Meeting of the Baltimore County Board of Education - September 24, 2025

001test. One, two. ation of Baltimore County for Wednesday, September 24th, 2025. This evening's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV, Verizon FiOS channel 34 and Comcast Exfinity channel 73. In order to efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. May I have a motion to go into close session as permitted by the opens meeting act as found in the annotated code of Maryland general provisions article sections 3-305 B1 B7 and B8 to discuss the appointment employment assignment promotion discipline demotion compensation removal resignation or performance evaluation of appointees employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals. consult with council to obtain legal advice and consult

002with staff, consultants, and other individuals about pending or potential litigation. So, I move Pumprey. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Stleski. Thank you. May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Okome. Yes. Miss Stleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Yes. Miss Damonowski. Yes. Miss Hen. Yes. Miss Fong. Yes. Miss Harvey. We're not able to hear you, Miss Harvey. Miss. Thank you, Miss Lter. Yes. Thank you. Musleski. Mr. Luski. Good evening. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I now call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Wednesday, September 24th, 2025. I invite you to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag to be led by me. We will then have a moment of silence in recognition of those who have

003served education in Baltimore County. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Tonight's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS Xfinity channel 73 and Verizon Fios channel 34. In order to efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. The first item on the agenda is consideration of the September 24th agenda. Miss Charlie Green, are there any additions or changes to tonight's agenda? I am unaware of any additions or changes to tonight's agenda. Thank you. Hearing none, the agenda stands as presented. Earlier this evening, the board met in close session pursuant to the

004open meetings act for the following reasons to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, discipline, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation, or performance evaluation of appointees, employees, or officials over whom it has jurisdiction, or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals. Consult with council to obtain legal advice and consult with staff, consultants, or other individuals about pending or potential litigation. The close session summary and the open session information summary can be found on board docs under this board meeting agenda date. The next item on the agenda is personnel matters. And for that, I call Mr. McCall. Good evening, Chair Leter. Of course, Vice Harvey in her absence and superintendent Dr. Rogers in her absence to chief of staff, Miss Charlie Green, and members of the board. Like the board's consent for the following personnel

005matters. Tonight, we have resignations, leaves, and educator lensure appointments. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel matters as presented in exhibit D1 through D3? So move Pumprey. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second, Seavoy. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. Ambbe, yes. Miss Stleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, yes. Mr. McMillion, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Frampong, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Leicter, yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is administrative appointments and for that I call Miss Charlie Green. Thank you. Do we have it? Okay. All right. So, our first appointment is Miss Mary Cunningham. if you could please stand. Miss Cunningham is attending this evening. Thank you. with her friend Laura Crowart

006and is being appointed as a specialist research title one in the office of research. Mary's prior experience includes program evaluator and graduate research assistant at John's Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, research project manager at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and graduate research assistant at John's Hopkins University of Education. Congratulations and welcome to BCPS. So, I got we got a little ahead of ourselves. Do we have a motion to to approve the personnel matters as presented in exhibit E1? So move comry. Do we have a second? Second. Seavoy. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote? Miss Aome? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss FPong. Yes. Miss Harvey. Yes. Miss Licter. Yes. Thank you.

007Don't worry, you're still appointed and and and approved. Absolutely. Okay. Continue, please. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next appointment for the evening is David Mimoney. If you could please stand. Or is he attending remotely? David Mimoney is being appointed as the specialist special education public placement in the department of special education with 25 years of service with Baltimore County Public Schools. David's BCPS experience includes special education teacher at Middle River Middle School and special education resource teacher in the department of special education. David's prior experience includes special education teacher at the Chime School. Congratulations [Applause] Thank you. 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

008public may submit their comments to the board members via email at boebcps.org. The Baltimore County Public 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 this board's participation by the public website. While we encourage public input on policy programs and practices within the purview of this board and this school system, this is not the proper forum to address specific student or employee matters or to comment on matters that do not relate to public education in Baltimore County. inappropriate personal remarks or other behavior such as language that promotes violence against a BCPS employee or that disrupts or interferes with the conduct of this meeting are out of order and will not be tolerated. Persons who otherwise disrupt

009or disturb this meeting will not be allowed to continue their remarks and will be escorted from the meeting. Please observe the 3minut clock which will let you know when your time is up. The microphone will be turned off at the end of your time or prior to that time at the discretion of the board chair. We'll start with our school system affiliated groups to speak. And speaking virtually is Miss Leslie Weber from the PTA Council of Baltimore County. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good evening. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Licter and Board of Education members. I'm Lesley Weber, president of the PTA Council of Baltimore County. Our family, school, and community partnerships committee is working at the grassroots level to help highlight the importance of national PTA's family engagement

010standards across PTA units. These researchbased voluntary standards developed by National PTA's Center for Family Engagement consist of the following. Welcome all families, communicate effectively, support student success, speak up for every child, share power, and collaborate with community. In 2526, we're highlighting standard 6, which focuses on collaborating with the community. We're excited to announce the inaugural informal community building event between PTA officers, and community school facilitators. Designed as a pilot initiative, the event aims to foster connections among BCPS families, educators, and community partners in the Northwest and Southwest areas. Both new and returning community school facilitators along with PTA and PTSA presidents are encouraged to attend to network and strengthen family school partnerships. The goal is to create a volunteer base, address student needs, and strengthen family engagement through best practices. This first in a series

011of networking events will be hosted by Deer Park Middle School, Winfield Elementary School, and Milford Milford Mill Academy on September 29th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Deer Park Middle Magnet School in Randlestown. The RSVP date has been extended to September 25th. If you're a Northwest or Southwest Community School facilitator or PTA leader and haven't already signed up, please email partnerships atbcptacons.org or to make your reservation and request an event flyer. With support from area community school partners, the plan is to co-host co-host similar gatherings across the district. For information, please reach out to us. Since community school coordinator or in the case of BCPS facilitator appreciation week just concluded, we think it's the perfect time to kick off this new initiative. We believe when PTAs and community schools work together, families, educators, and community

012partners can unite around a shared vision of student success. Thank you. Thank you. Our next category are our unions and speaking is Kelly Olds from Tapco. Good evening. Good evening all. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Um tonight I am going to read a letter to you from the Tabco board of directors regarding the uh Oracle implementation and some issues with pay. We the Tabco board of directors are aware of both confusion and mistakes related to our members pay. I would like to recognize the work of the staff within the offices of payroll, benefits, and HR as well as other offices that are involved in working on the implementation of Oracle and correcting the errors that have occurred. Implementing a new system can be exhausting and difficult. Ultimately, it is the responsibility

013of the system to ensure that there are sufficient resources to seamlessly execute all payroll operations. While the scope of these problems is not clear, we as union leaders recognize that there are few things more critical to morale and the efficient operation of a school system than all of its employees knowing that they can trust what is in their checks and also knowing that if there is a problem, it will be fixed rapidly and thoroughly. We look to you as the leaders of our school system to remedy both confusion and the problems that have been occurring with pay. To address current ongoing confusion, we call for more communication from BCPS leadership to BCPS staff. We would like to see BCPS explaining changes in the number of pays and how that impacts pays in a more proactive

014way than posting in the newsshub. Communication is largely free and can solve many issues. We call on the board of education to use their oversight power to increase accountability and focus on these issues with pay. This can be done through Oracle implementation reports at each board meeting, a tracking system for problems regarding pay, or any other solutions that would give our members faith that they are being paid properly and appropriate deductions are being withheld, and that if they are not, a solution will be found rapidly. We also request for a meeting to be arranged between Tapco leadership, BCPS leadership, and staff directly from Oracle to discuss concerns with the new payroll system and possible solutions. These concerns include, but are not limited to, access to pay slips and the timing of that, payslip design, and

015the ability to remedy paychecks without further problems. Our members must have faith that their paychecks are correct. It is not negotiable. Our members must also know that if they are underpaid, they can get the money they are owed rapidly and without further complications. These are baseline requirements for an employer. Tam Tabco stands ready to collaborate to solve these concerns and we look forward to working with the board of education and BCPS staff to address them. Thank you and thank you for your comments. Um I'm not sure I won't put you on the spot, but is there any clarification that you can provide at this point? Thank you. Yes. Um and and I appreciate the comments of of miss and certainly I appreciate the support as we've been working with our association partners since we moved

016to industry standard November 2024. So we expect that we will continue to collaborate and continue to try to remedy any problems that arise. But one thing I want to just make sure for the viewing public that there is some clarity. Um, Miss Ols indicated that we're not aware of the scope and so I just want to provide just for the good of those who are listening that less than 2% of our employees experienced um a pay disruption and so in terms of scope we do know what the scope is. Now I want to be very clear those 2% deserve to have their problems fixed. They uh they deserve to have their pay problems remedied and we have been working non-stop to do that. But I do think that that is very important so people are

017aware and they understand the critical context about how we are approaching this problem. I also wanted to let folks know that the roll out of this system really is designed to create efficiency. Good data in means that we are able to ensure that we are operating smoothly at the system level. We are told by our a partners that we are in the top 1% of implementation in terms of addressing those problems. Again, I want to say very plainly and very clearly that we do not believe that people should guess what the amount is in their paycheck, that they should have concern and we are working rapidly to remedy that and we appreciate all of the associations that have been working with us to uh address the issues that have come up. So, we appreciate the

018partnership and we are looking forward to continuing it. Thank you. Thank you, Miss. Um, our next category are nonprofit community groups and our speaker is Lynn Lawings from the nonprofit from Baltimore County Chapter Continental Societies. Thank you. Good evening, Superintendent Dr. Rogers, first vice litter. I hate saying that and Vice Harvey, members of the board, my name is Lynn Loings and I serve as the public relations officer of the Baltimore County Continental Societies. On behalf of our president, Michelle McCoy Jones and our membership, we commend Dr. Rogers First, for hosting and bringing back community conversations around the county. Um we believe that's a platform and it helps uh individuals, family members and it connects the leadership in the community to which we need and we need to get back into the community. Our chapter has

019been actively supporting Baltimore County students to return to school. We had a chance to add to the list Headville, Rosville, Featherbed Lane, and Pleasant Plains. And we were at that sneaker peak and back to school night. Um, we were able to, the highlight was to provide school supplies and we together were we distributed over 1,000 items from notebooks, pencils, crayons and we had the pleasure of seeing one of the board members there, uh, board member Emry Young. Um, I had surgery my foot. My sister said, "This gentleman knows you." And so the connection was that I get here and I say these things, but he actually had a chance to witness and they were so excited to talk to him. They took pictures. I'm going to get that picture to you. Um, but we had

020supplies there and the kids would come by and pick up what the things that they need. And those are the things that we will continue to do as you keep the foundation of your part. We will come in with our part to support the children. And you know, I'll say that um it is working one at a time. And we also had a chance, ain't no stopping us now. We have a national literacy program with the Continentals. And we attended the 29th annual Baltimore County African-American Cultural Festival, third-year partner there. We gave out free books for children and adults because if adults are picking up a book, a child is going to pick up a book. And we discovered that three years ago when we did that. So, we get free books from partners and

021we pass those books out and it's been a joy because the kids are excited. We have to get back to reading. We have to inspire children to put the phone down and read. It allows you to dream. It allows you remember when we used to read books and dream that we were going to be those people in the books and but they've gotten away from it. So, we have to do that one book at a time. We also had a table at the healthy, they had a health community area and we were able to show them how to wash hands and spread the germs. So again, on behalf of Baltimore County chapter, thank you again for our partnership. We will continue to do our part as you do yours. Thank you. Thank you for what

022you do for our kids. Our next category are individual citizens or students. And our first speaker is Nicole Mirman. Good evening. My name is Nicole Murman. I'm a proud parent of two students at Lutherville Lab Elementary. Before I share my concern regarding transportation, I have to recognize the incredible staff there. Under the direction of Shawn Mcome and April Reid, our school is absolutely excelling and I've been so impressed by their commitment to academics, character, equity, and the environment. Um, so now to transition to why I'm speaking this evening. Um, as a teacher in the Baltimore City public school system for nearly two decades, I'm painfully aware of the impact that chronic tardiness has on students achievement. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, students who are chronically tardy are more likely to have behavior

023problems and suspensions and also based on the research that was published in the Journal of School Effectiveness and Improvement by Dr. Michael Godfrey uh from the University of Pennsylvania found that students who are chronically tardy perform worse on both math and reading assessments as compared to their on-time peers. Additionally, students who are chronically tardy also negatively impact the standardized test scores of their ontime classmates as frequent disruptions affect the learning environment for others. In spite of my own expertise as an educator and understanding the implications of this research, my own children are late to school every day. This is due to ongoing issues with county schools transportation, of which the department has been made aware. For two years now, our bus fails to arrive on time to pick our students up for a 9:05 start

024time at Lutherville Lab. Our bus often arrives after the school day has already started, and our students are missing morning meeting, vital routines, and announcements. Furthermore, they're often delayed in the evenings because a bus has to return from another route and students have to be gathered and supervised in the cafeteria to wait for a bus home, which also causes that dedicated staff to have to work past their contract hours. Uh, our children are not arriving home until well after 5:00 p.m. on occasion and this has caused our family and some others in our area to miss out on extracurricular activities that they enjoy and for which we have paid tuition. Um, several of us have emailed uh the central route supervisor and the director and we have received no response which is extremely concerning. So,

025um, if drivers are out sick or on leave, it's the responsibility of the county to find suitable substitute drivers. And if we're unable to recruit them, then we need to explore the policies, procedures, treatment, and wages that are being offered as drivers play a vital role in our students education and getting them safely to and from school. So, it is our request that the board work with the office of transportation or human resources to determine what is causing this chronic lateness. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jessica Maize. I believe is virtual. Hi. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yep, we can hear you. I just wanted to make sure. Um, I do want to start by saying um thank you guys for allowing me to do this today. Um, this is not something I

026normally do, so bear with me. Um, I'm very new at this and I'm a little nervous. Okay, no worries. Um, now I do know mine is a definitely a big topic just just basic um considering the recent events we've had globally. Um, but I do personally feel like it needs to address just because I feel like it's um more of a, like I said, global issue, but I feel like we need to handle it at home in our communities first. so they can be impacted on a global level. Um now along with this is this coming from like the Facebook post has been coming from teachers but and I do realize that we don't have any teachers in our county at all that have done this from what I've seen. But I do have a

027daughter that's very young and about to come into Baltimore County schools. So, it's a concern of mine to um to make sure that our teachers are holding up their end of the standards that we all I think we all can agree that they hold. So, I just want to make sure that, you know, with my daughter, she's very strong willed and she's only three and I don't necessarily want to take that from her, but I, you know, again, I do want to make sure that if she is disagreeing with her teachers, it's within reason. It's more of a hey, can you explain that to me versus I just don't agree with you? So, within reason, I want her to kind of, I guess, debate. Maybe that's a bad word, but again, bear with me. Um,

028but at this moment, I'm feeling with how I've seen some teachers, I'm feeling very concerned also with how school shootings seem to be a part of our community. not our community, but like in general, they just seem to be so common. It's almost like we're becoming dehumanized to it. So, I want to see like not only where you guys stand with plans that we can ensure that there's they're going, but how parents too can help assist that because they do spend between 30 to 35 hours a week with, you know, our educators and in the school system, but also, you know, maybe parents who are struggling or single parents of any nature, like maybe how we can help find any changes in our kids. I think we all need to find a way to kind

029of make that a common ground in a sense. Um, so we can see how all of us together can fix these problems. Like do you guys have anything in place to handle if a teacher does that or if not like do we have a plan of action we plan on taking or also how um how can us parents help better? Like I said, because our children are with you 30 to 35 hours a week, how can we best help when you find that our children have something going on that we need to address at home? Thank you for your kind of where I'm sitting at. Okay. Thank you and thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Dr. Fon. Good evening to all. You probably seen this book. I hope. And I want to

030say to you that there is a historian, a small historian, homegrown is going to write about you. And I need you to think what would be the title of the book about Baltimore County public schools. It would not be different than this one. I'll give you an example. I did attend online the community meeting of Dr. Rogers uh few days back and Dr. Rogers promised the small number of audience that every complaint would be answered and also touted the improvement in absenteeism and graduation and math and English. The improvement in English I believe it was 2% I believe in math 3% graduation I think it improved about half percent. These numbers which basically the superintendent has used in the board and also to the community as advertisement for her progress are not statistically significant. In

031a population of students of 111,000 and schools of 176, students are graduating not knowing their own language math. If you are not proficient in math, you cannot do anything. Furthermore, as you know, Fox 45 reported the fake emails that Miss Harvey has used to censor Miss Damonowski. 261 emails that look fake and came in 10 minutes. And this board of education did not have the responsibility of making a statement about that report or responding to it. That is email gate of BCPS. That is not a sign of a system that the board is focused on education. It's a board of politics, petty politics. And you should not be in that arena. You must not be in that arena. No politics, no religion. It's all education. Otherwise, this would be your history. It will be your

032history. It will be your name. Thank you. And our final speaker is Miss Heather Buckman. Good evening. Hi. I'm very nervous. Don't be nervous. You guys are almost as cute as the eight-year-olds I work with. I was going to say you stand up in front of kids every day. You don't have to be nervous. I do. And I I'm and I'm taking time away from my family to be here, but I'm very grateful to all of you for being here and the service that you provide. I'm going to read really quickly because I'm very nervous. Um good evening to all of the esteemed members of the board cheerle and um my name is Jennifer Heather Buckman. Um I am an elementary school teacher. I have nothing but good things to say about my school. My

033principal will serion my AP Robin Buck height and my area superintendent executive director now um Dr. Gregory. I work in one of the most supportive and um engaging environments I could imagine working. I'm grateful every day to have my job. Um, that being said, I'm going to also start by staying in protocol. I am a white um, obviously middle-aged, getting a little towards the older aged um, veteran educator. Um, so I come here tonight with a sense of agency that comes from privilege that I carry. And, um, I'm here to specifically address policy 02000, precepts, beliefs, and values of the Baltimore County Schools. Specifically, the language as follows. The board believes that its employees are its most important res resource. And it goes on to state that employees who exhibit behavior, we should demonstrate personal

034responsibility as well as respect for self. And that's partially why I'm here tonight because I do I do have respect for myself in my job and for the people I work with. Um, and under part two of that same policy under guarding principles part G, it says we respect the worth of everyone. And that can be interpreted in a number of ways. The teachers in this school system are without exception the greatest resource you have. I am privileged beyond compare. Not just because of who I am and my lived experience. I work with people who love what they do. All I have never met a teacher who didn't want the best for their kids, the kids in front of them. Um, and my administrators and my executive director help me keep focused on that job.

035Um, my colleagues are outstanding. I am proud to stand beside them in our mission to proside provide access and opportunity to all. As a grade changer this year, I'm handling a cognitive load that I was really not prepared for in 54 on top of everything else. And I know that new things are hard because I live that. Um, and I accept that failure is part of anything new. Which brings me to my point, equity and respect for teachers. These concepts aren't explicitly spelled out, but I am here to humanize the face of the pay issues. This is not the first time that my pay has been impacted during the ransomware attack. I would did not receive pay, but I continued to work and I was working like 12 to 14 hours a day. I work

036evenings, I work early mornings, I work weekends and my pay is not correct. And while and and and any data story, a number tells a story, but people tell stories too. And I am a person who relies on you to make sure that I am equitably treated in terms of my worth, which I give you my time. I take my time from my family and I don't have the cognitive ability to determine what is needed and I will send you an email with explicitly what I want. Thank you for sharing. Um there was nobody on the waiting list. So we'll move on to the next agenda item which is action taken in close session. And for that I call on Mr. Burns. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, remotely, members of board, madam chief

037of staff. Um, you had three items that you reviewed in closed session with respect to appeals and I think given the nature of appeals, it's best to take one at a time. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's case SDA26-1 and authorize Miss Gover to sign for those board members not physically present. So move Stleski. Thank you. May I have a second? Second Seavoi. Thank you. Any discussion? May have a roll call vote, please. Miss Ambbe, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Mr. Seavoy. Yes. Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumphrey. Yes. Mr. Young. Yes. Miss Donowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's

038case HA25-016 and authorize Miss Gover to sign for those board members not physically present. May I have a a motion? Stleski. Thank you, Miss Stleski. May I have a second? Second. Seo. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Abe? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Framp, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Lectar, yes. Thank you. Okay. I think I messed up the order. Which two did we just Okay. Um, may I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's case HA25-7 and authorize Miss Gover to sign for those board members not physically present. So moved from Paul. Thank you, Mr. Fmpong. May I have a second? Second,

039Seavoi. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Stleski? Yes. Dr. Seavoy? Yes. Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Thank you, Miss Lectar. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Burns. The next item on the agenda is the report on the proposed 2026 2027 school calendar. And for that, I call on Miss Charlie Green and Miss Bilski. Feels like we just started 2526. Absolutely. The school year's just begun and we're already looking forward to the next. And so, I will turn it over to Miss Bilski uh to take us through the proposed 2026 2027 school calendar. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Leter, Vice Chair Harvey, Miss Charlie Green, and members of the board of education. In accordance with

040board policy and superintendence rule 6301, the superintendent is charged with convening a committee to assist with in the development of a school calendar. The committee met on May 28th, 2025 and June 12th, 2025 to develop a calendar for the 2627 school year. Tonight I present the committee's recommendation. The 20 the 2026 27 calendar encompasses 191 teacher days, 180 elementary student days and 181 middle school and high school student days with an additional three days built into the calendar at the end of the school year. June 15th, 16th, and 17th for the pre-Labor Day version, and June 23rd, 24th, 25th of 2027 for the post Labor Day version as inclement weather days. While I submitted both a pre and post Labor Day calendar to the board, uh the committee voted for a pre-LOR day start based

041on the following. The kindergarten rate uh readiness assessment, MSDE, requires the um census administration of the KR. This assessment includes both individual direct performance tasks and observational components. The non-negotiable MSDE deadline for the administration is October 11th. The pre-LOR day start provides kindergarten teachers an additional 5 days to administer this comprehensive assessment. The MCAPS, the PSAT, the SAT, and the advanced placement exams. The pre-LOR day start provides elementary and secondary students an additional 5 days of instruction in preparation for various assessments that begin in early winter and run through May. The graduation date for seniors does not change. The pre-LOR day start provides seniors with five additional days which they would lose with a post Labor Day start. Some summer camps stop in mid August. The pre-LOR day start allows students to return one week

042earlier whereas working parents would not have to look for child care when the camps ended. Students will not be home unsupervised. And last, student enrollment data is required to report it to be reported to the state by September 30th. The pre-LOR day start provides our office administrative assistants five additional days to get students enrolled. If students are not enrolled by the non-negotiable September 30th deadline, there is no funding for that student. Recognizing the importance of professional development, the committee selected the following days that you see on this slide. There's one full day and three half days scheduled to occur during the second, third, and fourth quarters. I am happy to entertain any questions you may have. Thank you, Miss Dominoski. Yes, thank you for that. Um, the three half days to PD, are they going

043to be half school days as well? Half days for students, full days for teachers for professional development. Do we have the data yet on how many what the attendance is like on half days? We did pull that last year. um we didn't do as many um half days last year, but we did re the year prior we did pull that data and do we see a significant drop off of students attending half days as opposed to a full day? I would have to revisit that data and get back to you. I'm happy to do that. Okay, I would like to if I could see that again. And then lastly, uh, on slide three, do we have any data to support that those five extra days, um, you know, have a significant increase or in achievement

044for students for those tests? It what we know is that we have more instructional time with them. The enrollment piece is also really significant as I said. Um, so yes, um, we we definitely see an advantage in having those days. And if you notice, I did provide a post Labor Day start calendar. And with the way that Labor Day falls and Memorial Day, students would be in school until June 28th if we did a post Labor Day start. Okay. I just wanted to know if I mean having seeing it as an advantage, but actually seeing it with the results of having the five days are two different things. So, I was wondering if we could get some research on that. That would be helpful. Sure. Thank you. Of course. Other questions? Miss Pumprey? I had

045similar questions to Miss Dominowski, but I also have a follow-up sort of a follow-up, but it's in alignment with that. Um, we have have another LA in the area who have has changed their calendar to remove half days based on some recent legislation, new legislation that allowed some flexibility with the calendaring. Um, is that a possibility for us? And is there any um thing we can do as a board to um as far as um legislate legislate to advocate for something that we can what assist us in removing those half days. So there's a couple important parts to that and first first and foremost being that we have to meet the student days. Um one of the other pieces that um came from a recommendation from the board was that we would have professional development

046on religious holidays. So that binds us depends on h depending on how many of those holidays fall on a school day and we make those PD days. So we we lose some instructional days with students for students to be in school. Like this year there were six holidays. So um we had to work around that. So those are those are some limitations that we could look at. But just being mindful that the board did recommend that we made those holidays professional development. So, those are days we can't count as student days. Thank you. That's helpful because I was I was looking for the difference there. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Sure. Other questions or comments, Miss Fmpong? Thank you. Um, so I was looking across the dates. It's I think you had said June

04728th is the end of the school year for the post Labor Day. Is that what you said? If that was a post Labor Day start, yes, you should have a pre and post accessible to you, right? But that's also if we have to use all three inclement weather days. Correct. But if we don't, it's June 22nd for the end of the school year for post Labor Day and then it'll be June 14th for pre-LOR day again if there's no inclement weather makeup days that we have. Correct. Okay. And then also this year with the August for the school year 2627 that start date is actually August 31st right for the for the start of school because there's a fifth Monday in August. So it's actually almost like a week after when we started this school

048year because we started this school year August 25th which was the fourth Monday. So if we look at I guess post Labor Day, we're extending it even almost like two weeks really in a way I guess instead of just one week because of that fifth Monday. Correct. And so I'll tell you it was really hard when you take everything into consideration with the with the holidays, the PD days, the number of student days that we have to make sure that we're in compliance with um and the way the holidays fell Labor Day and Memorial Day. Okay, because we had a late and then the I guess last point or more so question for fall sports when there's high school fall sports does a pre or post Labor Day impact when like the practices or tryyouts

049or things start for those fall sports in high school? That is a great question that I don't know the answer to, but I'd be happy to find it for you. Okay. because I was just wondering if that does delay if it if it doesn't change then for those families the parents the staff etc they're going to still come back regardless of whether we start pre or post right yeah so I will find out from u Mr. Sigh. I'll get that answer for you. Um, we he and I have never had a conversation about it, so I'd venture to say it's not, but I certainly want to confirm that. Thank you. Sure. Other questions or comments, Miss Dominoski? Lastly, um were there any way like any of the um you know the spring break, uh winter

050break, any of those uh Thanksgiving break, are there any of those days, those vacation times for students that can be reduced down? Are we obligated by policy law to keep them as where they are right now? Um, so I don't um I don't think that like with spring break I know that we're not obligated to provide the that week. I mean we could take another look at that if that's a recommendation and do another version. Um I'm not sure about um I mean I know we have to close Thanksgiving and the day after. Um so we wouldn't be able to shorten that. I I I mean I've I've seen different you know across the state different counties have shorter longer breaks in between and it if it would help reducing that spring break time or

051the winter break time so that the kids if we could come back to school after you know post Labor Day as opposed to pre and then not have to stay in school as later. I I haven't seen any variations of our you know our vacation breaks for our kids. So, as I mentioned, the um the committee that met twice to to talk about both the pre and the post um voted for the pre based on not so much the holidays, based on our opportunity to get in front of kids sooner and to maximize that instructional time and to get them enrolled so that we made sure that every student that we're serving is accounted for. So, they didn't talk about there wasn't a lot of discussion about shortening holidays to go for a preferred post.

052the preferred um you like was um all but I think two people in the committee were all for the pre based on the assessments and the enrollment piece. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I think that was part of it was that so we wouldn't be staying as late as we were, but also even for the the pre there's a lot of schools that start after that are getting out of school earlier than we are because their vacation that you know our break we take a lot seem to be taking a lot of days off for our kids and I know we all need it um but maybe not so much and like long stretches. I guess if you could short look at shortening that winter or or fall break or I'm sorry spring break.

053Okay. If there is a recommendation that we look across the state to see what other calendars look like and then perhaps provide that information to the board, we're happy to do that. We can do that. Um I don't hear a recommendation for the committee to reconvene, but certainly we can get that information to the board. Thank you for that, Miss Pumphrey. Just excuse me, just a response to that. I I was specifically looking at Antaronda County. I'm sure you know that. And those half days. So, if we could look at I mean, you explained why, but if in further detail see you the difference between what we have and what they have as far as being our ability to um cut those half days. Thank you. Sure. Other board member comments or questions? Okay. Let

054me take one. This is Miss Hen. Yes, Miss Hen. I simply wanted to voice my support for um what Miss Pumprey just suggested in looking at how to eliminate some of the half days as well. Okay. Thank you. Okay. This is the first reader of the proposed 2026 2027 school calendar. The public hearing on the calendars will be held during the next board meeting on Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 during the public comment agenda item with the second reader and consideration of the calendars on Monday, November 4th, 2025, but we have some things that'll be brought back. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the report on local, state, and federal funding and responsibilities. And for that, I call on Dr. Grim and Mr. Tantliff. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair

055Harvey, Miss Charlie Green, members of the board. I'm here with Mr. with Tantliff, executive director of fiscal services, and we're here this evening to provide uh just a a basic report on local, state, and federal funding and responsibilities related to it. Wait, you want to end the clicker? You want to drive? That's good. So, this first slide um basically out outlines our sources of funding. And it's important to note that the board is fiscally dependent on the entities that are shown here. And really, it's the state, county, federal, and and other sources of income. It's also important to note obviously that the board has no authority to levy any taxes. That's not the board's responsibility nor their authority. The two graphics that are here on this slide also show our FY26 adopted budget in millions

056and the percentages associated with that and where the those monies come from. Um you can see in that table and at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Gant. Thank you. Sorry. Um hi. Here you can see uh our primary sources of revenue um county, state, federal and other uh this is for all uh the entire budget so includes capital operating grants etc. 52.4% from the county. The county uh provides a lot of our capital as well as our maintenance of effort in the uh general fund and a um uh also uh they do the bond issues for uh for capital uh state of Maryland blueprint funds including which is all of our state aid. It includes the concentration of poverty grant um funds based on the county city wealth index. So

057the the primary uh driver between the different jurisdictions in Maryland blueprint funding is uh number of children with different attributes, you know, such as students with disabilities, compensatory education, etc. And we'll look at that on a a later slide, but also relative wealth between the counties is a big driver uh between the mix of county versus state revenue. So if you looked across the state, you'd see, for instance, Baltimore County has a lot higher percentage of their revenue from the state, whereas Montgomery County has a much higher percent from uh local government because they're relatively wealthy. Um the federal government's a a pretty small but critical player in terms of our funding. Basically, the title grants and the IDA pass through grant for special education. Of course, uh we had all of the COVID grants

058that we've that now uh have all ended, but they were obviously significant while we were getting them. And then we have a small amount from other which is like interest and our prior year fund balance. I'll talk about uh county or local funding first. Uh you've all heard the term maintenance of effort, especially when we're talking about the operating budget. U maintenance of effort is basically the guaranteed or minimum amount of funding that the county or local government needs to provide for us. Um that is determined by statute. It's not uh flexible or variable. The variable part is our negotiations with the county to uh get above the minimum amount of funding. Uh and you can see it can be supplanted. It can be supplemented by additional funding. um blueprint legislation updated the ma maintenance

059of effort um definition and when you're counting the number of students it it's normally September 30th of the current year determines the the next year's uh minimum funding uh but now we use can use the higher of the current year or a three-year rolling average. We've used a three-year rolling average since that change went into effect postcoid because we've had flat to declining enrollment every year since then. So, a three-year average has come up with a higher student count than using the current year count. You can see on the bottom uh you know the basic calculation of how we got our 2026 maintenance of effort. We had 106 a little over 106,000 eligible students. And eligible is different than the number you're very familiar with with our overall enrollment of about 110,000 students. And that

060an eligible student is just K through 12. So it excludes uh preK uh and some other students came out to 961,000. The county ended up giving us 34 million above that which was 3.5% above maintenance of effort or 3% above the prior year. And the reason those numbers are different is because our maintenance of effort was actually 5 million below prior year because of our declining enrollment. So if the county gave us the bare minimum, they would have given us 5 million less this year than we got last year. And that's actually been the case the last few years again because of the declining enrollment situation. Uh this is a pretty busy chart but uh this is all the different tranches of state aid. A number of these probably most of them you've heard the

061terminology foundation program compensatory education special ed multilingual learners etc. Uh but these are all laid out in the blueprint legislation and each one of them has a unique formula. Each one of them has a specific per pupil amount and that's the same across the state and it's times the number of children with those different attributes as I was mentioning earlier. So foundation is our entire pool of eligible students. Compensatory education is basically the students that would qualify for free and reduced uh lunch. Special ed students with disability. Multilingual is uh kids with um English as a second language and you can see uh so on and so so on going down uh the chart prek now for the first time with blueprint uh for full day students that are tier 1 and two which is

062basically povertydriven or students with disability and multilingual learners all uh qualify only if they're in a full day prek. And that's why there's been such a push to convert half days and all of our new preks are all full day because if you have a half day prek, it never qualifies for funding. And that's also why prek is not in the total pool. Earlier I talked about eligible students. So historically, we didn't get any money for prek. Now we do. They're not in the core formula, but it's, you know, think of as an add-on just for those eligible pre kindergarten students. Full day tiers one and two. Um and then you can see career ladder uh and some of the other uh buckets of money we get from the state. uh special revenue when we

063use that term refers to grants at BCPS. Other uh places the county uses that term a little differently, but almost half of our special ed money goes to our uh title one grant and our IDA pass through grant and those are the most well-known, the ones we talk about the most. And historically we didn't get any uh restricted money from the state. But now concentration of poverty which actually uh is more dollars and significantly more schools in title one since concentration of poverty has come into effect and expanded. It's actually 28% of our uh overall special revenue. It used to be pretty much nothing from the state in terms of special revenue. Uh, title one basically provides supplemental funding in schools with high concentration or the highest poverty schools. We have 77 title one schools

064this year versus 110 concentration of poverty schools. And COP uh I think you all know has been growing just really rapidly over the last few years. And then our IDA pass through grant is supplemental funding for students with disabilities. So most of our money for special ed comes in the general fund, but we also get some significant pass through grants. And then just a little on uh fiscal controls, which for the most part have to do with uh expenditures and spending money. And we're mostly just uh kind of talking about revenue tonight, but we've had 26 uh full fiscal audits since 2020. So we are heavily audited. uh grants are all except for concentration of poverty all the federal grants are reimburseable which means we don't get any of the funds until we've documented and

065spent the money. So it's after the fact uh we get reimbursed. So our grtors are scrutinizing everything we turn in to make sure everything is up to snuff before they reimburse us. Um the spending plan for all grants is preapproved. any changes have to be submitted versus an amendment. So, uh grants are very tightly controlled. Um there's a lot of collaboration regarding grants both internally and with our uh grantors. Uh spending authority is just kind of shifting gears a little. Spending authority is the maximum uh that we can spend on a contract. The board of course every month is approving new contracts. Some are one year, some are up to fiveyear. But spending authority is the total amount we can spend on uh that vendor with that specific um on that specific contract. But that

066doesn't mean you can spend that much in a given year. And we've had numerous discussions uh about this over the years. But regardless of how much is on the contract, the money has to be budgeted in that current year in order to spend money against that contract. And that's up to each office, etc. to to budget that money. Um the we have an appropriation limit for every office, every school. And so our systems will control and stop spending once you've gone over that uh maximum amount that's in your appropriation that's in the budget. Um and then even with PECards, we have a limit um $5,000 per month and $10,000 for a PC card with lower limits uh for each transaction. So, that concludes uh our presentation for myself and Dr. Grim tonight. We'd be happy

067to answer any questions you might have. And before we before we do that, I I was I was looking Mr. Tatliff was on a roll. Uh slide six, when we when we look at that those cop numbers, those are the community schools. So, I think some of you were some of you were were questioning where where those schools were when we were talking about grant funding. It's those community schools that have grown so significantly the last couple years and that's part of that funding bucket. Thank you for that. Um board member questions or comments? Mr. McMillian. Tantliff. I never have understood paying somebody in a rears and I don't want to get into that. But is that related to the interest piece down the bottom? Do we do that because we're acrewing interest as we're

068holding on to that money before we actually release it to the employee? Uh that's certainly not part of the decision process. we automatically get one sixth of our state money every other month. So when it comes in, it's kind of sitting in the bank. Uh the county funding comes as needed. It's not on a specific schedule. So that interest is just um mostly state money that we're getting, you know, a couple months in advance. It could since it's automatic, but like if you think about it, in the summer we're spending very little money, but we're still getting our first state payment. So that's gaining a lot of interest uh over the summer. So paying in a rears has uh you know theoretically that would generate a little amount of interest. We never looked at that,

069talked about it or considered it. The you know the basic reason for a rears is to uh add more accuracy to the pay because uh your pay date ends and then there's two weeks to process it. before if you're paid to date that means if you put in leave today it doesn't get processed till the next pay period so it it will help I know there's you know some bumps and bruises with startup um as we've gone to a rears just in conjunction with the new payroll system for some of our employees many were in a rears already um but that has nothing to do with the interest it's not a consideration it's ultimately to make the pay more accurate thank you thank you other questions or comments Miss Stleski, thank you. Thank you for

070the presentation. Um, if you could briefly speak with the um the 26 fiscal audits um I guess differentiating which ones are internally audited versus some kind of external non-in excuse me non-involved partners. Sure. Thank you. Uh the the 26 is only talking about external audits either from the state or our federal partners. There's a whole uh and it includes uh every year we have our books uh audited by our our external audited auditor CLA. They also do a single audit every year which is an audit on our grants. Then our grantors have audits. Uh the states done a couple of concentration of poverty grants. We have annual MSDE audits of our blueprint funding. So there's a a list which we could get to you if you'd like but that doesn't refer to anything internal audit

071may do or any of their projects. This is all external audits um or department of legislative services which is probably the most well-known one but those happen about every 5 years and they they all take a tremendous effort to uh provide all the documentation required get together with our auditors um and you know most of them take many months some over a year to complete. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Just um Miss Demanowski. Yes. Um could we go to slide five where you have um under uh prek public tier one pre prek public tier 2. I just noticed that you have a subtotal there but we don't really have the exact state share. Is that um see could someone pull up that presentation again? Smile. I don't know if you can see it.

072Side five. I don't have it without my glasses. Sherm Stman asking what's your question about the I just I'm I'm curious as to there's a subtotal for prek but it we don't have like the breakdown of where we're getting the money from. I guess how much share of that's the state share for so the larger number you can see almost all of it's from tier one. Tier one uh is children that come from families that are 300% and below uh of the poverty level. students with disability and ML students in full day classrooms. Tier 2 is just a lower level of poverty. But we don't get that we're not getting that full 27 or 20 almost 28 million. That's our budget. That's the state amount in the budget. Oh, that's the state. So then what

073is that's the total program. So then what do you what's uh the I'm sorry. So the part in yellow Yeah. is what our state funding is. the total um is the total blueprint formula and the the difference is the mandatory local funding towards that. Most counties including Baltimore County use the old formula for maintenance of effort because it's a higher amount of money but because of the way blueprint was set up so the calculations are based on a grand total and then basically based on wealth they split the county versus state portion. So we're not showing it all there because it would just make the slide too busy. But there would be another column that would be mandatory local funding. But maintenance of effort, the the slide we showed before this is actually a higher

074amount than this. And that's true for most jurisdictions, but over time in the coming decade, the formula may flip at some point and maintenance of efforts. for the minimum local funding uh will become more potentially than the calculation that we do now for maintenance of effort. But the important part there is using the formula the yellow bar is what state aid equals this year. That's how much the state will be giving us to both to our public to correct to our like that's the state share that goes to BCPS. Yes. Okay. And that was all general fund money on that slide. This is all general fund. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hen. Miss Hen, did you still have a question? Oh, I did. Sorry, I was on mute. I apologize. Um, good evening,

075Mr. Tantle. Hi. Hi. I had a question about audits. You had mentioned the DLS audit. Were you referring to the OA audit originally scheduled? I I believe was that supposed to start this fall or this past spring? Uh right now I believe it's scheduled for April. It had been delayed from the fall due to the um startup of the Oracle project. Okay, great. So it is scheduled to start spring of 26, correct? Yes. Great. Do we um know the scope for that as of now? Has that been provided by DLS? I don't believe we received any of that. It's too far in the future. Um, so not not that I'm aware of. Okay. So I I was curious as to whether the scope would remain the same or with the implementation of the ERP if

076they were changing that given um the ERP. So had they provided us the scope prior to us requesting the extension? Do you know? Uh I would need to check on that for sure. I I don't know for sure whether they have not that I know of, but I would have to double check that. Okay. And and a followup to that question. Um given the the impact or the um significance of us implementing the ERP, do you know if they routinely conduct audits when an LEA would have um such a major transition of financial systems? Is that something that's considered routine or that they would consider when defining the scope? Um, I think there's there uh timetable is based on years and when we are due for the audit. So, they're not considering uh whether we're

077doing an implementation. I think in this case we requested the delay so that we would be further into the implementation uh and we'd have a little more free time for you know to it would be less stressful I guess to provide all the information the auditors need. We we also are aware that that some of the information that they will want and some of what their audit will do will change as we transition um into the the new ERP. So when we communicated that with the state, uh they agreed that it would be better for us to look at the new processes since if they were commenting or providing feedback on the old processes that may have been um that that that would be more beneficial um in growing both parties. Absolutely. Thanks Dr. Graham.

078um is is that something we could request and in other words voluntarily that at the conclusion of all of the phases of the ERP implementation, can we ask them to return and look at our processes since so many are changing for the for the better, but to to look at that in any particular areas we would like guidance on as a special audit that's off schedule. So, we we have the 5-year cycle as as Mr. Tantliff mentioned, that's a routine process, right? But for something that's so significant and so transformational to an LEA, um especially one the size of ours, um can we ask the state to come in and say, "Okay, we just completed this huge implementation. It touches everything under operations." um if they don't ask you know to do that is that

079something that we can request Miss Hen we are more than happy to explore any request uh we'd like to I I don't think the gentleman at the table have that experience but certainly uh we will work with Dr. Rogers and provide an update to the board. Okay. I I think that would be uh beneficial and I know that the OA does conduct special um audits from from time to time under um special circumstances. So that is something that that I feel would be worthwhile exploring. Thank you. Thank you. Any last comments, Miss Fong. Um and so again I kind of I guess based on what Miss Hen was saying understanding you guys may not have the answers to this question. Um but my question actually goes back then to the um external audits and we

080spoke about annually that our books are audited. Is that done regardless of what our implementation system is? Uh yes, we have uh external auditors that we pay to do our certifi our certified annual audit. They'll come and present that to audit committee and the board the results of that. Um it's distributed in a book called the actur. It used to be called the caffer. Uh but that's our annual financial report and then they also always do a single audit which they pick different grants to do a deep dive on each year. So that happens every year those two audits by our external auditors Clifton Larson no matter what. So um for next year for the next time that that audit needs to be done it's not going to matter whether or not we're under still

081whether there's been full implementation of ERP or not. We're still going to still get that consistent financial oversight with that one. Correct. Because regardless of when you go live with the system, one either our old system or the new system for that year is the system of record that the audit is done on. Okay. Miss Deonowski had one quick followup. You said we hire the external audit auditor each each time we have an external audit. Uh we use the same uh group each year. I'd imagine occasionally we put it out for bid, but Clifton Larson's been doing they're a major local regional auditor and they've been doing audits for years. So essentially we we pay for them to audit us. How much do you think it costs us for each time they audit? Um I

082believe we spend a couple hundred thousand a year. I'd have to get the exact amount. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the report on the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment, Misa. And for that, I call on Dr. Jones and Mr. Connelly. Good evening, Bo Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, and um Miss Charlie Green, and members of the board. We are here to share information regarding what we consider to be the MISA and the results of the same. I'm here with one of my colleagues, Mr. Kevin Connley, and he's going to get us started. Great. You pass me. Thank you so much. Good evening. This evening, we're going to talk about our MISA 5, MISA 8, and our LS Misa assessments. Um,

083it's all part of the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment, which is what MISA stands for, and it's given in fifth grade, eighth grade, and in high school. Science proficiency is one measure of the academic progress indicator for the Maryland school report card. Um, MSD publicly released the MISA results on August 26th, 2025. For the MISA 5, MISA 8, and LS Misa, the percent proficiency of is used to determine points earned for a portion of the academic progress indicator on the Maryland school report card. For grade five, that includes five points. For grade 8, it's 3.5 points and for high school, it's five points. Please note that for MISA 5, the uh assessment actually includes science content for grades 3, four, and five. For MISA 8, it includes science content for grades six, seven, and eight. And

084for LS Misa, it includes the life science standards, which are biology. And passing the course is also a graduation requirement. Okay, looking at the results for our students, we're proud to show consistent growth, statistically significant improvement for our students that in many ways has been unprecedented over the last decade in BCPS. Um, when we look at our MISA 5 scores over the last two years, we have a 2.3% increase for our students. So you can see in relationship in that third or fourth column is the Maryland percent proficient. Um for MISA 8 we're demonstrating a 5.1% increase over two years. And for LS Misa we're demonstrating a 6.4% increase in student proficiency. Great. I'd also like to highlight um how we're doing across our student groups. This is the MISA 5 results based on um

085all students as well as race ethnicity student groups and students who receive special services. Of particular note when you look at the all student growth of 2.3% proficiency from last year to from two years ago to last year. I'd like to call out the economically disadvantaged student group which had a 4.5% increase in proficiency almost double what all students had done. Closing gaps is a critical part of sustainable growth and achievement for the MISA 8 assessment. Again, same chart. We can look at all students proficiency as well as by race, ethnicity student groups and related special service student groups. Once again, you can see for the all group that grade 8 had a change rate of 5.1% increase in proficiency. And I'd like to call out again our economically disadvantaged student group. Students who are

086receiving those services had a 6.9% increase in their MISA 8 proficiency. for LS Misa. Again, that's a high school assessment. We can see that the all student group had a 6.4% increase in student proficiency. And I'd like to call out two um student groups that received special services. Our economically disadvantaged student group had a 10.9% increase in proficiency rate and our multilingual learner student group had a 6.2% increase in proficiency rate. Additionally, you can take a look at school level results um broken down and disagregated by by student groups such as we've displayed today at the Maryland school report card for all state for all schools across the entire state of Maryland. At this point, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Raquel Jones who will share with us some science content updates. Yes,

087thank you. We are excited about our um our growth and our progress as it relates to um MISA and just instruction and teaching and learning overall with um science in grade 5 and then of course um science in our secondary schools. And we worked very closely last year um and intentionally worked very closely with CNI and staff in CNI to make sure that we did not experience the same results as we previously as we previously had. So on the screen it talks about the content updates and we just really had a renewed focus on teaching and learning as it relates to elementary and secondary instruction. Um the goals of the science office were to build teacher capacity to effectively integrate the three dimensions of science into instructional delivery. And then the second one was to

088focus on closing proficiency level gaps which Mr. Connelly discussed between student groups specifically for students receiving special education services, multilingual learners and um students who fall into that economically disadvantaged category. Our efforts were to really think about um the work that we did in comparison to the state and what um I did along with my team in the department of schools which I'm really proud of and excited to work with. We looked at the data and the data the MISA 5 data for 2324 um highlighted that West Talson Elementary School was number one in the state as it related to science proficiency for MISA which was 79.7% and Timmonium was number four in the state um with a proficiency rate in 23 24 of 72%. And what we did was go on kind of like

089a learning tour if you will. We visited those schools as a team and we sat and with the principal um the principal of course of West Talson, Jason Barnett and then Laura Brown of Timmonium. They opened up their schools to us and really allowed us to sit in the seat of the learner. And so we visited classrooms, we talked to teachers, CNI staff joined us. um we started really thinking about how can we improve um scores just across the board and how can we really provide science instruction which we know is very important for our youngest learners. We also we also went to Westchester with Phil Buyers as the principal. Um and the the teacher that we visited there had the third highest performing scores in BCPS with 76% and then the ninth um highest

090performing um scores there as well. And the teachers were very open to talking with us. We met with the instructional leadership teams. And what we found in talking with principles and working with CNI staff is that unfortunately in some areas, science was not being taught. It was not being taught to some of our um most vulnerable populations. If you notice some of the schools that we were able to name, we wanted to make sure that we added more to the group. And so in meeting with the the EDS and the science um office, we came up with a document, a one pager called science and BCPS elementary expectations. and we just talked about how much time should be allotted, what does it look like for um you know prek through five and then of course

091our secondary schools and as a result as Mr. Connelly said we were able to make some gains. So based on the scores that he just shared um Ryderwood bec was number two in the state with 83.3% Pinewood number three 78.2% West Talson again ranked number eight um and and made the top 10 with 72.6% 6% and Timmonium um came in um 10th in the state at 69.7%. So we we just are determined to make sure that our students get everything that they um that they need. And at the secondary level, we're very proud of Sparrows Point Middle School. Um they grew from 17.1% to 30.7% and then Parkville Middle School 18 to 31.5%. So again, our department of schools executive directors, myself as the chief of schools, we also make sure that not only are

092we delivering highquality support to schools, but we know that our schools are places for us to learn and we engaged in that plan, do study act cycle, which gave us the um results that we're seeing now. And we are going back out again um this year to make sure that we continue to make sure that equitable services and instruction is provided to not only just um our students who are in some of our um pockets of schools but all schools and thank you. We'll entertain any questions you may have. Thank you. Um I know that when I visited schools last year, principles were eager to describe the um shifts or the efforts they were making in science. So obviously the work that your team has done with the principles has really paid off. So um

093looking forward to next year's but um other questions and comments from board members. Miss Pumprey. Thank you so much for your presentation. Also thank you for explaining how you went into our top performing school figure out how we can use that in in other schools. I just I was a little disturbed by your comment that science was not being taught. How like how does that happen? And how do we not have science being taught in schools? Well, this is what I I think happens in all fairness. I do think um there are competing demands and there are so many things that we are trying to kind of capture within the instructional day that in some of our conversations with our school leadership teams, um ELA may have been prioritized in some schools over science. It

094just really um took a backseat, if you will. Um and so we just had to make sure that it it is continuing to rise to the forefront. Um I don't think it was done intentionally but we began to ask questions around the instructional minutes that were allotted and we noticed that in some cases um it was not sufficient for our learners but our principles were very vulnerable very open to our conversations and just shared some of the challenges and then we provided some of the supports. Thank you. I know that one principal said to me honestly that they um moved science to first thing in the morning because it was getting short changed at the end of the day because teachers needed more time for reading or math and all of a sudden they realized

095they had no time. So some of them really made that concerted effort to put it first so that it was not getting short. Absolutely. And that was one of our strategies to really look at the master schedule and come up with ways to make sure that um each subject received its um proper amount of allot a allotted hours and a loted minutes. Other questions or comments, Miss Alleski? Thank you. Thank you for all your hard work. Um, I just have a question about um I guess it's like the focus on investigation. So, with the schools that you mentioned, obviously they're excelling at a high rate and there's a lot of physical materials that you need for science. So with like resource allocation, is it like fair to say that all of the schools in the

096county have access to the scientific materials that they need and it's just a matter of changing the approach or is the resource allocation still different um between different schools? It's a great question. It's one of the things that we study because that was one of the first things we wanted to kind of, you know, test. All schools do have access to the curriculum materials that CNI offers. I think it's about professional development which was on the screen. How are we using those materials? How are we making sure that teachers are equipped to um follow the curriculum in a way that the materials enhance every every lesson. Um and so yes, to answer your question, you know, very succinctly, yes, all schools have access to the materials. It's just making sure that everyone understands how to

097you utilize them and capitalize them on a in a way that all students can benefit from the teaching and learning experience in science. Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Frong. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. So, Mr. Connley, when you were on or when the presentation was on slide four, you spoke about the results being statistically significant. So can you speak to like what does that mean? How do we determine that something is statistically significant versus not statistically significant? That's a great question and it really does change based on the type of assessment that you're giving. So statistical significance for norm reference tests you are much easier to predict because they're also studied to give the standard deviation of error. So you can say okay this is what the error rate would be and this is

098what our performance was and our growth. So you can compare the two and say that's statistically significant, but that's not the case for a criterion referenced assessment such as their MCAP assessments, which means that they're based on standards rather than comparisons of norms. And so when we look at statistical significance and improvement and growth, we look at our own performance over time, but we also look at our performance in comparison to the state. And then we also look at student group performances over time. So one of the things that I really wanted to highlight, um, and thanks to Dr. Dr. Jones and her team for really showing us what was happening behind the scenes was that we were able to invest extensive time and effort in professional development and science instruction for schools that may

099not have had that same level of rigorous science instruction in the past and the greatest impact that it had was at our students who are economically disadvantaged. Thank you. Welcome. And then the other piece um you started talking about the closing gaps and so when I look at slides five and slide six in particular I was able to kind of do some numbers and some math on that. I didn't get a chance to do it for um the high school. But for example um for slide five we have our student groups. And real quick, we have two student groups um that are missing and that's our American Indian and our um Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders that we didn't put in there. So, I just wanted to ask about that real quick before I ask my

100questions. It is a very small student group with um rapid changes in populations from one year to the next. So, it's not good practice to compare very small student groups to each other because it can have such a a wide flux in performance from one year to the next. But we do look at all students in every school when we're talking about instruction, assessment, and teaching and learning. Okay. Because we did see it in for MCAP, we were able to see all of those student groups. So, we just I guess is it depending on ELA and Yeah, it's a larger sample size when we're looking at ELA and math versus science because it's only tested in three grade levels. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Um, and did we have this may be more for Dr.

101Jones before I come back to you, Mr. Connelly, did we have targets for um these groups? Because I see where it says all of them increased in proficiency, but did we actually have targets or goals that we were trying to reach? So, honestly, no, we did not. We for science, and I'm speaking about the department of schools, we did not have um we did not set targets for science this year. This year we are looking at um individualized um school goals and what are realistic increases um working with the the department of research and assessment um and then working of course with our director of school performance. But at that time no we actually set out to be kind of learners and do some action research just around improving science instruction. And um these are

102the results that kind of came back as a you know I guess as a result of all of our work with schools. But we did not start out thinking we we wanted to improve by this much. We just wanted to make sure that teaching and learning was happening at a high quality and in consistent spaces throughout our our county. Thank you. Okay. So back to I think this will be for Mr. Connley. um when we talk about the gaps and Dr. Jones feel free to chime in as well. Um but when we start talking about the gaps and I see where um we are able to see the percent changes on slides five slide six and also the other one but I'm going to speak to for slides five and six just because I was

103running numbers. So even though we see increases in seven out of the eight groups, when you look at the differences between the all number and um the group, we actually see that there are some in increases in a negative way. So let me explain what I'm what I mean. So if we look for example at slide five and you see Hispanic Latino there's a 10.3 for the 23 24% proficiency and we increase to 11.2 for but overall we increased from 21.2 to 23.5. So if you look at that gap between the Hispanic proficiency and 2324 it's at -10.9. is like 10.9% below. But then when you go to 2425 school year with that 0.9% increase in their numbers, their decrease between the all and their group in particular became -2.3. So that's what I mean

104when I talk about an increase. And that is true for our multilingual learners, our special education, um, Hispanic and Latino. So can you just kind of speak I guess to those gaps and then Dr. Jones, I guess if there's if you can talk about the work um that we're doing as well to again that targeted help for some of our um missong more vulnerable populations. Thank you. Right. So, so uh what we're looking at is you know what's the one-year change for all students as you pointed out and then how is are each student group performing in relationship to that one-year change which helps us to really fine-tune the work that we do in schools, in the classrooms and and with our communities. Um there are many examples of growth that is at that level.

105They're all moving in a positive direction which is which is wonderful. But basically what you want to do over time is if we have a growth rate happening at this level for all students, we want to see a growth rate level that's accelerated for our student groups. So examples of that from slide five would include anyone whose performance in that one-year change was above 2.3. On slide six, it would be any student groups whose one-year change was above 5.1. And for LS Misa, since we didn't get a chance to talk about that, I'll take a moment to talk about that. The all student growth was 6.4% proficiency, but we saw closing the gaps for our black and African-American students. We saw closing the gaps for multiple races. We saw closing gaps in our white population.

106We saw closing gaps in our economically disadvantaged population. And we saw almost the exact same amount of increased growth for our multilingual learners. You might have to phone a friend, Miss Perfong. Okay. Or that. Okay. Thank you. Um, any last questions or comments? Miss Pumprey, can I just make a fun comments? We have a little bit of time. Um, I noticed your photo of Starlab and I just wanted to mention when my kids said Starlab, we had I practically had to crawl on my hands and knees to get into that equipment and last year I visited elementary school that so happened to have Starab at that time. I was so excited and it's so much easier to walk into now and I'm also very grateful that our students have access to those opportunities. It is

107great. Hands-on learning is a fantastic opportunity through our science curriculum. It is. And it's a lot of fun watching the children learn and explore. Yeah. Thank you. So you don't have to crawl in anymore. Okay. Thank you for that comment. All right. Thank you for the presentation and and the work of your teams. Thank you all. Have a nice evening. The next item on the agenda is the report on energy and sustainability. And for that I call on Dr. Grim, Mr. Shannon, and Dr. Holocker. Did I get it right? Yep. Okay. Good evening everyone. Good evening again, Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, Miss Charlie Green, members of the board. I'm very excited to be here this evening with uh Mr. Frank Shannon, manager in energy and sustainability, and Dr. Kelly Hollocker, our analyst in energy

108and sustainability. And so, Mr. Shannon and Dr. Holocker uh are truly a small but formidable team. They comprise our entire energy and sustainability team within the office of facility support services and they're going to spend a lot of time sharing with you all the wonderful work that they do. Um, but what I wanted to share with you is is really on this opening slide that provides you some insights into the results of their work. And so you can see just a snapshot of um what we've been able to achieve as a school system in terms of energy and sustainability. And just this week, two of the pending silver lead schools um were announced that we that we did achieve that that status this week. So we're really excited about that. And those were two of

109our opening schools uh last year. So with the budget challenges that we face, uh energy efficiency and promoting awareness is more important than ever. And it's not just about being good stewards of the environment, but demonstrating responsibility and smart environmental and energy choices. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Shannon. Thank you, Dr. Grim. Uh good evening. Uh thank you for giving us the opportunity to showcase what your energy and sustainability team does for the stakeholders of Baltimore County Public Schools. Uh with respect to energy, uh we manage all the utilities, that's natural gas, electricity, fuel, oil, diesel, propane, sewer, and water. This ensures that all of our facilities are ready to go every day for all of our students and our staff members. Um, one topic of conversation that we

110have frequently is the cost of of rising utility rates. Uh, we as a district, we have or we are um we receive preferred pricing on energy due to a regional purchasing power and we intelligently head uh for future commodity costs. What that means to us is we do not pay street rates that we would pay at our house. We are considerably cheaper. Uh we conduct utility analytics to strategically focus on cutting energy waste which allows us to prioritize attention to facilities who use more energy when we compare it to a site of the same size. This also ensures that our schools are operating in an energyefficient way while maintaining the comfortable learning environment and our office environments. Uh last year, as you know, our region has experienced a large utility rate increase, which caused us

111to realize $2.7 million worth of unforeseen cost. Using these analytics and collaboration with other teams, we were able to strategize and implement a plan which completely mitigated this cost uh by cutting our utility consumption. So that is a huge success for this group. We managed three energy performance contracts which financially positioned us to provide muchneeded facility upgrades with no upfront costs and the energy savings that we generate through the upgrades would pay on the term of the energy performance contract. Uh we managed the conversion and installation of more than 750,000 LED light bulbs installed water conservation measures on toilets, faucets and urinals to red reduce our water waste. We provided building envelope and uh insulation improvements. We installed new HVAC systems and upgraded our building automation controls to further make our facilities more energy efficient.

112As a result of these improvements, we have a measured utility cost avoidance of $7.3 million last year. And our environmental impact is just as significant. We were able to avoid about two uh 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases and from a term to date we have been able to avoid 280,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas. To put that into perspective, that would be like you driving from your house to the moon and back 1,500 times when measured at the exhaust of your car. BCPS has two registered solar systems which are producing renewable power in our portfolio. One at Rossville Elementary School and the other at Birkshshire Elementary School. And we are adding a new solar generation plant as part of the Deer Park Elementary School. and that's going to

113be our first net zero emission school. We manage the energy generation portfolio which allows BCPS to generate renewable energy credits to meet lead and green globe standards of environmental stewardship. And BCPS has produced slightly more than one megawatt of energy on our property. If you look to the right on your screen, you will see a picture of Rossville Elementary School. What you're seeing is a solar canopy over an outdoor uh classroom environment, which is a a really neat design. And again, we can generate power and use that as a teaching lesson to our students as well. And now I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Kelly Hollocker to speak about our sustainability efforts. Thanks, Frank. Um so with sustain with regards to sustainability we really act through board policy 3540 energy conservation and sustainability.

114Through this board policy we try to support empower and promote sustainable practices in all of our schools as well as the participation in the Maryland green school program. As Dr. Dr. Grim mentioned in the first slide. Um, our three main initiatives that we promote really have an impact on our operational success in our buildings specifically with food waste awareness. We try to partner strategically with food nutrition nutrition services. That effort is through the cafeteria share tables and reduce waste posters initiative that you heard about in a previous board meeting. um as well as conducting food waste audits in our school to really quantify what is happening in our cafeterias and utilize that in a strategic way. We also have the food waste compost program which started as a small pilot with three schools in 2019

115and has now grown to include 18 schools this school year and has 13 schools on the waiting list to participate. So this is a growing uh program and since its inception it has diverted over 528,000 pounds of food and again with our partnership with with food and nutrition services we have compostable serving trays in all of our schools as well. So that is a significant reduction in our cha trash generation and as you see in the data table on the left we were able to significantly cut the amount of trash bags generated in some of these schools based off their diversion efforts. So this is an incredible impact on our operational success. With regard to energy conservation awareness, we essentially pro promote our energy conservation guidelines as Frank mentioned before as well as best practice

116strategies. Um the picture in the top left is from Kaitensville Elementary School from uh precoid time u for during the pandemic. They had a lights out day which promotes daylighting so reducing the amount of light and just opening up the blinds. So that was a really great way to get the kids involved and see that strategy as well. We also promote recycling awareness um in with our single stream recycling program. It is the same program with Baltimore County government. So we have a fantastic strategic partnership with the government itself to promote this recycling awareness. And since the program has started in BCPS in 2014, we've been able to divert over 21 million pounds of recyclables from the landfill, which again has a significant impact on not only our natural environment, but the operational success of

117our buildings. Um, none of these initiatives could be possible without our strategic and essential partnerships. Um within our own department, we have several offices that we work with specifically um the facilities operations, our facility support services as well. They work with us with recycling, food waste awareness, and our energy conservation efforts as well. Um like I mentioned, food nutrition services is essential, but with we are also expanding our efforts with partnership with curriculum and instruction to try to show that the efforts that we're doing in the facilities are also being taught in the classroom. With regards to the food waste audit, we partnered with the office of science to conduct food waste audits and they actually learn that and use those data in the classroom which is a great way to connect to day-to-day actions.

118Um, I do want to also mention our comm department of communications and community outreach has been a fantastic partnership as well. Specifically with regard to recycling awareness, we've been able to over the last two school years translate our recycling posters from not only just having English, but we now we have them in Spanish, Arabic, Ordo, and Burmese, which has been a significant win for our community engagement and with our multil- language learners. Thanks. Okay. So, our initiatives and our business goals drive various opportunities for stakeholder engagement. We developed many beneficial partnerships with Baltimore County government, uh, Department of Public Works and Transportation and the Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability. This positions BCPS to assist Baltimore County's environmental initiatives and goals as well. We have strong partnerships with other school districts respective energy and sustainability

119teams. Uh these partnerships strengthen our um these partnerships strengthen our relationship with those professionals allowing us to work together regionally which multiplies our efforts here in BCPS. Um our our al our other initiatives that we are pushing with our three main initiatives are more professional development opportunities for our teachers and staff. Specifically, we try to increase our interdep departmental collaboration, as I mentioned before, with food nutrition services and curriculum instruction. We're able to pinpoint areas identified within the curriculum to connect with these practices. That also allows us to provide an annual green schools guide book. This increases our awareness and promotion of these sustainable practices in al in um accordance with the Maryland Green School program to further assist those schools that are looking to become a Maryland green school or reertify with their award.

120We also co-host the annual green school summit with the office of science prek through 12. Again, a fantastic in um essential partnership with our initiatives. Um, this is a annual event that provides more environmental professional development sessions for teachers. again aligning with the Maryland Green School program, but it also has now um increased its opportunities for teachers by adding an exhibitor hall with our summit, which in the last two years has increased um by twofold with all the amount of partners that we've been able to pull from private agencies, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal government agencies to bring opportunities for our teachers and students. We are also increasing our engagement opportunities for students and our stakeholders in the community. We love to get out of the office um and engage with our environmental clubs

121and with our students. We do lots of presentations um and assemblies for students. Um as you see with the picture in the top right of Frank giving a boiler room tour to some of our elementary schools um students. This is a highlight of our of our job. We love to get out there and see the excitement of the kids who never get to go in the boiler room. So, that's a really fun part. Um, we also act actively participate in BCPS Fest every year and it's a fantastic way to engage with our community. And like I mentioned before, the uh recycling posters that were translated, that was a notable effort this year from at least one family of every language stopped at our table because they recognized their language. So, that was a great way

122to engage with the community. Okay. So, I'd like to call your attention to the uh the photos on this page. This is your energy and sustainability team at work with our students and staff and this is what happens when you have collective buyin and Dr. Huller will will go around the slides and explain more. So starting in the top left this picture is from Kenwood High School. Kenwood High School is one of the founding partners of the pilot food waste compost program and this is their established waste station which has become a model for several schools. Um, notably this pilot program did start as a um idea from a 10th grade social studies project that was brought to our attention and we essentially found a way to make it work. So, this is a great

123way to show that this is not just a science lesson. This is a community engagement as well as a civics lesson. Um, underneath that Gunpowder Elementary, that's an example of a no- mo zone that was established in the school. Um, and it's very difficult to see in the picture, but on the very left there's a small white bird house for native birds. So in addition to promoting biodiversity and uh cleaner pra grounds management practices that encourages the uh integration of native birds and more learning for our students. Um top right is Westchester Elementary School. That's a beautiful example of a native butterfly garden that they were able to establish on their grounds. Um they also established an educational sign on the garden itself to further promote community awareness and engagement with our students. And again,

124these wouldn't be possible without these partnerships with the office of facilities construction through the special projects request program. Um bottom right is an example again of our compost program at Lutherville Laboratory. Um that is a student who I believe if I remember correctly, this is during one of my food aits. I believe that's a first grader and autonomously was able to go through this waste separation station and went through trash, liquid, recycling trays, compost all by himself. Um, so this is a really great way to see that our kids can be empowered to do this themselves and learn see the operational success from that. Um, the bottom picture is from Ryderwood Elementary. This is a beautiful, beautiful mural that was established by our art teacher in 2014. And I cannot take any credit for this

125because I would not be able to redo this, but this is a mural completely made out of bottle caps that they recycled collectively as a school and recreated Star Night. Again, a great example of cross collaboration with curriculum where an art teacher was able to take that initiative and integrate environmental awareness. Finally, the top picture in the middle of Maze Chapel Elementary. Again, this was a teacher and uh custodialled initiative to reduce the trash at their school. Essentially, they established one day a week on Fridays as trash free Friday. And for seven weeks that all they did was tally the number of trash bags that they generated in the cafeteria. Through their engagement and outreach efforts over seven weeks, they were able to reduce the number of trash bags from 16 bags to 11 bags

126in one day. And that is just one day and one school which can demonstrate the active engagement and the success from this um these engagement efforts. So this is much more than just dollars and cents. Uh we can all save more energy and save that that dollar, but it's about teaching others, empowering our youth, um encouraging them to reduce energy waste, to recycle more, to compost, and to do the right thing by becoming stewards of the environment. and through all their combined efforts um we can make even more remarkable progress for our students, our staff and our stakeholders of Baltimore County. So, thank you and thank you for that. I think that's the first for presentation on that topic. So, I appreciate it. Um questions or comments from board members? Public charter school. Yes, your

127microphone. Dr. I'm so sorry it's on now. Okay. Thank you for the presentation so far. Um you are familiar with watershed right? Okay. Now is that considered a green school? They are a Mayo green school as well as earning a US green ribbon award. So they have significant awards for environmental awareness but they also are focused on environmental literacy and sustainability in their curriculum. So yes. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Minowski have one. I don't know if this is something that you guys um cover or take care of the air air quality in our schools. Is that something that you guys would oversee or look into? Uh this team is contributo to air quality. Is there you are contributo to air quality. So do we have a method of testing air quality on

128a regular basis in our schools? Like what do we do? What's our process? So we I if if there's a specific concern that we have about regarding air quality um we work through not only uh this group but also facility support services to determine if there's any kind of an issue. Um, sometimes it it it depends on um the the type of HBAC equipment that's that's in the the facility itself um for us to determine what happens. If there's a specific concern, we're happy to look into that. No, it's not specific. I I just was wondering if we had a method of checking our schools on like some kind of regular yearly basis of checking the air quality, you know, before we start school or at the end of the year. like is it something

129that we keep track of at all or do we just do it on a case- by case basis if there's a concern or complaint? Uh yeah, go ahead. Our our office our energy and I'm sorry environmental services team within the office of facility support services. Sorry. Um they do the annual testing and they also do the case by case basis. They do do an annual test. Do when do we do that? I don't have the answer. Okay. If I if there's any way to get that data, that would be that would be great. Thank you. Yes, we can get that information. Okay, anyone else? Me just check my online friends. Okay, we're good. Thank you so much for that presentation. Okay, the next item on the agenda is information which includes the meeting minutes of

130the June 2nd, 2025 Southeast Area Education Advisory Council. In addition to thatformational item, I just wanted to provide some next steps on the vacant position on the board of education. Um, it is important to remember that Miss Booker Dwire was an appointed member of the board. She was not an elected one and she was appointed by Governor Moore. And the Baltimore County School Board Nominating Commission is responsible for the process of filling the vacancy. The board is not responsible for that process or involved in the process. The term of the current nominating commission ends on September 30th, 2025. Therefore, a new commission is currently being selected and appointed by the various agencies and organization as provided by the Maryland Code of Education section 3-2B-03. And that new commission will become effective on October 1st, 2025.

131Once the commission is in place, the commission will provide information that will be posted to the commission's website on their next steps and which usually includes information sessions and application process and submission directions. Next on the agenda is um is board committee updates and agenda setting. And we'll start with policy review committee. Miss Pumprey, thank you. On September 15th, we had our first meeting of the school year. We discussed policies 3210 purchasing guidelines, policy 8130 policy formation, policy 8132, policy manual availability, and policy 8222 superintendent, executive officer, secretary and treasurer. All of these policies are moving forward to the full board um along with some changes which were recommended um by by consensus from uh committee members. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. Um, equity committee. I'm not sure, Miss. Fan Pong is not here.

132If anybody Mr. Young, do you have Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Young. The equity committee had its first meeting um September 18th of the school year. We discussed uh summer professional development and mentoring support for teachers. We did not get through everything on our agenda. Um but our next equity committee meeting is scheduled for October 16th at 4 pm. Um we do have the um meeting with the equity council tomorrow at 5:30. Thank you for that. Um next is curriculum committee. Miss Stleski. Thank you. Our first curriculum uh meeting of the year will be tomorrow at 4:00. So please join us. Some topics that we're going to be looking at include uh middle school level instructional materials and a secondary English language uh update. Thank you. Thank you. Um buildings and contracts back to Mr. Young.

133The next building and contracts committee meeting will be October 6 at 5:00 p.m. Thank you. And our final committee update um is our audit committee and that's Miss Harvey. Thank you, Madam Chair. The next audit committee meeting will be on Tuesday, October 14th at 4:30 p.m. The public can find information on the work of the Office of Internal Audits and Related Policies on the board's I'm sorry, on BCPS uh website. In addition, I would be remiss if I did not address accusations made against me in tonight's public comment. Bosch Ferrron's assertion that I manufactured support of the center of Miss Dominowski is a blatant falsehood. It is insulting not only to me but also to those who took the time to express their opinion by supporting it. To suggest that I somehow fabricated their voices,

134that there is no one in the entirety of Baltimore County who would agree with the censure and express as much is an outrageous attempt to disregard and to silence those voices. Clearly, Bosch Ferron's reckless accusations are salacious and dangerous and are an attempt uh attempted effort to smear my character, mislead the public, and suppress true free speech. And it is reprehensible. Public comment should not be used in this manner. It should be used to help board members make informed choices and seek to affirm the principle that schools ultimately serve the public. Public comment crosses the line into toxicity when it abandons substance for personal attacks, rumors, or harassment as Bosch Veron did during tonight's public comment session. It is toxic when speakers weaponize the forum to spread misinformation to demean individuals or attempt to intimidate

135staff, students or board members as Bosch Ferrron did during tonight's public comment session. Such conduct undermines the purpose of the forum, attempts to silence constructive voices and erodess the respectful environment needed for true democratic debate. It is unfortunate that Boseron chose this route. However, I serve and I will continue to serve with integrity and courage. I appreciate the time. Thank you, Miss Harvey. Next is agenda items. If any board members have a um agenda item they'd like to be considered, you can let me know at this point or you can email me. Um, Miss Pumphrey, based on Miss Old's comments from earlier this evening, as well as emails we received regarding pay issues or the understanding of pay differences and paychecks, I would like to discuss the possibility of periodical periodic oracle implementation reports, including

136whether we have a tracking system for pay issues and how that tracking system is or can be used to implement improvements. Regardless of the number of educators and other staff members who are not receiving their pay or the correct amount, each one of them matters and I think we need to remember the toll in each individual instead of just data numbers which was brought to our attention tonight by another one of our speakers this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Let me just check online. Okay, the last item on the agenda are announcements. The board's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Thank you for joining us tonight. The meeting is now adjourned.