Board of Education Policy & Governance Committee November 11, 2025

001Um the time now is 5:05. Good evening and welcome to the November 11th, uh policy and governance committee meeting. I'm Dr. Felton Moss, committee chair and district 7 board member. Brings me great pleasure to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting. For those unable to observe now, the meeting is being recorded and can be assessed on the PGCPS YouTube channel for later viewing. Um, now we'll have a roll call. Miss Johnson, will you please call the role? >> Dr. Moss, >> present. >> Miss Olivia, Miss Brown here. Mr. Briggs >> present. >> Mr. Walker. >> Mr. Jackson. >> There are three present. All right. There are three present. With the quorum present, the policy and governance committee meeting will come to order. Um, if there are no objections, um, the committee shall adopt the November 11th, 2025

002meeting agenda. >> All right. The question is, shall the committee adopt the November 11, 2025 meeting agenda? Is there any discussion? Miss Johnson, will you please take the role? >> Dr. Moss. Uh I >> Miss Olivia, >> Mr. Briggs. >> I >> Miss Brown. >> I >> Miss Walker. There are three in the >> There being no objections, the November 11th meeting agenda is adopted. Approval of meeting meeting minutes. Uh if there are no corrections, the September 16, 2025 meeting minutes shall be approved as distributed. >> Does anyone have any corrections? All right, there are no corrections. The minutes are approved. We'll move to public comment at this time. Um, Miss Johnson, I believe we have no public comments. Can you affirm that or do we have other public comments? >> No, that's correct. There

003are no public speakers at this. >> Okay, we have no um public speakers this evening. At this time, we will move to our legislative update. The chair recognizes Miss Welsh um for the legislative update. >> Good evening, everyone. Um I wanted to um just uh two things that I have uh for the legislative update. One is is that um I did have um the board office post on the our agenda the um platform the legislative platform because originally you saw that platform when it was in um draft form and since then it went to communication. Well first of all it was updated to the four major priorities. If you recall in in legislative day the request from this the uh the legislators was that would that they wanted to know what it was we wanted

004how wanted how much did it cost and why. So if you look at the four major uh legislative our legislative priorities the big ones it does lay out the specifically uh those particular things that the legislators requested and then of course it goes into our ongoing priorities which we call key measures for success. So, I thought you might like to see the up-to-date version. Um, and it is um I don't know, Mia, if you want I don't know if you want to see it on the screen or not, but it is on your um you should be able to access it through your agenda. I just um communications did a nice job of adding a lot of little pictures to it and stuff to make it go and you can just scroll through um if

005you can keep going uh I will point out so for example here supporting students with disabilities then it it talks about uh four major areas and talks about what that would cost for us annually and then what the rationale is behind the that request. And then if you go take to the next one, we have the same thing for the multilingual students in terms of what the funding requests are and what um why we want it, how much and then why do we why we're making that request. And then if you go then into I think the next one has to do with uh uh the moderniz modernizing construction of facilities for success. same type of thing. Tells you how much what it is we want, how much it cost, and why. And then the

006very last one is safety and um uh secure safe and secure environments for students. And the very we have it broken out for the legislators so that they can it's a clear picture. They know exactly what we're requesting. And then if you move into the rest of the document, if you could just scroll through very quickly uh it lays out each of the areas um in terms of uh we have uh implementation of blueprint and what we support and oppose and then and you get into if you scroll down a little bit further um you know adequate funding it just lays all those out at each of our priorities. So um I am asking the printing office to make some copies so that it would be available that if when you go to Annapolis if

007you want to uh take some with you to share with legislators you can do that. So there any questions members do you have any questions for Miss Welsh before I do? Uh, Miss Miss Welsh, when do we plan to send this out to the delegation? Are they going to get this in advance of December one? >> Yes. In fact, we can put it um Lolita had sent them a link to where they can access everything. So, what we can do is uh put that in there and send an email to them telling them that this is now available for them. >> Okay. Yeah, I'd like to maybe we um should just formulate an email and send to them and with this copied and then um it could also be uploaded to their folder so that

008they're clear before December one when they go to um actually just maybe we could ask the administration to send this out broadly to all of to all of the PGCPS stakeholders and include them in it too. >> Well, I can uh talk to Dr. Collins about that. >> Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. >> Okay. And then the only other thing, so that's it for the platform. And then the only other thing was what we just talked about two seconds ago, which has to do with the um Maryland state uh board of education was um addressed um this it's um Comar regulations that are called local boards of education. It has to do rules for meetings. And there was language in that that regulation that went into detail about requiring that um first of

009all that all all board meetings would have to be in person which ours are but a lot of the systems have hybrid board meetings but if you recall we just had worked on um board u members being able to attend virtually in certain circumstances that that particular policy and and had these regulations move forward if they did end up being being passed we would not have been to have that as an option. Um, and then the other piece had to do with it had inferred that all committee meetings would also have to be in person. And so both uh Chair Moss and Chair Jackson did send comments to the Maryland State Board of Education as well as Maryland Association of Board of Eds sent uh comments and statements. And then I think I want to

010say Baltimore City and with basically very similar comments related to the concerns uh about not allowing a hybrid meeting as well as the committee meetings especially for all of you all the board members in Prince George's County. you go to a lot of committee meetings. So, if you had to be out every single night traveling to the different committee meetings in addition to all the other events and activities that you're involved in, that would really be, you know, um pretty burdensome when and actually when you're talking about public comment, a part of the part is to get public comment. I think it's actually for the public, it's probably easier for them to to be able to provide public comment through a virtual avenue versus having to come in person. you know, or send something to

011a actual in-person meeting. So, the state board before it even went out for publication, the state board did make those two changes that you'll see in green. And one is the fact that you hybrid meetings are allowed. So, an inst for our policy that we're looking at the possibility of where an individual needs to attend virtually that would still be standing. And then the other piece is that we don't have to have committee meetings uh in person. They can be virtual. So it's it's but it's encouraging to see the power of you know contacting your in this instance was the state board but they did respond positively. So that was the other thing I wanted to share. >> Um colleague colleagues do you all have any questions for Miss Welsh? Um the state board chair

012did email email us back as well uh and was you know highly receptive of our feedback. Um so um and we know we had support um you know from that from some of the other board members at the meeting and thank you for working on this Miss Welsh. Um just want to underscore the point that Miss Welsh laid out that this will go back out before the state board takes it you know takes it up. So we got a little bit more of a process but they heard us out um even before they you know brought the policy um forward. Any other questions comments from colleagues? Um, board member Brown, >> thank you so much. Um, Dr. Moss, I had a quick question. I I know that you mentioned hybrid. Are you saying that for

013this it's going to allow I guess our in-person meetings to be hybrid as well. I wanted to make sure I heard that correctly. >> So, some systems actually they they do call it hybrid. for us. I was referring to the policy that you all worked on at the last uh committee meeting where if um if it if and we have it where it's in unforeseen circumstances where you you're in a situation where you want to be able to attend but unfortunately because of something that's happened you're not able to be there in person. So you are able to attend virtually. Um that had had the original language went through then that would that we would have had to you know say goodbye to the policy. But we will because of this change in language, we

014will be able to allow um you know if a board member needs to come in virtually for like a business meeting or a work session, they can do that. Um this won't impact that. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments from colleagues? All right, seeing that there are none, um, thank you, Miss Welsh, for the legislative update. We will move to item 7.0, proposed policies, um, presentation and discussion. There are four more items for discussion. There will be two rounds per item during discussion, and each round will be two and a half minutes. If a third RA round is required, a vote will be taken. Um, >> committee members, I do want to remind you um that members should submit your revision requests through the policy recommendation form to be able to strengthen

015and and reserve time. So, I just want to flag that for you. Item 7.1. Um we will start with approving um a revision to the comm community to the committee work plan for school year 2526. At this time the chair recognizes Miss Welsh to present her guest speakers and provide an update on the committee work plan for school year 2526. Uh Miss Welsh. >> Okay. Uh so the work plan the changes that are occurring is that we um have added the prek to three literacy uh promotion and retention policy which is a new policy that we did not have previously as well as we are also bringing back a parent and community uh advisory council and in return um because we don't want to be having so many policies that we get jammed up in

016the meetings and they all end up getting backlogged. we have taken out the policy on grants and the other one on bonding of officers for this school year. Um so that that is something that is a change to the to the work plan that you had originally voted on. Um so I don't know um Dr. Moss if you want to have them vote on this first to get the work plan out of the way and then we can go into the presentation. >> Yeah, we will vote on the work plan and then we can go into the presentation. Um, so I think you just went over all the changes that we're making to the work plan. Um, >> the question is, um, shall the committee recommend committee work plan 2526 to the policy sponsor for

017revision approval? Is there any discussion at this time? Miss Johnson, please take a roll call vote. >> Dr. Ms. I >> Miss Olivia, >> Mr. Briggs. >> Hi, >> Miss Brown. >> Hi, >> Miss Walker. There are three in the affirmative. >> There are three in the affirmative. Committee work plan for school year 2526 will be re recommended to the policy sponsor uh for revision approval. At this time I'm going to recognize Miss Welsh again um for a presentation from her committee members. This is going to be focused on a new policy policy 5117 that I am most excited about um that I've had the opportunity to work with the administration on. Um so super excited about this. Miss Welsh. Um, please present your guest speakers and provide an update on policy 5117. >> Yes.

018Um, so we're very fortunate to have uh with us this evening uh Dr. Judith White who is our chief of academics and I believe did you bring some people with you Dr. White? >> I did. I brought my director of curriculum instruction, Dr. Kia McDaniel, and my coordinating supervisor of literacy and language, Dr. Victoria Holmes. And so go ahead Robin. >> No, you go. Just your opportunity to present. >> Awesome. So, um, greetings everyone. Good evening. Um, hello Chair Moss. What we would like to do is Victoria is going to share her screen if that's okay. And Victoria, you don't have to go through the whole presentation because we will share this with the board members that are on here. But what what we did bring for you tonight, just so that you're aware, is

019that MSDE has a preK through grade three literacy policy. We wanted to just go over some quick highlights around it. We wanted to then tell you what we're doing as a result of it, which includes um the retention component. Uh Victoria, then we want to kind of explain what we put into our draft policy. And then we just wanted you to have we don't have to go over that this evening to also know that every LEA had to create a comprehensive literacy plan. So one in one we worked on the literacy plan before we ever got the literacy policy. So the plan is just what's always in place. It's our strategic plan to approach literacy. the however the preK3 literacy policy is what will be aligning to the board policy that you have referenced and

020we have created um or edited our current retention and promotion policy. So Victoria, if you want to skim the steps, go through get us to um where we have our tools and we'll stop there and then we'll let them ask questions. is we'll dig into the policy a little bit and then if they have any further questions about um the plan, the comprehensive literacy plan, we can go into that. So with that, I turn it over to Dr. Holmes. >> Good evening everyone. Um thank you for allowing us to present to you today. So, uh just a little bit about um why we have the our prek to third grade literacy policies. So, this is MSDE's um policy and it's geared just towards making sure that all of our students in Prince George's County Public

021Schools as well as the state of Maryland have equitable, effective, and evidence-based reading instruction. um to prepare them for long-term success. So, as you all may know, um Maryland used to be really high on um the charts as far as our reading performance, but it has declined. So, um, this policy will prioritize some of those foundational literacy skills that we know is aligned to the science of reading and are essential for students to be um, proficient readers. So this policy promotes uh instructional equity, enhances our literacy outcomes and um as I said builds the foundation a strong foundation for future success um regardless of students background, linguistic diversity, social economic status, geographic location or any specific learning needs. So there are four components um in this state in the policy. The first is the system

022of support for educators. So this is um primarily making sure that our teachers are trained and equipped in the science of reading as well as our administrators. So any um staff member who supports prek through third grade that they are trained in the science of reading. report um annually or annually on the number of um staff trained um and we this part make sure that our teachers also receive some type of support in the classroom. So coaching um is provided for our teachers. The second part is um reading instruction assessment and intervention. This really outlines um one having a strong core tier one u reading program aligned in the science of reading utilizing our high quality instructional materials that align to our Maryland college career readiness standards as well as having a system of assessments

023that include a universal screener, diagnostic surveys and progress monitor to make sure that we are monitoring student growth towards grade level reading. Um, and if students are experiencing any reading difficulties, um, we're providing some type of supplemental instruction for them. I'm sorry to move you all out of the way. All right. And the the third part of this of the policy is parent and guardian notification and reading student reading improvement plan. So, when students have reading difficulty or they're not meeting their grade level reading proficiency from preK to to third grade, they're required to have a student reading improvement plan that outlines the supports, supplemental instructional supports that students will be afforded, which may include some interventions. Um this is a written notification and parents are involved in the creation of the plan as well

024as being notified throughout the year of the progress of students. Um all interventions of course have to be evidence-based. Um we outline the frequency and the intensity of the plan and it's reviewed annually. And then the fourth part is demonstrating readiness for promotion. As Dr. White mentioned, uh we have had to um revise our uh pro retention and promotion policy to align to the MSDE uh prek literacy prek third grade literacy policy. So, in order for our students in third grade to be promoted to fourth grade, they must um demonstrate reading proficiency. They will be recommended for retention if they are not proficient readers, but they can be promoted with good cause. And MSDE has outlined very specific um criteria for good cause promotion. So these are the actions that Prince George's County has already

025taken towards um meeting the components of the policy. As far as our uh support for uh our educators, we have trained as of September 15,044 teachers. Um that's not including our administrators that have been trained administrators including principles, assistant principles, ILTS and other support staff. We provide coaching to teachers um via our uh early literacy support team. We provide ongoing professional development and support for teachers and administrators to implement and monitor our core curriculum as it relates to reading instruction and assessment and intervention. We have and then we're constantly revising curriculum um ensuring that we are using our high quality um instruction materials and we have an established system of assessment with universal screeners, diagnostics and interventions for progress monitoring. Um when it comes to a parent and guardian notification, this is where we are

026still working to build um a one a student reading intervention plan. It will be housed in our synergy student information system and those plans of course will help us to monitor student progress and also keep our families um notified of our student progress. And then the last section as far as our demonstrating readiness for promotion AP 5123.2 2 is actually in revision um as we speak. We had to submit our rough draft to MSDE by September 1st. That was done. We have thus received um feedback and there were two areas where we made some um re additional revisions and once approved that will be sent back to MSDE for um approval before it is submitted through our Prince George's County Public Schools um AP process. And then here, oh, I'm sorry. >> Go ahead. When

027you get to the next slide on our resources, I want to jump in. Um, you can finish this slide. >> Okay. So, this is just the the timeline for the policy. Um, as you can see, beginning in last school year, teachers were trained um well started to be trained in three specific um professional development opportunities that were approved by um MSDE. Um and as you can see the promotion and retention policy submitted. Um the annual report for the number of teachers who have been trained had to be sent on September 15th. Um this year they MSDE is will be reviewing instructional material. So they have not yet come out with our HQIM um report but we will learn of what u materials and um resources are approved. Um September 1st we submitted the annual report

028for um the district's board policies and procedures for promotion. As stated before, one thing we're consistently working on is our MTSS um process for not only for preK through 5, but preK through 12th grade. That should be in place with the STO school reading improvement plan um next school year. So, that's something that will be in place. and MSDE will be looking at universal screeners to also um provide to all LEAs those approved screeners and the implementation of our reading the retention portion of the literacy policy will go into effect school year 2728. So now we have our resources Dr. White. >> Sure. So I just wanted to show you and and I think what you've heard from Victoria is all of the things that are in the policy we're working towards right now. The

029good thing is everything that we have to do MSE MSDE we have to submit and they review submit and we get feedback and we fix when we did the draft plan and this is where I want to end the presentation and I'll make sure again that you all have this um in case you want to look at the comprehensive literacy plan but I want Victoria to pull up um what you'll have here is our is our draft retention policy but what I want her to pull up is the policy checklist so that you know that while we had a promotion and retention policy there were areas that MSDE said certain things had to be in our policy. And so what we did and while we worked through this process, we communicated with um Chair Moss

030is making sure that we took all of these components that we overlaid it to our current procedure and that everything was there. The two improvements that we had to make were simply making sure that some of the language was exactly the same. For example, if a student isn't doing well, they will be put in an intervention or a an extra um support before school or after school. They wanted to make sure that we had specific language that we will communicate directly with the family. So, while we may have said certain things, they wanted it in certain places. So, that was one area. In the other area, Dr. Holmes, do you remember what the first one was? It was on page six. Um the other one was um for the good cause um criteria we had

031to have the word only. So only those um criteria listed would be um was considered for good cause promotion. So once we make those adjustments to our um administrative procedure, we will share it back with um uh Chair Chair Moss and uh Miss Welsh so that you all can review it so that your policy basically supports what we put in the administrative procedure because we want to just make sure that we're in alignment. So all the things that you've put forth and I know with other things that are coming, we just wanted you to know that we are working. We wanted you to see the timeline and we wanted you to know that we're hitting the markers to everything that MSD has said. The next phase um that they will start is to like Victoria

032says start looking at our H um high quality materials. So that will go across the whole entire state. The other thing is we are um uplifting off the ground to literacy labs in elementary schools. Um that will be coming soon. Once we get it up and going, we can definitely invite this group to come look at those practices. We currently have a math lab that is actually super strong. We would love for you to come out to that as well. Additionally, I'm happy to announce that MSDE has received a grant where we will begin getting uh literacy coaches in the majority of our elementary schools. So, we're going to start Victoria and her team are working I think we're going to start out with about 9 to 12 coaches that I believe they've already hired.

033We're going to probably do a hybrid model to put some of them in our innovation zone and some of them in a couple of our ATSI schools that are not in the zone. And the reason for that principle is what does it look like in this zone where we where we are pushing in a lot of support and what does it look like in schools that's not in that zone so that we can kind of you know measure where we seeing the growth, what kind of things happen, what supports wrapping around to kind of give us something to compare. So again any we're open for any questions that you may have. We just wanted you to know that we are working um and we are in alignment definitely with your policy and that we wanted

034to make sure our administrative procedure is in alignment. >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Welsh. Do we want to go through the policy now? Um might be good to go through the policy now, but I want to see if my colleagues have any questions for um Dr. Holmes, Dr. White um and the literacy team. And let me just say, um, I'll say this publicly. Um, we have one of the best literacy teams in the state of Maryland. Um, and I I'll put them next to anybody. And so I'm just really excited for the work that you all are doing. Thank you for leading so passionately, so integrately, and making sure PGCPS is well ahead of where we need to be on literacy work. Y'all already know how I feel about literacy work. It's like my

035hard work, so I'm not even going on a tangent. We'll talk about it. talk about the board policy, but I just want to make sure we celebrate folks who are really doing um great work. So, thank y'all. >> Thank you for that. >> Okay. Um well, if there are no questions, um Miss Welsh, let's move to a review of the policy. >> Sure. Team needed. Um Chairman Moss, >> I think we're good. Um unless you may want to hang back. Committee members may want to add language or something and you may need to be able to tell us the unintended or intended consequences of whatever committee members may recommend. Okay. But I won't hold you after that, Dr. White. >> Miss Welsh. >> Okay. Okay. So, the first uh part of the policy just is

036a policy statement. Um and it um says that we are um this board of education is committed to ensuring that every student pre-K through grade three receives a strong foundation and literacy necessary for long-term academic success. Um and then that they uh the board also believes that students should advance through the early grades only when they've developed the skills needed to be successful at the next level. And that research shows that because students learn at different rates and some require longer to master specific academic skills, early intervention is necessary to ensure they master basic literacy skills. And some of that language also came from um 5117 um um that was listed there. And then the purpose of the policy is to is designed to promote instructional equity, enhance literacy outcomes, and build a strong foundation

037for future academic success regardless of students cultural background, linguistic diversity, social economic status, and geographic location and specific uh learning needs. And then there are some definitions, and several of these definitions I did pull out of the Maryland um uh state department of education's uh literacy policy um so that we're in alignment there. And then the standards. Um these are basically everything that um Dr. White um and um uh um Miss Holmes shared in their presentation in terms of what is required by uh Maryland State Department of Education. First piece being um equitable access to high to high um quality evidence-based literacy instruction for all students pre-K through third grade. Then early identification for any of those students who are at risk of reading difficulties through the appropriate screenings and assessments. And then a utilization

038of program specific monitoring tools so that the schools can collect and analyze their intervention data to make instructional decisions. And then the provision of timely supplemental reading instruction align to students, identify needs and targeted interventions for any students demonstrating reading difficulties. Then a process for notifying the parents of any preK student who exhibits difficulty in reading at any time and for engaging parents as active partners in monitoring and supporting their child's literacy development. Utilization of multiple measures of student learning to inform promotion and retention decisions. A clear process for considering promotion and retention in alignment with Maryland laws and reg law and regulations. and then parent notification of the designation for promotion or retention and the informed consent process to students students parents at the end of third grade and then ongoing reporting and review

039of data to ensure practices are implemented consistently and equitably across all the schools. It also says the super superintendent design must ensure that all general ed education teachers, special ed teachers, teachers of multilingual learners and administrators in grade prek through three have received training in the science they're reading by September 1st of each school year. Then implementation responsibilities. The first piece is of course this which they're already working on though is the um administrative pro procedure that would align with this policy so that it can be implemented and then the fact that this policy should come up for review every 3 years because there I'm sure as we progress through the years there will be changes in the board the state board's uh state MSD's policy and even in the research so that we can

040um stay up to date with that and then in addition to um reporting ing to MSD which is again another requirement we have uh and there's a wide variety of things that we have to report to MSD I also include that the report would be provided annually to the board of education because I'm certain just as MSD wants to see our progress I know the board would absolutely want to see our progress so this just lays out the re what would be required in that reporting and then the last thing which they also discussed uh Victoria had discussed tonight was that the superintendent design shall submit to MSD by Sep September 15th of each school year list of all the teachers and administrators that received training in science reading. So it's pretty it's pretty much

041aligned to much of what was shared this evening in terms of what they you all have put together both for the movement of your AP as well as implementing the Maryland State Department of Education's policy. >> Thank you Miss Welsh for going over this policy with us. Um I just want to say to my colleagues um this will be once again that PGCPS um is ahead of the game in comparison to other districts in the state. Um so we don't really have another policy um to go off of. This is uh PGCPS um you know first stab at this. So um I want to make sure we engage and and give comments around this. So I want to see if my colleagues have any questions um about the draft policy. I've got a couple more

042comments at the end, but I want to turn it over to my colleagues and see if you have questions or comments. Dr. White, did you have something before? >> Yeah, I just the only comment that I had on the policy, I know it indicates um training by September 1, but right now provides us with many opportunities for teachers to be trained. And for example, science of reading isn't a one-stop like you come to a PD. Uh while teachers will get touched at the beginning of the year, we send out all of those trainings which could be three months, four months on their own to come in a cohort. So we may just want to say every year we're making sure that opportunities are provided to grab any teacher who hasn't been trained versus we do

043have to submit by September 15th. That date was fine, but I think September one is not a realistic because those trainings go on for like can go on for months. >> I'll take that out the September one. I do think it's fine to say that the superintendent designate will continually provide opportunities for all teachers who have not been trained and follow through to ensure that training information is provided to get teachers trained. >> Okay. >> Yeah, let's um yeah, let's talk about that language um in just a second. I've got a thought on it, too. Um I appreciate I'm glad you flagged that for us. I've got a thought on it, too. I um we had an interesting intent there. So, I want to make sure we we work through that. Um thank you Dr.

044White for flagging it for us. Um board member Bri, Vice Chair Briggs. >> Great. Thank you so much, Chair uh Moss. Um I I think this might be a question for uh MSDE, but you know, definitely I'm curious to hear what Dr. White and the team have to say. Also have some comments just about like ways that I think we can make the the policy more comprehensive. I think that all the things that you all shared is really clear. Um, but I really would want to kind of make make this a bit more um thorough maybe. But so for standard uh for standards under five where it talks about like the process for notifying parents, I know that um that I believe it was Miss Holmes and Dr. White had shared that there's parent view

045and that there's synergy and that parents can see in there kind of keep track track of things. Um, but one of the things that I was thinking about was just like uh accessibility and families ability to understand something that you know it's like it it's one of those things where it's like it's so important because you can sign off and give consent to say that I'll have my child retained in third grade. But um the implications of that aren't always clear for you know we always know that people say yes and then they think about it later and they're like wait what does that mean? Um, and is there some way for families to kind of like in a very easy way like see like red, yellow, green, right? Like are they on pro in

046are they in progress in the app or in whatever they're using so that it's like it's almost explicit for them to see it. So one of the pieces was just like what about accessibilities for families to keep track of this information. Maybe even frequent reports that might just be like a color scale or something um uh around students not meeting grade level expectations and then just making it as accessible as possible. Um, and I see your hand, Dr. White, so I can pause there. I have some other things, too. But, um, >> what I was simply going to say is, so Dr. uh, Joseph is committed to ensuring that we find ways to communicate with families, um, early and often through our different measures. So, for example, those younger, um, students will take a universal

047screener. Um, us communicating with families, how they do on a universal screener every year, and what that means for them as related to their grade level peers, not just in Prince George's County, but across the United States. Um, the other thing is while the state policy does say by third grade, our I think our our obligation is to really look at students earlier than third grade, we don't have to wait to third grade to determine if we believe a student is so off the mark to um not have foundational skills to move forward. What I would just caution this group, again, I'm not controlling your group. I know that you all have the right to do it what you choose, is your policy should guide our administrative procedure. your policy shouldn't go so far in

048depth that you make our administrative procedure impossible to implement. I think you tell us what based like what you just did and then that helps us on our side with the administrative procedure some of those things. We want to keep policy where it's real like giving us that tight guidance but not getting in the weeds. But we you know we'll definitely take what you say and those any of those other feedbacks and do it on our side through you know how we engage and through how we implement the administrative procedure. >> Yeah. Exactly. And the goal is like not to be restrictive at all. Um in any way, but just to to the point, right, policy should be broad enough where it can be even evergreen so that we're not like year to year being

049like, should we change this because this is too much. Um so I No, I I completely agree with you and it was just around accessibility. I wanted to make sure we had language in there around kind of like making it as accessible as possible because I do think that that could be a potential issue um in the in the worst case scenario. I don't think that'll probably be the case in most instances, but for the worst case, I don't see a timer, so I'm just going to really quickly give my last two, and then I probably have >> I think you're up on time, but I'll give it to you. >> Okay. Well, I just wanted to say I wondered if um six was redundant. Um, and if it's not redundant, I already know that

050I believe um, Miss Holm said that evidence-based practices are already included in there, evidence-based, researchbased measures um, to kind of inform decision-m. Um, but and I think also I think Dr. White now or says in this policy, I think Miss Wolf said it, every three years it's revisited. So, you all are looking at the plan. Um, this is really going to just frame like my last part, which I'll get to after because I think I'm up with time. But, um, I wanted to say what just wasn't clear if six was kind of saying the same thing and if we just probably want to look at that and see if like either we want to differentiate six and seven a bit to be a bit more clear or if if Miss Welsh wanted to provide any

051context there. >> We um I'll clarify for you too just to give you a little I think Miss Welsh perhaps she can clarify this herself. I had wrote a a whole another policy that was extremely um for lack of better words was overreach in terms of a board policy. It was more reading like an administrative procedure. And so Dr. White and I worked through this and then Miss Welsh did her magic trick on it. Um but the intent between six and seven though is um to really think about good cause exemption as well and having multiple measures to determine whether a kid can move on or not. I do see an opportunity for bringing six and seven together. Uh but I think six and seven separately um actually uh serves different purposes here. But I

052can totally see why you would uh why you would merge them. U Vice Chair Briggs, I just wanted to answer your question so you wouldn't be left out there. >> Yeah, and it's fine too. I I just wasn't clear. I was like, I thought the state would have clarified because they had that whole regulatory process around what the language meant in the um open public comment piece. I just wasn't sure if like they already have clarifications around like the multi- uh multiple measures that are going to be used to kind of identify these things and if that was a consideration. I guess that really was the question was like is this a part of the the kind of process that's already built and established by the Maryland State Department of Education and whoever can answer

053that. Yeah, >> because this remember this part isn't going to get implemented until school year 2728. So the state is still identifying what those measures are. So leaving it open to say multiple measures, they may give us an opportunity to say, okay, if you get a certain score here, but you have a A or a B. So because we don't know yet and we kind of left it loosey goosey until that part is tightened up. >> You're good, Vice Chair Briggs? >> Yes. Thank you so much. >> Cool. Cool. colleagues, any other questions around this? All right. Um, seeing that there Oh, I see a hand. Uh, seeing that seeing that there's no more first round, I do have a first round and I should have said this earlier um when we worked on this.

054I only have one question and we should have done this on I should have said this earlier on standard two, but you know, Dr. Dr. White, I need you to tell me if I'm in left field here, but I think you all already do this, and this may be me being more restrictive. Again, understand two, I'm a little cautious for us just to say early here. I'd like to say quarterly. I know that's dramatic, but you all already do this based on what we've seen. So, how much of a problem in board policy would it be if we say quarterly identification of students who are at risk and reading difficulties and then going down to do the same thing with notification for parents and I'm just really trying to make sure that when you and

055I are not here people do this quarterly and if that's taken care of in the admin procedure and I missed it please let me know. So what I would So let me tell you the process and then the team can decide which way they'd want to move. So we pro we do dibbles screening at the beginning of the year. We'll come behind ourselves. So that's September. We come behind ourselves in December or January. Victoria correct me when I'm right. And then we come back behind ourselves in like April, May. So three times a year we provide that dibbles anybody that is at risk. We call it early screening. You're just talking about the early ages, right? So whoever went upon being screened goes and immediately enter intervention and then we're testing again in that whole

056December to check did they get better right and then we do the same thing they're back in intervention they stay in intervention and we test again so it's three times a year that we do the assessment so it's not really quarterly it's three times a year >> okay so what if we just said annually here I just think the early is just like with no timeline for me that ification is actually indicating in the early 8 grade levels, not as as in early in the school year. So, it's saying early identification, but we can say, you know, you you could say yearly identification. Um, but know that anytime we give a measure, we're going to give it usually with ear our early identification measures is three times a year. >> Okay? >> Each of those

057administrations parents are communicated with with how their children are doing. >> Okay. Um, yeah, I'd like to have yearly there. whatever is the way. I just want it to happen yearly. I know we do it yearly, >> but should we leave here? Um, somebody may decide not to do it yearly. They would need to change the board policy if they didn't. Um, Miss Welsh, >> that that actually I was going to ask that question. So, I'm good. I just I just put that in. >> Yes, ma'am. Okay. Colleagues, any other questions on this? Um, board member Bri, Vice Chair Briggs, >> before he starts, what I would say is I will send also, even though it's in this presentation, when I send a presentation, I'll also explicitly send the new draft of our promotion administrative

058procedure so that all of you can look at it one beside the other. >> Yes, ma'am. Okay, Vice Chair Briggs. >> Yeah, I guess I'm thinking about this practically, too. like um there are a few assumptions that I feel like are part of this and our policy can go a bit beyond what necessarily is clarified for me at MSDE. One of the things that I was curious about and Dr. Dr. White, maybe you can answer this or someone on your team, but longitudinally, I mentioned this the other day, like if we're thinking about from the start of this program until let's say 5 10 years out, longitudinally, are there any quantitative or qualitative outcomes around student progress or you know students that are retained like what are I guess what I'm thinking I should just

059put it in plain language here. It's like what if we are holding a student back but it has behavioral impacts on them or it has like something around like you know they're just their mindset of like can I succeed in school like is there is MSDE requiring any kind of like tracking of disproportionality or are there more students in certain subgroups that are going to be targeted not intentionally but just because of just you know just the the circumstance um that show up more in being retained versus another group of students. >> Sure. >> Is any of that part? So, I'll answer it this way. As of yet, we've not had those explicit conversations. However, when you look at my administrative procedure, you'll see those good faith identifiers that Victoria was talking about. The other

060thing you'll identify is that we have to have MTSS. And the reason that is is because you could have a ch a child who is not doing well based on academics. It could be behavior or it could be um attendance. So the first thing you have to do in that MTSS process is figure out why a child isn't successful and then backtrack there. That's why we don't have necessarily the answer yet to the multiple measures and we don't have answers yet to what will happen. I think as MT as as um MSDE continues to to work through this process and you work through parents, you also have students, your special education students, your multilingual learners. So those good faith reasons of why you wouldn't hold a child back. Put those safeguards around what you're directly

061speaking to and I think it's going to give the latitude to school districts to say here's a set of circumstances for this child and then this is how we all engage. But I see both my team members have their hands up. So either I have said things that are incorrectly public, excuse me, or they just want to add context. So I will let them both jump in. >> No, it was you didn't say anything wrong. I just um just wanted to highlight the um student reading improvement plan that starts in prek. So we're not waiting till third grade to identify when there's a reading difficulty. That is showing up in prek, first, second, and third grade. So when we recognize that there's a reading difficulty, intervention, supplemental instruction is being put in place so that

062we're monitoring. So we're not waiting till third grade to be able to determine whether or not a student is going to um need to be retained or not. >> It looks like we've got one more hand here. Did that clarify what you all were trying to do? Dr. McDaniel and Dr. Yes, I was just going to add that we do have to submit data on the students that um are either being retained and those students who are performing below grade level. So we will be when we have that data we'll be doing our own analysis of who are the students within those categories. So that to your uh question board member Briggs of like is there over representation in different categories of students and what are we doing about that? What are our interventions look

063like for our students and um how we can correct that if that does come into play. The other thing I just wanted to mention is that MSDE currently has a draft adolescent literacy policy that um is being reviewed and so that's the longevity of across literacy in general um in the state that we just we're going to be considering as well. So we'll have a full picture of how students are performing across time continuing um you know those pieces of assessing students reading abilities across time >> and board member we come to academic achievement in December and we bring the current data as is we'll have dibbles so we can look at that data and it may be then that we start saying even though we're not at 27 28 like if we break that

064down by demographics like so we can during that presentation we could look a little deeper. Can I say this last thing, Dr. Moss, because I know I'm over on time. I just want to see they can answer this, but like also, can a student be held back multiple times? So, let's say that they make it to third grade. Okay. So, there's a cut off. It's one time and then if they don't make it or they're not proficient, they just get pushed forward. >> Well, I think you work. So, you know, it's it's no different than we have students, our special education students, you constantly have to be working on acceleration and remediation at the same time. So, I think you constantly have to push a student, but you have to say, "So, at what point

065do you have a student in middle school that's should be 12 and you have a 14-year-old, right?" So, there there are things that we as a system have to put in place. Um, that's why we then that's why you get to high school and you have in middle school and high school, you have our non-traditional programs because now you're building wraparound supports in a different way than you would in your comprehensive. And that's why we build those out outliers programs for those students. >> And thank y'all for Thank you all so much um for answering all the questions. I do have one recommendation that's connected to Vice Chair Briggs concern. What we may be able to do under number five, Miss Welsh. Um and C. Um, given that this policy already requires the superintendent report

066out, perhaps we could add the language to include a gap analysis. Um, I mean, they're going to give the data anyway. The data team is likely >> going to provide a gap analysis, but we could codify it in board policy, vice chair Briggs, that they would give a gap analysis um that would look at all the indicators because it's already in C. So, I don't know if that would satisfy your uh concern there, uh, Vice Chair Briggs, but um, it is an opportunity there, and I think I would like to see a gap analysis. Um, but let me know if that gets to what you're trying to do. >> Well, I actually don't think I know what the technical term of a gap analysis is. So, if you want to clarify, then that might uh

067that might be the silver bullet here of what I was talking about. A gap analysis is essentially where you would create a report that just shows the gaps across learners from different groups. So if it's SCES students, if it's um special education students, you would just provide subgroup data and show the gaps between the um control group. >> I think that's getting at it. I just Yeah, you know, honestly, I think I think Dr. why I was going down the direction of where I was going, which is that well actually I think it was Dr. White and Dr. McDaniel who was saying like across time. I'm just trying to say are there patterns and I don't necessarily want to wait for the state to to mandate us to do it because I think we can

068do it and I think that we can kind of identify like where are our students headed and what are the the you know what are the outcomes here like are is this a good thing you know and we may have data that we can submit to the state and be a uh I think you were saying this Dr. I was like a leader in the state um around you know kind of like really setting the tone for what this looks like in implementation and how it evolves over time. So that's really my piece is like just I want to see if we can do something around the data analytics to also identify what is the impact of the implementation of this policy over time on students. Yeah, I just um Yeah, I get you. I

069would, Miss Welsh, I would just add language here. Say year over year or year after year gap analysis. We're aiming. >> Okay. >> And then we can talk to Chief Strader um between now and where the policy goes forward and see if um if there's a different way to say that or if there's not a need to say it, but I I get where Vice Chair Briggs is wanting to go with this. And I think it's perfect. Other colleagues have any questions or comments? All right. Um well, if there are no comments, one, thank you all for uh spending time with us tonight. It's always great. Um and the literacy policy will be recommended to the policy sponsor for revision approval. >> Um could you please take the role, Miss Johnson? >> Dr. Moss, >>

070I. >> Miss Olivia, >> I Mr. Briggs. >> I >> Miss Brown. >> I >> There are four in the affirmative. >> Um there are four in the in the affirmative policy 5117. Literacy will um will move on to the policy sponsor for revision approval. Thank y'all so much for hanging out with us. Um, next up is policy 8100, board of education standing standing committees and focus groups. Um, and before Miss Welsh um, reviews this policy, I made a recommendation two meetings ago uh, and I'm withdrawing my recommendations um, given my own research um, around the feasibility of implementation which was to add um, a committee a um, a member from one of our parent organizations to each of our board committees. Um, so I just want to make sure I withdraw my recommendation tonight.

071Um, as it relates to this, um, I know the policy hasn't moved on because we needed some research, but I just wanted to flag at the onset of the conversation that I'm withdrawing my recommendation um, due to my own research. Um, I was a little too excited there um, and didn't think about implementation. So, I just want to say that at the start, Miss Welsh, uh the chair recognized you to provide an overview of policy 8100, board of education standing committees and focus work groups. >> So, um so this this um uh policy when we discussed it the last time, it really what we ended up doing, I had added a lot of language in to to accommodate your recommendations. So I will go back and take that out where it talks about parent and

072community member for the stand and committees. >> So which will be fine and then um but I will share a little bit about what I did research and find out um because it it sort of supports your thought about removing this language. So uh so that'll be good. Um that also this particular policy does go in to talk includes language about the two advisory councils. Um, and let me see if I can find this where it says the ad the advis the advis the advisory committees established by the board may include but are not limited to and then it says at least one citizens advisory committee to provide community advice uh and assistance on problems uh and policies of the board and then at least one special education issues advisory committee to provide advice on

073the implementation of board policies accessibility of facilities and employment and hiring issues. Um, but I don't know if if you want to include um uh both of those pieces of language in there only because of the um and the first part the A and then C which talks about advisory committees at the school level. Both of those come from the law that's language in the law. But as far as the citizens advisory issues committee um to provide advice on implementing it um I do know at the DIAB meeting um the disabilities issues advisory committee they uh had asked that we put stronger language in requiring the disabilities advisory committee. Um but I think that our we haven't addressed that policy yet. So, I'm not certain we want to have we maybe we want to hold

074on that that one provision B until after we've had the opportunity to also address the other policy. I don't know. I'm just, you know, I don't want to be ahead of myself and then we later have to come back. And then this the other piece of this that we added to it was to talk um originally we had these advi the two eval the superintendent and board of education evaluation committee which I think was going to be a standing committee and then the recommendation was what this is not this doesn't make sense because that's that those committees aren't necessarily working all year long. They're really purpose is both to come up with an evaluation tool and then complete the evaluation. And so instead of using um as a just a regular standing committee, I changed

075it to ad hoc committees for both the superintendent and the um and the uh board of education. So those were the major changes. I did want to share though that um that when in reviewing all of the different counties um I could only find one county that talked about having um um um a citizens advisory committee member actually um attend uh some of the standing committees. But other than that, none of the other counties had any any uh citizen um uh you know, present in their in the board's actual standing committees. I will say this that many of the counties had numerous um citizens advisory committees over a lot of different topics and subjects. They didn't just have the basic citizens advisory committee. They had they also had some especially the smaller counties had these

076advisory councils on different academic subjects and everything that the board was involved in. Um and the larger counties did not do that. Um but they but there were like you know um like let's say Alaney and like Harford County. Um I'm trying to think but they didn't have steering they didn't have standing committees either. So, it might just be maybe that's the trend in the smaller counties that they call them advisory councils or committees versus standing committees. I'm not certain. I will also say and I I while I was looking all this up, I thought I would because this was the other conversation that had come up. I want to say in the disabilities advisory committee meeting about public comment and are we getting adequate adequate public comment. So, I went ahead and looked at

077all the different uh counties. There are numerous counties, probably six or seven counties that actually hold out um 30 days for public comment instead of two weeks to give um the public a longer opportunity to provide comment. So, that was one piece on the policies now that we're talking about it. Um but also there were several I want to say probably about five uh counties that if they had a really hot topic um policy that they thought was a hot topic for the public they would actually hold a public forum meeting specifically on the actual policy. So that was another thing that they um would do in terms of their um policies um in terms of policy um getting the the public more involved in public. they had community meetings, things like that. So that

078and it was written in their policy development policy to give them the opportunity that if they need to do that and they really wanted the public's intake, they would go ahead and and provide that. So those were the major um things that I uh was looking for. I did uh also look for whether or not um um that there were in terms of use of CCAC and and many of the committees many of the counties didn't address it at all in any of their policy that I could find but there was a large number of counties that um utilized SEESAC as their advisory committee for uh services for special education. There was only one uh county that I saw had a um a different they called it what do they call it? Citizens advisory committee

079on special ed. I think was the only one county that offered that but everyone else was using CCAC as their um advisory committee for special educations. So I think those were the main things but it did support your your request to have all the language that was previously there removed. So, so that's good that it all aligns. >> All right. Thanks for telling me how horrible I am, Miss Welch. >> Oh, no. I'm not saying that at all. >> No, no, no. I came to that conclusion myself that I was a little too excited. Uh, so I'm not saying it to you. Um, at this time, um, I'm going to see if any committee members have any questions for Miss Welsh or any comments, um, as it relates to the policy. Board me, Vice Chair

080Olivo. >> Uh, thanks so much, Chair Moss. Um, and I just want to apologize to everyone for being late this evening. Um, Miss Welsh, I had a couple questions um, about some items on this policy. Um, so the first one is um, on page five under the meeting schedule. >> Uhhuh. >> We indicate that the June meeting will be used to select leadership. But earlier um we indicate that the chair of the board selects the leadership. So I think that we could um I think that we could strike that um that language because it's it's not necessarily the committee members themselves, you know, electing a chair or vice chair. It's the the chair of the board will have determined who the chair and the vice chair of the committees are. >> Um >> Okay. >>

081Does that make sense? Uh-huh. >> And then um and this I might this is you know partially maybe me being so new but the other thing there is it indicates that the committee shall begin working on the um the work plan in June but again earlier it indicates that um you know the chair of the board won't necessarily announce the the committee members until July 1. And so I didn't know if um and maybe that's okay because it says begin working on you know the work plan in June but I didn't know you know fellow members if it makes sense to really make that July that um that we're working on the work plan because that's when we'll know who the the actual members of the committee are. Um, another section I wanted to um

082ask about, and I I realize that I'm opening a pretty big can of worms with this. Um, I would really like to move away from the word citizen. Um, in our language and move to the word stakeholder. Um, I know citizen can mean kind of generally a a resident, but I think it also has very specific connotations for people who are citizens of the United States of America. And we know that we have many many active and engaged family members who may not be citizens. I know this ties into a whole lot of other policies and language. Um, but I would like to move that way. And then, um, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, just give me a couple more seconds. I have a final point. >> You're the vice chair. Take the time.

083You >> um Okay. Under um section one one of the D's on this. I apologize. I didn't write down a page number for this comment. Um the ad hoc the board ad hoc committees. It indicates that there must be at least five members of the board on an ad hoc committee. And I'm nervous that we would run into um quorum rules such that if we have five or more members of the board on an ad hoc committee that essentially becomes a full board meeting. Um and so I was I just wanted to raise that um due to that potential issue and that those are those are my comments and questions. Thank you so much, Vice Chair Olivo. Miss Welsh, do you have um >> I just want to I want to flag for you. You're

084calling out an issue probably in the document on the ad hoc. We haven't changed it since the board um shrunk in size. So, I wonder that's probably what's happening there. But I'll let Miss Welsh respond to all the other questions. So actually I was going to say as far as the number of the board members that that um was um from before and that's probably because previously we had 14 board members. So I'm thinking maybe we should be looking at maybe four no more than four board members that way we don't go above that. >> Yeah I think that would make sense. And then the other thing that about um members, the reason why we begin in June and we put a draft of the work plan together even though the the committee members may

085change is because there's no meetings at all in July. So then we come back in August and then we are we're looking at what was sort of the draft and the new committee then gets the opportunity to see what's there. but it doesn't stop them at all from saying, "Well, you know, I don't I don't really think we should work on this policy, but I think maybe we should include this policy." So, it's really just getting us a running start to get it moving forward so that it's ready to go just since we don't have July to meet and have a conversation. Um, I mean, it certainly if you want to move it back to August, it's just that it it does back it that process up. So, um, but it's up to you all

086how you want to do it. Thanks. Yeah, I'd really appreciate my fellow colleagues thoughts on that. I think it it could make sense to start, you know, working on the work plan in June knowing that, you know, committee members may change. Thank you. >> Oh, and the other thing, but this is not my decision. This is really the committee's decision. I do like your idea of a stakeholders advisory committee. Uh so, but but that of course is the committee's decision. >> Thank you. Vice Chair Briggs. >> Yeah, I was going to say I think to um vice chair of the committee um Olivo's point, I wonder if we have process-wise like we determine we go through the whole process, the work plan process in June. But I I think that that's a really good point

087that like everyone that's on the committee should be bought into it. What's on the work plan and maybe we ratify the uh the work plan in August like we just kind of said like the PNG committee has a first meeting to ratify the work plan with the new committee members. So there's some way to like circulate once we know who's who we can circulate the work plan. There's a number of opportunities to kind of you know engage with it. And then that meeting in August would be to kind of like cl to to to you know nail down that these are the these are the priorities that we'll have for the school year. So that could be another way to work around it is like the work get started because it does take some time.

088Um vice chair Olivio Olivo and like that's part of it is I think like what Mrs. Welsh is saying is like figuring out what's the right things and she goes to all the different departments and like you know they opine on it and then like we finally have like a plan that's in place. Um, but I do think that also that process should really incorporate like the opinions of the people who are currently on the committee. Um, so I think it's a great point in my opinion. Is that everything? Um, I'm I'm also in agreement um with my colleagues on both matters as well as changing to stakeholder um committees. I do want to clarify um under C where we talk about advisory committees number one 1A that one citizens advisory committee is PCA right?

089>> Yes. >> All right. And then under B at least one special education issues advisory committee to provide advice. That is um that is DIAB right? >> Well depending on on Yes. depending on your conversation about diet tonight. That will um that's Yes. >> Okay, cool. Just making sure I'm clear around what those are. Um >> go ahead. I'm sorry, Miss Wilson. >> I'm sorry. I just want to ask one question though with citizens advisory committee. Since we don't even call it citizens advisory committee, why not change the language to what we call it, which is actually parent community advisory committee? Isn't that what it is? PCA. >> It is. I'd love to hear board member Olivo's uh thoughts on that given this was her first recommendation. >> Yeah, I think um you know I

090guess the question is you know do we um do we want to do we want to put the the very specific name of what we're calling the committees now into this as the policy or do we want to leave it a little bit more general so that if then the names of the committees change at a later date it you know we don't have to adjust the policy. I would note I think for the for B here I think that right now is both DIAB and the special education citizens advisory. So, right now it's two, which still fits because it says at least one. Um and and again I know um I know some of this ties back to state law and that you know that these citizens is is referenced in other places but

091um so it may take some some work to undo citizens e everywhere um that it's mentioned but I I personally would love to start here with that um because I just think it's it's so important to make sure that um all of our families feel welcome and you know that citizenship is not a requirement for their engagement. >> Nope. Okay. No, I think that uh makes sense. Um I don't know if other committee members want to say something different before we move on from this policy, but I I think I'm in agreement with what has been laid out by my colleagues. >> Um do others have any other revisions for this or comments or questions? We good here? Um, all right, Miss Welsh, I think I'm going to take a uh I think that covers

092everything here. This may change later, but there's one other point I wanted to call out. I don't know. I can't find it now. But, um, we'll go ahead and move this one on. So the question is shall the committee recommend policy 8100 board of education standing committees and focus work groups to the policy sponsor for revision approval. Miss Johnson, will you please take the role? >> Dr. Moss >> I. >> Miss Olivia >> I I do want to note that board member Brown has her hand raised though. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Boardman Brown, my apologies. Did you not mean to? >> Okay, I think she might be good. She took it down. >> My vote. My vote was I. Thank you. >> I think she might be voting. Miss Johnson, you can continue calling the

093role. We'll come back to Miss Brown. >> Mr. Briggs. >> I I think there's tech issues. FYI. Miss Brown. >> Oh, she looks like she's she's >> So, we might want to like do like head nod or thumbs up or something. >> She said, "I can't hear anything. I have to restart my computer." So, let me give her a second. and legally I can't take her vote through text message. So I'll have to wait on her. Um, actually I don't I don't have to record her vote on this one um because I have a quorum. So we'll move on um to to to DAB um if that's okay. So what's the vote count? >> There are three in the affirmative >> and then we'll do one is absent. Well, it doesn't need to do absent

094here. There are three in the affirmative policy 1700 disabilities advisory board. No. 17 8100 board of education standing committees and focus work groups uh has been um moved to the policy sponsor for revision approval. All right. Um now we'll move to policy 1700 the disability issues advisory boards. Um I'm going to ask Miss Welsh to um you know provide an overview of this policy but I do want to flag that both the committee leadership and the liaison have been meeting with this group ongoing. So, I just wanted to say that for the general public. Um, but Miss Welsh, if you could um present um the policy 1700 disabilities issues advisory board. Okay. So, I have not added or changed anything in it except to take the language that's currently in that we currently had and

095put it into um the um template that we normally use for policies. So that we see a policy statement and the purpose and then the standards. I will say that the the um purpose of the policy in the past has been um it's a a a a disability issues advisory um council to ensure that the board and the superintendent have a variety of opinions about different specific issues, policies, activities, programs involving students um with disabilities. That's what the and that's what came out of that of the old version of the policy. However, the actual um standards that what they're looking at though has to do with two maj major areas for this policy. One is accessibility built in the buildings. Um and the other one has to do with um hiring practices. Um those are

096the two main areas um um that this this uh council was set up to uh really look at. And if you go through in the standards and look at standard uh B and they talk about who is the membership, it actually says that there should be one employee representing all of the bargaining units and they should rotate from year to year to year and starting off with PGCA being the first the first representative. Um and that's because there's supposed to be such a focus on this on the of the committee on the um uh hiring um um of of special education um employees staff to teach our students. So uh it's an interesting policy because it's very narrow in its in its focus. Um, and there's real no no real conversation at all in the

097policy as it relates to um the Individuals with Disabilities Act, which has to do with all our students who receive special education services, as well as section 504 um of the Rehabilitation Act, which um has is an anti-discrimination act for students with disabilities. So um we so so that is what that this this is focused on. So, um, we do have some comment from from, uh, committee members of the DIAB, which I did not, of course, put any of that into this policy because that's a decision that you all need to make um, in terms of what you would like to have added to the policy. And h and I guess the question is do you want to expand the scope of what the par what the committee is this committee or this council is

098supposed to be focusing on um uh in terms of the policy um um and then how does that relate to what CCAC is actually focusing on also. Thank you Miss Welsh. I'm going to see if there are any committee members that have questions or comments. Um it looks like Vice Cheryl Levo has her hand up. I want to open the floor for Vice Chair Lego. >> Thanks so much um Chair Moss and and Miss Welsh for your for your work on this. Um I also really want to say thank you to Dr. Moss and Miss Welsh for coming to the to the last DIAB meeting. um to be there and to to discuss the the policy review process and to um really appreciate the DIAB committee for their hard hard work on not just this

099um having recommendations for this policy but other work that they've been doing. I do think that um we need a little bit more time on this. Chair Moss. Um we would we heard Miss Welsh share some of her um research I guess into what other LEAs in the state of Maryland do for this. I I'd love to get just a little bit more information specifically on how other LEAs handle their special education subcommittees. Do they have more than one? Do they have one subcommittee or one I'm sorry, one committee that um that has various subcommittees to handle all of these issues at once? I I will say I am concerned about um the the fact that that DAB and and CCAC are often if not always meeting on the same night and the how that

100limits the the possibility for collaboration. Um, I do also know that we are we need some some legal um analysis or feedback as well around the potential name change of the the DIAB board. And so I would recommend to my colleagues that we um we do that initial research and really take our time on this and and give it um until the next meeting. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Levo. Um, I do want to Does any does any other uh committee members have questions um or comments here as it relates to this? Um, seeing that there are now I know um board member Brown is coming back up. She might have something that she is a liazison of that committee as well with Vice Cheryl Levo. But I do want to to just name that

101we got a lot of recommendations from the disability um issues advisory board and um they were you know pretty strong recommendations that the system would need to deal with in terms of practices and procedures and then there were policy recommendations. Um I also agree with you vice chair Leo. I do think we need to take our time and make sure we comb through each of those and make sure we get this right. I do have some concerns around the duplicative nature um of the work that is happening across CCAC and DIAP. So um if Miss, you know, I'm fine with that. Um if the rest of the committee is fine with Miss Welsh doing a deep dive in terms of what other jurisdictions are doing um to make sure we we get this right uh

102and we can bring this item back at our December meeting um once more research has been done. I'm perfectly fine with that. Um, we've got board member Brown who's back and I know she's a liaison to to disability issues advisory board. So, I want to see if she has any comments or questions. Board member Brown, Vice Chair Levo recommended an additional phase of research to spend more time with this. Um, so, but I do want I know you lost I'm not calling you out. I just want to give you space if you want to. >> No, thank you so much. Um, I really appreciate you taking the time and kind of going over this. I my apologies. I was having some technical difficulties. I was not sure um if it was mentioned because I know

103um Robin Welsh had mentioned earlier in the call. She wasn't kind of sure about policy and and what that entails. All the recommendations were sent to the superintendent and his team. And so they'll be taking a a bit of a deeper dive into the policy and what can actually be done. Um, as we've all stated before in prior meetings, we want to make sure that we don't do any overlapping when it comes to CCAC. We want to always just be um uh fill in the gap. I think that's the best way to to say that. Um, and of course, we're all on the same team wanting to make sure that all of our students, whether they have disability, go through special education, um, that they are being treated with equity. And so, um, it's really

104important for us to go through this. I do also want to call out um something that um DAB did mention before is that they wanted to change possibly change the name. Um and so I was thinking about possibly um going to legal to see if that's something that we needed to do or go through. Um I wasn't sure maybe Robin can give some more context. Um but yeah, I wanted to make sure all of our eyes were dotted and all of our tees were crossed. So, I hope I didn't repeat anything that anyone said, but I did want to make sure that I um gave that information. Thank you. >> Um as as far as the name, you the name can absolutely be changed. I don't see that even being a legal issue unless um

105Arthur's on the phone, he has a thought on it, but I don't I don't think there is an an issue. I would say and you you all have expressed it uh already is the biggest issue is what is the role of CCAC and what is the role of DIAB you know and is it duplicative so >> yeah I so miss Welsh what might be helpful is when you do your research and you come back in December maybe Trenel um can come and lay out for us what CCAC is doing and responsible for um in dia I am and talk about you know kind of where we are with this. It may be good for Trenel Bowman and team to come as part of that so that the committee can have a full picture of what's

106happening and maybe also at that time if uh board member Brown is okay and and vice chair Levo we can kind of get an update on where the district might be with the other recommendations that were sent to us that are really belong to the administration. It might be two opportunities to get that done if y'all are okay with that. I'm happy with it. >> Yeah, for sure. Thank you. All right, Vice Chair Briggs, are you okay with this? You haven't chimed in. I want to make sure you're good. I'm not calling you out. I just want to make sure you're good. >> Miss Welsh. >> And I do know that the administration had put together some responses to to DAB's comments and basically everything under the policy of course they they said it's outside

107of the superintendent's uh uh scope only because policy goes for the goes with the board. But then all the other areas where they gave comments that is where I think that they the administration will be providing feedback. >> Okay, perfect. So I don't think we need to do anything with this tonight. Uh or do we want to just advance it just for revision approval? Just send it back to you all just to keep revising. >> Just you mean discuss keep it in discussion for right this moment? >> Okay. >> I mean is that what I'm asking? Is that what you're saying? No, I don't I don't know if we have any more discussion around it. So, I can just, you know, just move this to revision approval and you just bring it back. It's not

108being advanced to public comment or anything like that. But it but my question is so because there's we haven't uh made any final decisions as far as what this will look like. I'm thinking that it probably because normally in this next step I would be sending this over to the superintendent and to the um and to the um legal counsel for review but we haven't made any real changes yet because you want to first see all the research. >> So we should postpone a table. >> Yeah. Okay. Can I get a motion from a committee member to >> um Dr. Moss, I move that we uh postpone discussion of um at policy number 1700. >> Um Vice Chair Levo made a motion that we postpone discussion around policy 1700. Um u miss we don't need

109a second small body. Um Miss Johnson could you please call the color roll. >> Dr. Moss >> I. >> Mao >> I >> Mr. Briggs >> I >> Miss Brown >> I >> There are four aes. >> Awesome. Um, board policy 1700, disability issues advisory board will be postponed until the next policy and governance meeting uh for further consideration. All right, item we got just two more things and we're out of here tonight. Uh, policies for second consideration to advance for public comment. We have three of them tonight. Policy 0104, policy 8103, policy 8265. The question is, shall the committee release the policies under agenda items 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 for public comment? Is there any discussion? Um, I do got one question that I should have asked, Miss Welsh. On 8103, we probably should

110leave it alone until the state board finishes its work, right? Although they've issued the first step. The only thing I did put in, so we had we had um in 8103 when we met at the last time, we had um did make a couple language changes as it relates to um uh let me see if I can find it here. Um >> yeah, I saw your change. I just wanted to make sure we don't need to do anything while the state is pending its work. So, the only thing I did I did um uh change is that um I did put in that there would be a requirement to make sure that there's still always a quorum in person because that's that is what's sitting in the regulations. But other than that, you can still

111and and we did talk about that making sure we had language around um what is a um uh unforeseen circumstance and I did put in the definition because there was a concern about it being too restrictive and then too broad. So it was sort of like trying to find the middle ground. And so I added language and unexpected and un and and and unanticipated events that are often outside a person's control and can alter plans or commitments. >> Okay. Well, I appreciate you. Thank you. The question is, shall the committee release the policies under agenda items 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 for public comment? Miss Johnson, will you please take the role? >> Dr. Moss. I >> miss >> I >> Mr. Briggs. >> I >> There are four in the affirmative policies under agenda items

1128.1, 8.2, and 8.3 will be released for public comment. Uh board members, um there are a number of policies under consideration for first reader to the board. Um the policies under agenda items 9.1 through 9.10 were submitted for public comments. No public comments were received on these items. Um there is one on 9.1 though um that a board member reached out to me on that we need clarification on just to protect board members and um attorney horn could you clarify under when you get ch I think the board will need this before Thursday though um under 9.1 employee use of social media and personal electronic devices. We need clarity on if board of education members should be following back and connecting on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook X with students, including smob and students in leadership positions.

113So, uh this this is restricted, but our smob actually will follow some of us on social media and we follow them back. So, we need to get clarification whether or not that's illegal or not because this board policy, this board policy right now precludes us from being able to do that. Um, and so we just I want to make sure no board members get in any trouble. So, we need an opinion around um this policy and actually um board member Boozer Shredder brought it to my attention and so I wanted to make sure I brought it into the call. So, I I don't know what your read is on this, but we do need an opinion about it at some point. It doesn't preclude this policy from moving forward, but if you could get the

114um committee and board um an opinion around given that it's a the student member of the board, if if there could be any connection on social on social media and if your ruling is that it shouldn't be, I'd like to make sure our board members are unfollowing uh our student board member. Understood. Understood. >> All right. Uh, colleagues, y'all got any questions around that or comments? I'm just trying to protect us all. Thanks to board member Boozer. She's looking ahead. All right. The policies under agenda items 9.1 through 9.10 were submitted for public comment. No public comments were received. The question is, shall the committee recommend the policies under agenda items 9.1 through 9.10 to the full board for enactment? There's no discussion. Miss Johnson, will you please take the role? >> Dr. Moss, >>

115I. >> Miss Oliva, >> I. >> Mr. Briggs, >> I. >> Miss Brown, >> I. >> There are four in the affirmative. The policies under agenda items 9.1 through 9.10 will be recommended to the full board for consideration enactment. The chair informs the public that the next virtual policy and governance committee meeting will be December 16th, 2025. Please continue to check the Prince George's County Board of Education website for meeting information updates. Thank you all for great discussions and attendance. To our viewers, thank you for watching. There being no further business, the time is now 6:42, the November 11, 2025 policy and governance committee meeting is adjourned. Thank y'all. Miss Welsh, do you have a sec? Miss Welsh, do you have a second advice? >> Do you have a second?