001okay the time is now 5:03 p.m. and the June 11th 2024 policy and governance committee meeting will come to order good evening and welcome to the policy and governance committee meeting I am Jonathan Briggs chair and member of the board it brings me great great pleasure to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and I look forward to our work tonight we will now have introductions of our committee members starting with board members then Administration then Board office staff and the legal a board legal councel um I will turn it over to our committee members hi I'm Lolita Walker thanks so much for joining everybody I am a member of the committee actually should have thrown it to our vice chair um Vice chair Rivera forbs we can't hear her we will come back to you Vice
002shair Rivera Forbes and we'll move on to our um Board office staff hi everyone Cindy adland board administrative secretary an assistant to the policy and governance committee good afternoon uh committee members staff and everyone who's watching I'm rev defit Patrick he him his I'm the director for the prin Geor Board of a thank you so much um in apologies um first we have our board members that we need to recognize in our Administration staff so um uh board chair mck Murray uh good afternoon everyone I'm Judy mckin Murray ex official member of the policy and governance committee all right our Administration staff good evening I'm Robin wsh um the director of government relations compliance and procedures and we have a special guest with us this evening um jica Johnson and I'll let her introduce herself
003good afterno is Johnson and I am the director of of course I would get a phone call so apologies but I'm the director of purchasing and Supply Services great all right and then last but not least our board legal councel good afternoon everyone I'm Dennis Whitley III with the law offices Shipley and Horn and we are board legal councel all right and we'll try one more time for our vice chair of the committee um so we can proceed if there's any introductions um Vice chair Rivera Forbes we can't hear you so you might want to dial in um so that when we need you for uh you know obviously participation um you can be heard um we're going to move past uh the introductions though and move on to the adoption of the agenda um
004so please note that agenda item 5.8 policy uh 83 44.3 opening of meeting with prayer recision was removed from the agenda to allow the committee the opportunity to discuss the feedback received from the community survey regarding the board prayer the question is on adopting the June 11th 2024 policy and governance committee meeting agenda as amended is there a second second great it's been moved and seconded any objections hearing none the motion passes the June 11th 2024 policy and governance committee meeting agenda is adopted as amended the question is on approving the May 7th 202 four policy and Governor's committee meeting minutes is there a second second it's been moved and seconded any objections hearing none the motion passes the May 7th 2024 policy and governance committee meeting minutes are approved we're now going to move
005on to item 2.0 public comment and agenda and non- agenda items there are two registered live public comment speakers this evening you have been registered to speak in a public comment form where the Board of Education will listen to your comments the board will not address your comments all registered speakers will have three minutes to make their presentations registered speakers may not relinquish any part of their speaking time to another registered or unregistered individual speakers may not address individuals or issues with profanity or derogatory terms you will be worn once if you continue your comments will be muted and you will be removed from the meeting speakers are encouraged to use titles rather than names for uh example principal CEO Deputy superintendent Etc your adherence to these guidelines will enable the public participation process to
006move smoothly and address individuals or issues uh to to to have the meeting move forward um please adhere to these guidelines uh as we uh move through uh our public comment this evening so we have two public commenters we are going to start with Miss Amanda Wallace individual speaking on grading policy um and looking to see if we have Miss Wallace in the room Miss Wallace is not present this evening but the second public comment speaker declined to the um invitation to move to the panelist side okay so the second public comment speaker uh Mr Duba um individual speaking on gender neutral bathrooms declined to provide public comment this evening so usually the link is sent over to him to them but he declined but he did send a written one a written one his
007written statement which is also do okay great okay um so then I guess we'll move forward um and uh we will just look forward to miss Wallace or Mr du if you would like to join us at another meeting we are happy to have you join um so we're going to move on to item 4.0 discussion items okay I think he's coming over oh Mr Duba great okay um so good evening Mr Duba we will turn it over to you for your three minute presentation good evening my apologies if there was a mixup regarding my intent to speak tonight um but once again good evening everyone good evening board chair Briggs and members of the Board of Education um policy and governance committee staff and any viewers uh my name is David Duba and I'm
008a teacher at Bui High School I sponsor our Student Government executive board as well as our caring colors or genders and sexualties Alliance Club um students and student government and caring colors have worked over the past two years to bring this conversation before you tonight um the Board of Education or I'm sorry the um Prince georgees County Regional Association of student governments actually passed legislation uh by a vote of 213 to 53 in April um the text of that legislation uh is is in the actual testimony I'll read it briefly uh whereas the only accessible gender neutral bathrooms in many PGCPS schools such as those in nurses offices require students to announce their gender identity or out themselves to adults in order to use said bathrooms whereas gender neutral bathrooms are secluded or barred from
009Public Access whereas students practically must use bathrooms that don't align with their gender identity whereas students face targeted bullying for using bathrooms that do not conform with their sex assigned at Birth whereas students are unable to go to the bathroom all day due to the aforementioned reasons whereas students are unable to invoke their rights according to administrative procedure 0103 it is hereby resolved that prass endorses the labeling of publicly accessible bathrooms as gender neutral and additionally endorses the conversion to or addition of publicly accessible gender neutral bathrooms in order in order to remedy the aforementioned issues and so the goal of uh this legislation and of my testimony tonight is to um seek a change to the administrative procedure um led by the board of education so that gender neutral bathrooms can be labeled and
010um publicly accessible without an adult barrier either as multi-use or single-use bathrooms depending on the needs of each School um our goal is that this could be done by the Board of Education specifically because um in seeking the ability to label a bathroom gender neutral at school levels we've faced um concerns from central office that they would not be able to support that decision under current administrative procedure um without specific confirmation from the school board or the superintendent um a few additional notes I believe the PGCPS would benefit from an addition to this policy that clearly states that schools can label a public single-use or multi-use bathroom as gender neutral without an affirmative policy that clearly states that schools can label public bathrooms as gender neutral principles or School staff are in a position where
011they don't clearly have the support of the central office or policy when doing so and principles or School staff could face um punishment especially if the public were to uh react negatively to that change or if there were to be an incident without the support of central office um in meetings with pdcf CPS General enal councel they have confirmed this and indicated that clear direction from the school board or superintendent is required um currently board policy 0103 and admin procedure 0103 uh state that students and staff shall have access to restrooms locker rooms or changing facilities that correspond to their gender identity a student or staff who does not wish to use a share facility shall be provided with a safe alternative which may include but not be limited to access to a single stall
012or gender neutral facility um addition of a private partition recur certain use of a nearby private restroom or office or a separate changing schedule a transgender or gender diverse student and staff shall not be required to use a separate non-integrated space when the student has not requested access to such and under no circumstances shall students and staff be required to use sex segregated facilities that are inconsistent with their gender identity specifically the language in subsection B that states that a student or staff who does not wish to use a shared facility implies that a single stall or gender neutral facility in in the the subsequent sub section would not be a public or shared facility um and so this leads to a situation where students are using gender neutral bathrooms they have access to them
013but they're only in nurses offices or admin offices they're locked they're behind a key or an adult um and in our aging buildings often they are broken or they're being used by a sick student in the case of the nurse um or either way students must out themselves to the adult in that space before being permitted access additionally in our large high schools it can sometimes take students a very long time to walk from one side of the building all the way to the nurse or admin office if there's only one gender neutral bathroom and walk all the way back once again leading them to have to ask for a special pass or explain why they were gone so long to their teachers um again putting them in a position to out themselves and generally
014putting them in a a position where they're not able to access bathrooms the same way that our uh gender conforming students are able to uh some may Express concerns that labeling public bathrooms as gender neutral would lead to unsafe environments but in response to that concern um I would point out first that our current board policy and procedure essentially allows students to use any bathroom publicly um so already any student can go into any bathroom um and this would simply be labeling a bathroom as gender neutral to make it clear that there may be gender non-conforming students in there and to indicate that it's a safe space for those students um and research shows that gender neutral bathrooms have actually contributed to lower levels of bullying abuse and safety concerns such as a recent study
015published in the international Journal of Environmental Research in public health um so the goal is just to keep all of our bathrooms safe and secure for all students um andmr there's a folder on the table that has the pool application in it Mr Willie you're muted just so you know yeah okay sorry about that Mr Duba oh it's all right I'm just wrapping up so um in terms of concerns about safety and restrooms Beyond just those for our gender non-conforming students um I would encourage the board to consider policies such as instituting Vape detectors or other procedures to ensure greater safety for all students um but I believe that this minor change in allowing signage would not impact student safety for the general body but would increase student safety for our uh gender non-conforming students
016thank you great thank you so much hey and I believe our other um our other uh testimony has not arrived is that correct Miss um Aden yes she's only in 10 minutes today okay great um and one thing I will ask for this evening is if we can have the timer up just so that we can keep everyone on time so I'm got to be a kind of a hawk about that um we're going to move on to um item 4.0 which are discussion items as I mentioned there are six items for discussion each each discussion round will last 2 and a half minutes um so we're going to go to item 4.1 policy 3323 purchasing I yield to Florida Miss Welsh to provide the committee with an update on agenda item 4.1 policy 3323
017purchasing good evening um so the purchasing policy 3323 um is um we have um Mr daica Johnson here is going to spend a little bit of time going into a little more detail with it and help help everyone understand what it involves as well as answer any questions anyone has but I did want to add let you know that I have added language and and not just me but um um the uh office of um operations for I should say the division of operations um Wes who does the actual uh MBE minority business Enterprise uh program and we have added language into the purchasing policy to include um the requirements for MBE as well as wh Women Business Enterprise programs so um you will see as you go through the policy um a specific language
018that um they felt the um in terms of uh when we're putting a contract out what are important things to have included in that contract when we're looking for a a minority bus business Enterprise so um as you go through you'll see this but I don't want to take away from um m Johnson's time because she's here specifically to respond to any questions from the last session as well as um uh provide any detail that you need related to the policy so Miss Johnson all right good after uh good good evening and um just wanted to just share I guess a couple of the updates that we had in the board policy 3323 and then what we wanted to amend or to update and change is our small dollar thresholds and then putting them more
019in alignment with the comar and how the comar has increased those values um so that every time that though they're increased by the state that they automatically are increased by the um School District as well because we we follow the comar the other um point of changes that we had were in some of the definitions about rfps and ifps and when contracts would actually be included or to be submitted to the board thank you uh submitted to the board for actually uh approval um um in the process of being a uh board action summary So currently we send projects that are not awarded to the lowest bidder to the to the board for review and we also um one of the changes that we have is uh sending um rfps that are um not awarded
020to the highest technically and lowest um responsive responsible bidder to the um board as well some of the contracts that even if they do fall in those categories of being the lowest bidder or if they are the highest technically ranked um award e we still bring those to the board um because we feel like some things impact how we do business at PGCPS and then those projects actually should uh come to the board for the awareness portion as well I know that we have a list of questions that were sent um for a response due to the time I don't think that I have enough time to go through all of them but I will respond and provide you all with a um a formal written response um for those questions that were submitted uh
021are there any questions that I didn't go over that you all had about 3325 that were not sent to me um via email thank and Miss Johnson if you can um if you can just remind of some of the questions that you are going to report back on really quickly that would be very helpful just as a reminder for a committee so some of the questions that we that I received were what contract does the board chair sign off on what type of um Authority um is given about signing off on contracts we also put a language in there that you all would see um contracts that did not make it to the board because it adhere to the thresholds of being awarded to the lowest Dollar in the highest technically ranked um vendors and
022proposals that we would send those to you on a biannual basis the question was what is by anual and so um definitely clearing that up that it would be uh the reports would be run on January and in June uh they ask questions about what happens when a person is no longer with PGCPS is there a separation time uh is it possible for two individuals to sign a contract um and then just providing some type of cheat sheet that would help a better understanding of the policy and I would love to be able to um have a session a training session with you all to just kind of go over some procurement rules awesome thank you so much for that um colleagues the floor is now open for discussion or comments are there any um
023questions for Miss Johnson and I would just want to frame before we get started um one thing is having the timer up two is that we do have a very limited amount of time so we want to get through as much uh this evening as possible so if your question isn't urgent um for right now then I would really appreciate if we could hold those questions um for later um chair mckin Murray chair uh chair mck Mur you're muted I have a question but uh Miss Johnson can respond in writing when I first came on the board the uh procurement director was able to sign uh any contract any contract for 250k is that still in the uh manual if so why and shouldn't the technical or the expert over the activity sign contracts so
024you can respond later you don't have to take up time now but but I think that's important for the board going forward uh to have some clarity around that thank you a followup I'm sorry I just want to make sure that I understand your question is that you want um the director had the authority of purchasing had the authority to sign contracts up to 250 and that those are the contracts that you're that you're asking why the director purchasing would have that well I'm I'm trying to figure out why the purchasing would sign and not for instance as the board chair we leted a contract and when I go back and look at that contract the only signature on the contract is the procurement officer nothing from the board chair that made no sense to
025me so it's that kind of thing I believe that experts in the area should have some responsibility and take responsibility by signing those contracts thank you that clarification was really needed and I will respond thank you appreciate it thank you um Vice chair uh Walker hi and thank you so much um yeah and in um alliance with uh chair mckin Murray I'm just wondering if you could um work with Revel to get that scheduled maybe on one of our um meeting days specifically so we don't lose track of that um procurement 101 that'll be important um also the checks and balances throughout the system so as you look back um we definitely should have at least two people so as you look back through the system just looking at where checks and balances um can
026go That'll be amazing thank you so much may I ask a question um are is there a recommendation from the committee that we should be looking at having two people sign off and if so for the contracts and if so then we would put that into the policy that's a great question uh Mrs wilsh and I think what I'm hearing ing from and chair mckin Murray and vice chair Walker can confirm but what I'm hearing is what are best practices and what are the rationale behind the decisions that we make and from from Miss Johnson being an expert here bringing back that information on what happens in those instances and what was the rational if any existed around why we did that before and then I think likely Mrs wilsh will have a recommendation if
027any um around updates to the policy to make a change okay yeah because honestly if it can I be acknowledged yes Vice okay thank you just really quickly um I think also just understanding the checks and balances to Bo member Brick's point is that maybe there's only one because there's an nment inside of the organization somewhere that we don't know about um so just help us with what that looks like and some understanding all right so we will look forward to that thank you so much Miss Johnson are there any other questions for Miss Johnson evening director Johnson I hate to saying Miss Johnson but just hope you're okay with it okay please be advised that this policy will will be uh returned to the next PNG meeting for um further discussion um any objections
028Mrs wsh please take under advisement the recommendations made tonight by the committee on policy 3323 and have it brought back to the next PNG meeting for further discussion okay um so we're going to move on to item 4.2 update on HB 1079 the Attorney General's response um and here in this section we're just really quickly going to provide updates on the Attorney General's response um in relation to the chair um policy and what the what the current state law say um we'll have kind of a brief opportunity um for questions but I do want to turn it over to Mrs welshon likely Mr Whitley just to provide that um legal expertise on um the Attorney General's opinion on that state law um so the Attorney General basically said that um for U for the um
029selection of the chairperson that um that when there's a vacancy that that position should be voted for except if in fact there is a bylaw or something that or it's in policy that might say something differently so what we do have is um a bylaw that has to do with a co-chair that talks about that um and all it says is it doesn't really address vacancy it just says in the absence of of the of the chair then the um co-chair or the vice chair would fulfill the responsibilities of the chair um so in essence and I want I would think um Mr Whitley should certainly chime in here but in essence I think what the based on the whole letter it it sounded like there should be an election for the chair if there's
030a vacancy Mr Whitley yes and actually for full transparency I spoke with Robin and the office of general counsel and we're in alignment on reading the Attorney General's opinion so there there's no daylight between uh the office of general counsel and and and our our firm as well thank you so much and I just want to clarify because I know that there may be some uh members on the committee or board members that will tune into this or U you know the public that that may say oh you all have been discussing a policy about the vice chair uh potentially assuming the role and responsibilities of the chair and voting on that and so we have a bylaw that hasn't been confirmed it hasn't been approved by the board um and so those are revisions
031to the to the current policy and unfortunately we will likely not have that policy completed by June 30th yet we do need to make a decision about a chair um and so because of that um the kind of Retribution I guess here is going to the law that currently exists that speaks to um steps that we can take to address this issue and so I just wanted to clarification around Mrs Welsh and Mr uh Whitley's um reasoning behind that um uh so are there questions I'm going to go to Vice chair Walker um yes it's nearing the time that I unfortunately have to leave this meeting but um I just want to make sure I'm clear because that's not how I read the attorney Atty generals and but you all are the expert so at
032this point you tell us what we need to do and the guidance for that um but do I understand that if there's a vacancy in the chair's role so we will have a vacancy for six months in the chair's role and so I think what you're saying is based on what you read and have interpreted for the law and his feedback is that we need to have a six Monon election and then have another election in December is that what I hear you saying because that's not what I read or at least that's not what I believe I read um and Miss Walker are you directing that question at a particular person or just well I'm asking our legal counsel because thank you for that yes I'm asking our legal counsel who did the um
033iteration of what he felt everybody was in alignment with yes yes um that's the way I read the letter and again um I've conferred with the officer general counsel and that's the way they read the letter as well okay and so what's our next steps for this please because to be honest one I didn't know that that's what we were talking about tonight my bad for not understanding that completely um because I would have had the document um printed out and write beside of me so we could just understand the clarity on that but um board member Briggs what's the next steps on this policy so that's that's a great question so this was really more timing and being ahead of the game because we have to make a decision on June 30th so essentially
034we have another B of the Apple if you want to have a discussion about this on June 18th then we can have this on the agenda but we wanted to provide rationale and guidance around how we would approach a vote for the chair um once that time comes and so that is it if you have you know other clarifying questions we can make time during the June 18th meeting for um the chair policy discussion yes it's clear to me that we need to have elections in December absolutely we''ve been doing that for years it's in policy I understand it where my clarifying needs to I I need Clarity on is really this six-month window and why if there is a vacancy which the Attorney General did I thought I read and I will read again
035um that there that there's not going to be anybody in the seat then the vice chair assumes the responsibilities now I don't know where I read it wrong so it would be great to be able to take a look at that or have you all just explain it just a little bit more to me thank you so much yep absolutely and I will say just for when your context um and I'm sure Mr is going to go here so I'll turn it to him but I think it's around the language around vacancy versus uh and so I think share and Madame Vice chair if you want to uh give me a call offline or give Robin and I a call offline we'll happily go into that uh before the next meeting so you you'll have
036all the information uh before the next meeting so that you can have a a more in-depth discussion oh it's okay I'm happy to do it at the public meeting I mean on this forum or at the wherever the right meeting is I don't need a like a sidebar about it I don't need to uh fight for the position honestly I just want to make sure we're doing the right thing for our Board of Education consistency continuity and making sure we can just get the job done I have no desire to fight for six months about who gets inside of this position to be honest with you we just need to do the work I didn't read it as that so if you I'll have some clarifying questions for you no worries but I think it
037should be done so in case other people have uh questions that they'll hear the answers of but I appreciate it thank you great okay so uh we're going to move on to item 4.3 and I believe we have until about 5:40 um so uh we're going to move on to the um school year 2425 work plan update um and I will turn it over to I Believe Miss Welsh but before I turn it over to miss Welsh I'll just give the context here that we have policies that we vote on each year and those policies will be the ones that we'll review will update um in the uh subsequent school year and so right now as board members know and committee members know um we receive some list of policies from the superintendent we also
038have the opportunity to receive a list of policy suggestions from the board and we really think it's important that we hear your voices and we know when we hear your voices we're hearing the voices of your constituents um and those really unique concerns that you may have in your District um so we have a process in place for our school year work plan and it is kind of ever evolving and iterating constantly but I'll just turn it over to Mrs Welsh really quickly to provide some context um on the work plan for this year so that the superintendent did provide um a memo which I think you all received that does talk about recommended policies um for next year the first group of policies when you see looking at that was is actually most of
039those were identified basically because of the fact they're so old they're from like 2005 so it's more of updating but there is a group of policies that are absolutely required by law to be that we need to address for this upcoming school year because of uh mainly because of the last 24 the the 2024 legislative session where bills were passed that said you must have policy as well as Title 9 needs to be reviewed also because of the fact that the regulations there's new regulations going in effect in August which will change our policy so we will have to make revisions to that and then there is a section that also talks about policies where we have administrative procedures but no policies so we have added some policies that there so saying that these are
040it's sort of functionality in terms of looking at what we have to do by law and what we need to do based on what we currently have but on top of that then in the past we've had board members also provide input in terms terms of what kinds of policies which policies they like to have us address or if there are any new policies like I can remember last year like the AI is a brand new policy that was put on the agenda so each of you so we want board members to share what whatever it is that they have but there's only so many meetings in a year and so much time to write policies so once we get the list of all the policies then we will have to make a determination of
041which ones we absolutely think are critical um to include for next year's work plan and from there then we actually put together a schedule of which policies will'll address there's also several policies on the list I should say that have come as a result of this past year where consensuous brought forward like the specialis committee one was one bullying harassment was another one that we are going to revisit for this uh next year so um those are and also we also include like AI which says we're going to review that annually because that's so new and there's major changes happening every year so that's sort of it in the nutshell but I think um U um chair Briggs sent out information or Cindy sent out for the board members to provide that information of any
042policies they think would be important to include into the list that's that's it yep thanks so much Mrs Welsh and yeah that list is out there so if you haven't received it then we'll send it out again um Mrs Welsh I'm not sure if you shared a deadline for when board members to respond or um if that's so so in the past ideally it would be very good to get to get it before the end of June to put everything together so that when we come back for the August meeting we would have that in front of us so that we could um you know discuss and hopefully vote on it and then you'll be able to present it to the full board great thank you so much um we're going to move on to
043item 4.4 because time is not on our side um but if you have additional questions then feel free to email me directly um and CC our um committee staff and we'll get back to you um so we're going to move on to item 4.4 update on the prayer survey um on February 27th 2024 the policy and governance committee me committee discussed removing the prayer from board meetings to allow for an inclusive and culturally responsive Gathering after the discussion a survey asked for feedback on this change uh which was sent out to the community and one response was received it was as follows yes the board should be removed uh the board prayer should be removed because we have freedom of religion um so the floor is now open for discussion any comments I think we
044were largely on the same page about this um so again if you don't have to share um and just want to share your opinion then we can try to save some time here and and may I just reiterate that at the last meeting we did put it had been silent prayer and we put in the board's prayer or prayer whatever at slash reflection so we did in essence re add in back in um the prayer to the policy okay so hearing no comments Miss Welsh please take under advisement the recomend commendations made tonight on new policy on new bylaw um which I don't believe we have a number for yet meetings of the board and make the necessary updates um I think we're going to probably have to stop there for now we did have
045a grading policy um that we were going to address as well as field trips um but I do know we have some board members that have to hop and they communicated they had a heart deadline at 5:40 um so I believe the meeting for this evening um is uh going to be coming to a conclusion I'm going to move on to our follow-up and closing um so follow-ups from the meetings uh will be addressed at the next planned policy and Governor's committee meeting uh next steps are that the next I'm sorry I apologize um this is item 7.0 follow-ups and next steps um so the next policy and governance committee meeting will be held on Tuesday June 18th 2024 at 5:00 pm this meeting will be virtual so please continue to check the PGCPS board
046web page for more information uh moving on to item 8.1 closing remarks from the chair in adjournment I want to say thank you to everyone for uh joining in on this uh cursory meeting um and discussion that we had tonight on our board policies uh the question now is on ad Journey the June 11th 2024 policy and governance meeting is there a second second so we move then second it any objections what happens if the vote loses then we're staying here we're gonna stay here uh but but it sounds like I don't hear any objections so we're here um and so the time is now 5:40 and the June 11th 2024 policy and governance committee meeting is adjourned thank you so much thank you