001Chairwoman Jane Licter, I call to order the meeting of the Board of Education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. This evening's Board of Education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV, Xfinity 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 open meetings act as found in the annotated code of Maryland general provisions article section 3-305 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
002consult consult with counsel to obtain legal advice. So moved, Miss Hen. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Young. Thank you. May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Tinowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Framp? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Abe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumprey. Yes. Miss Lictor. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Young. Good evening. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I now call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. 2025. Yes. I invite you to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. 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.
003One 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 December 16th agenda. Dr. Rogers, are there any additions or changes to tonight's agenda? I am unaware of any changes to this evening's agenda. Thank you. Hearing none, the agenda stands as presented. Early this evening, the board met in close session pursuant to the opens meeting act for the following reasons to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, discipline, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation or performance evaluation of appointees, employees
004or 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 docs under this board meeting date. The next item on the agenda is personnel matters and for that I call on Mr. McCall. Good evening. Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Like the board's consent for the following personnel matters. We have retirements, resignations, and educator lensure appointments. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel matters as presented in exhibits D1 through D3? So moved, Harvey. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second, Young. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please?
005Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Abe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. 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. Good evening, Madame Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, and members of the board. I am bringing forward the following administrative appointments for your approval. Coordinator, Department of Health Services, Assistant Principal, Arbutus Elementary School, Fiscal Supervisor 3, Office of the Controller, and Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Department of Special Education. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the administrative appointments as presented in exhibit E1? So move Young. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Stleski. Thank
006you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Tommanowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Missbe? Yes. Miss Gilleski? Yes. Dr. Mr. Seavoy. Yes. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumphrey. Yes. Mr. Young. Yes. Miss Leicter. Yes. Thank you. Our next item is Oops, sorry. Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Our first appointment this evening is Annette Heimlick. Please stand to be recognized. Annette is attending this evening with her husband Richard and is being appointed as the fiscal supervisor 3 in the office of the controller with 17 years of experience. Her prior service includes business unit controller at Flex Limited, operations supervisor at benefit design group and financial controller at Amwin's Connect administrators. Congratulations and welcome to BCPS. Thank you. Our next appointment this evening is Chantel Jacobs. Please stand to be
007recognized. Chantel is attending this evening with her husband Dwayne and principal Samantha and is being appointed as the assistant principal at our elementary school. With six years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, Chantel's BCPS experience includes elementary classroom teacher and reading specialist at Lions Mill Elementary School and staff development teacher at Arbutus Elementary School. Prior to that, Chantel served as a teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. Congratulations. Her next appointment is Nicole Torbett. Please stand to be recognized. Nicole is attending this evening and is being appointed as the coordinator in the Department of Health Services. She's also attending with the director, our new director of health services, Nancy Matuchi, with 11 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools. Nicole's prior experience includes school nurse at Deep Creek Elementary School and with the Office
008of Health Services and supervisor in the Department of Health Services. Prior to that, Nicole served as a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth School and Rehabilitation Center and with the Baltimore County Department of Health. Congratulations. Our final appointment for this evening is Olivia Bonner. Olivia is being appointed as the board certified behavior analyst in the department of special education with eight years of service. Olivia Olivia's services include behavior interventionist, advanced behavior interventionist, ABA autism instructor, and ABA school partnership coordinator at Trellis services and board certified behavior analyst at Columbus organization. Congratulations and welcome to BCPS, Olivia. Thank you and congratulations to all the appointees. 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 me. If not selected to address the
009board, members of the public may submit their comments to the board members via email at boebcps.org. The Baltimore County Police Department's Homeland Security Unit and the Office of School Safety have 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 forum 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
010tolerated. Persons who otherwise disrupt or disturb 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. Oh, and we do not have anybody this evening. We're going to move right on to our our unions. And our speaker is Kelly Olds from Tapco. Good evening, Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I was fortunate to spend part of last week with educators from around the country where we discussed many topics
011that we are currently facing in education. We discussed the nec the necessity and understanding that real change takes time and how important it is to not be short-sighted in our goals of this. When we are shortsighted in the goals for our students growth, we miss opportunities for systemic change and positive movement. There was also a common thread of conversation about how values are reflected in our budgets. Among Tabco's values is the principle of advocacy. We believe in promoting the betterment of education in Baltimore County for educators, students, families, and communities. Sometimes this means standing up alone and sometimes with friends and partners to say what is needed for our students and the adults who serve them to say what is right. I am doing that now and I am asking you to join us. Let
012us work together for the budget our students need. One that honors our negotiated agreements and preserves the staff needed to appropriately serve the needs of our communities. One that keeps us moving our students forward. I am asking us to truly collaborate. I propose that we meet jointly with the county executive and members of the county council. I am asking you to join me and Tabco members publicly to say if what is currently anticipated for money over maintenance of effort is not enough in order to fund the agreed upon salaries without making more drastic cuts to staff and therefore limiting what can be done for the students that we serve, then we need more. That is the message. We don't need cuts in this county, not cuts to pay and cuts to staff because these cuts
013are cuts to our students. We've been down this road and we don't need to do it again. Instead of a lot of energy being spent this spring fighting for something we've already been promised, let us stand together now and say in a unified voice that this is what our children need. And I want to be clear about what I mean by what our children need. They need their veteran teachers to be in the system because our kids need that experience both for teaching them and for mentoring the next generation of educators. Our kids also need the next generation to come through. They need young educators to want to come here and want to stay. That is done in part by respecting our educators, which means allowing us to be part of the process as things
014change. communicating with educators to better understand the impacts of decisions and respecting addition ex existing agreements. Thank you. Thank you. We don't have any nonprofit community groups this evening. So our next is our individual citizens or students and our first speaker is Miss Navin. Good evening, Superintendent Rogers and members of the board. My name is Marie Naven. I'm a BCPS parent and the library media specialist at Dundoc High School. As we work to reverse declining reading scores and widening academic gaps, we must focus on what decades of research tells us improve student achievement. Strong School Library staffed by full-time certified library media specialists. More than 50 years of research across more than 60 studies show that students with access to well-resourced libraries and certified librarians score higher on standardized tests perform better in reading and
015math and graduate at higher rates. These findings hold true even when controlling for socioeconomic status. The research is equally clear about what happens when librarians are removed. Nationally, studies have found that school librarian losses correlate with decreases in scores. These declines are predictable and preventable. Library media specialists aren't a luxury. We are an evidence-based academic support. Yet, despite this overwhelming research, our district is moving in the opposite direction. Due to changes in the staffing guidance and excess positions last year, half of our secondary library media specialists have been assigned to teach outside of their second primary role restricting access to both the library and the expertise of the library media specialists that students rely on. We know this is inequitable and not educationally sound practice. The inequity created by this decision is profound. Access to
016a full-time library media specialist at the secondary level in BCPS now depends on your zip code and the discretion of your principal. Some students still benefit from a full-time certified library media specialist while others do not. This is not a small disparity. It is a structural inequity that directly affects academic opportunity, literacy development, and long-term achievement. When library media specialists are allowed to fulfill their roles, the results are undeniable. at Dunduck High School, where I have not been assigned outside classes. I have co-taught more than 140 classes so far this year, supporting research skills, digital literacy, and critical thinking. Our library has circulated more than 3,600 books, supporting gains in literacy and reading stamina. At a school of roughly 1,800 students, that's almost two books per high school student within four months. When a library
017is staffed appropriately, students use it, teachers rely on it, and academic outcomes improve. I am deeply concerned that in our current fiscal climate, these staffing changes are not a temporary stop gap, but a soft removal of secondary library media specialists. If that happens, the academic decline that follows will not be a surprise. Our absence is not neutral, it is harmful. If we're serious about literacy, equity, and preparing students for college and careers, then we must restore and protect full-time certified library media specialists in every secondary school. Our students deserve nothing less. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Ferrron. Would you like me to call on the next speaker and then you get your stuff ready? Our next speaker is Sharon Serhoff. Thank you. Good evening. Happy holidays to everyone. I'm here today
018to speak about Baltimore County's bestkept secret, Home and Hospital. I wonder how many of you are aware of this program, what it's used for, and how it works. I have several clients currently and have over the past few years and it's still a mystery to me and a mystery to every single school that I've worked with. Home and hospital is a program that every school district has that is provided to students who cannot access the school building for learning either full-time or part-time. Some of the students need to access home and hospital because of a physical condition or medical condition and some students need to access it because of a mental health situation. It's usually available for 60 days and supposedly you can get that information in your counseling office at the school. And I'm
019going to say supposedly because unless you are aware of it, you don't know about it and neither does the school. School doesn't share that information. That's a problem. Another thing that is happening right now is that it's not uniform across the county. Recently I had a student who had home in hospital for 60 days and he had more than two IEP goals to work on. He only worked on two of them. That was the guidance that the middle school got. Pick two goals. work on those for the 60 days you're in home and hospital and then you can come back to school and be where on be on the same page as everybody else. Tell me how that works because it doesn't work for me and it didn't work for the client because the kid's
020failing right now. You don't pick just two goals and work on only that for 60 days and then expect the child to come back into the building and be able to pass. I urge the school board to please make themselves familiar. This information is online. I'm more than happy to share it with Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Fon. Good evening. And public uh comments. Yeah, public comments. Sorry for being late. Too much traffic. Um I want to reflect to you. Well, of course, happy holiday, merry Christmas, happy new year. Um happy holiday for anyone. Uh whichever holiday people celebrate and holidays are really about peace, about love, about tra engagement. But if you remember the past meeting of December 2nd, I didn't see any love, I didn't see any peace. Certainly, I didn't
021see any people teaming up or getting together. And I really want to reflect to you as an independent observer watching and listening, watching your body language and listening to your words. It took more than an hour to do the elections. Everybody got named, nominated, student member was nominated. Uh that's first in my history of 25 plus years watching the board. I wonder nobody really nominated me. I have been longer here than anybody else. Um so you know often time um I try to just really focus on education. Um and politics does not really help the education system. It really does not. It was so clear on December 12 that there was one group of five trying to reach out to the other side and do everything they can including naming the student member of the
022board for position of vice chair. And there is another group six of you completely closed on the idea of raproma completely closed on the idea of engaging with others. What did the students learn from December 2nd? Not really good. The optics were bad. the way you conducted yourselves looked organized but I don't think it is a plus for the school system. Thank you. Yes. Our next speaker is Santina Janady. Did I get it? Okay, good. Thanks. Thanks. Good evening, uh, Superintendent Rogers, members of the board. Uh, my name is Santina Janati, and I am a BCPS parent and library media specialist and this year, English teacher. I'm here to advocate for maintaining full-time certified library media specialists in BCPS secondary school. Uh, right now, half of all secondary library media specialists are assigned to teaching
023roles outside of the library. However, research and our own district's success shows these positions are essential to student achievement. Decades of research, including over 34 statewide studies, demonstrate that schools with certified media specialists, have higher student achievement, stronger reading and writing outcomes, increased graduation rates even after controlling for poverty, and other factors. In BCPS, this success is the result of intentional professional practice. Each year, every library media specialist analyzes school and student data and develops a comprehens comprehensive collection development plan aligned to curriculum, enrollment, literacy needs, and equity of access. This data-driven work reflects the expectations of the American Association of School Librarians National School Library Standards, which define librarians as instructional leaders, collaborative partners, program administrators, and information specialists. Uh, beyond collection management, BCPS library media specialists teach research, critical thinking, digital literacy. We
024co-plan and co-e with our classroom teachers. We manage print and digital collections. We support technology integration. We lead equity, inquiry, and intellectual freedom initiatives. Uh, these are not support tasks. They are instructional and leadership roles. This comprehensive standards aligned approach earned BCPS the national school library program of the year award in 2017. A national recognition of not just our collections but our professional expertise, our collaboration and impact on teaching and learning. Research shows that certified librarians, our work significantly improves student outcomes, particularly for students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities, with some studies showing more than doubled rates of advanced writing performance. Maintaining these positions is therefore an issue of equity and access, not convenience. Uh, BCPS has built a nationally recognized researchbacked model. Assigning certified librarians to teach content classes instead of
025providing library services is a step backward that does not serve BCPS's stated student outcomes. I urge you to protect full-time certified library media specialists in their position as the media specialist in the library and continue invest investing in professionals who are truly capable of transforming schools. Thank you for your time and commitment to BCPS students. Thank you. Next, next is public comment on board policy 1600 public charter schools. And our first speaker is Asheron. Policy 1600 line number eight not a big deal but it says committed to offering a variety of innovative instructional programs the word innovative I think it is extra it really doesn't add to it what kind what counts as the innovation then line 25 talks about uh public schools is non sectarian in all pro programs, policies, operations, open to all
026students, um, etc., etc. And my thought is, now I'll be honest with you, all right, you take it the way you want. I have been sitting here for a long time. This policy basically says that schools as such are almost a mirror of public schools. They are supposed to uh comply with no discrimination, open for everyone, uh policies approved by the board, etc., etc. And I really wonder then why have this school, you know, to me it looks like a mirror of BCPS. I I don't get it. I don't remember really hearing in the past any explanation about that. So I thought to throw that in you. Uh I think the policy needs to uh highlight the benefit of charter schools. Uh, under Maryland law, the board shall not grant a charter to and then
027in line 25 says a school that operates fully online. So high-tech is coming on us, artificial intelligence etc. I don't see really the value of this. I mean if it is good for a mortar kind of a school, it should be good for a school that operates only online. I think down the road uh the use of such remote teaching is going to be cost effective and really much better than the system we have here and putting it there. I think it's flying against the progress that we are all seeing around us. That's my thought about this policy. Thank you. You can stay there. Our next board policy for comment is 4201 compensation benefits and retirement. Um Dr. F and the first paragraph talks about benefits. Employees needs benefits especially healthcare. Um but as often
028the superintendent and others shown that most of the budget goes to the staff. I think about 70% or so. Uh and of course insurance cost quite a bit of money. And I see here health care and I saw in this policy also uh life insurance. life insurance in my opinion is personal. Um so that's really extra cost for the school system. uh versus like disability insurance in my personal opinion is more important than life insurance because when a person dies dead you know it's done but when a person becomes disabled and has to live with that disability they need disability insurance I I think that should be included in the benefits for the school system. And last but not really least, um this policy talks about how important the benefits for retaining qualified staff. So
029I started observing the school system with Dr. Burgerer 1994 or 95, you know, and we had these for a long time. I don't see an evidence that supports that having life insurance, health care or any other benefits is really solving that issue which has been there for the past 20 or maybe 30 years. you know to claim that these benefits are helping retain qualified teachers, effective teachers needs to be supported by data and I don't see that myself watching the school system every two weeks coming here reading about you. Um that's my thought. Thank you. And the last um board policy for public comment is 5320 student activities, student organization and clubs. Dr. Feron, this is this is really interesting. The first paragraph talks about establishment of student clubs, organizations, engagement in leadership opportunity and
030I believe somewhere there talks about in the second paragraph that needs to be authorized and approved by administration. Well, if students clubs are approved by administration, then the school administration has serious influence on the activities of the students and the selections of students. What's important I think for us here in in the board is the choice of the student member of the board and if administration has such influence on these clubs then they could have undue influence on who is chosen to be the student member of the board and that influence affects the outcome. um as you have seen in the last board of education meeting. I don't know what's the solution of that. I pose it to you as a concern uh about this policy. Um historically uh when the student member of the
031board did not have authority to um vote on budget and other important matters. System worked fine. Then politicians wanted some sort of a a change in the system and wanted to make sure that the student member of the board can vote on all issues including audit and I think that's really mingling again politics with education. Politics and religions don't go along with good education. They really make this system ineffective. As I have watched years after years after years, politics and religion are not really good mix with education. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is action taken in close session. And for that, I call on Mr. Burns. Good evening, Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, members of the board, Dr. Rogers. Um, over the last two uh closed sessions, the board took action in
032two appeals. One HA uh 26-009, the other uh HA-014. Now would be an appropriate time for the board to affirm the action that took in those cases. Thank you, Mr. Burns. May I have a motion to approve the actions taken in close session on hearing examiner cases HA 26-9 and authorize Miss Gover to sign for those board members not physically present. So move Young. Thank you. May I have a second? Second, Harvey. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen, recuse. Miss Fong, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Ambbe, yes. Miss Jowleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss, yes. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the actions taken in close session on hearing examiner case HA26-014
033and authorize Miss Gver to sign for those board members not physically present. So move young. Thank you. May I have a second? Second Pumprey. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Hen, sorry. Yes. Sorry, Miss Fong. Yes, Miss Harvey. Yes, Miss Aumbbe. Yes, Mr. Slesuski. Yes, Dr. Seavoy. Yes, Mr. McMillian. Yes, Miss Pumphrey. Yes, Mr. Young. Yes, Miss Lter. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burns. The next item on the agenda is new business report on board policies. This is the first reader for these policies and for that I call Miss Christina Pumphrey, chair of the policy review committee. Members of the board, the policy review committee asks that the board accept this report of the committee's recommendation of the proposed changes to
034the following board policies. Board policy 1600, public charter schools. Board policy 4201, employee insurance benefits. Board policy 5320, student organizations and clubs. These policies are presented to you on tonight's agenda as exhibits H1 through H3. Thank you, Miss Pumprey. Board members, are there any separations? May I have a motion to accept the recommendation of the board policy review committee for board policy 1600 4201 and 5320. So moved. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Is there any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Dominowski? Yes, Miss Hen. Yes, Miss Fmpong. Yes, Miss Harvey. Yes, Mr. Abe. Yes, Mr. Dleski. Yes, Dr. Seavoi. Yes, Mr. McMillian. Yes, Miss Pumphrey. Yes, Mr. Young. Yes, Miss Lickner. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is
035the work session on the proposed FY2027 county capital budget request. And for that, I call on Dr. Grim and Miss Lazaria. Good evening. We're here this evening to answer any questions you may have on the proposed FY27 county capital request. Okay. So, quick intro questions. Okay, that could be our quickest presentation ever. I'm not seeing any questions. Okay, you can go back to your seats. Thank you. Um, okay. Well, see, now I'm not ready. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the report on academic achievement, special education and related services. And that I call on Dr. Molnex, Miss Meyers, and Miss Mustaper. And I believe Dr. Rogers didn't get it started. And you guys can come up. I don't think it's going to be as quick as our last report. Not at all. start.
036Good evening. Sure. Good evening. Um, good evening, Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, members of the board. Uh we have both Miss Myers and Miss Mustaper who are here to provide an indepth report on special education and related services update to members of team BCPS. Um if you move to the next slide please. During this presentation there are three main areas that they will speak about. Um special education and BCPS that context and vision to provide uh some critical uh information to our community. uh what the existing accountabil accountability measures and structures are at the federal, state and local levels as well as integrated student support services. Uh we know that this is an area of interest as everyone knows. Uh three years ago we identified uh specific academic priorities for BCPS in alignment with our
037data um and the analysis of that. Uh in addition to looking at literacy and mathematics, special education and multilingual uh learning uh were on our list and continue to be on our list for areas of uh focus and to meet the needs of our students. Want to share just a little bit of data to provide some context here about Baltimore County Public Schools. Uh this data is data that you are familiar with as we have uh shared when we were talking about the blueprint uh looking at our students and how students have changed over time. Our student needs continue to increase over the last five years. We have had more than uh doubling the number of students that are economically disadvantaged. um a growth of more than 49% in multilingual learners and um 1.7% increase
038in our students receiving special education services because we are doing a deep dive into uh special education. Uh it is important for us to share um changes by student group by their age bands. Um here if you look at a 10-year uh period of time, you'll see that we had about a 19% um increase in student count. But when we disagregate that data, we find that the greatest area of growth is preschool to prek followed by kindergarten to fifth grade elementary school, which is why it's so important that we have those additional supports uh in elementary school. And you see um 16 and a.5% growth in middle school and 10 and a half% in high school. I believe the last slide that I will share um particularly since we're talking about investments and um really
039focusing pri prioritizing our student needs our investments over the last eight years in special education. Uh there are three points along the line uh for you. 27 uh 20 2017 2018. what the staffing look like for specific uh job titles that support uh students receiving special education services. That includes adult assistants, our special educator teacher positions, our special education classroom teachers, um as well as special education pareducators, our teachers, those were uh formerly behavior intervention uh specialists and our IEP chairs. You will note uh that in all areas we have incre uh experienced growth adult assistance did not come to uh BCPS until 2021 2022 school year. Um and in the other years you will also see for every category uh that we have increased significantly with our most recent investment being in IEP chairs
040at the elementary level to really focus on the needs and the feedback that we have heard from our families, from our teachers, from our school leaders about a person that is dedicated on uh student needs to walk a parent through the process to provide feedback and to help uh teachers implement the IEP plans that are written at the elementary level. Also want to take this opportunity to thank our parents and our staff members who have provided us with very specific feedback around special education over the last three years. most recently our CCAC uh meeting where uh families were very clear about the impact of the changes that have been made um the investments that have been made in special education, families speaking about the impact of professional learning and what they see in their schools.
041Um we are grateful for that feedback. Um concrete uh next steps to address the uh needs of our student as well as our very close partnership with the Maryland State Department of Education with uh which Miss Meyers will get into detail about the feedback that we are receiving. Um issues or concerns, challenges in special education um have a long history in Baltimore County public schools. Um, it's going to take some time to continue to focus on this area and the needs of the students, bringing in uh parents and working alongside them for us to continue to see the forward progress of our students. And so, at this time, I'll turn it over to Miss Meyers to take us through the rest. Good evening. So, we'll get right into it. As Dr. Rogers indicated three years
042ago um she identified special education as a priority area and made it very clear that what happens in all classrooms matters. Um our vision for special education is outlined here that our expectation is for all children receiving special education services and their families and caregivers to feel accepted and embraced and supported by that school and community. We want to make sure there's comprehensive supports and resources for growth and achievement which we've outlined a bit already. um that our students receiving those services meet or exceed educational outcomes to become college, career, and community ready. That we're sure that our services are fully funded to enable all students receiving services to be in their least restrictive environment. And finally, that focus on comprehensive training and professional development to effectively support students. And again, what happens in all
043classrooms does matter. Dr. Dr. Rogers spoke a bit about the historical challenges in special education and we know that um there have been years of um continued needs around special education in our system. Our state indicator measures of growth and compliance reflected the need for improved systems and structures. Um expectations for service and support to both students and schools. Our systemic achievement concerns have been evident, needing expanded professional learning, increased collaboration across content areas for improved instructional outcomes and for cross-divisional support in prioritizing improvements in special education. In the development of our strategic roadmap and through analysis of um historic complaint data, we heard loud and clear from our families wanting to be part of that um a collaborative member of the IEP team process. Um ensuring that they felt that they had the information
044um available to them in order to feel that they were able to actively participate and advocate for their students. And then finally, um we've identified before that disproportionality um in both identification for students receiving special ed education services and suspension of those students has been an area that was of challenge as well. Um also um at that space of ensuring that um students were accessing their least restrictive environment um in a proportional way. So in order to address those challenges um with the development of the strategic road map we focus on three priority areas and I'll get into those now. Our people and then we'll talk through our services and our culture. So to start with people we know that best to best support our students, families and partners to improve outcomes for our students
045receiving services we must focus on our people. two main points of focus that we have highlighted here um and we'll talk through our professional learning and workload. Oh, I'm doing both things. Hold on. No. Okay. I mean probably but we'll get there. Um so focusing on workload um focus on related services here. So we know um we this has been an area of um real a lot of a direct um intentional attention uh around um analyzing and refining the workload standards for both related services and our special educators. Specifically with our related services um we sat here last year and talked about um kind of that shift in service delivery that we needed to make sure that our students were having access to specifically our speech and language um providers. Um we moved to a
046hybrid service delivery model in order to ensure that um our youngest learners and students in our regional programs had access to both in-person and virtual depending um and that there were in-person providers available across our schools. Um with that we did you know we heard loud and clear um from our specifically our speech and language pathologists about their workload and their concerns with being able to maintain uh with regards to services for students. We developed this uh speech in we called the SLP work group last um winter um and really heard from them worked collaboratively on what were some t really um concrete strategies that we could put in place to address that workload. Some of those that came out of that was an ask for a um a target case load. Um something that
047Dr. Rogers prioritized was us being able to say that we would have a direct service case load target of 60 to 65 um students for our speech and language pathologists. um we've been able to to do that and actually um at a quarterly review of that we've we've met with those um SLPs who are around that targeted pace and are um working to provide additional support to be able to continue to meet that um that target. Again, the other component here was around programmatic staffing that was really important. We heard that while we started our staffing uh based on of course we look at a variety of factors around workload um we also realized that that wasn't accounting for the student growth throughout the year. So looking at it from a programmatic standpoint we were
048able to um identify that we would provide we would assign staff based on the number of sections in certain spaces. So if I have a regional program with three classes allocate based on the classroom rather than the number of students in order to allow for growth. So although I may start the year with two students in there, we wanted to make sure that that allocation would be reflected in order to have them um have a potential for what would be that recommended classroom ratio later on in the school year. Um again the other some of the asks were around some um opportunities for inpersonal professional learning and differentiated professional learning for our related service providers. They shared that often the professional learning was focused on special educators or general educators and they wanted the opportunities
049to come together and collaborate and be able to um really focus on their on their expertise and area. Um and we were able to do that this year uh which was great. So we just in um actually November had uh we called it an ed camp style opportunity at the EDC for all related service providers to come together um and be able to look at again differentiated um professional learning that just targeted on them as providers. And then finally another ask that we were able to work through with that workg group um was um having a universal template and common assessment materials. We're able to expand our assessment materials for them. One of the challenges we um had heard and and have seen with regards to our virtual providers was that we had our in-person
050providers doing all of the assessments for our students um specifically for speech and language. Um and with the um increase in the assessment tools and working on this, we've allowed that's been an opportunity for that to be a shared workload appropriately. Um which has helped everyone with regards to um again workload and case load and being able to support that. for special educators. Um this has been an area of focus um for the last three years. I think it's in every point of everything we do with regards to initiatives is we want to analyze and ensure that is it affecting workload or case load for our special educators and what is that impact. Um that is also an area of focus for um MSDE in that we know that retention and um recruitment of special
051educators is very much related to that workload for special ed. Um so really a focus on efficiency features for IEP development. Any opportunity we have in making that IEP more efficient with regards to the amount of time that we know um it takes to develop a really good comprehensive IEP, we are working on that. Um there are some features around those um items that can be copied forward. So if it's demographic data or assessment data that hasn't changed, the availability to be able to copy portions of that IEP forward, which helps them with they can make adjustments but have to have to enter it all in from scratch. Um the using our data systems for forward- facing data around um that review of existing data. You might hear our pro student profile report that allows
052for our special educators to print a comprehensive report. This is also great for families to be able to rece that speaks to um the review of the existing data and supports with that conversation around eligibility. The expansion of the STAR assessment platform to support present levels and progress monitoring for special educators. There's three um very targeted reports that special educators can use. It allows them again some ease of access with um uh grade level um diagnostic state standards mastery report and growth report for those um present levels as well as progress monitoring tools. And then finally um we really do value um I will say I meet with the Tabco we call this they call themselves swag um that uh meet uh monthly and what our one of our main topics around special education is
053workload. So, it's a great group to be able to just kind of run things through, hear from them. Um, and I will say their the context this year has been great that they've been very um complimentary of the professional learning that's been provided. Um, we called the copy forward features, the things that we're doing um and being really deliberate about in order to address both um special educator workload as well as for related services. Oh, there I go breaking it. Okay. Um this uh professional learning um is an area that we have really um highlighted and worked hard to develop for our special educators uh across the system. We realized that our uh special educators needed um professional learning that was targeted to them. Their role is different. We need to address not only the
054general education components and the instructional components of their role, but also what it means to be a special educator. And with that, we rolled out this year the building of the special education toolkit. Uh we use those systemwide professional development days that are required in order to focus on what would be three bucket areas and then within that have provided differentiated opportunities for our special educators um to be able to engage in professional learning. You'll see three examples here being that engage and apply which is that deeper dive opportunity for them to spend a good amount of time engaging with the work um in an in-person format and being able to really dive in and have some practice. Fasttrack would be a shorter version that short again synchronous maybe virtual allowing our special educators to
055maybe remain in their buildings um but still be able to dive into content in a in a different more like fast-paced way. And then the quick takes would be a handout type version that would have links and things. We acknowledge that our special educators and others have, you know, varying experiences and they may not need um that deep dive in the same way and may be fine with that quick take. Um so just kind of acknowledging the learning profiles of our um educators similar to our students and we've had some really great um feedback around this. Additionally to highlight our work with new teacher support sessions um which Dr. Rogers referenced um the SECAC kind of comments. We had a um parent say, "I have noticed um my my new the new special educator and
056I almost wish that my um her child had two special educators that the more tenured special educator may have had some of the opportunities of the new one around some of the training which was a nice um point of fe. Um this started for our new uh special educators in the summer with an additional um week focused on um compliance and the again the work of the special educator and case management prior to the regular new educator orientation. So for years we've had the one week and we have tried really hard to fit it all in. But again we acknowledge that our special educators need something different. So with that week and then having an ongoing series with our new special educators um has really been able to support them where they are at that
057time around that need for we heard from principles around they're overwhelmed either with case management or instruction and it allows us to be able to kind of hit both areas. The other thing is in partnership with our um department of employee development is uh being able to work with our um CTS and staff development teachers to ensure that they also are able um and have the skills and the resources available to be able to help our um special educators. Priority two being our services, knowing that we need to be in order to expand those services, we need to look at our school support and then that ongoing um continuous feedback for improvement. So to talk a little about the differentiated school support, we all know that every school is different. Our special educators are different,
058our students are different, our schools are different. And in order to we know it's not a one-sizefits-all. So this graphic really talks about that differentiated model that we use in order to support our um our schools with regards to special education. Um an area I'd like to highlight is really that cross-divisional support um with the focus on um coordination and collaboration with the division of schools. That's been a critical component for us. So, our department of special education and the division of schools um uh executive director team, we meet monthly by zone um with those groups with my team and that executive director to look at student data to talk specifically about school performance. We do walkthroughs together. We have targeted um if they're planning sessions. that level of collaboration um allows for both um
059improvement efforts and accountability um and and sees as a you uh um a joint effort in those improvement efforts. Additionally um we know that um special ed services span birth to 21. So we're deliberate in our work um with that ongoing data analysis and response to student and planning at all levels. So you'll note here that it talks about in our um birth to three group our infants and toddlers in preschool um the need for and the focus on child outcome summary data again focus looking at those data points and shifting at the site level in order to ensure that we're supporting students from birth up um to the other end of the trajectory when you look at um transition really making sure that we're supporting our students with graduation requirements um and child out
060and outcomes um and uh post-secary outcomes and that support as well. We've focused a lot. We know that our learners have shifted as they've entered our system and a focus on kindergarten forward. We make sure that we know that our schools um need support around um our youngest learners coming in um and have been able to develop professional learning as well as coaching, classroom support. Um we've built out our early childhood team um that supported both prek and kindergarten in order to do that. Um some other areas to highlight is that again we know that differentiated support is needed with our regional programs. So we have a team who's really focused on especially in our elementary schools our integrated service delivery model um and our um we call our SLS program another one of the
061service delivery models again allowing for that direct teacher coaching planning with teachers working with principles on what those classroom models work look like and ensuring that we are in there next to the folks in the classrooms in order to be able to support schools the way we need to. Here you see the um various groups that we meet with actually monthly um to to really engage with our stakeholders around the work of special education. The great part of this in in the variation of the different groups is they bring some other kind of lens to the table around the work but also we're able to share what we're doing have conversations about our data and initiatives and not both receive feedback but also sometimes provide clarity around the reasons and the rationale around what we're
062doing. So it really give some examples around the special education stakeholder advisory group. This is a newer group that um have started meeting um this year. We have our next meeting in January. Um and that we work with advocates um with parent um focus groups with some very other stakeholders who are able to share what's going on from their perspective. We're able to share around our parent advocacy work actually um and our parent information and then again be able to provide clarity but also take that feedback around things that could look a little bit different. Um I I've talked about and we talked about the CCAC already. Um our LACC is for our youngest group. um Miss Paula Boyin, our birth of five supervisor, um is uh co-chairs the LICC where it's an um inter
063agency collaboration for um our youngest our our youngest students children in Baltimore County. Um obviously we've talked about TAPCO with that. Um and then the principal work group, Dr. Rogers meets with principles every uh month. Um and out of that came this opportunity for principles to really want to be able to work together um around um enhancing our elementary um services for around special education. So that's a group that is also providing feedback and ideas and things related to that. Um and then finally, you know, out of all of those things, we want to highlight that we also know that there's always room and we look to other uh districts, we look to other states for things that are working well. MSD has highlighted the special education playbook that's actually coming out of Louisiana looking
064at three concrete things that they've had a great um they've seen achievement shifts around special education um and it's an area that we are looking at with MSDE around just looking at concrete practices around achievement practices and things that are really tangible and easy for schools and districts to kind of put their hands on and then be able to kind of shift progress accordingly. Priority three is our culture where we're going to talk about customer service and then family and community engagement. We know that that culture is an area that is of high focus. Um I will say that at the last CCAC meeting there was some feedback given and Dr. Rogers looked and said you know what I hear about is culture and that's something that we're going to talk about and focus on.
065I thought that was really it was very wellreceived from our parents sitting in the space. So customer service, we know I I've already kind of talked through that differentiated support model from a proactive lens, the things we do every day around special education to support our students. And we also know that there is a need for a responsiveness that requests for support that comes through and being able to provide that accordingly to our schools and our students. Um we are proud that we have an average response time about one day for that response rate to schools when those requests come through. And when you look at this data, you know, this was in that first, um, portion of the school year already. We've had over 2500, um, supports provided to schools. Um, additionally, uh, we,
066this data allows us to look at trends by level, allows us to focus on professional learning. Um, again, we review that support with, um, in those monthly meetings with our DOS colleagues, um, in order to ensure that what we're doing is aligned to what the needs are and then shift accordingly. Some of things that um inschool supports that are I'm going to say somewhat responsive in nature would be again professional learning planning sessions teacher coaching um student specific support this is where the IEP team support would be captured um support with um parent engagement etc. And I want to pause here. This is a celebration slide for me. I want to say is the work that's done with this family and community work. Um for you know the community and anyone else seeing here our
067our message is that there are multiple ways to stay connected with our family support services. This team has worked really hard under the leadership of Miss Kenya Golden um to focus on both from birth to 21 the opportunities for families um to engage and and have an understanding around special education. um what those opportunities in our system whether those are virtual resources through the bulletin board you see the mailing list here um contacting us directly with a question or concern or following on Instagram there's the opportunity um on our homepage on BCPS homepage there's a tile at the bottom that you can click for special education and immediately fill out that request and you will get a call folks to know that we are just that click away and that we want to be able
068to engage and provide you that information that you need. Uh some of the things to highlight on here, we have the family support newsletter that goes out to families that are that are interested and opt into that. We have support groups um for families and caregivers. Uh parent workshops and parent information sessions. Um advocacy linkage actually to uh various um nonprofit groups that will work with a family to support both for inhome supports as well as school-based um IEP team um questions or concerns, etc. Um we have our parent resource center with also virtual availability uh partners with partnerships with libraries um and various other community activities. Um and then our um our fairs, our special education fairs. We have a special ed fair that is um once a year that is just sponsored by
069the department of special education that's robust with you know partners and and folks being able to participate but we also work with our community school facilitators to ensure that there's school-based fairs that are more school specific and community specific for our families to engage in. So, we're going to move on to the accountability portion of um that kind of bullet two of the presentation. Accountability measures in special education are critical to ensuring equity, compliance, and improve student outcomes. In addition to BCPS expectations for continuous improvement and accountability, it is also required by MSDE and the federal government. What you'll see here are kind of three mechanisms around for accountability of special education by annually meaning every other year we um are there's comprehensive monitoring that occurs through MSDE. Uh the next one of those will
070be in fall of 2027. We engaged in that comprehensive monitoring last um fall of 20 last fall. So in 2027 yeah so two years ago. Um, MSSE subreient fiscal monitoring also occurs occurs which will happen in spring of 2026 where we look at all of the spending and the funding of special education. Annually um MSDE uh does our um state performance plan and annual performance report. So that's an annual review of our data where we um then and I'll talk about that in a minute. And then also annually are the um Maryland the MSDE and Maryland Department of Health the inter agency Medicaid monitoring team which looks at our um both uh services and Medicaid billing components. And then finally the our office of internal audit which there's a yearly risk analysis and work plan
071related to special education for the system. As referenced federal law requires each state to to moni each state to monitor special education. These slides outlines here that um that monitoring includes how a state is accountable to infants, toddlers and children and young adults with disabilities families they serve. So again, not just school age was birth to 21. MSDE the state then monitors how each local education agency or for us Baltimore County implements IDA and COMAR. So you have the federal requirement for the state to monitor. The state then determines how they're going to monitor um the local jurisdictions. And then MSD has that monitoring system in place to examine how we the LEA are monitoring those indicators as part of the state performance plan. So when I was referencing that SP and APR that's the
072annual that's what this is referencing. And then based on that performance data we develop improvement plans for each indicator that may need improvement. There are two main buckets of work related to special education compliance. Um systemic improvement and school-based improvement. Um one of the things that Dr. Rogers was referencing earlier is that we have a monthly meeting with MSD. we are committed as a system and we actually are hearing that feedback from MSDE that our um they acknowledged our positive trajectory and that the district's improvement work um is producing results consistent with state expectations. That was huge. That was a hurray day I will say of excitement and that you know we know there's a lot of work to be done but we also are appreciative um of being acknowledged that we know that we're
073continuing to make the growth and we're on the right path with regards to what we need to be doing. Um so again there's systemic improvement strategies and school-based improvement strategies. Systemically um we are having forward- facing compliance processes that are in place to ensure that um we are monitoring at every uh point in time. We've increased our DSSE compliance oversight working cross divisionally with our um division of schools around looking at that complant compliance data actually weekly and then reporting them um monthly. There are action plans put in place as needed. um if we have a a situation where we need to do that. Um and then there's targeted compliance to support to schools at any point in time. Um as well as from a systemic improvement strategy is just around that kind of like
074ongoing support to schools with IEP teams, IEP team trainings, etc., etc. school-based improvement. We have the special education management plan which outline the expectation is that every school has a special education management plan that outlines how special education is happening in that building from enrollment to um IEP development to ensuring that how it's being monitored in the building to um ensure around discipline etc. that that is the plan for that building of how they're then applying those expectations around compliance um as a principal. Um then the monthly at a glance document. So that was new this year that we added is that it provides a monthly document for principles to be able to use for reference that gives their call it the must dos and may do but most of them are must dos um
075around ensuring that it is the expectation that also was actually shared out by Dr. Rogers with principles to highlight that expectation for compliance um and improvement in compliance in our system that is shared out at the beginning of the year and then it is also shared monthly in the newsletter that goes out to principles so no one can miss it. Um we also there's designated time for IEP monitoring by IEP chairs. So monthly at our required IEP chair training um they do a sampling of IEPs from their school building um that they can look for a targeted area. Then we're able to provide feedback and then they in turn can provide support to their and then finally um professional development for um special education teams as needed from that school-based improvement strategy perspective. So that
076annual SP and APR monitoring which is our school um state performance plan and um annual state performance plan measures um were monitored for both progress towards targets and compliance which is that zero or 100%. So the two sides of that arrow that you see here MSSE has categories identified um around um improvement status. So the the bottom tier is that you're meeting requirements and there's needs assistance, needs intervention and needs substantial intervention. We know as indicated in that first slide that we've been in that place of needs intervention for a good amount of time and somewhere in this trajectory of um need. We are in our second year of needs intervention for our part B which is preschool and special education. Um we met requirements in 63 of the 87 sub indicators and showed improvement
077in 11 of the 24 remaining areas. for our infants and toddlers program. Um they're actually in the needs assistance um component. Um and they met requirements in 17 areas and then demonstrated improvement in five of the eight indicator areas. This is an area where I'll say that that ongoing meeting with um the department um Maryland State Department of Ed around our data is really important. We meet monthly to look at this. How's it going? If there's something allows us to make those just in time adjustments. Also as a department we have um I had every office identify what their goals were aligned to these indicators. We meet as an instructional leadership team um and a leadership team as a department um and monthly look at those indicators um in order to continue to focus on
078moving that data. The every other year monitoring is that comprehensive monitoring that by annual um as noted in previous slides um we go through this um comprehensive monitoring the way it looks is that it's a review of a sample from Baltimore County. Um you see on that left column that it highlights that we look at a various components. So they'll do an es desk audit. They look at related services. um the alternate framework for students working towards an alternate um not working towards a diploma. Um restraint and seclusion data um our review of our policies and procedures and then specific case reviews. The method really is that sample of students and the expectation is that you're meeting at a 75% level or higher. Um or you then develop what would be an improvement plan accordingly.
079Those top findings that you see documented here are areas um that we've already addressed and I'll get that into the next slide. What I will say and I'm proud of my team around this is that before the report even comes out often um and this past year is that we were already on top of um those improvement strategies and professional learning and we're addressing these things even before the report came out. So those compre the comprehensive monitoring corrections that I'm referencing here um you'll see that there was an updated IEP template to to address that creation of reports to assist chairs with monitoring receipt of required signatures professional development um around IFSP documentation um online service logs professional developments um across both um for chairs and then special education staff on key audits. Um, we've
080completed all of those and we're in progress right now on those IEP team specific meetings that would need to go back and address student specific um, needs that are identified within that audit. I'm going to turn it over to Miss. Thank you. Good evening everyone. So, um, the slide that you see here in front of you, you've heard me talk about many times before. Part of our services to all students is the integrated tiered um support model and really looking at a tier one which is our universal support. Our tier 2 that really looks at very specific and small groupoup targeted supports and then our intensive intervention that tends to leverage more individual supports. You also um during the presentation on special education you talked about leveraging family engagement. We talked about how uh frequently
081we are progress monitoring which requires us to be really steadfast in owning our data and walking through our data. Okay, I got to remember to do two things at one time. I'm working on it. Um for the purpose of tonight's presentation, I'm going to walk through how services are provided. Um, I'm going to highlight the work of our pupil personnel workers, school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers. Um, really talking about the data that we pull from our student information systems, but also from our student planning systems. So, this slide um re outlines the exceptional work of student support services. And I'm really proud to say that um on our team we are working constantly in collaboration with the department of schools with the department of special education um student support services doesn't just
082live in one isolated area. It intersects every single student and is provided across the instructional environment. So when we take a look at this, I want to highlight some things that you see here um that are intricacies in the professional role of the providers that are identified there. Um school counselors, they spend a wealth of their time at tier one with prevention and promotion. Um, this is really leveraging the expertise of our school counselors through lessons, through um, credit checking, through having direct conversations with our students about the college career uh, and community readiness. Our school social workers, they engage in supporting students also across the school environment um, and have intricate expertise around addressing mental health needs, consultation, crisis intervention as well. um and making sure to bridge the need for resources and supports
083especially around mental health with our families. Um and that can look like a variety of things including consultation with psychiatrists um meeting with family engagement, talking with Marilyn Coalition for Families. There are many ways in which we see this occur. Our school psychologists also are intricate um to our processes um providing support through the assessment and identification process also supporting the establishment of FBA and BIPS and of course their advocacy for services aligned to IDA. Our PPWs well they're here for it and I'm sure you've heard that term before um when we think about our attendance campaigns. So, our PPWs are spending a lot of their time really focused on special enrollments. While they do work at tier one at schools, really supporting the schools and advancing the attendance campaigns. Um, some of the great
084things I'm sure if I was out today and I heard about the Santa versus Grinch activity as an award where kids got to engage and vote who they wanted to see at their school. And so it was one way for the kiddos who were able to attend and meet the the threshold for attendance. Um but they are really spending a lot of time helping schools to lift that and then mitigating and really working with families to bridge the gap to get students into schools. These are all combined efforts. Again I want to stress none of this sits in isolation. It is all to the greater support of students across um the tier systems of support. Our next slide. So this slide um I stands steadfast with our commitment to continuing to expand services. Um you
085heard Dr. Rogers as well as Miss Meyers speak to the fact that while we have we have continued to see the increased needs for our students um and really trying to plan and make sure that the resources are accessible for our students. So the graph on the left really speaks to the the blue on the left speaks to 2019 um the various service providers um that you can see across the the bottom. Then the the uh line in orange speaks to 2025 and the areas of growth that we've tried um tirelessly to make happen to support our students and their increased needs across the system. Um the chart to our right. So, let's talk about that for just a second. What you will see is the different categories. Um, you heard Miss Meyer speak to
086the work around SLPs. There's OT's, PTS, counselors, PPWs, um, psychologists, and social workers. The top layer you will see what the actual FTE, so the full-time equivalency is within our schools. The second line looks at that opportunity that Miss Meyers spoke about of contractual services and how we do provide services to our students um expanding access um and continuing to grow access. We also have a level of vacancies that we are seeing across um supportive services um in meeting the students needs. Um but what you will see in the last the last row is that we in some areas have hybrid models. So when you look at SLPs, you're looking at school psychologists. What we have looked at is yes, there are opportunities for inperson, but there's also opportunities for virtual providers to meet the
087needs of our students. um and and in many of these areas that you see here, these are in areas where we've seen nationally a trend in a need for additional providers in those areas and and we know that also impacts Baltimore County Public Schools. So, um while I would like to say I could read those little tiny um things up there, I cannot. So, I am going to reference and look down for a minute. This slide speaks to the services that were provided um during the 2425 school year. And what you will see across the the continuum for our counselors, our social workers, our psychologists, and yes, our PPWs, they were engaged in SSTs, IEPs throughout the course of the year. Um and then the other part of that that we took a look at
088when we just wanted to share this information with you was we looked at encounter data. So that's data. You heard Miss Myers talk about an inter agency audit with Medicaid and then thirdparty billing. These are encounters that come in that record the service provision of um the providers that you see listed here. So when we look at this, I'm very proud of the team to say that 77% of our school counselors are engaged in direct services. meaning they are having to interface opportunity with a student to pro provide that level of support to grow their skills um to grow their capacity to access the instructional environment. What could that look like? That could look like classroom counseling lessons. That could look like a one-to-one conversation or a parent conversation. That could look like a credit
089check and spending time looking at what the student needs or what the student may need to recover and plan for that college career and community readiness. Um we also indicated in there 23% we talked about indirect services um and those are services that really are um components of facilitation, organization and coordination of the services being provided. So, um I want to make sure that we have that perspective. And yes, we um had our school counselors engaged in 2234 uh threat assessments um aligned to the 355 staff members. social workers also um and I'm not going to repeat um engaging in the teameing um process but when we looked at their encounter um documentation which is consistent with providing psychotherapy and therapeutic services to our students 57% of their services are that direct face-to-face service that
090that can look like some level of therapy that's provided via group or individual services. Um, and you may ask me, what's the difference between therapy and counseling? Many times, people equate them to be the same. They are not the same. In fact, therapy is something you do because you've met some level of diagnostic criteria. Um, so I just want to make sure that we differentiate those pieces because that's a question I get all the time. Um, in addition, we had um 47 uh 40, sorry, 43% was that indirect. Again, I want to leverage the fact that we spend a lot of time organizing, coordinating, collaborating uh with external but also internal providers because the whole goal is access to the instructional environment. And that includes our partnership with um school safety, our special educators, um
091pretty much everyone that that interfaces with the student throughout the day. Our school psychologists as well are part of this great process and 82% of their efforts when we took a look um especially in the realm of IEP and student support teaming 82% of their efforts also were in direct services really aligned to that evaluation process um and the coordination collaboration consultation um again with many of the partners um to bring about how do we make recommendations so that students can access. How do we support them in developing goals, VIPs, behavior intervention plans, um studying the behavior, um at 18%. Um and also there was the element of um threat assessments as well at 159. Our PPWs, I you know, kudos to them because they are the ones that are really spending a lot of
092time around special enrollments um and and really leaning into that. Last year alone, this u mighty group um I will say engaged in look in considering around 3,000 special enrollments um in weeding through um who who can go to which school and supporting schools in helping parents um but also schools to navigate that. And that requires a lot of coordination as well with the schoolhouse, with the community, transportation, and of course, um, our department of schools at all times. Oh, I did forget one piece that I think is critically important. Um, and that is you all have heard me talk about the continued expansion of mental health service. Um, so one thing I want to highlight here is when we look at up in the far right corner at the orange box in the corner,
093when we look at that continued expansion, we now we continue to have but have continued to expand and change to meet the needs of our students. We have 18 community mental health partners that have agreements with our schools to provide services. At this juncture they are serving 86% of our schools. That so that means every single 86% of our schools has a partner that's providing services in the schools and can extend outside of the schools uh in partnership. You've also heard the discussion around blueprint um and celebrating the fact that we have consortium dollars um that also fund mental health services um across Baltimore County. right now that is impacting 127 of our schools um at 72%. And we're very excited because we're on the cusp the recent request for application um through the Maryland
094um consortium commission was just released. So we will be looking at funding pathways for uh 2027 as well. Um, right. Next slide. So, what I want to highlight here is some more support for students does not stop when school ends. We continue to have opportunities to support our students um in in accessing the instructional environment, but also thinking about what's next. Um so as you look, we've continued throughout this presentation to look at these pro at the providers um highlighting the fact that our school counselors were very visible um last summer in um supporting our students, our department chairs were doing credit checks, which I'm very proud of because that resulted in a a wealth of credit recovery for this fall for our students who needed to consider that. Um we had schedule changes. We
095also had students who received 667 direct counseling sessions during the summer months last summer. Our counselors um during last summer department chairs received 23 EY days um and they also get a responsibility factor depending on the size of their um department at the secondary level. our school social workers. Again, the support during last summer was for extended year services in alignment with the IEPs. Um so looking at that, they were able to provide 461 direct psychotherapy sessions. Um and then responsive to IEP um teams, 43 of those and four SSTs. And our school social workers are 10 months. And then our school psychologists, um, they also engaged in providing services, extended school year services. Um, they had a heavy lift last summer. I can definitely speak to that. They engaged 116 assessments for 510 teams.
096And we knew um going into that period of time and in working closely with the department of special ed and birth to five um that we would have close to 240 teams that were um in the early childhood realm. And then we had 270 teams that were school-based, which is roughly 1.5 um teams per school um over the summer months. and our um school psychologists also participated in seven SST teams last summer. Um our school psychologists to be able to provide these supports, the comprehensive school psychologists received 10 EE days um for last summer and then our birth to child had expanded days to 23 to make sure to be able to support the service provision and teaming that was needed. Um and of those days, 59% of those days were used out of 1,38
097days across last summer to provide services. And our pupil personnel workers, I have to bring, you know, celebrate them because in the summer they are really focused on attendance and getting our students enrolled to be ready for the for the school year ahead. Um, so they're spending a lot of time not only focused on our students who are attending in the summer months, but then they're also talking with folks about um the what's ahead for registration and enrollment as well and working intricately with attendance teams to be ready to kick off the school year. Okay. And with that, I'm going to conclude and turn it over to Dr. Rogers or any questions? Yes. Uh, Miss Leer, if you have any questions. Okay. Thank you for that. I know that was quite long, but I think
098the the length kind of reinforced the complexity, especially with the Department of Special Ed about what really the vastness and responsibilities that go with it. So, thank you for all all that detail that you provided us. Questions or comments from the board? Mleski? Thank you. Thank you both for your presentation. Um my first question is um can you talk about how you use workload and case load? I know you talked about your goal of a cap for case load was 60 to 65. Um what percent of of educators are above that cap? And then how do you balance workload and case load to achieve that cap? And um are there any other things that you consider in terms of determining the best case load for teachers? So that uh the the workload disc the case
099load discussion of the 6065 target is actually for speech and language pathologists specifically. So that um we typically um for um speech pathologists and really our related service providers we look at the various components of direct service assessment um planning time um actually we take into account all of like the duty-day com pieces to it um consultative services as well as direct services. So it's not just a studentbased ratio which we do look at for our special educ um but it's a um really looking at the various components that impact workload for our SLPs. However, we did an added component of looking at the case load because we heard that just looking at the workload in particular for our SLPs um was was not um sufficient and then being able to um feel that what
100they were doing was sustainable. So that's really where Dr. Rogers was able to say, you know what, let's we we talked to looked nationally with what was happening with regards to standards, had conversations with other jurisdictions, um and were able to say that our it's a target of 60 to 65 for direct. We have um I do actually have a list. I think we have about seven um we have eight schools right now where they we would be recommending an additional 0.2 to support for them, which is an additional um kind of approximates like one day a week by a virtual provider to be able to support that um reduction in that workload case load for that SLP and we're working with them to support in some various ways while we're hiring for that. Okay,
101thank you. That's very helpful. Um what percent are still above the 60 to 65? Is it just the eight? If it's only eight schools, that would be eight eight humans that would be that would need above that. Other than that, as far as that the target of the 60 to 65 direct, everyone else should be able to be able to is should be met with that. Okay. And one more follow-up question. Um, in terms of the virtual providers, what is the feedback you're getting from parents, students in terms of Yeah. How successful the virtual for speech in particular? Yes, please. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, um, virtual service provision, I do want to say, and we've talked about this in the past a bit, is that it's something that's not new for us,
102right? So, um, it was actually around before COVID as a researchbased practice, um, evidence-based practice, but also, um, I I say I I like to talk about virtual services. I actually saw that as a principle at White Oak. Some of our most complex learners around speech needs, um, really did a fantastic job and were able to access that. The key component being, I will say, the support of the other human that's present as they're accessing the virtual service. So, during COVID, right, that was mom or dad or the care provider at home and we would make sure that they had manipul in order to access. Now, um we have that additional adult that is trained as the facilitator by our um central office team to ensure that again that human is next to the student
103in order to access that virtual service provision that's online. So, this is not just the student that's sitting there staring at a screen with the provider there, but there is an additional adult human whoever that may there is an actual assigned, but sometimes it might be an administrator, sometimes it be another person that's able to support in that way. Um and again that person is also there to be able to help with kind of the materials and things to make sure that those services are um appropriately accessed with appropriate materials etc. Okay. Thank you very much Miss Pumphrey. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um my questions related sort of related to Miss Tlesky's um regarding the uh target of 60 to 65 for the direct service um case load target. Is there a
104universal recommended number for that target or where how did we come up with that number? Is it something universal that's what's best for students or is that something that we came up? Yeah, so we did um conduct with our national um group and we have conversations with ASHA is that um association of speech and hearing agency. I think I always miss the name. Thank you for that. Um and they we talk about that direct service. Um and there is a standard. I'm pretty sure that that's a related to the 60. I would need to check and make sure of that but that's where that um number came from was in consult. Okay. And secondly um when you talked about the access that we have to both virtual and in-person SLPs do does that mean each
105student has access to both or each school has access to both or how or is it just systemwide? Yeah. Some you know different students might get different access. Yeah. Thank you for that clarifying question. I realized I kind of said that strangely earlier. So, um almost all of our elementary schools have both um providers in their building is that we use that hybrid model in order to be able to allow for direct service across um students may have both, but most have one or the other depending um and we have that in order to again ensure that students that really need that if they need that in-person service provision for whatever reason um that they have that but also that they have a provider. So both may be available with a hybrid but um it
106most of them would have one provider or the other but our schools have have access to both so that it's equitable as far as student access. Yep. That's exactly target word there. That's exactly what we did what we did was to ensure that it was equitably provided across the system. For a long time, we talked about that there were students, there were schools that had an in-person provider, um, you know, a full-time in-person, and we had schools that didn't have an an SLP that had had a full vacancy for periods of time. We said, "This is not best practice. We need to be able to spread that accordingly, and that's what we've done." Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for your question, Miss Pumprey. If I may add to that, um, to that question specifically, that
107was feedback that came from our elementary school principles about two years ago. And so we brought together a work group and there were uh speech language pathologists if I'm correct who sat on the workg group and made recommendations for a better way to distribute and assign that is more equitable. So just wanted to share that. Thank you Miss Fmpong. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation ladies. That was a lot with 28 slides. Um I'm going to go through. So for slide nine again with the 60 to 65 for the direct service case load um if changes have to be made how are changes made for example if there's like a decrease in staff or an increase in students how are those changes made and then what's the time frame that those changes are made.
108Yeah. So thanks for your question. So we do monitor that. um we have committed to monitoring it about quarterly with we're able to look at um and the direct service um students are for SLPs in particular we also hear from our providers so we um our two supervisors that support this work have a pretty good handle on um and in in communication with providers around we know the other part of it is that it's not just the 60 to 65 but there is that workload component so there are times based on the services they may have less than that because of the fact that there's multiple components Um and then we adjust accordingly. We do have a team leader who's able to support. We also have some itinerant providers who are able to support with
109um assessments or IEP team in order to provide some um kind of flexibility and and so that the provider could focus on services. Um and then we work with our contracted agency to um hire additional providers. When I referenced that we had the um eight schools right now that are eligible, we're in the process of onboarding and working with that um contracted agency to be able to add that. So, um I would love to say that we just have folks ready to come on. Um we continue that hiring process. I will say that I'm very excited about the fact that we've had new hires to BCPS as SLPs this school year. We actually have two coming on board, one in January and one in February, which has not been standard over the last few years.
110So, not only are we getting um contractors in place, but we are filling in-person providers who want to come work for Baltimore County Public Schools, which is huge. And the two that we've had, uh, we had a recent retirement and we also had someone who left because her husband was transferred to, um, California. But, um, again, we're not seeing a mass, you know, kind of folks wanting to leave. If anything, we're hiring, which is which is great for us. Thank you. That's great news. And then for slide 16, I'm very excited about all the different resources that are available for our families and community. How is this information shared or spread so that parents, loved ones, and the community can actually take advantage of all these resources? Yes. So, it's shared in a variety of
111ways. Um, and we continue to really try to highlight the the the variety of of ways that it is shared. It's on websites, it's on social media, it's shared through um the dashboard that we've asked um that link to that to be on every IEP chair's um email signature. We work with our community school facilitators. We have newsletters. Uh we have our SECAC web page. Um we use our communications team to put out communication. Um you name it, we are open as far as with communication. Um and then just again continuously wanting to say to families that if you're feeling that you need something that you don't have is just go right to the web page and special education is right that little bar at the bottom. So there we will we will then link
112you to whatever that whatever that thing is. Thank you. And then on slide 20 where it talks about our indicators. Um for part B uh we've met 63 of the 87. So what is the work and congratulations on that? What is the work that we're doing for the other 24 subindicators um in part B that have not been met? Yes. So there's improvement plans. Thank you for that question. There are improvement plans for every indicator associated. That's the work that we've talked about with both um targeted action plans that are both um with MSDE as far as the work that we're doing. They're also individual with regards to each office has targeted those indicators to ensure that we're continuing to make growth and progress. So there's actually 14 full indicators and then there's those subindicators.
113So then we work continuously towards um the that's our professional learning that that we've talked about. That's the um collaboration with schools, the the cross-divisional collaboration, the accountability metrics, all of the things that are referenced without throughout the presentation. The goal is that those will continue to um have that impact on impro improving those um metrics that are referenced. Thank you. Um and next question is, oh goodness, I didn't write the slide. There was a graph, it's after slide 20, and there was a comparison between 2019 and 2025. I was just curious as to 2019 is like six years ago. So, I was just curious as to with a graph using 2019 instead of like a 2023 or 2024 to compare to 2025 so that we could see more recent trends. Slight 26. Yeah, they
114don't they don't have any after that. I would just say that we're highlighting the increased positions across that trajectory based on position that you'll see there. So nothing went below where we were and that we've continued um and that you can just see where we are now as far as with the increase of positions. Okay, Miss Pong, I'm sorry I'm typing and so I turned the mic off so you guys don't hear the click click. Okay. Um for slide 27 um with the upper right corner um and it talks about 152 schools and 127. Do we have a overlap then of mental health services to our students? So, some maybe have double because we have 152 and 127 or there's still schools that do not have access um to the mental health services at the
115schools. At this time, we have schools that may have more than one provider. Keeping in mind that consortium funding is for our uninsured and underinsured services, whereas many of our community mental health partners um bill medical assistance or they take private insurance, which is a very small percentage of the providers. So um to differentiate how that looks um if you are in a school that um has um varying needs um the consortium funding could be utilized to access services that there there may not be insurance or there may be sliding scale fees. So that could go towards supporting a student who needs that level of super service and intervention. Also I want to make clear that the consortium funds does a lot of bridging into the community and providing those wraparound services. Um so they
116are distinctly different while um but they can be in more they there can be more than one provider in school buildings. Yes. And are those providers in person or virtual or both? Um so most um are in person. We do have some online access um but that's really around modules for um skill development and learning but many of the providers are are in person um at the schoolhouse. Thank you. And lastly from slide 28 with the school psychologist um you were saying there's roughly about 1.5 teams per school for the school psychologist. Does that number increase or decrease with that recent change that we had to the school psychologist from 12 months to 10 months? So what you're seeing what you're seeing in that description is really dictated by the needs of what students need
117as far as teameing um goes. That's not really dictated by the staff. It's really dictated and identified by students um where there's an initiated need for an IEP team. Thank you. And last question, I appreciate your patience, ladies, is the school psych those school psychologists, do those teams include virtual psychologists? So, um over the summer months, those were um individuals who provided services via their EYE or um schools had identified it had identified the need for support. Um over the summer, they were not. We do have virtual psychologists. Um, now we have seven who are providing levels of support at schools. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Mr. Nomanowski. Yes. I just have quick questions. You guys really did a great job um preemptively answering a lot of the questions I already had. Um, one question
118I had was um about the virtual services when there's well is there ever a time when there's more than one student receiving virtual services of different kinds in the same room with a facilitator Jim like if say there at you know what I mean? Okay. Yeah. I I don't think so. That wouldn't No. I I would No. So like like you're having access to a psychologist and then an SLP to like that. No, that wouldn't. No, we wouldn't. We wouldn't do that. We shouldn't. Okay. Um and then lastly, going back to the the audits, I'm not sure we'll be able to answer this, but um with the sample size, who decides the sample? Like who picks the is it randomly selected? Do we randomly select it? Do the MSD randomly select it? Okay. Yes. So,
119MSD selects that sample size. Um we get a random list of students and then we need to be able to provide those um records accordingly and that's across for all of the various audits that are referenced. That's how that works. Okay. Thank you. As a point of clarification, if I can add, uh not only does MSDE uh identify the sample size, they also select the sample. So, they have access to every single student in the state and all 24 districts who are who have an IEP and they identify the IEPs that they want to see. Thank you, Miss Hen. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um thank you for this presentation. It's truly outstanding and a lot of information. I know I'm going to be going back through it and just reflecting on all of the
120information that's been shared. So, thank you very much. Um, my questions and and I have three brief ones are focused on the accountability measures and monitoring. And we've touched on a few of these areas already with my colleagues questions, but my first has to do with um do do we have a corrective act a course of corrective action for issues that come up on a day-to-day basis either at the system level or at the school level or both. Um, in other words, when an issue comes to us, is that addressed proactively in terms of um looking at the root cause of that? And I know we have monitoring and um for formal processes, right? And MSD looks at a sample and internal audit looks at things, but what is the corrective action plan and do
121we look at the root cause outside of the formal those formal monitoring processes? Yes, I'll go ahead and get started. Um, one of the areas that we focused on specifically was compliance. Um, so to your point, there are things that we receive from the state. One of the things that MSDE does is they send me a copy of every um complaint and concern that they receive. And after reviewing each one of them individually, I started to notice some trends and patterns and took the opportunity in my monthly meeting with principles um to share with them what the trends and patterns were. things that were uh simple fixes and uh clearly created uh shared what our expectations were, provided the supports, um the reminders, the documents so that all of our schools were on the same
122page in terms of a reset that was needed in Baltimore County public schools around compliance. And so that's what we did at the system level. Those documents coming from the state, as I said, I receive every single one of them. They're few and far between. Now at the beginning of every year I provide an update to the uh principles and share them for their continued uh focus in this area and when we receive individual complaints uh they are uh sent to the department of schools in collaboration with the department of special education uh both Dr. Jones as well as the executive directors uh reach out directly to schools and um they have regular standing meetings where special education and department of schools um as well as CNI um other offices come together birth through five
123etc and they're looking at data they're looking at trends I think um it was slide number 19 uh where Miss Meyers went through uh what is done differently for systemic improvement strategies versus what they do at the school level. So as soon as patterns and trends are identified um that is addressed by special education as well as the department of schools that is our expectation. So thank you want to add I I think you covered it. Um yeah, you know, I think the aspect that I would a little bit of an add is just that that's where the professional learning comes into play that we've that we're really talking about is that that's proactive with regards to professional learning and then you're able to reflect on that as far they've already had it. So then
124we can go back to those documents. The other area that um I I don't know that I said is that we've really focused on being able to have at hand those resources and materials that principles need for their reflection around compliance. We have the e handbook that is up todate and updated regularly that has the most recent guidance from the state as well as the implementation of that. So those are easy go-to things in order for to stay in compliance. But if there's an issue that services we we immediately go back to that, remind them where those things are and ensure that they're they're ease of access documents that are easy to read and able to be able to implement it. Thank you. Um what I'm thinking of and and thank you. That's very helpful
125and and you're answering questions that I didn't know I had that I have. So, I appreciate that. Um, what I'm also asking about are the the one-offs that would hopefully be resolved at the school level without needing to be escalated to the state or or to come to the system. And is is there a resolution process or issue resolution process that is shared by the school with families um receiving, you know, services for their students that I'm sorry, I heard someone else speaking. They're sneezing. It's okay. Oh, bless you. that that could resolve that issue um without needing to to escalate it. And is is that a process that families that is communicated to families and that principles um are receive professional development on? Yes. So what you're actually referencing is the procedural safeguards that
126are part of IDEIDA. So um at every team um families receive a copy of their procedural safeguards um or at least annually and then if there's any con question or consideration those are then provided again. So there is a resolution process that's mandated both um that that is through MSDE um as and our system also works through that resolution process. So that's really why we we want to build out that family engagement that community that's um um our parent team that if there's any question that they feel that maybe they can't get resolved at the school level that they're able to reach out to our parent team who can then help to kind of navigate and alleviate some of those concerns. um those I what what you're speaking to there's legal obligations that we have
127around parent the resolution process which we have in addition to that is just what I would say would be best practice around wanting to ensure families have access to those resources and supports for them to get a response from a school to be able to work through their questions so they feel like they don't need to escalate. However, it is a parent's right to do so. So if there is a disagreement um there is a process to do that and they are able to do that. that is their absolute right and they are provided those um those rights accordingly. Great. And and and I'm aware of the legal our legal requirements to do so. Um, however, if if we can go beyond that to um work towards avoiding that breakdown and and go one step
128further and making sure that we maintain that connection with our families because oftentimes that conflict, that escalation can be avoided with simple conversations. And like I tell my constituents, resolve it with the school. Have a conversation. You know, you can resolve most issues by working with your teachers, with your admin, you know, school administrators. And, you know, oftentimes our our procedures are out of reach or aren't accessible to families if if they're written in legal ease, if they're, you know, hard to understand or hard to grasp or not. Sometimes we build conflict into processes and it's it's unintentional. But the more we can work to maintain that relationship and that engagement, I think the the fewer conflicts, the fewer escalations, um we will see. So it even if we take that one step further, but
129but you answered my question there. Um my my next question has to do with um the monitoring and the reports that are generated out of that monitoring. Is there a centralized repository where stakeholders can locate that information? There's a lot of work happening and a lot of accountability measures, which is fantastic. Um, what I'm wondering about is the transparency of that data. Is there a one-stop shop or a place that individuals can be directed to say, look, here's here's what's going on. I mean, this presentation is fantastic, and I plan to share it um with those who ask, but is there a dashboard? Is there um you know, do we have plans to share this on the special education page on our website? because this is this is good stuff and and I think our
130stakeholders would be very interested in in having this information. So the SP and APR report is on the MSSE website actually. So that is public facing as far as how um school systems are performing um and that's the yearly metric that is there. Um as far as um this information and presentation, I would say that that's you know publicly facing with regards to it being in board docs. Um and that's always available. Our strategic road map is also available on uh the website which has driven all of this work accordingly. Um and that's also there. So yes um it is public information as far as how we're performing um with regards to that that annual yearly progress. Um also um that complaint data that Dr. Rogers was referencing without um student specific information is also
131part of um as MSD um dashboards accordingly. Are our school plans also available? The special education management plan is not something that is um forward facing at the moment. There's always answers that could be provided about it, but it's not presented in that way. Those are really, you know, specific like the who in the building comes to register would be the person that would connect, who sends out the document to whoever at home, who's the person that's accountable for walking through the classroom to ensure the IEP is being those are very school specific things. Um, but as far as the expectation for a management plan, that's written into our um the special education um road map. references that that's in this um and kind of some various other there are various other places that it
132lives but as far as forward facing of that special ed management plan per se that wouldn't I don't know that it would bring value to folks to be able to see those specific um names associated even to those school families that I I would just um look at that through the lens of a school family and and if there's anything in there that would bring value to them because again there's there's good information here and oftentimes going back to the conflicts that that often result um I think at the root of that is a lack of information. Um I hear from families that that don't have that information that could benefit from that and and the more we can engage with our families and share this information with them um I think it could smooth
133that over and and result in better experiences for our students. So if if that's a possibility and I hear you mentioned that all of these things are in in different places again if the more information we can put out and make easily accessible to our our families um because again a lot of work is happening this is fantastic and we we need to share this um widely and and let families know um of what what really is happening um because I think there there's there's frustration around when when things go wrong and I I I want to get the good news out there that there's a lot of work happening and and the good news within the system as well. So, but again, thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all I
134had. Thank you, Miss Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Miss Meyers, for your leadership and for the work of your team. I can see the enthusiasm you have for uh special ed education through the way you present. So, thank you for that. I I do not believe that uh this is a eitheror proposition. I'd like to look at slide seven, the historical challenges in special education. Uh I think that we can do both. We can celebrate incremental steady change and also maintain an expectation uh for accountability in meeting our ultimate goal. And so my question I have two questions. One is about ensuring parents and caregivers are collaborative members of the IEP process. So we know that there can be an inherent power differential in an IEP meeting. Parents are sitting sometimes in front
135of three, four, five uh school personnel. There's a lot of jargon and acronyms that are thrown about. The meeting can feel rushed um because there's a schedule to be kept. How uh are you all ensuring or working towards making IEP meetings more meaningful for parents um so that they can understand what really is happening uh with their children, with their students, and so that uh they feel empowered to disagree, to ask for resources that may not be listed uh and to advocate uh on behalf of their children. So, a couple of things. Um, one is that at every IEP chair training, we do a parent engagement, parent information session for our chairs around the importance of engaging with our families. Um, being able to look at strategies of listening, um, connecting with families, trying to
136hear, someone indicated a root cause. What are what are our parents looking for that, you know, they may say in a different way. Really the importance of not using the jargon, right? Understand that. I will say to you personally, I have a child who um has a 504 plan and um we live in another state, but I don't feel comfortable at that table, right? And this is my world. So, I can totally relate to the idea. I sit there and think I I don't know what to ask. So, I have empathy for that and really hold that in a um high level of um expectation for my team and as well as with IEP teams. That's a session I actually presented at to chairs. Um I've done it twice this year. I walked in on
137another one that I wasn't um I wanted to say it a bit differently, a little bit more directly. So, I did it myself um around that expectation for how we're engaging with families and ensuring that that is um our highest expectation. Um we also have had parent panels um and other panels of folks that do this work. So, um parents place of Maryland for example and others that have come and been able to talk about the work of um importance of engaging our families and providing those resources. So, so that's from the professional learning and expectation side. Um, the other side I will say is that that is the work of this um team with regards to providing um parent training sessions really want to be able to focus on um we've you know that
138team has gone through there's sessions on understanding the IEP, understanding the IEP team process. There are recorded versions of that available. There's also live ones and then we just want to continue like public service around that idea that um Kenya's team will sit and sit with the family and talk through that entire process for them to be able to prepare for that team meeting. Um that's a that's a service we are happy to do um and and do pretty regularly. Again, it's that wanting to promote and make sure it's accessible and understood that this team is there and available and that is the work. Um so we're there. We want to do it. we're providing it in a bunch of different formats related to that. And then also just that um it comes down to
139that culture part that we talk about, right? Is that wanting to value our families at that table and understand that folks show up in whatever way and we're we're still we're advocating for our kiddos and that's what's important. Thank you. Thank you. Just a couple of thoughts to follow up. One is how how we prepare as you were talking about our families for attending an IEP meeting beyond providing them with the IEP in advance. Uh whether it's directing their attention to specific areas, whether it's um helping them understand the growth and process that's occurred in plain language as opposed to saying they're at a 3.6 and now they're at a 3.8. aid and who knows what that means for for my child. Also, uh thinking about how we can leverage community schools in that parent
140preparation process and understanding the IEP. Those are just a couple of of thoughts that I had. Also, um my second question really is about the disproportionality uh in identification and suspension of students with disabilities. Can you provide a little bit more information on uh what that is speaking to and what is the work you're doing to address that historical challenge? Yes, thank you for that question. Um so uh disproportionality there's variety of um areas that are looked at. identification for special education services, placement when we talk about um the least restrictive environment um or discipline with regards to um how students are disciplined and that are they being disciplined at a disproportionate level than their their peers or students who are not disabled um identified as having a disability. Um so within that um within
141Baltimore County a system is required if you are identified as disproportionate in one of these areas you are required to use 15% 15% of your funds to address those disproportionate areas um that was under the work of our CCIS or comprehensive coordinated early intervention supports and service. So within our system um we have used that to build out various components of infrastructure to address those areas. Um actually that is work that um Trisha and I do together. Um so one component is that we've built out our 504 and SST team. So we actually that um funds the supervisor and the specialist and her team um around um supporting the SST process. So ensuring that students are appropriately identified for special education ser but again not overly identified. Um we also have built out what we
142call comprehensive support teams. So, another um these are teams that are able to go in and embed in schools um in order to help on multi-tered systems um and being able to build out those um structures that are good for all students, whether that is climate and culture, whether that's academic needs um and really being able to build that out proactively to be able to again address those areas. So, you're going to hit all three. We also have used those funds in order to address early childhood. So we know that um that is an area that we need to um we our kids are coming in very differently um than they did years ago. Um and the allowed us to have um not only our director but five specialists whose focus is on prek and
143kindergarten building out supports coaching teachers providing professional learning accordingly. Um so that's where that work is. Um we also have a specialist who just focuses on um kind of analysis and working with schools specifically who are showing um trends of disproportionality maybe around suspension and then a resource teacher as well. The other work of that group is looking at students as they're entering Baltimore County and what their eligibility is and ensuring that specifically for our students um identified as an intellectual disability. There are times where um we have to be very clear on the compo and on those um pieces of data necessary to make very informed appropriate decisions for kiddos and that that is not disproportionately identifying our black African-American students as having an intellectual disability which is an area that we have been
144disproportionate. So that team looks specifically at students coming into the system, maybe from another system, as well as any number of those eligibility determinations to ensure that we are taking into account all components um to ensure appropriate identification. Thank you. No problem. Thank you, Mr. Manowski. Sorry, just one quick followup as I brought that up. Have you noticed any trending upwards as we've gotten to the least um excl like the or the most inclusive classrooms we where we're trying to get kids from that exclusion, you know, the exclusion classroom into the more inclusive classroom with the special when special education students. Do you see the um the level of suspensions and um behavior issues in the classroom more than you did before? I think our I'm not going to say it. I think our student
145needs are complex, right? So, um across the system over the last um I say COVID and really be you just see different dynamics and our students have different needs that we address in a multiple ways. Um, you know, Miss Mustaper talked about that comprehensive um support with mental health services that we know we work collectively um and collaboratively uh to ensure that all of our our classrooms are um supported around that that we work our multi-tered systems around climate and behavior strategies that are what is your tier one what is everyone getting and then what are some other you know kind of variations um I wouldn't attribute LRE to that which is what you're referencing um around least restrictive environment that is really student specific and I don't know that I would correlate the two
146to being that there's more discipline needs, but we just want to make sure that we are appropriately addressing the needs of every student in whatever their environment is. No, I I just kind of we were talking about before that you've noticed that the um disciplinary needs for special education students is on is on the rise or there more frequently. Have you noticed that with that lease um restrictive environment they've been going up or if they've been going down? So our disproportionality suspension actually went down. We were not disproportionate for um this year. So I would say no in that sense. Um it is an area with CCIS funds you are able to do two things. One is address it if you are disproportionate. The other is uh build out the systems and structures to prevent
147it. So we we hit it from both angles. So while we were disproportionate for years around suspension, we made improvements and weren't. We also know that we could easily end up there um due to various factors. So that's where we then build in um kind of that proactive again the infrastructure, the professional learning etc to address that. So um we were not disproportionate in discipline. Thank you. Mr. McMillian. Real quickly, uh, on slide 28 and the yellow rectangle with school psychologists, it says there was 138 EYE days allocated. There was 1,038 EYE days. 10 of the um days each comprehensive school psychologist received 10 and then our birth to five school psychologists received 23. Okay. And it shows 422 days unused. They were unused. Yes. Which means they were offered to the psychologist and they
148they weren't interested in working those days. They were provided and they did they did not use them or they were not allocated uh or they weren't utilized in that allocation. I misspoke. Yes. Weren't used after we they're 10 months now, right? Yes, sir. So I'm just confused. we they're cut back to 10 months and then they had the opportunity to use these EE days and they didn't do it. That's correct. Thank you. So that was I was going to ask that question. Um so services that were needed for kids during the summer, we had the school psychologists available through their EYE days. Okay. And keep in mind that EYE days um are at the choosing of the staff member to use those. So they do make that choice in in using them and when they
149use them. Um but also keep in mind the array of services that were provided across schools um specifically for our students in extended school year for students with IEPs. But then also we had department chairs for counselors. uh as far as counseling department chairs also available during that time. So um yes we we had an array of services and our community mental health partners in many schools continue to provide services throughout the course of the summer. So if students needed servicing during the summer, we did have school psychologists that would have been available with the EYE days. Yes. And we had other providers that were also accessible to provide those services. Okay. Yes. Thank you for that. Um and then I just um I think we've got all the questions. Um I just want to
150thank you for sharing um Dr. Morrison's quote. I mean it was on one slide on slide 19, but it it's huge after so many years of us being um needing improvement according to MSD. For them to come out and say that we are on a positive trajectory is huge. So thank you, you know, for all the work that you're doing. Um special ed is always going to be challenging. it's always going to be comp complex. Even when we think we have it right, um it's still going to have um special needs because of the nature of the students that we're serving. So, thank you for everything that you're doing um to put it together to ensure that systems and structures are placed so any child that enters our system can find the resources they need
151to be successful. So, um thank you for this. I know we grilled you on a lot of questions, but um thank you for having the answers. Did you have one more question? Okay, and our last question, Miss Tleski. Okay, I have three quick questions, but the progress is terrific and I agree with the other comments that this deserves to be celebrated. Thank you. Um so the first question is regarding slides 13 and 16 with the advisory opportunities and just for um any family members that are listening tonight in terms of opportunities to engage with giving feedback um are those advisories open to everyone or are they like select groups with representatives that are say teachers, parents and so forth or is it um so Are there advisories that are open for everybody? Thank you. Sorry.
152Yeah. So, see I would say um directing that with regards to the special ed citizens advisory committee which is CCAC is the best place for families around that. Um also I'm going to continue to go back to that parent group is that if there's a question or concern or note is that that team listens all the area to address that would be there. Um, as far as the stakeholder group, that was a selected group based on those folks that we're interacting with pretty regularly that are active within the community and are providing um feedback that is um uh that that is able that it's kind of a two two-way street with regards to um you know interactions. are able to provide really concrete um actionable things that could be addressed um that we've worked with
153for you know periods of time around that that are that want to partner in the work I think is an important component um and that's really where that group so those are um some of them are parents of students with disabilities who are also community um maybe working in I give parents place as an example so right that's an that's an example of um someone may I'm giving just examples of groups um or an advocate who may also have had their own personal experience if that makes sense. But yeah, it is more specific. Okay, thank you. And then my second question is from slide 26 just following up on Miss Fong um with the data from comparing 2019 to 2025. um if to this data could be added um the representative populations of students for
154the groups so that we like I know there's there's progress being made but obviously the populations have changed so just to make sure we have the most accurate picture it would be helpful to have for example the the OT student population in 2019 and then the OT student population in 2026 that would be great information to have and for the public as Well, which I know you don't have here, but Okay, Miss Miski, do you mean these are the providers? Do you mean the population for providers or Right. So since like the providers obviously are increasing on all of the categories just to have the best understanding of of the workloads or and or really the case loads to have the representative student groups in each of those areas for each of those school years
155would be helpful. Okay. Thank you. And then my last question, I know you talked a little bit about the MSDE compliance rate and if you could share the compliance rate for BCPS, I guess the last school year and then how that compares to either the previous year or previous years. Thank you. So in the SP and APR monitoring, which is the annual, we were identified um my eyes are really this is funny at this point and then I'm reading my context. Um so for our part C um our infants and toddlers we are identified when you see those um kind of the four sections we are in um needs assistance and year two of needs assistance. Um as far as for our part B which is our preschool and special ed uh school age we
156are identified as needs intervention in that second year. Okay. I didn't know if there was like a percent. So so Oh no. But yes that information was very detailed and wonderful. So I'm sorry. It's okay. No worries at all. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just that's where that's related to. Okay. Thank you very much to both of you. Thank you. And it's good thing we didn't have any capital questions. So thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is the report on academic achievement dual enrollment. And for that I call on Dr. Almondorf and Miss Schubert. Good evening. Evening. You'll be happy to know that this presentation will only be slightly longer than the last one. Oh, slightly longer. Well, good evening um Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, and uh Superintendent Dr.
157Rogers, and members of the board. We are excited to talk to you tonight about the early college access program here in BCPS, affectionately known as ECAP. So, here on the slide, you can see a lot of the um opportunities that students have as a result of dual enrollment in BCPS. You may remember back in 2014 legislation requiring that students have tuition discounts if they are looking to be enrolled in college while they're enrolled in um high school. So, we partner with CCBC um quite a bit. We actually meet with them every week to talk about dual enrollment um and we are so proud to to tell you that BCPS has one of the uh highest levels of participation in dual credit and dual enrollment um in the state. and Miss Schubert is going to walk
158you through some of the uh great things that we're doing here in BCPS as it relates to um dual enrollment and early college access program. Good evening. So, I wanted to start by talking about our college and career readiness standards that are um issued at the state level. These standards have changed and been adjusted for this school year. And so now at the end of 10th grade, as you might be familiar with, our students um can achieve college and career readiness status by having a GPA of greater than 3.0 and then a math algebra one grade of A, B, and C or score proficient on their MCAP. So that's a standard we've been used to for the past few years. Um, additionally, at the end of 10th grade, they can score proficient on uh their
159English math proficiency and their mathematics proficiency. And if a student achieves those measures, they are deemed college and career ready. And we'll talk in a few slides about kind of the wonderful opportunities that are then afforded to students. Um, with the new standards, there are opportunities for students to achieve college and career readiness at the end of 11th grade and then at again at the end of 12th grade. And these are new. Um, so there's five additional ways that students can achieve college and career readiness. Um, we can look at the end of 11th and 12th grade. um a one-year unweighted GPA, that would be the 11th grade GPA of 3.0 or higher. And then math grade of A, B, and C in any of their math courses. Um we could look at students taking
160the ASVAB, and that is related to um military service readiness. Um we can look at a student achieving an apprenticeship or completing an apprenticeship or an industry recognized credential in one of our CTE programs. Dual enrollment actually might qualify them for college and career readiness. So again, these um CCR standards changed as of this year. Um and once a student does attain that CCR standard, there are many opportunities that are afforded to them, including ECAP, which we're going to discuss with you this evening. So, back to those standards, once our students do achieve um CCR, um they become eligible for two completely free CCBC courses in the fall and spring of both their junior and senior year. So, that CCR status really opens up a financial opportunity for our students as they engage in dual
161enrollment. um that is tuition free, that is fee free and that is their books paid for as well. So these are completely free courses once students achieve that CCR status. Now that doesn't mean that our students who are not CCR ready um cannot take dual enrollment classes. They would pay the 50% um reduced rate that is available to all um residents of Baltimore County. So meeting that CCR standard does really provide a financial benefit to our students as it relates to dual enrollment. Um here we have data for the last three years of the numbers of our students in the fall semesters who have accessed our dual enrollment courses. You can see there's a bit of a dip from fall of 23 to fall of 24. That was the first year that those CCR standards
162went into place and we anticipate that that accounts for um part of that dip. But this um this fall we had just shy of 2400 students taking classes at our community college. I wanted to briefly highlight for you um Dr. Elundorf on the second slide shared the array of dual enrollment opportunities that are available to our students. I wanted to briefly highlight three of these programs for you this evening. We have our early college program um at Woodlon High School. This is an opportunity for students who apply to that program to graduate in four years with their high school diploma and their associates degree from CCBC. Um you can see in the data that 56 students have earned their high school diploma and associates degree since 2021. 19 students have earned a BA or um
163BS degree and we have one student that earned a master's degree. Incredible opportunity. I I visited this program um the week before our Thanksgiving break. Um so we have students in 9th grade who are taking CCBC classes on location at Woodlon High School. Um and we are proud 16 of 21 students are on track to graduate with both of their degrees. And um th this is a huge success for not only these students but progress in the program as well. And then at Dundock High School and Owings Mills High School, we have our PEK program which which is pathways in technology early college high school. I like to think of these as kind of having a CTE spin on that early college program. So these students are focused in um two different engineering trades. Um
164the difference with PEK is the goal there is for students to earn their high school diploma and then they have an additional year five and year six postgraduation to earn that associates degree as well. Again, super exciting opportunities for these students. Um and of course walking across the stage in year four, year five or year six with your associates degree um is a huge benefit to our students. So here we're sharing some data on our um uh courses that have the highest participation um with our students. Um the data includes courses with over a 100 BCPS students. We're looking at fall and spring of last school year. Um some of our more popular courses are college composition one and two uh which equate to uh English 11 and English 12. Fundamentals of communication is also
165a course that we sing high enrollment in that equivalence to speech one in BCPS. Um and intro to psychology also as a high enrollment. So we have some courses I like to call them our heavy hitters that we have a lot of students participate in. Um but our students participate in uh dozens and dozens of dual enrollment courses with our community college partner. Um shameless plug I have to tell you we are so lucky to be in Baltimore County. Community College of Baltimore County is an incredible resource for not only our entire county, but our students here in Baltimore County. Okay, so back to those CCR standards. When we look at last school year, 75% of our students who access dual enrollment courses at CCBC were college and career ready. 25% of our students were
166not college and career ready. Um, that can be interpreted in many ways. Of course, as students progress in their academic career in high school, they're more apt to start engaging in those dual enrollment courses. And of course, after 10th grade is when you can become CCR ready. But we do have students as early as 9th grade who participate in dual enrollment courses. And then finally, you know, we we look at how our students are doing in these courses. Um it's amazing to me when you go in and you see these high school students really engaged in college level courses. So we want to know how are they doing. So we have grade um data on the slide for last school year. Um last year uh just shy of 86% of our dual enrollment students earned
167a passing grade in the fall semester. Just under 82% of our students add uh earned a passing grade in the spring semester. We do take a look at these data by course and by grade. We also look at school and by grade. Um, and we really tune in to our students who are not meeting with success. So that would be a failing grade or um, an FX grade in the community college means they registered for the course and they never showed up. Um, or a withdrawal grade um, and we are working with our community college partners to not only um, monitor those students and put in support so that they're meeting with success, but also then working with our school counselors to have hard conversations with students. Maybe this isn't the best way for you
168to go. Maybe you want to look at an AP course. They're not mutually exclusive one of one another, but we do look at these data because most important to us is that our students are meeting with academic success. And then here, community college um opportunities really are hugely beneficial. We know on a national level that students who participate in um dual enrollment opportunities um they have an opportunity to really understand what does it mean to be a learner at the college level because it is different than being a learner at at the um high school level. How do we promote agency with our students when they're taking college classes? How do they pace themselves? Um there are financial benefits. students who take these courses walk away with a grade that in the state of Maryland
169is guaranteed to transfer to any University of Maryland um college. Um and we're proud to uh highlight that 67% of our ECAP students have a college GPA between 3.0 and 4.0 and that the average GPA for all of our EPCAP students is a 3.0. Um those are amazing statistics for students who are engaging in these courses. Um and that 49% of our non-ECAP students have a GPA between 3.0 and 4, but our average GPA for non-ECAP is the 2.79. We continue to work with our community college to monitor this. Um and of course we talk with students and parents, school counselors to help students understand the opportunities available to them at the community college. So I talked about, you know, increase in certificate or degree attainment is an incredible opportunity for our students. They can
170access some of our students are taking CCBC courses right in their high school building. I mentioned our Woodlon kids. Um, and the long-term financial implications of this. If students are CCR, this is at absolutely no cost. And you know, as a parent, we we all understand that benefit, right? Um, in January, we are going to be sharing some very exciting news. I can't tell you too much, um, regarding CCBC expanded opportunities for access for our students. Um, this news will be especially exciting for our current seniors. So, stay tuned for more information. It's just a little teaser. Um, coming from Baltimore County Public Schools and our community college of Baltimore County. So, at this time, I will see if anyone has questions. Questions for board members. Mr. Young, thank you for the uh presentation. You
171mentioned um like the PEK program at Dundock and Owings Mills and on the slide it talks about um years five and six or five through eight. So do the students basically graduate like year four from BCPS school and then continue those f years five through whatever six 8 at CCBC. That's correct. So while the students are with us for four years um all of their CCBC courses are covered through our partnership with CCBC. They then graduate from BCPS. years five and six. We have an agreement with CCBC that they are then paying for the students to continue that and hopefully attain their associates degree in five and six. They who are paying CC CCBC covers the tuition in years five and six for our students. Yes. In the two programs. So that goes to a
172doubly big impact financially because five and six you the later years are paid for by CCBC and they get an associates degree. That is correct. Thank you. Miss Harvey. Uh, thank you. I just had a quick question because I I heard you say that um there's a small percentage of participants who get a grade of an FX, which means they didn't show up at all. Is there an attendance tracking or requirement? How do we know early on if students who are qualified and enrolled met the requirements are not attending? and are there interventions that follow? Yeah, that's a that's a great question and we continue to talk with our CCBC partners about that. So, technically when students enroll in a community college course, um they are community college students and so access to that grade
173monitoring is not available to us in BCPS. Um we continue to have conversations. Um and I'll give a great example at Woodlon High School. We have an amazing coordinator there. Um I I call her the ECAP mama who really um kind of harnesses these students, right? She sits down side by side with them and they're looking at their grades, they're looking at their progress, they're looking at their attendance. So the student has it up on their screen. Um Mama Bear is watching with them and then providing guidance to them. Um, this is a conversation we continue to have with our school counselors when we meet every other Friday with CCBC so that we can have a greater partnership and kind of monitor that student attendance so that we can um avoid students who register for
174a class and then don't attend. Does that lack of attendance in one class impact their ability to further participate in ECAP? Are there is that Yeah. So, one of the things we looked at this year was um students earning a failing grade for whatever reason or withdrawal after the withdrawal date. This year, we have put in some guidelines to students that we will look at those failures at the end of school year 2526. Um and students may lose their opportunity to receive the 50% financial support that BCPS provides um with those failing grades and we'll have an appeal process for that as well. Thank you, Miss Reang. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and I have to say I love love love this program. This is one of my favorite things that um is
175offered by BCPS. So um just congratulations on the success of the program and kudos to Dr. Rogers and her leadership and the staff who work with CCBC and thank you to them as well for being partners um in this and working with their leadership and staff um to offer these opportunities for our students. So um I wanted to take a look at slide eight and I know the criteria has changed as far as the students who are eligible to participate and we've made some allowances for that. Um but on this slide as far as they do have to to do some payment versus the students who are considered CCR ready and do not have to um have the same payment. So for that 25% of students who were considered to be quote non college and
176career ready are we tracking like how they're doing um in these programs and if they're able to have success as well? Yes. So annually we disagregate all of these data. So, not only are we looking at course performance by course at CCBC, but we do look at the difference between course performance for our CCR and non-CCCR students as well as by grade level. So, yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. And then with that data, is that something that we're able to, I guess, take and present on, excuse me, even a state level because that's where this criteria is coming from. And so even just to say, hey, and I do appreciate that they've changed some of the criteria to allow more access, but even with things like this showing that these students who were given that
177label of nonCCR, they can be successful still in these college studies. And being able to um take this data, present this data to hopefully, I guess, look at some potential change to that criteria just so that we can expand these opportunities for those students. Uh, Miss Funkong, um, I would share that yes, the data is available to the state and the state is um, constantly working on revising uh, different ways and pathways for students to be CCR ready. Dr. Wright has a real commitment um, to access for students and um, that is an ongoing conversation that they're having additional pathways for students. Okay. Thank you. Fantastic. And of course, like I said, I I love this program and I love to speak about the success stories. I I actually I think I'm even more partial
178to this compared to AP. Although again, as it's been said, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. But there have been students who have participated in these programs and have left high school to go on to college and really only had to have two more years of college before achieving a bachelor's degree. And I just think that that's really important in making sure that we're sharing this story and this opportunities and access to our students because when we think about the rising cost of college um the program and opportunity, it helps to alleviate that college debt for our young people and they don't have to leave college saddled down with an overwhelming amount of college debt. So again, I just I think it's a great program and so thank you for the presentations. Thank you,
179Miss Fong. Mr. Young, thank you. Piggybacking on um board member Harvey's earlier question, for those students who um get the FX or withdraw after the fact, is there any um financial repercussions to them for that? Currently, um if that student is CCR, we are still paying for those courses. Um, and part of this came from a data analysis in terms of the tuition paid for students who, you know, essentially didn't end the course with a passing grade, which is what we're all looking for. Um, which is why we worked with our community college partner to put in some guidelines around um, reviewing those data annually each school year um, and removing those tuition benefits for students if they do not pass. But currently we we do pay the bill for the student who took a
180fall course that did not pass. Student doesn't have and the student is not responsible for that bill as of right now. That is correct. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McMillian. Just two real quick questions. Do most of the kids that succeed and and attaining the the AA degree in high school, are they starting in the ninth grade? So, our structured programs at Woodlon High School, at Dundock, and at Owings Mills, they do start college courses in 9th grade. I think it's important to note that we do have students that do it on their own in Baltimore County public schools who earn an associates degree with their high school diploma by taking advantage of dual enrollment, not in a structured program. But our structured programs, they start in 8th grade. Okay? So, those kids that start in
181nth grade, so as juniors and seniors, they get the eight free courses. In our structured programs, early college and PEK, we cover the cost of all of their courses for all four years because it is a program of study that they opted in. Wow. CCR or non CCR. And and then you mentioned the most popular two of the popular courses were the English courses and you mentioned uh like English 11 and English 12. So, can they take those at the college and then not take the high school English? I love that question. Yes. So the those two courses are what we call dual credit, meaning that the student gets high school credit and college credit at the same time. So if you took English 101, which is equivalent to English 11, you do not need
182to take English 11 and that grade posts to your BCBS transcript because they are identified as dual credit courses. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you so much for that. I echo Miss Fong. I think the reactions of the board, it's it's an very exciting program and um is a real benefit to kids and and parents. So, thank you very much. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is information which are the financial report for the month ending October 2025, minority and small business enterprise annual report for 2024 2025 official September 30th enrollment report revised superintendence rules 8130 8132 and third party billing annual report for 24 2024 to 2025. Next on the agenda is wait a second. Okay. The next item on the agenda is board committee updates and agenda setting. Before
183we do that, the first item is board committees purpose and measures of effectiveness. So each of our board committees has met and reviewed their um measures of effectiveness and their purposes and the compiled document was provided to board members. It's on board docs and you'll see that it's still in draft form so that board members could see the old and then the new. Um so I hope everyone has had a chance to look at that. Um may I have a motion to approve the board committee's purpose and measures of effectiveness as presented as exhibit M1? So move, Stellleski. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Harvey. Thank you. Any discussion, Miss Pumphrey? Um, regarding the equity committee measures of effectiveness substance, it looks fine. Uh, but the first three bullets under measures of effectiveness are
184in past tense and the second two are not. Okay. And I sort of think those tenses should be changed to be in agreement to align with one another. Thank you for that, Miss Gver. You're taking notes. Okay. Thank you. Other comments? Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Oh, Mer, this is board member. I'm sorry, Miss Fong. Go ahead. Thank you. I just I had a question. I wanted to make sure. So, this is in like a tracking change format as far as the document. So, if we don't see anything stricken or red, etc., means that it stayed the same. Correct. Okay. And then I guess my other question is we have a former um budget committee on there. Are we keeping this still together with the current committees or are we separating
185that out? What I'm looking at is audit and then building and contracts are the last one. Um Miss Gard, you just put that on there because it was Oh, the board. I had forgotten the board requested to see what the former budget committee had put down. That's why it says former, but at this point, we'd be voting on the active committees. Okay. I think it's a little bit misleading because it says that those were the things that were being done and I don't is that what was actually being done previously because for example with the advisories is that something that they wanted to do or actually had been done. Well since there's no current budget committee then they didn't review it as the other committees did. Um I'm sorry Mr. Dominoski did you want to
186say something? No, I was just going to say we they were it was voted to be dismantled before they we were able to discuss the and um pass those. So, right. So, they haven't been relooked at as the other committees have. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um so, we are voting on the current active committee um information that's here, not the last one, the budget one. Okay. May we have a roll call vote? Miss Gover. Miss Stmanowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Aome, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. Rinkmillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. The next item is board committee chair. I'm sorry. Yes, Miss Hen. Pardon me. Um, before we move on, I'd like to make a motion
187on this agenda item. Sure. I'd like to move that we reinstate the budget committee and task the committee with revisiting the measures of effectiveness. Thank you. Is there a second to Miss Hens? Second, Pumprey. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Miss Hen, did you want to talk to your motion? No, thank you. Okay. Any discussion? Miss Pumprey? I I would like to speak. I um unfortunately was not at the meeting where the budget committee was dismantled. So I do have a comment. Um I can't pinpoint the exact MAB meeting that we had but we did discuss in MAB at during one of our trainings that the budget committee was one of the most important committees of a board of education. Um so I was quite disappointed when we dismantled the bud budget committee. I think if
188we feel that the budget committee was not effective, the best way to um address that was what we're doing right here is to look at the measures of effectiveness like we did with all other committees and make sure that the committee is run appropriately based on those based on the purpose and measures of effectiveness that we vote on board that are appropriate. Um and so I think it's important for us to have a budget committee. I think it um helps us to con to the budget is the board's budget. So the purpose here where it says assist in the preparation of the annual budget for the operating and capital needs of the school system sticks out to me as one of the most important purposes because it is our budget. It's not the superintendent's budget.
189It's the board's budget and part of the purpose of the committee would be indeed to be um part of that preparation. Thank you. Other comments. Okay, Madam Chair, this is Miss Hen. Yes, Miss Hen. Thank you. Um, I agree with what Miss Pumphrey stated and and we'll add that most large school systems um their boards do have a budget committee along with policy. It is um one of the most important committees that a board can establish. When this committee was originally founded, I provided um stats specifically on um how many boards nationwide have budget committees. It's an overwhelming majority. Um, as well as in the state of Maryland, most boards have established budget committees in addition to audit committees. Um, it's not a duplicitous committee. Um, we have no channel right now to um, do
190a deep dive on a nearly $3 billion budget and there is a lot of work that needs to be done. So I would ask my colleagues to support this motion and would encourage full participation of the whole board um in the work that needs to be done. Thank you. Thank you. Further discussion may have a roll call vote, please. Miss Damonowski. Yes. Miss Hen. Yes. Miss, my hand was raised. I'm sorry, Miss Fong. Go ahead. Thank you. So, um I think I'd like to see I guess what the measures what the revised I I would like to see what the revised measures and effectiveness would be for the committee before we decide on reinstating the committee. And so, um I'm not sure if that's what the motion is. I just wanted to be clear. I
191would be looking for that before we say this is what we need to be put back in place because it seems like in previous times when it is in the mix or the kind of the crux of the budget season the committee is not meeting and so we're really looking at making sure that the budget is kind of being viewed and the entire board is having that opportunity. I would think it reminds me of like with the legislative where it's very active for a short period of time because there's that focus. Um, and so that's kind of what I would see for um, the budget committee during that time. And so I I just want to be clear on what the measures of effectiveness and purpose will be and how it will be structured before
192we actually will whether or not we want to um, put it back in place or not. Okay. Thank you for that. Madam Chair, may I respond? Yes, Miss Hen. Thank you. Um, thank you for your question, Miss Miss Fong. Um, in order to revisit the measures of effectiveness, we would need to reinstate the budget committee um to have that discussion and to revise it. As Miss Dominowski suggested, this is work that the committee had engaged on and was about to um begin work on before it was dismantled. So, I'm not sure how we would um meet your, you know, what you were asking for without um support of this motion. So we uh Miss Gover had provided a draft or the last version of our measures of effectiveness. However, in order to update those, we
193would need to reinstate the committee to begin work on that. So, I'm not quite sure how we would do that without um support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Manowski. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to piggy back on what Miss Hen said. Um all committees did the purpose and measures of effectiveness after they were already instated. So, I'm not sure why the budget committee would be any different. How How can they work on something if they're not a actual committee? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Young. when we decided to revisit the um measures of effectiveness, I believe Miss Hen spoke to um revisiting also the budget committee and having you know those members who were on it revisit the effectiveness and bring it back to the board. So that says that we can sit
194down and discuss, have a small group evaluate, discuss and talk about this is what we view as what the purpose should be before saying we're going to have the committee and then decide what its role and purpose is. Thank you, Mr. Deowski. I just I I I hear what you're saying, but I'm going to um respectfully disagree. It just every other committee was already formed and making those decisions on measures of effectiveness. One of the board members is no longer here that was on the budget committee. So how can they meet effectively? And then how can you ask someone to be a part of a committee that is not a committee to make the measures of effectiveness? That's all. Mr. Young, did you want to respond? Yes. Um, that's I understand your disagreement, but going
195back to the meeting where we brought this up, Miss Hen brought the suggestion that the members of the committee would meet. So, she had the idea that this could be done. And if they did not meet to come up with or revise them, then this is where we are right now with it. Madam Chair. Yes, Miss Hen. Um following my suggestion, Miss Gover provided the measures of effectiveness that the committee had previously worked on which was um provided in board ducks for all board members to review. So the work had previously been done um on that the committee would if reinstated would reconvene and revisit those and begin working on them a new just as every other committee did. So work had been done on those as Miss Dominowski said and we were re revisit
196those just as all of the other committees. We're not we're not talking about creating a new committee with a new purpose and new um goals from scratch. It's essentially the same committee and all board members have access to um that document with what that committee was um tasked with doing. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Framp. Thank you. No, I I heard and I did have the same understanding as Mr. Young, which is why I was looking and I had asked about were there any revisions made. So, the thing is is that based on what was presented at the time, I think we had that information when the board voted and then the vote was to dismantle it. So, if we're being asked to use that same information and nothing different, then I don't see how
197there's going to be a different outcome and we don't have new information to review or make a decision on. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. I think the board worked backwards on this from the be from the time that it was dismantled. I think that if we thought the committee was not effective, we should have changed these measures of effect or made an attempt or asked the committee to make an attempt to change their measures of effectiveness before we voted to dismantle it. Um, so we dismantled it without reviewing that. All other committees have had a chance to address their measures of effectiveness and and pinpoint them and make them um, you know, available to the rest of the board members to for additional changes to make sure that each committee is being effective. The budget committee
198never had that chance. We just dismantled them. These measures of effectness aren't appropriate, aren't appropriate. They never had a chance to um update or the board hasn't had didn't have a chance to update the measures of effectiveness to make that committee more effective. I think the point here is that the budget committee, a budget committee in general for any board is very important. So just to say that these measures of effectiveness aren't aren't good, aren't appropriate for this committee. Um, as I said before, if anything else, we should be changing the measures of effectiveness, not we should never have dismantled the the the committee um because it was not ineffective. Instead, we should have changed the measures of effectiveness to make it effective. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dleski. Thank you. Um, I agree with
199everything that Miss Pumphrey just stated and several of the others. The other one thing that I will add is the budget is our most important task and we owe it to ourselves and most importantly to the public to give every effort to ensuring our trillion dollar budget is as tight as possible and the deep dives that have occurred in the budget committee are imperative. Thank you, Mr. McMillian. We just voted on every other committee's purpose. So, Miss Hen's motion is about reestablishing the budget committee. We vote on that. If passes or it doesn't pass, if it passes, then we have the opportunity, the budget, people on the budget committee have the opportunity to adjust their purpose and then we bring it back to the board and the board votes on the purpose. If it doesn't
200meet the purpose, then we adjust it again. So, I think it's pretty cut and dry the process here. It appears to me anyway. Thank you, Miss Hen. Is your hand still up? It is. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, given the board's statutory responsibilities with um, creating a budget, I'd like board counsel to weigh in on the necessity of a budget committee, please. And given his work with other boards, Mr. Burns Good evening, uh, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, members of the board, Dr. Rogers, uh, Darren Burns, board counsel. Um, I think when you talk about board committees, it's always important to remind yourself what what the law does and doesn't require, and I know Miss Hen asked me to comment, um, in a broader sense than that, but there's very little on the statutory books
201regarding mandatory committees. One of them is to have a citizen advisory committee and that takes a lot of different shapes across the uh school systems. Beyond that, your policy is your next set of laws and rules and if you have policy uh as set forth in your policies and regulations or in your handbook which you adopt this this board adopts as if it's a policy. When those things are there and they require committees, you should follow them. Um, and without having those sources in front of me right this second, I'm not going to comment on whether you have any specific be the timer for everyone speaking. Hold on a second. I'll set it for myself. Um, you you don't have a mandatory uh a policy that sets forth mandatory committees uh in the sense that
202a lot of boards do. Most boards have a a policy like yours that talks about the ability to establish committees and they'll call them standing committees as well as ability to establish ad hoc committees. But some boards have gone to the next step of specifying what three or four standing committees would be. And I would say in my experience across the state in the counties that I've worked with, which is at least half of them uh over time, they always have at least a policy committee, always a budget committee, often an audit committee of some sort, and then there's an assortment from there. Um I think I've mentioned this before that like contract committees are not standard. So that's one you all have dived into that adds to what you're capable of doing. Um but
203with respect to any law requiring a budget committee, I would say no. With respect to a budget committee serving one of your key statutory um requirements and obligations, budget's one of them. It would certainly support that mission. But I mean that's again that's a policy called by the board. Thank you. Um I I have a question for Miss Hen. When you um talked about your motion, you talked about having all board members on that committee. So, I was a little confused by that because I know that Dr. Rogers, especially in our agenda planning, has added more presentations on the budget throughout the year to help prepare us um better. So, I was confused when you said all board members would be on that comm that you would like all board members on that committee. Yes,
204thank you for the question, Madam Chair. Um what I was referring to is encouraging board members to participate assuming we we don't reach quorum um in the committee but participation can take a number of forms right um from watching the meetings to suggesting agenda topics to participating again under the the quorum right um there are number of ways to participate and encouraging all members to take an interest in the work of that and of course for the the committee itself to report back to the board and um involve the whole board in that not for the the full board to be committee members of course. Okay. Thank you. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify. Of course. Thank you, Miss Fong. Is your hand still up? It is. I have a question
205for Mr. Burns. Is he still available? Yes, he is. Okay. Thank you. Um Mr. Burns, can you speak to both sides? Can how do for the leas that have budget committees, can you speak to how they work? And then for those that do not, can you speak to how they work? Well, the first one's easier, Miss RMO, because I can't think off top of my head who doesn't have some form of a budget committee. Uh, and certainly the larger counties uh have one. Um, and sometimes they're ad hoc, right? I mean, sometimes they are. I think someone mentioned the season. Sometimes they're they're formed for a specific purpose related to budget and then they may not be needed at other parts of the year or they may not meet at other parts of the year.
206But for those that have them typically what they do is they um help set priorities you know they gather feedback they have their meetings whichever number of members and again as Miss Hen mentioned less than a quorum uh and they discuss priorities and they liazison with the superintendent and staff. I'd say the number one thing that a committee brings to the table is in between meetings and in between budget seasons and cycles, you're able to to confer with staff, get a feel for what's out there from a fiscal standpoint and what the needs may be coming into a particular budget cycle. I mean, you got to do it every year, right? But there are look ahead issues. There's capital look ahead issues. So I think the ability to interface with staff and the superintendent and
207the ability to gather from your peers not to make decisions again respectful of the OMA but to to gather information about what priorities could be and then I often see the budget committees like other committees report at a board meeting and then as the budget cycle heats up sometimes there'll be a report on a recent meeting and what maybe staff reported about certain fiscal topics at that committee meeting and then that's for the for the larger group to hear. Sometimes it's just a memo that gets issued by the committee again between meetings to help bring the rest of the members current and then sometimes that the I've see committees present at some point maybe January early winter in the process uh a list of committee uh I'm sorry of priorities right and the board can
208vote on those priorities again as was mentioned it it there is only one budget it is the board of education's budget everyone else in the process is advising the board and the most important adviser is your superintendent and that's a statutory thing and part of her mission is to bring to you as best as she and her team can the best budget that they think the system can get and that it needs for the following year. And the committee I think can support that mission but should respect what the statutory process is. Thank you Mr. McMillion. It's just my view, but I think a vote for the budget committee is a vote for working together and trying to correct some things that we haven't, you know, we don't work real well together, I don't think.
209And I think this is an opportunity to correct a wrong and and when we abolished it. So that's just my view. A vote for it, I think, is a vote in the right way. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Harvey. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I am I think we all agree that the budget is one of the most important things that we have to manage um and that we all need to know, understand and be able to uh speak to or ask questions regarding how the system is allocating funds. Where I get stuck is why that has to be filtered through a committee. Uh yes, we can listen through to the committee meetings, but the budget a2 plus billion dollar budget I believe is something that we all need to hear, digest uh and inquire
210about as one board because as one board we have to approve it or not. So I I I agree that it's important. I agree that we all have to work together to make sure we put out the best budget um that we can in the interest of the students and families we serve. I don't understand how a committee advances that purpose and that's where I get stuck. Mr. Manowski, how do all of our committees advance the work that we're doing? Isn't that I just feel like that's the point of all committees is to advance the work of the full board and the budget committee would be no different. Thank you, M. Dleski. Yeah. Um, thank you. I'm just thinking about what Mr. Burns said about um the school systems and the um the bud uh
211excuse me, the committees that they all have and its policy and budget. And then it's the um the the other committees that we have that that are not mainstream throughout the school systems. Um I I just believe his his statements in terms of what is uh the norm among other school systems um just further backs how important it is that we need to reinstate it. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. I have a quick question for Mr. Burns and then a comment. I just want to clarify what you what you said. I believe that you said you couldn't think of another LEA that did not have a budget committee. Is that correct? No, I couldn't that I couldn't recite the list to you. Okay. And that my my I believe that all the larger school systems have
212a budget committee in some form whether it's standing or ad hoc. Okay. Thank you. And then my comment back to Mabe again our training that I remember from my fir when I first became a board member the purpose of committees is to take a deep dive into you know qu the specific subject of the committee. Um and so just like policy to me that's just like policy review. Policy is very important and as a whole board we have to look at all those policies but when we're in committee we can take a deep dive conversation for each individual policy and spend a significant amount of time on each of those policies to discuss and determine what's what we think as a committee is best to bring forward to the board. At that point I know
213that there's specific policies that certain board members will go back and look at our discussion. others, they trust that we took a deep enough dive into it that they can um accept, you know, our recommendation as well as the amendments that were made by staff members throughout our discussions. And I think that applies also with the budget committee. It's still a deep dive into the budget that we can ask more detailed questions, spend more time on that. And I know we've increased our time in general at board meetings, but um you can't take as much of a deep dive at a board meeting as you can a committee meeting for any committee. That's what all of our committees do. That's the purpose of committees in as a whole. If we think the budget committee wasn't
214effective, then we can change the measure of effect effectiveness. We can change the purpose not only as a committee but also as a board. Thank you. Um Miss Hen, Madam Chair, thank you. Um Mr. Burns mentioned one of the tasks of a um budget committee is to develop priorities. Well, an analogy would be our legislative committee develops our annual legislative priorities, brings those back to the board for approval. We discuss them, we vote as a board, and the work moves forward. Um, budget committee would be no different. And in fact, we've um discussed those as a committee in the past, and the work moves forward. So, one of the first things I'd like to do is continue those discussions, watch other boards, budget committees in action and learn from them and to see what what
215is it that makes an effective um budget committee and, you know, revisit our measures of effectiveness as Miss Pumprey said um and Miss Dominowski said once it's up and running and start to build those in. And as Mr. McMillian said this a vote for this committee is a vote to work um more effectively together because the work will return to the full board. Um I appreciate Miss Harvey's uh Vice Chair Harvey's concerns, but the work does flow back to the board and the committees as we've proven with our other committees are an effective means to facilitate that work. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just seeing if there's any other comments. Okay, so the motion on the floor is to reinstate the budget committee. Um, may we have a roll call vote, please? Miss Gover. Miss
216Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Faul, no. Miss Harvey, no. Miss Abe, no. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy recuse. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumprey. Yes. Mr. Young. No. Miss Lter. Yes. Favor is six. Miss Harvey. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to make a motion to establish an ad hoc budget committee for this budget cycle to establish measures of effectiveness and to give the board an opportunity to determine if a budget committee uh does serve purposes and is is integral to the operation of the board. Second, Pumprey. Thank you. Do you want to dis do you want to speak to your I think so in listening to my colleagues uh and in hearing um you know people's opinions about why we need a budget committee I think we should have the opportunity to discuss
217it. However, my recollection of the previous way the budget committee operated, given that it didn't operate during budget season, given that we rarely, if that I recall, receive any reports as a full board as to uh you know what the priorities were or what recommendations were being made. I think this is an opportunity for the board to sus it out uh during this budget season uh as an ad hoc committee for this season only to determine if we can establish measures of effectiveness and if the board uh serves um if the committee uh is a value ad to the board. Thank you. Any further discussion? So I know Miss Gver probably Do you have that motion or you need it? You got it. Can you reread it, Miss Gver? Ella, um, Miss Fang. No, that
218was Miss Do you want me? I mean, I've got part of it to create an ad hoc committee to create purposes purpose and measures of effectiveness for the budget committee for the current fiscal year or for the upcoming. So, my motion was to create an ad hoc budget committee for this budget cycle only to determine measures of effectiveness and to determine if having a committee is a value ad to the board. Okay. Um, I'm not sure. Miss Fong, is your hand currently up for this for Miss Harvey's motion? Um, yes. It wasn't seen before. I was actually going to make that motion that we do an ad hoc committee. Okay. Um, I didn't have the additional language, but just yes, let me do an ad hoc committee. Okay. Thank you. Miss Hen, is your hand
219up for this? My hand is up. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question about the motion um and the timing. Given that I believe Vice Chair Harvey said that the ad hoc would be in place for this budget season, given that um Dr. Rogers is in the final stages of finalizing the budget that she will present. Um would this ad hoc committee then be dissolved um once the budget is presented and does that defeat the purpose since the board um committee would not have been involved in the development has not been involved in the development of this year's budget. Do you want to speak to that? I don't think the committee would necessarily need to be dissolved. Um, we have there has been no committee to participate. In my mind, this is a compromise
220and a beginning for us to look at how to most effectively use a proposed uh budget committee. Madam Chair, may I respond? Yes. If one of the goals or purposes of the budget committee, ad hoc or otherwise, is to develop priorities and bring those to the board, then the exercise of prioritization is feudal for this budget cycle as Dr. Rogers has already developed her budget. So, if the ad hoc is only going to be in place for the current budget cycle, then my question would be what is the point of developing an ad hoc? I I support um Vice Chair Harvey's motion, but my question has to do with the timing and I would prefer that we not limit ourselves to um an end date or put an end date on the ad hoc in
221terms of limiting it to this budget cycle because one of the measures of effectiveness of one of the tasks would be to um develop a list of board priorities and bring those to the full board which it's too late in this budget cycle to do. Right. Um, right. We have a motion and we have a second. Any further discussion before we do vote? Could we put the motion in the chat just so we could see it in writing in case you want to make any amendments to it? Chair Licter. Yes. while we wait on Miss Harvey to put that in. Um I'm not sure what Miss Hen if she's thinking that the proposed end date of the committee will be January when the superintendent um puts their budget forward. But it's my opinion that the
222budget season would not necessarily end until we get an approved budget from the county executive and that's usually April or May. And there are still changes that the county executive and county council can make to the budget. Thank you. Just another comment is the conversation I'm hearing about the purpose does not match the purpose of the previous budget committee. So I am confused about that and this is an ad hoc committee that you were asking for which is always a temporary committee by nature. Um, okay. So, she has it in the chat to establish an ad hoc budget committee for this budget season only to determine measures of effectiveness and assess the benefit of a budget committee to the board. Okay. M motion to amend if you're going to put a can we either sorry
223motion to amend the um to remove budget season and fill it in with whatever date you mean by that because that budget season could mean more than one thing like when when the superintendent bring I'm sorry I guess I should speak I'm talking I I don't know what I don't know what date that means right well to Mr. Young's point, the budget gets approved by the county council the end of May. So, so say that then or so, so motion to amend replace budget season to ad hoc committee for the I don't know how to um till the budget the fiscal year budget is approved. Yes. To establish an ad hoc committee for it. It still doesn't make sense. I'm sorry. I don't know how I don't know how to make it make sense. Um,
224if anybody has help wants to help me here because there's like the way that it's worded right now, it just um budget season like I don't know what you mean, Madame Chair. Yes. Um, may we seek counsel on the motion? Thank you. It seems to it seems to be limiting in an invalid motion in that it limits um the board and the committee in terms of future actions. I believe it to be an invalid motion. Sen, that's a point of order. I don't I don't think that's correct. Thank you. I don't think that's correct. But I do think Miss Dominowski's possible amendment points to a more of a more of a concern which would just be a lack of clarity because I'm not sure budget season is a defined term anywhere. But the simple thing
225that you could do and Miss Harvey could consider even from Miss Tominowski with my advice is is you know that your budget cycle ends June 30th. That's the law, right? at that point in time on July 1st, you have to have a passed budget that this board and the county have worked on in order to start your new fiscal year. So if the ad hoc committee's timeline is to be or some period of time, which seems consistent with ad hoc, that's one way you could structure it, Miss Harvey, simply say through through at least June 30th and pending further action. I'm willing to make that amendment. I'll put it in the chat so everyone understands. June 30th, 2026. I should have said, Madam Chair, may I ask a followup from M of Mr. Burns? Yes.
226Um, the clause in the Vice Chair Harvey's motion only to determine measures of effectiveness and assess the benefit of a budget committee to the board is limiting in that it it limits possible actions of that committee. Yes, it is. And also limits what the the board can do. So, it's a secondary motion, which is my point of order. I if you're asking my opinion, I disagree with that. I think it's a limiting motion, but mo a lot of motions have limits in them. It is it is what it is, but I don't think there's anything unlawful about it. Mr. Young was I'm sorry, Mr. Young. Thank you, Mr. Burns. He was looking to make a I'll make a motion to amend when appropriate, Madam Chair. Okay. Mr. Burns, we can at I'm sorry, Miss Lter,
227can I ask? Yeah, go ahead. Mr. Burns, at any point during this time frame between now and June 30th, if this motion passes, we can revisit what the scope is um and increase that or change the Yes. and and I would think that within the framework of Miss Arby's motion, the committee itself, whoever is on it, could also come back with some recommendations that relate to what else it might do. That's part of effectiveness, right? I I don't think it's as limiting as perhaps it sounds, but I think it is limiting and there's nothing wrong with that as it stands. And I don't think there's anything that stops what you said from happening. So, Miss Harvey um amended it to say to establish an ad hoc budget committee through June 30th, 2026 to determine measures
228of effectiveness and assess the benefits of a budget committee to the board. Motion to amend um to add the words purpose and between determine and measures. Right. Did you forget the word purpose? I can accept that as a friendly amendment. So you were saying Miss Pumprey 26 purpose and measures of effectiveness, excuse me. Right. Well, and that's what the that's what we just looked at for each of the other committees. There's two. Yes. I just Right. That's not there. That's why. Okay. So to establish ad hoc budget committee through June 30th, 2026 to determine the purpose and measures of effectiveness and to assess the benefit of a budget committee to the board. Okay. May we have a roll call vote, please? Oh, I'm sorry. I just have a technical question because I know ad hoc
229committees cannot have a quorum and obviously the work is really important. So, what do you mean cannot have a quorum? We can have more. We can have as many people as we want. Is that what you're saying? Well, we cannot for an ad hoc. I think you can. I don't I don't think I think your general practice has been never to have a quorum or more on a committee because it makes the work more flexible in terms of meetings. So, so my my concern would just be that can we still get input from the full board in terms of the purpose of you know, well, they'll bring it back. I was assuming that like we just did tonight. Then the budget ad hoc committee would bring back their purpose and measures effectiveness for the full
230board to vote which would lead to assessing the benefits. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Um did you have a second on that? Have we had a second? You had an original second from Miss Pumphrey. I know that you and are you withdrawing your second? No. I I think it was friendly amendments. Do we need Do we need another second? There were there were no actual amendments. Miss Harvey actually modified her motion. Okay. Then now we can have a roll call vote on Miss Harvey's last motion. I do recommend, Miss Lter, for the record that it be read one more time in full to establish. Do you want to read it? To establish an ad hoc budget committee through June 30th, 2026 to determine the purpose and measures of effectiveness and to assess the benefit of
231a budget committee to the board. Miss Gover, roll call vote, please. Miss Tominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Folong, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Mumbbe, yes. Miss Tleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Okay, thank you. get back to board docs. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Yes. Okay. Then the next item is for board committee updates. Um, Miss Harvey, audit committee. Uh, yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, as a reminder, uh, the audit committee serves as an independent objective body that helps the board fulfill its fiduciary fiduciary oversight responsibilities. We are meeting on uh January 14th, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. virtually and we encourage the public to attend. Thank you. Thank you. Building contracts, Mr. Young. The next building and contracts meeting is January 12th,
2322026 at 5:00 p.m. Thank you. Curriculum committee, Miss Dleski. Thank you. The next curriculum uh meeting will be uh Wednesday, January 28th at 4 PM. Thank you. Thank you. Equity Committee. Miss Fmpong. I'm going to defer to Mr. Young, my chair, my vice chair, whoever had the last equity committee meeting. Okay. Okay. The next equity committee meeting is January 22nd, 2026 at 4 pm. The next equity council equity equity committee meeting with the equity council is January 29th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Young. And um legislative and government relations, our next meeting is on January 21st, which I think is um around the time that session starts. Mr. Mr. Basmore, when does session start? 13th. The 13th. So, it's the week following session. And our last committee right now, policy review committee, Miss
233Pumprey. Yes. And I apologize in advance that this might be a little lengthy. I like to give a detailed report. Um policy 6800. We discussed um staff it was that's field trips and foreign travel. Um staff presented um some amendments as a compromise based on our prior this was a board policy that was from the 2024 2025 school year review and um staff presented amendments as a compromise based upon our committee's discussion that year um and those amendments were moved forward it will come to the board for first reader um policy um 1110 which was publication radio television digital media and policy 6200 school libraries were both discussed and moved forward for first reader. Um policy 5000 was a policy that the board previously removed, voted on to remove. Um this was brought back up
234for discussion to reinstate. Um we had robust discussion in committee and voted to bring this policy back again for first reader to the full board. Um, and Miss Howie also discussed a comar update regarding um in-person meetings um for local boards and that ref that refers to our policy 8311. And if you want to see the memo from the Maryland State Board of Education, I'm sorry to the Maryland State Board of Education from the state superintendent of schools that is in board docs under that discussion item for policy 8311. Um yes, and our next board meeting I wrote somewhere that I can't remember. Our next board meeting is, I mean, excuse me, committee meeting is February 2nd, 2026. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. Um, next is agenda items. If you have um an item, please raise
235your hand or send me an email with the topic. Okay. All right. And then um All right, we're almost there. Our next last item on the agenda is announcements. The board's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 13, at 6:30 p.m. I hope everyone has a wonderful, happy holiday season and a relaxing winter break. Um, thank you for joining us tonight. Have a great evening and the meeting is now adjourned.