Board of Education Parent Community Advisory Council Meeting April 2, 2025

001Good evening everyone. I am Teresa Smith. I call the April 2nd, 2025 parent and community advisory council meeting to order. Miss Wilson, can you please take the role? Yes. Rebecca Brown, present. Shereice Holden, Reverend Dr. Eveina Huggin, Carletta Lundy, present. Thank you. Masher Deran present. Latansza Wilson present. Halen E. Looo Coreas. Christopher Smith. Aimbra Lawrence present. Teresa C. Smith present. Dolores Milhouse present. Elsa Hinton present. Shade Davis present. Dr. Sheila Jackson, present and Robin Welsh. Present. We have 11 present. All right. Do we have a quorum? Yes, we do. Excellent. All right, guys. So, today is World Autism Awareness Day. Every year on the 2nd of April, there is increased awareness about autism in adults and especially children. So, I took the time to look up the prevalence rate for autism. And according to the

002CDC, approximately 1 in 36 children in the US are diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder. and the PGCPS Family Support Center in conjunction with the organization Pathfinders for Autism hosted their third annual autism summit this past weekend. A wealth of information was shared with families. So now I just want to welcome you all to our meeting this evening. Item 1.4 adoption of the March 5th, 2025 meeting agenda. I hope you all had an opportunity to review the agenda today. Are there any objections with adopting the March 5th, 2025 meeting agenda? So move that we accept the agenda as provided. Is there a second? Second it, Miss Lundy. The March 5th, 2025 PCA meeting agenda is adopted. Item 1.5, approval of the March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes. The March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes were posted to

003board docs. Are there any corrections to the minutes as posted? If there are no corrections, the minutes are approved. The next order of business is the report of the chair. Tonight we will have a guest, Mr. Nick Greer, who is the parent representative for the Maryland I'm sorry the parent representative for the Maryland State Department of Education. We will hear more from him during discussion item 2.3, which is the power of presence parent voice in education. The next agenda I mean the next discussion item that I have is related to um information that we received from the board of education. I need to hold just one second guys. I'm sorry. I apologize guys. All right. So um the board of education chair shared that PCAT can present at the April board meeting and I know

004that I had mentioned to you all that we will be pre preparing a report for the board of education but I wanted to bring this to you all's attention and get your thoughts about presenting to the board of education. That will be the fourth Thursday of this month. And then as an aside, we are actually still waiting on feedback about meeting quarterly in accordance with board policy 1500. Um so at the end of my report, you guys can kind of think on this, but um I would like to hear you all's thoughts about presenting um at the board of education meeting for the April meeting. Then we have an invite from community schools to attend the annual symposium. This is being held on April 10th, 2025. The symposium is to collaborate about strategies to enhance

005student success and strengthening schools. If there is a member here that would like to attend, please let me know. I actually did not list the time, but I believe the symposium starts at 10:00 a.m. on the 10th. And then um as mentioned in I'm sorry, Madame President, Madam Chair, I'm sorry. Is that meeting virtual or is it going to be in person? I will have to find that information out. It didn't I don't recall the um the invitation specifying. I will say that they're usually in person and they're usually at the um Junior Achievement Finance Park, but I'll be looking for that as well to share. Awesome. Thank you. And then just one more item to conclude my report. Um, as mentioned in a prior meeting, some terms will be expiring soon. The administration as

006well as the board of education are in the process of opening the application process. This concludes my report. Are there any other questions? Yes, I want to um share that it is in person. Um, the email states that it's at 8 a.m. hosted at JA Finance Park. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for looking that up for us. Board member Walker. Hey there everyone. Um, thank you so much uh for acknowledging me. I recognize I'm not a regular part of you guys meeting. I am the board liaison for those who are um going to be uh watching the replay. I did want to address a couple of things that you mentioned inside of your report. So, I'm glad I'm here tonight. The first is um we do want to

007be in alignment from the board of education perspective for the quarterly meetings and we're working to to get there. So, I do recognize that we did get input from the chair um to have an 8minute um review in April and I am very excited for you all to have the opportunity to do that but I see that as an and so I will be sending an email. I don't see that in lie of the in-person meeting um for advisement to the superintendent and to the board of education per policy. So, I'm going to be responding to that tonight. But I also just wanted to I know Mia's on the call today and um Mia for that one. I'm excited that they get to come and do the eight minute presentation which I think that they're

008going to prepare themselves for in April, but that's not in lie of um the policy that we need to make sure we have adisement for. So, I'll shoot that email and put you on copy. That's that piece there. the secondary piece um for the positions that's opening up. I did have an opportunity to touch base with Quincy Boyd who's the chief of staff and is the uh superintendent liaison and um she is working on that process. I I thought it was going to come out already. So I will follow up with her actually while we're on this call and determine what the next steps for that are. So I hope to have something for you before the end of the call. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So, for our ECAC representatives here, do

009you guys have any thoughts about presenting to the board of education this month? Vice Chair Milhouse, what what are we presenting? What what exactly will we be presenting? I mean because the the last time when we presented um it was based on the recommendations that we came up with and unfortunately um the board had not met with us during the first term. Um so the past two years we haven't met with the board yet. Um, and so I I guess I'm just trying to figure out what are we presenting and um, spring break is literally right around the corner. So it it's not um, realistically it's not a realistic timeline. Um, it it just I just want to know what are we presenting? I can give you my perspective on it. I think that when

010the response came it was the thought that it was going to be in lie of and since we know it's not in lie of I think that this eight minutes is an amazing opportunity quite this is Lolita's personal opinion and you all can decide as a group um is that we have a new board I think it's an amazing opportunity to say hey guess what we haven't had um the uh the best linkage for the last two years but we are excited and looking forward to we have a new liaison from the board we have new board members we want to uh help you all imagine what not even imagine we want to help you all understand what the role of Pac is uh what our commitments are what your commitments are to meet with

011us quarterly here are some of the key highlights that we gave last time we'll make sure you all get another copy of this and by the way we're going to have another one that's being issued X Y and Z and I think it's a good opportunity for you to highlight what the expectations are of our support for you all and then how you all will engage with us And um everybody will have that amazing opportunity to hear it. And and thank you for sharing that. Um you know, again, it still takes me back to what what are we presenting like board policy um you know, I mean outlines that, but to the members, I just I I'm really my concern is is that we we won't have the time to prepare to present. Um and

012it it just you know in in lie of the meeting to sit down and establish what we are providing advice insight on it's not happening. Um and it it really is just a place that I my perspective is that we are we are again begging and pleading with a governing body who speaks very loudly about um engaging with um and bringing family voices in and bringing community um voices in. Um but Chair Smith, um I I just I I need to understand what we be working on to gather to present. What would we be voting on as a body to present and if it's um one of the things that I think would be important if we presenting anything is recommendations to them and then we can take the time to come up with recommendations

013as it relates to where we are, what is happening. But it really it clearly states that we are here to advise the board and the superintendent. Um and if we can't even get a meeting um if it it's it's just not clear on why it's taking year after year after year why we have to put this much work in to to meet with the board. Um but what you know and and I hear you board member Walker about us um it's amazing opportunity um for us to share with board members but I I I guess I also want to state that we are all adults working adults um it's a board committee so to present to the board committee what we are here for um it it kind of it just something it's not in

014alignment for me. And so I would definitely want to open this time up for other members to speak. Um, and of course we would have to vote on this as a committee. Um, but but knowing that the chair and the vice chair are going to be the ones and the recording secretary to pull this presentation together in the next couple of weeks. Um, and I know I'll be gone for spring break. So, if I could just one just a couple minutes, would you mind um Chair Smith for you guys consideration and then I'm going to turn off my camera and butt out. Do you mind holding that just for Walker so I could hear Miss Wilson and then share my commentary in case it um changes or influences what you're about to say? Uh Miss

015Wilson. Yes. Thank you so much. Um, kind of listening to uh um both uh Vice Chair Milhouse and uh board member uh Walker. Um, one of the things I was thinking that uh we probably um from our end it would be most advantageous for us to be able to again reaffirm um the policy and what our purpose is because I feel like when I think about these meetings um the good thing about uh uh Vice Chair Milhouse that she's kind of that voice in the back of my head that's always like our job is to advise and I think that um what we probably should be presenting to them or at least my recommendation is that we probably want to let them know the scope of our job is to do that. Um it's not,

016you know, we should not be out there trying to hit the streets, trying to do this, trying to do that. That that is, you know, their elected roles and the things that they are supposed to do and very much clearly define what we are supposed to do. and then essentially say, you know, we want to essentially try to start fresh by ensuring that we're grateful that we were able to have this meeting and we want to ensure that if we're going to be doing this on a quarterly basis that they understand that that's what we are going to be doing is presenting them um different recommendations as pertains to uh policies and things of that nature and you know maybe have some that we can essentially note for them that we are going to be

017closely looking at um voting on and maybe have a uh a goal of the next quarterly meeting to present those to them so that they have an idea of you know what will be coming down um down the pipe. So that's what I'm thinking. I'm I just always try to think of what Mil miss uh uh vice chair Milhouse um stresses so that you know when she is no longer here um her voice still lives on in let's stay within the scope of our work. Thank you Miss Lundy. Okay I was trying to come off camera. I don't have my mouse. All right. So, um yeah. So, um coming from the um civic and community um um representative, I know recently um the Prince George County NAACP submitted a foyer request um to the board

018and um we did get some feedback. So, that's one thing that we could look at. I could look at some of those areas and maybe I can pick something out um to share with the chair and vice chair and the secretary also um might want to talk about it' be a great time for introductions. I haven't had an opportunity to meet the newly appointed um district 4 representative which is the district that I'm in. Right. I think we do have you shaking your head. Walker hasn't been appointed yet. Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. Not officially. Okay. Fabulous. Well, um, so that's all I can say from the civic point of view. Um, since my role is working with the PG counties, um, NAACP and also working with working with the board of elections, I might could

019have something on the agenda if if the chair and vice chair is interested, some things we could, you know, make some recommendations and to the board about how we can do some collaborations or what have you. And then it'll be a great introduction as I said for um the new board members who are on board with the school board that are part of the school board. All right, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lundy. Um any other member have any commentary? Seeing no hands. So where from my perspective I believe that the best use of our time would be to present information about recommendations. I don't see the benefit to regurgitate what's in policy 1500 as a standalone um in preparation for the meeting material. I believe that that information could be

020in there, included in there, but I think the best use of our time should be to focus on recommendations. The other piece to this is that I don't think, and Miss Milhouse already alluded to this about the schedule. I don't think that there is enough time between now and the fourth Thursday of this month and it actually will have to be way before then to prepare any materials. We not we have not had an opportunity as a council to even discuss what this report would look like and what would yield as a recommendation. Um we ju last it was last month or actually I think it was in February um I had just shared the previous report that this council had done. The other piece to that and Miss Milhouse please correct me if I'm

021wrong. We have yet to even get feedback from that initial report. And I like to work in excellence. So I don't want to half step with the 8 minutes that's being provided to this council. So Miss Walker, I totally hear you that it's a great opportunity. We want to take advantage of that, but I just don't think this might be the time. Maybe we could have a discussion on what may be another appropriate time to do the presentation. So I'll yield and you can have the floor now. Oh, thank you so much. So first, let me just say this. I've been here for two years and I know the frustration. I've been in the midst of it as well. I've served as the vice chair. I've served as the chair for six months. And so

022to see the growth and the frustrations of PAC um the the pushes that you all have had with the board and the numerous leaders. There's been three leaders since at least I've been actually four um leaders. Well, myself, Judy Mckens, Mmurray, Brandon, and um Dr. Miller was leaving at the time when I came in. So, you all have had four leaders. Um, and I know that that has been a strain on you all just trying to implement and advise at the same time. So, I hear the frustration and I recognize the frustration. And I think one of the reasons that I'm the board liaison is because I was talking about PEAC so much and trying to ensure that this advisory committee was able to do just that. Having said all of that, I recognize that

023this committee hasn't been um uh I want to say afforded the appropriate um opportunities by way of what policy 1500 says that we should be doing as a board. In lie of that, what we're aiming to do is make sure we can get inside of that quarterly drum beat. So when the announcement came that hey you all can come to this meeting I think there was a misunderstanding that that happens to be compliant to 1500 and it's not. So the work I have is to go back and what Mia has now understanding is that what 1500 actually says is that there needs to be a meeting with the board of education with Pac and with the superintendent so that we can be advised period. So that's the group that's in the room and it's not

024a presentation to the board that the superintendent happens to be sitting in. So that's why I'm saying this is an and not in lie of. So I don't want people to think of this as this is the quarterly meeting that we're trying to drum down in eight minutes. With that I recognize that the timeline to get us to the end of April when this meeting is is too tight even for just eight minutes. So it doesn't have to be this month. we can go back and say, you know what, thank you for the opportunity to present. We think there might have been a gap in between this actually being that, but now I'm going to take it off and I know that they're separated. So with that, there is no push to present this month.

025Maybe it's next month you come and you do your eight minutes or the month after that you tell us what the right one is. But I do think that if that opportunity is granted and we can say yes we want this this is the month then it does behoove us in my estimation you all not behoove me but but us collectively with me as the board liaison to say hey we've gone through four chairs various vice chairs we have a brand new liaison we've gone through X we feel like we're inside of a steady place at this point and so now we're reggrounding this new board who's here for a moment we want to set expectations and also tell you all what this um what our plans are. Here's our timeline. Here's what we gave

026you all. We haven't heard input, but guess what? You all are here now and we're holding you accountable to do that. And as a matter of fact, here's our quarterly drum beat that we would like that we that we've aligned and that this is what we'd like to see. And I think that's the opportunity to do that. So, that's the only piece I'll say. And I'm here to support whatever it is that uh decision you all make. It's not to push you to do anything that doesn't make sense. It's for me to be here to support you and help to move any barriers that happen to be inside of the way. Thank you. And fair enough. Um, is there any additional commentary on this item? Hearing none. So, um, vice I'm sorry, Representative Walker, we

027will follow up with you. um and as well as Miss Barton and then we'll we'll figure out Okay. Thank you. Great. Um All right. So, let me get to my next item. All right. So, 1.7 report of the superintendent design. Um, I re realize that this is actually a lastm minute request, but because we do have this full agenda this evening, I would like to ask Dr. Jackson and Miss Welsh, Miss Welsh, if you could limit your reports to be between 7 to 10 minutes. So, the chair recognizes Dr. Jackson. I am delighted that you've asked me to shorten my report because again I'm in Atlanta right now and I did have a shorter report. So let me just be very quick. Um I want to thank everyone uh for your participation in large community

028events. Your presence makes a difference. So um you know you're you attended our partnership breakfast that we held early in March. um the autism summit. I know I saw chair uh Teresa Smith there. Um we actually um had uh superintendent community forum last night at Fairmont Heights High School. Um the family institute sessions district 7 um session. So thank you all for all of your presence in the community. It makes a tremendous difference. Uh I also just wanted to say uh thank you again. Um last time last meeting Mr. Morales was with me and we presented and since then we've been meeting because we have been talking about how does the division of communications really update and make its presence more relevant and more meaningful for parents. So there is work going on to address

029the concerns that were asked uh that were given to us about the website about our communication portals. Um so um he wanted to let the team this team know that uh in our meeting when we come back in May we plan to have a robust plan of all the changes a report of all the changes that uh he has instituted to make sure that comms is more responsive to our families. Um, and then the other thing that I I will just say the last thing that I'm impressed that he has pushed me and my team a great deal about is making sure that we are more boots on the ground ourselves. Uh, so you will see more of us out in schools where there are problems. Uh, for instance, last night we had a big

030group uh from Elena Choa at the community forum that had some tremendous community uh, concerns. our team met with them while they were there to strategize with them to help them begin to address some of those concerns. And we want to make sure we're doing that even more often with any school that's having engagement concerns or whatever the concerns may be. Um so they don't have to worry about the going up the chain of com command. Uh but when they raise a concern, you have people who are ready to go into action to support them. So that is all my report for tonight and I look forward to Miss Morales being with us in the future. Thank you Dr. Jackson and great way to consolidate all of that good information. So thank you. Are there

031any questions for Dr. Jackson? All right, the chair recognizes Miss Welsh. Good evening everyone. I first want to let you know that right now we don't have any policies out for public comment. Um but the two policies that will be coming up on the April 9th uh policy and governance committee meeting will be the policy on purchasing and the policy on debt management just to let you know. And of course you're always welcome to come to that those meetings as well as provide public comment in the beginning of the meeting. So uh and we do welcome the committee does welcome any comments that we receive from the community because we take them very seriously in the policy development. I also wanted to share that the legislative session is about to come to the an end.

032It'll be ending on um Monday night uh the 7th and so um there's been a lot of different bills that have been moving through the process. I will tell you that as soon as we have a handle on which bills did make it through, the first thing we intend to do is try to uh do a calculation of what how many unfunded ma mandates were in those bills and what that cost might be for the school system. the big bill that is out there and um um is right now sort of between the House and the Senate and is really um concerning for everyone is the um um education excellence act and that contains a lot of the blueprint funding and what that means and I I'm not um since you you've given us a

033time limit I won't go through all the details in that bill but I will point out one piece of the of the Senate bill which is very concerning and and um I will say the board of education they have provided written testimony twice um related to um advocating for full funding both for the um per per pupil foundation amounts also for the collaborative time uh money that was supposed to be eventually um calculated into the foundation funding as well as community school funding. Um and also the superintendent did write a letter of testimony when the house bill had had come out and they were slashing all this. Right now though the house the house has rep put the money back in for the per per pupil funding um and they have delayed implementation by one

034year of the collaborative time uh which is money attached to that too. So that was a big improvement. However, the Senate at this point has not made much movement at all in that funding. And um currently uh we looked within a 4-year period, what they're doing is decreasing the amount by pausing and moving any increases back by four years. So what we would start to see in FY26, we wouldn't actually see any of that until FY29. So that is a pretty significant and and it's all decreased. So, what we're looking at is um a decrease of if the Senate bill were to pass of 100 over a four-year time period just for the state funding alone would be $126,56,426 and then um which would be $12,79,993 per year or starting with FY26. But because that

035foundation fund that uh blueprint funding also feeds into the county funding which then eventually comes to us, the county would also be losing um uh funding. Um and so therefore we our component of it that we received, we would then lose that. And so the total cost for us would be 214,97,000 and 61 um million dollar altogether. 214,97,61 alto together. Additionally, the governor's bill has proposed to shift the retirement uh from uh state over to local uh for for employees, the teacher retirement system. So that would be then uh an in a a cost to the school system of 12,69,000 well to the county really 12,69,60. So these are pretty significant um cost uh costs for the school system and decreases in funding as well as um there has been um uh we have received

036reports in terms of federal funding actually um impacting some of our programs not just Prince George's but many of the school systems across the state and the large systems like ours we depend uh significantly on a lot of that federal funding to implement certain programs And so a system like ours will definitely be hit pretty strongly. Um so those are very concerning concerning things to deal with because you know you really do need money to educate our students. So um but it's I'm just really sharing you this with you from an information standpoint. Um um because right now at this moment, you know, mo most things are done with the leg state legislation. And as far as the federal um funding, I think we're still trying to acquire more information, understand better how we can

037possibly uh attack that. And then the other piece of information that I did want to share because if you if you might have already have read it and um like Maryland matters but I think it's important to share it since you are the parent advisory committee is that so every year every 70 years like usually five to six years this the the office of legislative audits auditors come in and do a legislative audit of all the operations of the school system and it's it's an important audit because they look at wide variety of things from an operational standpoint. They're not looking at instruction, but just the operation piece. And so, uh, we did receive those findings. They went public on Friday, and so they are out there, and you'll probably pick it here, read, be

038able to read it in certain press, um, releases. Um, and I I just would like to bring it to your attention because we did have, I think, a total of 14 findings, of which 11 were repeat findings. Um and the um and the time period, so just so you know, the audit ran from 2017 to 2023. So it is um they they're delayed even they do it five to six every five to six years and then it's delayed by a couple years as they go back. So some of the things that they did find have already been corrected prior to them even coming to us. We just that they were things we knew about and we were trying to to correct. however, didn't get picked up in the findings because they of the time period

039they were looking at. Um and if you read things in terms of like payroll and and ensuring that there's accurate amounts in the data that has already been uh re taken care of in terms of um setting up systems to ensure that the correct information is provided you from an IT perspective you can't actually put that many figures into a for a payroll for pay for someone and that there's monitoring going on and of course Mr. House had um uh contracted out to have transportation services audited and that audit he has taken the information from that and so many of the things that the OA audit picked up they has already been addressed through the transportation audit where they did have been working um on many of the of the concerns related to transportation. However,

040there's still many other findings that have to be um addressed and the superintendent is uh really working he'll be working with each division to make sure they have targeted action plans and that um there's more enhanced oversight um with in strength and internal controls and accountability measures and also um increased training and compliance monitoring and then regular progress moni uh reporting. our office will be responsible for putting on the website every quarter the progress on the corrective action plans for each of the findings as well as making sure that the board of education is prov is provided all that information. So um I just wanted to bring it to your attention because um it is something that we just received information um about and we will be working hard um it was not during the

041time period that Mr. House was here. So he he you know he does welcome this challenge and he's going to move forward and do what needs to be done so that we can get all these things corrected. So that's it. I think I didn't go over my time period. Thank you, Miss Welsh. Are there any questions? All right, hearing none. Thank Oh, wait. Yes, there are. Not a question. Just a a quick comment. Um or maybe it is a question. Um Miss Welsh, you know, it it would be great and and thank you for sharing all of that information and um as well as the information about the audit. Um what would definitely be helpful is um to know I know everything just hit with the federal government um advising MSDE last Friday about the

042reduction of funds or the holding back of funds I should say um about 360 350 million and so I definitely um I'm hoping that our um board and um school leadership are looking at how they will communicate um the impact to the community as soon as possible because I see it talks about um special education, it talks about tutoring programs and um in in reading the article and reading the information and reading the letter from Dr. Right. It does appear that this is for the current FY period that we are in and and which will definitely also then have an impact on the next FY period, right? So, I am hoping um that I know this information just came out, but you know, the school year is about to end, right? And so whatever information

043that they can provide to kind of ease um and get in front of the story because we we are getting the information from the external you know um the media and everyone else prior to getting it from the schoolhouse and but what we're not getting is the impact or the potential impact. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Miss Walker. Yes. Um, I just was going to add in, um, thank you, Miss Welsh. I just was going to add in that as you read this, um, lengthy, it's a 76 page document for the audit, one of the things I was going to say is if you start from the back, then you can really see what the responses were for each of the findings that's there from each of the individual chiefs. So, I know

044that some people that started reading it hadn't quite gotten to the end. And I just wanted to share with you guys that the responses to each of those by the chiefs are um in the back of the um audit. And that's actually a very good point because I did get a question today saying why why would you agree to this? And I said, "Did you not read our responses?" And they said, "Where are the responses?" So that that's a good point for me. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that, Miss Lundy. Yes. And we don't have a chat, so I couldn't say I was stepping away. So yeah, um with respect to communicating to the public, um whatever would be communicated through the communications um department or division or what have you, that would be on

045the main page or so because I definitely would like to have access to that immediately or as soon as it's available so that I can do what I need to do as far as sharing and you know just what have you. Is that a is that um amanable Chair board member Walker. Oh, that you want to have access to um Yes. I think what I'm hearing you say is that when the superintendent gives us the information for um the the continuation of the progress that you want to have access to that or are you talking about the audit document itself? Oh no, the the the first thing you said and where would it be posted? Yes. So, right. So, let me take both. The first is this audit report. Do you all have the audit

046report? If not, I can make sure I send that over to you all. Do you all have that? Chair Smith, I'll send it to you. Okay. I'll send you the audit report where you two can see in the back of the audit report each of the chair each of the um chief's feedback to those findings. So, I'll send that to you in a moment. Okay. So, that you can send it to everyone else. Um the secondary part is that the superintendent and team are working on some um public facing information that they will put on the website and they'll give us the link. As soon as I have the link, I'll make sure that I send it to you. Okay. Also to add to that, we will be um put um putting a chart up

047with each of the findings, the corrective actions that are going to be done and then progress on completion of those. and it'll be a quarterly update and I can also give you the link to that so that you can see pro see the progress that the school system is making as they go through and address each of the findings. Thank you. Um board member Walker, do you mind just sharing that with Mia and she'll send it out to the PAC U members? Oh, okay. Absolutely. Court me right in time. Miss Barton, you already have it, but I could forward it to you as well. You don't either. All right. Coming to you. No, no. I just sent you a text asking you to send it to me. Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, I'm just doing

048a time check. I don't see our guest speaker here just yet, so we'll continue right along with the agenda. Um, I would like to recognize Vice Chair Milhouse. Can you please provide a status update from the bylaws committee? Yes. Um thank you um Chair Smith. We met we meaning um Miss Akimbra Lawrence um Miss um um Lundy our civic engagement Miss Lawrence our district 5 representative um and Chris Smith is on the committee and Rebecca I I thought you were on the committee I'm not sure if I sent it to you in era you are now an honorary member of the bylaws committee But we met March we met March 27th and we had a very robust conversation and um what we did was we worked through all four to five pages of the bylaws

049to make sure that they align with the most recent updated um policy 1500. Um some of the recommen recommendations that we will be sending forward to you all um include um making sure there was a component in there that talked about um that I was you know like surprised with that I overlooked that about us being on camera and that's why I mentioned that tonight about when we're voting we're taking vote that individuals have to be on camera in the meeting. Um one of the things that we did also suggest is that this is um a meeting of professionals. We're here to advise the board and superintendent. So um it is important that we are present and we are um cameras on ready to engage and discuss what is happening um during the meeting and

050sharing information that we may have gotten out of the um meeting with the superintendent or board members. Um we also um discuss things such as um confidentiality you know what um has not been explicitly shared with us um about when we are meeting or you know have an advisory meeting with um any of the the the teams that it's not always we're not in a position to go out and share that information with the community, right? Um because it is not yet maybe been shared with the board. um it is still, you know, in its draft phases. And so when they're meeting with us and getting our input, um that is not for us to go out and then share what we're they're talking about, provide any information, um because we are in a position

051of advising. Not until they provide us explicit, you know, information and say, "Hey, you know, if you can share this, you know, make sure you're working with your board member to get this um information out." So we did a pretty thorough job in going through you know each article um identifying um uh any things that you know may not like one part said there should be other positions associated with PCA. We had no idea what that meant. So you know we we went to strike that um and so we will be having another meeting. I will share with the the group. Um I just compiled all the edits and once we have reviewed the edits we will send it forward to the entire council so the council can then review discuss and then we can

052vote on as um council the final bylaws which will move forward to the board. So the timeline is um I'm asking everyone I just sent them the revisions today asking them to provide any feedback to see if it's you know good to go making sure that I didn't miss anything so we can move forward to you all um prior to spring break and then um we can come back and then I in our May meeting be in a position to discuss um so we can vote on the recommendations for the bylaw changes. So, Miss Lawrence, Miss Lundy, did I miss anything? Would you like to add anything? I think you covered it all. Thank you, Vice Chair. All right. And that is the conclusion. Thank you. And thank you both um for really challenging me

053to improve my administrative skill set that night. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, bylaws committee. Does the council have any questions, Miss Milhouse? I don't know if I missed it, but what's the um turnaround time once the council receives the drafted document? How long do we have to review it and provide our comments? So, we need to be ready by our next meeting in May. Okay. So, just by the next meeting. I didn't know if you guys needed time to digest the comments. No, because what will happen is once we move forward with um you know and I'll have it set up where people can provide recommendations right and send it in and then we will bring that forward to the committee the whole council as to say as a whole um and

054then discuss based on each section of the bylaws. So, you know, I will have it written up where you know if you're making a suggestion um that you need to make it and write it based on each section so that way we know where it's going, where you're suggesting that it goes. And I'm going to send the document so you can see the track changes. Um and so we are asking that people take the time to review it. Um when we come back for our May meeting, be ready for discussion and um then we can move forward for voting. We we will not use the May meeting as a first time for people to look at it and then um want to go through it page by page, article by article and reading it um

055because we don't have the time frame to do that. Absolutely. Okay, great. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Yes. Just quick question is um as we are reviewing uh once we receive them and as we are reviewing if we have any questions like clarifying questions or anything of that nature um uh vice chill how should we direct those to to you? Yes. And I will have it written up um in a way that's like really clear on what you need to do during the review process. Okay. And um again, I will not be here the week of spring break. And that's why I'm giving everyone enough time. So if you have questions during spring break, just know I will answer them when I return. We know not to bother you while you're relaxing. It's okay. I will

056not be available. I will not have access. So and it it will go out to the entire committee. Um and so um Miss Lundy as well as Mr. Smith and Miss Lawrence will have access to um you know the document for any you know questions. Um but everyone else will go on as on the document as a reviewer um and or commenter but you will not have full added access to the document. The only individuals will be the policy committee and so that way we will be able to see um any comments that are made. Everyone will be able to see the comments that are made and then our response. No, make we won't have the ability to make any changes, just commenting. Gotcha. Yes, because we don't want mess up the formatting or anything

057or have any changes to be made that we can't recover. Understood. I appreciate controls. All right. I don't see any other hands. I did want to take a pause, Miss Barton. I still don't see our our um special guest this evening. So, I just wanted to see if you could just do a check to see if um he may have been placed outside of being a panelist and I'll go off camera real quick to make a call. Sounds good. Okay. So, what I did I sent in the Zoom link earlier like around I believe it was 9 or 10 this morning. I sent it again around 2:30 and again around 5:30 I believe, but then I copied it and sent it directly to his email address to make sure. So, he should have it about

058four or five times. So, I'm not really sure what's going on. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Miss Milhouse, for checking in. Um, the next agenda item is related to parent engagement and Dr. Jackson briefed us slightly during her um report out, but I would like to ask um our member, Miss Lawrence, to share any additional updates that you would like to provide just from the parent perspective, what you all gained from that discussion, not what you guys gained, but just as a representative of Pac um from being a participant in these discussions with associates. Superintendent Morales. Yeah. So, one of the things that I think um I heard or or gathered um I think is that um that they are wanting to um utilize or they heard they hear us. I'll just say that they

059hear us and that they want to uh utilize our talents and um expertise um and look at us as a resource. Um, and not just, um, as Vice Chair Milhouse says, you know, we're more than just parents. Um, we do have we're here to advise. Um, and so what I gathered is that they they do want um to have that relationship with the PCA. Um, and they are willing to be more transparent. Um, personally, I do want to say that I I one of the things I'm working on is that it's going to take some time. Um, I'm a person that wants to see action. Um but I am hearing them say that they are willing to do the work. However, uh we need to you know it's going to take some time for them

060to develop and to um to to to see what we actually you know any outcomes any gains and I know that there are some of us that have been at this for a very long time. Um however um I do I do I did gather that they want to work with us in a different way and they hear us. So that's my feedback. Awesome. And I think that um Dr. Jackson said a really really key thing like moving to be the boots on the ground cuz we could put pretty things and and I'm um maybe that's not a good descriptor. Um we can put things in place from a strategic perspective. Um, but once it gets down to like the schoolhouse level, that's where we can see some of the gaps. So to hear the

061boots on the ground approach, I think that that's really going to benefit the families. So that's my commentary. Miss Milhouse, I know that you were part of the discussions. Is there anything that you would like um to include? Um, I I thought it was a really um um a really good meeting. Um, and and I and I use the term good in a way that I'm always open to have dialogue um, you know, and and really learn to have an understanding of what's happening behind the scene. It is very easy for us to pass judgment on what's not happening because we don't see it. We're not able to experience it. Um, but to have them to come and really talk about what's happening, but also say, you know what, we didn't think about it from

062that perspective, you know, but to also hear, well, wait a minute, you know, we didn't know that all of that was going on under that umbrella, right? Um, and to hear us state that it it's not about, you know, hearing the frustration in the voice. It it it really more so is not about the frustration. It's disappointment, right? It's disappointment that we we really want to partner. We really are here um you know a as you know individuals who are invested and we don't want the label of oh you're just a parent. You know we don't want to be seen as individuals that don't have the knowledge, skill, and ability outside of raising a child. Right? we're all professionals who have careers um who are working who have been in the workforce. And so um

063you know it was just really good to hear the the growth that they are having as well as saying hey be patient with us and we're just like okay you know but you know grace only goes but so long until we started you know just like what what are you doing but it was just very a very open honest conversation um and you know I felt like we got an opportunity to not only advise but we also were given an opportunity to listen because we still were just like okay well we need to see ourselves in the mission we need to see what that looks like in the vision we need to be able to access the website and know where to go like Miss London is saying where do I go to get the

064information so if I can see as a community partner how do I make sure that I am keeping my you know my my my sphere of influence connected to PGCPS then it's it's easier to tell the story about why we need to partner and wrap our arms around it. Um, and it was good for the members that could come. And so I am excited that every time um you know when we get the invitations we know that they're not always you know at times where people may be able to take the lunch break to come and jump on for the hour but because we have to do a lot of things under OMA um being able to have members you know who can come and then report out to you know from their perspective on

065what they heard what they were able to See, um I think it's important um because Teresa, if it's okay, I mean, Chair Smith, if it's okay to speak on this, to bring them into that executive meeting and that way it's not just the executive, you know, executive committee speaking, you know, with the superintendent at that meeting. Um but you're hearing from the other voices, right? And I do believe it is um if there is something that may be burning, you know, for NAACP and say, "Hey, from an advisory standpoint, from the faith-based community, from the union, you know, that we add that to the agenda." Um and then say, "Hey, we bring you on so they can hear it from your voice." Um you know, but we we are really working to make sure that

066it is very inclusive um and everybody's voices are heard. And so that's what I felt at that meeting that it was a very open um honest um transparent dialogue and nobody walked away um feeling attacked, feeling, you know, like it wasn't about a partnership about us, you know, all growing together and really working to be um better partners in education. Thank you, Miss Milhouse. And this was really a good segue because I wanted to thank Mr. Smith and Miss Lawrence for being active participants. Um, some of our leaders, they constantly see Miss Milhouse and myself. So, it was good to get fresh perspectives. Um, and and of course realizing that everybody can't be there. So, I I do believe that um the two of them represented the rest of the voices of PCA um in

067a great way. I just wanted to publicly say thank you for availing yourselves for this opportunity. Um, I I'm looking forward to the growth, the changes. Um, realizing that we can't accomplish everything overnight, but that was our key opportunity um to to see what it is that we can do. And there may be some accountability or we may as as a council may be holding them accountable. Um cuz I saw how um the team captured all of the notes um and trying to make sure that that our voice is not silenced in this process because you know we do want to we want to see things come come to pass from from what we discussed. So, okay. He is coming. He's trying to um There's a little It's a little problem right now. Okay. No

068problem. Are there are there any questions or feedback when it comes to parent engagement from you all? Hearing none. But, um again, we had great dialogue. We had an opportunity to follow up with the superintendent. So, um, more things to come behind all of this. So, Miss Milhouse, you said that he is he is trying to make his way here. Yes. Um, yeah, I just resent the link that um, Miss um, Barton sent. Okay. To another email address that he can access at this time. Okay. Great. Great. Great. you just joined. Awesome. So, this is perfect timing. Oh, good. I'm so sorry. Oh, it's it it is okay. I would like to take the opportunity to do a brief introduction for you. And if you want to add anything, by all means. So, Nick, all

069right. Nick Greer is a member of the education transformation and finance committee with our Maryland State Department of Education. He has over 20 years of experience in Maryland education with a deep passion for equitable systemic reform. He currently consults with education and nonprofit leaders on initiatives related to strategic planning, organizational and talent development. So Nick, we welcome you this evening and you have the floor. We put you right on the spot. Oh my gosh. Well, uh, hello everybody. It's good to hear and see from see you all. Um, I am I I'm profusely apologetic. I don't have access to my board email um when I'm out and about and I had to be at another event tonight um supporting my partner uh Smitha who was an MC at an event this evening. So um but

070I'm I'm trying to do double duty here. I appreciate uh Dolores for reaching out and getting me back in here. Uh thank you. Um I really, you know, I I think the introduction is is wonderful. I think happy to talk about anything you all have questions or interests in, but uh want to talk at least a little bit about a couple of things that impact parents in Maryland given that I'm the parent member on the Maryland State Board of Education. one um is that one of the things that I'm really trying to better understand and would love to hear from you all on is how the relationships feel with teachers and schools and how you feel like you have either a sense of belonging or don't have a sense of belonging in the classroom. Um

071and have a better understanding of what it is that you need to do as a parent in order to play the role of being what I call the first teacher. um because you are we are I'm a parent too. Um and and we have to kind of you know support our young people at home all the time. Um the the second I want to talk a little bit about we made some changes to literacy and how literacy is rolling out in our classrooms. And there's one key aspect of the policy that we adopted in October that I want to make sure everybody here understands. Um and then the third is to just um note that um we had an opportunity to also uh consider some some thoughts about policy in uh um the space around

072mathematics recently at the last meeting in ma in March and um we heard from an author that I want to tell you a story about. So why don't I start there and then we'll talk about uh literacy and then I I want to hear some of your questions about belonging. Um so uh uh we heard from an author named uh Shalini Chararma in she's the CEO and f co-founder of a company called Zern Mathematics um that many of you may know or have heard of or seen your children kind of using at home. Um it's a it's a really excellent tool. We didn't hear from her because of that. We heard from her because of a book that she wrote that is about every young person um and every person really being a math person.

073Um and so the work that we're doing in mathematics right now is uh around adopting a policy that ensures that um all of our young people really see themselves as a math person. Um and so we're focused on that. And the reason I wanted to bring this up first is because she said something that I had never heard before. Um uh she said that she traveled the world to better understand how young people learn math and they have a ton of data and everything in their own program in Zern and understanding how students kind of approach math and how we teach it best. And one of the things that she learned when learning how to help young people recover and begin to see themselves as being math people was that it takes adults in their

074life to say I believe in you. She said that belief is a pedigogy in the rest of the world except in America. And because often we are trying to teach the math the best way that math can be taught. Um we focus on the mathematics and we don't fact focus on the fact that we believe in young people's ability to be really good at math and to love math and to to um to to in the moments when they're struggling the most, which is often when we see them at home when they're like going through their homework and doing their their stuff at home and they're having a hard time with it. it's that we can communicate that we believe that they can do it. Um, and I I our educators need to do that.

075I know that I'll handle that part on our side, but also as parents, I think we need to hear that message often. Belief is a pedigogy. Um, and so I think that's that's important. The second thing on literacy, we could I could share the literacy policy if you all want to read it. We could talk about it in depth to whatever degree you have questions about it. But the one aspect that I want to pull out I think is really really really important and it's very different. It doesn't go into effect for another couple of years. Um but it's really important. So as you know um I'm sure you know this uh we have I think one of the best state leaders in the country in Carrie Wright as a superintendent for the state. She

076led something this termed the Mississippi miracle which took Mississippi from being 49th in the state to 23rd in reading um uh several years ago. Um but she was um uh she grew up in her profession here in Maryland, was a Montgomery County administrator, spent time in lots of different schools in Maryland um throughout the majority of her professional career and then came home to kind of support us in the last year or so. Um, and so one of the things that she brought with her was basically the policy that helped to move Mississippi from 49th to 23rd in reading. And um, we looked at it and a lot of it had to do with like one key aspect of it had to do with when students get to third grade then they get retained if

077they can't meet a metric around reading. Um, or if they and it's not just one single measure. It was always built around multiple different measures. And another part of the policy, which is a part of our policy, was long-term from preK through third grade, long-term plans and support and all of the things that young people need in order to build to to be literate. Um, to have all of that up to that point, it wasn't just get to third grade and if you're not reading, then you get held back. But still, we looked at that policy and we didn't like the kind of what we called automatic retention kind of aspect of a policy. And so what we did was we actually brought parents into the equation in a really really important way and we'll

078see how this plays out in implementation but we looked at it more as not an automatic retention. We looked at it as an informed consent process in the same way that you would need to in have informed consent around research if that was being done medical procedures or even IEPs or anything like that. And so what we did was we sat back and said schools need to be in partnership with parents in order to make a decision about whether or not a child should be held back at third grade based on their reading levels on multiple batteries of assessments. And so what I think is really crucial here is this is not a waiver. It's not like parents can wave their child's right to learn how to read. And it's also that schools are supposed

079to in a couple of years begin supplying parents with what are the risks and the benefits to retention because we know that the research is really mixed on this. And it's also really crucial to know that, you know, students that are held back and given the proper supports can actually recover and begin to um exceed their peers. But we also know a lot of research shows that they lose that ground starting in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Um and then there's the social impact, right? So like young people who are held back in third grade or retained in third grade um struggle a lot to maintain some of the same relationships uh that they had uh social like socio emotionally and everything like that. So we thought it was best that we actually begin to

080partner and have teachers and schools partner with parents in a really like important way to look at how do or what is best for this per this young person um in in this situation and then parents have to make a decision caregivers have to make a decision alongside the teacher who's the professional who's saying in my professional experience I believe that the best recourse of action for this young pe young person is either retention or not retention. Here's the risks and the benefits to that. Um, and that's I think really really important and I want every parent, every caregiver in the state of Maryland to really understand that and to know that that's coming in 27 28 um uh um as far as something that schools have to do and teachers have to do to

081build that relationship with you. Um, which is part of like my overall personal mission to just help parents get back in the classroom in a productive way, which is kind of where I'm heading in the belonging question. Like, how does it feel? Like, how how do you all like I know personally as a parent, I also have an education background. I was a teacher for eight years in Baltimore City. Um, seven years, sorry. One year was in Pittsburgh before I got here. Um, and then, uh, I worked in administration. I worked at the federal government at the United States Department of Education in 2010 and 11. Um I spent time in uh district administration in Baltimore City. Um and you know in a lot of different ways um I've seen education in and out from

082different vantage points. Even I my daughter is 10 years old uh and my bonus children are seven and nine and they all go to the same school. Even I when they come home with needing help with their reading homework or their work like their homework, I'm like I don't I don't know how to help you and and so I have to like kind of forge a relationship with parent or with teachers and I just I don't know how that feels for other parents like do we feel like it's okay to reach out to make that connection point and to do you feel welcome in like classroom and if not what would you need in order to feel that way? Um, and so that's the big question I have here, but also would love to to

083hear any other questions you all might have. And sorry if there's any background noise if it's if it's too hard to hear me. No, we heard you just fine. Just fine. You actually look like one of this. There's a administrator that I follow on social media and you look like him. That's funny. Oh my goodness. So, I really like your question um that you're pinging to us about belonging. So, are there any members that would like to step up first to um answer this question, give some some feedback there? I of course have some, but I want to yield to you all. Miss Wilson. Yes. Uh first, I wanted to thank you so much for coming here and speaking with us tonight. It is very much appreciated. Um and thank you uh chair and vice

084chair for you know ensuring that this happens. Um, I think when it comes to uh well at least the the uh speaking of like belonging and and everything like that, um when it comes to how to engage or how we feel like we belong when it comes to the uh classrooms, um I'm sure all of us have different levels of uh engagement. I I'll say for myself, I know that the elementary school years were very difficult. There were times where um you could be very engaged and and for myself I kind of ensured that I don't know it was almost like I was one of those parents that I was like hi I'm here I'm not going away let's work together how can I help you um if I had questions or concerns you know

085I would go ahead and speak to them speak to all the administrators things of that nature um and where uh I think I only had one time where I had a very difficult relationship ship with uh with one of my um with one of my specific child's uh educators and um essentially had to go to the school to try to address those things. Um, but I think that over the years there's been a number of us parents that uh have worked as a team to essentially try to ensure that the teachers felt supported. they felt uh safe with being able to engage um with us because to me a part of the issue um at least in in our specific situation is many years before a lot of us got to the school there were

086incidents that happened that created I think like a rift in the relationship with parents and teachers and um over the years unfortunately we've had some very traumatic incidents that have brought the school together uh over the trauma And um I think that that has allowed us to try to have more meaningful relationships um in the fact that we have a a principle that is really trying to deal with things such as bullying, things of that nature. And so parents are able to communicate better with a lot of um of the uh excuse me, teachers and parents are able to communicate with each other a lot better. um our school we kind of have like an extra element of culture, language, things of that nature. Um, but I do think that that is there and you

087know for my particular uh area I hope that would be the case for all but I recognize in being here with the PCA that I've definitely heard uh and listened in on parent meetings at our board of education where that is definitely not the case where they are able to um feel heard or when they engage they feel like there is a deaf ear played. But I'll say for myself specifically, I definitely feel like the ears are always open. Thank you, Miss Wilson. And if you could, could you um state the district that you represent? Yes, district two. My apologies. No problem. Um is there any other um representatives that would like to share? Um, please introduce yourself and then um try to be as brief as you can since it's it's a few of

088us on here this evening. Miss Lawrence, I'm sorry. Hi. So, Miss um a Akimbra Lawrence. Sorry, I don't know why I said miss um district five and I think um like Miss Wilson was saying um I'm very involved so I kind of didn't ask permission um new to the to Prince George's County Public Schools. Um had homeschooled beforehand and then my youngest was in kindergarten last year. So last year was our first year and I just, you know, made my way into the classroom. um and have stayed. I just went I was just at the school the other day and uh someone said, you know, oh, we need to get you a desk here. Um that's just my personality where my scholars are involved. I'm going to be in the classroom. Um I've never received

089any type of uh push back. Um you know, there have been a couple of educators that don't need me in the room as much. Um but mostly I found that, you know, I've I've made it very clear I'm here to be a partner. um not just for my child but for all scholars um just because I I just strongly believe that you know they deserve an excellent education and you know if I'm going to do my part I understand that some parents can't be in the classroom as much um so I think for me and my experience it's been I've been welcomed um I'm a partner um I communicate with the teachers probably more than they would like but also the principal the vice principal everyone at the school. Um, so that's my experience. Thank

090you. Yeah, thank you. Are there others, Miss Milhouse? Yeah, I I'll just share um the the question was, do you feel welcome in the classroom? Um, I'm not sure how to really answer that. Um, I I think it's also am I is the classroom accessible to me? I that may be another way to right. Um, you know, because you you there is a policy in place of course if you want to monitor what's happening or just to to view what your child is doing. Um there is a policy in place that governs how that is done. Um but for me it really is more so being having access to what my child is working on in the classroom. Right. And and and that's very different than being welcome into the classroom. Um so for me

091the struggle is knowing what is happening dayto day. um with my child so I can be of help so I I can be that primary parent at home. And so um based on the question that you asked, I think one of the opportunities is where do we work to build an understanding of the parents responsibility, you know, for the extension of learning at home and how does that look like and support in the classroom, right? because there are times that the parent can, you know, seem very overbearing and pushy and it's really just saying, "Hey, I haven't been able to get in and nobody's listening to me and I don't want to be overbearing. Um, I just want to know how to help my child." So, um, I I will leave it on that. And

092so, it's not a yes, I feel welcome or no, I don't. It really is about access to the information and what is happening. And then when I do finally get it, I'm like, now I'm I'm supposed to teach it which way? because I didn't learn it that way. If that makes sense. That makes so much sense. And I think one of the things that you're pointing out is just the idea that if you don't know, it actually still cuts you out from the classroom, not physically, but like as a way of like being able to connect with your child at home and be able to support them, right, when they need when they need that help. We didn't learn math the way they were teaching it. We didn't learn reading the way that it's being

093taught. Like so we don't have the kind of name nature like that's how I feel too. Yeah. Thank you. And Miss Mailhouse, can you remind us what district you represent? Oh, look at that. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Nick. I took advantage of the fact that you already know me. So, I am here representing District 7. Um, so sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Deran. Hi. Uh, good evening everyone. My name is Michan. Um, I am I feel like I'm in a whirlwind with math right now at my school and um, thankfully I have been able to get uh, appointments with the teacher and with the vice principal, but it's still I feel like I am piecing the story together on how to get where we need to be. um math benchmark um trying

094to figure out what's on the test. Nobody will tell us what's on the test because, you know, you don't want to teach to the test, but I don't know how to help my scholar if I can't figure that out, right? So, um they were able to give me abstract um information about how to figure it out. So, I was able to take that and put it in the chat GBT and come up with what the possible questions may be. Um, I felt like I got sort of a breakthrough because there was someone from uh the Maryland College and Career Ready Standards for Mathematics. Um, the mathematical uh instructor coordinator, I guess it's from the county. They were able to come and speak at our PTA meeting and I found out that the county has a

095letter to the parents handbook on how to help with math for grades one through five. Um, the issue I ran into to there was trying to print it. There isn't a printable version of it, but it was a helpful resource. So, I am still working through it. Um, still trying to get there. Um, but that's my experience with mass so far. We're we're still just working on it, trying to get there. And I do find it very frustrating that it's taking so much to be able to get the information I need to be able to best help my job. And that's my experience. I'm sorry that's the case, but I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there others? I'll jump in just as a math teacher in PGCPS County, you

096know, teaching eighth grade. Um, so I understand the frustrations because as a teacher, I also have frustrations um based on the test, especially like the MCAP. It's such a top secret test that no one can, you know, talk about or do anything about and they learn their scores a year later which has no implication on my teaching whatsoever. Um, but to help those students. Uh, so I also cure the frustration. Um, I try my best to communicate with parents and tell them how where to go to find resources. I excel different things like that Khan Academy that could help. Um my biggest thing is that don't ever tell your student that you don't know or you are not great at math. Uh you have to kind of hide that um and just keep going. And

097I think you know you're hitting it on the head that we got to teach that they can do it. They can do anything they want. It's a problem solving. Problem solving is a life skill. Um and that's what math is hopefully trying to teach these kids is just to problem solve. Um there's multiple ways. there are infinite amount ways to answer questions and just because a teacher is contrary to our procedures which is sad because we should not be doing that as math teachers um that there are more than one way to answer any type of question. You could have 35 kids in a room and there will be 35 different ways to get to one answer. Um so we need to make sure we understand that. Um and you know your process if it

098makes sense then it makes sense. It shouldn't be a certain process that the teachers are looking for. Um but I also understand the frustration as INCAT's coming up next week. um you know trying to get my students ready for it. And then INCAT practice test are all things that were kicked off the test because there were problems with them. So they're practicing with items that are not accurate that uh are kicked off the test for some reason or another uh for not being good uh questionnaires uh questions for those assessments and again you know having no implication except next year when I know that my my school gets a report card based on these these scores. Um so I think that uh we over test in math. Um as a teacher I am frustrated with

099over teach over over testing. The only thing the tests measure is how well a student takes a test. Um there is absolutely no other mathematics that is being tested except for the fact that it's a reading test with the math thrown in and of course the reading tests go down. So the math are even worse. Um so that's just being my piece. So thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. I also know that's not how like that's not how we want like that's not what we want to understand about whether or not kids understand math, right? Like there's a whole progression of understanding the concepts and then applying numeric and then being able to get to a place where they can creatively problem solve. That's the love of math that we want to try to

100instill. And I think you're just not feeling that. So I appreciate that feedback. Damaging our students. are actually damaging physically damaging our students um hating math because by the time I get them in eighth grade that my job is not to teach them math it's to get one less kid to hate math going forward uh because math is beautiful but we do not instill that in in our math classes which is u you know kids hate math and you know parents I hear so many parents going I couldn't do math now can't help you then can't help you now and I'm like that's don't say that you know problem solve figure things out um but we are teaching kids how to make a hate map and that's basically all we're doing. Thank you for sharing,

101Miss Brown. In a moment, I'm going to go off camera, but I'm still with you. I just don't want you have to go outside. It'll get dark and stuff like that. Gotcha. Sounds good. Are there any others? Well, I will take the opportunity and share my experience. So, I am Teresa Smith. I am the chair of Pac and I am also the district 6 representative and I want to preface my piece by stating that I am a parent of students with disabilities. So this is like the premise of my overall engagement in the classroom and then even beyond the classroom. So upfront I do have one question for you Mr. Greer and that is do you have any advice on how to deal with the fear of retaliation due to engagement? Um I strongly believe

102as as Miss Lawrence um stated in her piece that parent partnership is key to a student success. Um, as a parent, I have felt that when I advocated for my children and even others specific to this population, it was not wellreceived at the schoolhouse level. The rumor mill starts and then I had to like create thick skin to just get beyond the negative commentary and see big picture in my personal pursuit. Um, and it's been hard in some cases being in the classroom because I think that teachers may think that I'm going in there to try to see if they're doing something wrong when I'm really just trying to be a partner in this process. Um, so I believe that once my school teams like really realized that I wasn't backing up in my advocacy

103efforts that some teachers started to engage with me and when other team members kind of saw this and they spoke, they made it known verbally um, on what my true intentions are, I think that that kind of helped me navigate this partnership aspect. So again, the only question I have um and really as encouragement to other parents, if we have a fear of retaliation, how will we how can we deal with that? Get over that fear. So I'm going to come back on camera just I'm outside now, but uh just to say like I really appreciate you sharing that fear. the I want to just honor that that's a real fear when you're standing up for your young person uh your scholar your child like you are doing the thing that you're supposed to do

104as a parent you're protecting them and to feel like you're being like cut out of the process is unfair to you and I'm sorry that that has happened and that it happens. Um not that it's me to apologize for but like honestly that's that is it I I apologize. Um, and I think at the same time, you know, I would talk about um, it's easy for me to say like there's structures in school districts like the onbudsman for this process or mediation process or anything like that that exists in order to protect you, but I I I don't know. I think like you can take those avenues, but I don't know if that feels great. I think the only thing I can say is I hear the fear and I still think it's important to

105stand up and do it. um and to keep pushing through it. And if you feel like you need the support, then that's where things like the onbudsman or mediation or anything else can kind of come into play. Um and honestly, you know, I think I just want to I just want to note you're doing the right thing, right? Um and I I had an experience just to tell a story where a person that we knew uh through the family um was experiencing some challenges around distrust of the student who's been a straight A student and a great scholar for a long time and the school started to say, "Oh, you're using AI now, right, in your work, right, in order to get your work done." And uh we've proven it by using these tools that

106really are flawed, like and so the parent advocated and felt like they were hitting uh um walls everywhere. And so then uh I made a connection with a mediation group that tried to support and I don't actually know the outcome right now, but I do know that we got a thank you from the student uh themselves just last week. So I think like it it takes work. It's hard and I think that it's important that you keep kind of stepping up on behalf of your child. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, Miss Miss Lundy. Hi. Hi. Welcome Mr. Gri and thank you um president and um vice um chair I keep calling you president chair and vice chair promotion right for everybody um my name is Carleta um Lundy and I am the civic and

107community uh representative for PCA um my children um they did progress through Prince George County Public Schools they are 36 and 39 now but listening to all of this where we are today I I think different I'm I'm always outside of the box. So, I wanted to ask you, Mr. career. Um, have we surveyed our um, school houses in some kind of way to find out where it's working and to see those teachers and who are working with those parents where it works, where it's a success and so that we may can do a PSA, maybe can do a video, we can give some examples, some training on on something like that, how how that might help um, where where other school houses may need some help. And I also want to say that I

108think we need to reimagine how we do our parent and teacher nights. I think we need to reimagine those. We need to get creative about making those a little, you know, I just remember going to class to class rush rush rush, you know, go to class, go to class, talking to a teacher and and then when you got more than one child, oh my goodness, for me I had two at the time. So it was and thank God they were at the same school. But when you have more than one child at different schools and you are a single parent like I was at the time, it can be challenging. So how we run our parent and teacher nights, I think we need to reimagine all of that. I don't know we could work with

109Dr. Jackson or whomever as it relates to um what you call it as it relates to our school district. So that's all I have and again thank you Mr. Gri. Love seeing you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I also love the idea of the sort of reimaginings of parent teacher nights. Uh, agreed, especially for parents, uh, who and families that actually can't make it or have multiple kids in multiple schools and it's difficult for them if it's on the same night or even at the Right. Right. Exactly. Um, or like even having um, uh, uh, parents who just have jobs that don't allow them to be able to get there at that time. like it's impossible to be able to do it for everybody and make it work. But how

110do we reimagine that whole situation so all parents feel like they can they can participate? Make a followup. I'm sorry. Maybe we can have some recommendations. We can advise, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. God bless y'all. Thank you. Um are there any or is there anyone else that would like to um come to the floor? Miss Milhouse. Yeah. Um Mr. Greer, if you can, you know, you you mentioned the um the new MSTE um K through three literacy policy that's coming out. It So it is going into effect not next school year. So we have two school years to go before it goes into effect. Correct. Well, it phases in. There's different phases of it that begin now and through 20 like through this year or this school year and then beyond. So for instance,

111we're being able to train teachers now on science of reading uh which is kind of the first phase of the work and then there's additional phases that you know begin next year and then beyond. And so what I what I would like to know because I I read the policy um and I I just kept reading it and so in that phase in process where is the family engagement going to go right where where does that happen? Um because there that is also going to be a requirement to do training on how to engage and how to partner. How do we shift the mindset um from telling the parent versus, you know, having a robust conversation and engaging with the the parent to identify what capacity they do have and what may be um an

112opportunity to help them build more capacity? But it was that something that was thought out as relates to how does that go into the phased in process? Yeah. So a lot of what you're talking about comes in the beyond the policy, it goes into the guidance around the policy. So it would be the implementation part and some of that has to do with partly partnering with um teacher prep programs to ensure that teachers are kind of building some of those skills and also the team at MSDE is building a series of tools that are engagement tools um that are both web- based and physical based that help parents understand uh the resources they have available and some of the ways that they can support their young people at home. This is the kind of stuff

113that I'm though like to be totally blunt like watching like a hawk to some degree or like asking about in the meetings that we have because I want to understand better how like do these tools actually help parents and caregivers to understand how to support their young person at home and not just be sort of like here's one example like I have I have tons and tons of examples of uh resources that get sent home or even test results that get sent home and I can't even like really read the like the result and then it says help your student work on X and I'm like I don't know what that is. Um and again like I said at the beginning of the call like I'm an educator. I have a background in education. I've

114spent a lot of time doing this. Um and I still have a hard time deciphering what best I can do with my young person at home. So I have a high bar for what some of those resources would look like in the implementation. And so asking those questions and I think you're right to point a finger at it as well and and I appreciate you know because what I hear what I heard you say is that you are going to make sure that um it's realistic right and and that it's something that's doable um from a parents perspective um because you know for me when you tell me to do x y and z just see that as overwhelming a overwhelming list of tasks right but if you can, you know, create something that's digestible,

115right? I I know that I can fit in if you're telling me read to my child 30 minutes a day, well, I can break up what that 30 minutes looks like, right? Um, but having some guidance because I I did go through the policy and I I went through it in a way to understand, you know, each component of what it is, why do we need it? And what stood out for me is if you have to create a a um a individual reading plan, right, to follow to support the child, how is that going to be um followed if a child who may have um a 504 and a IEP, right? And I know there's an exemption in the policy for those students, you know, but if you can't follow a 504 IEP, how

116are you going to realistically follow a reading improvement plan? And then two in creating the reading and this is just more sort of to put in in you know something to put in your cap while you're looking at everything that if you are creating these plans you know in those discussions there may be a time where the school may say that hey we may need to address the child right for a 504 based on what we're seeing. So, I I didn't really see how that would be addressed in the plan because I was really trying to wrap everything around this retention piece. And um what Miss Brown mentioned from the teacher perspective, I think it is very important that we help parents understand that our language does matter, right? And if we are helping people

117to build that vocabulary and add into their toolbox on ways to address, yes, I may be frustrated. I may really really detest the way they're teaching fourth grade math, but I love math, right? And so I'm not going to allow my frustration to roll over. And so it may be the same thing in reading. There may be a parent that may be struggling themselves with reading, right? And so how do I help my child at home if I am also struggling? So just you know I I'm just very curious on how these things are being created and we have by law the requirement to have these parent or these advisory groups in each school district. And so, how are those advisory groups, you know, um, a part of the conversation? Because I'm quite sure we

118have a lot of parents on here who have kids K through three. Like, thank you, God, that my children will not be in, you know, and I I don't mean it in that way, but I am so very happy, right, because I don't have to put one more thing on my plate. But we we have people on here who are sitting in that that K through three, you know, process of um who can probably provide some input to what is being created. Yeah, I would love to continue to engage in that conversation specifically u because I think you all do have uh some of the most important elements of what we could kind of do better. I think when you talk about not only just having the resources u at home um and the expertise

119at home I think it does take a lot um when you I really want to like pull out what you're talking about with the 504 and the IEPs. You know, we had a lot of conversation about if an IEP should like if a student already has reading in their IEP, should they also have a student individualized like an individualized reading plan? And it it we believe that the IEP should be the driver, but it should have the same kind of resource access and support access that the individualized reading plan would have. Um, and so they those two things need to be mirrored um in order to um in order for that to work. Um and so the hope is that we can coordinate and ensure that the services and resources are provided to young people

120in the way that the plan is devised, right? Does that really work? I just want to be honest and say like it all comes down to implementation. Will it will it really work? We don't know yet, right? And so we're just going to keep working and I think it does take partnership and listening and learning with groups like community advisories in order to make it Thank you, Mr. Greer. I think that this has been um a wonderful dialogue. I really appreciate all of the information that you presented to the council this evening. I thank you for engaging with us. Um I I'll to wrap this up. Are there any last um comments before we let Mr. Greer go on with this evening? hearing none. So, Mr. Girl, I hope this is not the last time

121that we have an opportunity to engage with you with you and again, thank you so much for your contributions to the meeting this evening. Thank you guys. No, thank thank you for having me and I appreciate your patience with me being being able to get on. No problem at all. Thank you. Uh let's let's keep talking. Sounds good. Thanks. Take care. You too. All right. Um, so we are wrapping up our agenda this evening. Do we have any unfinished business? Hearing none. Um, are there any announcements from the rep the respective districts? Hearing none. So, may I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting this evening? I motion that at 8:49 we adjourn our meeting for today. 8:49 p.m. Do I have a second? I second. Aimbra Lawrence. Thank you. So, it has been

122properly moved and seconded that the April 2nd, 2025 meeting be adjourned at 8:49 p.m. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Good night. Good night. Thank you all. Thanks. Good night, everybody. Great meeting. Good night. Have a great spring break, everybody. Thanks. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Miss Wilson, did you need me for anything?