we've really got to start this conversation in 6th grade with 6th grade families to get them ready for 7th grade, because in our school system, that 7th grade report card, all four quarters, and that 8th grade report card combined is what's used for the application. And so we can't wait till kids get in 7th and 8th grade to talk to our families. You really have to start that campaign in 5th and 6th, So my team is gearing up for that as we go into next year, because we do need to hear our parents' voices and our kids on what's…
043what it is. And what's driving them. Thank you, Dr. White. Just off the top of my head. We did ask a question in that vein, and a lot of the student. We also had just for the for the committee to be aware of. We also engaged in focus groups with specialty program alumni, and a number of those students said. that a big factor then was their parents said, you're going to science and tech. Your parents said you're going to Academy of Health Sciences, you're going to earn that associate's degree, even though that's not the path that they would have chosen for themselves. We also know that we, like Dr. White said, we have a great amount of choice. And so some of our students get accepted to every single program, and it just comes down
044to making a choice, even if the student is the one choosing, that they want to try something new. And so those are all factors that relate to why sometimes there's a decline in not following that pathway through 12th grade. I would encourage you, Dr. White and Ms. Lee, that you guys kind of do an additional survey instead of just doing it between that break between seventh and eighth, I would encourage you to do it at the end of pre-K, at the end of K. I'm thinking about those years that when people are moving from TAG. Um, from their boundary school to tag, you want to hit that year, you want to hit that fourth grade year, looking at, um, I think it was Mr. Strader's documents in his, um, report last time, you have a
045breakdown around fourth grade, so you might want one around fourth grade, and then you can hit your 7th, your 8th, and your 9th grade. I strongly encourage you guys that. Sure, thank you for that recommendation. Thank you so much. Yeah, I know we're gonna transition to subcommittees and get subcommittee charges tonight and some of the work that needs to happen. All of these data, Jamie and Dr. Bowers and team have really organized all of these data points in a way that subcommittees will be able to use them, but there are two things coming to my attention. Amy, um, saw your, your comment around the exorbitant amount of transportation costs. Um, that it really takes for us to do this and deliver on an equity commitment. Um, has to be explored at some point, right? And
046as we try to endeavor to do equity and give more kids access, that means it costs more to transport them across the county. Um, and be able to get them to those places. So I appreciate you calling that out. And then the, you know, the other thing that I want to say that's just kind of hit me in the chest today, um, is really what's happening with those two boundary. um, programs, I mean, to see two kids go to Kettering Middle School, um, out of that Capitol Heights, and I know the assumption is that they're going other places, and if… if we yield on the policies, we can kind of do what Amy is talking about around. Being able to, you know, pull some kids down into this. Um, but it still doesn't serve that
047feeder of Kettering Middle School, if you will, or, um, if you look up at Paint Branch, it still doesn't serve that feeder of… is it Greenbelt Middle? Um, I think that feeds in that direction. So, when we talk about having to make some real decisions around the work that we do, these things come top of mind for me. And I said this in the school board meeting. You know, I really struggle, um, you know, I think we need these kinds of programs, and. Which is why I initially supported the World Languages Model. It's just no longer becoming sustainable to do something that. And if you look at the budget and you see it now, so hopefully we'll have some real recommendations coming out of this, but if nothing else. I mean, this is, you know,
048opened my eyes up a little bit more to some of the other challenges that we have. I thought I had a somewhat grasp of the challenges that we face with making sure we deliver these excellent programs to young people. But I think in the interest of time, I co-chair, um. going to McCants. Um, Dr. Bowers will come and can kind of lay out where we're going in this work as subcommittees. We've got a little work to do in subcommittees, but we are now moving from knowledge, um, receiving knowledge. to moving over into, um, to our subcommittees, and you'll still be able to get this knowledge, but these were the foundational pieces we thought folks needed before subcommittees. Dr. White, I see your hand is, uh, up. Sure, I just wanted to add, just so that
049you know, um, the new boundary, or the boundary for, um, Paint Branch, is actually Buck Lodge, And for the first time, if the world language goes through, we're gonna put a Chinese world language teacher at Buck Lodge so those students could continue language. I just thought it was important to remind you of that. And also, those students leaving Capitol Heights to their middle school, which I believe is Walker Mill, they will have Spanish opportunity for world language, and that's earning the high school um, credit. The other thing, just to keep in mind, as we have to cut, um, I wanted to try to find ways where I wasn't… I didn't cut things from the entire system. Like, we can't cut interventions. For every student in middle school or elementary school that may need them, and
050so that's why these… some of these decisions were difficult decisions, that's all. Thank you, and thank you for allowing us to present to you this evening. I'm sure this group will want you back again. So thank you for coming. All right, good evening. So I'm going to be quick, So I want us to spend as much time as possible in the, uh, breakout groups this evening. So, just to ground us and where we're going for the next several weeks, we are still in Phase 1. While we are looking at a comprehensive financial review, that's why we've had some guest speakers come, Uh, Chief Howe, Dr. White, Dr. Schrader, Dr. Thornton, and share some of our historic context. And that will help prepare us for our financial reviews that we're going to be taking place in
051our breakouts. As well as the engagement that you're going to be having in each of your breakout rooms. So this evening, we are breaking out into 3 breakout rooms. We have a fiscal review and resource alignment subcommittee. We have a review and sustainability subcommittee. And we have a stakeholder engagement and policy recommendation subcommittee. Each of you have been placed into a subcommittee. And you will be getting an email momentarily that has this document. But each of you have been placed into one of these committees. We have assigned a facilitator to each committee, which is highlighted in green. We've also assigned a subcommittee captain, which is somebody who will help lead and guide the work in the subcommittee. And once you're also in your subcommittee, we ask that you designate a note-taker, someone who is comfortable,
052And who was willing and able to take notes for your subcommittee group, each of your weeks that you meet in your breakout sessions. We also have a Google folder structure, where you will find A blank folder currently, but each of our subcommittees have a Google folder. That currently has a notes document, and you are able to put other documents and other resources into your folder as you collect them during your committee work. Just as a reminder, we do have a set of core responsibilities and key deliverables for each of the subcommittees. Your facilitator will share these in more depth this evening when we meet, and this evening, uh, we will go over Just our brief, um… core responsibilities this evening, and what we hope will be a milestone and an outcome of tonight's subcommittee work.
053So we have also created for you a strategic realignment committee work resource document. This houses a… Uh, wide variety of links that you may find useful as you go through your subcommittee and work. Each of these, uh, subsections are… Highlighted with an overall title of what contains the links there within, and then each of these are public-facing links. So you can click on and look at each of these things as you go through your subcommittee work and find that you need more information on each of these key topics. This will also be sent to you at a… Yep. Jamie? Amy. Jamie, I don't mean to cut you off. Amy has her hand up, so I'm assuming it's a pertinent question about something you just said. So I want to make sure we answer Amy's question.
054It is, and related to all of this, so I'm not sure if it was ever stated, but is the material that's being shared Something that can be shared publicly? Is any of this information material that is confidential? Um, would anything be marked? If anybody could speak to that, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. None of the work that we get to do as a board can be confidential. All this is public facing and can be used. It is also tracked in our diligence system as well, so we don't have any documents that, um, would be marked confidential. So I just want to make sure I answer that question for you. Sure. And just to be more helpful, all of the presentations that we've seen over the past 3 weeks are also in that top section under Workgroup
055meeting materials, Amy. So, everything that you've seen, um, is able to be public-facing and is placed in a link at the top of that. And then finally, uh, so we're going to go into our breakout rooms. We'll have about 20 minutes this evening to start our discussions. And, uh, each of your room will have a facilitator that will each get the room started briefly with a few slides. And then we'll have time to get into some of the meeting materials, talk about your core responsibilities and key deliverables for each of your subcommittee groups. And if we don't have any questions, Uh, I will stop sharing so we can go ahead and move into our breakout rooms. Thank you. Micah, do you want to be instructive here and let folks know you've already preset all of
056this up, so they'll just accept? Do you want to give some, um… and y'all. I'm gonna take a moment of personal privilege. Can we just all thank Micah in some way like clapping on screen or something? I mean, we are… we are organized because of her leadership, and uh… I know she was freaking out tonight because the audit committee was still going, and we couldn't start, um, on time, but she keeps us organized, and I just want to give appreciations. But, Micah, do you want to say anything about the breakout rooms that you've spent all day establishing? Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Moss. So I'm going to open up the rooms, and it should automatically have you all go to the room that has been designated for you, okay? All right, so I see someone
057have left. You should have been notified or received a notification telling you to go to said rooms. I don't receive any yet. Um… I didn't get mine, but I don't… Gotcha, Doctor Moss. Sorry. I think I know what happened, though. I may be using a different email. If people go in a different email, it'll. I haven't yet received mine. I'm being asked for a room code. Good Lord bless you. Huge shout out to Ms. McMillan. She was so responsible for me freaking out earlier, trying to get into the meeting. She is so awesome. So I just want to publicly give her a… a shout-out as well while we are in transition. is best. And let me think, while we're also in transition, let me thank you all for your leadership, Dr. Miles, Dr. McGoy's McCants,
058excellent. This has been an excellent process so far. Thank you, Mr. Bronson. We appreciate you. we you actually came up with some board members the other day. We were talking about how brilliant you are. Um, a couple of board members, Dr. Anderful. Yeah, it's a pleasure. Yeah, was talking about you serving on PCAC. So we appreciate you being here as well. And Miss Jackson Saunders is here. She was part of that conversation. I don't know if y'all see Miss Jackson Shaunders is here. She's one of our board members. She's not… Thank you, absolutely. I'm sorry I can't be there with you all. I'm just transitioning from the flight, but Mr. Vonson, I want to thank you for serving in your position, and thank you for adding on to the PCAT conversations that we've had. Oh,
059thank you so much. You represented outstandingly. about the strategic work group. And, uh, when you get a chance, I'd love to have some offline dialogue. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Oh, it's fun. She's taking us away one by one. and I'm going, see you all in a second. Ms. Mcmillan, I realize mine is probably under a different email address. I know, that's been the problem for most people here tonight. No, you're fine, I'm just going one by one. I'm almost there, sorry about that. Oh, okay, sorry. Miss Herndon. Okay, there we go. All right, Miss Thornton, I didn't assign you a breakout room. It's my understanding you're here for. That is correct. I can hang up right here. communications purposes, correct? Right. So just hang. Yep. Thank you. Sure. You get to hang with us, Megan.
060I am glad. I'm tired, I'm tired! I think. Let me tell you. Carmen, did you say you had a child that graduated high school? Congratulations! Yes, thank you. Graduated last year. Awesome. If you don't mind asking what high school? Harder Douglas, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, yes. Mm-hmm. Project Douglas. Okay. Okay, awesome, awesome. He now attends, uh, Stevenson University. Yes. Wait, so the principal was Dr. Curry? Okay. He was my former. He was my former assistant principal, and I used to teach at William Middle School. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, small, small world, small world. Uh, Micah? I'll be… hello? Are you hearing me? Yeah, I'll be sending you an email. Yes, ma'am. Because my name… I think there's a document, um… Oh, what was it again? Where my name was spelled incorrectly. Um, it's an email that
061was sent out to the Ms. Georges community via email, um… I forgot what is Express, PG Express or something. Announcing the overall program. what was going on and who the people, um, the different people who comprise this committee. And I saw where my name was incorrectly. Hmm. spelled. Okay, I'll look into that for you. I'm not sure who wrote that, but I'll look into it and make sure that your name is accurate for any other communication. Yeah, because it sounds like it's not me. Okay, understood. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, thank you so much for all you do. Absolutely. I'm hearing that some of the groups have dismissed, one of the groups has… We got everybody back. Alright, cool. Yes, they're trickling in now. Give me one second, let me check the rooms. Got you. And Dr.
062Moss and Ms. Vickery, um… Uh, Dr. Strader is here. He said that they… we did it in 2024. But it hasn't been done since. Thank you, Dr. Strader. Okay. Nice. So 1st of all, we hope you had your first your good intros tonight. Just want to lay out for you. Our next meeting will be all subcommittee time, and your subcommittee lead and facilitator should be working to set the agenda for future meetings. Um, when it's time for a larger presentation, we'll bring folks back together, whole group, but the next meeting, we will be on one link, and we'll go straight in the subcommittees. We heard you all last time say you don't want to manage your own Zoom links. We also don't want you trying to figure out when to schedule another time, so we're
063going to make good use of this time. What I will say to you is something the superintendent hinted at a meeting ago. It's going to be really hard to get our work done in 90 days, but we will be able to translate some of your thoughts to the board as it plans to vote on its decision. But of course, our work has implications beyond the FY27 budget, too. things that we're going to be uncovering, but I suspect we'll be working past that deadline, but you've got board members who are here listening, able to take in information as we vote on that final budget in June. But I would suspect we may be going a little over 90 days, so I just want to say that now, so I don't freak any of you out when
064I say we may be working 15 days more than 90. Um, but, um, that's kind of where I see us at now. Superintendent Joseph, um, do you have anything before I see if Co-Chair Goz McGants have anything before we close out tonight? No, no, I just, uh, want to thank everybody for the participation, and I'll say, you know, Dr. Collins and I were at the University of Maryland, Today, uh, with Dr. Thornton and the University of Maryland had a conversation You know, just about, um… funding in Maryland and some of the challenges that we had, uh, we have here. And it's just a complex… phenomena, and it's gonna take, really, collective… community education, understanding, and then… trying to build a, you know, a coalition of the willing who really understand the issues to come to
065consensus. to help us execute and push on, you know, some of these challenges that have been, you know, generational here, you know, so… I look forward to learning with the group. Uh, and, you know, us figuring out, you know, how strategically We move forward and sequence our steps to get us… Uh, further down the field. Co-chair going McCants, do you have any comments on the way out? I did not have anything other than thank you all so much for bearing with us, and thank you to our Mvp, Micah, for helping us navigate all the technical difficulties today. Just want to remember, um, over the next week, you will probably hear from your leads and facilitators around what that first long subcommittee time is going to look like since the next meeting looks to be all
066subcommittee time, and lets Dr. Kendrick and Dr. Bowers have some different thoughts when we reconvene on Friday. But for now, we're really planning for that next bit of time to be all subcommittee time, so you can really get into your work and have fun. So thank you for your time tonight. Dr. Bowers, Dr. Kendrick, do you all have anything? Nope, just looking forward to working with the subcommittees. Yep, sorry, again, a logistic thing again. Got you. Amy, what you got? No, I always ask your questions. You're good. Um, I have on my calendar that our next meeting is the 27th. Is that right? So we're still keeping that schedule? Okay. Okay. I believe. Yeah, we're still on that schedule, yep. I wouldn't dare try to change these people's schedule here. It might get things thrown
067at me. So we're gonna stay on the schedule as much as possible. Okay. And it does look like we are scheduled for the Memorial Day, the 25th of May. Micah, didn't we fix that? Um, or we were supposed to fix it if we didn't. But you're going longer than 90 days, so, um, we'll make sure we get it fixed. If we didn't fix it. Okay. And just so you know, Megan Thornton, who's on here, sending out recaps of what we do to the to the school district at large now. I don't know if you read dollars and cents last week, but our work is being recapped in dollars and cents now. Um, just want to flag that for you. Alright, well… Yes, I think… I think that that is what Dr. Jones might have been
068referring to, and so I've already made that update. But you can find those in addition to being emailed out. Those are available on the Pgcps.org blog, which you can access from the home page. Okay. Okay. Alright, well, y'all have a good night. It is 8.41, and I'm gonna let you all go. Good nightThank you