001Good afternoon. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. This evening's Board of Education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV Exfinity channel 1073 and Verizon Fios channel 34. In order to efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. May I have a motion to go into close session as permitted by the opens meeting act? Oops. as found in annotated code of Maryland general provisions article section 3-305 B1 and B7 to discuss the appointment employment assignment promotion discipline dis disciplined demotion compensation removal resignation or performance evaluation of appointees employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects
002one or more specific individuals and consult with counsel to obtain legal advice. So move Stleski. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Hen. Thank you. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Humphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Mr. Agome? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Miss Leicter? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I now call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. I invite you to recite the pledge of allegiance to the to the flag to be led by Miss Foresight on Gambi. We will then have a moment of silence in recognition of those who have served education in Baltimore County. To the flag
003of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Tonight's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCP BCPS TV Xfinity channel 1073 and Verizon FiOS channel 34. In order to officially 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 November 4th agenda. Dr. Rogers, are there any additions or changes to tonight's agenda? I'm unaware of any additions or changes to this evening's agenda. Okay, hearing none, the agenda stands as presented. Earlier this evening, the board met in close session pursuant to the open meetings act for the following reasons. To discuss the
004appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, discipline, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation, or performance evaluation of appointees, employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction, or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals, and consult with counsel to obtain legal advice. The close session summary and the open session information summary can be found on board ducks under this board meeting agenda date. The next item on the agenda is personnel matters and for that I call on 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, educator lens, your appointments, and area education advisory council appointment. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel matters as presented exhibits D1 through D4? So move young.
005Thank you. Do I have a second? Second, Stleski. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Tomowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss FPong, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Ampe, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is administrative appointments. And for that, I call on Dr. Rogers. Thank you, Madam Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, and members of the board. I'm bringing forward the following administrative appointment for your approval. Director, Department of Health Services, Principal, Crossroads Center, and Supervisor, Student Information Systems, Department of Information Technology. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the administrative appointments as presented in exhibit E1? So moved. Hen. Thank you. Do I have a second?
006Second, Pumprey. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Aumbbe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Miss Leicter? Yes. Thank you. Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Our first appointment is Nancy Manzo Matuchi. Please stand to be recognized. [applause] Nancy is attending this evening with her husband Anthony and her daughter Nenah. She is being appointed as the director in the department of health services with 22 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools. NY's BCPS experience includes school nurse at Battle Grove Elementary School, specialist and supervisor in the office of health services, and coordinator in the department of health services. Congratulations. [applause] Our next appointment is Felicia Shrader. Please stand
007to be recognized. [applause] Felicia is attending this evening with Dr. Dr. Kim Colbertson and is being appointed as the principal at Crossroads Center. With 10 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools, Felicia's prior BCPS experience includes science teacher at Talson High School and assistant principal at Franklin Middle School. Prior to that, she served as a middle school team leader and science teacher in Harford County Public Schools. Congratulations. [applause] Our final appointment for the evening is not attending. Ragavendra Mahal is being appointed as the supervisor student information systems in the department of information technology with three years of service with BCPS. BCPS. His prior experiences include specialist student information systems in the department of information technology. Prior to that, he served as application developer at Sona Network, technical architect at Infinite Commu Computing Systems and
008system engineer at IBM. Congratulations. [applause] Thank you. And thank congratulations to all of our appointees. And I can't help it, but Miss Summerfield is in our audience. So, thank you for all your years of service as director of [applause] you left us in good hands. So, thanks for for your leadership. Our next item is public comment. This is one of the opportunities the board provides to hear the views and receive the advice of community members. If not selected to address the board, members of the public may submit their comments to the board members via email at boebcps.org. The Baltimore County Police Department's Homeland Security Unit and Office of School Safety has recommended safety and security protocols which are posted in the boardroom and available in board docs and on the board's participation by the public
009website. 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 tolerated. 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 three-minute clock which will let you know when your time is up. The microphone will be turned off at the end of the your time or prior to that
010time at the discretion of the board chair. We will begin with our school system affiliated groups and Miss Lesie Weber on behalf of the PTA Council of Baltimore County who I believe is virtual. Yes. Can you hear me? Yep, we can. Thank you. Great. Great. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, Board of Education members, and Dr. Rogers. Since we're in November, I'd like to remind everyone that November 17th through 21st is American Education Week. In 1919, the National Education Association and the American Legion were distressed that so many World War I draftes were illiterate. In 1921, the two organizations adopted resolutions of support for national effort to raise public awareness of the importance of education. In 1938, National PTA became a co-sponsor of this annual opportunity to celebrate public education. American Education
011Week is always celebrated the week prior to the week of Thanksgiving. At the summer 2025 BCPS calendar committee meeting, PTA Council advocated to keep American Education Week on the BCPS calendar. We testified at the October 7th board of ed meeting on this topic as well. We understand that there may be barriers or resistance to American Education Week and that this important celebration of public education may look different at many schools this year. We encourage schools to welcome families during the week of November 17th through 21st. The family day suggested by NEA is Tuesday, November 18th. American Education Week is a long-standing element of PTA programming. Because programming may have to change this year, PTA Council is offering an initiative for PTAs and schools to easily easily incorporate into existing plans or to use as their
012focus during American Education Week 2025. PTA Council's Here for It Attendance Challenge is an easyto- run program which supports the BCPS attendance awareness campaign here for it attending today to achieve tomorrow. Because PTA advocates for all children and promotes family engagement, it's fitting for PTAs to encourage consistent attendance so students receive the support they need to thrive and learn. Details on the attendance challenge are posted on the homepage of our website and have been emailed to PTA units throughout the county. The challenge runs from November 17th to nove uh November 30th. If anyone has questions, please contact Ramona Basilio, chair of our family, school, and community partnerships committee at partnershipsbcaounsil.org. Thank you, Miss Weber. Our next speaker is from our union and that is Lloyd Allen from Topco. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey,
013Superintendent Rogers, and members of the board. Thank you for your time. I'm Lloyd Allen, he him, vice president of Tabco, speaking on behalf of the organization by permission of President Ols. This week marks a time of transition. BCPS's survey on the operating budget closed together with the academic quarter on Halloween, and the community conversations are around the corner. BCPS has a complicated relationship with the county government. We BCPS are funded by Baltimore County, but we are a separate entity. It is imperative that the county council and county executive understand how our budget works once the funds are transferred. Earlier tonight, I reviewed a few parts of last year's county council town halls. Members of county government expressed interest in having a deeper understanding of the mechanics of BCPS. Sunlight and transparency are the root of
014trust. To this end, on September 25th, the Representative Assembly of Tabco with attendance of over 100 voted unanimously in support of potential legislation granting the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General oversight of our school system, which accounts for roughly 49% of the county budget. Speaking of legislation, House Bill 1222 went into effect at the beginning of last month. BCPS employees have received guidance about what to do if ICE agents enter a work site. And last year in the winter, we also received an email about that year's procedures. However, the plain language of HB122 states that public schools shall implement a policy consistent with the guidance of the attorney general. Just as last year we advocated for a resolution in policy, we still look forward to seeing immigration justice and safe zones being addressed in
015the form of a policy. Policies ensure consistent implementation of expectations, including on a yearto-year basis. This is particularly important in light of recentus signed by county government. Going back to money, we continue to hear from our members about issues related to the rollout of Oracle. January's budget document shows significant investment in contracted services for the office of ERP to s to successfully implement Oracle as the new BCPS ERP system. For a member, having a single paycheck be incorrect has impact on their actual life. We understand that many members are still experiencing issues particularly related to 403b deductions and association dues. Our uniserve directors have tirelessly helped members to verify their payubs as have folks from the office of payroll. We look forward to Oracle going from the transitional phase to the everything is working for
016everyone all the time phase. Thank you. Our next speaker is from nonprofit community groups and that's Marietta English from the Baltimore County NAACP. Good evening, Chair Leter, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Rogers, and members of the board. I am Maretta English and chair of the AXO and Education Committee of the NAACP Baltimore County branch where we represent all of Baltimore County. I am pleased to announce that we are we will have our kickoff for the AXO program scheduled for September six September I'm sorry Sunday November 16th at Union Bethl AM Church in Randlestown from 2 until 4 and we invite all high school students in grade 9 through 12 to attend and I have flyers that you can distribute to the high school students. The Baltimore County branch of the NAACP would like to express our
017support for the student involved in the recent incident at Kenwood High School in which an AI based alert that had been mistakenly identified a chip as a bag in a chip bag for as a potential weapon. As troubling as these events were, it is important that our community be fully informed of the facts. To that end, the Baltimore County branch of the NAACP reached out directly to the Baltimore County Public Schools, and we have been assured of the following. The items in question was determined not to be a weapon, and the alert was cancelled three times. The situation escalated due to actions that were outside of established protocols and that have been addressed. Support has been offered to the family and the student and those sports supports will continue. Both the school system and law
018enforcement are reviewing procedures and taking appropriate steps to make sure this does not happen again. The Baltimore County branch of the NAACP recognizes that this situation has stirred up deep emotions, particularly given to experiences of many individuals in our community. We acknowledge those emotions while we are also committed to the goal of ensuring every student's safety, dignity, and respect. All these things can be true at the same time. Moving forward, we the Baltimore County NAACP remains committed to working collaboratively with all partners to ensure everyone's safety. Thank you. Thank you. Our next group is individual citizens or students and our first speaker is Shannon Bonino. Good evening board. My name is Shannon Bonanu and I'm the parent of an 11-year-old who lives with a life-threatening autoimmune disease called type 1 diabetes or T1D. I'm here
019during diabetes awareness month to represent parents of students with T1D. Our children are required to be injected by a needle or pump 24 hours, 247 with insulin. Too much insulin can cause low blood sugar, which can become life-threatening within minutes if left untreated. Continuous glucose monitors or CGMs provide real time blood glucose readings every five minutes and alert caregivers when levels drop so we can treat before it becomes an emergency. CGM apps have been a standard of care in T1D for over 10 years. My son has had a few terrifying blood low blood sugar episodes at school. So severe that he was on the verge of losing consciousness. He was cognitively impaired, unable to ask for help. He was so low it could have caused a seizure, brain damage, or even death. But even even
020scarier, school staff were unaware that he was having an emergency. The only reason he's okay today is because I received an alert from his CGM on my phone and I notified the school. But what if I hadn't been able to? This disregard for what is medically necessary placed his life in danger and left him feeling unsafe at school. The app that alerted me is a free FDA approved CGM remote monitor app. It can be installed on a phone, iPad, or Chromebook. It allows school nurses to receive audible alerts when a student's blood glucose enters an unsafe range so they can intervene before it becomes an emergency. This app is already being used successfully by school nurses across Maryland, including Anna Rundle, Howard, Montgomery, Harford, and across the US. Seven Department of Justice mandates have already
021interpreted that CGM remote monitoring by trained school staff is a reasonable accommodation for students with type 1 diabetes under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA. All DOJ mandates have stated that in order for schools to remain compliant with the ADA, they must monitor for audible alerts transmitted from CGMs of students with T1D to a school provided device when requested. This applies to all public schools in the United States, including BCPS. Yet BCPS continues to deny this accommodation. They expect teachers in loud classrooms to listen for alerts from a child's device or rely on a child who may be cognitively impaired to self-report their own emergency alarms. Thank you for your comments tonight. Our next speaker is Sharon Sirhoff. Good evening, Chair Licer. Good evening, Harvey, Superintendent Rogers, and the board. Um, I've been here
022enough to not need to introduce myself, but I'm here tonight because there's been a lot of discussion online concerning special education numbers and why there is a widening gap between the achievement of our special ed kids and our general ed kids. So, I'm here tonight to give you some information, my explanation as to why by way of some IEP meetings I've experienced recently. First, I attended an IEP meeting at an elementary school. By listening on the short term, but long term, you ask them questions. I have no idea what the main idea is, who the main character is. That's a problem because that child was pushed through several times and they're still operating at a first grade level. P.S. I can't talk about retention or grades in an IEP meeting. That is not allowed. That
023policy needs to change. Okay. Second, I have a high school student who has emotional concerns, but he's his IQ is up here. I raise a kid like that. And just because the child has a cognitive ability of in the 120s doesn't mean that they aren't going to have a need for an IEP. Yet this school brings forth data that says, "Well, he refused this accommodation, refused that accommodation. Obviously, he doesn't need it. I want to be like everybody else. I don't want to need extended time. That's why I'm refusing it, but I need it. Don't take it away from me. Thank you. And our next speaker is Bash Fron. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. I know you read my comments about the calendar. There is not one iota of proof that starting the
024calendar before labor holiday is better for education and I wish that you would implement the post labor. Uh but more on important manner I really want to talk about potato chips. I was so impressed with you Dr. Rogers on Fox 45 telling everybody that the Omni alert system has done its job. It picked up something. It went to humans. Humans checked it. But then after that, unfortunately, I saw that you buckled to the pressure from Councilman Julian Jones and the NAACP. I read the two press releases from the NAACP and I am really confused by their description of you which I would not really repeat online but it is there. Um I am not really sure where this would leads us. Nothing really good because basically it is cheap politics. It's interfering with education. It
025is placing ideas in our youngsters that they are victims about something happened 100 years ago or 200 or 50 years ago. Uh that is improper. So I know if I have this in the airport and it triggered alarm, the police will be right there checking me up. If my home alarm, my business alarm goes on. The police comes in, they call me up, they say something happened. You want to cancel? I said no, call the police. That's why we have the police. I think it is unfair. unprofessional to expect that the staff of the school system to go and inspect the child of 16. 16 years old is not really a child. If he had a truly a weapon, the staff is not trained to deal with it. That's police action. It's a police job
026to do. So this time around it was a paper that reflects as if it is a gun. It was empty. next time it can have a weapon inside it. And I'm really surprised of you not to say anything about the interference of the councilman. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report and for that I call on Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, and members of the board. I am pleased to present the November report. We will begin by addressing um if we move to the first slide, please. Thank you. We will begin by reminding all members of our community. We know that we have many uh families who are in need um particularly around meals. Last week, we sent a communication to all
027of our families directly. We also sent it to the media to make sure um that everyone was aware that the changes to SNAP services will not impact the ability for our students to continue to receive free breakfast and lunch in our schools. We also have um some schools that are availing themselves of uh snacks and supper programs that are provided by our office of uh food and nutrition services in our community schools. There are additional wraparound services available um for families as well as students experiencing homelessness. And so this is a reminder to our community, anyone in experiencing food insecurity, um that we do have resources available uh to meet the needs of our students. As has been mentioned earlier, um we have uh moved forward and are starting our process for the FY27 operating
028budget. um the survey [snorts] that we had out, we sent out one survey to all team BCPS stakeholders that was open for two weeks. We also sent out a survey to all of our principles. Those closed on Friday um during an upcoming meeting, we will be sharing the results of those surveys. We will be meeting directly with our principles, with our central office leadership members, um, council of PTAs and going around um, team BCPS inviting the community to come in and learn more about the operating budget. It is extremely important to us particularly as we move forward with a another tight um budget year that everyone has clear understanding of where the money in BCPS comes from, what [music] it is spent on, um what are the actual costs that go into a student's school
029day, um and how there is uh oversight of our budget. And so, uh, I am inviting families starting this week on November 6th at Vincent Farm to come out, um, for more information. Our budget 101 website will, uh, be updated. It likely is already updated, but this is the opportunity for members of the community to come out, share feedback with us, make sure that uh, we can incorporate your priorities into the proposed budget that comes forward in January. also wanted to share uh bring to everyone's attention there was a uh press release last week that announced the 35 members of the stakeholder achievement advisory group um and starting last week and I think today was the second installment where you can find on all of our uh social media sites profiles of the uh members
030of the achievement group. We had our first meeting last month. Um very excited to meet with this group of individuals. Uh never thought when the uh announcement was made that more than 280 members of our community would apply to be a part of this advisory. Um we had a panel that uh went through all of the applications and selected a robust group of stakeholders that really um represents all members of team BCPS. variety of experiences, areas of expertise, including our student voices, um, that are a part of this achievement advisory. And so, we're looking forward to our continued work together and, um, receiving, uh, specific feedback from them on how we can continue to move success forward in team BCPS. This morning, BCPS was one of four school systems that was recognized at the Maryland
031State Department of Education meeting uh for having a Maryland blue ribbon school for 2025. I was there with both the past and the current principal of Stoneley Elementary School. And so, please join me in congratulating Stoneley Elementary School for being a Blue Ribbon School. [applause] And at the same state board meeting today, uh Dr. Wright presented the Maryland report card star ratings um for all 24 school districts in Maryland. Um for us, we want to highlight this year's results from school year 2425. Every student group across all levels demonstrated improved proficiency in both mathematics and language arts. Academic achievement improved for elementary and middle schools. Academic progress improved from elementary and middle schools. Progress in achieving English language proficiency improved for middle schools. School quality and student success improved for elementary, middle, and high schools.
032This means in just two years we have had an 82% significant improvement in higher rated schools. The number of four-star schools in BCPS has increased by 82%. The number of five-star schools have increased by 21% and 64 of our schools have improved their Maryland star ratings. Again, for the second year in a row, Baltimore County Public Schools has the highest number of five-star schools in the state of Maryland, moving from 20 to 23. And so, please join me in congratulating all of our schools for all of their hard work on behalf of our students. [applause] Thank you. Next slide. As you know, we always uh take a look deeper at our data. Um, this slide shows you how do we compare to the state of Maryland. So last year, if you recall, when we looked
033at our average compared to the state of Maryland, we went out two decimal points because two decimal points or three decimal points, we were higher than the state. Um this year, we do not have to go um out uh far. Our average score for our schools is three and uh 42 where the average score for the state of Maryland is 3.35. uh Baltimore County public schools uh score is higher than the state average. In elementary school, the performance increased. In middle school, the performance increased. In high schools, you saw a slight decrease. When we look at our school schools bystar rating, we had a decrease in the number of onestar schools, a decrease in the number of two scarst star schools, a decrease in the number of three star schools, and an increase in the
034number of four star and fivestar schools in Baltimore County. Specifically, 26 schools improve their star ratings in BCPS. Their names are listed on this slide. We had 20 elementary schools, five middle school, and one high school that made improvements this year. This slide shows us the five-star schools in BCPS. Um, as was stated earlier, we have now moved from 20 to 23 five-star schools. Four of them are high schools. And lastly, the state of Maryland uh shared a comprehensive list of the top rated schools in Maryland according to the Maryland report card star ratings which deals with progress um academic achievement and um progress in achieving English language proficiency in BCPS. the number uh one and the number four highest ranked high school for the state of Maryland are here. Eastern Tech and Western Tech.
035Um and nine out of the 10 highest rated elementary schools in the state of Maryland all belong to Baltimore County Public Schools. We have number one through four and six through 10. And so we are extremely proud of the hard work that is happening day in and day out of our schools focusing on academic achievement, the work that we are here to do on behalf of our students. That being said, we know that there is still more work to do, but again, I think that this level of performance deserves our hearty applause to all of the hardworking individuals in our schools and those that support schools as well. So, thank you. [applause] Thank you, Dr. Rogers. The next item is the chair's report. And given today's BCPS results on the Maryland State report card, I'm
036putting aside the original report I wrote um to speak from the heart. I retired after 37 years in BCPS in 2021. At that time, I thought that was the end of my involvement in BCPS and the beginning of full-time grandmothering. that wasn't going to work out anyway. However, my connection to this system was not over. I cared too much about the future of this school system. Our achievement was way below expectations. But I recognize staff's strong potential and commitment to improving academic results for all students. So, I came back as a board member and here we are. And I am so proud and pleased with the data that MSDE shared today. As you just heard, BCPS is once again the county with the most five-star schools with more schools receiving four and five stars this
037year. And with seven out of the top 10 schools, I may have gotten that wrong in Maryland in BCPS. Nine of the 10 in BCPS. I know we have a lot more that needs to be done to make sure that all of our students achieve at high levels, but we are moving forward. Every data point is trending in the correct direction. Progress may be gradual, but consistent improvement across metrics like graduation rate, absenteeism, and the Maryland State report card show that BCPS, led by Dr. Rogers, is advancing, and staff efforts are making a real impact. This improvement is the result of persistent daily efforts by staff at every level. It is hard work. It is school by school, classroom by classroom, student by student work that our staff are doing each day. And that work
038is moving us in the right direction. I'm so very proud of the people working in this system, the students learning in this system, and the superintendent leading the system. I'm excited to celebrate, to encourage, and to continue to commit to putting students first and supporting the superintendent and doing the work that needs to be done to continue this positive momentum. So, congratulations to team BCPS. [applause] Next on the agenda is our student report and for that I call Miss Wave. Good evening, board chair, Mrs. Lter, vice chair Mrs. Harvey, Superintendent Dr. Rogers, members of the board, staff, families, and BCPS students. Over the past several weeks, I've been actively representing student interests across multiple platforms and supporting student leadership initiatives initiatives throughout the county. I've attended and participated in various committee meetings where board members
039and staff discussed updates that directly impact students in BCPS. Recordings of these meetings can be found under the board of education tab on the BCPS website for anyone interested in following along. In addition to board work, I've continued collaborating with the Baltimore County Student Councils or BCSC by pl participating in executive board meetings as we finalize logistics for our upcoming general assembly on November 8th. This is an important opportunity for student leaders from across the county to gather, vote on initiatives, and share ideas. A major highlight this month was our first BCSSE seminar held on October 22nd. Students heard from BCPS executive director of school safety, Mr. Knox, who provided an in-depth overview of school safety structures, emergency protocols, and ongoing work to strengthen safety measures. Following that, we hosted our first port of selected
040students meeting on October 28th where student representatives discussed their school experiences and generated feedback from s for system leadership. These conversations remain essential in ensuring student voice informs policy and school culture. Beyond county level work, I had the privilege of joining student leaders from across Maryland for a national advocacy day with the Maryland Association of Student Councils where we met with congressional offices to advocate on issues impacting students nationwide. I've also been presenting in webinars and initiatives, participating in initiatives that share findings from study on the effectiveness and psychological impact of lockdown drills in schools, offering insights from the student perspective and emphasizing the need for safety practices that both protect physical and emotional well-being. Additionally, I participated in national conversations, meetings, and webinars on student member voting right initiatives, sharing my experience to support
041efforts that empower student representatives across the nation. Looking ahead, our next BCSSE seminar will take place on November 19th at 6:30 p.m. Students can join using the code BCPS seminar. This session is required for any student interested in running for the student member of the board position as the application process will officially begin soon. I strongly encourage all students passionate about advocacy, leadership, and representation to attend and learn more about the role. As always, thank you to every student, stakeholder, decision maker, and educator who come who continues to speak up, engage, and contribute to making our school system stronger. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the consideration of the proposed 2026 2027 school. And for that, I call Miss Charlie Green and Miss Bilski. Good evening, board chair, vice chair
042Harvey, Dr. Rogers, members of the board. Uh we were here last on September 24th and at that time we presented to you a proposed calendar for the 26 27 school year. Uh since that time, a number of questions that were raised by board members were answered and sent to board members. Additionally, you have uh in uh board docs a number of calendars for your review uh including the original proposed calendar, the requested um post labor day start calendar as well as a calendar that removes uh half days that are optional or not optional but are not mandatory I guess I should say. So at this time uh we present for your consideration the proposed calendar. Miss Bilsky and I are here to answer any questions. But again, the questions that have been put before us
043uh you do have and have been responded to. Okay, Miss Dominoski. Yes. I I think I asked for the data that that supports starting school time earlier and I I didn't see that. So I believe there was a response in the update to the board that actually acknowledged that there was no data that actually supported that because we had been uh been using a pre uh Labor Day start. So we don't have access to that data. What we do have is um just experience uh and which we value of educators uh but we do not have a study that demonstrates that. Okay. So moving forward, are we going to stop saying that that there because it kind of was disingenuous to say that there is data showing that this pre-Labor Day start is better for
044students and they do better because we actually never had that data. So I would respectfully disagree u because we do have anecdotal data from educators as I presented and we do know that the board has and has established a committee and on that committee it's stakeholders from a variety of different positions and the presumption is the board values the opinions and the experiences of those folks and those people have indicated through their experience their professional experience and so I perhaps we certainly can agree that the data is anecdotal But there is data. Miss Miss Hen, thank you. I move to approve the proposed 2026 2027 post Labor Day calendar with half days removed. Is there a second? Second, Dominowski. Any discussion? Would you like to speak to your motion, Miss? No, thank you. Although we
045can discuss if board members have questions anyone. Okay. May I have a roll call vote on Miss Hen's motion? Mr. McMillian? No. Miss Pumphrey? No. Mr. Young? No. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? No. Mumbbe? No. Miss Dleski? Yes, Dr. Seavoy. No, Miss Lear. No. Favor is four. Thank you. Are there other questions for concerning the calendars, Miss Tleski? Thank you. And thank you for presenting um both calendars. In terms of the post labor day start, is there any data from other large school systems or other school systems that could be relevant that could be shared? And thank you, Miss Bilski. I did do a look at uh data across the nation and it is mixed. Uh we did see that there was quite a bit of data about um
046pre and post day in some of the most northern states particularly Michigan but we were not able to draw any conclusions as it relates to to our data. Thank you. Other questions? Let me just check teams. Um Mr. Manowski. Uh yes. Is is there a reason why we have six days off for spring break? Is there like a precedent for that? I know it's not not all schools take that Monday after Easter off or take that full week in between. Some of them just have that Thursday, Friday, [music] and se and Sunday. Would you like to answer that? Sure. Um [clears throat] so one of the things that we hear so much from teachers is how much needed that break is and how much they value it in let letting them sort of recharge. So
047um just in order to recognize their hard work and also make sure we still maintain obviously the number of days that teachers work and are in school and whatnot. But if we can provide them that break they do really value that. And I'll just point out to board members that we did provide uh the mandatory holidays and that spring and winter breaks are not obligated. We do, you know, want to remain aligned with some of our neighbors um for our families as well as for our educators, but that that information is available to you. Um just to follow up and I I understand wanting to respect and giving the teachers that break but we also need to look out for our students and they get a break you know at the end of December January
048that a full another six days off if not more and then a the additional you know time off for the teachers professional days how one day holidays so it's not like they're not getting time off in between so I would I would consider or I would strongly advise reconsidering how long that that break is just because it's a it's a crucial time for students to be studying and learning before exams especially seniors you know finishing up their you know their their course of education and needing that time to study in a classroom and are um getting ready for you know the final MCAPS or whatever it have have be like that's a very long break and it's a lot to put on a student to do that work at home. Thank you. Other questions or
049comments? Um, Miss Pumprey, I We're finished with the other motion, correct? The one, Miss Hen's motion. Yes. Okay. Just making sure I was on the right track. I I would like to move to um approve the pre-Labor Day school calendar removing half days. Second. Thank you. Would you like to speak to your motion, Miss Pumprey? I believe last time when I asked about the half days I requested some information around attendance and I don't know if we have complete data but my understanding is that attendance are is low on half days um especially compared to full days of school if I'm incorrect please let me know we did provide um okay some data on three days and so I think just just to recap for the board 22 23 attendance was at 71.9% 23 24
05088.77 or 88.8 8 and 24 2575.3. Okay. Thank you. And also just the fact that I think parents have a difficult time sometimes navigating half days of school. Um and I know that we've worked hard as a system to improve the educational level on those half days, but we all know it's still a difficult it's still difficult to put the academic level at the same rate um that we're doing on full days. So that's my reasoning. If your motion was to remove half days but keep the pre Labor Day correct. So if we remove the half days, are we still in compliance with um hours and days? Yes, we are. And and to be clear, uh there were three half days. I'm sorry, Dr. Rogers, did you want to speak? You're probably going to make
051the point that I want to make sure all the board members are aware of. Grading and reporting. Grading reporting. Okay. So there are only three half days that we can remove and you have that and you're aware of that. Yes. Thank you. I should have made that clear. I apologize. No. So, just for the good of everyone, uh there are only three half days we can remove that are truly I I think I said optional earlier. Those are the days that we put in the calendar for professional development. The remaining half days and I believe there are another three are dedicated to grading and reporting and I could be wrong. Uh is it three? You're correct. It's another three. So, we're removing three days. So, those three days are right now designated for professional development
052for teachers. That is correct. If we remove those, how many professional development days would be left? feels like a state test, but I believe it's five. Five would be left, including the way that they land is on the holidays. So, okay, Miss Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. So just so I'm clear, we have a total of six half days, three of which are not related to professional development, which are the ones could be that could be removed based on Miss Pumphrey's motion. The opposite the opposite. Okay. So then my question is if we remove the three half days that are connected to professional development, does that professional development get made up in some other fashion? We have all emphasized the need to maintain professional development. I teachers express appreciation for having uh professional development and
053support. So would we just lose those three professional development opportunities or would they occur in some other way? I I will be honest that it does present barriers um because we um as you know have the five religious holidays in which we use those for professional development. Uh teacher hours in terms of the amount of time that we can actually have them engage in professional development after school is limited. And so it does reduce the amount of time we have with teachers to engage in professional development act activities. Miss from punk's on Miss Punk. Thank you. I think it has been answered in some fashion because I just want to make sure that the three days, the three half days that we reserve at the end of the quarter, that's really for our teachers. So,
054that's an opportunity for them to make sure that they're able to focus on work and to get, you know, there's no meetings, there's no classes, and it's an opportunity to get grading and planning done. So that's the first piece I want to make sure before I guess I ask another question or make another comment. That's correct. So the three half days. Yes. At the end of each quarter for grading and reporting. Okay. Will remain. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then um I had raised mine actually before the the this um motion for the pre-cal but I guess I just also wanted to speak to when we talk about the spring break and how long it is and we've talked about having some time for students but this is also a time for our teachers. So,
055if we are considering at some point um shortening the spring breaks, um I guess I'm what I'm getting ready to say is kind of like half a dozen for six. Um, but if we are going to consider reducing the spring break um because it's too long for students, I guess one thing to consider would still be for our teachers, we do already have um the half days at the end of the quarter, but additionally, if maybe there's one day um in a quarter that they still have that opportunity. So, we already have it for the half day before the end of the quarter, but even just another day for our teachers being able to have time to get grading and planning done and it's during school time instead of them having to have their personal
056time out of school. So, um I think when we talk about the spring break, we should also be looking at um I guess what are our teachers feeling? Are these breaks too long or are there some other ways that we can give them the time um that they need to refresh and rejuvenate so they can be the best teachers and best form of themselves that they can be? Thank you. Was was there a question or just a It was more of a comment because again I was my hand was raised prior to okay Miss Pumprey making her announcement so I acknowledge that it didn't get seen but I did want to it was actually tied more into what Miss Pump Miss Stmanowski was talking about when we talk about looking at how long do we
057have our breaks, what are they for? And then maybe looking at an alternative way of making sure that we get our teachers the breaks that they need as well as the students. And so I was just talking about the idea of with the one with and a full day for our teacher um without the classes without professional development but again giving them time to have planning giving them time to get grading done. Um it could be an alternative method of getting what they need instead of having such an extended spring break. Thank you. I just want to clarify the professional development which so if we take away the three half day professional developments you said we're left with five but three of them are we're left with five we just got rid of the half
058day so there's they're full day five full days are left correct the holidays three of those full days are for religious holidays for kids those five professional all five so yes okay so if you observe those holidays as a teacher and you take off, you're down those profession. So, we um we have committed to providing makeup sessions or recording the sessions. Okay. And is the MSDE convention considered one of those days? No. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Manowski. I'm sorry. You had your hand up. Are we eliminating the half day on November 25th? the three half days um that we would remove that are the optional professional development 129 26 210 27 that leaves the it still leaves four half days with the um grading with November 25th or the it still leaves four
059because then you have one on October 30th, one on November 25th, one on January 15th and one on April 2nd. So that's four. Are we going to eliminate the What is the the enroll? What is the attendance data for the 25th? That's the day before Thanksgiving, that Wednesday before. I feel like we've we've gone over this several times. Why don't we just either close it that day or have a full day because I don't feel like what's the purpose of that day? I I don't know how to answer that. purpose of that day. I I don't I don't have a good answer for that. That it's as in any other school day, certainly the purpose is instruction and the work of schools. Um I guess I would say that if it's the board's desire to
060alter the calendar and remove that day, then that's something that the board certainly could consider. Um I just want to point out that what the board has done is they've created through your policy a group of folks that come together that represent multiple voices across the system. And just for the good of the board, I'd like to just let folks know we're talking about administrators. We're talking about parents. We're talking about people who are in offices. So this is not a group that's just, you know, without any grounding in how schools work coming up with a recommendation for the board. So they have made this recommendation. What we are more than happy to do is, you know, based on your input, make adjustments to your calendar. So, um, this this, uh, I I don't have
061an answer to what the purpose of the day is other than any other purpose, but if it is something the board wants to consider adjusting the day before Thanksgiving, I I'm just trying to go along with the what we've been talking about of eliminating as many half days as possible. And I'm not disrespecting the group that you've spoken to um, year after year. I I totally respect their, you know, input and their decisions and what they believe. I also feel like we hear from the same parents, administrators, teachers, um, every year. So, I not everybody agrees with that group and it's a much larger body of people, 110,000 students, 16,000 educators, however many parents. So, I think that more voices will be um, you know, appreciated in that. And I I know as a parent
062that day of you know, I'm pretty much taken off that day of work. So to have my kid go to school for a half day to have a, you know, Thanksgiving party, why not just let them either stay home and give them a full day somewhere else and let the let the teachers have that day for a full professional day or full catchup on whatever? I think that would be more um conducive for the or more productive for a teacher and students. So Mr. Mr. McMillian, I'll be honest. I'm confused. If you take the three days out, the half a days, are we then going to end school three days earlier or have we uh No, they would stay all day. What's that? They would stay all day. Not half day. They're just not half
063day. So, the students will remain in school all day. So, do we pick up any time at the end of the school year as a result of that? No. So, we're still ending at the same point. All we've done is Yes. Yes, they're going to school the whole day. That is correct. Correct. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So, Miss Pumphrey's motion is still on the table. Would you repeat your motion, Miss Pumprey? Give me one second. I'm sorry. I lost my page. Um, I move to approve the proposed 2026 27 pre-Laboray school calendar. It's listed on here as half days removed, but the understanding is it's three half days removed. That's correct. Thank you. But the removed I think to Mr. Million's point, it's three days half removed and turned into full days. When I'm when
064I'm what I'm referring to is the draft that's in our agenda. That's the calendar I'm referring to. This says half days removed. Okay. I have a motion to amend. Go ahead. I I would like to amend Miss Pumprey's motion to accept the the full the the pre-LOR day start removing the half days, but also to remove the half day on November 25th, 2026 and turn it into a full day professional day for teachers. I'll second the amendment if we need a second. Um, yes, but Miss Gover is asking for Miss Nomanowski's amendment to So if you if you make that a full day for teachers and students aren't in school, then we're short a day. A student day. For a student day. Okay. So wait, do you still want to make the amendment, Miss Dominowski?
065You just I mean we have extra days we have extra days added at the end of the year and that would based on the clarification. I mean, can't you figure that? I mean, we need to add something somewhere. Correct. Well, so if we take out three, it's a half day, right? So, if I may, the the problem is more the problem is the full day off. Um, Komar, with the exception of one county out of the 24 counties, we have a days requirement and an hours requirement. So if you have an half day for school, you are meeting the days requirement for the state of Maryland. Um and so if you are cutting a day, um that's why every time we make an iteration, the team has to go back and make an adjustment somewhere
066else. If you are cutting a school day for students, [music] you're going to have to make that up somewhere. And one of the things that I can tell you is across the board in every survey that we've done in all groups and the teachers have said this to us over and over again and parents is that [music] they do not want us to extend the school year. So if we add one more day to the end that would be going against the feedback that we've had from thousands of stakeholders. Okay. I'm sorry. Can I can I adjust? My motion to amend would remove the half day on November 25th and make it a full teacher appre teacher professional day and to add April sorry, April I mean March 29th as a full day for students
067and teachers and shorten the um the spring break from six days to five days. Is that Easter Monday the 29th? It is. That's a state state fed holiday, right? That's state law. Okay. Then the Monday the March 22nd. Okay. I didn't know Easter Sunday was a state Easter Monday was a state holiday. I believe we may be over a teacher day and we we can we'll do the calculation we are now. But I believe if we do that we'll be over a teacher day. I don't know. Yeah. So, if you take a student day a a day away for students to be in schools on the 25th of November and we add another day somewhere else, then we're adding a teacher day. So, we'll be over by a teacher day. I'm just really confused as
068to how we're supposed to be accommodating teacher professionals and which is what I'm trying to do a teacher professional day and making it most concise for our students and our teachers as opposed to half days when really how much teacher professionalism is other than grading is happening in a half day as opposed to a full day. I would like to hear our teachers feedback on that. I'll withdraw my motion if it makes it too much of a mess. Are you withdrawing your motion? So, the motion that's still on the floor is Miss Pumprey's to remove the three half days that are not to approve the calendar that has removed the three half days. Okay. May I have a roll call vote on Miss Pump? Did you have something about Okay. Sorry. I just have one
069clarifying question and one comment. So, if we remove the three half days um for students, right, then is does that have to be made up? And I'm sorry if this has been said. I just I know you guys are on top of it, but So, we're just removing the half day. So, the students will be in school all day versus half the day. Gotcha. No, that that helps a lot. And then um just a comment just um following up with Miss Dominowski in terms of the stakeholder group and I know that you take a lot of pride in that group. I know there have been some community members that have shared that they've been taken off the group for you know whatever reason. Um so you know one one thing maybe for the future is
070making sure that the group is different every year and maybe you do that so I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself. And then just because of the religious holidays that you're acknowledging, which you know I commend you for maybe ensuring that there's a diverse religious group representation in that group. And again, maybe you already do that. I do do that. And um thank you. Just of course um and just there's only since I've had this position, there's been one person that was removed from from the um committee and that was because for two years in a row he requested to be on the committee. I put him on the committee and he didn't attend one meeting in two years. So that's the only one person that I've ever not invited back just because there are other
071people who wanted a spot. So I offered it to them. Sure. Okay. Miss Fong is asking that can we explicitly state which half days would be eliminated? Yes. And it is on one of the calendars that's in executive content, but I do want to say aloud for everyone 12926. So December 9th, February 10th, 21027 and 42127, April 21st. Okay. Thank you, Miss Hen. Yes. Um there two two half days. We were talking about November 25th and January 15th. Both half days. Now, can one be a full day and one be I'm sorry. Can one be a full day off and one be a full day on instead? If we would that be an equivalent since they're both half days for teachers and students now and keep the grading and reporting as a full day off.
072So it's days. So as Dr. Roger stated, it's days and it's also hours. So days where students are in seats, whether it's a half day or a full day, that's a day a student's in a seat. So if you take one of those days away and you make another day, let's say if you try to make two half days a full one full day, you're still short a day. If they're present in school for half a day or full day, that counts as a day. Correct. Okay. Okay. Let's go back to Miss Pumprey's motion and can we have a roll call vote on the motion to eliminate the three half days of 129, 210, and 421. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? No. Missowski? No. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? No. Miss Harvey,
073no. Miss Abe, no. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, no. Miss Licter, no. Favor is four. Favor. Okay. So, now we are. Okay. Mr. Young, did you have your hand up before? And I or was that do would you like to speak now? No. Okay. Okay. Then we are back to um we're back to may I Okay. Procedurally we go back to the original vote. Correct. Motion. Oh, I didn't say yet. Do I have a mo Okay. I didn't say that yet. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the proposed 2026 2027 pre Labor Day school calendar as recommended by the calendar committee? So move young. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Stleski. Thank you. Any fur miss? No, I think that's from before. I'm sorry I didn't go back down. That's okay. Any
074further discussion? I have a roll call vote, please. Mr. McMillion. I didn't see that calendar wasn't provided in in with the half days included in it. Only the um half days removed was included. So, how can we Oh, should be. Sorry. Okay, I got it. Sorry. That's okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumprey? No, Miss Dur Young. Yes, Miss Dominowski. No, Miss Hen. No, Miss Fong. No, Miss Harvey. Yes, Miss Aumbbe. Yes, Miss Dlesuski. No, Dr. Seavoy. Yes. Miss Leicter, yes. Sorry. Favor is six. Okay, so that did not pass. So is it appropriate if we have further discussion at this point? Well, discussion normally and that's good. There we go. Discussion would normally follow if a motion's made. I mean certainly if there are questions for the
075staff that could continue but I that usually a chair in this position would say are there any other motions? Are there any other motions? Says the chair. Mr. Million, did you want to make it? You're looking at me funny. I have a motion. It's not right. Hold. I know what you hold that motion. Um, any motions to be made to advance this discussion in the future? Because if we don't, then we have no calendar for the upcoming school year at this point. So, is there any recommend any motion for the committee? Okay. I'm sorry. Did you question ahead? Did you say motion for the committee or recommendation for the committee? Well, we'd have to make a motion to recommend something for the committee. So, it's kind of both. Mr. McMillian. Dr. Rogers, what do you
076recommend? In all sincerity. Well, thank you for the question, Mr. McBillian. Um, I did not anticipate that. Um, so what I've heard from uh board members is uh concern around the number of half days that are professional development days. Um, we do have five full days that are systemwide professional development days, but those, as has been stated, are on religious holidays. Uh perhaps uh the board might be willing to reduce from three of those um half days to I see a December which is semester 1 and April which is semester 2, February might be the very beginning of semester um two if I think as a former uh principal even having one three-hour session right in the middle of the year to plan for the end of the here. That might be the compromise to
077eliminate December the 9th and April 21st um and [music] keep Febru February the 10th, 2027 as a professional day in the middle of the year. That helps for some planning for semester 2. Uh would be what sounds like a compromise to the different concerns that I've heard around the day. I'll make that motion. You'll make that motion. Yes. Um hopefully I'm stating [clears throat] it properly. Um, I'm going to move to accept the um draft, excuse me, the pre-LOR day calendar with 129 and 421 half days removed, keeping the 21027 half day. Okay. Is there a second to Miss Pumprey's motion? Second. Thank you, Miss Dominowski. The 210 half day wasn't included as a half day on the the pre-LOR day start without with all the half days. At least not on the one I'm
078looking at. I am in public. Oh, wait. Maybe I'm looking at post. Never mind. Okay. There's too many calendars. Sorry. Okay. So, Miss Pumphrey's Miss Hen if Miss Pumprey would repeat her motion. I was going to repeat it. Go ahead. Oh, thank you. Go ahead, Miss Bumprey. Okay, I'm gonna go back again. Was to accept the pre-LOR day to approve to Yeah, excuse me. To accept the pre-Labor Day calendar with the half days of 129 and 421 removed, keeping the half day. I don't even know if you have to say that part. I only said that because the half day removed is listed as a calendar item. So, I don't I don't know if that makes it more or less confusing, but that was the purpose of me mentioning that. Okay. to accept the pre-LOR
079day with removing 129 and 421 half days and keeping two 10 half day. Correct. Correct. Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dinowski? No. Miss Hem? No. Miss FPM? Abstain. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Ambbe? Yes, Miss Dleski. Abstain, Dr. Seavoy. Yes, Miss Licter. Yes, favor seven. Oh, favor is seven. Okay, I'm going to need some math professional development on one of those days. All right, thank you ladies for answering. Mr. McMillion has another calendar motion. I move the calendar committee create both pre and post Labor Day calendars to present to the board of education in the fall months prior to the 202728 and 2028-29 school years. Is there a second to Mr. McMillian's motion? I'll second. Thank you. Would you like to discuss
080your motion? uh a year ago, right about this time, I I made the motion to do it for this this year because I'm into options and I think that you know the the more conversation we have, we see that a lot of people are into options. So what I'm doing is just extending this pre and the post. There were a number of years where we just got the pre and we didn't get a post calendar. So there were numerous numerous questions about that. So I thought last year if we we tell the calendar committee that they do a pre and a post they come prepared in the fall to present us a pre and a post then we make our decision on that. So rather than do it one year at a time I I
081added the second year. So this would be good for 2728 and 2829. Thank you Mr. McMillion. M Miss Hen. Yes. I'd like to move to amend Mr. McMillion's motion. Okay. by adding with the minimum number of half days. Okay, I'll second if it's needed or with the fewest number of half days. Okay. Um, Miss Pumprey, second it. Thank you. Okay. May I have a Miss Harvey? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure I'm clear. When we say with the fewest number of half days, how is that? Is that based on the calendar committee's assessment of what the fewest number of half days is? I'm trying to figure out how we would as required to to express the board's goal of minimizing the number of half days in the calendar without putting a
082rest a restriction or con a finite constraint on the calendar committee. Thank you. So can you repeat the the amendment please? Sure. Um the amendment is to add with the fewest number of half days as recommended by the calendar calendar committee maybe to minimize the number. Okay. Do you you want to talk to that that Go ahead. Thank you. Um, and um, one thing, I don't think this needs a motion, but it might be worthwhile to consider how we can better use the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, you know, like can that be like I I know it would be a lot for this calendar, but could that day be like um like could could it possibly be figured out so that it either becomes a day off or a day for staff. just I do understand
083the point about the day before Thanksgiving. A half day is is probably one of the least productive half days. So, um I just think that would be worthwhile. Thank you so much. But you're not amending Miss Hend. Okay. I think that goes along with it. Miss Dominowski, I would just like to eliminate midweek half days if at all possible. All half days if they're going to be added should be at the end of the week, not in the middle of the week. Would you consider Wednesday before Thanksgiving in the middle of the week? Yes. even though it's right I mean well most I'll leave that one alone because it's the day before a holiday but there's one that was in the middle of April like on a Wednesday after like the April 10th or what
08422nd I think it was or on a Wednesday and I just I think that's kind of kind of okay I think okay all right we're um voting on Miss Hen's amendment to minimize the number of half days based on Miss Pumprey's motion. Was Miss Hen seconded? What I think it was second, Miss Okay, but we got two motions and we've discussed it. Can we have a roll call vote, please? We all know what we're voting on the amendment. This is for the amendment. Miss Hen's amendment. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Minowski? Yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fren, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Aumpbe, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Miss Licar, yes. Thank you. Woohoo. Sorry. Okay, we're finished calendar. The next Now, now you just got the amendment. Still
085have mission. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. May we have a roll call vote on Mr. Mr. McMillian's motion to have the next two years worth of calendars with a pre and a post option as amended. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumphrey. Yes. Mr. Young. Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Agumbbe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. Anything else about calendars that I'm missing? No, we're good. Okay. All right, Mr. Burns. The next item on the agenda is action taken in close session. Thank you, Miss Bilski. She's running out of here. The next item on the agenda is action taken in close session. And for that, I call on Mr. Burns. Eating officers, Dr. Rogers, members of the board. Um, you took action in
086close session on an appeal uh captioned to HA25-036. Now would be an appropriate time for you to affirm that action. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's case HA25-036 and authorize Miss Govert to sign for those board members not physically present. So move young. Thank you. May I have a second? Second Dumbbe. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss FPM, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Abe, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burns. The next item on the agenda is contract awards. And for that, I call on Mr. Young, chair of the building
087and contracts committee. Members of the board, the board's building and contracts committee met on Monday, November 3rd, 2025. Items L1 through L18 were forwarded to the full board for approval. Thank you. Board members, are there any additional are there any separations? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve items L1 through L18? So move 10. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss FPM? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Abe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes, Miss Lter. Yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is a special project request. And for that, I call on Dr. Jones. Come on up. Good evening.
088Good evening. Good evening. Board Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Rogers, and members of the board. I bring before you this evening the privately funded capital project for Hford High School for your approval. Upon approval and with the financial support of the Herford High School sports boosters, a permanent outfield fence will be installed on the upper soft bill softball field. Um it has two purposes to create equity and safety. The new fence brings soft the softball facility up to the same standard as the baseball field. And then secondly, the fence will help protect the recently revitalized turf field infield and outfield investments. Collaboration of this project was with the principal of Hford High School, the division of operations or operations and the department of facilities, my um team, the department of schools and the executive
089director of schools. The timeline is to have this completed by the first home game which is scheduled for March 20th. Again, I respectfully request the recommendation of this 7330 for Hford High School. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the 7330 special project request for the installation of an outfield fence at Hairford High School as presented in exhibit M? So moved, Dominowski. Thank you. Do I have a second? Thank you, Dr. Seavoy. Any discussion, Mr. McMillian? I don't pretend to be a facilities expert uh or an athletics grounds expert, but I think that that's an excellent price. It's 360 foot of fence, 6T fence with the concrete bottom to it. That's the mowing wood table or whatever they call that. So, at $23,000 and change divided by 360, it comes out to be
090like $64 a foot. I just think that's a really good price myself. Uh so, Mr. million it is uh it's because of a generous donation of um a private donation in the community that that price point is possible. So if you if you if you look through some of the documentation um it explains what what's being provided again as as a as a privately funded project. Um our grounds team has has surveyed it and believe it to be a good value for the school community as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. So, no question, just a statement. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McMillian. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Remp, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Ambbe, yes.
091Mr. Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. And Dr. Jones, thank you and your team for all your work as chief of schools on the results that Dr. Rogers spoke about today. So, I know how hard your team works with. Thank you. Definitely a team effort. Thank you so much. You're welcome. The next item on the agenda is a board resolution and for that I call on Miss Hen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you, Madam Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Dr. Rogers for the opportunity to bring forward this resolution this evening. Um, I bring for the board's consideration a resolution in support of Baltimore County Council Resolution 40-25 encouraging the Maryland General Assembly to pass legislation during the 2026 legislative session providing that the Baltimore County Board of Education is
092subject to the jurisdiction and oversight of the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Whereas the Board of Education of Baltimore County, the board is committed to ensuring that all students are provided with opportunities to achieve academic success through the effective, efficient, and equitable use of public resources. And whereas public trust in the effective, and ethical use of educational resources is essential to the success of Baltimore County public schools. And whereas consistent with Maryland law, nearly half of Baltimore County's annual budget appropriations fund the board's approved budget for BCPS, making the school system the largest recipient of county funding and requiring careful stewardship of taxpayer resources. And whereas the board affirms that BCPS resources must be used responsibly and solely for the benefit of students and
093that educational facilities, equipment, and funds must be managed with integrity and accountability. And whereas the board recognizes that Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General was established by section 1014 of the county charter to provide increased accountability and oversight in the operations of the county government by identifying fraud, waste, and abuse in the county government and ways to promote efficiency, accountability, and integrity in county government and has the authority, responsibilities, and and powers enumerated under article 3, title 14 of the county code, including investigating ative authority, public reporting authority, and a broad mandate to address fraud, waste, abuse, ethics, and whistleblower protection. And together, these complimentary offices provide layered oversight consistent with best practices in government. And whereas the board's office of internal audit was established under board policy 8400 as an independent office that
094reports directly to the board and has the authority and responsibilities set forth in policies 8400, 8410, 8420, and 8430. But BCPS's internal audits, independence, and enforcement powers are limited in comparison to those of the inspector general, which is fully independent of the board and BCPS. And whereas the 2021 Baltimore County Public Schools operational efficiency review conducted by Public Works LLC found that BCPS internal audit tends to focus its work on low-risk audits such as school activity funds while higher risk areas of the system are not reviewed with the same frequency. And whereas extending the inspector general's jurisdiction to the board and BCPS would ensure that the school system is held to the same independent accountability standards as county government agencies. And whereas the board is further guided by its policies requiring sound fiscal management, transparent
095reporting of funds, and compliance with laws and standards governing budget, purchases, and contracts. Getting there. Almost through. And whereas the board is um has adopted policies requiring board members and board employees to act in ways that promote the public's confidence in the integrity of the school system to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest and to demonstrate ethical responsibility in all professional duties. And whereas on September 2nd, 2025, the Baltimore County Council, led by Councilman David Marx as sponsor, and with bipartisan support, passed resolution 40-25, urging the Maryland General Assembly to extend the Inspector General's jurisdiction to the board and BCPS in order to enhance transparency and strengthen public confidence. And whereas bipartisan support has also emerged in the Maryland General Assembly, with State Senator Carl Jackson, a Democrat, and State delegate Ryan Naraki,
096a Republican, announcing their intent to introduce legislation in the 2026 session to extend the Inspector General's authority to include the board and BCPS. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education of Baltimore County affirms its support for Baltimore County Council Resolution 40-25 and urges the Maryland General Assembly to enact enabling legislation in the 2026 session authorizing the extension of the jurisdiction and oversight of the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General to include the board and Baltimore County Public Schools. And be it further resolved that the board's support for any such legislation is contingent upon the legislation, including provisions that one, limit the inspector general jurisdiction to matters of fraud, waste, abuse, and compliance. Two, preserve the board's authority and control over educational policy, instructional matters, and all other matters recognized by federal
097and state law and the Maryland State Board of Education. Three, respect all applicable federal and state confidentiality laws. and four, obligate the inspector general to cooperate with the board and comply with applicable laws regarding the other actions resolved herein. Be it further resolved that prior to implementation of any actions authorized by such legislation, the board and county shall develop a memorandum memorandum of understanding addressing FURPA compliance, personnel file protections, record security, and chain of custody and the preservation of attorney client and work product privileges. and that the parties will coordinate on implementing efficient document production protocols. Be it further resolved that the inspector general's activities shall be coordinated with internal audit to avoid duplication and undue burden, maintaining a layered oversight model that enhances not supplants existing functions of both. Be it further resolved that
098the inspector general's activity shall be conducted in a matter that does not infringe upon the authority of the state board, state superintendent of schools, local board, or local superintendent as provided under Maryland state law and state board bylaws. Be it further resolved that the inspector general's activity shall be conducted in a manner that does not infringe upon rights of students with disabilities or the obligations of the board and BCPS in regard there too. Be it further resolved that the inspector general's activity shall be conducted in a manner that is consistent with all applicable collective bargaining agreements between the board and its bargaining units as well as state laws governing school employees due process rights. Be it further resolved that the board requests a fiscal and operational impact assessment during the general assembly's legislative process. Be
099it further resolved that this resolution is a policy statement of support and does not itself confer investigative authority. implementation requires state enabling legislation and subsequent agreements as resolved herein. Be it further resolved that infirming it and that in affirming its support for independent authority of the inspector general over the school system, the board also expresses its full trust and confidence in the integrity of the superintendent and staff of Baltimore County Public Schools, recognizing their ongoing commitment to ethical government governance, transparency, and student success, and affirms that this layered approach to oversight ensures accountability that is both rigorous and independent, protecting students, taxpayers, and the integrity of the school system. And be it finally resolved that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the governor of Maryland, the Baltimore County delegation to the Maryland General Assembly,
100the Baltimore County Executive, and the Baltimore County Council. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. So, do I have a motion to approve the B the board's resolution as presented in support of county council resolution 4020-25? Madam Chair, I believe we need a second as that was my motion to adopt. Okay. Thank you. Um, I made a motion to do I have a second. Second, Stleski. Okay. Discussion. May I speak briefly to my Sure. motion. Thank you. Fellow board members, we stand before for a strategic opportunity. Our commitment to fund our greatest needs. Competitive teacher compensation, reducing class sizes, safe and healthy schools, and appropriate instructional supports demands the highest level of accountability and transparency in how we manage our substantial budget. Every dollar matters. The ambitious legislative requirements of the Blueprint for Maryland's future, particularly its
101rigorous accountability measures, demand additional supports to fortify BCPS's internal controls. To successfully deliver on our educational and fiscal commitments, we must embrace the best available tools for oversight. Embracing independent oversight is the most powerful way to demonstrate our commitment to rigorous, independent, and public accountability. I recommend that we move forward today to publicly state to publicly support state legislation granting the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General jurisdiction to investigate fraud, waste, and abuse in BCPS. This is an essential investment in our financial integrity and a proactive step toward fortifying our internal operations. Our internal team perform forms a vital function. Yet there are structural limitations inherent to any internal department. The BCPS internal audit function is constrained by internal reporting structures and its findings are often restricted to internal review. The IG is specifically
102designed to provide the independent authoritative tools necessary to fully safeguard public resources and validate our success externally. The county inspector general possesses critical distinctions that transform the accountability landscape, mandatory public reporting, subpoena power, and independence. We must also be clear about the role of the state's office of the inspector general for education. While the OIG is a critical partner and an invaluable resource to the state, its mandate is statewide, serving all 24 LEAs across Maryland. Given this broad responsibility and the corresponding limitations and resources, the OIG's focus is necessarily different. Time has May wrap up, Madam Chair. Do you have one more sentence? I'll give you one sentence. We have a duty to secure the best future for our students and honor the hard work of our staff. That future demands absolute accountability and financial
103integrity. Thank you, Miss Fong. Your hand is up. My hand is up. And um I'd like to make a motion related to this. And it actually just laid out what happened. Um but because this is important, I think we need to discuss everything related to this. I'd like to make a motion that our time be increased to four minutes of speaking time. um so that we're able to discuss this thoroughly and each board member can um really go into detail into depth in this and we have the discussion that we need to make a decision. Second, Pumphrey. Okay, thank you. Roll call vote, please. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, no. Mr. Manowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss FP, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Aumpbe, yes. Miss Stilleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, no. Miss
104Leicter, yes. Thank you. Miss Hen, would you like to finish your comments with the additional minutes just provided? I'll reserve my time, Miss. Thank you. Thank you. Discussion, Miss Pumphrey. So, I've recently um listened to an interview of the current OIG, Miss Kelly Madigan. And in that interview, she mentioned that she was asked about um what she thought about overseeing the BCPS. And um her answer, she didn't really give a direct answer as far as what she thought about what was going on, you know, with us right now. But her her answer was that she does not have the amount of staff needed right now in order to be able to oversee BCPS. So, I guess my question is, and I'm not sure if there's an answer here tonight, is what does that mean for
105us, especially fiscally? Is that something that if staff has needed to be added to her to to the IG office that BCPS is going to have to provide that um in in our budget or is that something that's going to come from the county or do we have an answer to that or is that something that's in this resolution? Because because I do see that it says the board requests a fiscal and operational impact assessment during the general assembly's legislative process. I do see that in there. So, is that what we're getting to with that resolution? With that part of the resolution? Thank you, Madam Chair. If I may respond, and thank you for the question, Miss Pumprey. Um, the fiscal imp the real fiscal impact as this is a Baltimore County government office is
106on Baltimore County government as a separate entity from the board in BCPS. Um the intent of the clause um requesting a fiscal and operational impact analysis is specifically on the fiscal and operational impact which is much smaller on BCPS and refers to the impact on our our staff in compliance with the inspector general and the um overhead that would be involved in responding to IG requests. But in terms of staffing, that office is staffed by Baltimore County government. So any fiscal requirements would need to be met by Baltimore County government and not the board and BCPS. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dleski. Thank you. Um, thank you to all members of the uh BCPS community who have reached out to us with your input and your feedback. Um, in in reading the resolution, the
107one thing that I see is that we have nothing to lose but everything to gain. um this has the opportunity to highlight um fiscal mistakes or um fraud, waste, abuse, to use that term, but it could be anything that actually can bring money back into our school system. Um the biggest message I heard from the public is trust. And um we as a school system have to do absolutely everything in our power to ensure and maintain trust. And this is a specific step the public is asking for. I'm almost hearing they're begging for it. And I think it is very important that we honor their request to do what's in our power to make sure that we are as transparent as possible. Thank you. Further discussion. Go ahead, Miss Pumprey. All right. I'll come back
108one more time. I just want to um I want to just relate to something that Mr. Alleski said. I I do feel that we are transparent. Um however, I'm not sure that we have the public trust yet in that. Whether or not that's reasonable or not is, you know, an issue amongst us all that we could agree or disagree. Um but I do think that we still have a distrust of the public. And um I think this resolution sort of if we as Mlesky said, if we don't have anything to lose, if we're not hiding anything, then I'm not sure that this is causes any issue. I think it's um more beneficial than it is detrimental. Thank you. Other comments? I'd like Okay. I'd like to respond to also to the people who have sent
109us um emails the past couple days. There was two things that were said um repeatedly over and over again. One was that we really um need independent oversight. I just want to reiterate that over 25 independent audits of our finances have been done over the past five years. That's not including our internal audit office. That is are all external audits that were presented to us um a couple of board member board meetings ago. That's 25 external. So the idea that there's no independent oversight is not accurate. The other thing that the emails are stating is that um the public has a right to know how the funds are being spent. So I just want to remind those people who have reached out with that comment that on our website is our whole fiscal FY26 budget
110book, both the proposed one and the adopted one, plus lots of questions and lots of other information pertaining to how that money is being spent. The percentages, the strings, everything is in there. So, the idea that the public cannot find out how the money is spent, please go and look at budget 101 so that you can see how it's been distributed. Um, somebody else, Miss Hen, did you have your hand up? I'll defer to my colleagues for Mr. Young. Thank you. Um, I guess where I struggle is we're putting out a resolution to support a resolution for a bill that is not yet fully filed and available for us to see. We've put in this resolution um what we've called guard rails, but this resolution has no legal standing. It's just our, you know, wish
111list. Hey, we want to make sure this is protected. Um currently, I mean, the the county council can, you know, request audits. you know that that is in coma. You know, at our September meeting with the internal of the internal audit committee, Miss Bar, you know, went over the qualifications of members of her committee, um, you know, certified fraud examiners, certified risksbased internal auditors. She referenced the numerous organizations that they interact with and even you know mentioned that they have taken I'll say task from them to investigate you know fraud, waste and abuse. So we already have a mechanism in place. Mr. Manowski. Uh yes, I I would like to um respectfully add that while we do post all of our budget adopted books, we have the budget 101 online, there are several instances where,
112you know, budget line items aren't specifically laid out for us to understand, which is why we ask multiple questions. I think that um in the advent of transparency, in the advent that um BCPS takes up 51% of the total Baltimore County budget, um that we are responsible for educating 110,000 students. Um that we yes, we have an outside auditor. Yes, Miss Bar and her team doing a fabulous job, but there are times I've asked questions about how much money a certain mistake um cost us and there wasn't an answer for that. I think that um what uh you know the IG can find in costsaving will make up for whatever staffing she will need to help oversee the Baltimore County Public Schools budget. Um, I agree with Miss Hen that uh and Miss Stleski that
113this will not hurt our reputation. This will not hurt our students. This will not hurt our educators. This will only help and strengthen us as a school system. Thank you. Um, Miss Fmpong, thank you. Um, some of my remarks are um, I agree with everything for the most part in what's being said. I think it is important that we have transparency. I think it's important that we have the accountability. Um, but I think what's missing sometimes when we start talking about this resolution is understanding how much auditing is already being done of the system. And so as um Miss Lter has said um and we heard in a previous presentation um about the type of um monitoring and auditing that's done on the finances and I've also actually even previously spoken and um about this
114as well. And so um again when you look at that there's over 26 audits that have happened there is a mechanism for keeping track of what is happening with the money and how is the money being spent. Is it being spent accordingly? If there's concerns though about how the money is being spent, [music] we have an internal audit that is allowed to in initiate its own audits and investigations and the board actually ends up directing or helping to put together that comes before us. The work plan for the audit, it comes before us. And then there's the other piece where there is a there is a completely se as far as that how it's manned there is a completely separate fraud waste and abuse hotline and so the information from there comes into um the
115audit team and then they're able to investigate accordingly. So, even for example, with what Miss Dominowski just said, if she felt like she asked a question about a budget item and it wasn't answered, there's actually nothing that stops Miss Dominowski from using that to say, "Hey, I have a real concern and [music] I believe that there's some fraud, waste, and abuse that's happening." And so we also see instances of where this is being uh if you want to say productive because there's what the the audit that came out or the investigation that actually came out about the overpayment with the payroll. And so now that's come out and there's being things done to address that. How do we go about recovering the money um and going about pursuing the people to to get those funds?
116So it is an example of how things are working. Mr. Young spoke to county council. They currently already have the authority at this time to request an audit. When it comes to investigations, if there's concerns about investigations, what we have to be careful about when we talk about transparency, and I think what we have to do a better job of doing as far as managing expectations is that transparency does not mean that every single thing can be released. You see it even in these sessions that we have as a board. We have closed sessions and we also have open sessions and everything that happens in a closed session. We are not able to discuss that does not mean that there's not a desire for transparency or that we don't want to be transparent but legally
117there are things that have to be done in a certain way. So even when there's investigations that are done, it does not mean that everything that happens from that investigation is going to be able to be released to the public. And it also doesn't mean that it this goes to um the office of inspector general at the county level. The same thing, all of those things cannot be released to the public if there are legal issues that prevent that information from being provided. So I think we just have to be careful as far as looking at what is the intent and what it is that we're trying to do. Do we might maybe we need to make some improvements in what we're doing with our audit system. I would say yes. There are some things
118that we could do better and as a result as we saw from the efficiency review. Okay. This my last sentence as we saw from with um with 2019 the audit the audit team has um made adjustments and made improvements. So we can always have room for improvement. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hen. Thank you. I hear the concerns about the duplicative functions of the IG and audit. You can look on the OIG's website as to their purpose. You will not find the word audit in their purpose. They are different functions. The fact that we have external audits, that's a requirement. It absolutely serves its own purpose of external financial audits. That serves a necessary purpose that is not going away if the IG is given jurisdiction over BCPS. The purpose of OIG is to investigate
119fraud, waste, and abuse, which there is an overlap with our internal audit group's purpose. When Miss Bar presented to us, she presented the number of hours in her work plan. And I specifically questioned the number of hours that were reserved in her work plan to investigate fraud, waste, and abuse. And that was a minuscule percentage of the time allocated for internal audit. The sole purpose of the IG is to um investigate fraud, waste, and abuse and to do so independently. Another key difference, the OIG is required to publish their results publicly. They have a a duty. It's in the county code to publish their results publicly. That's outside of the board. It's in the county charter and they share their results. To give you an example of just how different their focus is, their recent
120report looked at the Department of Traffic Calming. I'm going to get that name wrong, but it was on traffic calming. And they found that a program manager, one employee who worked for the county, that's your bell for the time. That's my time. May I finish my thought? Your sentence. 200,000 in sa in savings. They realized because um elevated speedcomming devices were um being misplaced or being placed on roads improperly that were saved. Thank you, Mr. Manowski. Your hand was up. I just wanted to add with um respect to the county council having the authority to um conduct an audit. I don't believe a forensic audit has ever been conducted on Baltimore County public schools. And the last time special education was audited was uh 10 years ago. I'm not sure that somewhere around there. It
121wasn't it. But I'm talking about specific audit to make sure all of our special educators education students are receiving all of the services that they are required to receive under an IEP. Um that's something that I have I've not seen the results of at least in the LA since I've been a board member and I've asked for the the one that was done however many years ago. I have not been given that access to that. So again, um this is something that showing our support will help move it forward. How it lays out down the line, we can have act we can have our input into that. But this shows that we support being transparent. We support being stewards of our u taxpayers dollars and that we want to make sure that we're doing everything
122we can for our students and our educators. Thank you. Thank you, M. Still. Thank you. Um, just a followup to Miss Dominowski's um, comments. Um, after one of the special ed presentations, I actually recommended a special ed audit and, um, that hasn't occurred. So, just a little bit of a comment there. Um, in terms of this resolution, if we have nothing to hide, then all we're doing is supporting something that can be an extra layer of um action that can result in making sure that every fiscal dollar is spent where it should be. It is widely supported by the public, whether it's the stakeholders that have contacted us. We've received many pieces of communication. Obviously, Tabco has universally supported it and endorsed it as well as the League of Women Voters. So, we represent the
123people. That is our job. And if this is what the public wants, [snorts] um, and all it is is an additional layer of of protection and insurance. It is such a powerful powerful thing to support to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to maintain and restore trust. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. Yes. Just a couple other thoughts that came up while I was hearing everybody else's comments. Um, even if there is some duplication here with oversight, from my question that I asked initially, I I'm seeing I'm hearing that that additional oversight isn't going to cost us anything as a school system. Um, and if we have nothing to hide, if the financial responsibility of this, it falls on Baltimore County. Um, and if it show it gives the the public more reason
124to trust us and feel that we're being transparent. Um, I'm not sure if there's a concern about the impact on our staff. um as far as workload or anything else. If there is a concern about that, I'd like to hear that as well. Um but otherwise, that's that was my additional comment. Thank you. Thank you. Um I think everybody's had a chance to speak. Did you Okay, Miss Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh first, I I want to say that I believe it's a false equivalent to say disagreement with this resolution means that there's something to hide. Uh, as Mr. Young said, we are being asked to approve a resolution to support a resolution for undrafted legislation that supplants our independence and abdicates our authority and our responsibility to do just the things all the
125be it resolve says. We govern we govern BCPS. And if we believe we need to build public trust, if we believe we need more transparency in this area or that area, if we believe there's fraud, waste, and abuse, that our staff are rampantly committing fraud, waste, and abuse. If we believe those things, it's our responsibility to fix it. We sit here as the governing body and the proposal is to allow another outside entity to provide some governance. I don't understand it. I don't agree with it. We also have a whole legislative committee whose sole purpose it is to review legislation that could impact this board. Why we are skipping over that process, I do not know. Session starts in January. Legislators have already said they're crafting the language. Why would we not allow the bill
126to come to the legislative committee for review so that we can responsibly vote on what we are saying, not me, what some are saying they want to abdicate to an outside entity. It it doesn't make sense to me and it smacks at me giving up my responsibility to do just the things we're saying need to be done as a governing member of this body. And I cannot I cannot vote for a resolution to approve a resolution to approve legislation that we have no idea what it says. The legislators have no responsibility to incorporate anything in this resolution in their legislation. They could incorporate some of it, all of it, none of it. It could be amended to incorporate some of it, all of it, none of it. So why are we acting prematurely before we
127even have a document that we can reasonably assess as is our responsibility as board members. I would like to wait to see the actual legislation to make a decision. It seems irresponsible to do anything other. Thank you, Mr. Manoski. I'm not sure how much time I only have 20 seconds. I'm very quickly I just [clears throat] want to add um I would say that we have limited ourselves by eliminating the budget committee as far as it comes to overlooking the budget. So, Mr. McMilliam. I want to say that the internal audit that was conducted to look at the overpayment, they discovered somewhere near it's around $800,000 that was overpaid. Uh out of the sample size that internal audit looked at, uh really how much money was it in in reality? That's what they discovered in
128the sample size that they looked at. So, I think that, you know, they were limited in what they looked at. And if we can, if it was $800,000 in that small sample size, what was it? And I think so it I think it's deserving just that alone is deserving of an outside set of eyes to come in and look at, you know, what we're doing. Thank you, Miss Gover. Can I have a roll call vote on the motion to support county council resolution 4025? Okay. Okay. How much time does Miss Pumprey have? Okay. Go ahead. I won't take 119. I just have one quick question. I mean, one quick comment. Um, correct. The legislative body does not have to take into consideration any parts of this resolution whether or not we pass it. Um, however,
129they also um they don't have to we we're putting it forward in front of them for them to see in advance to know what we're looking for and maybe give them some guidelines as well. They could accept it. They cannot accept it before or after it goes through um before or after it's drafted. It it is being proposed regardless of whether or not we um approve this resolution. It's going to be proposed and brought up either way. Thank you, M. Stleski. Thank you. I just want to um reply to Miss Harvey. So, thank you for your comments. Um and and I respectfully hear what you're saying about um that we have nothing to hide and and and the meaning of that. However, um the perception of the public um by many people is well, if
130there's nothing to hide, why wouldn't they support this? And in addition, the perception of many in the public is that there are things hidden and that there are things that have been dishonest or dishonorable. So whether whether we like that perception or not, that perception exists. So I just wanted to reply to your comment. Yes. I know I'm out of time, but may I offer a point of clarification on my resolution? time on my resolution because I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding. I want to respond to um Vice Chair Harvey's comment that and confirm that this does not there's no time. It does not endorse a specific bill. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? No. Miss
131Demanowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Remp? No Miss Harvey. No, Miss Aumpbe. No, Misski. Yes, Dr. Seavoy. No, Miss Leicter. No. Favor is five. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the report on the blueprint funding formula. And for that, I call on Dr. Rogers and Mr. Tantliff. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, and members of the board. Uh we are pleased to provide the board with the report on blueprint funding. Um just about two weeks ago, the Maryland Association of Boards of Education held the annual fall conference. One of the topics as all of the school systems move forward with the beginning of the operating budget season was on blueprint funding. We want to make sure that uh all board members and our uh public has access to updated
132information regarding the blueprint funding. As you know, for the last two years, we have provided annual updates on the pillars and want to um call to your attention some recent changes and impact of blueprint funding that will have an impact on fiscal year 2027. Um I will get us started and uh Mr. Tantliff will take us through the rest and we'll open it up for questions at that point. Next slide, please. The blueprint for Maryland's future, as you know, um requires all school systems in Maryland to work specifically on five pillars. Baltimore County Public Schools has invested in early childhood education, highquality and diverse teachers and leaders, college and career readiness opportunities for students, and more resources to ensure that all of our students are successful. uh we do all of this work and make
133sure uh that we are adhering to the requirements of the AIB um for governance and accountability throughout the state. The main phenomenon that we discussed um at this conference in this session in particular was about the changing trends that we see across the state of Maryland uh where enrollment has declined since COVID while the student needs has increased. If you look at this slide, this is the data for the state of Maryland. um enrollment across the state since um uh COVID has decreased uh by two almost two and a half percent while at the same time compensatory education eligibility for economically disadvantaged uh what we used to know as farms students living in poverty has increased by more than 18%. Special education eligibility has increased by almost 7% across the state and the needs of
134multilingual learners, their eligibility 27 and a half%. The next slide shows us the picture in Baltimore County public schools. Um we follow the trends of the state. Our enrollment is also decreasing. We have our data here from 1920 to 2425. During that same time period, we saw an enrollment decrease of uh 4.4% while the student needs continue to increase. The percentage of students who now qualify for uh free and reduced meals economically disadvantaged has increased by 116% over these years. Special education eligibility um took a dip uh during COVID and has come up um since then uh it's relatively stable. The additional eligibility is 1.7%. And our multilingual learner as we have spoken about before they are fastest growing population. the eligibility has increased by over 49% over the last few years. And so the
135conversation uh that we are having at the state level together with the state superintendent of schools and all superintendent of the districts are with the blueprint requiring specific formulas for the funding that we receive from the state and the needs of ch of students changing and the base formula for blueprint is on enrollment and enrollment is going down. how do we continue to address our student needs? And so, uh, Wit is going to take us, Mr. Tantliff is going to take us through the specifics, um, regarding blueprint. Thank you. Um, here we can see in the state budget, there's, uh, several mandated funding requirements. um the per pupil amounts have increased year-over-year and especially uh since blueprint has uh come down. I think the the formula has exceeded the initial projections. We've had inflation that
136well exceeds uh the inflation that was built into the formula. So overall I think uh all the eleas and the state itself are lagging behind where uh the formula would have said we are and uh TSI you know there's just a comment there uh it's one of the grants that we've had for several years that helps uh re uh students that are behind in reading that actually sunsets this year um and we uh pretty much pay for uh reading extra reading specialists and extra math assistance and those positions will probably remain. So, it's an example of where we'd need to absorb those expenses in the budget. Um, you can see the legislation. It just mentions that if there is a decrease in revenue, this was sort of a limiter that was put in there. If
137revenue does drop 3.75%, then the formula can freeze. Uh the latest forecasts I've I've seen from the state are uh a fairly low increase, maybe a small decrease. I haven't seen anything that might be of this magnitude, a 4% decrease, but uh things could get rough out there. So that's something that could happen uh in the near term. Whoops. Uh I talked about this a little two months ago. I did a brief presentation on state aid uh for everyone, but there's a bunch of uh tranches that we'd [snorts] call them for blueprint and each piece of the blueprint funding has a different formula associated with it. So there's a different amount per pupil and there's also uh different student counts that go into each of these components and you add all of them up that's
138how we uh derive our total state aid formula. So just for instance, uh foundation is based on our total eligible K through 12 students. Um compensatory ed talks about our free and reduced students, multilingual, just like it sounds like it's our ML kids, special ed, etc. So there's a different group of students that derive each of the buckets that you can see here that make up the total blueprint funding. And really blueprint is our state aid now. It replaced Thornton Bridge to Excellence. When we talk about state aid, now it is blueprint. Um, we've talked a lot about inflation over the last year and here you can can see um some bar graphs that probably won't surprise every anyone here. Special ed both for us and the state have gone up rapidly over the last
139six years since the prepandemic years. Um, non-pub has increased, transportation, health care, uh, utilities was a point of, uh, focus for us in this last budget in terms of having a significant increase. And there have been some mandates in the formula that have driven our expenses even faster than they normally would have. We hit $60,000 minimum salary last fiscal year. that was two years ahead of the mandate in blueprint, but speeding those things up costs us money. Um, we also increased the day by 15 minutes. That cost us about $35 million a year. And there's some things we don't talk about as much, but they're they're kind of lurking in the background. National board uh is going to get really expensive over the coming decade. uh you get $10,000 for achieving national board, you get
140$7,000 in a low performing school, and then when you get your renewal, each one of them you're getting an additional $8,000. So we just according to the law when they started counting the years coming into this year, we just did our first renewals. So those teachers, if they're in a low performing school, are getting $25,000. the money is so significant. Uh there there's got to be tons of people that are gonna and we're seeing lots more people enroll to try to get qualified. But I could see personally I think many people would agree over the coming decade we could have thousands of people that are NBC qualified which will cost us tens of millions of dollars. The state picks up half to a little more than half of that cost. But these are all significant
141things that are kind of lurking in the background. not so much this year, but we will see them coming up. Uh you may recall last year during uh the legislative session the governor proposed and then there was a lot of back and forth about uh impairing or slowing down the growth of the blueprint formula. It really was bouncing all around. We didn't know where it would land. What they did for the most part is they left FY26 intact. So the uh state aid was not really impaired this year, but they did leave some reductions for 2027. And you can see the biggest one on here, which is our foundation program. So it was supposed to be 9732 per eligible student. And we have about 105,000 eligible K through2 students. it dropped to 9561, which may
142not at first glance seem that material. It's $171. But if you take that 171 and you multiply it by $105,000 students, well, you get about $18 million. So this small change in the formula costs us $18 million in the upcoming um budget season that we're about to enter. What does $18 million get you? That gets you about a one and a half% cola for all for all bargaining units. Uh, it probably wouldn't be surprising because the the state's fiscal outlook is degrading as I think everyone has heard for a lot of different reasons. It wouldn't be surprising if during the session they make some changes to the formula in the future years in 27 or the out years. Impossible to know and I I haven't heard anything in the paper about what may be planned
143in that regard, but I don't think it would surprise anyone. This this is an example and you may have seen something like this in the past but it just is is a really basic example of how blueprint funding gets pushed out to the schools. So it's based on the attributes of the student in each school. So every student gets foundation. So you can see across the board there all uh three students get foundation if they qualify for free and reduced which we're mostly doing through direct certification now series always on the on the prow but you can see here um student B and C qualify for comped they're basically free and reduced lunch students um and student C is an ML and is a special student. So the mandated funding that we would need to
144push out for that student is $37,000 versus 9561 for student A. So you can see there can be wide variations in how this funding gets pushed out to the school. And I'll just say um from a fiscal standpoint, all the LEAs are working to figure this out. [music] Even just the mechanics of doing it, but it obviously has big programmatic effects and how we fund our schools. And I think, you know, everyone's working from a lot of different angles on how to tackle this. And uh here just to to bring things home uh here's some of the expectations within the minimum school funding uh methodology uh in FY25 the year we just finished and this wasn't really in the legislation but the uh AIB passed this for a point of clarification. So there's this really
145laborious is the only word I can use um data dump report that we need to feed into a system called powers school at the state. And so they used FY25 as our baseline. So this is measuring how much dollars per student for each of the tranches that we push down to each of the schools. And from a system standpoint, we're figuring out how to measure more and more of the actuals every year and how to push out more and more of the budgets because our system wasn't really designed to do that. Our [snorts] uh system pushes some dollars to the schools, but it's mostly historically centrally planned. Um we have to do a lot of journal vouchers at the end of the year because for instance fringe benefits in the general fund in our system
146can't follow uh this the um employee they will be able to once Oracle is live. Now the financial system won't go live until FY27 but that's something that'll help us in the future from a reporting standpoint. This year FY26 we're supposed to close that gap in half. So, of all the schools, all the students that didn't meet the funding minimum funding requirement, we're supposed to close that gap in half. Uh, and then in FY27, the expectation is um all students 100% across the board uh will meet that expectation. That's a high bar uh to achieve the uh there is a waiver process and probably every LEA including us will be putting one in for this year and next year. Carol County did one really early and they extended their total process by a year to
147hit 100% and that was approved. So, uh my guess is uh a lot of eleas will follow down that path, but that is a pretty uh large um application that needs to go by school by funding stream and where you think you might not hit. Um but anyway, that that's something that'll be coming up in the next uh well in the next month here for FY26. So, your waiver is for the current year. And uh that concludes the presentation that the superintendent and I had for you today. Thank you. Thank you. Questions or comments from board members? Mr. Dominowski? Yeah, I I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer this, but um about approximate how much do you think we under or overestimated how much money would be available for blueprint in this budget
148that we're operating under now? And can you approximate, you know, for next year? Uh M. Dominowski, do you mean I I was talking about when the legislative legislation was created almost a decade ago and they were projecting how much it would cost in aggregate the costs have well exceeded what they would have projected at the time. Can you be are you specifically asking about BCPS? I'm specifically asking about blueprint funds because you're saying that now everything we get from you know all the the special Yeah. state aid is is blueprint funds. So I feel like there was some suggestion that there wasn't as much money available in state aid to meet the requirement of what we needed. Is there a way that we can estimate how much that was? Um we we have pretty good
149models that we put together so based on our enrollment and we'll tighten that up once our September 30th enrollment uh gets finalized and submitted in November. We know the formulas. So every year for the superintendent's proposed budget, we put a projection together of state aid and then uh the state puts out their preliminary projection which in normal times is very close in uh mid to late January and the county has already given us a projection for next year which they've said is 2% more than last year and they've said that in public. So, you know, we have something pretty good to work with based on, you know, what we know our enrollment to be. I guess what I'm asking is before you headed we headed into the budget season for 2026, the budget we're operating
150under now that we've just passed, did we have a preconceived notion of how much money would be available in state aid, and how much over or under were we estimating that amount? Well, by the time the budget was adopted, we had a very good idea of what state aid was. One one caveat last year is it was still, if you remember, was bouncing around. So, the legislature hadn't uh finalized what they were going to do. So, there could have been a variance um where there wouldn't have been in normal times because the county executive proposed her budget before the legislature locked down their numbers. But in the end, um, there's about a $3 million upside that we've planned post adoption that that the superintendent gathered together. If you recall, post adoption, we funded the January
1511st increase for the union contracts. Well, part of it was having the final state aid, which ended up being a little more than 3 million better than we had in the budget. But that's been taken into account now to fund all the union contracts for uh January 1st. But normally by the CE's budget, it's very solid. It rarely changes, but you know, these times aren't completely normal. I'm going to try to ask it one more time and and this might be for Dr. Rogers. Um there was a time after we were given the budget the the proposed budget in Jan early January and then we were told that we needed to relook at the budget that the numbers there were some meetings going on behind that we weren't a part of that um you know
152our committees were asked to be on hold so that you could focus on the budget. Was there a number that you were aware of that we needed to get to that the state aid wasn't going to be there that we thought was going to be aware of when we were given the original proposed budget? So, I think you might be recalling um and referring to some of the communication that I sent out widely to team BCPS and held several budget updates for the public and some 2 by twos for the board of education. At one time after Governor Moore uh proposed his budget for the state, uh BCPS and Mr. Tantliff, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe we had uh it was upwards of $20 million um that we could have lost. And we
153created a chart and a table we shared. It was non-public. Um there's all the blueprints $20 million that was at risk for us. Um, you'll also recall that I testified in Annapolis several times, went and met with many lawmakers along with my colleagues across the state, and then we ended up with the budget that was passed by both houses. And that's what uh Mr. W Mr. Tantless spoke to, which instead of losing $20 million, we gained $3 million from the point where that we were at in the beginning. And all of that information is still available on our website. Thank you for that. I guess I my in conclusion is just what are we doing to safeguard against something like that happening again? So that is the governor's proposed budget. Um [music] everyone will receive
154it at the same time. What we will be poised to do. Um we've already uh proactively as all the superintendents across the state shared what our priorities are. Um you'll recall last year we came together and identified some cost-saving uh recommendations um for the state as well as AIB related to blueprint that would not have a negative impact on student achievement. So we have done that across the state already and we are poised to go back to Annapolis as many times as it takes testifies uh and advocate with advocate with all of our partners on behalf of BCPS. um if the governor you know move forward something that has a change that is not anticipated in one of the charts that um Mr. Tantliff shared um you there is a category that says uh post
155that house bill. So there is what we were supposed to have um 10 years ago and then there was the house bill last year which gave uh what we should expect for FY uh 27 and moving forward. Now that's what's on the table. We are hearing um on a regular basis about uh further challenges and so we won't know until January when the governor proposes the budget um whether or not uh blueprint is a part of some of the cost-saving uh measures. Uh but we will be prepared to advocate and uh [music] we have already done our proactive work as um the superintendents across the state of Maryland. I don't know. I probably don't have any time, do I? Uh, okay. Just lastly, can we request um something from the governor, from the state, or
156from the county as far as how they are saving the money for blueprint that they're supposed to be saving, that they're supposed to be setting aside and not spending it somewhere else? ask me that question in in a slightly so by law there's a certain percentage that they have to send to us. A lot of times when we're talking about um you know that an agency is giving us this money. It is by law the percentage that you have to give. That percentage that amount is directly based on how many students you have. Um we are fortunate in for the last several years we have received a percentage above that. So this past year it was 3 and a.5% over that. This year coming we're planning for 2% over what is required. So out of
157all of the money that we receive um from a particular agency it's going to be based on how many students that you have. The state um typically does not give you extra um the that is only in local funding. We have already asked um if your question is have we asked to protect the funds particularly at the state level since um the way that state funding works for education it's in a trust and it can't be allocated to any other category um so it would not have an impact on the state deficit. Yes, we have asked for that but we asked for that last year as well. Um there was some compromise. Um you know where we ended up was some compromise but still um you know they make uh decisions with the bigger picture
158at hand um you know for what their needs are across the state. But have we asked them to honor the formulas as presented? Yes. Um and I can tell you from our um county government partners, uh what we know is the impact from the federal government has an impact on them on on the state and that has an impact on what the state can give local and it's going to have an impact on what they can give to the agencies um you know that operate within them. But yes, we have asked for full funding. So I guess this goes back to my original question. If all the funding is based on a formula that is based on enrollment, why would why did we think we were going to not get the funding? Why do we
159why did you think in that time that we might not be getting that 20 million? Cuz the governor proposed a budget that was not based on that. So yeah, that that communication was just didn't he have to by law? Then is that what you he proposed to change the law, but the legislature he had negotiations back and forth to see where they'd land. They had to they had to present a balanced budget in the end. The governor made a number of proposals and one of his gap closures was to reduce state aid, but the legislature pushed back against it. That's why there was lots of back and forth. At some point, as the superintendent mentioned, we could have lost $20 million. It went back and forth and in the end they kind of let the
160formula stay intact for FY26, but laws can be changed at any time. The governor can't change it, but he can propose to change it. Okay. Thank you. I just learned a lot. Other Thank you. Other questions or comments? Let me just check. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is information which includes the m meeting minutes of the September 15, 2025 Southeast Area Education Advisory Council. The next item on the agenda are any board member comments or any agenda setting items. So, if you have something, please raise your hand. Miss Pumprey. I have something that's more related to a committee agenda item if that I'd like to propose um through for L for um LGR to advocate for flexibility regarding the KOMAR requirement that we
161meet both the days and the hours for the calendar um as you know looking to what another LEA has done successfully um and that they were able to eliminate their half days and doing that and I think some other flexible flexible changes in their calendar I think that would assist us in future calendar planning. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dleski. Um, thank you. Yes. Um, I just would like to restate my recommendation that we do have an audit of the special education department and then just given some recent communications from stakeholders, an update on school psychologist staffing. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have their hand up? Okay. The last item on the agenda is announcements. The board's next Oh, okay. Thank you, Miss Leleski. Miss Framp, thank you. Um, [clears throat] since our next
162board meeting will not be until after American Education Week starts, I just want to say a happy early start to American Education Week. I encourage the parents to come out and see their students and their um learning environments. And I thank you to all the teachers and staff and even the parents, the PTAs for the work they do to support successful um American Education Week. And the last piece is I also would hope and encourage that the um schools are able to make opportunities for parents who may not be able to come maybe during a traditional um time that there's still opportunities for other parents to be able to come and see and partake in some part of American Education Week on behalf of their children. Thank you. Thank you for that. The last item
163on the agenda is announcements. The board's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 at 6:30. Thank you for joining us tonight. This meeting is now adjourned.