Meeting of the Baltimore County Board of Education - May 19, 2026

001I call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. This evening's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV, Exfinity Channel 1073 and Verizon FiOS channel 34. In order to efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. May I have a motion to go into close session as permitted by the opens meeting act as found in the annot annotated code of Maryland general provisions article 3-305 B1 and B7 to discuss the appointment employment assignment promotion discipline demotion okay compensation removal resignation or or performance evaluation of appointees employees When you finish recording, you may hang up or press one or more often. Um, everybody check to make sure your

002microphones are turned off. Thank you. Let's see. B1 and B7 to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, discipline, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation or performance evaluation of appointees, employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals and consult with counsel to obtain legal advice. So moved. Hen, thank you. May I have a second? Second, Dominowski. Thank you. May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, yes. Miss Abe, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, Mr. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumphrey. Yes. Mr. Young. Yes. Miss Dominowski. Yes. Dr. Seavoy, you're on mute. Okay. Miss Leicter. Yes. Thank you. Okay. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I now call to order the meeting of the board of education for Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. I

003invite you to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag to be led by me. And we will then have a moment of silence in recognition of those who have served education in Baltimore County. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Tonight's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV Exfinity channel 1073 and Verizon FiOS channel 34. In order to efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. The first item on the agenda is the consideration of the May 19th agenda. Dr. Rogers, are there any additions or changes to tonight's agenda?

004I am unaware of any additions or changes to tonight's agenda. Okay. Thank you. Hearing none, the agenda stands as presented. Earlier this evening, the board met in close session pursuant to the Open Meetings Act for the following reasons. to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, disciplined, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation, or performance evaluation of appointees, employees, or officials over whom it has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals and consult with council to obtain legal advice. The close session summary and the open session information summary can be found on board ducks under this board meeting agenda date. The next item on the agenda is personnel matters and for that I call on Dr. on Dr. McCall, Mr. McCall. Good evening, Chair Lictor. Good evening, Superintendent Dr. Rogers and members of

005the board. I'd like the board's consent for the following personnel matters tonight. We have retirements resignation. Sounds so good. It has to I know it leaves. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the personal matters as presented in exhibits D1 through D3? So move young. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Pump. Second. Seo. Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Hen, yes. Miss Frampong, yes. Miss Aombbe. Mr. Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Licter? Yes. Thank you, Mr. McCall. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is administrative appointments. And for that, I call in Dr. Rogers. Thank you, Chair Licter and members of the board. I'm bringing follow I'm bringing forward

006the following administrative appointments for your approval. Executive Director, Department of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Principal, Caitensville Middle School, Principal, Featherbed Lane Elementary School. Principal Logan Elementary School, Principal Pleasant Plains Elementary School, Principal Ryderwood Elementary School, and Pupil Personnel Worker, Department of Student Support Services. Thank you, Dr. Rogers. Do I have a motion to approve the administrative appointments as presented in exhibit E1? So move. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fol, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Lear, yes. Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Our first appointee this evening is David Davis. David is attending this evening with his wife Beth. You can stand and

007be recognized. David is attorney at Pleasant Plains Elementary School with 10 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools. David's prior experiences include elementary classroom teacher at Vincent Farm Elementary School and assistant principal at Japa View Elementary and Cromwell Valley Elementary Magnet School. Prior to that, David served as a classroom teacher at Prospect Mill Elementary School. Congratulations. Our next appointment this evening is an Hamill. Ann is attending this evening with her husband Jack and children. Please stand to be recognized. and is the principal of Caitensville Middle School. With 20 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, Ann's BCPS experiences include English teacher at Pikesville Middle School and assistant principal at Pikesville Middle School and Southwest Academy. Congratulations. Our next appointment this evening is Maria Henry. Maria Maria is attending this evening with her husband

008Todd and daughters. Please stand to be recognized. Maria is being appointed as the principal at Ryderwood Elementary School with 25 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools. Maria's prior experiences include elementary classroom teacher at Sandalwood Elementary School, elementary classroom teacher and reading specialist at Villa Cresta, and assistant principal at Charles Mont Elementary School. Congratulations. Our next appointment is Antinet Leia. Antonet is attending this evening with her husband Andrew and is being appointed as the pupil personnel worker. Please stand to be recognized. In 13 years of service to Baltimore County public school and BCPS experiences include Spanish teacher at Kenwood High School and Esau teacher at Lancetown High and Chesapeake high schools. Congratulations. Our next appointment is James Marthy. James is attending this evening with his sons Nolan and Ree, BCPS students. Please stand to

009be recognized. James is being appointed as the principal at Everland Lane Elementary School. with 21 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, James BCPS experience include reading teacher and English teacher at Southwest Academy, English teacher and resource teacher at Lanstown Middle School, and assistant principal at Featherbane Lane Elementary School. Prior to that, he served as a physical education coordinator and teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District. Congratulations. Our next appointment is John Staley. Please stand to be recognized. Dr. John Staley with his parents and family and is being appointed as the executive director in the department of science, technology, engineer, and mathematics. With 31 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, John's experiences include mathematics teacher at Sparrows Point Middle and Herford High School, coordinator and director in the office of mathematics, and

010manager in the department of research, accountability, and assessment. Congratulations. The last of the evening is Nicole Wrightson. Nicole is attending this evening with her husband Chris and principal Mike Parker. Please stand to be recognized. Nicole is being appointed as the principal at Logan Elementary School. With 21 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, Nicole's experiences include elementary classroom teacher, special education inclusion teacher, and resource teacher at Baltimore Highlands Elementary School and assistant principal at Birkshshire Elementary and Logan Elementary Schools. Congratulations. Is that everybody? Dr. Rogers. That is everyone. All right. Congratulations to everyone. And here they all go. Our next item is public comment. This is one of the opportunities the board provides to hear the views and receive the advice of community members. If not selected to address the board, members of the

011public may submit their comments to the board members via email at boebcps.org. Baltimore County Police Department's Homeland Security Unit and Office of School Safety has recommended safety and security protocols, which are posted in the boardroom and available in board docs and on the board's participation by the public website. While we encourage public input on policy, programs, and practices within the purview of this board and this school system, this is not the proper form to address specific student or employee matters or to comment on matters that do not relate to public education in Baltimore County. Inappropriate personal remarks or other behavior, such as language that promotes violence against a BCPS employee or that disrupts or interferes with the conduct of this meeting are out of order and will not be tolerated. Persons who otherwise disrupt or

012disturb this meeting will not be allowed to continue their remarks and will be escorted from the meeting. Please observe the 3minut clock which will let you know when your time is up. The microphone will be turned off at the end of your time or prior to that time at the discretion of the board chair. We'll start with our school system affiliated groups. And our first speaker is Lesie Weber from the PTA Council who's speaking virtually. Miss Weber. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Licter, Board of Education members of Dr. Rogers. We'd like to thank Dr. Rogers for supporting PTA council and PTAs by taking part in monthly leadership roundtable since 2023. Our final session will take place on June 4th. Dr. Rogers, we appreciate your long-standing commitment to

013PTA. We're proud to announce that we had six state level winners and one national winner in National PTA's annual reflections arts education competition. Grayson Gonzalez of Pretty Boy Elementary won first place at the state level in the visual arts category, accessible arts division. His entry was forwarded to national PTA for judging. Leah New of Heraford Middle won the top state level award in the photography category, middle school division. Her entry advanced to national PTA where it won a second place award. At our April general meeting, we heard great presentations on school-based health centers and on service learning. During April's Global Youth Service Days, PTA Council and PTA units hosted projects under our new service learning partners program in collaboration with the Office of Family and Community Engagement and Community Partners, including Councilmen Mike Ertell and

014Julian Jones. Students earn service learning hours by taking part in projects focused on um youth engagement, civics, foods and sufficiency, environmental awareness, and community building. Thank you to FACE program specialist Stacy Wade and supervisor Su Suhan for partnering with us to advance PTA sponsored service learning opportunities. Every year, National PTA offers program grants to PTAs. This year, two PTSAs, Eastern Tech and Woodlon, won the Create with Kindness Grant. Eastern Tech received additional grant funding to host a national PTA marquee event on April 21st. Woodlon's event took place on May 14th. These events brought together communities to explore teens online experiences and resources available to families to to set healthy digital boundaries. We'd like to congratulate PTA Council's Edwin Perez for his advocacy to help get policy 1250 approved. Thank you to Christina Pumprey for her

015leadership and to community allies for their partnership. We also want to recognize that Edwin recently received the distinguished service award from Maryland teachers of English to speakers of other languages. This reflects Edwin's commitment to advocacy for and the academic success of our immigrant, multicultural, and multilingual youth. Thank you. Thank you. Our next category are our unions. And our first speaker is Miss Kelly Olds from Tedco. Good evening, Chair Licter, Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. I would like to briefly touch on three topics tonight. First, uh there is a new problem that we have seen with Oracle and its implementation. Tabco administers a sickle bank. The bank is a career-saving tool for our members who have major medical events and run out of sick leave. It keeps educators in our system. It keeps members

016in their homes. For it to function, we set a donation rate annually. This rate is required to be based on need per our contract. But now we are told due to Oracle, BCPS staff cannot produce a report that they have used for this purpose for decades. This forces us to guess what we need. This does not work for our bank or our members. Please help us get the balances so we can set a needs-based donation rate for the sick leave bank. Next, Tabco members are already experiencing harm from the massive staffing cuts. Members around the county are dealing with the emotional and professional injury caused by their displacement, sometimes from communities that they have taught in for many years. Baltimore County leaders, that includes all of us, are called upon to have the difficult deci

017conversations to determine what this system and this county will be in the future. These cuts are doing serious harm, especially to our middle and high schools. This harm will drive more students from our system, leading to further cuts. I am concerned that we are on the edge of a downward spiral, and once it is triggered, it will be hard to reverse. We must maintain robust programming at all of our middle and high schools so we can continue to attract and retain families in our system and our county. Let's talk about that. Finally, I must mention the recently begun and already soon to be complete superintendent search. This is a daunting and important task, perhaps the largest single task that you, the board, must take on. and the stakes are higher than ever. Please take the

018union and community input to heart as you do this critical work. Please look to us to help support you in making this crucial decision. The future of our students, our educators, and the county depends on it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next category are nonprofit community groups. And our first speaker is Amanda Garrett from Schools Beyond Screens Baltimore County. And I believe she's on virtually. Yes. Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. My name is Amanda Garrett. I have two children in BCPS and I'm also a co-lead of the Baltimore County chapter of Schools Beyond Screens, a national coalition of parents and educators advocating for evidence-based technology use in schools. I'm here today because families across this county are deeply concerned about the amount of screenbased learning happening in our classrooms and about

019the millions of taxpayer dollars continue to be spent on educational technology despite mounting evidence that these programs are not improving learning outcomes for our kids. We are asking BCPS to take immediate steps to reduce classroom screen use and adopt a far more evidence-based approach to educational technology. Specifically, we are asking the district to eliminate classroom screen use in kindergarten through 2 grade. Phase out onetoone Chromebook programs in elementary and middle schools and return to shared laptop carts for limited instructional use. Prioritize teacher-led paperbased and discussion-based instruction over screenbased learning pro platforms and eliminate the overuse of educational technology programs that replace direct instruction while collecting large amounts of student data. The re the research supporting these changes is substantial and growing. A study of nearly 300,000 fourth and eighth grade grade grade students found that

020more device use in language arts was associated with worse reading performance with negative effects appearing at with as little as 30 minutes of use per day. Research also consistently shows that students retain information better when writing by hand, while screens and laptops increase distraction and reduce attention. and not only for the student using the device but for surrounding peers as well. These findings should concern all of us because despite more than a decade of massive investment in educational technology, we have not seen the academic transformation that was promised. Intentions are not outcomes. And while these programs are often defended in the name of equity, research shows that screenbased learning worsens inequities by undermining attention, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills, especially for vulnerable students. Technology education is important. Students should absolutely learn how to type

021and how to responsibly use digital tools. But technology education is not the same thing as educational technology. Learning about computers is different from learning math, reading, and science on computers. Our children's attention, learning, and personal data should not be treated as products for educational technology companies. And ultimately, one of the strongest predictors of student success is not a device or software program. It is a positive relationship with a teacher. We cannot continue allowing these programs to harm children's attention, learning, and development. while hoping the outcomes will somehow improve. The time has come for BCPS to make a Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Sean Gillum from So Shan Gillum. Oh, I'm sorry. I made I skipped. The next speaker is Dr. Dorsy from the NAACP of Randlestown. Good evening. How are you? Good.

022Whoops. Sorry. That's okay. Good evening. Um, Madame President, board members, superintendent, and members of the community. My name is Dr. Tea Dorsy, president of the Randletown NAACP 7032B, author of a 26 book series, Breaking Poverty Cycles through leadership, including two MSDE approved poverty informed leadership programs for CPD credit and a national expert in poverty disruption through leadership and educational equity. I stand before you today to address a reality that significantly impacts student achievement yet remains too often overlooked in educational leadership discussions. Poverty as a barrier to learning. Every day students enter our schools carrying burdens burdens many adults will struggle to manage. Some arrive hungry. Some face housing instability. Others carry trauma, anxiety, and chronic stress in the classroom. Yet, we continue expecting many students to perform academically as if those barriers do not exist.

023Students cannot fully learn when basic needs are unmet. Too often we discuss academic performance without discussing access behavior without discussing trauma and achievement gaps without confronting opportunity gaps. This is not about excu excuses. It is about systems. Poverty is not just a personal failure of students and families. It is a structural challenge that directly impact educational outcomes. And if we are truly committed to educational excellence, then we must also be committed to educational equity, recognizing that some students require additional support to reach the same standards of success. At the state level, MSDE has already recognized poverty informed approaches with broader equity centered practices. The opportunity at the local level is ensuring those practices are reflected in district policies, leadership practices, student training, and student support systems. Strong educational systems recognize that student achievement is directed

024directly connected to wellness, stability, mental health, and access to opportunity. Because the truth is simple. Zip code should not determine educational destiny. Tonight, I urge the board not only to acknowledge poverty as an educational barrier, but to intentionally address its impact through trauma-informed practices, equitable research, resources, allocation, wraparound supports, and stronger community partnerships. This conversation is not about lowering standards. It's about creating the conditions necessary for students to meet them. I urge the board to continue moving this conversation from a Thank you. Our next group is individual citizens or students and our first speaker is Isabelle Ordo virtually. Good evening. My name is Isabelle Oru and I am a visual arts student at Carver Center. I believe I speak on the behalf of most, if not all, of the 280 visual arts students at my

025school when I say that it is unfair to us that our film program is being cut. Outside of school, we pour at least 10 hours weekly into our artwork because we want to live up to the amazing high standard of art that students in our school are known for producing. With this, cutting of cutting film, a sector of art at Carver, is an insult to the hard work each car each visual art students here has put into their education. from the second they started their application process till today. Cutting out film won't just affect the handful of freshmen who are looking forward to taking the class next year. It'll also affect the balance amount of 17 to 18 kids in each separate course at each class level. Carver's visual arts program is the biggest prime

026in the entire school with it having 70 students per grade. In other words, visual students account for majority of the student body. Cutting the film forum will therefore affect onethird of the school students. Think about that. Baltimore County public schools claim to create environments for students to be able to engage, empower, and excel. But how can we engage in overpacked, difficult to focus in environments? How we be able to feel and be empowered when due to the lack of sufficient instructional time caused by longer fatigue sessions, our work isn't up to the quality and reputation Carver students have built and maintained over the past decades. How do we excel when our space to explore our creativity and passion is being prioritized less and less in today's world and now even in our classrooms at an

027art school at that artisan societies have been failed time and time again. So how can we be sure that in the next few years all our art programs will be cut when the people who are supposed to protect our ed education aren't doing that. For the sake of Carver and the arts, please keep our film program under a part-time instructor at the very least. We do not want to miss the high rigor of the BCPS film curriculum or give up on our dreams. Keeping Carver's film program means keeping the creative fire at Harvard burning for years and years to come. They'll be the ones to sit and watch it as our creative outlet is being stripped away from us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sean Gillum. Okay. Our next

028speaker is Mio. I believe she's virtual. Yes, I'm here. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Ruth Deo. I'm a Carver parent. I'm also here to raise concerns about how the film pathway is being diminished at Carver Center, which is the district's flagship arts magnet school. My daughter spent months preparing to apply to Carver for film. She worked hard through this her freshman rotation studying drawing, photography, and sculpture. excited for the chance to finally explore her passion which is film in the final quarter. Instead, after weeks with a disengaged substitute while the teacher was in on leave, students lost valuable instructional time. Then came the devastating news that next year film would no longer be offered as a concentration for incoming sophomores. My daughter and many of her peers were crushed, as you

029just heard. In response, I surveyed students, parents, alumni, and community members, and nearly 60 people responded, raising three major concerns. Number one, students are losing access to valuable modern workforce skills. Film education is more than making movies. It teaches editing, sound design, project management, collaboration, digital communication. All are highly transferable skills that BCPS recognizes as important in today's economy. Second, film strengthens collaboration across the car ars at Carver. Fewer film classes mean fewer opportunities for literary arts students to see scripts produced, for actors to gain on camera experience, and for interdisciplinary projects that make Carver unique. Third, eliminating this pathway creates strain elsewhere. Students displaced from film will be pushed into other visual arts courses, increasing class sizes and reducing individualized instruction for everyone. Now, I understand that this is a complex staffing issue, and

030I appreciate that administrators are exploring creative alternatives, but a film club cannot replace the rigorous academic program built to BCPS standards. When students hear film club, they think about the extraordinary Carver film alumni who have gone on to work on major productions, and they wonder what opportunities and rigor they are now being denied. Our request tonight is specific and achievable. Please preserve this program at its minimum sustainable level by securing one part-time certified art teacher, perhaps from the preferred transfer list, to maintain meaningful access to film coursework at Carver. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Our next speaker is Santina Janady. Good evening. Greetings, Superintendent Dr. Rogers and members of the board. I am Santina Janat, a BCPS parent and library media specialist. First, I want to thank the board for its

031support of policy 6200 and for recognizing the essential role that school libraries play in student achievement, literacy, and equitable access to information. Policy 6200 clearly acknowledges that licensed library media specialists serve as teachers, co-teers, content integrators, instructional leaders, information specialists, and program administrators. It also recognizes that school library media centers provide equitable access to the print and digital resources critical to lifelong literacy and learning. I deeply appreciate that this board is affirming those values. However, I ask you to also recognize what is required to make these goals possible. As you are aware, your 52 secondary library media specialists are assigned to teach content classes such as English or AVID in order to offset staffing shortfalls. When that happens, the library media specialist is removed from their 1.0 library role and placed in a classroom teacher

032role for approximately 25% of each instructional day. During that time, students and staff lose access to the very services this policy identifies as essential. The responsibilities outlined in policy 6200 are extensive. We teach information, digital and media literacy, foster inquiry and critical thinking, collaborate with teachers, manage instructional resources, and maintain library programs aligned with Komar, the Blueprint for Maryland's future, and the Maryland Freedom to Read Act. That work cannot be done effectively when the librarian is absent from the library for a quarter of every school day. In addition, our collection development process is rigorous and data-driven. We continuously evaluate, select and deselect materials using established criteria. We assess materials for developmental appropriateness, accuracy, authority, currency, literary quality, diverse representation, and technical merit. This intentional work builds collections that reflect the pluralistic nature of a global

033society and include multiple perspectives and differing viewpoints. We provide materials in print, digital, audio, multimedia formats to support diverse learning styles and instructional needs. The work is not theoretical. It requires time, expertise, ongoing engagement with staff and students. Most importantly, we create readers. We connect students with books that engage them, reflect them, challenge them, help them grow. Uh research consistently shows that independent reading is one of the strongest indicators of improved academic performance including gains in reading, vocabulary, comprehension, even math achievement. If we truly believe in the goals outlined in 6200, then we must ensure students have full-time access to the professionals responsible for carrying them out. As a BCPS parent, I want my student to have a school librarian in her secondary school uh who's available to work with students and staff. So close.

034Thank you. Thanks. Our next speaker is Mag and she's virtually virtual. Good evening members of the board of education. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mewell and I'm here to express concerns shared by many other parents regarding the growing use of screens and e-learning in our schools. I understand that technology has a place in education. Certain activities such as standardized testing, research, and developing digital literacy skills require it. However, what many parents are struggling to understand is where the line is being drawn between necessary technology use and unnecessary dependence on screens for everyday instruction. Right now, there appears to be a lack of clear guidance and transparency around when screens are being used, how often they are being used, and why they are being used. Many families are concerned that

035e-learning is expanding well beyond its original purpose without sufficient evidence that it improves educational outcomes. In fact, much of the available research points in the opposite direction. Studies increasingly show that students often experience lower retention, reduced comprehension, and greater distraction when learning primarily through screens compared to direct classroom instruction. Parents are also becoming increasingly concerned about what students are actually doing on devices during the school day. Some families in this county have begun requesting search histories because students themselves report that classmates are easily distracted online. And honestly, it raises a practical question. How can one teacher realistically moni monitor an entire classroom of students on computers at the same time? For many parents, it feels like the wild west. My concerns ultimately come down to three key questions. First, can the district provide clearer guidance

036and transparency regarding when and why screens are being used in instruction? Second, will parents be given a meaningful ability to opt their children out of technology- based learning for normal curriculum activities without fear of academic penalty or exclusion? And third, what concrete steps are being taken to address the known pitfalls of e-learning, including distraction, reduced engagement, and diminished retention. I would also encourage the board to read the digital delusion by Dr. Jared Puni Horvath. Before expanding technology use further, we should be asking, is this improving student learning? Is it helping teachers teach more effectively? And is it developmentally appropriate for children? Technology should support education, not replace human interaction, focus, discussion, and critical thinking that make classrooms effective in the first place. Thank you. Thank you. Since we do have one available spot, um Dr.

037Fon, you're on the wait list. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. And I know you have a most important job in choosing the next superintendent. So let me just remind you for 30 years boards listen to stakeholders asking for more money less work more employees. We don't have good results. boards before you chose superintendent based on political affiliation. Maybe religion, maybe color, who knows? But really, the past seven has failed us all completely. So, how would you choose the new superintendent? I personally ask you not to rush. Do not fall into the trap of quick selection because you want the system to be stable. Like KS told you last last board meeting, you need to have the right person for the job. You really do. You need to look at their honesty somehow. A

038superintendent is most powerful leader in the school system has to be a person of integrity, honesty beyond any approach. You need to look at abilities. Everybody chosen now and all the way to Dr. Burgerer have been doctors. They have the degree. Did that really help us? No. I know you have to choose a doctor, but you need to look beyond that title. Their ability to focus on students. I am not against teachers or anybody else. I am for students. If the new superintendent is focused on effectiveness and safety in the classroom, focused on students, everybody will be happy. I hope you accept my words. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is unfinished business board policies. This is a second reader for these policies and for that I call on Miss Christina Pumphrey, chair

039of the policy review committee. Thank you. Members of the board, the policy review committee asks that the board accept the committee's recommendation to amend the following board policies. Board policy 3710, safety and security equipment. Board policy 6200, school libraries. These policies are presented to you on tonight's agenda as exhibits G1 and G2. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. Board members, are there any separations requested? Okay. May I have a motion to accept the recommendation of the board's policy review committee for board policies 3710 or 6200? So moved. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Is there any discussion before I sneeze? Oh, now it's gone. Okay, we're back. Let me check teams. I don't see anybody. Okay. Um, may I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong,

040yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Doc Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Leicter, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next item on the agenda is action taken in close session. And for that I call on Mr. Burns. Good evening, Chair Leter, board members. Dr. Rogers. Um Darren Burns, Board Council. Tonight in close session, the board reviewed and took action on uh hearing examiner case HA 21, I'm sorry, 26-021. Now would be an appropriate time to affirm the action taken in close session. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's case HA26-021 and authorize Miss Gobbert to sign for those board members not physically present. So move Pumprey. Thank you. May I have a second? Second, Stelloski.

041Thank you. Any discussion? May we have a roll call vote, please? Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, yes. Miss Stleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is new business special project request and for that I call on Dr. Jones. Thank you. Good evening board chair, Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. I bring before you a request for a special project request. The special project includes the installation of a batting cage with a roof and replaces an existing damaged and unusable battle ca batting cage at Carol Mana Elementary School. Funding is being provided by the Carol Mana Recreations Council. At this time, we like for you to consider approval

042of this special project. Thank you. May I have a motion to accept the special project request for the Carl Manor Elementary School batting cage with roof project as presented in exhibit I. So move Stleski. Thank you. May I have a second? Second. Seo. Thank you. Any discussion? Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Henh is raised in the chat. I'm sorry, Miss Fhung. Question. Thank you. It's just a clarification and it's it's just about wording. So, Dr. Jones, good evening. Good evening. So, the document submitted says it is an installation. So, originally when I saw the title, I thought there was nothing there and it was brand new, but reading through the paperwork, it says there's something there. So, they're tearing down what's there and replacing that with this new one. Correct.

043Yes. based on the wording in the document. That is correct. And Dr. Grim's nodding behind you. Okay. So, is there a difference like just again the language and clarity between us using like replacement versus installation? So, good evening, Miss Fong. This is uh this is Jess Grim. The um the the special project request is for the installation. The uh the demolition of the existing batting cage could occur without the installation. So we need the the board's permission as a 7330 to approve the special project and the uh the the privately funded project uh for the school. So they're they're related in this case, but we we could take the the existing batting cage down without the new installation. So the request is really for the new installation, but but to answer your question, yes, the

044old one will be removed. The new one will be constructed at in the same spot. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Manowski. I I just you've already said, Vice Clever, this is all coming from private funds. It's not. It's being privately funded by the Carol Matter rec. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Now, may I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Framp, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I think you're on for another one. Okay. So, the next item on the agenda is new business, naming or renaming an area. And for that, I call on Dr. Jones. Thank you. Good evening again, board chair, Lector, Dr. Rogers, and members of the board.

045I bring before you consideration of 7530 project, its installation of a commemorative plaque to be affixed to an existing playground bench at Woodhome Elementary School. In according accordance with rule 7530 section A, this special project includes the installation of a memorial plaque to be affixed to an existing playground bench at Woodhome Elementary School in memory of a third grade student, Caleb Dresen. Caleb was known to a friend as a friend to all and his ability to connect with peers and faculty alike fostered a culture of kindness and belonging on the playground and in the classroom. The proposed plaque wording will be in memory of Caleb, a friend to all. The proposed plaque will also have an imprint of his handwritten name. Again, I bring before you consideration of this 7530 project at Woodol Elementary School.

046Thank you. May I have a motion to accept the 7530 naming or renaming an area project to commemorate an existing playground bench at Woodome Elementary School as presented in exhibit J. So move Pumprey. Thank you. May I have a second? Second, Savoy. Thank you. Any discussion? Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Oops. Mr. Young, team, I just looked, but okay. Miss Fang, thank you. I just have a comment that this is a a beautiful memorialization of um this student. So, just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Fong. Anyone else? We have a roll call vote, please. Miss Framp, yes. Miss Dowleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Palmrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jones. Thank you very

047much. The next item on the agenda is the report on the education foundation. And for that, I call on its biggest cheerleader, Dr. Woolrich. Good evening, Madam Chair. Good evening, board members. On behalf of the Education Foundation of Baltimore County Public Schools, I thank you for this opportunity to share the good news of our missiondriven work. Um, as introduced, my name is Dr. Heather Waldridge. I currently serve BCPS as the associate director of the Education Foundation. Next slide, please. Or a slide, please. There you go. Thank you. The Education Foundation of Baltimore County Public Schools was established on October 26th, 1992 as the official 501c3 nonprofit um arm of this school system. We are on a mission. Thank you. We are on a mission to contribute to a brighter future as a champion of this

048school system exclusively via advocacy, fundraising, and programming. We believe that we together with our partners can ensure that every single student, educator, and school community has the resources necessary to meet their full potential. Next slide, please. Oh, that's me. We focus on three goals. As advocates, we are champions of BCPS students, educators, and school uh communities. We serve as the fiscal sponsors for scholarships and grants for schools, offices, and departments. And we are facilitators of programs that support systemic initiatives and school and office-based goals. To raise funds for all of this work, we hold um several fundraisers throughout the year. Uh we have a golf tournament in October, the tea off for team BCPS. We have a crowd favorite designer bag bingo event in January. We support um our superintendent annually with whatever variation of

049state of the schools um they would like and we have a grassroots let's play ball event that is sometimes softball, sometimes pickle ball. Um these fundraising events help support our advocacy goals and programmings by providing the funding necessary to support them. For programs we started in 2010 with scholarships. In 2012, we added a grants program and in 2020, we started our first exchange. I'd like to begin this evening by talking about our scholarship program. Between 2010 and 2025, we have provided over 750 scholarships for graduating seniors for a total of almost $750,000. This year we are on pace to award another 211 scholarships for a total of $61,500. We are able to provide these scholarships thanks to the fundraising efforts as well as our relationships with private philanthropic uh donors. As a foundation, we award

050the scholarships to students who are pursuing business, economics, entrepreneurial and finance, beef, um, and science, technology, engineering, and math STEM careers. The historically black colleges and universities HBC.U scholarship provides funding for books for students uh, pursuing education at a historically black college or university. And the tools for trade scholarship pays for tools for students pursuing post-secary training for a trade. As I mentioned earlier, we also have over 50 private partners um providing scholarships in a variety of concentrations. Some honor uh loved ones, some honor their career paths, um some are just dedicated to um a school, maybe their alma mater. The grants program started in 2012 with the 21st century instructional initiatives grant. This provides teachers and schools with the opportunity to fund special projects that enhance the regular curriculum. This is a grant funded

051by the foundation. In 2014, we brought on the clean green 15 litter challenge grants. This is in partnership with the um Baltimore County government department of uh environmental um sustainability and oop depths I should say it right environmental protection and sustainability and recently the Baltimore Community Foundation. Since 2023, however, the grant program has grown exponentially. Leading the expansion was First Financial Federal Credit Union, which pledged to award $10,000 a year for five years for its Putting Students First grants. Following that, the foundation secured a three-year commitment from the Littlefree Library Organization to plant booksharing boxes on school campuses and in community spaces every six months. This grant offers over $10,000 worth of materials every year. And that network of little free libraries has grown to include over 150 little free libraries in just three short

052years. In 2024, we received a $1 million grant to help human resources recruit, train, and help maintain black indigenous people of color in the teaching profess profession in Baltimore County. Our other grant partners include ABC with a grant focused on high schools with the construction pathways completer program, American Design Associates, which provides alternative learning spaces in our libraries, the Cal Ripken Senior Foundation, which provides schools with STEM centers with $35 to $55,000 worth of materials per site, and Wayfinder, which supports our purpose center social emotional learning. earning grants with $150,000 in grants each year. And this year, First Financial Federal Credit Union awarded BCPS with a $200,000 grant to support professional development. New for next year, we're introducing the Dollar General Grant, which will allow schools to apply for funds to purchase books in languages

053other than English. My Cozy Corner grants, which will provide furniture, books, games, and STEM materials for schools. The Freriedman field trip grants, which will provide funds for field trips um designed to enhance the regular curricula. The Capital Corner Entrepreneurship Grant, which will support seniors with startup costs for their own businesses, the Duron Faculty Room Redesign Grant, I think that one speaks for itself, and many more. Information about those grants will be released on our website June 1st. This school year, we are on pace to award an additional 182 grants for a whopping $380,000. Woohoo. Those of you familiar with our exchange know that these two educator resource centers are what make our foundation a unicorn in the world of education foundations. We have not one but two locations in partnership with merit companies where teachers

054may shop one time per month all year long for classroom supplies and resources at zero cost to themselves. Since opening the first one in Windsor Mill in 2018, the Exchangies have served over 20,000 educators and 525 BC thousand BCPS students. And up until April 1st of this year, we have funneled over $4.6 million with worth of resources back into our school system. $4.6 million. As a former English teacher and certified librarian, I am proud to announce announce tonight that on April 16th during shopping at Windsor Mill, we distributed our 100,000th book. Books are one of our most popular items on shopping nights. Educators are allowed to select an unlimited number of books during each shopping experience. These are for their classroom libraries, their students home libraries, and our network of little free libraries. Um, we

055are able to do this thanks to donations from Baltimore County um, community members and our partnership with the Maryland Book Bank. But they are not the only popular items. This year alone, so far, this school year alone, we have distributed 11,000 notebooks, 23,000 folders, 44,000 pens, 55,000 markers, 89,000 pencils, and 144,000 crayons. These are items that go directly into our classrooms for our student use. And our teachers are not putting their hands in their own pockets to pay for these items. We are providing them for them. That's only this school year alone. So far, these numbers are astounding and they continue to rise. In school year 2223, just two years ago, the average number of shoppers on a shopping night was just 44. This school year, just two years later, our average on a shopping

056night is 88 shoppers in three hours, with our highest being 162 educators in three hours last August. The need for classroom supplies and resources is real, and the foundation is filling that need. Just to recap, since 2018, the Exchange have served over 20,000 educators in Baltimore County public schools and 525,000 students. We have, as of April, crossed the threshold and distributed over 100,000 books. We have solicited donations and raised funds to give back over $4.6 million worth of resources into our school system. Of course, we could not do this without our generous community partners who sponsor our events and our generous community members who donate funds and new and gently used like new materials to keep the shelves of the exchange stocked. We host three major campaigns each year to support the exchange. This year

057so far, we have distributed over $310,000 worth of tools for school mater materials. Think of your typical classroom materials and supplies. Over $100,000 worth of books for teachers classrooms, student home, libraries, and our network of little free libraries. And over $200,000 worth of share the warmth and joy materials, which are our hats, gloves, coats, hygiene products, and social emotional learning tools for our students. That does not even include the almost $300,000 worth of what I like to call miscellaneous treasures. Um, those that have been adopted this year, those may include desk accessories, posters, incense holders, you name it. Whatever the community wants to donate, our talented teachers and creative students will use and they take off the shelves. This year has been particularly exciting because we have listened to our ever growing number of clientele

058who suggested that the excha exchange might be slightly um crowded based on the aisles structure of the exchangies and the increasing number of shoppers. So as you can see on the left hand slide side of the slide we used to have aisles at the exchange and we have come up with an open floor um planning scheme. So a team came up with the open floor plan with the in at the exchange in Windsor Mill and in December with the help from many partners including Lowe's, GWWO, Whiting Turner, American Design Associates, Media Star Promotions, of course, our fabulous board members and our invaluable core volunteers. We emptied the entire exchangerry, removed the old shelving units, built new shelving units, painted the walls, redesigned the bathroom, swapped out the brown banker boxes for clear plastic bins, added

059new signs that help our students with special needs who stock our shelves to see the items that go in with an image of that, the title of the image of the item in the box, as well as the allocation for the teachers. And we did all of that, including bringing it all back in and restocking the shelves in one 24-hour period. The space has been completely transformed. The flow is much better for shoppers. The space is more conducive for meetings, professional development, and experiential learning. And we have even started offering free yoga classes for BCPS employees. It is a lighter, brighter space, more conducive to serving our community. And so, as you can imagine, the success was so great that we have replicated most of it in Rosedale in March. And we have a few

060more improvements to make, but the transformation in Rosedale has already also had an incredibly positive impact on our service to our clients. Another highlight were these three ex exclusive exchangerry style shopping experiences which were held at the BCPS logistics warehouse. We are so grateful to logistics for receiving and holding almost $150,000 worth of brand new shoes and brand new socks for our students experiencing homelessness. $55,000 worth of brand new clothing from Media Star Promotions and $30,000 worth of Play-Doh, Pokemon games, and Legos from First Book. All of which came in just before the holidays to truly help our community celebrate. Thank you, logistics. And of course, none of this would be possible without our incredible board members. They are the most active and supportive board members I'm aware of. Um, no disrespect. They contribute to

061every campaign, every fundraising event, and are storytellers and advocates for our mission-driven work. They are truly champions of education, and more importantly, they are champions of Baltimore County Public Schools. We also could not do what we do without our core volunteers who support our fundraising events, exclusive shopping dates, and more. If you really want to know who's in charge at the exchange, it's the volunteers. They show up every single week. They work with our students. They receive um deliveries and donations. They stock our shelves and they facilitate shopping. And without them, we truly could not do the work that we do. Um we love you ladies and husbands. Uh finally, I would be remiss if I did not recognize Miss Cindy Wickholm. Miss Cindy Wickholm is our admin fiscal assistant and for the past 18

062months, Cindy and I have been a mighty team of two as the executive director position of the foundation has been vacant for 18 months. Cindy's institutional knowledge and passion for our mission-driven work has kept us afloat and thriving. Thank you, Cindy. And in conclusion, I invite all of you to clean out your desks, your offices, your closets, your basement, your atticss, donate to our campaigns, come uh contact headquarters and schedule your next meeting in one of our beautiful spaces. And I challenge you to accept the challenge of coming to visit and volunteer. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Dr. Woolrich. Are there any questions from the board? And thank you for all that the foundation does for our teachers and students. questions. Miss Pumprey. Um, first I just, you know, everyone I think

063here knows I'm a big fan of the foundation, but I just wanted to say thank you Dr. Waldridge for stepping in when you have less staff. You're continuing in the work of the foundation. Not only continuing, but looking at what you described today, uh, making it better and improving it and bringing us more um, benefits that the foundation provides, especially monetarily. Um, I just think in a time when we are cutting with budget cuts, providing those supplies for teachers and students is incredibly necessary. So, thank you for all of your hard work. And I have one quick one quick question about the grants that I'm not sure if you can answer or not. Um, the grants, some of the grants that you described. There are so many. I wrote them down. Um, like the the

064$1 million human resource grant for um teacher recruitment and retention. That's one of them. Those grants, are they specifically from the foundation? because I know we also have another um another section of our BCPS that um writes grants does grant writing as well. Were those specific to the foundation or those um in connection with the other um office? Office. Thank you. That helps with those. It's an excellent question. I appreciate that. Um so many of them are specific to the foundation, but as we are all team BCPS, we do often collaborate with other offices and departments. Um the ones that come through specifically for the foundation are the ones that are required to go through a 501c3 nonprofit. Um so we are the official fiscal sponsors on behalf of the school system for those grants.

065Um but whether they come through us or or they don't, we absolutely um always collaborate with that office, the grant writing office and and many other offices who are searching for their own grants um to support their initiatives. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Let me check teams. Um, Miss Fmpong, I took a guess. That was you. Yep. Miss Fang, thank you. Good evening, Dr. Bulitz. I echo um Miss Pumprey's comments. Um, and I love hearing about the opportunities for even students with special needs to be able to volunteer and that you have made um the facility um more easily um accessible for them to be able to help as well. As far as things um for donations for our that would be given for special needs students, are those types of um items available

066as well? So things like I don't know I'm just throwing out things widgets or noise counseling headphones but I guess any of those things that will be allowable. Are those things available for our special need students as well in the store? Um so typically we we have a shopping list that you can download from our website that has bas the basic school supplies. Um anything that's more specific particularly for students for special special needs. We would often invite our colleagues to apply for a fast funds or a 21st century or putting students first grant for those items. Um because we have 174 sites um we can't always be as um broad in our offerings um on a regular basis but we can always support our you know special requests. That's great. Thank you for still

067having that avenue available. Thank you, Mr. Dominowski. Yes, thank you for everything that you do. Um the um changeries, the exchange are great. I I love them. I I'm also was wondering if you thought about putting together some kind of a list for like really high need schools that can't always get out to the exchange and maybe do some kind of delivery service for those like most like Kleenexes and and soap and paper towels and stuff like that that that parents ask for that or teachers ask for that doesn't always get from the parents and then if those teachers can't get out to the exchange to get them. Have you ever thought about putting together some kind of rotation or list to check in and see which schools really need those things and if you

068can get someone like a runner out there maybe once a month or once a quarter, something like that. We are constant, thank you for the question. We are constantly fielding requests and and bending over backwards to do what we can um to make sure that we serve our community. We had a bus on uh the list at one point, but unfortunately with only two staff members, it's it's really uh that's asking a lot. So, the bus is on pause. Um, but we always make sure that any requests that come in, we we do our best to make sure that we deliver. A minivan that you could borrow. Anybody? Anyone else? If you're volunteering, I'm thinking. All right. Thank you, Dr. Woolridge. Thank you very much. And the next item on the agenda is report on

069academic achievement chronic absenteeism. And for that I call Dr. Jones do Miss Mustaper and Dr. Archles who I don't see. Oh yes I do. You were hiding back there. Good evening everybody. Good evening board chair liar Dr. Rogers and members of the board. I am very excited to be joined by these two lovely staff members here at BCPS. Miss Mustaper who serves as a director of student support services and Miss Archelus, Dr. Archelus who is an amazing principal at Woodlon Middle School. Um before we get started, we are very proud of the work that we have accomplished in Baltimore County Public Schools as it relates to attendance and making sure our student our students attend school schools. This um presentation will be focused on middle school, but there's a lot to be proud of and

070still more work to do, but we're excited about our gains. If we could share the slide presentation, we'll get started. I'll turn it over to Miss Mustaper. Thank you. Um good evening everyone. Um in speaking about attendance, the quote that's in front of you comes from attendance work. Attendance is not just a number. It me it's a measure of connection access and conditions for student success in our country. There are four po 14.7 million students who are absent each and every day from school. Um and that that when you think about it is con considerable number. um as we are trying to build um a culture of attendance across Baltimore County, we have to be focused on the fact that students come to school and we know this and the data tells us when they

071are connected. Um and continuing that discussion tonight, you'll hear from us about what we are doing in Baltimore County to bolster that connection and then you're going to hear from Dr. Archelus and the wonderful work of Woodlon Middle School. All right. So, you've heard about the here for it campaign and the work that we've done really to frame how we approach attendance and chronic absenteeism in Baltimore County. Um, that framing allows us to have shared language as well as shared processes, not just for um schools, but for stakeholders as well. So, we start off with high levels of engagement, really messaging to our students, our families, our staff, and our community partners. We extend that further by empowering our schools, our communities and building that culture of attendance by providing system level expectations and really

072focusing on school level expectations. That will result in what we have seen is communities that are committed and sharing in the responsibility for um attendance and reducing chronic absenteeism. All right, there we go. It popped back up. Thank you. Um, so what we wanted to highlight here is to really talk about what happens on a daily basis and what that looks like in our schools. So through the engagement, we're engaging our students in community announcements. We're doing attendance tips that are shared by our principles and building leaders out to their larger communities. We have a website that has resources and promotes attendance that can be accessed by anyone um in the larger Baltimore County community. We're also really focused on promotion of attendance. um we want to make sure that each and every day students

073know they matter and we want to see them in our school buildings as part of our our communities. Um one of the things that I wanted to highlight here and we really felt important was to to share with you is recently we had the opportunity um when we talk about engaging to work with attendance works who's a frontr runner in um all things attendance but also the disruption of chronic absenteeism. They partnered with Kaiser Permanente to really bring together um two local education agencies, Baltimore County being one of them, to talk about the goals of attendance, what that looks like, the strategies, and really to continue to empower us to continue with our campaign, but also to leverage the expertise across our school system um as we really promote the levels of attendance and what

074that looks like each and every every day. Um, one thing I'm proud of as a result of that and to continue to further our efforts around attendance, um, they've committed $20,000 to to that campaign for our next school year. Um, when we talk about empowerment, so we talked about engagement and how we bring that forward. Empowering our schools is is critically important. One of the great um things that we have done is really prioritize and leverage the expertise of our pupil personnel workers. Our pupil personnel workers start off each and every year with a best practices presentation. That best practices presentation is carried forward to the entire school community. Um and it really talks about strategies. What can I do? How can I engage? what are the resources to support me in um supporting my

075students in coming to school? What are the conversations with parents? Um so that was also part of it. And then that flows right into at the school level the attendance teams. How are we monitoring attendance? So there are attendance teams at all of our schools. Some meet once a month, some meet more frequently, twice a month, and some, believe it or not, some of them talk about meeting every single week to really make sure that they are keeping the pulse on what is impacting our learners. Um, that's all driven with our data. Of course, we have um our dashboards that we rely on heavily to bring forward that data around attendance and even even to drill down into um individual learners to think about what's what's underneath of um great attendance and celebrating that, but

076also what can we do to dig up under when students are have are struggling or are challenged with attending. Um that also we've also built in you've heard about community schools. Um, one of the things that our community school partners have done is they've also picked right up with the here for it campaign and champion forward with us mobilizing resources, helping our schools to look critically at what's absent, what do we need to bring into our schools so that students have all of the resources they need to attend. Um, we also expanded our project attend um program this year. That's a program where we um work with families who are met with many challenges of getting their students to school and we meet at the courthouse generally with a hearing officer to talk about a

077plan of support for students to attend. One of the things that we discovered as we were tracking data was our parents were really challenged with transportation. So, we piloted this spring moving some of those um uh project meetings into our school houses. So, we looked at a couple around the county and we moved it there. That has shown promise with greater attendance by families to be able to plan on how they support their students, but it's also really powerful because they can learn about the resources right there in their community. Um, so we we anticipate having more data around how that looks because it's only been a brief period of time, but we do see the promise in in meeting our students and families where they are in their communities. Um, and then all of

078this goes to the greater work of students coming to school and having access in the instructional environment. Um, the engagement goes up. We know that um increased time in class uh but also just the greater connections. As we started this presentation, we talked about the power of connections um and knowing that you matter to the people you come in and see each and every day. Turn. All right. So, the slide in front of you speaks to the systemwide chronic absenteeism data. And this is a slide you'll look on the left 2022 23. Um and then we move right on over into present day. Um we're excited. This is just a real testament, a true testament to the work of our schools, our families, our students, um in how they are embracing the culture of attending.

079Um what you will see here is that we have just slightly under 17% improvement um of our students coming to school. When you translate that, that's 19,365 students who've improved their attendance across time. And you can also see that we're also um increasing the learners that are there and and attending on a regular basis. We're also mitigating in the in the moderate and the chronic areas as well. One thing I want to highlight here in this MSDE this year set a target a three-year target actually of decreasing chronic absenteeism by 15%. Our number right now stands at 14.92%. We are under that mark and we're one year in to the targeted work that MSDE has charged us with across the state. The next slide takes a look at how we're trending um as far as

080endofear reduction. We have 126 schools that are meeting with success and they're actually um when you look at this, they're doing even better than they did at this time last year. So 84 elementary schools, 24 of our middle schools, and 18 of our high schools. We are continuing continuing to see growth. um as a measure when we look at end of year and we look at present numbers. All righty. Now, let's dig into middle school. Um middle school we looked at across our system and we're very excited. We're continuing to see the downward trends. Of course, you can reflect on that 23 the 23 24 numbers uh and the move really quickly to the right and you are going to see reductions in our chronic absenteeism and um when we've focused we've had focused interventions

081we've looked at what students need thought about the resources when you look at this um our east zone is really championing they have had an 8% reduction as far as our middle schools go and all of our zones reducing the chronic absenteeism. I'm not going to steal Dr. um Archelus's thunder. I want her to speak to Woodlon Middle School, but you can see there's a pretty significant growth there as well. And then if you look at the blue box at the bottom, you will also see that the chronic absenteeism at the same point in time um when we pulled this data, we are continuing exactly the same time last year and the year before that we are continuing to see reductions in chronic absenteeism. So with that, I am going to turn it over to

082Dr. Archelus so she can brag about the great work she's done to build that culture of attendance at Woodlon Middle School. Thank you, Mrs. Mustapher. Good evening, board chair Licar, Superintendent Rogers, and members of the board. I am Dr. Rochelle Archelus, and I have had the privilege of serving Woodlaw Middle School for the past 12 years as principal, and it is truly an honor to share our progress and tell our story of how our school community addressed one of our most pressing challenges, which is chronic absenteeism. Now, anyone who visits Woodlon Middle School, especially the last 12 years that I've been there, often comments on our positive climate. When you walk through our doors, you immediately feel a sense of warmth, pride, kindness, and support for our students that surrounds them each and every day.

083And I like to call it the magic of Woodlon Middle. At the start of our focus attendance work during the 2023 24 school year, our chronic absentee rate, as you can see on the screen, was 49.2%. Today, I am proud to share that we have reduced that number to 21.33. That is almost a 28% decrease in only two years. That reduction represents far more than a statistic. Two years ago, we recognized that absenteeism at that level was significantly impacting student achievement, instructional continuity, and overall student achievement engagement. Simply put, if students are not in school, they cannot fully learn, grow, and thrive. So, as we analyzed our data, we quickly realized that improving attendance would require more than isolated interventions. It demanded a coordinated, systematic, and proactive approach centered on relationships, accountability, and support. You

084can see on the screen some of the key strategies that we implemented over the last two years and I'm going to talk about a few of these at this time. First, we established a collaborative attendance monitoring system that brought together our pupil personnel worker, administrators, our care liaison, social worker, community school facilitator, nurse, counselors, teachers, and support staff. All of them play a key piece to the puzzle. Every member of our school community became an integral partner in this work. Our attendance committee meets monthly. Well, that's what is scheduled to meet. But in reality, the reality is conversations about our student needs happen every single day in our school building. When we identify a barrier preventing a student from attending school, we do not wait for that monthly meeting. We respond immediately. We prioritize individualized

085interventions by identifying root causes rather than simply reacting to symptoms. For some students, that meant schedule adjustments. For others, it meant academic support, emotional support, or even assistance meeting needs at home. Family engagement also became central to our success. Through attendance letters, conferences, follow-up phone calls, and even personal wakeup calls to our students, we strengthen communication and partnership with our families. These efforts reinforced that attendance is a shared responsibility between school and home. Equally important, we focused on the whole child. I often tell our team that students enter our building carrying things in their invisible book bags that we often cannot see. Our job is to remove those obstacles so that when they are in our school space, they can focus on learning and growing. as a community school and we were the first middle

086school in Baltimore County to be designated as a middle school community school. We were able to expand our care closet to provide school uniforms, toiletries, school supplies, laundry detergent, coats, hats, umbrellas, even sometimes washing students clothes to remove those barriers that often contribute to absenteeism. This year, we even partnered with Smile Maryland to provide dental services to students at our school. 30 students received care, including several uninsured students and some who had never previously received a dental cleaning. One especially powerful example involved a student who migrated from Honduras last year and required medical supplies his family could not afford. Our team immediately mobilized to support him. Through the dedication of our staff and the support of our community partners, we secured enough medical supplies to support him through the remainder of this school year and

087throughout the entire upcoming summer. We also implemented a check-in checkout system and lunch bunch groups with our counselors for students facing persistent attendance challenges, ensuring they had consistent emotional and academic support. Internally, we strengthened teacher accountability for accurate and timely attendance reporting so that our data remained reliable and actionable in real time. At the end of each school day, I personally announce our attendance rate for the day and which grade level had the highest attendance. Our students look forward to hearing which grade level won the attendance for the day. To reinforce positive attendance habits, we implemented monthly incentives and celebrations including assemblies, cert certificates, and field trips. We worked intentionally to create a culture where showing up to school is valued, celebrated, and expected. And you see one of those pictures there where our students

088are celebrated. Most importantly, we created a culture where students feel valued and experience a true sense of belonging, which is crucial for middle school students. At Woodlon Middle School, when students are absent, they are not met with indifference. they are met with care. It is common to hear staff and students say, "Welcome back. We missed you. Hey, where have you been?" Our students know they matter. They know their presence is important. They know they belong. Woodlon Middle School is a place where diversity is also celebrated and where students are encouraged to thrive, grow, and see themselves as capable scholars and connected members of our school community. Through these combined efforts, again, we re reduce chronic absenteeism from 49.2 to 29.33, which is no small feat. This represents not only a significant numerical decrease, but also

089a meaningful shift in student engagement, family partnership, and school culture. Now, while we're proud of this progress, we also understand that this work must continue. Sustaining strong attendance requires ongoing collaboration, early intervention, and meaningful support for students and families. This journey has shown us that when schools operate as a unified team, not in silos, centered on students, grounded in relationships, and driven by data, meaningful change is possible. Every day as the principal, I have the joy of walking our hallways and hearing good morning from students and staff. The smiles, the energy, the joy of learning together remind us of why our work matters. Thank you to Dr. Jones and Mrs. Mustaper for the opportunity to share the story of the wonderful place that is called Woodlon Middle School. Thank you. Wow. I'm not sure we

090can follow up on that, but thank you all so much and um thank you. I've had the privilege of walking through your school many times and it truly is a special place where kids do feel the relationship and do feel like they belong. And I love the expression they're not met with indifference. You wear uniforms? Yes, we are one of the uniform schools in Baltimore County. And how long have you been doing that? Oh my, it was way before I got there. Um, and I would dare to say at clo maybe close to 20 years cuz I've been there 12 already. So, it's just understood. Yes. That you're going to wear the school colors. Yes. The grade level colors. So, each of our grade level grade levels have a different color. Um, our eighth graders

091are currently in black. Our seventh graders are in um burgundy. And our sixth graders are in heather gray. and they stay with that that those cohort of students stay with that color all three years. Um, but through our community partners like the student support network, we're able to provide uniforms for families that are in need. Is that just the tops or is that the pants or slacks? Yes, we're able to provide both. And do so it's been going on so long there's no real negative feedback. No, I think our parents actually appreciate it because it's less expensive for them to get a few pairs of khaki pants and polo style shirts. And like we said, if we have any students that are McKenna Vental or have hardships, we're able to supply that for them. Yeah.

092Thank you. You're welcome. Other comments or questions? Mr. Young, thank you um for this presentation. So, Dr. Archulus, you've done an amazing job in reducing that um rate down. Um have you looked at also how um that has made improvements in your test results for your students? Yes, we're continuing to grow and make gains um our students and we've been closing gaps with the growth in our students. Um, some of our students, as I said, walk in with things in their invisible book bags, and that includes even sometimes deficit skills. And so, um, we receive accolades for reducing, um, our, um, closing the gap with our students in reading, for instance, in reading intervention and um, and and bringing them up to grade level. We've been able to close our academic gaps for some of

093our students, two to three grade levels within a given year. And so that's something that if the students again if they once they're there we work with them to see where their gaps are in order to continue to um improve their student academic achievement. Thank you. Yes. Other questions or comments? Mr. Manowski? Just one quick one. What is your total student enrollment right now? Our sto total student enrollment sits at 467. 467. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Miss Dleski, did you have a question? Thank you. Thank you for your hard work to support students. Um just two quick questions. The Kaiser Permanente uh wonderful donation of $20,000 which is incredible. Do you know what that would be used toward related to attendance? So we ha we actually have a plan as an outgrowth of the workshop

094we did. We have a plan and we have a target. Um one of the things that was prioritized is Kaiser Permanente is looking at wellness. So right now we're in the in we're in the process of looking at absences attributed to concerns around wellness and the areas we need to mitigate with that. So what that is what is going to happen with that that will flow into our system level plan um to support furthering the messaging around that. We we provide messaging um and we provide information. it's an opportunity to strengthen that even further not just around physical health but also around mental health and wellness. Um so that that's where we will be that's where we are focused on prioritizing moving forward. Great. Thank you. No, that's a wonderful donation. And then one other

095question for either of you. Um I love the the innovative ideas that that are being used. What would be an example of a schedule change for students that have um like struggling attendance? And that sounds like a very innovative way to help support a student. Thank you. Yeah. So again, we looked at each child individually to see what their needs are and um we found for instance that um one student um had we're on an AB block schedule. And so for instance, if you know through focus and the computer they had all core classes on one day and we noticed wait a minute this student is not coming on A days and then their specials for instance electives were on a B day where they're showing up on a bday right so we with the

096student we mixed those up and so so they didn't feel as much pressure on those A days to have those backtoback core classes we were able to change their schedule around and that student started coming on a days because at least they had some electives mixed in with those core classes as well. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for this presentation. It was truly outstanding. Um my question is for Mrs. Mustaper. As we look at our chronic absenteeism data over three years, and I appreciate the slide you provided for us, if we um slice that by cohort, are we seeing the same improvements um by cohort over that three-year um time frame? And specifically, are we seeing sustained improvement? Meaning, are our efforts um continuing over time? So, when

097we look at the cohorts, and I would have to look at the specific numbers, we are seeing incremental gains. Um I do know that we've seen some um we've seen increments of increase especially around multilingual learners. We we have seen increases with chronic absenteeism. We work very hard um to identify those sports supports and resources matching the interventions and supports to student needs. Um so it is one of those things where we do monitor that data and that's closely monitored also at the stu at the school level to really again going exactly what Dr. Archelus said looking at where those needs are and really customizing the supports and interventions um for our students. So it I would definitely say that there can be differences. The one that I am very conscious of is our multilingual

098learners, but we are seeing incremental gains in all areas. Okay, that's that's great to hear. Um, are we tracking those cohorts specifically? So, in other words, are our efforts um showing sustained improvements, meaning we're targeting them for for students that that need those supports. But if we're targeting other groups as they're they have those needs. So we're seeing improvements I guess is what I'm saying as our efforts um are redirected. Are we seeing that those good habits continue once those efforts may back off a little bit? I would say with the improvements that we've seen, I would definitely say that we're seeing sustainability. Um, I think it's continuing to remind our community of attenders and all of our students the importance around attendance, working with families. So, I think that's a that's a position where

099uh universally we have to continue to message and share the consistent language and processes to support that level of sustainability. That's and that's what we're seeing with schools is when we are consistent in our messaging our supports working really to match the interventions and supports to the individual student needs we are seeing that sustainability we are tracking it by exactly what you're speaking of um and really trying to dig up underneath anytime we see a shift we are looking at that and really thinking about what is it we need to do even from conversations in central office like how can we support the schools, what what does this look like um in in any part of our county? So, yes, we are looking at that. But again, I go back and say sustainability falls with

100us being consistent um consistent with our students, consistent with our staff, and consistent with our families in how we message, but also how are we building that culture of attenders across the county, right? Um it's great to see im immediate gains. That's that's fantastic. This is all great news. Um it would be really interesting to see what our long-term um effects of these efforts are because and and to track that at a cohort level. So I'd love to see you back and report, you know, out what you're finding. Um if our school attendance teams are are looking at that just to say, yeah, the we've we've developed, you know, new habits within these students and they're doing great. you know, our fifth graders, they're now in eighth grade and we're still seeing amazing results in

101terms of attendance. That that's just a powerful story to tell. If if that's data that we have and and can report on that, that's a story that that would be fantastic to hear. Thank you. So, my question or comment is you've had a 20 over 20% drop in two years, and that's that's great. And the sustainability is is of course a concern. I find that or I'm worried that it's going to get harder in a way to like you got that big jump because of all of those strategies that you've put in place and they're great. Now this 20% that's still chronic. If those strategies really have not worked for them, you know, what are those other strategies or other supports or what do you feel the reasons those I don't know we're going to

102call them chronic chronic absent absenteeism? what what is really impeding those kids? Because I I feel like once you've got that big chunk, then now we're really going to have harder and harder um supports to put in place. Yes. I was actually reflecting and thinking about that because I said, "Okay, we're at 21%." But that's still 21%. And one of the things as I reflected, I thought about the continued communication with our parents because I believe that some parents don't realize that if you miss 18 days of school, you're now considered chronic or 10% wherever you are in the school year. So if we're halfway through, then that's nine days. So if you say, "Okay, well, they had only right." Exactly. Oh, we could just miss this day. It's a half day anyway. Those types

103of things. So, one of the things um that we will definitely continue to do is communicate and educate our families on what it means for the students to you know to be there and the importance of them coming to school even on those half days. Um, one of the things we also notice is at the end of the school year, like for instance, once our eighth graders are promoted and then we're getting down to those final days and those two half days that we have, that was where we had the lowest attendance, which impacted our overall attendance rate. And so, we adjusted our eighth grade promotion ceremony date to get closer to the end to keep those eighth graders in school. And also it impacted the sixth and seventh graders because once they started seeing

104the eighth graders not coming, oh we don't need to come. No, school is not over until in this case June 16th, 2026 this year. And so not that you know that. Yeah, not that I know that at all. And so the communication um the education of our you know of our families I think will be um really crucial in getting to that 21% and then also continuing to use our PPW for those that are like you said chronic chronic um we're still um I saw her going and she was like I'm on my way to district court in order to file some things for two families that are you know just continuing to not have students come to school for whatever reason and we've done home visits and all of those things. So, I think

105we're with our continued efforts, we can crack into and education, we can crack into that 21%. Right. I'm sure you kind of you've done so many strategies. I'm just up here thinking what are the what more are we right are we missing, Mr. Young? Thank you. You spoke about your various strategies. Um, and you just mentioned parents. So other than, you know, dragging them to court with the PPW, what have you put in place with the parents to get them on board and realizing, you know, the importance of being in school, but also that um yes, your child is not attending school like you think they are. Yes. So, as a community school, we've been able to offer a lot of workshops just for parents in order to continue to, you say, professionally develop them

106on how to support their child and the importance of education and their students being in there. And we've really been reaching out like one by one to those families, not just a blank. I do a call out every Sunday at 5:00 to all of my families. But these families that you need to reach, we have found that the one-on-one approach has been helping so that they can know that they're valued. We see them. We want them a part of our school community. And so with our workshops, they've been attending more and more. Sometimes, you know, when we first started, you may only get a few. Okay, we reached out and we got three. Okay, well, next time we have 10. Next time we have 15. So, every increase is progress. And so I think those

107are some of the things that um we will continue to do to work with our parents and to um and to really get them on board with the importance of that we need our students in school. You're welcome. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Um we look forward to followups. Our next item on the agenda, we have another report on academic achievement MSDE math changes. And for that, I call in Dr. Mullenex and Dr. Anderson. Well, that's a tough act to follow. It sure is. You can do it. Good evening, board chair, Superintendent Rogers, and board members. We're excited to be here again to share with you are some additional updates we have around math. We were here in the fall and at that time we shared with you um

108that MSD has released um the new math policy to address some persistent gaps and deficits that we're seeing across the state. And we're obviously Baltimore County is not alone in those in those data. So that's why this this policy has been put forth. It's also put forth to look at the inequities around access. we know that students get into a track and they stay that way. So, this um policy aims to allow more on-ramps for students um to access those higher level math courses. We also have some inconsistencies across districts with regard to instruction, which I'm really happy to hear, happy to say that here in Baltimore County, we're doing really great work around that with research for better teaching and getting some more consistency around instruction that's happening in our classroom. So, we're ahead

109of the game on that. Um obviously we can't discount the pandemic and the gaps that that did cause even though we are uh five years out from that it did still have an impact on our students. And lastly obviously the blueprint goals um for excuse me um readiness and equity. These needs are being addressed through four core um four four core policy standards. Um the first is access and equitable mathematics opportunities. again hoping to allow students to access those higher level courses by providing additional um on-ramps for students. Um we're also obviously clear standards and this is going to be a major focus of our presentation tonight because while we hear rumors that there will be some changes and additions and extension to the policy, we do know one thing for sure is that standards

110will change for next year. So most of our work this year and all of our work next year will focus on that and we'll get a little bit more into that as we move on. um obviously professional development to build our teachers capacity around how to teach math also around the core competencies that are outlined in the university framework as well as the new standards and lastly progress monitoring which we've done a lot of work this year um to prepare student or I'm sorry schools for this and I'll get into that in the next slide this is the timeline currently right now so while there's discussion around the timeline implementation and components within it this is how the current timeline is This year was a preparation year for all stakeholders to make everyone aware of

111it to understand that there is policy changes coming and to review alignment with current curriculum and the new standards. We also spent the entire year training school leaders that's principles, APS, department chairs and math leaders on the MTSS um process and I'll get into that a little bit more in the next slide. We have begun to utilize math interventions which has been a major gap in our um in our mathematics program. So we've identified several interventions that are showing some promising results at this time but also providing teachers with additional training on how to address specific needs of students. As we move into next year, our focus will be around the new standards. As I said, the year will be spent understanding the core competencies outlined in the numerousy development framework. And those competencies outline

112what should students master by the end of each year. By spending the entire year focused on this, we believe teachers will have a strong understanding of the rigorous demands of each grade level and we'll be able to apply the knowledge when we shift to a new curriculum in the near future. The last two years of this will be the implementation of additional mathematics courses that will provide integrated um algebra in our higher level courses. Obviously, professional development will run throughout this entire thing. Now the work for this year, we have done a lot of work this year with mathematics. Um, and we're really excited to share some of the things that we're seeing. Professional learning around the MTSS model. While we have had a strong MTSS model in BCPS, one area that we wanted to

113work on was really looking at um academics through the MTSS process. How are we looking at student achievement? What what um interventions are we putting in place? How are we monitoring those interventions? And how are we moving students in and out as we see the need? Um we've also worked on the numeracy framework principles um during PLLD this year department chair meetings and math leaders also on the March 20th systemwide professional development unpack the numeracy framework to understand which competencies should be mastered by each grade level. So really develop that understanding of that basic foundational skills. We've have begun to do a crosswalk between our bridges curriculum and the new standards. IM is also our secondary um curriculum that's being done at the state level because there are a lot of several other LEAs that

114are in the same situation where we have a curriculum in place and we know that there's new standards. So identifying where are the gaps from the curriculum we're currently using and the standards while we await um a the HQIM that's going to be re released by MSD. So we'll be continuing to work on that. We're doing the in-house with bridges and again we're working with a cadre of LEAS to do the IM. So, we'll make sure we have that. Um, obviously I've talked a lot about exploring the standards and this really has been done through principal PLLD, our May 28th systemwide professional development will also address this as well as June 18th and at our math summit in August which we're excited about where um where our math leaders from across all the schools um

115elementary will have one day and math and secondary will have one day. they will dive in and they will really unpack the standards and I believe we'll talk about that a little bit later as far as unpacking professional development. As I shared we are waiting for um MSDE to release the list of HQIM that is aligned to the standards and once that happens obviously we'll move through the process to make sure that we are in line with what their recommendations are. HQ HQIM is that what I said? Yes. HQI say what it is. Oh I'm sorry. High quality instructional materials. I apologize. Um, we also have been collaborating um with MSD's math division. We have a group of individuals from across the school system, including from our multilingual um office um to math to special

116ed that meet monthly with MSDE to discuss this new math policy and the roles that they play within it. We also have, like I said, the curriculum committees that come together with other districts across the state to look at where the gaps are. And Dr. Anderson and I just recently had we're doing some one-on-one meetings with the director of the math um department in at MSDA. We've also developed a roadmap of moving forward. So looking at what the current timeline is for the policy, what work are we going to be doing to make sure that we are in line with it. In fact, I think the road map has us a little bit ahead of what the timeline is, which is good um because we have some flexibility. Um but Dr. Dr. Anderson has done

117a wonderful job of dissecting this and working with the team in the math office to divide up responsibilities, hit stand um timelines, what are the deliverables? So, she's working very hard with the team to do that. And obviously, as we transition to new leadership um that we pick right up where um she's left. Um we'll be investigating various schedule models. We've talked about this. We've done this this year. we've just investigated that part we believe will be possibly pushed off but the recommendation is that it'll be 60 minutes a day for mathematics. Um so we're in the middle of just looking at that and also talking to other ELAs around the state to see what they're doing to address this and work collaboratively with them. Obviously communicating with um stakeholders through various um various we

118mean means through um the curriculum committee obviously through the board meetings and through our family engagement office. And lastly, um, we've provided over, I want to say over a thousand hours of support from the math office alone to our schools to help prepare them for this transition. We obviously recognize based on the data that middle schools needs a little extra support. So, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Anderson. She's going to share very clearly what we're doing specifically for our middle schools. Thank you, Dr. Mullenex. And good evening, board chair Licker, Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Um, we have really had an intentional focus on middle school math and we've kind of categorized our focus into these three buckets. Instruction, professional learning, intervention, and student support. And then finally, systems alignment

119and accountability. And within each of those categories, we've started to over have like overarching work done. And then we'll drill down a little bit more deep into each of these categories when we talk specifically about the math plan. But when we take a look at instruction, we really wanted to focus on tier one first instruction and and interrogate our current instructional practices as they relate to math. Um, and so we had we were able to do that with a team of principles and additional math folks. Um, to ensure that what we are pushing forward and what we are actually interrogating in the classrooms is uh relevant and focused on increasing student achievement. We have grounded our professional learning experiences in research-based theoretical frameworks such as the science of learning and I'll explain a little bit

120more of what that looks like in practicality. Additionally, we have built the capacity as Dr. Mullenex shared among all the leaders within a building so that they can develop language and common focus and so that everyone is on the same page when we're really talking about what math looks like in the classroom. And that's really been an important part of the work that we've done is to ensure that all leaders within a school building are getting the same message and understand the same concepts. Um, and then when we take a look at intervention and student support, one of the key things that we really pushed for this year, and thank you to Doll Dermalex and her team for the support, is ensuring that we had some robust intervention tools and that we had some platforms

121that we could utilize in all schools and that most schools had options for what they had access to and could use. And then we took those tools and we utilized the time that's already been built into the school schedule with the advisory and ASA time period to ensure that we were providing opportunities for intervention to be implemented within the school day when we have identified gaps within student learning. And then we assured that progress monitoring was happening by making sure that these were conversations that we were regularly having with our school leaders and that we had built that into with the work that CNI was doing within the math division. As well, when we take a look at the systems and accountability, we really wanted to make sure that we had a framework that all

122schools could utilize but also customized to meet their needs. And so we developed a template of a math plan that where we had criteria and accountability measures, but then it was customizable to make sure that the schools could use their resources and then identify their needs and then complete the plan. And part of that plan was really for us as executive directors and school leadership at the central office feedback. And so we actually had time dates as well to ensure that we were really a part of the process and weren't leaving it up to schools on their own. And part of the process as well um that we wanted to ensure that there was commonality is is understanding how to identify uh deficit standards and priority standards within the math framework so that we could

123really prioritize and make sure that we were eliminating opportunities for gaps ahead of time and being proactive. And then lastly, ensuring that our PL systems were in place and working well and making sure that our school leaders were involved in math PLC's in particular. We really charged every principal to be a part of the math PLC work within their building to ensure that there was laser focus on the work being done and the steps being taken to ensure student success when gaps were identified. So this work was done specifically through the math plan and that's what this detailed and so I won't belabor all of the elements but I do want to highlight that we really focused when we talked about instruction and we drill down into strategies associated with the science of learning that

124we focused on things like retrieval practices in space learning which encouraged students to move knowledge from their short-term memory or their working memory into their long-term memory. And so we really did a lot of education with teachers and with staff on understanding what that process entails so that students have enduring learning. Um and additionally we also focused on planning to the standard which is different than planning to assessments because we can't always guarantee that our assessments are going to be known to us and what they're going to look like and what their structures are going to be. But we do know what the standards are. And so we wanted to go back to making sure that teachers and principles and DCs are all understanding that that's really how backwards mapping should occur and how we

125develop lessons to make sure that we are um accounting for all of the standards in all of the grades. Additionally, through that professional uh learning opportunities which Dr. Mullenex shared as well um we we took apart some of the elements of the math policy. So, we had all of our leaders in schools really go through the numeracy framework and the standards companion and we're going to continue to do that work and I'll share that in just a moment. Um, in addition to all the other things that you'll see, one thing that we really also took note of is how do we make learning more engaging for math in the classroom. So we focused on two different in strategies um that all of the principles and DC's received for middle schools and that was understanding a

126little bit more of the elements of building thinking classrooms which is a very engaging process for encouraging students to have real collaboration among each other that is rigorous. Um and in addition we took a look at learning more about interactive notebooks and how that also encourages learning in the classroom. And so while this work is still um in progress and being developed and we will continue to interrogate it to ensure that it is meeting the needs of our schools and students, we are continuing the work this summer. And so as you see the through line continues with making sure that PD is provided to all of the leaders within the school building. On May 28th, we're going to introduce the um standards to teachers and start working through the process of teaching them how to

127unpack them a little bit and see the through line among all of the different courses and how they build upon each other. And then in June 28th, we're going to give them an opportunity to use those skills that we are hoping and the skills and um that they will have on May 28th to then develop uh the first unit um backwards map their first unit for the upcoming school year. And then they'll have resources within the school on the 18th of June to support them with central office personnel. And then we're really excited about the math summit on August 11th and 12th because it's going to give us an opportunity to continue to build up build in capacities with our school leaders to ensure that we are all on the same page as we continue

128to develop and enhance our math plan and our math focus for next year and helping them with the skill sets needed um to ensure that they are successful and helping to support their teachers in classrooms. Also, our summer work is going to be very focused on um not only the standards but also verse um tier one instruction. If our teachers understand the standards and they understand highquality instruction, we can give them any curriculum to teach. So, that's why we're really going to focus on those two components. our um the math office will be working on creating exemplar lessons that are aligned to the standards and also aligned to RBT so that we see that through line um and they'll be provided to those. We actually began yesterday um Dr. Anderson and Dr. Craft had their

129teams together looking at how to create assessments, what does that look like, what does it look like for standards to make sure that everyone in CNI is speaking the same language. Um we'll also be looking at the curriculum based assessments and new standards. So going through each of the assessments before we upload it into our new assessment platform, DNA, they will learn um the criteria that we expect for those assessments. So they're reviewing the assessments prior to uploading them. Um so how many times shouldn't a standard be assessed to really see if a student's making progress on it? How do we score them if it's a pre-assessment for um a standard? Um so they'll have a very strict criteria um and they will be provided training next Monday, not Memorial Day, Monday after um on

130those on those things and the checklist. And so we'll have us some a check and balance with that. We will be um refining our school um support structures. So making sure that we continue the great work that our team is doing going in and supporting it, but really refining it to make sure that we have several components that are essential. one is making sure principles are at the table and helping to design what the plan is for our staff going in to provide the professional development coaching but also what is that sustainability plan. So when the resources do have to go on to another school who is there to make sure that that work is continuing uh we obviously will finalize the crosswork between the curriculum and standards and that will be provided to teachers

131and as Dr. Anderson said, "We will be working with teachers over the summer and in the math institute or summit to do the first unit of instruction so that they have that and they're ready to start the school year strong. Those are our plans. Okay, it's a lot of plans. Thank you. Thank you very much for that." Um, questions, comments from board members. Mr. Young, thank you for the presentation. Um, Dr. M Alex, you answered a few of my questions, but I'm just going to go for some clarification. So, I'm assuming that, you know, you talked about the standards and that you're doing this crosswalk. So, MSD has provided information on what the new they've provided specific enough information on what the new standards look like so that you can look at what our um

132current curriculum textbooks provide to determine if there are any gaps. Yes. Yes. So they provided not only the standards but also um they were calling it a companion to unpack them. The standards are not changing drastically. So it's not like the sky is not falling. Um some of them have adjusted grade levels where they're going to fall. Some of them have adjusted some language in them but it's not a huge overhaul that I think it's going to be um a huge undertaking. But again, going back to what I said, if teachers understand the standards, the re this curriculum then serves as a resource to teach those standards. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Other questions, comments? It was very detailed. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Tleski. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um, just what is

133RBT? Research for better teaching. Okay. Thank you. And um you talked about the advisory periods which is a great use of time. Do all of the middle and high schools have advisory period? All of the middle schools do. Yes. Okay, great. And then what is the every student responds? Every student response are different instructional strategies where instead of um one the teacher asking one student to respond to maybe a question, um there's a strategy that's utilized for all students to respond. Um and so there are a variety of strategies. Um one thing that we're utilizing in math is really the building thinking classrooms where students are um encouraged to work collaboratively up on the boards and they're standing around the classrooms and if you've done school visits with math classes you've probably seen a lot

134of that work and we're still developing that work and refining that practice but it that's what that focus is so that it's not just one student answering the teacher. Thank you. Absolutely. Other questions Mr. Zowski just quick and you probably said this but PLC stands for professional learning communities. That's what I thought. There were a lot of MSTE HQIM PLC's. That's okay. I wasn't sure if it was communities or companion or Yes. And it's really an opportune time for professional learning to happen. So it's data analysis but also professional learning. And like Dr. in said at the middle school level, we made it very clear that principles need to be in there with their teachers and their math leaders to lead that work and really be part of it. Miss, thank you and thank you

135for the presentation. Um, the priority and deficit standards you identified, were those identified for the system overall or for the school for each particular school as part of the plan? Um, so actually the state has identified them as well and so we've utilized those resources to ensure that the teacher and the math leaders know where to find them and then where to identify them in the curriculum so that they don't spend enormous amount of time on a standard that's not going to reflected in assessments um or isn't going to be utilized in building on knowledge further on in that course or in future courses. So certain standards are are going to be pri those are the priority standards. Great. when we do the data analysis for the um deficit standards, that's going to be driving

136some of our um department chair meetings um because if we're seeing that that's a deficit across schools, then we need to make sure we're building capacity around that specific standards. So, that will be another addition that we're adding to our Great Right. And then the the instructional deliverable then for each of those deficit standards, can you give us an example of what that might look like? Sure. So what we asked um our folks to do through the math plan was to analyze their data and compare their deficits in the standard. So where students were scoring below what we would expect and compare that to if they were a priority standard or not. And then from there they would develop the plan and you using retrieval practices in space learning to um re revisit those um

137particular items throughout a class but then they could also target those standards within interventions and we have various platforms that we're utilizing for that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you so much. It's obvious a lot of work went into it because of the amount of details and planning. So, we will all keep our fingers crossed and watch for um for updates. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next item on the Mr. Manaskki, you didn't have your hand up, did you? Okay. Okay. Well, it's was a math presentation, so that that's good. The next item on the agenda is information which includes the quarter 3 audit report that was presented at the April 14th audit committee and the revised superintendence rule um 1110. Um I also want to just give

138a little bit of information about the superintendent search to date this week. There are community forums taking place. We had um a set last night at Milford Mill. Tomorrow night will be at Red House Run, 4:30 to 6:00 for our staff to provide input and 6:30 to 8 for the general public. Um, these are run by the superintendent search firm, um, Ray and Associates. We also have another one scheduled for Thursday night. Same thing, 4:30 to 6 for staff and 6:30 to 8 for the general public. There's also a virtual session for those who want to provide um, feedback but cannot attend. And that's also on Thursday night. All of the information I'm sharing is on our website. If you go to our website and in the search bar, you put superintendent search, it will

139um show you all of these um pieces of information. There's also an online survey. I'm sorry. No, when you're done. Sorry. Okay. There's also an online survey um for the public that we um are asking you to fill out to give us um further input. That survey is open until Sunday night. Um and then we are working as a board to select our candidates for the first round interviews um which will then f be followed by our finalist interviews. There'll be other opportunities for the public um and that will all be posted on the website we um in the next couple of days. So please um check that website. A lot of information is on there um with links and just a lot of information. So, I encourage you to go there and we really

140would like as much input as we can get from the public and from our staff um as we take on this um extremely important work. Miss Yes, I have a motion. Um yes, pertains to what? So, I move to reclassify the Thursday, May 21st Superintendent Search Virtual Public Forum already scheduled as a Superintendent Search virtual public hearing so as to permit unlimited public comment to be entered into the official record. Second, Miss Hen. Okay. Thank you, Miss Demani. Do you want to speak a little bit more about what that looks like? Um, so it's already scheduled. It's a um virtual public hearing um scheduled for Microsoft Teams, I believe. So it wouldn't ask for any additional, you know, filming or video, just to make it public and then to allow for time for public to

141comment and have like they would a public hearing have the three minutes to speak about whatever it is they want to speak about for the record um towards the public towards the superintendent search. And that's different than what we're currently doing for the for because there's a time limit frame as far as cutting um it only goes until a certain amount of time and then there's a there's it there's a presentation that is involved and then there's discussion. This is more of a just you know open public hearing comment where anything that a anyone from the community stakeholder anyone who signs up would have an opportunity to speak. Okay. A hearing. Okay. I understand the the hearing part of it. Um, Miss Pumprey and then I'll miss Can I speak to my second? Oh, okay.

142Go ahead. Thank you. Um, so I believe the the forum would parallel the um forums we offer our public for the budgets um both the operating and capital budgets. Um we allow unlimited speakers um 3 minutes for public comment. So I believe the superintendent search is as if not more important than our budgets and we offer those on an annual basis for both the operating and capital budgets. So, I believe this would be an appropriate um venue, appropriate um format to offer our public the the chance to um comment. And since we already have it scheduled logistically, as Miss Doowski said, I believe it would be easy to um support this request and facilitate it for staff. Um yes. So, as we already have it scheduled. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. My question was

143answered. Thank you, Miss Stleski. Thank you. I just have one clarifying question. Um what is the current format as is like for example last night? Well there were so that we have something to compare it was more what Minowski described as far as they were getting input. I think what you're talking about is absolutely no speaking really like what we do when we don't really speak we just listen. Right. The search firm did like a presentation first last night and then allowed limited watch the tape yet. Did Did you watch the tape yet? I think he explained it and then they started questions and just got answers. Okay. So it was more of a question format where then answers miss and and just I want to make sure I got a lot of people. Go

144ahead. The search did not have a presentation. Okay. asked questions and right so they asked questions of the audience and the audience provided feedback based on the questions this would be no questions just open-ended feedback about the superintendent search okay if I'm understanding that so and and just one other point of clarification this would be whoever signed up to whoever wanted to speak would have the opportunity where the the initial form forum was limited to a certain number the the online forum was going to be just like the the the inface face toface forums. We just offered an online version for people who couldn't make it to one of the three locations. This is changing the format to more of a hearing versus the same format that's happening. Right. And and one big change is

145that more speakers would have the chance to speak. Yes. The only thing I'm concerned about and I don't know enough is the logistics of people being able to speak online. Miss Gver can it is their zoom meeting and they the uh search are doing it not me right so we'll have to check with Ray and associates about the logistics of people getting one the the other advantage of this is that it would be recorded presumably um we could check with the search firm but the zoom meeting could be recorded and it can be available to the public on our website vice sh the ones right now are also being videoed are available on the website okay you'll see the yesterday's are is like hyperlin where the other ones aren't yet cuz they haven't occurred. Mr.

146Dominoski, just to kind of piggyback as far as letting them to be able to speak whatever they want to. Sometimes when there's a question and answer and they're asking the public for, you know, a response to a question, they might go off topic of that question and then they're cut short because they'll say, "Oh, get back to the topic." This way, it's completely open-ended. whatever the community wants to speak about as far as the who we should be looking whatever their opinion is, whatever they want to say within reason, obviously, but I mean just just totally open-ended their their thoughts on the process. Um, did I see somebody else's hand on here? Let me look. Um, I don't think there's anybody online. Okay. Um, may I have a roll call vote, please? Oops. I'm sorry,

147Miss Pump. Just one more comment. Just a comment. I just do want to make sure that we keep it I like open-ended um but I want to make sure we do keep it related to the superintendent search and not because because sometimes we have people show up for public hearings and they're not necessarily talking about the budget, they're talking about something political or whatever. So just like to make sure that we keep it to the topic related to the superintendent search only. Anybody else? Okay, let's go over you okay for roll call. Miss Hen. Yes. Miss Fren, she's not on. She left. Oh, Miss Stleski. Yes. Dr. Seavoy. Yes. Yes. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Point of order. Madam Chair. Yes. Miss Dr. Seavoy, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. But um I don't

148think your answer is yes. We're talking about the superintendent search. Yes, I can hear you. Okay, I'm not in that. I don't think I'm supposed to answer. Can you say recuse? Yes, recuse. Thank you. We're talking about superendry. Yes. Dr. uh Mr. Young. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Lar? Yes. Thank you. What was the number? I lost track. Okay. Where am I? Oh, sorry. It was seven. Okay. We're still um Okay. The next item on the agenda is board committee updates and agenda setting. So, agenda setting, I mean board committee updates, Mr. Young audit committee. Sorry, I'm a little mush. I was going to say I can start going down my list. Okay. Yes, please. You've stepped in for many people. Okay. the the next audit committee uh meeting is June 16th at 4:30 p.m. Our

149next um building and contracts committee is June 8th at 5:00 p.m. Um while I'm on here, the next equity committee meeting will be June 18th at 4 p.m. And the equity committee meeting with the equity council will be May 21st at 5:30 p.m. Thank you. Back over to you. Thank you. Um legislative and government, we have um stopped our meetings for this year because the session is over. So we don't have any upcoming until the fall when we'll regroup. Um curriculum committee, Miss Stleski, thank you. The curricula curriculum meeting will be meeting tomorrow, May 20th, uh at 4 p.m. and we will be discussing course updates for the 2728 school year. Thank you. And um pol policy review committee, Miss Pumprey. Uh we had our last meeting on May 11th. We discussed policy 1200 community

150involvement and policy 1210 community involvement relation relationship with parent teacher student associations. um both moved forward. Uh 1,200 had a couple couple minor language ch language changes for consistency, but they both moved forward for first reader. We also discussed our policies scheduled for review for the 2026 2027 school year um based on our 7-year policy review cycle. And we had two policies that rolled over from this current year that will be reviewed next year. And also um a couple policies that were requested from board members throughout different meetings throughout this year that will be added also to the review for 2026 2027. And our next meeting is June 15th at 4:30. Thank you. Um are there any agenda setting items at this moment? Um, yes. And just hear me out for a second. I will

151get to it. Um, I just want to address a comment made by one of our public speakers, two of them actually this evening regarding the overuse of technology in our classrooms. As a current BCPS parent of three students, two in elementary and one in middle school. I can attest that we are far too many of our educational resources are digital. This uh also places a burden on parents. In order to support our children's learning at home, we too must have access to these digital platforms and materials. I've witnessed firsthand how this over reliance on technology has negatively impacted the way my own children learn, particularly in math, reading, and writing. I am also aware that educators have been instructed to mark answers as correct as long as the intent is understood and to refrain from

152deducting points for punctuation or grammar errors, provided the context is clear. I strongly believe we need to take a hard look at how much we are asking our educators and students to depend on digital content identifying where adjustments can be made and what must remain. Additionally, parents should have direct access to any digital assignments or assessments submitted by their students for grading purposes without needing to schedule a separate meeting with the teacher. Um, I've already spoken to Miss Pumprey about a policy regarding digital um assessments and assignments. I really think that this is something we need to put on the calendar very soon as and to reassess how much of our um curriculum, our digital resources, all you know um uh all the needs that we're putting digitally educational wise um for our students and

153how much we're relying on them and how much we can get rid of or change. We we need to reevaluate what's going on. So, as far as the agenda item, was that for the policy? Just reinforcing the agenda item for the policy review or is your agenda policy and an agenda item to go over all like a total review of how much of our curriculum is on digital and how much of the resources our students need to have digitally to complete their work. Okay. Thank you, Miss Tleski. Thank you. Uh thank you, Miss Dominowski. I just want to piggyback on that for a second. Um, I want to thank both of the speakers tonight that did speak regarding concern about the balance between paper pencil learning and technology. Um, and I can submit some specific

154questions that I think would be helpful for our upcoming topic um, for a future meeting. But one specific thing that was requested that I think is important is for the community to understand that when when technology is used that it is evidence-based that it is clear that it is not impeding in any way on productive student learning. And then the other topic that I would like to suggest is and I know that this has been requested in the past is um an update with Oracle given some of the concerns that have been expressed. I think that uh a timely update about some of the issues with payments and insurance would be very beneficial. Thank you. I know there's one scheduled. I just can't remember which month it is for. Um but it has been already

155scheduled. Great. Thank you. You're welcome, Miss Pumphrey. Just just a comment on the same topic. Um it might be helpful for us if we add an agenda item for the full board to have that before our policy review discussion. I think it might help lead the direction of where we are going as far as policy is concerned. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay, Mr. McMillian. Yes, I have a motion. I move that BCPS reallocate up to $3.6 million from the fund balance to fund library media specialists in our secondary schools to allow for the removal of additional instructional assignments, including advisory. This reallocation shall be done in a way that does not lead to additional staff cuts or to decrease compensation packages. Is there a second? Stallski, would you like to speak to your motion,

156Mr. McMillian? As a board, we've passed something very similar to this, but it was a more generalized version. Legal counsel suggested that if my interpretation of what was said was suggested that the more generalized version, legal counsel suggested that my interpretation of what was said was Is that me? Somebody must have their um Dr. Seavoy, please. Never mind. She just muted. Okay. So, we passed something like this. General the legal counsel, my interpretation of what legal counsel said and a future budgetary motions. We need to state specifically where the money is coming from and where it's going. So, I think that this accomplishes that by uh stating that the money is going to come from the fund balance to fund the library media specialist. Thank any further discussion, Miss Pumprey, I I have a legal

157question. Go ahead. I think it's a legal question. Um, can we do this when our budget is still pending um with the county council? Nothing. I I voted yes to the original motion, so I'm just legally want to have an answer here. case. For the record, Darren Burns, sport counsel. Um, first of all, I I do want to point out for the record because I want to preserve the board the board's privilege. You know, advice given in close session is for the board. It's not for individual board members. And I do think you want to be cautious. Um, and this is between the board members aside. Who discloses what advice is given in closed session during properly closed for legal without full approval of the board? That's an important point and has nothing to do

158with the question that's before you, but it it it needs to be honored and it is for the best interest of the full board and I would say that in any vice in front of any board at any time regarding your close session topics. Thank you. Having said that, I don't believe at this stage, and Miss Pumprey touched on it, you can actually have a motion to talk about next year's fund budget. I mean, I'm sorry, excuse me, fund balance because that would be have to be the fund balance you'd be tapping to do what you were talking about, Mr. McMill. And you're not talking about the remainder of the school year. You're talking about something that would happen next year. And in fact, the motion that was made um that was discussed uh in

159close session was actually for the fall of 26. So I assume you're talking about not the remainder of this year, but next year. Your current budget is before the county councils right now. You haven't received it back. So you actually only have a proposed budget. You have no budget at all to work with. And until you get to July 1st, you don't have a current budget. At that point, I I think the board's free to look at its budget, determine how you want to possibly move things between categories. Um, work with your superintendent in terms of how how to actually execute your budget, but I'm not sure it's a welltaken motion at this stage with where your budget is to talk about tapping a fund balance for FY27 at this time. I have not had

160a chance. I didn't see this motion ahead of time. Just saw it when you all saw it. Haven't been able to research this fully. I think you'd be wise to receive, you know, advice of your financial folks and budget folks as well as council, but that would be my advice tonight. Thank you. Just a clarifying question if I may follow up. Um, so am I hearing you correctly that once the bud budget is approved, this may still be an appropriate motion at that time after the budget is approved by the um county council and presented to us as an adopted budget. Right? Because remember, if you're calling the statute, we've talked about this before in 5101 and and the rest of those sections in that in that part of the of the education article, you're

161going to receive an approved budget back from the county, right? That's still your budget. At that point in time, there's a process in which you then have to implement your budget and report back to the county. Uh, and that all happens pretty quickly over the summer. At that point in time, you'd be in a place where you could consider how will you approach this or any other issue based on what your actual budget is. And then of course, you'd follow any of the rules regarding transfers and reporting back to the county, etc. Thank you. Y and I want to comment on the the legal counsel comment. When I said that, I didn't give any indicate. I said that the information came from legal counsel. I didn't give a time frame of that. you did. Um,

162that's not that's not the point of what my comment was, but I'll respect it. The advice that's given to the board regarding the topic we talked about was given during a properly closed session in legal and and and that's where it came from. Okay, I agree to that, but I didn't say it. And how did the public know that? The public didn't know it until you said it. I could have had a conversation with you right over here. And and again, it's the content of the advice was given to the board as a body and I want to preserve that right for you to always have that ability to withhold to hold that privilege and that confidentiality. Any other discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Young. Based on

163the information that Mr. Burns has given us. I would say at this point in time the motion is out of order. Okay. Can we have legal counsel on the out of order piece? Out of order is really a parliamentary term. You know, in other words, I don't know if it's a Robert's rules issues that it's I don't think I think the motion if voted upon could lead to a result that's impossible, if not illegal, for you to carry out. Okay. Minowski, it doesn't say the FY27 fund balance. If we mo if we made an amendment to do that because we're not using all of our FY26 fund balance. If you changed it to the FY26 fund balance, would that make it an illegal motion? But you're not going to carry the FY2. Your FY26 fund

164balance isn't part of your FY27 budgets in front of the county balance. Would that make it an illegal motion? You're not going to carry the FY26. Dr. I just muted her. Thank you. In other words, and I and you're right, it doesn't specify, but I it still presents a at least a practical issue. Thank you. Yep. Miss Pumphrey, I move to postpone a motion until after we receive an adopted budget from the county council or budget to be adopted from the county council. That's that motion takes precedence. If seconded then second, Miss Hen, do you want to speak to it or it's pretty? It was based upon my question to Mr. Burns and his response. Any further discussion on Miss Pumprey's amended motion? May I have a roll call vote on the amended motion? the

165amendment. Sorry, Madam Chair, voter. Do we need to vote on the postponement? Yeah, that's we're voting on now, right? She just post vote on the postponement. Not the amendment. Not the postponement. Sorry. Um, Madam Chair, just to be clear on this, there is postponments and there's postponments to a date certain. I at least heard until after the budget was adopted. Yes. I don't know the date, so I And you mean to a board meeting occurring after that happens? Yes. Thank you. Do you, Miss Let's see if Miss Cooper does, do you have the wording of this with Mr. Burns language? It's to postpone to a board meeting after the budget is adopted by the county council. Correct, Miss Pumprey? Yes. Correct. Okay. Roll call vote on that. Miss Ham, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy,

166yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Leicter, yes. Favor eight. So, the postponement passed. Right. And that that ends the debate on the primary. It just holds until it should be preserved until that meeting. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Okay. Let's see where we are. The next meeting. Come on. my computer. The next item, last item on the agenda is announcements. The board's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 9th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. Thank you for joining us tonight. This meeting is now adjourned.