Board of Education Policy & Governance Committee Meeting January 25, 2022

001good evening everyone the time is now 5 02 pm i would like to call to order the january 25th 2022 policy and governance committee meeting we're on to item 1.2 which is a welcome and opening remarks and so good evening everyone thank you for being here for those of you that may not know me my name is rahila emma then i'm the elected district 5 representative on the prince george's county board of education as well as the vice chair for this committee we can start our committee meeting with introductions uh starting with our committee members and we can start with board member mickens murray good evening everyone my name is judy makins murray i am appointed at large pleased to be here thank you board member williams good evening i'm sonya williams i represent district

0029 the southern part of the county and i'm also the vice chair of the board of education thank you we also have ex official member uh board member miller but you're on mute board member miller good evening everyone i'm juanita mille dr juanita miller and i'm the chairperson for the board of education thank you and finally we have a board member who is not on our committee but is a guest tonight and we'll also be presenting on one item on our agenda today and that is board member boozer strother uh good evening i'm pamela boozer strother i'm the district three board of education member thank you we'll move forward to introductions from board staff starting with mr cooper good afternoon everyone brandon cooper interim board chief of staff any sales sport assistant mia barton district

003liaison good evening thank you and finally we'll have introductions from members of administration starting with ms irvin good evening everyone my name is valerie irvin i'm the board liaison to the ceo good evening everyone i'm robin welsh director of compliance and ethics and good evening everyone i'm sally robinson associate general counsel wonderful thank you everybody for joining today we can swiftly move forward to item 1.3 on our agenda which is adoption of the meeting agenda uh i wanted to request that we move item 5.0 to be heard after item 2.0 so that we can save some time for our committee's guest this evening and being able to just present and then leave at their own will and also to move item 3.1 to be heard as the last item in that 3.0 section so with

004those changes in mind may i please have a motion to approve the january 25th 2022 meeting agenda i moved that we approved the january 25th meeting agenda with the correct changes thank you is there a second second thank you it's been moved and seconded to approve uh the meeting agenda as amended uh hearing seeing no discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed hearing none the motion passes uh also for the record we have board member uh cerrone ruiz also member of this committee that has joined us this evening all right we'll move forward to item 1.4 which is approval of the committee minutes as a reminder colleagues we table the november and december minutes to allow some committee members some more time to review so may i now have a

005motion to approve the november 16th 2021 december 9th 2021 and january january 11 2022 meeting minutes i have a question can i have asked a question first uh why the november minutes why are we approving those now we uh had a motion to table the minutes oh many months ago last month we tabled the november and the december minutes to be able to allow for members of this committee more time to review so they just have not been approved yet okay no i thought i saw three minutes uh i thought i saw minutes from november the 16th 2020 and i mean i was here in 2021 it should be 20 21 oh thank you because you know i'm not going crazy here so so you're saying it's a typo and you need to fix that

006someone yeah okay i appreciate that thank you so i moved to accept the november 16 2021 december 14 2021 and january 11 2022 meeting minutes for policy and governance i second that thank you awesome it's moving second in to approve the meeting minutes from november december in january for this committee if there's any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opponent hearing none the motion passes thank you all right y'all we have um we're on to item 2.0 and we have three registered public comment speakers this evening two of them are live public comment speakers and one is a pre-recorded video in audio so we can move forward with the first registered public comment speaker and that is isabelle stross riggs an 11th grade student at eleanor

007roosevelt high school to speak about the lgbtqia plus policy we'll give staff a moment to bring her in from the waiting room hi um good evening i'm an 11th grade student at eleanor roosevelt high school and i'm here to speak in favor of the proposed policy to support lgbtqia plus students these students are some of the most vulnerable in your schools transgender students in particular have one of the highest rates of suicide out of any demographic it has been proven that having a safe space to express that part of themselves can greatly reduce those rates i run the lgbtq plus club at my school and have seen many students come to that club looking for love and support because some amount of that was lacking in their wife apart from home students spend more time

008at school than anywhere else you can't control what environment they have at home but you can control the environment at school dead naming transgender students online or in person can drive them to suicide or self-hatred students who are gay or bisexual deserve to be able to date openly just like their peers without fear of discrimination or hate from adults they are supposed to trust thank you isabel we'll move forward to our next registered public comment speaker and that is gina parker individual speaking about the lgbtqia plus policy as well as the indigenous people's policy hello i'm actually speaking on behalf of pt changemakers a grassroots organization started by amateur pope and chris oryeva that uh deals with racial social and justice issues within prince george's county sorry i'm a little out of breath i just

009ran to the phone um both of these both of these issues are so extremely important um first off we know that we live as people of color we live in a society that was built on the backs of other people of color one of those things being the land that we actually live and work on it is important for us to acknowledge our fellow people of color the indigenous people whose land we live and work on every day particularly as maryland was predominantly and is and was one one state that was populated by indigenous people as was the whole country and it's very important for us to acknowledge that um in regards to this particular policy so we are in support of that additionally we are in support of the lgbtqia policy in regards to

010welcoming schools prince george's county is a county and everyone here on this board whether appointed or elected you represent the entirety of this county it's very important that we honor welcome and support members of our lgbtq community that students parents and other people can come into our school so welcome both supported feel acknowledged and so respected it's very important that we do that for them they need a safe space we know the self-harm and suicide rates for people young people within the lgbtq community is very high and we don't want that for our students because we love them we cherish them and we honor them regardless of an in inclusion of uh how they believe how they feel and how they identify so we are in support of both of these policies thank you so

011very much thank you so much miss parker well uh colleagues just for your awareness the registered public comments speaker that provided a pre-recorded video uh or audio message is lisa burnham uh representing lisa for pg district 9 campaign speaking on the lgbtqia plus policy and so that recording should be uploaded on board docs for us with that we will move forward um to item 5.0 we're skipping forward to item 5.0 which is the dis the climate change action plan focus work group report this is coming to us because board member bruce strother had requested some time on our committee's agenda today to update the committee on the work of the climate change action focus work group and so we're joined by board member boozer strother and uh joseph jacuda and me perhaps some other members

012of the uh focus work group uh to provide that update so miss boozer struther the floor is yours to present the updates oh thank you so much chairman greetings to all the committee members and staff and uh anyone watching this evening uh great to be here i'm pamela dieser strother i am the district 3 board of education member and i'm co-chairing the climate change action plan focused work group of the board of education with joseph chikuda who's joined us who is a pgcps parent and leader of the sierra club's uh climate parents organization that networked organization that is uh leading advocacy throughout the county i wanted to come at this stage of our work because we're about to enter the phases where the plan is in rough draft in this coming week and then our

013internal work group experts and our uh special guests who've been with us throughout this process since april will be helping to move that plan to a point for public comment and i just wanted to make sure that all my board colleagues were aware that we are now at that stage because uh this sort of feedback period will happen pretty quickly because we do need to have the final draft ready for the march 24th meeting as a first reader and in between now and then we will be hosting a second student town hall and um a more general open town hall to review to review the plan again you know just fine final feedback at that stage before it comes to the board and so i thought it would be a great chance from a policy

014and governance perspective to give an update a little bit sort of how we got to where we are we visited with the operations budget fiscal affairs and really focused on construction and um transportation and other uh issues change within you know might be overseen by that committee and then yesterday we were that with academic achievement and discuss curriculum and education outreach opportunities uh with that committee so so joseph and i will focus tonight on the you know the the legislative advocacy and policy side of this and i do want to say that our our student members of this work group have been very active and there are already advocates in the community through their school through school and also being invited to testify during the legislative session and we could say a little bit more

015about that later but i did want to acknowledge jabari woodbury from fairmont heights high school nathan kadera from oxford hill high school and brianna malcolm eleanor roosevelt high school and our other policy uh elected officials who've helped us tremendously along the way uh particularly delegate mary layman from district 21 who serves in the maryland house of delegates and council member tavares and um on the advocacy side we've been so fortunate to have donald goldberg from the climate law and policy project and ramon valencia calvo from the maryland league of conservation voters in in chispa as well as chloe waterman who is the food equity council and friends of the earth in an advocacy position so we've had excellent guidance along the way from our internal working group and of course also a big shout out

016to valerie urban who has been our liaison to dr goldson in the administration uh and helping us along the way uh board member vice chair williams who served on the work group and to david smith from from the board office who who's done all of the religious fiscal management um so i'll i'll just pause for a moment and have joseph give some examples of where this plan is headed in terms of of advocacy and policy and how how it will be important to this committee moving forward and how we could all work together thank you board member boozer strather and uh thank you uh chair ahmed and uh the committee uh the uh um the obviously the work we're doing on the climate action plan is going to touch a lot of different areas and

017i think you can probably hear my daughter in the background talking about screaming about how the change is going to affect her but um the uh it it and obviously that's going to impact the budget it's going to impact academics but will also impact the way policies implemented and also i think the policy and governance committee has can have a lot of real way in making this more effective because providing direction on on these changes and providing a clear path for the changes that we're going to recommend um we would just make things clearer and help to make sure that the the staff have a clear direction to follow um when it comes to the transportation there's going to be a lot of different areas where um policies are going to come into play um

018you know we currently have diesel buses that are going to be operating for a good bit of time so having you know for instance an example might be having a stronger policy in terms of idling of of those buses to reduce the amount of fuel being used currently um but then we're also going to having policies to streamline the process of the purchasing of electric buses and i'm making sure the different ways that financing can occur um will be possible be because uh just the time horizons on how you how the the transportation department needs to think about these buses is going to be different than it was before so all of this is going to provide different opportunities and a lot of success will be based on the policies now one other thing i

019would point out though is i i do think that the prince george's county public schools can be successful on their own without but i think it'll be much more challenging to do it that way and advocacy in annapolis in particular also an upper marble with the county council will will make this whole process the laterally a lot easier there's a lot of strong bills that are coming up this session in particular we don't quite know what it's called yet but it was called climate solutions now last year and it is going to involve funding for school buses electric school bus is going to involve greener building standards that prince george's county has already shown that they can meet through the use of geothermal so there's opportunities to reach out to uh our delegation in annapolis

020to say look prince george's county public schools is already doing this where we have we we have the technical know-how that helps with our financing um but uh we can use some strength from annapolis um the county council also play a role as well um and some of these policies are gonna intersect all those plus the department of transportation or the state highway administration there's going to be a lot of intersectionality of policy making that will come from this but if in the end it will make sure we have healthier schools and healthier buses for our children and we'll make sure we are saving the school system money in the long term and also make sure we're uh we are uh doing the right thing when it comes to declining for the children's future yeah

021thank you so much joseph and you remind me that the uh the county's climate action commission has presented their report and donald bell from pgcps served on that commission and as well as our work group and we are aligning we are aligning to those organizations and um you know that that uh work was sponsored by uh district one council member tom dernoga and we're expecting them you know and we have our letter of support of course going uh you know from the board uh in support of that plan but but that's critical that alignment that prince jordan what joseph said about the pgcps is ready because this is going to be funds flowing from federal to state down to uh local school board districts and the reality is districts that are have made some steps

022and are more you know ready are more likely to be identified and i think we certainly as a district that um you know with the air pollution and urban neighborhoods of our county we the transition to electric buses is also an imperative around environmental equity and so we'll be uh for you know we're we're positioned for that and really it's our chance to guide our own delegation on the fact that pgcps is ready and that our delegation could actually write better legislation and you know again you know very important that we included a you know one of our delegates delegate mary layman who serves you know you know does environmental legislation and it'll just be hopefully you know we'll be able to work really well together through this and i think it as joseph said

023it crosses so many aspects of the school system and in the county priorities so um we'll just wrap up there and take any questions that you may have remember bruce strother and mr deputy are there any questions from members of the committee or comments yes miss williams um i just have a comment i think thank you for the report it just shows a lot of collaboration among staff and students and board members along with outside outsiders to the to the school system and i think it's so important especially when you speak on the federal funding that comes from uh you know federal through the state to local to us when we had the crisis in 2008 and nine the recovery act they were trying to fund products that were shovel ready so if when funds

024are available they're not the federal government is not looking for ideas to be started they're looking for the ability to move money as quickly as possible and us being ready to move into the implementation process is key to us getting that funding above above and before anyone else so i think this is great um it's also timely with the new infrastructure act that was just passed that will have um you know electric vehicles included in that infrastructure development and moving local state and municipal governments into using those types of vehicles we're going to have to be able to you know be prepared for that so you're right in talking about the buses that are that will move we'll move into electric buses when you know as we begin to uh transition that way but we

025have to have the policies or maybe we may not need a policy we just may need a procedure for enacting those procurement uh opportunities to to purchase those vehicles and fade out the the diesel engines but also in how we operate the especially the newer diesel engines we're going to have those for a while so when you talk about how we operate those vehicles it's going to be important and will make an impact even though it's small it may it will make an impact when we're talking you know we have a thousand bus routes and if we're idling you know those bus routes those buses for a while if we do things like turn it off and if we uh sort of instruct the process of using those vehicles it will be very helpful so

026i i appreciate all of what you what you're doing and and how you're going to each of the committees to to make the board members aware of what you have accomplished i think i congratulate you on that and appreciate that and so i'm looking forward to the presentation that you're going to make to us in march um i'm excited because i think it's we are ahead of the game when it comes to the other districts in maryland you know we are we're always talked about being you know the last but we're leading in a lot of things now and so i appreciate you in leading this this committee i remember when you were just starting and talking about it for us to be close to completion it's it's wonderful it should be commended so thank

027you pamela boozer strothers for your leadership thank you board member williams for your comment we'll move forward to comment from board member makings murray board member boozer struthers i won't be long but i want to thank you for not only educating me through this committee but also behind the scenes you share information and you share information throughout the community i appreciate you for that and mr dakota jakuda i'm sorry if i mispronounced your name but thank you thank you for sharing i appreciate all of this and i am learning so every opportunity i have to learn and absorb some information i am ready so i appreciate you both thanks so much wonderful i see no more hands up from members of the committee uh but a board member who's a stronger mr jacuzzi was wonderful

028having you here and we look forward to seeing your final product come for the board in a couple of months yeah appreciate it it's all right i'd like to stay for more of the agenda of this meeting absolutely you're more than welcome all right colleagues we'll move forward or move backward to item 3.0 and we'll begin with the discussion on item 3.2 that is the draft policy on inclusive environments for lgbtqia individuals as a reminder this policy was discussed at the december 9th uh 2021 board of education meeting where we voted to move it forward for public comment and we did receive public comment on it you can see it uploaded to board docs there have been no changes to the policy based upon public comment but this policy along with the other policies that

029you'll see on the agenda for today that have come back from public comment were actually out for longer than two weeks we had it more out there for three or four weeks almost pretty much a month to be able to get as much comment as we possibly could and feedback and time to review so at this point in time we will be considering this policy for a vote tonight just heads up as well as some of the other policies that are coming back from public comment i'll ask if board staff can please provide an overview of this particular policy for the committee good evening everyone um as women summarize this policy was initially introduced to the committee last fall and was passed out the committee to go for public comment um from the board i

030want to want to thank my administration colleagues both valerie irvin robin welsh for the work with this but also uh student board members ronald reeves and board member booster children who also provided valuable feedback on this policy we think that it incorporates um the purpose of providing inclusive environment for pcps and continuing some of the um standards that have already been put in place by dr goats and many parts of this policy actually taking from dr goldson's existing ap on this issue and so she was um far out in front of her colleagues and pushing for this and so we just want to bring this policy as you mentioned back to the board after public comment which is posted on board docs um and the memorandums are posted on four docs as well with the

031ceo's approval and support of this policy at this moment i will ask if my administration colleagues miss welsh or miss urban have anything else to add no just that we did the administration appreciated the opportunity to work in collaboration with board of education staff and members to put together the policy and we are very pleased with the policy and are anxious for to move forward wonderful uh thank you all so much at this point in time before we open up discussion i'm going to ask for a motion so may please have a motion to recommend that the policy and governance committee approve the draft policy and that this policy be forwarded to the full board at the february 24 2022 board meeting as a first reader is there such a motion i move that we

032as um policy governance committee approve policy draft policy um inclusive environments for lgbtqia plus people and move it towards the board of education for wonderful it's been moved is there a second i will second that policy and then uh i see discussion miss mickens murray you're on mutes okay i was trying to second if that's why you couldn't hear me so that's fine uh my question is i continue to to hear through the news media school boards being sued now the latest one that i've heard is that uh a parent sued a system in wisconsin because is in wisconsin in michigan wisconsin because they believe that a teacher forced a child to change their um agenda now i'm not saying that we can put in place something to guard us from all things but what

033i'm asking and what i have asked is do have we heard from any parents when i look at the listing that you gave us of the people who commented their students and not that i'm disregarding student opinion but we will be sued by parents so i was wondering is there a way that this policy if it goes forward the administration can send it to maybe the pto's ptas or somebody to to have some parents at least look at it so let me jump here real quickly uh see if there's any staff that can answer board member mickens murray's question um on the public comment because with the public comment it literally just says the name of the policy and then the comment so perhaps there was more information collected to show that there were different

034levels different layers of folks that are participating in that comment or more details about the respondents on that matter if so uh can any staff speak to that at that point in time or answer miss mickens murray's question so i can just provide two comments i do believe my administration colleagues will be able to better answer your question um i will say that the form for collecting public comments does not collect uh you know age or parent versus student and so that's something we could definitely add going forward to the public comment form to check the information i think it could be helpful as nicki murray suggested and also secondly as far as how i was disseminated we did work with dr goldson's communication department and she did include in the newsletter to go that

035goes out um to all pcps students and parents as well so i can speak to that as far as publication but as far as making murray's specific questions regarding um staff if they could circulate around parents i will let dr goldson's uh team either miss irvin or miss welsh or mrs robinson chime in on that i would have to take that back and discuss it with the ceo and see what her response to that question would be but so far i think you answered it very well um mr cooper that we did include this in the ceo's um um publication that she sends out to all parents and i think that is a really enormous improvement in terms of how we're how we're sharing this information to the broader um community any further comments mrs

036pickens murray all right we can move forward to i see a hand up from miss williams um i'm wondering if we go far enough when we're talking inclusive environments um you know we we can make a safe space for students and staff to feel comfortable with expressing themselves in any form that they feel comfortable with my focus on the inclusive environment is is more around the student you know i have heard many stories about people being fearful in speaking on speaking about how they feel and and how they want to identify um i think we we should include in this policy the ability to create uh room or the ability for students in particular and really only students to um have the ability to express themselves within their family um because i think that it

037would be we could get in trouble similar to those that those other school systems that are being sued in in acting upon something that a student is asking us to do without being certain that the parent is aware we have to get permission to interact with students for many things as as small as you know taking a picture of them in one of our you know advertisements to putting them on a bus for us to um uh identify a student based on how they are asking us to identify them without including the parent i think we sort of get ourselves in and we could put ourselves in a certain predicament that that we may not want to to do and so i think that if we add to our policy the creation of a space

038in which students and parents can come together to have a conversation then we can not only make it comfortable within the school building but also outside of the school and i think that is where kids and students spend the majority of their their time with their family and you know on the weekends and in their home we can i'm all for making it comfortable within the building but i think we should take this opportunity to go a little bit broader to to somehow figure out a way to create a space where students and families and their parents can come together to have these critical conversations about how this student is feeling inside and so you know i think we go very far in in in supporting what the administration is already doing procedurally but i

039think we should take this opportunity to figure out how to lead and expanding that environment so that students can can feel comfortable and have the strength to say mom and dad this is how i'm feeling because we can do that here but when as soon as they leave and they have to put back on that that face that their family wants to see i don't think that we're we go far enough in supporting them so i support where we stand here with making sure that that the um that we are covering the procedures that administration is already doing but maybe we should spend a little bit of time thinking about can we do that even if we do it with working with our um parent and community advisory board um and some of the ptas

040um what i don't know what that looks like but i think that we we don't go far enough thank you uh board member williams one question for you as you were speaking i just wanted to put this here is is what i'm hearing uh from you a possible amendment requests to the policy that says something underneath the um ceo the implementation responsibility that says something along the lines of the school district will be identify or something about providing mediation services service opportunities or options to families uh is that uh yeah i'm looking at all of the opportunities that we have in supporting families we have parent and community advisory we have ptas we have community schools we have all of these organizations in trying to create an environment to make students whole including their families

041let's use that to include this part because if this is you know i think we do a great job in supporting students as much as we can outside of the four walls of the school i think that let's take this opportunity to say something like we will develop a i don't know what you call it a platform or program some i don't know what you call it but something to say we will do sort of develop this to to broaden the environment of safety for our students that i want to identify differently than what the community may see them as and so and and the reason that i i say we should take the time now because you know when we develop and change a policy it won't come back up for you know who

042knows when so i don't know what that looks like okay um i think if it's amenable to you a possible next step is um board staff and admission administration staff to sit down with what you've proposed and see if there's any type of an amendment that can be brought to the floor uh for first reader for the board for consideration uh because i don't see anything i i i don't see anything um inappropriate with that request and i actually think very many of our colleagues would be supportive of what you just mentioned here um so if that's amenable to you uh we could have administration staff and board staff sit down and see what kind of an amendment can be produced to add to the policy and bring that forward for first reader as well

043okay sounds good i see miss welsh your hand is up thank you i just did want to share some information because um after it was probably the last policy and governance committee when we did discuss this policy we did go back and talk to different departments within the school system and so we did talk to the associate superintendent of student services and ask that very question is there anything in place to help those students who really are afraid to go home and talk you know tell their parents and discuss this with their parents and as it turns out the professional school counselors that's one of the things that they have been doing and working with the students to come up with an actual plan on how to communicate with their parents about this as well

044as i think we have now 144 mental health clinicians in the schools and so they are also and these this is like a a goal or whatever that they have set for both the clinicians and for the school professional uh counselors to be working with the students and so that also the mental health clinicians have also been focused on them to help to support those students because it is a very emotional time for the students and without the parental support it makes it even more difficult for them so that their goal is to try to help support support them with it yeah you're naming all those people the the clinicians and everything this just harkens me back to the the time when when i was growing up when there were girls in strict homes and

045they would leave you know with the long pants or long skirts as soon as they got on the bus they put on the short skirts and then they you know they're at school come home and change that's a lot of stress on a student you know especially those teenagers that are going through that emotional uh you know hormonal and all those changes that's a lot for a student and can push them into a mental crisis and i think that um you know i think that staff you all know all the resources that are available within the school system that can sort of expand that safety net for students um and i think that you know if you all can can come up with something then then that would be great i would love to hear

046about it um you know before it's presented to the to the board um just so that that i can be fully aware that it it's going far enough i just want the the policy to to be broad enough to support our students as much as we possibly can but also be able to be implemented you know in a matter that that uses the resources that we already have in place um to support our students and so i don't know what all those things are but i know that there's stuff out there so i would welcome you all to go back and and look at that okay i will say um as staff if y'all as you're creating this um please you know inform lupin board member williams on this so that we can be sure

047that what comes before the board um is something that is amenable and captures uh this essence over here i see board member mickens murray for round two i want to thank my colleague board member williams because you codified exactly i think what i have been attempting to say you know one of the things that if you look across this country parents are on parents and school districts are in an uproar because school systems are not including them or sharing information with them and i'm not saying that we're one of those and that's what we're doing but i'm trying to help us to not make that mistake so i i support the policy and i support it moving forward but with the caveat that board member williams has stipulated so hopefully before it goes before the

048full board ms williams uh thoughts will be incorporated in some way and it will be shared with this committee prior to it going to the full board so for that i just thank you and and you know the other thing too finally a narrative around policies would be helpful because if you had included in a narrative what was just shared by miss welch we may not have had to have this conversation it's almost like we're having to pull information out rather than information being provided to us you're already doing good things brag about those good things to us appreciate it thank you wonderful so um as a follow-up here before we take the vote what i uh based upon what miss mickens murrays has said and also board member williams what we can do is

049staff is going to go back try and create some type of an amendment can bring it forward and i'm asking board staff to make sure that this is on the agenda for our early february committee meeting so that everyone can see it um but now we can take the vote because this is requesting it to go to our late february meeting and so we will have time to to look at it and review and add it if we need to at the early february committee meeting so the timing works out for this um and so i will now see no other hands um call for the vote uh just to repeat the motion is to recommend that the palestinian governance committee approve the draft policy and that this policy be forwarded to the full board

050at the february 24th board meeting as a first reader uh vice chair uh amid i mean alvaro his name his hand is up yes i see that i uh we'll call him mr soren ruiz now committee chair and so i just wanted to take the time and thank board member williams for actually bringing up this point um i think for a lot of students at home they're welcome for whoever they are they are encouraged to speak their truth but we also have to acknowledge that it that isn't the option for a lot of our students and so i think for us as a system with this policy to be able to say that we trust our students to know who they are and that we're going to accept who you are and allow you to

051identify who you are but then also with this caveat say that we want to help you prepare and help you be strong when it comes to being who you are in the real world i think is very powerful so thank you board member williams for bringing up this point and i look forward for this policy moving forward wonderful colleagues i think we are complete with this chair i just want to make sure that in the motion that you include the as amended by staff i wasn't sure if i heard that part in your uh motion for the for to move forward to um to the full board i wasn't sure if that was included in the that was not included in the motion that was that's a follow-up item from this uh conversation um that's

052voted for the record and uh the motion maker and the seconder will have to meet and the motion maker will have to approve whatever changes that you're proposing as an amendment so can i make an amendment and can i make an amendment to the motion to include as amended by staff and approved at our february our first february committee meeting because right now the motion states that we're approving what's there and we're moving that to the february 24th meeting um my com my comment and request is that we move forward the amended version that will include the language that we approve at the february at our early february committee meeting okay um so this is a friendly amendment request by board member williams if it's accepted by the motion maker and the second or then

053we can move forward if it's not then we can take a vote on the amendment uh to see if we can uh include that so uh motion maker was mr serrano ruiz which avenue would you like to take pics okay wonderful so uh there's a motion on the floor to recommend that the palestinian governance committee approved the draft policy and that this policy be forwarded to the full board at the february 24th board meeting as a first reader um and that uh pending amendments from our pending amendments that come from our um 15th policy and governance committee meeting is that correct miss williams close enough yeah we understand um as long as board staff you all have that in the the record then we are okay uh so the motion has been made it's been

054seconded any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed hearing none the motion passes all right we can move forward to item 3.3 which is the draft policy on indigenous people's land acknowledgement this policy was also brought forward to the full board and was approved at the december 9th board meeting for public comment went out for public comment for nearly a month um is come back before us tonight we have some public comment um responses on this policy and i will now yield the floor to board staff to provide a brief overview of the policy for the committee thank you um as you mentioned this policy was presented um back during the november policy governors committee meeting it is a new policy uh sponsored primarily by willmar

055ahmed it is meant to acknowledge and the understanding around history of our land indigenous peoples in particular it mirrors uh language and and and legislative requirements requiring school systems to acknowledge columbus day and there's been a shift uh in schools across the state particularly here in prince george's county under dr goldston uh to make that move on her own years ago and this will be codifying it to make sure that we recognize it as peoples around that time and their contributions just to our society our community and our county the administration has reviewed it general counsel has reviewed it and there is a letter of support from dr goldson also posted on board docs with agenda item and so at this point i will pivot to my colleagues administration if they have any other comments

056regarding this policy miss welsh from a servant no just to say that we are in support of the policy no comments for me all right wonderful um to get some discussion going may please have a motion to recommend that the policy and governance committee approve the draft policy and that this policy be forwarded to the full board at the february 24 2022 board meeting as a first reader i move that the policy be approved to go to the full board for its february 24th meeting thank you is there a second second okay it's been moved and seconded is there any further discussion on this item i just have one question just one i will go for member makings murray and then board member williams okay uh and this i think this question is for the

057administration uh to recognize groups uh any groups uh have we usually had policies to do that or have we used proclamations are we moving to a new area for recognizing groups that's my question miss welsh do you have an answer to that you've been here a lot longer than i have so you might be able to respond i actually i don't i would have to really do a little research in looking at the policies i do know you do a lot of proclamations so um but i would have to look at the other policies to see if we specifically have uh policies that acknowledge different groups um well you know what would be helpful for me is i don't want to create a situation where then we're dealing with the equity of acknowledging groups and

058we have to create a policy all the time i don't want to do that so so that is the issue for me that's the only issue um thank you all right thank you board member makings murray board member williams thank you um i have i have a similar my question is similar but the way the introduction was done by staff member cooper um it sort of gives the idea that we are replacing columbus day with indigenous peoples day and so i i can understand how that could be a policy if we're changing the identification of a um of a holiday within the school system i can see how that would rise to a level of um changing a policy but if if we're we are acknowledging or recognizing um a group of people although they

059they are very important being the first people here in in what we call the americas um that is something different so i think we need clarification on how this policy is going to be um implemented are we going to codify in policy that we will no longer recognize columbus day and we're replacing it with indigenous peoples day and we are going to create a curriculum or make sure our curriculum is around that um or are we i i guess i i need more clarification on what it is we are we are trying to accomplish with this policy um and what and i understand there are some procedural activities in there that are sort of eluded in there so i'm just just really trying to understand it and and miss welsh when she returns with her

060uh uh what she finds from her review we may be able to have more clarity around that so i'm just a little i just need to a little bit more clarification i can clarify that for you so first part is in the maryland general assembly passed laws in section 7-103 of the maryland education article which mandates that all public schools shall devote at least half a day to several holidays and one those holidays is columbus day and so that is in the state code as far as columbus day what dr goldson has done other administrations across the state have done is that in that same vein they wanted to devote part of a day to recognize indigenous peoples and so that was my reference to the general assembly law that requires all school systems to

061devote part of a day part of the curriculum to acknowledging columbus day um dr ghost has been doing that for indigenous people's day prior to this policy but you are also correct on in this policy um on page two it is stating that um the second monday of october is what the us congress has noted as columbus day and this policy is stating similar to what dr goldman has done for years past that the second monday in october would be indigenous people's day across the district so that is in the policy um to your point about recognized vision of people's day and also to the point that they will recognize it by having some type of activity similar to how the state mandates you do that for columbus day this policy will be adding that

062requirement as far as indigenous people say and similar to the lgbt policy that we discussed earlier um a lot of these initiatives have already been done by dr goldson and so this is one um as well that she has already been at the forefront of doing and born rahman wanted to sponsor an impolicy to codify it so i hope that answers your question as far as the indigenous people today this would be creating um indigenous people's day across the district that's standard number two and that is something that um dr goldstein has been doing already in the school system and then the second part as far as curriculum it would add that they do recognize religious peoples similar to how they recognize columbus day so that answers your question on that point i hope that

063was the clarification yeah and then and it does it it clarifies it for me and so it and maybe it's just the wording that that sort of leaves it open for interpretation um that maybe we have to play with that wording a little bit so that it's clear that this is really a replacement of uh columbus day because i i just don't want us to um to open up the the door to um there being policy changes for every type of of group of individuals um that that comes before us um this is to to to change how we recognize a national holiday is clear concise and it has um an outcome that is that is intentional to to leave something with a little bit of room for interpretation um you know we we may

064be opening ourselves up to having um requests made to change policies for others and so i don't know if there's well i'll just leave it there but i maybe we just need a little bit more to be a little bit more clear on the policy so that when someone picks it up and they sees this they see this that that they don't have to read the the thousands of pages not thousands of pages but all the pages to understand what the intent is and so that's just that's just sort of my thought around it um but but i am i can i can definitely support this with with just a little tweak and i don't know what that tweak is okay thank you for your comments miss williams i see miss walsh you had your

065hand up i'm assuming it's to been referenced something as well just just as a recommendation it might be a matter of just clarifying the purpose of the policy and that might help take care of of the issue that you're you know talking about right now yes and that that may that may be helpful i think that might be all we need to do um and just trying to make it clear on on what the policy intent is thank you for that okay wonderful we'll move forward to um miss mickens murray um okay thank you i appreciate uh miss wells she would read in my mind i think it would be helpful going forward if we could have a narrative around purpose just a little background information that will accompany the change forever in history that

066would be good thank you so much that's what i wanted wonderful okay seeing no other discussion from members of the committee we have a motion and a second on the floor uh there's no further discussion so all those in favor please signify by saying i that introduction just changed though correct yeah we uh so ms welsh will provide the additional information that's been requested yeah yeah i'm good i'm good with it i trust that she will change the introduction that in the appropriate way so i'm good with that she will provide um as a follow-up item she'll provide the information that's been requested by the committee so the motion passes um and we can move forward to items uh the the items that were listed for rescission so if there's no objection from members of

067the committee what i'll do is um you know ask administration and board staff to talk about all of the policies that have been recommended for rescission at once um present those at once and we can take a vote at once unless there is a specific policy that is being requested by a member of the committee to be removed for a separate vote so those policies are items 3.4 the rescission of board policy 51 19.5 adult education tuition waiver senior citizens item 3.5 rescission board policy 5110 public choice public school choice transfer option item 3.6 rescission board policy 5140 no child left behind and item 3.7 rescission board policy 6157 on study habits so these policies are recommended for rescission either because they're outdated they no longer apply to pgcps or they have no corresponding administrative

068procedure and so these are policies that went out for public comment and have come back uh from public comment with no changes um and or um submissions and so i'll ask for an administration to please provide an overview of the rescission requests and then see if there's any comments for board staff on this do we want to take a motion person no no no we'll ask them i'll i'd like for them to present the item to us first go ahead so the uh all four of the policies were on um dr golson's work plan that she has submitted with recommendations for uh changes or or deletions of policies or whatever and these four were four that were recommended to be rescinded um the couple two of them mainly because these things don't exist anymore like

069we don't have federal education um we no longer as far as study habits we actually have other courses that have replaced that that are part of the maryland state uh the curriculum that they require and two of them have to do with the fact that the the law no longer exists so the the two policies don't apply to us so we we um they're you know it's they've been repealed the laws have so we don't need those policies so that's the reason why they were in the work plan for to be rescinded wonderful thank you miss welsh any comments from board staff don't you summarize it perfectly and as i mentioned all the memorandums and narratives are on board docs that explain uh the justification for removing these policies okay wonderful so uh before we

070open the floor to members of the committee may i please have a motion to recommend that policies 51 19.5 and 6157 be risk a recommendation be forwarded to rescind these policies to the full board of education for first reader at the february 24th board meeting is there such a motion noble okay it's been moved and seconded uh to forward a recommendation to policies uh to the board of education i see miss williams hand for discussion i just have a question of clarity are we saying that these are the only policies that were in the work plan for this year that appear to be needed to be rescinded or are these all the policies that are in that are that we're currently that we currently have in our policy manual that will be rescinded so to

071just clarify are these the only ones that we're pulling out for this year or are these all that we plan to rescind um if i can answer the there is another policy that was recommended to be rescinded and that is the financial disclosure policy but until the ethics policy is finalized and approved we don't want to resend that financial disclosure policy once the ethics policy has gone through all the revisions and approval there will be no need for that financial disclosure policy so uh but all the other policies of all the other policies that we have and that are written they're still good and and um active uh appropriate or or do we still need to i just wanted to know but just what to expect i mean i just see that that the only

072the five or six that we have here seems like a small amount i think that there are quite a few that are that might be old and need to be rescinded or something at some point so each year we do review and then identify policies that should be up for rescission so i would suspect that you'll see more each of the years because because they are some of them are outdated and everything we looked at the ones that were the top priority to try to move out right now yeah i was like that's a list so okay thank you thank you all right wonderful uh if there's no other questions then the motion has been made it has been seconded all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed hearing none the

073motion passes okay colleagues we'll move back up to item 3.1 which is the draft policy zero one zero seven on ethics regulations we had a robust conversation at the january january 11th committee meeting about this policy and edits have been made based upon some feedback from board members as well as a few from the office of the general counsel and so i wanted to offer administration staff some opportunity some time to please review the resistance and provide an overview of the revised draft policy as well as mr cooper but whoever can start mr cooper or administration um exactly so yes this policy was on the last meeting agenda and we um tabled it to this meeting so my question is and i apologize looking at my notes did you want to go page by page

074to the policy and go over the edits or how would you like us to proceed with presenting um the track changes versions of the edits how would you like us to proceed i think the the best way would be whatever has not been discussed in previous meetings to address those ones and that can be from you mr cooper or from administration and the reasoning why okay one moment and i think it may be easiest if i share my screen one moment and as you know most of the edits were um mandated by the model language that was provided by this commission and there were changes that were made either by board members offered the proposed edits or administration staff and so i think the best way is is if this is okay that you write

075chairman to go through page by page um only because there are uh edits throughout this document and i'm not sure which edits board members they want further discussion on or if there are certain pages or certain sections that more members would like discussion on um but let me know which one is your preference other than that i'll just go through page by page sure that's fine we can go over and then uh board members can follow up with any questions perfect there we go and if i can share my screen one moment technical difficulty just trying to share my screen here um [Music] my apologies i'm trying to pull it up here in a moment how am i actually my board office colleagues either miss martin or miss ellis could pull up the ethics policy

076that's on board docs for share screen for some reason my setting is not working miss ellis are you able to are you working on it okay perfect it is not allowing me to share my screen for some reason but miss alice is working on pulling up on her side oh wait and now it's working i believe can you guys see my screen yes okay there you go it took a while to come on board thank you ms ellis so we'll proceed from that standpoint so the first page again as we know um board policy requires that all policies come in seven sections so these edits are format changes to make it so there's a policy statement and purpose the definition section and i will guess that there are questions or comments you're going to speak

077up and i will stop and address them the definitions section has been added and amended to include definitions that were sent by the state ethics commission's panel um one of those has to do with the designated second home and i see mickens murray's hands up oh okay the the document that i'm looking at it has words saying delete it and it's not the the picture that i see that you have let me see if i can get the exact same yeah i'm on my mac so it looks it pulls up differently and may look different on the pc hmm miss welch has her hand up on the summit issues that up from earlier oh i'm sorry i apologize okay now what happened i'm gone all right i think this is okay that's it yes okay

078appreciate it you're welcome so yes moving forward so designated home is an addition that came from the model policy chief executive officer change of superintendent similar home address is mandated by the model policy moving forward this language is added again to allow the model policy and the same with the mutual fund excuse me did you move a little slower of course i'm truly trying to keep up with yours okay so uh i'm not concerned with the definitions because most of the things in one and two are cosmetics right one moment you can murray i can we hold uh if there's anything procedural about slowing down i'm totally fine with that but let's hold until okay go through the full policy changes oh you want him to go through the full policy the changes that yeah

079allow staff for staff to go through the full changes first and then we can ask participation okay then i would ask that that mr cooper when he says model policy tell me where in the model policy that it dictates this okay i'm good because i have the model policy here with me as well i understood i unfortunately may not be able to do both on the same screen exactly where but i can definitely provide that citation to you after the meeting because i don't have both of them pulled up it's kind of hard to a discussion now so i would it would be helpful if you could reference where in the model policy or someone in the administration help you there you go yep i think a little attack team effort here may be helpful

080so i see robin has model policy in front of her and so robin um miss welsh all right so if you can assist me as my screen is focused on uh this i won't be able to look at the model policy thank you yeah oh you're a mute miss welsh so do you want to get back to the i think there was a uh under definitions yes doesn't any second home second home second home is um these are all these are this is related to a correct yes so designated second home if you look in the model policy under a the appendix a section three under definitions it's a c1 and talks about what a designated second home is thank you mr and so i will um proceed and i'll make sure i take note

081of to be a little slower because we're all trying to follow um so that's the designated home second home the second edit would be the chief executive officer which again is just switching the language that we use here in the system i'm not superintendent but chief executive officer moving down to nine and our name is welsh's assistance here home address was updated to reflect the model policy and that's on page two of the model policy a again appendix a it's a g one uh where they define home address okay and so moving on we've added for purpose of financial disclosures under this policy which i believe is just a verbiage change to make sure it's introduced that way okay moving down to the addition of mutual fund or exchange traded fund that is from the

082model policy and access welsh they'll provide a citation for that and that's on page two again it is under um i um six under the definition oh no take it back it's it's um it's actually um l3 the interest is the definition of interest and its number uh roman numeral six which was added it's moving on to page four again there were edits to change superintendent chief executive officer and also the last destination second home was pulled from the model policy as well and that's actually on page three of the model policy and that is um r uh alphabet and letter r and the second home definition so those will be the revisions definitions moving on to standards no revisions other than format changes on this first page moving on to page five there were

083three lines that had sections that were removed were moved around so the panel member shall serve three terms that was just in a different part of the policy it was moved up at this moment i want to uh ask my colleague sally robinson she had comments regarding this section c uh that were recommended changes from office general counsel she had comments that she wanted to write on that so mr robinson thanks uh thanks mr cooper so um we understand that there was some uh misunderstanding or some lack of clarity about some of the language uh recommendations that had been made so the insertion here of the board office in this section and the switching from shao to may the general counsel's office is fine without these insertions so basically going back we understand to what

084the current language says so it would basically be that the office of general counsel or pgp pgcps shall assist the panel and carrying out its duties if a conflict of interest under this policy or another conflict prevents the office of general counsel from assisting the panel in a specific matter then the panel shall request the board appoint other council to assist the panel in the matter so we're totally fine with removing the reference to the board office in that first line okay i have one question please miss mickens murray can we allow them to continue to move forward with the entire presentation first because yeah so you you want me to just mark all my question areas and come back to them yes that's what you would prefer we are not a discussion right now

085so administration staff and board staff if you could please quickly go through the rest of the items or at a decent pace so that we can open up the floor for discussion by members of the committee and i'll make note here that uh mickey murray's had a question we'll come back to that i'm at the end and so moving along on standards uh the next change and again um office general counsel uh suggest recommended adding in assisted by the board office on this section and that's also similar to this panel at f from the alpha general council will be asking for administrative support provided by the board office as well as we're moving down this was just a change from chapter to policy to make it more reflective that this is a policy not a

086chapter of state law so that would be all the changes on page five moving on to page six this edition came from the state law the panel shall promptly transmit a copy is included in the state law i am trying to find that um and that's let's see i think that's in the public wall not the model policy the public law oh okay that's why i don't see it moving forward onto the next editing changes upon again this is also submitted show us that one um i'm sorry mr cooper i saw you looking for it in the public law but i don't know yeah i don't want y'all to be on screen i can do that right now if you want a moment there you go so it's in section subtitle four she'll transmit a

087copy to the complainant to responder this is in the state law that manages ethics complaints filed on the state level so subtitle section 5-401 complaints filing requirements copy to the respondent the ethics commission still promptly transmit a copy of the complaint to the respondent can you define respondent i'm sorry uh that's the person it may already be in definitions but that'll be the person who's um subject of the complaint that's filed by this by the ethics panel mr ahmed are we holding questions are we williams can we hold can we hold all questions till the end and staff please make your way through this policy understood so there is a very extensive policy so i do want to um to make the murray's point make sure it's slow and going through but i ask just

088to write down the questions write down the page number and staff will be ready to answer all your questions at the end of this presentation um again on the second one number three disregarding the investigation and i'll ask if general counsel these purple edits are from general counsel if they would like to offer any comments on this revision so here we're just trying to make sure that we're not creating a conflict so that the investigation the investigation should not be carried out by counsel for the board or counsel for the panel we can certainly at the panel's request if they need specific documents we are more than you know able to collect those documents at the panel's specific request but really to prevent a conflict where let's say the office of general counsel is doing

089an investigation and making recommendations to the panel that's going to create a conflict so again we can certainly upon request collect documents but the investigation should not be done by the general counsel's office okay moving on to four this edit is to um i think believe the ethics panel chairman provided recommendation that this be revised in the policy to clarify how reports are disseminated and so this recommendation came from the office general counsel as well where they added to the board chief of staff for dissemination to the board if there's any comments off general counsel regarding that change i think it's pretty self-explanatory yes yeah okay moving down a similar language in response to a proposal basically clarifying that when their recommendations are coming from the ethics panel that they're transmitted to the board chief

090of staff and thereby transmitted to the rest of the board again this is a response to the chairman ethics panel who sent an email asking for clarification in the policy regarding how reports from the panel reached the board so that's why uh the guinness recommendation edit came from the office general counsel similar with section seven lastly without bearing repeating myself an effort to clarify how reports make it from the ethics panel to the full board and it's by way of the board chief of staff so these are the edits for page six moving right along skip excuse me i know i'm not on the committee but uh can you go back please madam uh i need clarification board member miller we are waiting until all staff present until staff presents all of this this policy

091and then we're going to go back to questions because there are several questions but i don't want staff to be interrupted as they're trying to go through and present all the changes to us so if you could hold your questions until the end i would greatly appreciate it thank you for uh mr cooper miss welsh uh miss robinson please continue on the top of page seven we're at the part where it states that concurrence by the board the final violation by the panel is public information this was again added by the office general counsel to make clarity that at the end of the day we're also guided by the mayor public information act laws as far as was public information so there's anything else that wants to be added by administration staff at this point

092pretty self-explanatory okay so again this is just to add the fact that the marital information act governs what can and cannot be disseminated moving on down this is just a headline that was included in the model policy and i'm just including the title of the section and that's on page four the model policy a appendix a again it's just section five prohibited conducts in uh interest so the rest of these edits on this page are cosmetic deciding changes and citing changes to sections of the policy degree numbering moving on to page eight these sections also came from the model policy and it's just clarification regarding formal lobbyists and how they can or cannot be participating in actions um once they've left employment or what left our employment so again this is from the model policy

093i believe and i asked miss welsh to provide meditation number or miss robinson it is on page five of the model policy appendix um a and it's under um it's actually um three and four under f where it talks about a business entity can and then it goes through that thank you moving on down again cosmetic changes mostly down here at the bottom again from the model policy just clarifying that appointed board members need to disclose financial interest to the appointing authority so that will be for board members either county council the county executive and for elected board members it will be disclosed on the financial form disclosure form that they filed and this is from the model policy that's on page five appendix a and it is under b employment and financial interest two

094this prohibition does not apply to and then it's right under there yes and i'll be the last section also which covers um that the panel can depending on the panel can offer accessories that is part of it and that's where the monopoly is washed as faded moving on down as far as post employment um this was the recommendation provided by the office general counsel to put the with one year separation the prohibition that they cannot work for uh a party that was in the case that they worked for and the board and so if there's any further comment from administration staff on this recommendation if not it's just a one-year limiter on it which seems self-explanatory okay moving on down use of prestige of office these edits are coming from the model policy um it's

095just clarifying and these are required by state law changes that happens the last time the board revised this policy back in the early 2010s part of it's just clarifying what it is to mean to be press use of office and what they can and cannot do again these are pulled from the model policy was welsh you have a citation yeah yes it's under uh is again on page five and it's um under i just had oh e pressed use of prestige of office and then all all of that most of that is picked up right from from e there thank you and for those watching publicly the model policies are provided by the state ethics commission and they are available on board docs under this agenda item moving on down to gifts again just a

096title format change and cosmetic changes as far as insertion of new titles and numbering moving on down to page 12. again just numbering changes and cosmetic adding of clarification words here moving on down to page well now we're on page 12. continuing with cosmetic changes with numbering it's like pulling a string on a thread one change in the whole document to change numbering moving on down again clarification of the financial disclosures these are pulled from model policy as well um in particular uh adding a penalty for not filing the financial closers within eight days after written notice the candidate would have deemed to have withdrawn the candidacy and we did confirm this is in the public at this law as well in the model policy and in the model policy appendix says in page seven

097it's under d candidates to be members of the board it's number four okay thank you moving on down to page 13 public record um this was amendment from office general counsel as well to insert the panel show review financial exposure forms um and through the board office shall maintain our financial disclosure statements the board office already maintains the financial disclosure statements um we discussed how it's difficult for the panel which does not have an office to maintain confidential materials so this is not a it's a change to the text but this is already the practice that the board office maintains these financial disclosure forms were there any other comments from administration on this section needed okay similarly a state law change in january in 2019 added this section which is in the model policy just

098to protect the addresses of individual board members um as their individual's home address and that's on page eight of the model policy under um its e public record number five there you go um financial disclosures are open for public disclosure so this section here office general counsel added a line just stating the fact that already exists that the board office can consult with our legal experts in the office general counsel uh before releasing a financial disclosure statement was there any comments for mentation on this sentence edition okay this section um coming up is contents of financial disclosure a lot of changes mandated by the model policy and so i'll ask ms welsh to provide the citation for this as far as financial disclosures in the model policy it's um an appendix a is on page

099eight and it's under uh contents of statement and begins with uh interest in real property and then it's um small roman numeral i then double i and then i think if you go to the next page oh and then we did have the rest of the other pieces of that in there it was just those two editions there yep oh yeah so this entire section is about the contents of the financial disclosure form and so um when this policy with any revision by the committee and the board finally passes we will need to update the financial disclosure form used by the board office to incorporate all these editions again these are from the model policy over the last decade since last policy was revised just adding more detail to more transparency to what's reported um

100in the in the financial disclosure forms again these edits are taken from the model policy and again it's on page eight and it's under um interest and corporations and partnerships and then all those different sections that you see it's um little i to to the double i then a b it goes right down the line those added areas that brandon put in there come right from like the addition of corporation partnership is right there too perfect so we're continuing to move on down just few more pages um former rahman right here um continue on again this is what should be included in the financial disclosure form just with more mandated disclosures again it's been over a decade since this policy was reviewed by the state commission there's been a lot of law changes since then

101um so these are just um steps to increase transparency and accountability of board members and and that traditional particular edition is under um uh three of the interests of businesses doing business with the school system report that the uh a and b or from the model policy right there perfect moving on down um we have gifts this is the section that give regulates um what gifts you can and cannot receive and how to report them again a lot of cosmetic changes as far as numbering and there were a few additions just again reflecting other sections of the policies that have changed due to the updates moving on down to page 17 and again this is another requirement for the model policy in regards to lobbyists um now i know that one of the yes so

102if there's a citation for that as well it's on page 10 and it's under sources of earned income and it's like a triple i right under that section perfect thank you continuing on down more cosmetic changes just adding introductory phrase to reflect other sections of the policy and changing numbering then down to financial disclosure for employees and appointed officials the prior section was for board members but there are also some high-level employees in the school system that need to be i don't see it reflected here i apologize i had staff i thought add three more but there were three other positions that wanted to be added to this so again this section has to do with which employees in the school system have to fill out financial exposure forms and there are three other positions

103that need to be added to this section um we thought we have laid on board docs but it must have been lag time so i have updated afterwards but i will send you and read those three sections off now for miss welsh if ogc has them handy if you uh give me one section i want a minute i just need to um i have too many pieces of paper sitting here so excuse me for one second i'm sorry director of purchasing purchasing operations supervisor and construction procurement supervisor and again this is just clarifying three additional employees that dr goldson administration has had fill out these financial disclosure forms for many years past so they've already been filling it out and it wasn't listed specifically in policy they're just adding those three names of three departments

104in this section here and if i can just um chime into one of the other things that we're changing here recommending to change here is to get rid of the duplication um is to remove uh reference to the executive leadership team because we think that everybody else that's already listed here right right thanks charlie yeah so again this section just deals with who has to fill out financial disclosure forms and as you mentioned see uh the administration staff just wants to make sure this list of employees reflects who currently has to submit financial disclosure forms and so it's adding the director of purchasing purchasing operation supervisor construction procurement supervisor and then it's deleting executive leadership and i apologize i'll be sent over the edits to added board docs and similarly just adding the language um

105that has to be filed with the board office and other affirmation which is similar to what board members have to apply with as well moving over to 18 this lobbying section just for point of reference is pulled from model policy b which is a little bit more simpler than model policy a so the rest of these edits came from model policy a but the general counsel for the state ethics commission advised all local boards to probably adopt the lobbying provision from model policy b because it's easier uh to administer but still reaches the same um ethics level that's required by state law just so you know that this is coming from the model policy b and cosmetic changes at first and then this clarification that's from the model policy that it will be restricted to

106one year and i'll give this welsh a moment because it jumped over to model policy b and this is under lobbying provision robin i've got it it's um model template b section six on lobbying um it would be paragraph c2 perfect all right okay thank you and continuing on down adding a sentence here that the panel will review off minute registration statements which is kind of uh self-explanatory also a suggestion edit from the office general council to add that board office showroom hitting these reports as public records again this has already been happening the board office already maintains these records it's just putting in a policy since the ethics panel does not have physical offices to clarify for the public that they can go to the board office contact the board office to obtain these

107public records almost at the end and the last edit is about exemptions and that the board basically has flexibility to exempt employees and modify those provisions for members who are not board members so board members there is no flexibility they're held to the highest standard uh the model policy in this policy allows the board as appropriate to adjust standards um based on these reasons when it's a reasonable invasion of privacy and when it sometimes reduces the availability of qualified persons public servants and so with that all um we'll just close out i'll have one more statement to make or as well should you have a comment i do i just wanted to also uh and i don't know if this is the time or not but in the beginning part where there are we have

108um the amounts of money like for um like doing business like under on the definition section under four or i guess it's five and we have a hundred dollars i did look up several places where the model policy does not designate an amount and you can put the amount in i did look at other school systems policies to see what they're doing and i don't know if you want to hear what their numbers are or not at this point just just to have an idea of what other systems are doing right now that we might want to make those changes or you might want to make those changes and to that point i'll just clarify there are some sections in the policy that put a dollar threshold for reporting one is here another is gifts

109it says 25 or more you have to report when we're making revisions to this policy i put over the dollar amounts that were in the current policy and so it didn't change so these every dollar amount you see in this policy is reflected in the current original policy and what ms welsh was mentioning is the fact that in the past 10 years inflation has occurred and um you know numbers have increased other boards across the area across the state have different number of requirements here if the committee or the board so chooses to change any of the threshold requirements you have flexibility to do so but we kept the threshold requirements that were in the current policy which dates back 2012. so that is it i'll just uh caveat that with that this is definitely

110one of the longest policies we have 20 policies most policies we have are not required by state law i think that's the reason why this has been such a a labor level over the past six months working with administration attorneys and staff um but this is one of the policies that's highly regulated and so it just took a a lot of of hands on this i want to thank again uh mitch wells um mr robinson ms irvin dr goldson tammy turner for all their help in collaboration with me alongside with william calhoun who's general counsel with the state ethics commission who's been an advisor throughout this whole process as well so thank you vice chair i'm ed and i'm welcome to take questions that may be impressive thank you mr cooper thank you miss welsh

111uh miss robinson um at this point in time uh mr cooper you might wanna stop sharing your screen um and uh before we go into discussion i wanted to see if there is any colleague that would like to make a motion to put on the floor at this time i would like to make a motion yes williams um i'd like to make a motion that we table this yet again um because it's clear that staff and the administration staff has done a tremendous amount of work pulling this together um and from my previous comments before well my motion is to table this okay and i'd like to have a second open uh table this until the next meeting yes yes okay motion to table this uh item until the next meeting it has been moved

112and seconded and we can open the floor for discussion so i saw first um miss murray was making some comments against murray miss williams and then uh if there's any comments from uh board member saron ruiz and then any uh ex-official members of the of the group so miss mickens murray the floor is your question okay i appreciate uh thank you uh vice chair ahmed and i also want to thank you uh vice chair ahmed for having us go through this entire policy although i don't think that should ever be necessary so i would i give you that caveat okay now having done that i am still where i was with uh page five page six and page 13 and what i will say about page 13 public record i noticed in the uh model

113policy they always referenced when it was law i see none of those references in the policies that that you've given us uh so that was an issue for me but let's go back to page five it looks to me like in the administrative section a lot of a lot of uh thought has gone to putting board office and i don't quite know what that means and then some things were changed to a chair of the board and i'm not understanding why the uh administrative piece had to be changed to the level that it was changed i'm just trying to figure that out who concentrated on administration of this policy and where did you get the um i mean i know i did not recommend those changes so i'm trying to figure out who at the

114table recommend and i i get it that they're seeing the uh general counsel but we had this discussion at the last meeting and at the last meeting i believe i said it shouldn't be the board it should be general counsel it should be what it was in the original policy so i'm just trying to figure out either i'm not respected for my opinion or somebody else believes that they know best for the board and somebody needs to explain that to me thank you i think those edits did come from the office general counsel regarding um because they do the lion's share of the administrative work for the ethics panel so i'll let them speak to those changes if they do or any comments they want to provide as well as mrs robinson may i piggyback

115on board member mickens because my question is not right remember miller we're gonna go to board member williams first but i don't know if staff has completed addressing miss mickens murray's uh comment so are there any further comments from staff board staff or administrations on the points that miss mickens murray has mentioned i would just add that the changes the um that we recommended where we inserted the board office um is just to help to clarify which is you know the intent of policies and aps is to make sure that there's clarity for folks um and the idea that the board office you know holding on to financial statements holding on to registration statements so that if somebody does want to request them they know where to go to make it easier more transparent for

116the public that was the reason to make those suggested edits is to clarify who's actually providing that support and he's um fulfilling that role that's that's why it was recommended and i would also could i i'm sorry uh murray but i would also say because i know you said you felt like we weren't listening to your requests to make changes but the previous version actually had that the board's counsel was going to be the council who advised the the panel and did all the work with the panel and we did listen to that and make that change back over to the general counsel will be the council that works with the panel and advises and everything so and i'm appreciating the conversation and i'm going to be real with where i am today i'm not

117trusting who is putting the changes in and the basis for those changes now i realize that miss robinson you just came on board so i i do respect your input but i will give you two conditions that we're dealing with right now as a board right now we have an interim uh lawyer right now we have an interim chief of staff so i'm trying to figure out in my own head if those conditions continue who's going to do this work and i like to keep the work with the general counsel requesting help from the board if they need help and that's the way it was at least that's the way i read it in the original i mean in our current policy i just saw no reason to change all of that from the original

118policy and i'm still there so i need everybody to understand that because i've had a meeting with brandon and miss irvin then i've had a meeting with miss ahmed and myself and things are still convoluted i don't get that and i have worked in management for over 30 years this is the first time i've had a problem like this with staff so i don't and i'm not blaming anybody i'm just trying to figure it out so that this doesn't happen again all right thank you miss mickens murray um we'll move forward to miss williams who is next in the queue um first let me just say i know that staff both administrative and board staff has done a lot of work in trying to update this policy it's unfortunate that it it has taken so

119long for us to to update this policy um and therefore it requires a lot of changes and it's unfortunate that it's coming at up at a point in time when we're having challenge challenges um ethically on the board so it's so some of this tension comes from that so i want to say that miss robinson just so you could be sort of understand the context in which this comes under um i think that the narrative that we receive today regarding the the changes that were made to that statement around the board office and general counsel shall do this that was helpful in in trying to understand and i think it just sort of um puts a a now that we we tapped the head of the nail on this issue because uh board member judy

120nickens murray has been asking for narratives around changes on policies um i think every time i've been in a meeting and so it's helpful to get that narrative i know it it'll add a lot of work this one is an unusual one because of all the context that i just mentioned in plus as long and we have to go back and forth so um i have several questions that just by going through this line by line and i so appreciate that that we went through it line by line and changed by change except for that financial piece that we know is contingent upon another policy and what's happening there but so that is why i want to table this but i think um what i'm going to do is send my comments to a staff

121in writing so that you all will have it and i i just think that once it's in once we decide on how to deal with these uh comments that i have we we then have to bring this back again just for review this policy is so important because of content and it's um sort of collaboration with these other laws that this isn't one that we can say oh we reviewed it one in one or two meetings and it should move forward so that's why i sort of move that forward but my comments are going to be around page six um the where we we put chief of staff versus board chair um page nine where we talk about that one year um of leaving office to be able to support um to sub you know

122to to do something for the school system that we could get paid for page 12 where we talk about the candidacy i think we need to elaborate on that a little bit more because the model policy is making sure in my mind that it's legally sufficient i think we need to to push this a little bit further because it's not very clear the way it's stated now about defining candidacy and then um also around page 17 that's the easy one i think that we should not probably list the titles and just list a description so we already have like um senior level executives or something like that i'm just concerned that if um over the time frame in which we make a revision those titles change that we may find ourselves in a conflict i

123think if we sort of characterize or define who has to fill out these forms which i know the majority of them have already been doing that that we may miss someone because they weren't listed so i think we definitely should define or characterize them and then this is on top of my questions um last time around um i think the only thing that's sort of outstanding is when we have board members who rent a property that could end up being some under it could be a a financial a contractual financial situation between our board member and someone who could become before the board so i think we have to do a little bit more clarity around that so but i'll put all of this in writing so that it can be sent forward thank you

124thank you miss williams and uh before we move forward to board member miller uh i would love if we could um if i could make a request of all colleagues all committee members that are on the committee to submit any of your questions or comments or requested edits in writing to administration and to board staff just like miss williams is doing um and i think hope if we could get it in within a week like february 1 february 2 i think that would allow for some time to discuss to edit and then bring it back at our next meeting so uh please staff if you could note that for the meeting minutes next steps is committee members will submit questions comments and requested edits in writing to administration into board staff by february 1. um

125we have board member miller up next mine is very short now that because uh board member williams um cited the concern i had in reference to the uh ceo the chief of staff being substituted for uh the chair and with the ethics panel especially i was when i wanted to um and ask the question uh the ethics uh the chair of the ethics panel said that information from the ethics panel is confidential and so when you start disseminating it to staff to disseminate or giving it to staff to disseminate it no longer becomes i mean it's no longer confidential so uh sonya will address that or i mean vice chair williams will address that piece already so that's that was my concern okay we'll move forward uh round two for a board member mickens murray

126okay you're on mute i'm sorry did the did this policy go to the ethics panel for review and if not if no why not and if yes read the comments uh no that's my knowledge but if that's the wish committee we can send it to that kind of review get their comments back it was possible i think that would be helpful i really really do i think that would be so helpful so the if you can make that happen before the next meeting oh so we can get comments back thanks appreciate it thank you board member nick all right okay see no other comments from members of the committee there's a motion on the floor to table this until our february 15th committee meeting and it was seconded no further discussion all those in favor

127please signify by saying aye aye uh any opposed hearing none the motion passes uh madam chair uh i had to apprise the other committees that when you take votes uh either do a roll call or uh have the uh call the names of the uh members voting i tried to tell you that earlier but i didn't want to interrupt oh thank you board member miller is that in uh parliamentary procedure because you'll head board member williams um that was only because uh when we because we have been allowing board members all board members to attend who are outside of the committee um if ever we pass that threshold where we might be skirting the line of a quorum then we only call on those board members who are part of the committee because if we

128take a consensus vote and we we just say all in favor it could be construed by the public that all of the members that are on there are inclusive so thank you for that context i'll say this right now it's being recorded whenever we're taking a vote we're taking a vote considering all the committee members that are on the committee and those committee members currently are myself board member makins murray board member williams and board member serrano ruiz uh although board member miller is an ex official member board member melissa is a non-voting official member and today we have board member boozes rather as a guest and so all of the votes that we're taking today are uh in taking the account of myself war member mickens murray board member williams and board member sir

129ruiz um i see a hand up from mr cooper thank you knowledge when i underscore you said earlier um comments and feedback needed submitted in writing is much easier that way um we didn't receive any written comments since the last meeting but similarly how we do the budget comments putting it in writing allows staff to go back and make sure we get a response to you um and i just want to make sure we understand that point if you need me to send out a form i can but it's critically important to get comments in writing so that um all the staff all the hands all the legal experts can properly address your your feedback okay thank you cooper um i think that would be helpful as a next step to make sure that there

130is a collection space for for folks um so that would be great uh madam chair vice chair let me offer this twice uh submissions were made in writing twice it did not make it into the document i just want that recorded for the record thank you okay thank you we will move forward now colleagues to our last substantial item uh for today and that is item five excuse me that's item 4.0 that's our legislative update so i will yield the floor to ms irvin and mr cooper who will provide legislative updates for us um thank you very much vice chair ahmed i hope that all the members of the committee got the document that i'm going to be referring to on board docs so i just want to start by saying good evening to you

131all and that this legislative report uh will cover 34 bills um that um oh i just lost my screen hold on here we go i'm trying can can you make that bigger because i lost my screen and it was big enough for me and my failing eyes to see it let me go back okay so i'm going to not cover up all 34 of these bills but i want to cover the ones that i think have the most impact on our school system in particular um these bills starting with last week's committee meetings um were bill sponsor only bills which means that these bills that we're going to be talking about tonight uh were passed through committees in 2021 and many of them were voted out of the house but didn't make it across the

132street to the senate uh in passage so these bills are coming back so i would like to start with um bill number hb0019 which is uh education school construction pedestrian safety plan safe walk to school act this bill would require certain boards of education seeking state funds for construction of new schools or the renovation or addition to an existing school that would increase the school capacity by more than 100 students to submit a pedestrian safety plan to the interagency commission on school construction and requiring the interagency commission to review the pedestrian safety plans in consultation with the state highway administration and the plan would have to address sidewalks speed limits appropriate signals at intersections school zones etc the bill's sponsor wants to address the uptick in pedestrian safety issues that students and families are having

133getting safely to and from school that bill was heard in the appropriations committee last week on the 18th and it's sponsored by delegate solomon let's see i'm going gonna move on to [Music] school discipline uh this is a bill uh sponsored by delegate washington uh was heard last week in ways and means this bill includes recommendations from the maryland commission on the school-to-prison pipeline and restorative practices and seeks to expand accessibility of school discipline data and lower the threshold used to identify schools that disproportionately suspend subgroups of students it also clarifies the roles of sros in the classroom and the bill would make it mandatory in law that sros cannot discipline or be involved in routine discipline in the school this bill would also require that data be disaggregated on the msde website and according

134to the bill's sponsor delegate washington this would help school districts improve school discipline practices by identifying disparities in school discipline practices um i want to skip that bill and go to educational interpreters certification requirements this bill is sponsored by delegate chi and was heard in ways and means last week this bill passed in the house last year and this is the same version as last year's version and this bill establishes minimum professional standards for sign language interpreters in public schools maryland is among a few states that have no educational sign language interpreter standards and this bill seeks to address that the next one is hb 47 is sponsored by delegate wilson heard in ways and means last week this bill was heard in committee last year as well the bill's sponsor has expanded the bill

135to include all histories of marginalized groups in maryland including asian americans native americans and all other groups left out of the history of maryland and the bill's sponsor is adamant that this build is not a is not a quote critical race theory but his bill ex seeks to expand the teaching of american history and development of content standards and implementation moving on to commission on student behavioral health and mental health treatment delegate bagnow is the sponsor of this legislation and this bill passed the house last year and the bill seeks to create a commission to evaluate update and make recommendations to the guidelines and the blueprint for maryland's future and it seeks to institute a commission that would provide guidance for behavioral health services in an educational setting the commission would evaluate the entire spectrum

136of care in an educational setting and make recommendations to the guidelines in the blueprint for maryland's future um a bill that is uh getting a lot of of of attention is house bill 68 senate bill 40 the interagency commission on school construction systemic renovations projects eligibility um there's a hearing and appropriations on next week on february 1st this next bill is a really interesting one for us to consider um in terms of how it may impact our system it's house bill 84 crimes on school grounds application sponsored by delegate ruth this is another bill that passed in the house in 2021 the bill modifies a section of the current education code which allows for students to be charged with a misdemeanor for certain school activities for typical quote i'm going to put that in quotes

137for typical adolescence behavior like talking back storming out of class or refusing to follow directions according to the bill's sponsor in maryland 1700 students were charged under this law in 2019 and 82 of those students charged in 2020 were african-american or other students of color um the bill sponsor uh sees deep disparities in the application of the law and the sponsor believes that this law does not belong in the education code um let's see student attendance hbo hb 118 sponsored another bill sponsored by delegate washington is a public school student attendance excused absences for mental health needs and the bill simply would make mental health days an excused absence and this bill passed in ways and means unanimously in the 2021 session this is a very controversial bill uh bill h.b 136 public and non-public

138schools seizure action plans uh also known as brinley's act sponsored by delegate kerr heard in ways and means last week this bill would require that all school personnel who interact with students be able to recognize the signs and symptoms of seizure and understand how to correctly respond this bill would also require a one-hour online line training within a time frame set by the local school system uh mabe opposes oppose this legislation in 2021 but it's changed its position to support it with amendments may believes that the mandate to quote require school systems to designate at least two individuals to be able to provide first aid which would include providing medication including the administering of injections may believes that this is a high standard of care to lay people and that maybe will continue to work

139with the bill's sponsor to become to to come to a favorable conclusion on this legislation uh the next bill is uh one that i think if uh delegate booser struther is still here it's house bill 147 maryland farms and families fund maryland food and agricultural resiliency mechanism grant program and maryland pharma school meal grant pilot program this bill was heard in environment transportation last week this bill is referred to as the farm to food security package from its sponsor this bill seeks to strategically invest in three areas one increasing the amount of money the state invests in snap investing money into school systems so that those who run federally reimbursed school meals can afford to buy food in those from those meals from maryland farmers and investing investing in food banks and emergency food providers

140to make sure that they can purchase food from local farmers and the next one um which is also a bill sponsored by delegate charcutian house bill 150 public schools grant program to reduce and compost school waste this bill addresses both hunger and the environment it creates a grant program within msde for half a million dollars this would allow for funds to be allocated by the maryland association for environmental and outdoor education schools would be able to apply for these funds and create student involvement in developing programs to help their schools develop composting programs to reduce food waste i'm trying to move through these there's a lot um house bill 165 sponsored by delegate johnson sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention program human and sex trafficking heard in ways and means last week this bill

141is a sexual abuse and assault prevention program the bill's sponsor would like to incorporate this into health curriculum in maryland public schools it would require the state board of education and certain non-public schools to develop and implement a program of age-appropriate education on the awareness and prevention of sexual abuse and assault including material relating to human and sex trafficking awareness the bill sponsor i listened to his testimony also noted that she'll that students are targeted mostly between the ages of 12 and 14 specifically teachers would have to be trained to provide this instruction moving down to house bill 68 the interagency commission on school construction systemic renovation projects which is cross-filed in the house as well senator hester is the sponsor on the senate side this legislation seeks to clarify the original intent of the

142bill to learn act the bill would allow systemic renovation projects regardless of cost even though currently the iac only considers projects in their va if their value is over four million dollars deferred maintenance is a common problem across every jurisdiction and this bill seeks to address the iac's interpretation um let's move down to let's see some of these haven't been heard yet um another one maryland farms families fund a senate bill 121 sponsored by senator hester uh has not been heard yet but this the bill seeks to address dual problems according to the bill's sponsor hunger and the environment it seeks to create a grant program with msde for a half a million dollars the same as we heard in the crossfire build let's see cyber safety guide and training course development implementation and reporting

143sponsored by senator hester's senate bill 162. this bill is a reintroduction from 2021 it directs the state department of education to work with the department of health develop a cyber safety guide and training course to teach children how to protect themselves online this bill is designed to assist by helping to increase the safety of all students by providing local boards of education with access to a cyber safety guide and training course that would be distributed to each board of education for their own use but it does not mandate the course it would be voluntary the course would include information in best practices promoting responsible internet and management of cyber security cyber bullying sexting hate speech and graphic content dissemination of false information and the link between social media technology and mental and health issues made

144testified in support of this bill and let's see the three the three bills that are listed here senate bill 234 237 and 238 have not been heard there has been no hearing date as of yet and that is the end of my report these bills will be coming back around in work sessions where the committees will have the opportunity to vote in the affirmative or not in terms of whether these bills will be moving forward mr cooper go ahead oh you just want to finish off the report we do a tag team effort um also um by sure i'm at you ask for update on the county executive's task force and also hb 355 which does the structure of the board and so i was going to share just the notes from that on screen

145one moment so yes as we know on november 9th uh the county executive officer brooks uh issued an executive order that created a board education task force to study and review the duty responsibilities powers and composition of the prince george's county board of education um the executive order required the task force to produce written recommendations no later than january 14th and so during the january 12th meeting they did provide they have three subcommittees and they did caution these as being preliminary recommendations which may change and i'll give update on that in a second the recommendations from the subcommittee at this point one is recommending increased compensation and have it adjusted annually based on cost of living increasing board member salaries from eighteen thousand twenty seven thousand increasing the board share salary from nineteen thousand to

146thirty two thousand a recommendation that the board members be limited to two terms recommended that board members avail themselves law professional development opportunities including conferences organized by an sba mave and cube in addition the recommendation that board members report publicly about their professional development activity uh this subcommittee also recommended that the board conduct a self-evaluation of its performance and publicly address strategies properties of improvement um the subcommittee of this task force entitled board duties responsibilities and powers and school system collaboration recommended redefining the purpose of the county board as outlined in state law education article 4-401 um their offer here was to change the language to make sure it's the highest level of academic achievement versus um improve which is the current language they've also number two wanted to recommend redefining the power limits of

147the county board as it pertains to day-to-day management um and specifically they're stating that the language was too vague currently and so the recommendation is to make it so that it's clear that the board cannot contradict the ceo's powers provided in statute recommend defining the general duties of the county board to replace instances of equal or equality with equitable and equity to make sure that students are given needs and services based on their needs um recommended to redefine the power of the county board to establish advisory committees in particular making sure that there are demographic and geographic uh requirements for it they want to recommend changes to removal authority in particular there are three counties that require the governor's input to remove a board member and so they wanted to remove the governor's role in

148that area of the law and then lastly uh recommended they looked at and examined the student board members roles and they recommended uh maintaining the current role responsibly as the student board member and just to clarify when and how he is allowed to engage in executive sessions and then lastly the composition leadership structure uh made recommendations to change from the current hybrid structure to a fully elected board the task force recommendation also is that the board physicians leadership positions are elected internally from the board they've also recommended that community partners with local organizations naacp chamber of commerce to have community-wide discussion regarding qualifications of board members and then their fourth recommendation was that the role of the chair be codified in law rather than practice and discretion um these recommendations again were presented during the

149public hearing on november 12th they i mean were presented during the public meeting on december 12th they had a public hearing this past wednesday or january 19th when they have public comments on the recommendations and again these are preliminary recommendations are coming back to the public for a meeting on february 2nd to provide any updates on preliminary and ultimately they'll be issuing their formal recommendations and final recommendations to the county executive and to the public at large so i want to update you on that as you mentioned a request for the task force and then two would be house bill 355 this one is sponsored by joseline pinyon melnick and also geraldine valentino smith and this is um similar to hp 1107 that was passed many years ago this one is to develop a work

150group that would look at the operations and structure of the board and so i know ms irvine has been watching those committee meetings on she may provide more context from this bill in particular um but similar to hp 1107 which it cites here at the top uh this is a bill that was introduced on january 19th and we're looking to um provide modifications to the board structure so those are two other things we wanted to add on this report a very busy general assembly session and we'll keep you updated as things progress there's any comments you want to add on 355 ms irvine um i will just add that tomorrow uh there will be a um prince george's county education subcommittee meeting where this um this bill 355 will be discussed in in greater detail

151perfect thank you that's our report wonderful thank you so much i will um i won't ask miss irvin a question yes uh board member miller give me one moment i'm gonna i'm about to open the floor up for discussion but i first wanted to ask if there are any members of the committee voting members of the committee that wanted to uh have any comments at this time or questions i see board member williams wanted to say whoo that was a whole lot a whole lot um i know that uh we're we're definitely watching the uh the iac portion of this as it relates to the um blueprint our our second round of the acf and the maintenance issue i mean those are are are really important to us so that we can implement some of

152the things that they're talking about with early childhood education that's coming down the pipe and things like that i mean we can't move some of these things forward if we don't have the space which means we need to build the space which means iec and the acf and all the other alphabets people have to get in line and and work together so i guess my question is there are some of these bills especially when it comes to um hb 23 that i think i really want to want to dive into a little bit more deeply and i know that it may come to us as a committee to vote up or down but how do we this is my first time on the policy committee how do we sort of engage in the discussion process

153to ensure that our lobbyists are either um are conveying uh some of our concerns if we have a concern maybe we can talk to them about it to get more clarification or to share some of our thoughts how do we do that in this process i think that's a very good question and this is my first time serving in this capacity although i've been working in annapolis with the prior with demetria so one of the things that i would recommend that i'm seeing that's already happening is that people are um signing up to testify and so yeah and i think it's really important for board members to testify also i serve uh with the board member mickens murray on mape legislative committee which is another really good place as you know board member williams that

154john williams will take whatever uh comes from this body very seriously as he does his work lobbying so that's two places right there or we can take written comments and make sure that the lobbyists you know move that what whatever the the position is forward so we're listening and i appreciate that i'm just thinking in terms of um before it gets to a point of even putting something in writing or testifying in front of someone sometimes there needs to be more discussion for clarification and understanding um from both sides you know there could be an approach that might just be um just not clear and so i think a conversation with who's ever up there may be helpful versus you know let's say i may go up there and i may have a personal opinion

155about something i don't want to go there even if i say that i am saying this as an individual people will always still see the head of the school board you know and so there if we could figure out how there could be some um discussion around even if it's one-on-one discussion around a topic that someone may have and like i may i have some comments about that that one in particular um uh and my question really is really simple on this hb23 and we talk about um how this can can be interpreted when you look at the data if you look at a prince george's county public school which is a majority minority school and you look at another school that may not be a majority minority school and you talk about um infractions

156that impact students of course you're going to get a high number of majority minority schools i mean students that are impacted but that doesn't mean that our our students of color are being targeted and so there has to be a way to sort of in some of these laws define how you would interpret such information based on the the the uh makeup of that school system you know if you go to a school system and you only have ten percent minority students and when you look at the numbers eighty percent of them being you know that might only be five students you know that that that are in that school system but they're 80 of the the infractions are going to them that looks different from a school system that's majority minority and we we

157have those so i i think that those kinds of i think tweaks and the laws need to be sort of included so that we're not looked at the same across the board you know um and i always have challenges with legislation that is passed and it costs us as a school system money but there's no money associated with it and now we need to implement it and so those are some of the things that that you know i think that i would like to sort of have a discussion around um if it gets to a point where i need to testify sure i'll go up and testify as long as it is sanctioned by the entire board i would never want to go up there as an individual and say i'm acting as an individual

158because people don't see that as me acting as an individual so i just wanted to know what is this sort of um avenue that i could take in order to have a discussion so that at least someone could know my opinion and they could take it for what it's worth and moving forward or not but at least i could have more clarity around the the the conversation at least well i really appreciate your comments because now it's actually the perfect time to try to to put forth some amendments um with the bill sponsor and we could arrange a zoom meeting with the bill sponsor to talk through what your concerns are with the bill before uh the committee gets to a position where they're moving when they start to move these things very quickly so

159we're just we're just beginning so um this is actually a really good time if you would like me to reach out to the bill's sponsor and maybe schedule a meeting just to have a preliminary discussion about what your concerns are about this bill before it moves forward through the committee process yeah and and i would appreciate that but again i would um sort of uh lean on the board to be okay with me you know doing that i don't want to go out there and act as an individual um but and so to talk to the bill sponsor that's one thing you know maybe it's our lobbyists that i should speak to or maybe you and i could have a conversation about it um well whatever or you can sort of facilitate that and i

160mean i just you know being in this position i just don't want to be doing things that are um that could get the school system in trouble or could be interpreted as a direction from the board if it's just my own concern i'm following direction of the board as a board and of the committee the um that we're working these bills through so that again i would have to wait for direction but as as a lobbying team so we're all acting as a lobbying team so you know trey proctor and his group and me and joe day um from our staff in in in the sasser building were all part of a team so we all have to divide up uh the work because there's going to be a lot of it and so again

161i i can't move without direction from the committee and from the board so i i wait for you to direct me where you would like me to go in this regard okay and so i'll just end with what i just heard is is i could talk with some of you as an individual and then if it's necessary then we bring it back to the board or the committee to to move an action forward to act upon so i i just needed that kind of information is that correct yeah i'm gonna refer back to uh to the the chairman of the committee if this is the way um it has been done in the past uh you can speak to that um board member ahmed it's fine i think it's been i mean previously we've had

162situations where a presentation was of of bills was presented by administration and the committee would take votes on certain bills to move that forward to the board of education for a vote on a formal position but i see no issue when individual board members speaking to you know what you do in communicating with staff um and communicating with sponsors is on your own time and then based upon that if you have a recommendation for a position that can definitely go on the committee agenda or can be discussed um as the legislative update portion of our agenda is going to be pretty stagnant will be a recurring um agenda item through all of legislative sessions so um if at any time any member of this committee would like to take a position on a particular bill

163after having discussions with different folks or after researching on their own this is you know this legislative update section is is the ability and the time to be able to do that so we can move it through the process so i would just ask if it is something that you're looking at that's not already been presented by administration to let administration know let board staff know so that they can do some research and provide some additional contacts for members of the committee that may not be familiar with the bill um so yeah i think it's fine um if we can move forward to board member miller i just want to ask miss irvin if she would send me the link for tomorrow morning's meeting and and and since uh board member uh vice chair um

164williams had those concerns i would suggest that you take the opportunity to sit in on the education committee because then you will hear a lot of those bills come through and the other point i wanted to make was uh in reference to uh board member williams concern about legislation that does not fit the county can designate uh legislation just specifically for our county so it doesn't you know even though these are the state legislators they'll get their votes for it but it could just be something just like prince george's county the only county that has term limits for the governor and for the county council so it can work the way that way uh so if it's not some if the shoe doesn't fit us we don't necessarily have to adapt adopt it thank you

165for uh madam chair uh uh dr miller i will send you that link as soon as i get it because they haven't sent it yet so as soon as we get it i'll forward it to you thank you all right colleagues seeing no further discussion on this item we can move forward to item 6.0 which is follow-ups and next steps so the follow-ups from the previous meetings should be posted to board docs upon receipt and the next steps um we've identified a number of them today throughout our conversation and so board staff can let us know about those next steps uh but part specifically in terms of our next policy and governance committee meeting i did wanted to let you all know we'll be holding that on february 15 2022 at 5 p.m members of

166the public can please check the board page on the pgcps website for more information with that we'll move forward to item 7.0 closing remarks and in german thank you all for our meeting i apologize we went over by our we covered a lot thank you for being here and being alert throughout the entire uh meeting today and i hope everyone has a good uh rest of their day and rest of their week with that may i have a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved is there a second please let there be a second second second to adjourn this meeting all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed hearing none the motion passes and we are adjourned good night everyone bye bye everyone