001To promote, lead, or participate. They are merely there as a presence and it's in a non-participatory capacity. It's really to ensure that disciplines maintain and student participation is voluntary. And then election activities involving employee associations shall be shall be conducted in accordance with our negotiated labor agreements. All employees shall not use PGPS facilities, equipment, materials, or personnel during working hours in conducting their campaign or an execution of their duties if elected. And then a candidate's use of school facilities is governed by Administrative Procedure 1330. And then an employee, if elected to a public office, which would require full-time service or represents a conflict of interest with their duties required as an employee of PGPS, So I have the choice of either they can resign if they want or they can just receive a leave of
002absence without pay. And from PGBS for the period of their tenure in office. So that sort of that in a nutshell Thank you, Ms. Thank you, Ms. Welsh. The question is, shall the committee recommend policy 4135 activities organizations political to the policy sponsor for revision approval? Is there any discussion? There's no discussion on this item. Ms. Lopez, please take a roll call vote. Dr. Moss. Ms. Busa Strother. Aye. Ms. Walker. She just lost service. Give her a wish. This is an odd time for her to lose service. Okay. Yes, if… She doesn't connect we may have to end. We'll hold all business until she reconnects. All right. I believe she's connecting. So I will start all over. No problem. Aye. Dr. Moss? Ms. Booster Strother. Ms. Walker? Can you hear? Okay. Okay. All right. Three
003in the affirmative. Bye. You're cutting in and out. But she said, aye, okay. I'm so sorry. Bye. Policy 4135, activities, organizations, political will be recommended to the policy sponsors for revision approval. There are three in the affirmative. Let's move to policy 5150. The chair recognizes Ms. Welsh for an overview of policy 5150 student involvement Rights and Responsibilities. Okay, thank you. Rez, would you mind putting, yes, thank you. So this particular policy and this particular policy I'm sorry, it didn't cross out. I will go back and get it crossed out involvement. I took the word involvement out because the policy Ms. Welsh, we'll have to pause business for a second. We don't have a quorum, so we'll have… No problem. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. You can proceed. We have a quorum now. Okay. So what I
004was saying is that actually the policy itself is student involvement rights and responsibilities but The purpose of the policy really was about talking about student rights and responsibilities, and it is driven actually by law. And so, and as far as involvement we have We also have students, the extracurricular activities and clubs and all these other things. So I went ahead and just took that out because the focus of this policy is really about the student's rights and responsibilities. And so as far as the policy statement, it says that the The Board of Ed is committed to providing an educational environment which promotes intellectual development, responsibility, citizenship, and respect The board believes that all students have the right to free, wait a minute, right to free inquiry and expression, due process, equal educational opportunity, freedom from
005discrimination. And then in exercising these duties, each student is expected to respect the rights, privileges, and welfare of others. As well as the student, the board recognizes the need to provide students with information regarding their rights and responsibilities. So this is the purpose of the policy is really to provide the guidelines for the development of the student rights and responsibilities Handbook, which is also an administrative procedure, but everyone does refer to it as the student rights and responsibility handbook so then there's definitions for things that are actually in the body of the policy. You can just scroll down. Thank you. Continue. School community and then stakeholders So then as far as the standards. Ms. Welsh, I'm going to cut you off for a second. We lost a quorum again. I'm sorry. It's Okay. Please forgive
006me. That's okay. I do have an off-the-record question. Well, never mind. You can proceed. Okay, thank you. So as far as the standards, it says that the superintendent or designee shall develop a student race and responsibility handbook And it is the framework for academic standards, student behavior. It's to also promote positive, supportive, inclusive learning environments, maximize student academic achievement, and minimize student behavior issues so I'm sure you've all been through the student rights and responsibilities handbook and it's pretty, you know, it covers a lot of material and it does reference a lot of policies and procedures and it doesn't just have the student code of conduct that talks about Everyone's responsibility in terms of educating the students and just a lot of their protections also And so as far as what should be included in
007the Student Rights and Responsibility Handbook, I said it should definitely set forth a student's rights and responsibilities established by board policies and administrative procedures. And just as a side note, if you go through that handbook, you'll see there's like probably two pages listed of all these policies and procedures of which The handbook actually does address in some fashion. And then it also the handbook should also communicate expectations of respectful and responsible student behaviors based on age, developmental areas, needs of the student and school community. It should share school and community resources for students, parents, and families. Identify levels of responses and interventions regarding student behavior, which it does, and then provide information about the student's appeals process. Also, the handbook should confirm to guidelines established by the Maryland State Board of Education. And that particular
008phrase right there is in the law. Unfortunately, I could not find the Maryland State Board of Education guidelines. I have looked everywhere for them, but because it is sitting in the law, I put it into the policy because our policy should align with law. And then the other thing that I think is really important and actually the chief of staff has already begun the process of re-looking at the handbook for this year. And one of the things that's important is involving stakeholders from the school community to review the handbook and get input from them. And then also the other thing is, is once it's done, it's critically important that the superintendent or designee ensures that the handbook is presented to students at the beginning of each school year As well as that it's disseminated annually
009to all members of the school community Community, including teachers, administrators, and parents. So that's in the nutshell. If there's other things that you would like to have as it relates to what you would like to see in the handbooks, that this is your opportunity to to share that so that we can add it to the policy. Thank you, Ms. Welsh. The question is, shall the committee recommend policy 5150 student involvement rights and responsibilities to the policy sponsor for revision and approval. Are there any comments from board members or questions? Ms. Lopez, will you please take a roll call vote? Dr. Moss? Ms. Buser Strother. Aye. Ms. Walker. Aye. Through in their formative. There are three in the affirmative policy 5150 student involvement rights and responsibilities will be recommended to the policy sponsor for revision and
010approval. The next is policies for second consideration, public comment. There's one item. It's community schools. The question is, shall the committee recommend policy 1100 to the full board? For public comment consideration. I am going to ask my colleagues to to table this item pending new information from Ms. Welsh. Ms. Welsh, I believe that was your recommendation earlier. Well, after I read that Senate version and they had specific language of what they're requiring for community schools And who knows what the final version is going to look like but i thought Since we already have the policy open, we might as well wait and within the next couple of weeks, we'll know so we can just go ahead and get it revised and incorporate those things too if in fact it does make it through. Perfect. Colleagues,
011are you all fine with that before we do entertain this vote? The session. Okay, cool. Well, the question is, shall the committee postpone Policy 1100 to the full board for public consideration. Is there any discussion? Ms. Lopez, please take a roll call vote to postpone policy 1100 to the full board for public comment consideration. Okay, Dr. Moss. Ms. Booster Strother. Aye. Ms. Walker. Hi. We'll be chatting with you. Okay, three in their affirmative. There are three in the affirmative policy 51, 50 student involvement rights and responsibilities will be postponed until the next policy and governance committee meeting for further consideration. There are no policies for third consideration tonight. We will get ready to adjourn, but I do want to say something before we adjourn. The Policy and Governance Committee Last week, just an announcement to
012the public. Had an advocacy day. It was helped to be organized by the administration, Ms. Welsh, Quincy. That whole team really did a great job getting our students to Annapolis. But I wanted to take this moment to really recognize board member Boozer Struther who has advocated for this advocacy day with young people for before I got on the board And I know she and Board Member Walker were working on making it happen last year but We were able to make it happen this year. Unfortunately, she was traveling with other students doing other work for PGCPS. And so she missed it. So I did want to, you know, just acknowledge to the public that this is something the board had worked on Prior to me being on the board, it had been a priority of Board
013Member Boozer Struther and i know other members And so I just wanted to take space to do that at the end of the meeting. I do want to give my colleagues an opportunity to say something around this. I know Board Member Walker was there last week. Board members Estrada wasn't able to attend, but she was making sure the event happened. Well, I could just jump in and thank everyone for making it a big success and focusing on school construction. Funding and bringing in our CTE students and in the building trades and making it so comprehensive at connecting the blueprint to this future of this future the needs for school construction funding and adequacy. For our school system and Maryland's students I did want to say I was able to go Monday night to the Strong
014Skulls Maryland joint event that many school districts supported and did the approvals for their students to go, you know, ride the strong schools Buses and be there and So I got a preview of our own students as well as students around the state who actually were speaking quite, you know, probably… to an extent where it's making me feel a little bit like the adults are being put to shame that we were not showing up in as large numbers to fight the way the students were fighting and the direct connections to Blueprint. I think about a student from you know, city of baltimore who Just, you know, her connection to her CTE program and the blueprint and our own students from High Point High School, Northwestern high school to community schools and their opportunities That we
015need to do. More of this for our students, give them that voice and introduce them that visiting their their house and senate members, assembly members, is there a right and that they that we need to show them The way and give them the opportunities because that's the feedback we received was that they didn't know that they could go and sit down with their senators. And now they have lots of ideas about how they'd like to sit down with their senators. I just want to thank everyone for making both of those events happen. Chief of Staff Boyd and Superintendent House, of course, were part of all that too. So thank you. I know I'm going to take just a moment of personal privilege here. You didn't do it, but the Mount Rainer PTO president, Timothy Meyer.
016From your district joined us in Annapolis. And so just want to make sure we acknowledge the parent participation and i mean Tim's great. He's been helping us do follow-ups this week, even with members of the General Assembly. So, you know, in your stead, Tim was there behaving as board member booster struther would. So I just wanted to acknowledge him. Board member Walker, did you want to add? Because I believe you had some parents with you Older. Yes, really quickly, I'll just add in, it's always a privilege to be able to have our scholars with us to be able to advocate in their own words. It's always great to put a narrative and a picture and a place. Around what they're seeing in a classroom. It's like for education, it's great for our advocacy. I want
017to definitely thank our parent groups who are out there, Frederick Douglass specifically, but we had a number of parent and community advocates that were there. So any type of partnership is amazing. And I'll tell you that it makes a difference. In advocacy. So just want to say thank you all so much. This has been an amazing session. And I think that we're going to continue to get traction, more and more traction. And there's already people saying, how can I have my school be able to join board. So we've already kind of been talking a little bit about how we want to even enhance it a little bit more next year and make sure we have representatives from each of the different districts. But this was phenomenal. So thanks so much for the vision. And of
018course, to our administration's support who's been really supporting us through this process as well. Thank you, Board Member Walker. And I also had Anthony Tillman who joined us as well to help advocate that day and so many other parents. I know some of the District 7 parents took a letter and sent it off as well. I know Miss Ms. Milhouse, who's been working with all our parents in district seven actually did a letter to send to folks advocating for blueprint funding. So folks are doing all kind of advocacy work everywhere. Ms. Welsh, I'll let you be the final remarks before I join the meeting. All I wanted to say was that It was a very lovely day. And the students, I think, thoroughly enjoyed themselves. And I was so impressed actually with the delegates and
019the senators. They went way out of their way to spend a lot of time talking to them. And not just about even political issues and everything, but also about their own personal, the students personal lives and what their opportunities are and what things they should be considering. And taking advantage of scholarships and internships and stuff, they really took an interest in the students. And I think that the students, when talking to the teachers and everything, they felt too that the students felt pretty special with the time that the delegates and the senators spent with the students. Yeah, thank you so much. And again, just thank you to the administration for working really hard to pull this together. We can't stress this enough. Superintendent House's team, Quincy Boyd. And thank you to our delegation, our House
020delegation. If any of them get to watch this. Chair Williams, Nicole Williams worked really hard to make sure we had meeting space. Our delegation was just so complimentary. So I just want to make sure we acknowledge the folks that are helping us out a good bit. The chair informs the public that the next virtual Oh, I'm sorry. And I'll just, oh, sorry, just real quick i'll also Oh, that's okay. I'll just, my internet is probably going in and out. But I'll also add in that when that room was open for lunch. We had so many of the delegates just rolling through. We can't even add all of their names right here, but everyone came in in order to address our scholars. Goodbye. That is such a big deal. The word got out that we were
021there. So not only the ones that signed up for that day, but everyone from the Prince George's County delegation made sure that they came and they addressed our students. And that was just so powerful. For them to be able to see that people were taking out time from their day out of meetings to be there to address them and answer any questions that they had. So from the delegation side, that was amazing. I'm sure they did the same on the Senate side. As well. Absolutely. Thank you so much, colleagues. The chair informs the public that the next virtual policy and governance committee meeting will be on April 29th, 2024. I mean, 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
022attendance tonight. To our viewers, thank you for watching. There being no further business, the time is now 619, the March 25th, 2025 Policy and Governance Committee is adjourned.