Meeting of the Baltimore County Board of Education - June 10, 2025

001Miss from home, can you hear us? Okay. Yes, I can hear you fine. Can you guys hear me? Good afternoon. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I call to order the meeting of the Board of Education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, June 10th, 2025. This evening's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS online live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV, Xfinity channel 73 and FiOS channel 34. In order to efficiently efficiently conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. May I have a motion to go into close session as permitted by the open meetings act as found in the annotated code of Maryland general provisions article section 3-305 B1 B7 and B9 to discuss the appointment employment assignment promotion discipline demotion compensation removal resignation or performance

002evaluation of appointees employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals. consult with counsel to obtain legal advice and conduct collective bargaining negotiations or consider matters that relate to the negotiations. So move. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. May I have Booker Dwire? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian. Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Donowski? Yes. Miss Hem, Miss Fong, yes. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Chica Kulu, Miss Dleski, yes. Dr. Seavoy, Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Thank Good evening. This is Chairwoman Jane Lter. I now call to order the meeting of the board of education of Baltimore County for Tuesday, June 10th, 2025. I invite you to recite the pledge of

003allegiance to the flag to be led by Miss Chick Koo. We will then have a moment of silence in recognition of those who have served education in Baltimore County to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Tonight's board of education meeting is being broadcast through the BCPS on live live meeting broadcast and on BCPS TV Comcast Exfinity channel 73 and Verizon FiOS channel 34. In order to officially conduct this meeting, all voting items this evening will be done by roll call vote. The f the first item on the agenda is the consideration of the June 10th agenda. Dr. Rogers, are there any additions or changes on tonight's agenda? I'm unaware of any changes. Okay. Hearing none, the agenda

004stands as presented. Next on the agenda is a special order of business recognizing our student member of the board, Miss Unaba Chukalu. At the I'm now Miss Chica Kalu Una Kaloo Igoma Cha Kaloo. At this time could Miss Chica Kaloo join Dr. Rogers and me at the front of the deis. Oh, thank you. Okay, here we are. The following resolution is being presented by the board of education and it reads, "Miss Chica Kaloo has served as the student member of the board of education of Baltimore County with honor and distinction for the 2024 2025 school year, including participation on, this is impressive, the board's curriculum, equity, legislative, and government relations, and policy review committees And Miss Chiga Kaloo's student advocacy journey began in the Western School of Technology and Environmental Sciences African Student Association where

005she served as vice president and collaborated with the peers to support cultural awareness initiatives and further demonstrated her commitment to student voice as a member of the Baltimore County Student Council's student member of the board outreach committee. and she has sought to provide clarity to students on grading and reporting and to demystify board processes and policies through her so social media outreach. And whereas Miss Chica Kaloo has initiated leading lights of BCPS, a platform designed to spotlight and celebrate student leaders from across BCPS, thereby fostering a culture of recognition and inspiration among her peers. And whereas Miss Chiga Kaloo extended her commitment to student advocacy on a national level by serving as the policy director for the national student member of the board association where she collaborated with student leaders from across the country to

006develop and promote student centered education policy and enhance leadership development. And Miss Chica Kaloo is to be commended for bringing honor to this school system as she continues her education at Emory University to major in human health and sociology. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of Baltimore County assembled in regular session on the 10th day of June in the year 2025 expresses to Miss Chica Kaloo its fondest regards and gratitude for her services and be it further resolved that the board here with extends its best wishes to Miss Chica Kaloo for happiness, good health and continued success in future. future endeavors and directs a copy of this resolution to be recorded among the permanent records of the board of education of Baltimore County. Thank you. One second. Fellow board members, I

007move that the board accept resolution 2025-03 in recognition of student member of the board, Miss Chica Kaloo. May I have a second? Second, Pumphrey. All in favor say I. I. I. The motion has passed. Congratulations and thank you for everything you've done with us this year. Thank you guys. Okay, congratulations again. We'll still get to hear from you in a little while. The next item on the agenda is personnel matters. And for that, I call on Mr. McCall. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Like the board's consent for the following personnel matters this evening. Tonight, we have retirements, resignations, leaves, central area education advisory council appointment. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel matters as presented in exhibits E1 through E4? So

008move Stleski. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Young. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Ham? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Yes. Miss Chica Kulu. Yes. Miss Dleski. Yes. Miss Lter. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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. Oh, I'm sorry. Went one too far. The next item on the agenda is administrative appointments. And for that I call in Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, and members of the board. I am bringing forward the following administrative appointments

009for your approval. Executive Director Fiscal Services, Department of Fiscal Services, Principal, Lock Raven High School, Principal Oakley Elementary School, Specialist, Secondary Mathematics, Senior Operations Supervisor, Office of Facility Support Services. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel matters as presented in exhibit F1? So moved. Harvey. Do I have a second? Second. Chica Ku. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Humphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Chica Kulu? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Miss Lter. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Our first appointment this evening is Jennifer Martinez. Please stand to be recognized. Jennifer Martinez is attending this evening with her husband, Juan Martinez, and is

010being appointed and is being appointed as the principal at Lock Raven High School. With 26 years of BCPS experience, Jennifer's previous experiences include home and economics teacher at Middle River Middle School, health education teacher at Lanstown High School, physical education teacher at Western School of Technology, and assistant principal at Western School of Technology and Lock Raven High School. Congratulations to you. Next appointment this evening is Chester Saunders. Chester, please stand to be recognized. Chester is attending with his wife, Briana, and is being appointed as the principal at Oakley Elementary School. With seven years of BCPS service, Chester's prior experiences include elementary teacher at Japa View Elementary School, assistant principal at Pinewood Elementary and Vincent Farm Elementary Schools. Prior to that, Chester was an elementary teacher with Clark County Public Schools. Congratulations, [Applause] Next appointment this

011evening is Matthew Stimple. Matthew uh will not be attending this evening. However, he is being appointed as the senior operations supervisor contract maintenance in the office of facility support services with one year of BCPS experience. He previously served as the senior facility inspector in the office of facilities uh support services. Prior to that, he served in the private sector, including the Maryland Army National Guard, uh the United Dominion Realy Trust, and Harford Community College. Congratulations to Matthew Stimple. Our next appointment is here this evening, Whitney Tantliff. Please stand to be recognized. He is attending with his wife. You can also please stand to be recognized. Dora Tantliff and son Gavin Tantliff. Wit is being appointed as the executive director of fiscal services in the department of fiscal services with 10 years of BCPS experience. His

012prior experiences include director of budget and reporting in the office of budget and reporting. Prior to that, he served as operations department head in the United States Navy. Thank you for your service. Procurement specialist, uh, director of sales finance and budget director in Baltimore City Public Schools, and director of finance with Maryland Transit Administration and Baltimore City Health Department. Congratulations. Final appointment for the evening is Allison Zayn is attending with her husband Charles Zayn and is being appointed as the specialist in secondary mathematics in the office of mathematics. With 22 years of experience, Allison's prior experience includes math teacher at Harford High School and staff development teacher at Fifth District Elementary and Herford High School. Congratulations [Applause] Thank you. Now, our next item is public comment. This is one of the opportunities the board provides

013to hear the views and receive the advice of community members. If not selected to address the board, members of the public may submit their comments to the board members via email at boebcps.org. The Baltimore County Police Department's Homeland Security Unit and Office of School Safety has recommended safety and security protocols, which are posted in the boardroom and available in board docs and on the board's participation by the public 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 dispromotes violence against a BCPS employee or that disrupts

014or interferes with the conduct of this meeting are out of order and will not be tolerated. Persons who otherwise disrupt or disturb this meeting will not be allowed to continue their remarks and will be escorted from the meeting. Please observe the three-minute clock which will let you know when your time is up. The microphone will be turned off at the end of your time or prior to that time at the discretion of the board chair. It is the practice of the board to allow elected officials to provide their comments to the board. First to speak is delegate mascll who I believe is virtual. Okay. Good evening. Can you all hear me? Yes. Good evening, delegate. Perfect. Well, good evening. For the record, I am delegate Althia McCascal. First, I want to congratulate all the appointments

015for this evening. Now, I want to just thank Superintendent Dr. Miriam Rogers and the board president um Licar and VP Harvey and all the school board members for your hard work and support of our teachers and our students and family members of Baltimore County. I want to take a few minutes to speak about working together on a federal, state, and local level during these tough economic times and staying focused on our children. I'm lending my voice and support as a state delegate for BCPS, students, teachers, staff, bus drivers, building maintenance workers, and everyone who plays a role in educating our children. I just completed a legislative session that was one of the most challenging sessions I have had since I've been a part of the MGA. This fiscal reality of Maryland state that we're facing

016along with federal cuts that has negatively impact everyone across this nation has been extremely difficult. In the state legislature, we face $3 billion deficits that require extremely tough decisions to be made to balance our state budget, which is a mandate from our state charter. coupling with the federal cut local counties challenging revenue forecast and budget shortfalls created a perfect budgetary and fiscal storm that we have all inherited. We are in an uncharted water territory and must remain steadfast, united and focused on our fidiciary responsibilities as fiscal stewards of our children and families. These unprecedented and challenging times require all of us to work collaboratively, be creative in seeking common ground on which we all stand for. Now, as a state legislator and a partner with you all, I want to encourage everyone to keep in

017mind the main thing that this is all about educating our students and providing a 21st century learning environment that is second to none. Remember, our academic e excellence is our northstar. We definitely have unprecedented fiscal and budgetary challenges that we must all face head on now in this time as we're looking at everything through both lens and make our decisions based on students, staff, and families. Please keep in mind that BCPS does not generate its own funds. some of the sentiments that I've been hearing as a legislator is not being directed to the correct entity and we cannot afford to cut jobs um in the classrooms. Dr. Rogers and school board members continue to build and renovate new schools, continue to oversee the operations and policies that guide our school system, and continue to work

018with all stakeholders during our very difficult times. Our academics are trending in the right direction. I'm so excited to hear and after then this is after years of decline. Now is not time to pull back but it's time to lean in and build on our academic excess. So with the hard work and dedication of our amazing teachers, principles, cafeteria workers, staff, PBWs, psychologist, SRO, and I know I'm forgetting someone. and all the many dedicated workers um who deserve to be recognized. I just want to let you know that I salute you. So, let's continue to work together to attain the ultimate goal, which is ensuring every child, regardless of zip code, receives a worldclass education. And I pledge to you on the state side to continue to work collaboratively with all our colleagues to ensure

019adequate funding for the blueprint that remains intact and that we get through this troubled waters together. in which difficult decisions will have to be made. So, in closing, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity and I thank each and every one of you for your awesome job and your dedication to support um our students and our families of BCPS. Thank you very much for your comments. Absolutely. Our next elected official who is in the audience is Delegate Pestor. Good evening. Welcome. And I want to uh thank superintendent, members of the board, particularly the board chair, vice chair, and thank you for a really tough year. Little point of privilege here because I'm really want to talk to my people. I thought I had this together until I came into this room. I

020want to talk this way. May I? And I'mma do it without this microphone. I really thought I had this together and knew what I wanted to say because I am not just a union person. I am a Tabco person. And I'm so proud of Tabco for standing up whether the money is there or not. You didn't fold. You've been right out here to fight for your jobs and fight for our children because we can't give our best to our children without being treated as if we are the professionals that we are. So, I come here with a real strange heart tonight because I am a fighter and I believe in saying what needs to be said. But I have to agree in one thing that Delegate McCascal said, and that is that fight needs to

021go to the courthouse. They need to hear from the county executives office that they can't lock off money that they can't say we're putting it here wherever here is and what other here is supposed to do without letting us and I say us know where that money is going. I I am happy that the bar other agent bargaining groups are standing with you but have said we'll wait until January. And I'm thankful that they found and dug and moved around money so that you can get it because we deserve you deserve we deserve we deserve we deserve the very very best because we're taking care of our very best. Now, I came I'm in a conference at in in Buoie. So, I came up because I didn't want to call to do this. Maybe I

022should have called instead of doing this, but it was this important for me to stand here in my dress that looks like a summer picnic like Azie and Harriet or somebody. But it was that important to come up and look at you and say, "Thank you for the willingness to fight, but don't let the fight stop here." That fight has to be told not just in this part but in Annapolis to come to us and make sure we understand what our responsibilities are not just for Baltimore County but for all leas in this state. We cannot continue to treat our educators and the bus drivers and the cafeteria folks and all of the all of the people who support us at Paris just like we're throwaway. But guess what? It is an election year and

023everybody's going to want that apple. I'm not going to lie. I want that apple. They going to all want that apple and they will not tell the truth. They will play games to get that apple. And when it's all said and done, we won't hear about education again until the next election cycle. And I get accused all the time of just talking about education. But if we don't take care of our systems and our children, then nothing that we do in Annapolis or DC will ever make a difference because we will be raising a bunch of miscreants, people who don't understand the importance of democracy, who don't understand the importance of education. So, I'm asking you, yes, to know that this board has worked to try to find that money and they put the money

024down. Nobody would make a promise just so they knew it was going to be pulled back. We didn't know until late that we were going to have a state mess fiscally. And so we have moved things around and probably going to have to go into special session because every time the federal government makes a change, we have to make a change because the law says our budget must be balanced. That's the law. Okay? And so I see it. I got it. I got it. And I understand what you're saying. And that's why I'm saying don't just take your argument here. Take it and ask the question where is that pot of county money? Tell us, elaborate, explain. Where is the money? Because you do deserve it. And at this point, I'm probably babbling. And so

025I'm going to stop, but I want you to know that I came up this highway in that awful traffic because I believe in Tabco. I believe in Baltimore County Public Schools and I believe that they want to give you what you deserve. And if there's anything I can do, like Del um Delicascal said in the state, you've got to let us know. And when you come down, and if I'm not there, don't give up. Whoever it was I said it to, I don't know. I said, you don't need an appointment. I'm your person. You don't need an appointment. you come down and if I'm on the floor, you tell my chief of staff and I'll come I'll happily come off the floor so we can have a conversation. But use your representatives please and continue

026to fight the good fight for our children and we congratulations. So, I'm finished babbling, so I'm take my table off. Thank you. Thank you, Deletor. [Applause] Next are our school system affiliated groups to speak. And our first speaker is Gray Favor from the New Town High School Secondary School Administrators or Favor Gray. Oh, I'm sorry. Favor Gray. Hello. Hello. From New Town High. Good evening everybody. My name is Favor Gray and I'm a recent graduate of New Town High School. Today Tonight I want to speak on behalf of New Town High School and the Baltimore County to share the impact of the CTE program and the leadership of the superintendent Dr. Ro Ro Ro Rogers and has like what has got me throughout the whole year of four years of high school. The CTE has

027had a major impact on my educational journey for the past four years at New Town High School. Before I begin to explain the impact of the CTE program that I am a part of, I want to give you some background information about me and bear with me because there is some connections. I was born in Acra, Ghana to Liberan parents and for those of you who do not know those are two different countries. I was surrounded by family in Ghana and I grew up sheltered in love. However, at the age of 13, I was dragged away from the perfect picture that I knew. I came to New Town High School very lost and very alone in a country in in a new country. But New Town High School gave me the family that I very

028much needed. There are many teachers and clubs like the African student association which I was the treasurer of the student government association and hosa which is the health occupation students of America that helped me adjust to the American life. But Miss Kredic McDaniel and Progalite the way helped me find the purpose helped me find my purpose and helped me choose my career path for the future. I will be a nurse when I graduate from York College of Pennsylvania in 2029. The C the CTE program, which is PLTW, biomedical engineering, has taught me so many skills that are necessary for me to enter the medical field. And here I'm going to list my favorite, my three favorite skills. I know how to stop the bleed. I know how to label the human body parts and I

029know how to suture. Last year, last year there was an accident on 695 where a where the driver collided with a deer. The passenger in the most freakiest accident was punctured in punctured in her stomach by the deer's antlers. Many cars drove by, but my aunt and I pulled over. Everyone was trying to help her, but I remembered from my PLTW class that keeping the patient awake is important. So that's what I told them to do until the EMT arrived. Even though that had nothing to do with stopping the bleed, I was still able to make sure the victim was awake. Have I actually learned how to stop the bleed? Yes. If I was ever in a situation where I was camping or where there was a kitchen accident, I know how to stop the

030bleed. That's the end of the three minutes. Thank you so much for your comments and good luck. Our next speaker is Dr. Kathleen Setserve representing the Secondary School Administrators Association. Good evening. Good evening, Superintendent Rogers, Board Chair Licter, and the other board members. As stated, I'm Dr. Kathleen Settzer and I'm the outgoing president of Secondary School Administrator Association, better known as SSAA. Tonight, I speak with a heart filled with both gratitude and hope. We are truly thankful that a majority of negotiations have come to a close and an agreement has been reached. While this process has not been easy, it has reminded us of a truth we hold dear. Our educators are the heartbeat of our school system. Their resilience, their professionalism, and their unwavering commitment to students even in moments of uncertainty have carried

031us forward. To every teacher, staff member, and administrator who remains focused on what matters most, our students, we see you and we thank you. Your dedication inspires us all. But this moment is the beginning. Now more than ever, our children need to feel that to know to know that we are uncompromisingly committed to their academic achievement. They need to see adults in their lives choosing collaboration, hope, and courage. Let this be a moment where we as a community move forward together with empathy, with strength, and with a shared sense of purpose. Let us recommmit ourselves to doing what's best for kids, not because it's easy, but because it's necessary. We owe them action, integrity, and unity. Because our students are not just our future, they are our present, and they are watching. Let us show

032them what it looks like when adults work together and choose what's best for children. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Our next speaker is Edwin Perez. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Dr. Rogers and members of the board. My name is Edwin Perez, chairperson of the multilingual community partnership of the Baltimore County PTA Council. I'm here to address the safety and well-being of all our students this summer, especially our immigrant students and those from mixed status families. Summer for some students brings unique risks. When schools close, the safe environment they offer changes, leaving certain students vulnerable. While we appreciate BCPS summer programs and the summer food service program, our responsibility extends to the overall well-being of every child. This commitment aligns with the national PTA standards for family school partnerships, guiding how schools and

033families work together. To ensure our students safety this summer, we focus on four key standards. First, we ask BCPS to continue to provide easy to understand multilingual information and support for multilingual immigrant and mixed status families throughout the summer. This includes clear channels for reporting concerns and connections to community resources. We must proactively reach families, ensuring they feel welcomed and supported both this summer and into the fall to ensure uh our our students safety. Sorry, right? Uh second, we urge BCPS to continue actively partner with community organizations to create safe, supervised, culturally sensitive summer programs. These intentional partnerships will offer unique support, fostering healthy development and a sense of belonging and helping to build vital trust within our communities. Third, we ask for thorough culturally competent training for all BCPS summer staff. This training will

034equip equip them to recognize the stress, understand family challenges, and connect students to support. We must continue to review and update safety protocols regarding immigration enforcement in the communities near our campuses, ensuring our schools are recognized as safe zones for all students. Finally, we ask for continued clear public commitment from BCPS school board to champion the protection and well-being of all students regardless of im immigration status. This means actively engaging with policies affecting immigrant families. We must use our collective voice, monitor policy changes, both education and immigration, and share updates with families to ensure our students feel secure in our community free from fear and uncertainty. These are essential steps for a safe summer for every child in BCPS. By embracing these demands, we strengthen our dedication to effective family school partnerships. We urge the

035board to act swiftly on our student safety and well-being this summer. Thank you. Thank you. We're now calling on our union reps. And our first one is Cindy Ston from Tapco. [Applause] Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. These are certainly not the remarks I wanted to be bringing at my last board of ed meeting as TCO president. None of us wanted to be here fighting for our negotiated agreement. We all thought this was something we wouldn't have to do for well at least three years. And yet here we are. And I won't go into yet again the historical, highly touted pressladen details which glorified the agreement and how I've spoken ad nauseium to the county council, county executive staff, and BCPF's leadership about finding money to fund the compensation that

036was agreed to in our contract. But I haven't spoken about the role of the school board in this. In a recent retreat with the Tabco board, we were reminded of and trained by legal counsel on the fiduciary duties of any board member. And we were reminded that a failure of any organization is ultimately a failure of the board, not the president, not the superintendent, but the board itself. Board members, you must answer for the success or failure of our students, for retaining educators for our students, and yes, for adopting and approving budgets, negotiated agreements, contracts, and more that directly and indirectly affect our students. And by extension, our communities, and indeed, even the future of our society. Through the policies you adopt and implement and the decisions you make, school board members are ultimately responsible

037for the success or failure of local public education and all the activities in which those students participate. Your playing small does not serve the world. Your fiduciary duty of care requires you to act with diligence and prudence in managing the assets of BCPS, ensuring that the system is properly maintained and managed to avoid situations that could lead to financial or operation difficulties. And here we are in the midst of both. The financial accountability of your organization is one of your main responsibilities. That means when presented with a budget of almost $3 billion, you ask questions. We know some board members did ask questions and we thank you for that. How else are you supposed to know? We would never want our students to be presented with a task or lesson and not ask questions. Were

038questions asked when you were shown the three-year agreement? What about how it would be funded? People are losing money in the reallocations of positions. Not to mention the stress and chaos that these moves are causing. Positions are eliminated, reduced, placements rescended. What is happening is not okay. And we're all feeling that now. Have you questioned what is happening? Can you look at yourself in the mirror? Or better yet, can you look at the students you are here to serve and say you have done your due diligence? I looked up due diligence. It's an actual legal requirement. Our students deserve your due diligence and some of you have not exhibited that. Do better for our students. As ever, our kids can't wait. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Billy Burke from Case. Our next speaker

039is Billy Burke from Case. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Mrs. Lter, Vice Chair Mrs. Harvey, Superintendent Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Case. It has been a difficult spring. The fiscal deficit required that many positions be eliminated. case members were reassigned and as you know the salary package had to be renegotiated. It is important for me to speak on behalf of case members and to make sure you understand what those case members have sacrificed in order to get a renegotiated agreement. Because of the new salary agreement is delayed until January. It is worth half of the original agreement. Over 30 case members were reassigned to positions that are lower in hierarchy on the organizational chart, resulting in significant pay cuts. For most people, they

040lost 10% of their pay, but a few lost significantly more. At least two people had to be reassigned to positions in other unions. A few members have still not received final assignments. Schools lost 10% of their budgets. Most central offices lost a significant number of staff. Last week, a large number of assistant principal positions were eliminated and principles were given new lower staffing numbers. The changes were made based on strict adherence to staffing standards. I would caution that staffing standards are a great starting point, but you need to look at the programs at each school to truly staff to meet the needs of students. Positions like staff development teacher and consulting teacher were reduced. I am concerned this will leave new teachers and teachers with conditional certifications and teachers that are struggling without the support

041they need to be successful. That work can't fall to administrators alone. PPWs lost most of their secretarial positions. I worry that PPWs will spend more time doing paperwork and less time interacting with and supporting parents. Guidance counselor chair positions were reduced to 10 months. Both these changes will affect efficient enrollment and could impact September 30 numbers that could impact funding. Administrators cell phone stipens were reduced. Central office cell phone stipens were eliminated in many cases. Staff use their phones to connect with parents while they are out of their offices. There has been some talk that staff could use their issued computers to call parents. That function does not currently exist and would require additional funding to support that feature. Staff won't be able to provide the current level of services if they aren't compensated to

042use their phone for work. All this change and uncertainty is affecting morale and culture. It would be important that a plan be created and published soon so schools and offices know how to do the work with less staff and less resources. We can't move into expecting people to do more with less. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of case. Thank you. Our next speaker is John Clark from ASME. Good evening. Uh, Chairman Lter, Vice Chair Harvey, and Superintendent Rogers, and members of the board. As you know, my name is John Clark. I'm a bus driver at the Windsor Mill lot and the vice president of Ask Me Local 434, which represents nearly 3,000 workers in transportation, food, and nutrition, facilities, grounds, and building services. I'm here tonight on behalf of Local 434

043President Brian Eps, who regrettably could uh not be here this evening. The membership of Ask Me Local 434 has voted in support of Dr. Rogers and the board's efforts for coming together with our union to navigate the challenging budgetary issues issues we are facing. Both the union and the management understand the uncharted waters we find ourselves in. I commend the board for working together to ensure our fiscal responsibility to our community while honoring the hard work of our members and doing so without any furlows or layoffs. While sacrifices were made on both sides, the willingness of all parties to work together to find solutions to our collective challenges is the kind of cooperation we all want to demonstrate to our students and to our community. Thank you. Thank you. Our next category is nonprofit community

044groups and our first speaker is Marietta English. Good evening. Good evening. I should have worn my breath. Yeah. Good evening, President Licer. Vice President, Vice Chair Harvey, school board members, and Dr. Rogers. My name is Maretta English, and I chair and I'm chair of the AXO program and education chair for the Baltimore County branch of the innovable ACP. I am honored to address you today, listening to the other and I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to speak to you. Congratulations to all the high school graduates. I first and foremost I want to commend the school board and Dr. Rogers for your unwavering dedication to supporting the negotiated contracts with the educational staff despite the challenging posed by funding from the local government. Your commitment to ensuring the best possible outcomes for

045our student and staff is truly commendable. Thank you for your hard work and perseverance. The NAACP is committed to working collaboratively with the school board and the educational staff to ensure the success of our students. We offer our full support and are eager to partner with you in addressing any challenges that may arise. Together, we can create a positive and enriching environment for all students. We are excited about our upcoming trip to Charlotte in July and we look forward to your continued support from BCPS. This trip will provide valuable opportunities for our students to learn, grow, and become leaders. We appreciate your ongoing commitment to their development. We're taking eight gold medal winners and we hope to bring home that many gold medals. I invite you to participate in our golf tournament which will serve

046as our fundraiser and it will be held on July 2nd at Diamond Ridge Golf Course in Woodlon. This event will also showcase the incredible work of our students and you will witness their talent firsthand. Thank you for your time and continued support. Together we can create a positive and enriching enriching environment for our students. Thank you. And I have flyers for our golf tournament. So I'll leave them over here and you can certainly get one. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tamara Combmes from the Baltimore County Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, distinguished board members. Um, my name is Tamara Combmes and I am a member of the Baltimore County alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. I currently serve as the chair of the

047Botilian Catilian program which supports students within the Baltimore County public school system. Our chapter president is Miss Lee, excuse me, Mrs. Lisa Daniel, and our service area encompasses all of Baltimore County. BCAC is proud to host youth center programs that provide meaningful engagement and develop opportunities for BCPS students. As a long-standing community partner with Baltimore County Public Schools, we are deeply committed to the academic, personal, and social growth of youth. For the past 33 years, we have offered the Botilian Catilian program to students in Baltimore County. This year, excuse me, last year, more than 40 students from various BCPS high schools participated. The program is open to high school juniors, seniors, and college freshmen, and is designated to promote leadership, communication, cultural awareness, and community service. Through a series of workshops and activities, participants gain

048essential life skills, and develop the confidence necessary to become effective leaders in the community and beyond. This program concludes with a formal ball celebrating the accomplishments and growth of each participant. We will be hosting an information session on for students and families on Thursday, June 26th, 2025 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Randlestown Community Center in Randlestown, Maryland. For more information, please contact us at our email address bc boco b au co atgmail.com. And additionally, we'd like to extend our sincerest thanks to Dr. Rogers for your leadership and for recognizing the importance of youth programming in Baltimore County. Thank you. And I do have a flyer for the event. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lynn Lawings from the Baltimore County Continental Societies. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Dr. Rogers, board members,

049and community partners. I speak only not as a proud member of Baltimore County Continental Societies where I'm an outgoing president. Now I've been nominated I mean been appointed as the public relations officer. But as someone who deeply believes in the power of education to change lives, I come to you with a full heart because what's at stake here is not politics, not policy, but our children. Every child, no matter where they live, how much their family earns, or what challenges they face, deserve to access to a high quality education, they deserve to walk into classrooms inspired and supported. And more importantly, our educators deserve the resources, the respect, the recognition to continue doing the sacred work of shaping young minds. These are not easy times. We are facing tough econ economic realities. Shift in priorities

050and tough shifting priorities and serious funding challenges. Let's stay focused. Let's stay grounded in love. Let's stay guided by the purposes and focus on what truly matters. Our children and educators who teach them. So I say tonight, please let's think about the children because everyone in here, it takes a village and we all have careers that we've stood on somebody's back to get here. So we'd like to continue that with the children of today. They are lost. They are looking for love. They are looking for opportunities. And they need our voice. They need us to stand up and put aside whatever it is that we need to do to make sure that the education that we've had for years and years and years from reading books to teleathons to readathons, we need that back. We

051have to educate our children to make it in the world. So I say tonight, it takes a village and it takes all of us to sit back and think about when we were young. You see kids on the bus stop and you wonder what's going on in their head? What are they doing? Are they hungry tonight? Do they need help? What do they need? And it hurts my heart to look on the bus stop to see children. You know, I look into their eyes and I'm wondering what is going on in their household. Are they eating? Do they have a pencil? Why are they angry? And these are the things that we need to focus on so that we can give them the opportunity that we've been given. Look around. We're educated. We had opportunity.

052They need opportunity. So I say thank you and step up to the challenge. Thank you. Next are individual citizens and student groups. And our first speaker is Sharon SH. Good evening, Baltimore County Public Schools and board. For those who don't know me, I'm Sharon Saraf. I'm a parent advocate for special education. I'm also a person with a disability. We are celebrating graduations right now amidst a climate of the people back there who are my colleagues because I was once a teacher are being told that their raises don't count. They're being told that their service doesn't isn't valued because we're renegotiating a contract. But that's not why I'm here today. I'm here today because I don't think people are listening. We have students who are graduating who are three and four grades below where they're supposed

053to be. I sat in a meeting yesterday for a student who's going into high school who's functioning on a third grade level. I've mentioned this before, but that's okay. Think about that. Was that what you want for your child? I don't think any of the teachers behind me want that for their children or for the students in their classroom. And I certainly fought very hard to make sure that my kids did not get that kind of an attitude. I was in a meeting yesterday where I found out that a student of mine didn't have a device for three months. Can you imagine taking these glasses off and not and for three months? I can tell you what I'm seeing right now and it's not very much. But it's again, it's okay because what did we

054start doing? We started talking about taking that device away. Period. We've got to stop looking at things as being okay and less is more. Less is never more. We got to give these teachers what they want be what they deserve, not what they want because a lot of them are walking away and we can't afford to lose them. So, think about what I just said. It's the end of the school year. I've got meetings in the summer and I don't even know if they're taking place because we don't have staff. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Mabel Murray. I promise to get there before the day is over. Good afternoon, good evening. Evening, whatever today is. I am here because I am 90 years old and I started teaching [Applause] and I started teaching

055in 1956. I started teaching in 1956 when they didn't have much in the schools in 1956 and they turned around and looked at us and said, "We don't know how you're going to get them, but you got to teach the children because if you don't teach the children, why are you here?" And so what we did, we took a look around the room to find out what was there. And what we found out was there was lots of things like air that had smoke in it because we had a pot Billy stove in the classroom that actually did turn red whenever it got hot. Oh, it was cute, but it wasn't funny. And so we turned around and said, "Now, what can we do now? We have to depend on each other in this school

056to make sure that our children learn because our children have to learn. Our children have to learn because nobody thinks they can. And every time we look at them, we know that's not true. So we went out and every summer we went through books like Zay Blower and anything else that was written for children and bought copies and brought them to school and shared them with other classroom teachers so that we had enough to do and enough work for the children to do and we worked with them and we got them up and we made them learn and we helped them to understand. And when do you think we had PTA meetings? We had PTA meetings at 7 o'clock in the morning. We had PTA meetings at 7 o'clock in the morning because the mothers

057had to go to work and the fathers had to go to work and they needed to learn about their children and we had to tell them and we had to be right about it because they knew what their children could do and what they couldn't do. So at 7:00 every morning for 35 mornings, you met with a parent and then you doubled back and did it again. I'm not suggesting that people in here do that. We've advanced. But the more things change, the more things they remain the same because the same arguments and discussions we're having now are discussions about where are we going to get the funds to do the things that we need to do for the children we have to teach every day of the week. And where we get them is

058where we look. And sometimes we buy them and sometimes we share them. And sometimes we listen to funny things like the time I had a classroom and then I'm closing the time I had a classroom where the children were losing teaching learning about old composers and the one who was supposed to make all the remarks. Can I finish because I can anyway and the one who was to make all the remarks was I'm sorry but I I know. Okay. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Bos Peron. Good evening. Evening. Can I have equal time to Miss Pastor? Are you an elected official? I am elected. I'm a taxpayer. So, we're going to start that timer or Dr. Fen. Okay, I got the idea. Good evening to all. I hope you pardon me for slow

059speaking. I have COPD. Um, I want to ask you a question. Ask yourself, when you finish your tour of duty in the Board of Education, what do you think the residents of Baltimore County will remember you for? What do you think? I think they will remember you first for the poor grades. They will remember you second for inappropriate budget. You heard enough. They will remember you for political reprimand of Miss Demanowski. And that's it. They will remember you for standing up for illegal aliens, fighting for them against ISIS. I don't know what business you have to do that. That's a federal government. You get in involved with so many uh political events and issues. That's why the teachers have problems. That's why the students have poor grades. You turn the board of education into a

060political arena of speeches and speeches, not even addressing the board, but addressing the audience, the taxpayer. And I don't even have the right to have equal time with Miss Pastor, who I love and respect. You get yourself so much into politics. That's why the system failed. Six superintendent one after the other. I worked with all of them. All of them failed. If you have a child and your physician is giving you antibiotic after antibiotic and it's failing, would you stick with that doctor? If you go for a surgeon and does one surgery after one surgery six times and it fails, would you stick with that surgeon? You have done it. I've seen you 25 years. It's the same. The crowd is the same. The speech is the same. The politicians come to gain some votes

061and some money and whatever it is. You got to change the system. We got to focus on education. You have no business in politics. Not one iota of politics. I don't care if you are Democrats, Republicans or in between like me. You have no business. Your business is education. You got to take care of the system. And the system is rigged. Thank you. Our next speaker is Russell Hopewell and I believe he's virtual. Yes. Good evening, Superintendent Rogers, Board President Licer, Vice President Harvey, and school board members. My name is Russell Hopewell. I am a retired Baltimore County public school teacher and principal. Education has been my life's work. I am representing the Hubert B. Simmons Museum of Negro League Baseball located in Owens Mills on Grand Central Avenue in a beautiful building that we

062share with Baltimore County Community College and Baltimore County Library. There are hundreds of visitors a day that attend the community college and visit the library that are exposed to the rich history of Negro League baseball. The federal department of education is being dismantled. The state of Maryland has a $3 billion deficit this year and Baltimore County government remains revenues were flat. All of these things directly impact BCPS bottom line as all our BCPS funders. We are here to show support for the school system and advocate for the whole child that first and foremost includes academic excellence but also support for the arts, theater, music and definitely sports. Baltimore County public schools are excellent in all these areas. As we move forward together, navigating these unchartered waters, we do so with compassion, encompassing the team spirit,

063unify in our in our vision and mission to provide a high quality well-rounded education to all students at BCPS. Let's roll up our sleeves, stay focused on the mission, which is and always has been the children. Let's play ball as a team and win. We will continue to support Baltimore County Public Schools by sharing the history of Negro League Baseball, partnering with BCPS educational foundation on various outreach efforts like play ball and continuing our community outreach and men mentorship which is virtually virtually important in our mission. I will close with thanking BCPS for the leadership for the relationship, thanking the thousands of students and families and community members that visit the Simmons Museum of Negro League Baseball and we pledge to continue our support for BCPS. Thank you and go Orioles. We're also in unchart

064uncharted waters right now. However, we still believe. Thank you and have a productive board meeting this evening. Thank you. Our last speaker in this category is Christina Lanahan. Good evening. Hi uh superintendent, members of the board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Christina Lanahan. I'm an elementary school inclusion special educator. Originally, I was worried about speaking here. Others in Tabco, they're so articulate. They're so knowledgeable about budgets and spending. But someone told me to talk about my experiences. I did do some research and I learned that BCPS gave the county a $33 million refund based on vacancies not filled and those filled by substitutes. I was one of the victims of that refund. This year I had the honor of filling 1.5 teaching position. I was only paid

065for a 1.0, but I did the work of a 1.5. This includes supporting case managing 22 students across four grade levels. I support students with significant math and reading needs to significant behavior needs. Now, I don't want to be a good teacher. I know that sounds weird. I want to be the kind of teacher that can give 100% to every student and family that I work with. I want to be a great teacher. That's what my students and families deserve. This year, I was a good teacher. I was stretched too thin. I spent too many nights laying awake thinking about my students. I had a couple of good cries in my classroom closet because I felt like I was failing my kids. I changed my schedule about a half a dozen times. It was never

066enough. I'm also co-chair of the Tabco special education working in action group. I've been working hard to support fellow special educators in advocating for reduced workloads. Instead, we were giving more work on our plates and less time to do it. But hey, at least our wages had been negotiated for three years, so in the next contract, we could focus on something else, right? Wrong. Here we are again asking you to pay us not only what we are worth, but what you promised. Any teacher, special education or general education, has to constantly read the room in their classrooms. Are the students understanding? Are they engaged? Are they safe? So today, I'm asking you to remember what it was like in the classroom. Read the room. Your teachers are not going to back down. They are not

067going to accept anything less than what you promised in good faith. Respect your promises. Respect your teachers. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Not sure if the next speaker is still here, but it was a union person that got um missed. So, is Chris I'm looking for the name? No. Okay. Somebody already said no. Okay. Never. Thank you. Next on the agenda are public comments on board policy 5440 teleaalth and in-person services from external behavior and physical health providers. And our first speaker is Favor Gray. Sometimes people sign up for other things. Okay. Our next speaker is Sharon SH. I'm decline right now. Okay. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kaia Toland. And our next speaker for policy 5440 is Bos Ferron. Good evening again. Good evening again. Thank you for being patient. Page one, line

0681011. I hope you follow me. The policy says the board is committed to supporting access to behavior and physical. I think just really supporting access is weak. I suggest that you word you word it in a way it says effective supportive. You want to assert that you're looking for effectiveness. Line 20 talks about tella health. Telea health is a viable method. I think viable is weak. Viable is you know you can have somebody in the ICU viable breathing but almost dead. uh I recommend that you would say that teleaalth is an effective method for delivering certain behavior. I think we have enough proof about that. Line says that health providers shall be delivered by and the words are stuck together. I think they need to be separated. Line 3738 also on page one it says

069be approved by an external behavioral or physical health provider. And here I think you should say something like qualified or competent external behavioral provider. You know you can have somebody that is not competent but is external provider. Page two, line 8 to 10 says that access to the external behavior and or physical health service is safe and private. So here you know you're concerned about the safety and privacy but in the previous one a provider should be competent. I find that, you know, not really appropriate. And last but not least, and I stated that before, at page two, line 13, you talk about the superintendent to um write it in the book and make everybody aware. It's a common sense. And I know I told you in so many policies, you know, why you say

070common sense things and I never really get the answer. And if it is a legal matter then you should say a lot of more common sense things. You should not Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent report and for that I call on Dr. Rogers. Thank you. Good evening Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey and members of the board. I am pleased to provide my June report. So, the first thing that I want to do for the people remaining in the room is to acknowledge everyone who's here. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your position wholeheartedly. I think everyone at this point knows that I started my career in Baltimore County Public Schools as a school teacher at Woodlon High School. I was a member of Tabco. Uh my commitment to

071you and to all of our employees is unwavering. Um I want to use this time to speak not only to that commitment but to regground us in what we are all committed to which are the 111,000 students that we serve. uh I am under no illusion that in order to serve those students well, we have to take care of the adults that are in the different rooms and spaces with them. And so this first slide speaks to our priorities. Uh two years ago or almost two years ago, not quite, we identified for the community at large four specific areas that we needed to focus on in order to reverse the trajectory of academic decline. What you see next to the four priorities is an unmarked line chart representing the academic decline. What you see after

072going down for a decade is the movement in the right direction. That movement in the right direction, nowhere near where the bar used to be, but it's moving in the right direction. And I am clear, we are clear, the community is clear that that is only because of the hard work of all members of team BCPS. Next slide, please. When we talk about the movement in the right direction, we are nowhere near yet where we need to be. But this slide, you've seen it before many times. It just points to the different independent external measures that show progress. progress in the performance of our students as we move forward, as we continue to invest in individuals. Whether we are talking about making sure that students are in school so they have an opportunity to learn

073that take a variety of people contributing to that or our students learning how to read by the end of grade three or what I spent the last two weeks doing attending almost all of our graduation ceremonies for 7,000 graduates. our graduation rate increasing for our students. This is possible because of the hard work of members of team BCPS. Slide. I have spoken many times about what it takes for a school system to reverse that trajectory and then to make sure that we're making progress that is across the system and it is sustainable. We have already invested in and started this work. a commitment to high quality instructional materials for our students. Making sure that the materials that we have are aligned to standards and evidence-based. But the key piece to that work is not only

074to have materials. You also have to make sure that we are implementing with fidelity. That's what makes the difference in the outcomes for our students. Investing in our people. Whether we are talking about operations, the classroom, central office, we need to make sure that everyone in team BCPS has access to high quality strategies and uh training that they need to do their best work. And lastly, professional learning communities. Quite plainly, professional learning communities speaks to how we do our work. the ability for us to come together, no matter what role you serve in, to problem solve around the needs of our students, around the needs of our facilities. That is the commitment that we make to collaborative cycles of inquiry and action. And so the only way we can do that is with continued investments,

075which is why we put forward a budget that had record investments. It is the same reason why in good faith we came to the table, we cost it out, we worked with our funding partners and announced a record three-year compensation package. Next step. Next slide, please. What I don't want us to lose sight of is that it takes every single member of team BCPS to pour into our students for our students to be successful. I have not this is not an exhaustive list but this is um this includes several offices that contribute directly to the improvement and success of our students. It starts with our transportation workers that safely transport more than 70,000 students across our system day in and day out. They are the first face of BCPS that they see and the families

076are trusting us to make sure that the students arrive safely. Facilities. We all know that we have the third oldest set of school buildings in the state of Maryland. There are a group of incredibly hardworking people that make sure that our buildings are responded to. They take care of emergencies. They work around the clock to ensure that our students do not have to miss school time as a result of having older infrastructure. Payroll and accounting. There are many people working in payroll in accounting in an antiquated system that are working round the clock to make sure that all of our staff members receive their compensation as they are supposed to and if there is a problem with payroll that they respond to that immediately. Accounting, making sure that our accounts payable and our accounts billable

077are happening in a uh in record fashion as it's supposed to happen. These are people working to take care of the staff members who are supporting our students. Employee benefits. We know that it's incredibly important for all of our current employees as well as our retirees to be able to count on their benefits. We have a group of people in human resources that are doing this work day in and day out. our communications team. One thing that we heard from our community loud and clear as we went around to community conversations at the beginning of my tenure was a need for us to share information frequently, openly, and clearly. And so our communications team, this is their charge to make sure that we are keeping all of our families and all of our stakeholders aware

078of what's happening in team BCPS. Whether it is excellent news or it is information like around this budget that causes concern. The communications team is at the forefront of making sure that everyone has access to that information. highquality curriculum. Learning is absolutely our core purpose. We can only do that by having materials that meet standards and that we are providing those materials to our students. um our curriculum and instruction uh team members, they work to make sure that we are following what the Maryland State Department of Education requires us to follow for our students, but they also work to make sure that there's implementation in the schools to provide that direct firsthand support in classrooms. Um this is the work that they do. school leaders. As much as we know the data points to teachers

079having a great effect size on the academic outcomes of students, we also know that the research says 25% of academic achievement is attributed to school leaders. Our school leaders have significant work to do and play a role in making sure that all of our students are cared for on a regular basis. It is unquestionable and undeniable the work that our teachers and pair of professionals do every single day. As I started, I I began this work as a classroom teacher teaching chemistry. The work that you do day in and day out makes a significant difference in the lives of our students. We understand what you do. We appreciate what you do. We are committed to investing in what you do on a regular basis. Food and nutrition. We are able to provide free meals to

080our students, breakfast and lunch to all of them to address food insecurity that we know exists not only in Baltimore County but across the nation. This makes a difference for our students. We have heard your feedback and are working to improve the options but we are making sure that all of our students remain fed. These hardworking individuals that come into our buildings every day make a significant difference. social emotional needs. The we have increased not only our external partnerships but our internal staff members whether we are talking about counselors, MTSS workers, um school psychologists, all of them play a role in addressing the social emotional needs of our students. Our students have to ensure that they are well in order for them to access the academics that we are presenting to them on a daily

081basis. safety and security. We've spoken about this um significantly and thankfully due to uh the approval of this board as well as our funding partners, we have been able to invest in safety and security both technical as well as changes in uh rules and guidance and policy as well as monitoring and implementation to improve the safety and security for our students, our clerical staff. There is no way that we could exist without them and their support. They are the first greeters whether we are talking about a building or an office. They respond to phone calls from parents. They also respond to the needs of the students that walk directly to them seeking that support. And lastly, the training and development. I know I took um longer time than I typically would take on a slide

082going through this, but I think it's incredibly important as we talk about the challenges that we're facing fiscally that we recognize that everyone plays a significant role in de team BCPS to taking care of and meeting the needs of our students. And while the list was not exhaustive, I I think it was important for us to speak to the impact. There is no piece on this chart that we could pull out the peg and still do right by the 111,000 students that are counting on us each and every day. Um, next slide, please. I also can say that uh in many respects I um take no issue with uh comments made uh by Mr. Burke in particular. uh one of the things that he highlighted was that we are moving forward in a tight fiscal

083time that is going to require us to do more with less. Um that is the reality of where we find ourselves. Uh in a moment we'll speak to specifically some of the changes that necessitate that. Uh but it's important for us to uh remind ourselves that as soon as Baltimore County Public Schools um started receiving communication that pointed to uh concerns around the budget that we started sharing that with our bud our uh public with all of our stakeholders. Our budget progress began in October. We involved many stakeholders. Uh we still have all of our materials available on budget 101. Um it was pointed out recently that since we've delivered the budget, we have sent no less than 20 communications about budget to members of team BCPS. This is to demonstrate our commitment to sharing

084ongoing accurate information about our current state to members of team BCPS. It is true um that there is a lot of information that is out there. Our responsibility is to make sure that we provide accurate information that we address misinformation when it comes to our attention and share not only the what but our rationale around tough decisions that we have had to make. Um I want to share none of us wanted to be here. I did not want to have to talk about compensation for three years. I can also say that across this day as I I believe I speak wholeheartedly for every board member, there is no board member that wanted to be in this position talking about compensation this year. However, um that is not the situation that we find ourselves in. We

085find ourselves in a in a position where we have to choose between several tough decisions. And I want to spend the rest of my time talking you through some of those decisions and sharing just more accurate information, not in an attempt to make everything okay, to make everyone agree with the um the delayed compensation, but to inform to to provide a broader understanding of how we got here and what we are trying to do um as we move forward. And so this slide is one that you've seen before. When we had the January work session, um I shared two slides. One was about the staffing allocations and the second one was about how schools use the allocation to make decisions internally um for assignments. Uh, one of the pieces of feedback that we've been hearing

086and we've been hearing inquiries about um have been around uh new additional staffing uh cuts. Uh staffing allocations were presented in January of 2025. When we presented those allocations, we also provided this tool to all of our school leaders. We shared publicly how we were allocating in classrooms. Again, I want to reiterate that doesn't mean that the number of students sitting in a class is not higher than this numbers. Um, if decisions are made to reallocate staffing in a different way, that is going to push some numbers one direction or another. For example, if you choose to have five students in a class and you were provided with two teachers for 44 students, you have the remaining students and the remaining teacher. Next slide, please. And so we provided those January allocations. When we provided

087those January allocations, we also provided uh clear communication to our school leaders that all of our allocations were tentative pending county council approval of the operating budget in May. Uh we shared that if the county council uh fully funded our budget, we would allocate additional positions. If they did not fully fund our budget, we would have to determine based on our formulas positions that had to be pulled back and adjusted. And so you are hearing that um we are looking at areas where we are over staffing. We had two decisions when the uh budget was not fully funded. Uh the budget included additional decrease in positions and so our decision was either to increase class size across the board based on enrollment. And we heard quite loud and clear from all stakeholders and rightfully so

088that we wanted to do everything to avoid increasing class sizes across the board. or the other option which is the one that we employed which was to eliminate overstaffing to any FY26 grant that we received which we received the concentration of poverty grant for community schools to offset as many positions from operating grant uh excuse me operating budget over to um grant funding for us to examine our vacancies um particularly any long-standing vacancies and um whether or not that uh it was something that needed to continue to exist and look at non-eing roles um first before we addressed any teaching roles. And so um I think it was Mr. Burke who spoke to um certain positions that were reduced or certain positions that didn't uh no longer exist. um that is based on overstaffing where

089we were in a fiscal position before that we could um leave additional staffing above the ratio in places when we receive a budget that is not fully funded. We have to maintain strict adherence to the formulas that exist. So for example, uh one example that we heard was uh loss of more than 10 teachers at a school in January. When we looked at that example, that very school lost more than 200 students due to a new school being built. And so the staffing follows the student. And that school also happened to be overstaffed this current year. And so we shared it and I I want to reiterate the staffing follows the student. If we were to leave those 10 teachers even though we reduce 200 students in that building, what happens to the school that

090is receiving the 200 students? We are not in a position where we can provide 10 additional teachers in the second school and afford to leave 10 teachers uh in one school where the student leaves. Uh the one thing that the blueprint is clear about with the funding sources and the pillars that they provide is that the staffing is to follow the students. And so while that is a state mandate for blueprint funds, it is also the situation where we find ourselves in as a school system when we don't receive the amount of funding that we requested. Um there was also information indicating that unilateral individual decisions were made uh about schools. Uh that simply is not true. It is simply inaccurate. Uh the way that decisions were made, you see the groups that came together

091in a room um to review school by school to look at data, to look at requirements, to look at formulas, to make recommendations. important to have human resources in the room so when recommendations are being made they don't create other problems in other areas and so this is uh this slide uh is to show the public and everyone who is here how the decisions were made again none of these are decisions that we wanted to make um we have not only requested the funding uh that was necessary to fully fund uh pri January 14th Um, but I have made requests several times following that and I do know that other members of the community have requested additional funds several times uh beyond the initial formal request for funding. Next slide. And so the remaining slides

092uh really walk you through our most recent communications to team BCPS. Um, many are asking what has changed since we agreed to a three-year compensation package. Fiscally, everything has changed. Everything from the federal level where we have um 1,200 of our staff members who are funded on federal grants um primarily in title one schools as well as special education positions. Over 700 of those positions are teacher positions. Um we are concerned. We know that the state of Maryland is one of 18 states uh that is involved in a lawsuit to protect those federal funds. Um statewide we also know that the state has is facing a structural deficit of several billion dollars that has slowed down the projection um and the progression of blueprint funds. We are grateful that due to advocacy of uh superintendent

093across the state uh and many other groups that we move from a position where we were uh facing a loss of $20 million from the state to receiving uh $3.7 million over what we were expecting. But we know that the projection for blueprint and the roll out of those funds that that is going to be slowed down in the years to come. that has been stated clearly by the lawmakers as well as the governor. And lastly, local funds. Um, we know that federal has an impact on state, state has an impact on local. Again, we made a uh request uh based on what we needed. Uh the local government, county government had to make some tough decisions as well. they were unable to fully fund our request and as a result we received $29 million

094more than the previous year which is what puts us in this position. Uh we know that the placeholder that was available in the budget it allowed for a 1 and a.5% cola. Uh we heard loud and clear from all of our union partners. And it's important to mention that 98.5% of the employees in Baltimore County belong to a union. There is only one and a half% of our employees that are non-represented. Um, we heard loud and clear that a step was necessary and so we went back to do our due diligence in the budget working with our funding funding partners uh requesting funds um that were available to us so that we could move forward to this delayed compensation package. I won't detail all the steps that were taken um to address the budget shortfall,

095but they were provided in the infographic. They're on our website and also on this slide. What it allows us to do is on a delayed schedule honor the 5% increase in compensation. Again, I will not pretend that anybody wants to move forward on a delayed schedule, but there are some things that I want to make sure are very clear to all members of team BCPS. Our priority is to protect and preserve jobs in BCPS. We can see in the news in neighboring districts across the state and outside of the state based on these fiscal realities that positions are being eliminated. It is important to note we have not eliminated any nonrepresented position in Baltimore County public schools. And so in order to try to protect and preserve jobs in BCPS when people are losing thousands

096of jobs every single day, we have move forward with recommending a proportional impact based on earnings. that every single employee in Baltimore County Public Schools would have a delayed compensation instead of July 1, that we would move to January 1, 2026. The savings are realized to us as a school system solely based on the timing. It's also important to note that the majority of our employees are 10-month employees. And so being 10-month employees, 55% of the pay is after January 1. Uh the n it would be nine pay periods of delay before um staff members would actualize the increase that they were planning on. Next slide, please. And so I will uh finish by sharing some of the uh FAQs that we sent out to um all members of team BCPS again in an effort

097to make sure that we are really sharing accurate information um with the school system. Um I have addressed the uh July 1 date and the why. Um, don't some employees begin receiving raises July 1st? The answer is no. Um, why can't we use more of our fund balance? Um, want to share this. Our projected start of fund balance is $65 million for next year. Um, the amount for unused fund balance would be $30 million. We are already planning to use $35 million of fund balance. A portion of that is for increased compensation. Um, we started off at the budget cycle planning on $12 million of fund balance. It has been increased to 35 million. It is also important to note that there is a minimum percent of fund balance that we are to use. Our

098fund balance is um to be used for one-time expenses and emergencies. And as I pointed to um under, uh Maryland being part of the federal lawsuit, we have almost 1,200 positions that are uh grant-f funded. And uh we are hoping that that does not uh come in jeopardy. But when you have over 700 of those positions that are teachers working directly in classrooms with students, we need to have the emergency funding available if something happens to address that need and not let our students stay without um if the shortfall is affecting the entire state. How are some neighboring counties uh able to start raises in July? Uh on July 1, some have gone back. uh many of your uh colleagues have uh their the net value of their compensation increase is less than 5%. Um

099there are layoffs and um furls happening in places. Um some counties are able to raise taxes and they are um in some places are increasing class size. For us we have made critical cuts um that include the delayed um raise. Uh we have avoided layoffs and furlows and we have tried everything possible to minimize school level cuts particularly any cuts that impact the classroom instruction directly. Uh state of Maryland has fully covered the compensation increases for FY26. State of Maryland has provided uh blueprint funding in 13 very prescriptive categories. And um I shared uh with you a few minutes ago the additional uh funding that we've received from the state of Maryland. Uh BCPS is toph heavy. Why can't we eliminate central office positions to fund the increase? Uh the responses we have uh over

100this budget cycle we have eliminated 90 central office positions. Um that is uh to uh going to require us to work differently uh this upcoming year. It's also important to note that we have the smallest executive team or cabinet amongst the large and the medium-sized school systems in the state of Maryland. Um, and I think we have addressed uh the the other statements that are there. Um, I don't want to belabor the uh point but as I come to a close the last slide please. Um, I simply want to again reiterate our commitment to all members of team BCPS. The work you do is incredibly important. There is no way that we are going to be able to do right by the students that need us without us working hand in hand. This is difficult.

101I know this is not what anyone wanted to hear. Um, this is not what any of us wanted to deliver. But I think in this moment particularly uh we are better served coming together to figure out how we can problem solve, how we can continue to advocate on the uh federal uh state and local level for additional funding as we are not a self-funding entity. uh we rely on external uh sources for our resources to see how we can increase the funding that is necessary so we can um honor all agreements as we move forward as soon as the uh money is available. Um and just just want to make sure that that is really clear to our members of team BCPS. We certainly are uh committed to you and understand appreciate and the respect

102the work that every single member of team BS BCPS does on a regular basis. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rogers. Next on the agenda is the chair's report. As we're all aware, this budget cycle for BCPS has been particularly complex and challenging. Many emails received noted that they do not recall a budget cycle with similarly difficult decisions. We've also never experienced a global pandemic and influx of federal funding in schools with some items requiring ongoing funding and uncertainty about major grants. After working and serving the system for 40 years, I agree that the challenges and variables associated with drafting this budget feel unprecedented. There's been ongoing discussion on the three-year compensation package agreed upon last year. Four out of five unions have accepted the delayed compensation package. Members of these unions will receive the negotiated

103year 2 compensation, including step and cola enhancements that provide a 5% average increase for staff beginning in January. Appreciation is extended to the staff and union leadership who have worked diligently to reach this point. It is acknowledged that the process has been challenging and very difficult. There are various narratives regarding the funding of the compensation packages with some suggestion that we have not fulfilled our promise from last spring. The board remains committed to implementing the agreed compensation package for all staff as outlined last spring. Unfortunately, unforeseen fiscal variables, including changes at the federal, state, and local levels have caused a very negative impact. It is critical to note that the agreements signed last year included provisions for such circumstances which seem to be overlooked in current discussions. The wording in the approved agreement state the

104Baltimore County fiscal authorities in exercising their authority under the law reduce the budget recommendations of the board and such action makes it necessary for the board to reduce one or more items that have been negotiated. Such items and all other negotiated items that are dependent upon budget funding shall be subject to renegotiation. This decision and this delay are not about want. The board wants the compensation package funded beginning in July, but current fiscal realities do not allow for that. Despite challenges, we have remained focused on our priorities. No staff layoffs. All represented BCPS staff will retain positions. maintaining current class size ratios, an important request from stakeholders, and funding the compensation packages with a 5% increase effective January, which is the same timeline for government workers receiving their 2% increases and public safety workers, including

105the police department and fire services, receiving their 3% increase. Would we rather be able to do more? Of course. I wish we were adding to central office, not cutting. I wish the compensation package was beginning in July and not January. I wish we had more funds to do more because we all know there is so much more we need to do. But we do not control nor create our own funding. We submitted a budget proposal to the county executive that included our needs, but it was not fully funded. Instead, it contained further reductions. The county council has the authority only to make additional cuts to our budget, not to increase it. We appreciate the members of the county council for approving the county executive's budget without making further reductions as they were permitted to do.

106Once the budget was passed by the county council at the end of May, we had to implement the additional reductions as required. We are still not increasing class size. However, the school system had to bring a cross-divisional team together, including departments of schools, human resources, student support services, and special education to review all of our allocations and existing formulas to ensure that we are adhering to the guidelines and move resources as appropriate. No represented staff member lost a position. However, we are not in a position to overstaff. As we know, Tabgo has decided to agree to the delay in the comp has decided not to whoops, sorry, has decided not to agree to the delay in the compensation package and is up to go to impass. We know many of Tapco members are here in

107this room. They were outside and they probably are listening. We so appreciate your commitment to your profession. We know that you're upset. We know that you are frustrated. Please know that we have heard you. In addition to all of our other employees, we value your work and contributions to the system. As Dr. Rogers described, the successes of students are directly linked to the work all educators do with our students each day. Despite not receiving the requested funds for compensation, significant effort efforts to allocate additional funds for raises were made. Dr. Rogers and her team have worked diligently to reduce the funding gap through her advocacy at the state level and the detailed budget analysis. The board of education and school system had a shared desire to fund the compensation package according to the agreed timeline.

108However, the fiscal situation does not allow for it. But it does allow for us to avoid layoff layoffs, not increase class size ratio across the board, and fund the compensation package at the agreed upon negotiated year 2 compensation, which again include step and coal enhancements that provide a 5% average for staff beginning in January. The savings from the delay allow us to provide every staff member with the same level of increase that was negotiated in the original package. I want to be clear that Tabco and the public, our budget is more than 80% compensation. We have made significant cuts to central office services, goods, and things. If requested funds are not provided, which they were not, the only remaining place to cut 28 million and increase available funding is the workforce. 71% of our compensation

109budget goes to TABGO. Dr. Rogers has presented information about CL class sizes before. Many people, including teachers, parents, leaders, and this board have said, "We do not want to increase class size to give students the best chance possible." We do remain committed to fast forwarding student progress in our system. When we talk about recruitment and retention, part of that work is to retain as many existing teachers as possible. We cannot do that by cutting several hundred teachers and increasing workload. I know that we all wanted a fully funded budget, but that did not happen. We do value all of our employees and hope we will be able to come together to advocate for more state funding and local funding for the upcoming years. And our next agenda item is our student board member and that's

110your Miss Chica Kaloo. All right. Well, for the final time, good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, Superintendent Rogers, members of the board, dedicated staff, our community members, and of course, the scholars of Baltimore County. Firstly, I would like to congratulate all of the graduating seniors and the students in our transition programs who are wrapping up this chapter and to just let you know that you are celebrated and we as team BCPS are proud of you. But before I begin my report, I again would like to shine the spotlight on two phenomenal Western Tech students who exemplify what it means to lead with excellence. My leading lights of Baltimore County. First, we have Ochi Uzuk. She's a 2025 graduate of Western School of Technology with a 3.9 GPA and the recipient of the prestigious Banaker

111Key Scholarship at the University of Maryland where she'll study in the fall. She's committed to healthcare and community impact, having interned at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and earned certifications as a clinical medical assistant. As she's also a state champion and nationally ranked as a hurdler, where she balances her athletic achievements with tireless leadership as a member of multiple advisory boards, student government, and the founder and CEO of the Goodness Childhood Saroma Society, a nonprofit uplifting pediatric cancer awareness and research. She was a QuestBridge finalist, an AP scholar with honor, and she was featured in the Baltimore Sun and Fox 45 News. Every through every challenge, Ogeti continues to shine and her and she has been guided by the promise of a hopeful future or like or how she likes to say, growing through

112what you're going through. For our second leading light, we have Nathan, a rising sophomore in Western's AI magnet program with a 5.1 weighted GPA. He's a Carson scholar, a former vice president of Cadenceville Middle School student council, and he serves as both freshman class vice president and sophomore class president and the new sophomore class president-elect at Western. Nathan is the vice president of the speech and debate team, an award-winning Mesa project manager, a proud member of boys to men in the library team, and on top of this, he completed Harvard's CS50X course in computer science while still in middle school. and actively supports media and social outreach for Oak's church. He advocates with intention, grace, and a spirit that lifts every room he enters. And these are students of Baltimore County, our futures of Baltimore

113County. And for my report, I will say it is surreal to believe that I've sat at this das for a year. But today, I want to express my deepest gratitude and just reflect on what it's meant to as what it has meant to serve as your 2024 to 2025 student member of the board. And while I know technically this isn't my last meeting, it is my last report. And so, while I'm not one for long goodbyes, I must first say thank you for sitting through a full year of my endless updates, student shoutouts, and 8 minute long reports. Your patience and your partnership and your willingness to lead even when I was long meant the world. But again, I do know when you're Baltimore County student, you are always a Baltimore County student. And I've

114been absorbed into a kinship and a shared mission. So I must say thank you. And so while it's easy to list accomplishments, what stays with me the most is the work we did together across schools, counties, and state lines. This year was shar shaped god by shared effort. From the beginning of my campaign through the end of my term, I always told students, "When you lead with the GMA, we lead team BCPS." And together, I believe we did. From the National Urban League to the Aspen Institute, we brought student voice into national conversations. We also fought for students to help reimagine what made reimagine what made assessments more equitable and what responsive learning could look like through Unidos. We supported the the development of student boards in states like Louisiana, Georgia, and California. And we

115helped lead the DC Maryland Small Network. And through every step, from policy discussions to school visits, students were present and students were heard. But none of this happened alone. These moments were possible because of so many students, staff, and families who stood beside this work from start to finish. And though this year wasn't perfect, I hope to say it was purposeful. And through every visit, meeting, community conversation, and of course all-nighters, we kept moving forward towards a system that doesn't just ask students what they think, but it makes space for them to lead. It truly has been team BCPS all the way through because in the end, the most meaningful part of this role truly hasn't been the motions or the meetings, but it's been this as they are the constant reminder that our voices

116are the foundation. And so to foresight, the incoming smob, I give you my sincerest love and my highest praises. You truly are the embodiment of integrity, wisdom, and heart. For the past 2 years, I've watched you leave with humility and grace. And this seat is better because it is being passed to you. You are not here to echo. You are here to ask better questions. And I trust you with every part of this work. To the board, in my very first report, I called you colleagues. Thank you for living up to that word. Thank you for welcoming me, welcoming my voice as more than symbolic. And I hope that you continue to uplift student voice not only in policy but in practice to continue to speak to students before you speak with them and to

117always let the table be there for them. And to BCPS staff, thank you for everyone who has made this journey pos journey possible. Of course, my board members, my adviser, Miss Wade, Miss Ralph, Miss Joseph, Miss Charlie Green, and the endless laundry list, Miss Gver, Miss On Jala, and to those I've worked with both in and out of Baltimore County and countless other areas to help field my endless requests, brainstorm into the night, and support me as I ran off of nothing but energy drinks. And to the BCSC officer team, thank you for holding me and welcoming me with love, joy, and belief. and to students of Baltimore County always remember that you are the soul of the district. Thank you for trusting me with your voices and to also just welcoming me into this

118position. My goal this year was never to be the loudest in the room, but to be a steady and faithful one. I came in hoping to elevate the standard of student leadership through presence, intention, and care. And if I've left the door even a little wider for the next one to walk through, then I've done what I came here to do. And to students, I always I want to pass the words that my mother once left me. You were not born to pass through the word quietly. You were born to ask better questions, to leave every space stronger than you found it, and to remind people that while you may be the youngest in the room, you are never the smallest. That is what has guided me in every step of my term as small.

119And foresight carry that truth. Let it ground you when things feel impossible and remind you that even in the hardest moments, your leadership will matter, your presence will matter. And while you may be the youngest, your impact will not be small at all. And to every Baltimore County student still finding their voice, this is your reminder that you are not born to pass through the world quietly. Your questions matter. Your presence matters. And this system is not complete without you. So this is not the end, but rather the beginning of a new chapter. And as I pass this torch, I like to think of it not as a period, but as an Mdash, a continuation of the work we've started and a bridge to the work ahead. You now have a bold, visionary young woman

120from Eastern Tech ready to lead and listen. She's here to speak and now she holds the pen to write in Baltimore County. She will help write the next chapter of Baltimore County's and their students and foresight. Make sure you write write loudly and leave every space stronger than you found it. Thank you for the privilege, the trust, and the seat at this table. It has been the honor of my life, a surreal and unimaginable one, but one nonetheless. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Well, certainly went out with a bang. Thank was great. The next item on the agenda is unfinished business, consideration of board policies. This is the second reader for these policies. And for that, I call on Miss Christina Pumprey, chair of the policy review committee. Thank you, members of the board. The policy

121review committee asks that the board accept the committee's recommendation of proposed changes to the following board policies. Board policy 5550, student behavior code. Board policy 6401, advanced academics and gifted education. Board policy 6500, research and assessment. These policies are presented to you on tonight's agenda as exhibits K1 through M5. Thank you, Miss Pumphrey. May I have a motion to accept the recommendation of the board's policy review committee for board policies 5550, 6401, and 6500? So moved. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Is there any discussion? Miss Dominowski? Uh yes. Um I was wondering uh so on page three under standards and it says uh in section A the first policy I'm sorry the first policy student behavior code um it says and trainings that the superintendent shall establish

122guidelines and trainings is that for who who are the trainings for I guess I mean may that might be a superintendent question but I I just kind I just wanted a little clarification on what the trainings meant. Um 5550. Mr. Knox, if you can come forward and speak to the uh safety trainings, please. Good evening. Good evening. Question, please. Oh, I just was wanted some clarification on what the trainings meant under standards on page three. What kind of trainings are they for teachers? Are they for administrators? They for students, everybody, all involved, all the above. I would say all the above, but mainly administrators since they're doing the discipline related uh calls in the schools. So, we do a multitude of training, required training. It starts in the summer and leads into September, school safety

123training as well, and it it covers a whole vast array of topics. Thank you. That's all I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Um and then my other question um was on page four where we have um insured practices are culturally responsive but we don't have it um under definitions. So I wanted to know what the definition of culturally responsive was. So that was added by PRC. Miss Pumprey, you want to speak to that? I believe that was a recommendation from another committee member. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to name them. It doesn't. We talked about it in committee. Miss Hen, I believe we defined culturally responsive possibly in 0100 equity, but I'm without looking it up, I can't thank you for that reminder. And I think that actually came from um an

124equity equity committee member as well. So that's why we added here and didn't um add the definition at the beginning. Thank you for that reminder. Miss Hen, could we add that to this because I'm just curious is how um culturally responsive would be different. Are we changing the consequences because of cultural different I just understand I'm I want to understand how it's being applied to um student behaviors. Are we going to treat students differently because of backgrounds or if if it was something that wanted to be added if you that you wanted added to the definitions, you would move to do that. Okay. I do have to put caution here because we're trying to get not that this shouldn't be included, but we need to get this approved in order to get it into the

125handbook by the beginning of the school year. So, we have to be careful with how we propose the amendments and hopefully can process quickly. Miss Harvey, I know you're on the committee. Did you want to respond? I I just wanted to follow up on Miss Hen's uh comment. Culturally responsiveness is defined in policy 0100 and states using assetbased knowledge of various racial ethnic cultures, views, and experiences and incorporating them into teaching and learning to strengthen and enrich the school system and the community at large. Thank you for that. I I appreciate that. I just I'm trying to that's for teaching and learning. I'm trying to understand how it's being applied for student behaviors. Like that's a very broad definition and I I'm I just want to make sure we're not too broad, I guess, is

126my point. So, do I need to make a motion to and I I I don't mean to I I just want to make sure that we are applying punishments for behavior code of behaviors correctly. Miss, thank you. So um two comments regarding that and I believe we did discuss this in committee. One the important or keeping those definitions within one policy for consistency so that it's always updated in one but also if you're looking for implementation details. I'm wondering if those details wouldn't be found in the rule for this policy. Um and Dr. Rogers I don't know if you want to weigh in on Miss Dominowski's question or not. Yeah, I think um you are correct in uh implementation details would be in the rule. Uh when when I think of uh contra uh cultural

127responsiveness, I think this is making sure that everybody has awareness um that everyone has the appropriate training and I know that we as a system have done some significant work on discretionary versus non-discretionary uh suspension. So that's the natural place where I think uh there would be these conversations and you know the discretionary meaning uh whether a student was making a lot of noise interrupting those kinds of things versus um the egregious behaviors that I think your county you're you're speaking to those category 2 and category 3 offenses um would be applied across our schools. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Further discussion, Miss Booker Dwyer. So, I have a question about uh policy 5550, the student behavior. So, does this policy apply to students um in apprenticeships on work-based learning sites um on college

128campuses when they're duly enrolled or taking college courses? Dr. Jones keeps Yes. And is that so where would so so as a parent and I'm looking at this policy where would that fall in this policy? So if my child is on a work-based learning site and I wanted to point specifically to something in this policy that that covers that, where would I find it? Good evening. Good evening. I probably should have came up the um the first time because I was a part of the policy review um committee. Um we can actually share with you. You can point out where in the policy and then after that I'll just explain how it applies. You want to share that? Um sure. If you look on page two under school sponsored activities, it defines what they mean

129by the school sponsored activity and what it encompasses. And so what we we'd offer Miss Booker Dwire and I'm not sure if we're answering your question um as presented um once students once the in for the entirety of the instructional day whether it's a field trip whether it's dual enrollment um you know school sponsored activities as long as it's a BCPS sponsored activity we are responsible for the students and the um the code of conduct or our safety policies are applicable. Okay. So in so either in this policy or in the handbook, could we put an example like that so that it's really clear for parents? Because when I first read this, that was my first question like, well, does this apply if my child is at CCBC or is and if you know they're

130taking a a course that maybe is occurring later on or something like that. So if we could put an example either in the handbook or um within this policy, that'll be helpful for clarity. So, I'm going to look toward um Miss Pumprey and members of the board because we talked about examples even doing policy review committee and um even sought um legal counsel and so I'll turn that over. I forgot about that. Never mind. I I withdraw that. No, further discussion. I just want to make a compliment because I just one thing I forgot to ask about was social media aspect of it and I I wanted to compliment you for adding that on page says using a personal electronic device to stream or publish on social media a recorded event involving or or more

131of conduct of bump I would just comment that that was a lengthy discussion we really went into depth with that which is I think is a big purpose of the committee so um I appreciate that comment because we all of our all the committee members really dug into that and had a lengthy discussion to make sure that we tried to make that as appropriate as possible. So, thank you. Yes. And um just for a quick second just to revisit um your conversation around um stu our responsibilities and students um adherence to the policy. It is in the student um handbook under scope of authority on page seven. Mr. Knox wanted me to make sure you were aware. Thank you. Yeah. And thank you, Miss Dominoski, for pointing out something we worked really hard on. Thank

132you. Further discussion. Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Chica Kaloo? Yes. Miss Dowleski? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the final FY2026 operating budget. And for that I call Mr. Saras. Good evening members of the board and Dr. Rogers. Uh uh for your information, I present to the board the FY2026 Baltimore County Public Schools operating budget introduced on April 11, 2025 by County Executive Clausmire and accepted in total by the Baltimore County Council on May 22nd, 2025. This annual budget takes effect and will be implemented on July 1, 2025. Okay. Any questions, Miss Hen? Thank you, Miss Leter. Um,

133not a question, but I have a motion for the board's consideration. Go ahead. Thank you. I move to request that the superintendent cost and consider including and prioritizing funding in the fiscal year 27 and 28 proposed operating budgets for one-time payments to current BCPS employees covered under the master agreement between the board and TABO. The payment shall be issued on December 1st, 2026 retroactively for fiscal year 26 and December 1st, 2027 retroactively for fiscal year 27 and shall be equivalent to the sum of the difference in salary payments agreement versus actual for the fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27 periods otherwise referenced as years two and three of the master agreement. Is there a second? Mr. McWillian. Go ahead. Mr. Stleski was called. So moved. Still, would you like to I'm sorry. Second Stleski.

134Thank you. Miss Hen, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. Briefly. Thank you. Um Madam Chair. So my motion is to um make our educators whole and however we need to do that, we need to do that. Um I believe this board is um universally in agreement that we need to fund our our compensation whether that's feasible this year or in the future. Um there is precedent in this matter when the county and state who we we rely on our funding partners have been unable to do that according to the timelines that we desired. We have done that in the past um retroactively. So my motion provides or asks the superintendent to have staff cost out what that would look like and to consider including that as a priority in the funding um

135proposal for the fiscal year 27 and 28 budgets. So there is no impact on the fiscal year 26 budget but rather it provides or requests that the superintendent investigate this and to consider it including it in the next two operating budgets as one-time payments to make our educators whole. So, I ask for your support. Thank you, Miss Booker Dwire. I I agree. We we we want to make our educators whole. We know that it's not just the teachers that are impacted. It's all of the unions that are impacted. What I would rather and we could request that the superintendent do this investigation, but that's not going to give us the money. the money comes from the county executive. So if we are talking about money, then what we should be doing as a board or

136what I would recommend as a board is that we send a letter or we do something um to request that our county executive make either raise taxes by a penny because are we saying that our teachers are not worth a penny? Because if they if that was done in Baltimore County, we wouldn't be sitting here in this situation right now. And so if we want to get money, we have to go to where the money is. It's not in our school system. It's at the county executive office. I also think as a board for those candidates who are running for county executive that we put pressure on them to commit to fully funding our school system, we can do all the investigations that we want. What's happening in Baltimore County is that we continue to

137cut positions. We are, you know, we've cut central office down to the bare bones. We it I mean this is not a sustainable solution for Baltimore County. We have to go to where the money is. It's not in the school system. It's at the county executive office. Thank you. Yes, Missen. Thank you. By by looking ahead, we are notifying our funding partners that these are our plans. Um and by asking the superintendent to first cost this out because I don't have these numbers. We are doing our leg work now to look ahead to make that request and I don't think those actions that Miss Booker Dwire mentioned are mutually exclusive. My motion simply asks to plan to make our educators whole and I would be open to amend this to include all of our staff.

138Um if somebody would like to make that motion, I'm I would support that. However, this gets the ball rolling. This says we need to look ahead. We need to make that request. We need to find out what that would cost and to plan to include it in our next two budget requests so that we can plan for it and make the necessary adjust adjustments and prepare our funding partners for that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Miss and I agree. And we prepared our funding partners. That's why we established that three-year contract and our funding partners looked at that and didn't give us the funds to do that. And so we can do it again. we can go through the exercise again until we get the money. Um, and until there's a we we know what it

139costs. We had a three-year contract that ident that laid out the cost and what we would need, but that was not honored. So, I I just I I don't want us to central office is cut to the bare bones. I don't know the staff that we would have to do that investigation. Maybe we could pull from the board budget. Um, I mean, I'm all for asking. I'm I'm fine with that, but I I just I want to see something that's going to give us that return on investment. I'll come back. Let's get some other voice. Miss Pumprey, two questions and a comment. First, um could we have the motion in writing in case an amendment um is in case someone wants to uh motion for an amend move for an amendment? Um second second question

140that I can't remember, so I'll skip that. My comment is I also do not think either both things are mutually exclusive. I think as a board um we should be making a statement to our teachers that we are invested in this. Um I think my question was along the lines of uh this is something that we're asking as an investigation. We're not committing to anything at this point. So I don't think it's it's hurts us to do that and to make a statement to our teachers that we support them. We want to make them whole and that's how we feel as a board. We're saying that support out loud in our words. Um but we're not taking action. And I think this is a way to take action where it doesn't fiscally um do affect

141anything fiscally for this year. Um I would like to see the motion because maybe we can put words in there because I agree that the county executive is someone who needs to whether now or in the future who needs to um fund this. So maybe their language can be in there which is why I requested that the motion be put in writing so that I can look at that as well. Thank you. May I respond madam chair? Um I'd like to give other people voice and then just to miss question. Go ahead. Um and Miss Gover, if you would please. You Thank you. Um you had another question, Miss Pumprey. So you'll get the motion in in writing, but one you mentioned the funding partners. My motion specifically mentions um one-time payments, which um may

142not count towards maintenance of effort, which is desirable for our funding partners, which is different than the funding model um currently proposed, which is um a salary payment that would need to be sustainable. So it may be more feasible. Um, which is one intent of my motion. Thank you. Dr. Rogers, did you want to speak? Okay, keep going. Miss Sleski, thank you. I want to thank Miss Hen for making this motion. I think it's a wonderful idea for us to plan financially to um do the absolute best we can to keep our promise to the teachers. Um, I think it's an action of good faith. It gives all of the um the experts time to figure out how to incorporate this into the budget. Um we we've heard from the public about our job as

143a board and how important it is for us to be actively engaged in the budget process and um I think this is an act of good faith on our part as well. Um and then the last thing of core um okay I can't remember that point so I'll stop there. Thank you, Dr. Rogers. So, thank you um Miss Hen for um uh sharing this motion. I I don't think there's ever anything wrong with us doing um investigation and homework in advance. The only thing that I would request um is that we have 20,000 hardworking employees. All of them make a significant difference in the lives of our students. Um, I don't want to keep going back to this example, but if the bus drivers don't pick up those 80,000 kids, chronic absenteeism, and the teachers

144have no students to teach. Um, and so I would uh respectfully request the inclusion of all of the staff members as a part of the investigation that we will conduct. I would like to move to amend. Go ahead. Um, I'd like to amend the motion to remove the word end tabco and add the board and all employees, all BCPS employees. Second. Any discussion. I have my concern and I'm trying to find where it's written. Um, is that I don't want it to sound too much like a promise because right now we are getting I'm sorry, just a point of order. I think we need we just need to discuss the amendment before it's the same. It's the same amendment because you're just changing the word employee. It still has the end part about the years.

145I'm all for the investigation and the front part of it. I'm just worried that the second part of it sounds too much like a promise and I don't want us to get I don't I don't know anything about it yet. I don't know if it's feasible. I don't know if it's sustainable. So, I am fine with the intent of it which is looking into it. Um, but I'm worried about us making it sound like with the way you have worded the definite dates of it that it sounds too much like this will this will happen. Mr. M hen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, the reason for the specificity is so that it can be costed accurately because I believe it's important in planning and when talking to our funding partners that we have accurate numbers

146that we are going to them. We we need to make a specific request. We need to get this right. So that's the reason for the specificity. We are not committing. We we can't commit. We we don't raise our own funds. We're relying on our funding partners. There is no commitment either implied or inherent in the motion. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Am I missing Mr. Burns? I thought I heard someone second and I was going to say it was Rod. Did anybody second the amendment request? Thank you. Okay, Mr. Dominowski. No, I was just going to add that it it's relevant to have the years there because whether we should have offered a three-year contract because we have to renegotiate debate dependent on the budget if it gets approved. We did offer that and

147we we I feel like we owe it to all of our employees that we can pay them what we talk about we're going to pay them. And I I I just yes, we are dependent on what the um the CE approves, but she doesn't tell us how to spend that budget. So I think it's important that we look into how we keep, you know, funding the people because the people are what drives the I agree. Yeah. Sorry. That's it. Thank you, Miss Framp. Miss Fong, I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm still thinking about um I guess the statement. So I do still also have a concern about the last piece because it says that the payment shall be issued and so that does sound like that's something that we are intending to do with this motion.

148So I understand where it may be important to have the dates so that the costing can be um accurately accounted for. Um but that last I guess I'm making a motion to amend the current um where we would strike that last part from the payments. Um and then we can simply add that um this would be retroactively for FY26 and FY27. Okay. So let me just get the amendments on the amendments. Not can't do that one yet. Okay. Okay. Further discussion on Miss Pumphrey's amendment, Miss Dleski. Thank you. Um, yeah, I I remembered what I was going to say before was how important it would be to honor all of the unions in the amendment. So, thank you for amending that motion. and Miss Booker Dwire's points about our our job as advocates for funding

149is also really important. Um I however think it is 100% our priority no matter what we have to do in good faith to find a way to fund this money at a later time as stated because of the importance of our promise to all of the employees in all of the unions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Miss Hen. Um, prior to Miss Fong's motion, I was going to recommend that we change the word shall. And I I can do this however we need to do it procedurally, but changing the word shall to would. Um, for the last part, would be equivalent to the sum of the difference in salary payments. That way, that statement is less declarative and more um requesting a a cost basis for that. So I wanted to respond to Miss Frenong's

150suggestion for that which we can come back to. Okay, Mr. Burns, help me. I don't think that's I don't think that is organic to current amendment that's on the floor. My recommendation the board is to try to dispose of because you can still go and amend again. But let's I would suggest you try to dispose of the first piece of this which was the amendment that was proposed and second. So if we vote and it passes Miss Pumprey's amendment, we can still amend after we vote. Yes. Okay. So any or yes um Miss Gober can you repeat the amended? So Miss Pumprey move to a strike the words and tabco and insert all BCPS employees. Do you want the whole thing right or yes? Can you read the whole thing please? request your microphone. I

151move to request the superintendent to cost and consider including and prioritizing funding in the FY27 and FY28 proposed operating budgets for one-time payments to current employees covered under the master agreement between the board and all BCPS employees. And it goes on to say the payment shall be issued on December 1, etc. Okay, Mr. Mr. Young. Okay. May I have a roll call vote on the amendment that was just read? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Damonowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss FPong? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Chica Kulu? Yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Miss Fong, did you have a amendment to make? I will defer to board member Hen because I think she understood the intent, okay, of what I was trying to

152say. So, if she has the wording that she would like for her um motion that I I'll listen to that and but I think she captured that in what I heard her say. Okay. But, um, Miss Herby, you haven't had a chance. I'll make that. Uh, yes. I I think I'm offering a friendly amendment. A motion. Friendly. Wait a second. I'm getting all these nods over there. Amendment. Oh, we can't be friendly now. Be friendly of all people. I'm offering an amendment in the language to us to change the sentence. The payments shall be issued on December 1st, etc. to if fully funded, the payments would be Yes. Second, second, third, friendly second and third. Any right. A friendly second. Any discussion on Miss Booker Dwire? And so I'm just wondering, are we putting ourselves

153back in the same situation we were just in because that was similar language that was in our contract. I'm I'm all for it. I'm I'm in support of it. But I just don't want us to be back in this situation again because we if it's fully funded that goes back to the county executive. So what is going to be what are we going to do differently to help to get that full funding? Um and I feel like that is what needs to be like we need an act. So that's step one. What is our step two? Because if not we're we're getting everyone all excited about something that then may not be funded and then we're back in the situation again. So, I'm just wondering, could we step this out so that we have a

154plan of action um so that we can demonstrate that we are really trying to do all that we can to get funding for our school system. Miss Demanowski, um I I would agree with that statement as well. I think we need I I would suggest taking out the if fully funded because I feel like that gives us an out and saying that the budget is fully funded and we're relying on this the county executive but the county executive doesn't say you have to spend this on this and this on that. So that's on us and I think we need to put something in there that says we put you know our staff first and we prioritize their salaries. Miss Harvey. So this is this is part of this process that I think everyone is struggling

155with. We can acknowledge that yes, we get a pot of money and it's up to the system to identify where it goes. We also can acknowledge that we do not provide our own funding, but what we what is escaping us in this conversation is that we do make choices and we make choices based on what our students need. We make choices based on what our community wants. We committed to not increasing class sizes. We committed to not doing furloss, not firing people. We we committed to those things and those things aren't free. And so while we do have the opportunity to I don't want people to uh be under the impression that it was an eitheror, we did a both and. We honored the commitments that we made that teachers said were important to them.

156We honored the commitments we made to special education. We did our very very best to fully honor, excuse me, the commitment we made uh for compensation. But the reality is you can't take out the if. The if is the foundational part of that contractual language. It is if it is funded. if we could fund it ourselves, I'm sure everybody on this board would do so. And so if if the purpose of this motion of this action that we're asking the system to take to look into this is to really see what we can do, not knowing what our funding will be in FY27 or 28, then I think it's disingenuous for us to say that we can do it. It is an if. If the money is not there, then this board and this system

157has to be willing and our our our staff have to be willing to say, "Oh, maybe I will accept a larger class size or oh, maybe, you know, I will take a couple of furlow days." You we're trying to make everyone whole. We're trying to make sure that our students don't get shorted. But the reality of it is is that the if is not going to go away. And so I am for being prepared. I am for looking into the future, but I am not for I can't support uh not being clear on I'm sorry on the if. Mr. Young, just a clarification. We submit a budget that states what we're spending in various categories, not and and the county exec and the county council approves that budget. They don't just give us a pot

158of money to spend as we like because if they did, we could potentially shift money around to make our staff whole. So, it's allocated for a specific purpose in specific categories, not just here's $2 billion, go have fun. Didn't the county executive tell us more reductions had to be made in Right. Okay. Miss Pumprey, just back to the comment about our second adding a second step that conversation. Um I think it ne the second step isn't necessarily a step that has to be put into here but again it's an alignment of something else that we need to do. So in addition to this motion we also need to contact the county executive contact the candidates for the county executive and tell and tell them what we expect and what we need for funding for our

159budget. Um so I don't necessarily think it's a second step to this but an an aligned step some another action that we also have to take. Thank you. So, did you make an amendment? Yes, you did. Okay. And did we have a second on her amendment? We did. And that's right. And third, right? I forgot. Okay. Did we Any more discussion, Miss Hen? Just a comment. And I support the amendment to add the if. I I think it could go either way because as was discussed um well in our contracts, the it includes an if, right? and and that's um been discussed at nauseium tonight if it's all dependent on whether or not we get funding. So whether we include that in our motion or not and again I support the amendment to make it

160crystal clear that this is relying on funding that for those that are concerned about including it. It's there whether we include it or not. True. Thank you. Any last discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, please, on Miss Harvey's. Madam Chair, this is Miss from I had my hand up. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Thank you. And I think again, Miss Hen um spoke to it. But I guess I did also want to hear from legal. So, um just because we make a motion and if we include the if or if we don't include the if. Um is it what's going to be binding? It's going to be the contracts that are actually in writing at this point or is it it I guess could we supersede that with this motion? Mr. Burns. Madam Chair, I think that

161that's a complic I think that's a complicated question and in light of the situation at least one of the bargaining units. I don't think that's a question that should be advised to the board and public. If you want to take a recess, we can discuss. But um Miss M Miss Fron Pong's asked a complicated question and I hesitate to advise you uh in this setting. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion on Miss Harvey's amended motion? What she put in the chat? Okay. Okay. The roll call vote, please. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, abstain. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Chica Ku, yes. Miss Dleski, abstain. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. So that motion passed. Correct. Favor is done. The amendment passed.

162Amendment. Amendment. Okay. Thank you. All right. Now we have to Right. Let me get back to the motion as amended. Now, I'm sorry. Motion as amended. Okay. So, may I um roll call vote on the motion as amended? Is our discussion finished? Our discussion on the motion as amended. Yeah. I Yes. Yes. Yes. The discussion is over. No. Oh, you may Yes, you may discuss. Okay. Too many yeses. Mr. McMillian, I think, and I can think whatever I want to think, okay, that uh a vote for this is a vote for the boots on the ground, for the teachers, the bus drivers, the custodians, the grass cutters, everybody. And I'm voting for it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any further? Oh, Miss Stleski. Yes. I just um I know that um Miss Fmpong was suggesting

163possible legal counsel, so I just wanted to check in with her to see if she wanted to proceed with that before we vote. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dleski. Again, I agree with a lot of what um you guys have said, my colleagues, but I just would like that clarification. So, if we're not able to discuss that before the vote, then I'll keep my my vote as an abstaining. Okay. Okay. Roll call vote, please. Would you like to me to restate? Haven't reread it as amended. Yes. Miss Gover, can you reread it as amended? I move to request the superintendent to cost and consider including the pri prioritizing funding in the FY27 and FY28 proposed operating budgets for one-time payments to current BCPS employees covered under the master agreement between the board and all BCPS

164employees. If fully funded, the payments would be issued on December 1, 2026 retroactively for FY26 and December 1, 2027 retroactively for FY27 and shall be equivalent to the sum of the difference in salary payments agreement versus actual for the FY26 and 20 FY27 periods, otherwise referenced as years two and three of the master agreement. Thank you for that, Miss Gver. That was a long one. Okay. Yeah, this is board member FP. There was a little bit of difference between what was in the chat versus what Miss Gver just read because in the chat it says if funded and I heard Miss Gver say a fully funded. There's also a difference between staff and employees. So that's my era, Miss Framp. Okay. I I initially said fully funded and I believe uh Miss Pumphrey said uh

165the motion that was approved earlier was employees. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. Okay. Roll call vote, please, on what Miss Gover just read to us. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, abstain. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Chica Ku, yes. Miss Dleski, abstain. And Miss Licar, yes. Thank you. favor is nine. Okay, thank you. That amended amended motion passes. Okay, now Okay, next on the agenda is action taken in close session. For that, I call Mr. Burns. point of order. Yes. Did we need to vote on the I was looking and there was nothing in the notes that said we needed to vote on it. Did we need to vote? It was justformational consideration of the final fiscal year.

166That's what right? What? Oh, I'm sorry. Consideration items we normally vote on. That's why we were wondering whether we vote okay on the final, right? And I was looking too, but it's um I believe what Mr. Saras, if you come forward and confirm uh what you presented is showing what the county council passed. There are no changes to that. So it's it cannot be changed at this point and we have those funds appropriated to us. The uh documents that are presented page one and two are essentially our budget ordinance for FY20 26. Um and there's really nothing further that we can do to change it. Um, as Miss Dominowski said, we have the money. It's in categories. We can spend it within those categories. Um, and we cannot increase it. It It's what it is.

167Um, if uh we will come back to the board uh at some point in in the coming fiscal year because we need to do two things. we need to appropriate an additional portion of fund balance. So that would be a supplemental appropriation and we would need um to uh what's the other thing we've got? um yeah yeah add the uh state aid $3.7 million to the uh current budget. So we we will have a future supplemental appropriation for those two items, but there's uh the detail and the parameters of the budget are really set at this point and it typically is a formality when it comes back to the board because of our limitations. Mr. Manaski I just have one quick question and I we briefly touched on this the last time we were talking

168about um the fixed charges the increase the 4.6 6 million. Is that just all compens like not compensation but healthcare benefits? The total and fixed I I know. Yes. The uh the county uh indicated to us that their original estimate for increased health care was lower than uh it turned that turned out to be. They came back to us and said bump it up to 8%. This is what it's going to cost you. Is it is it just because that's the cost of healthare this right now or is it what was the change? Why is it uh they employ a consultant Bolton Partners who projects future health care costs and that's uh they are really the administrators of our health care plan and select the providers and so forth. So, uh, just as they asked

169us or directed us to add $14 million for retirement benefits based on the same, uh, acuarial assessment of where uh, future retirey health costs are going. So, that was 17 million of our 29 million that they uh, gave us and they more or less directed it to those fixed charges. So they don't give you like a you need this four million because this costs more as far as employee benefits or there isn't any kind of it's just the discussion you know they they said that uh for retiree benefits that our retirees are using more services. Well we're old so I guess that happens or we're on the board 18 or 90. So okay thank you. Okay. And I sorry I didn't realize we didn't do questions. We went right to the um to the motion.

170Are there any further questions for Mr. Sar? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now the next item on the agenda is action taken in close session. And for that I recall Mr. Burns. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, members of the board, Dr. Rogers. Uh, this evening in closed session, you took action on six appeals captioned HA2, 009, 019, 026, 028, 029, and 030. Thank you. Um, board members, are there any separations of these cases before we vote on them collectively? Okay. Then may I have a motion to approve the action taken in close session on hearing examiner's case H2509 019 026 028 029 and 030. So move choo second and authorize Miss Gover to sign for those board members not physically present. Move choo. Thank you. May I have a second? Thank you. Any discussion?

171Miss Hen, any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominus. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Remp, yes. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss GK Kulu, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. And Miss Leter, yes. Thank you. Thank you. The next Thank you, Mr. Burns. The next item on the agenda is new business report on board policies. This is the first reader for this policy and for that I call Miss Christina Pumphrey, chair of the policy review committee. Thank you. Members of the board, the policy review committee asked that the board accept this report of the committee's recommendation of proposed changes to board policy 5440, teleaalth and in-person services from external behavioral and physical health providers. This policy is presented to you on tonight's agenda

172as exhibit N1. Thank you. Miss Pumprey, may I have a motion to accept the recommendation of the board's policy review committee for board policy 5440? So move young. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Is there any discussion? Miss Booker Dwire. I did have a question about the quality of the providers. Is that included in the cooperative agreement? Oh, that's sort of Okay. Okay. We got a yes from the back. Yes, from the back. That's all I needed. Thanks. Director of health, sir. from director of health services. Any further discussion? Okay. May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumprey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Ham? Yes. Miss Fram. Miss Fong. Yes. Miss Booker Dwire. Yes. Miss Harvey. Yes. Miss Chica Kulu. Yes. Miss Gilleski.

173Yes. Miss Leicter. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is special project requests. And for that I call on Dr. Jones. Good evening. Good evening. That's fine. Was trying to rush. Good evening, Board Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, members of the board, and Superintendent Rogers. I bring before you this evening for consideration of the 7330 special project request for the Jacksonville Elementary outdoor classroom. The proposed outdoor classroom would be enough space for six outdoor tables, a post-mounted outdoor chalkboard, and two benches. With board approval, the PTA at Jacksonville Elementary School is proposing the provision of all materials and labor necessary to create an outdoor learning classroom on the school's property. Collaboration for this project took place between the principal at Jacksonville Elementary School, the executive director of the department of facilities

174management and strategic planning and the executive director of schools. Implementation of the project will commence upon board approval and will conclude approximately 2 months after the start date. Again, I bring before you consideration of this 7330 special project at Jacksonville Elementary School. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the 7330 special project request for Jacksonville Elementary School's outdoor classroom? So move Dominowski. Thank you. May I have a second? Second, Pumprey. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Framp? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Miss Leer? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, M. Dr. Jones. Oh, right. The next one. Yeah. Good evening, Board Chair Electric, Vice Chair Harvey,

175members of the board, Superintendent Rogers. I bring before you this evening for consideration the 7330 special project, privately funded capital project at Stoneley Elementary School, a memorial garden. With board approval, this memorial garden at Stonley Elementary School will be planted in honor of a beloved staff member who has passed. It will include a tree bench and two raised garden beds. This project will be funded and donated and installed by the Stonley PTA. Collaboration took place across um multiple offices with the principal, executive director of schools, executive director of the department of facilities management and strategic planning. Thank you for your consideration of the 7330 project at Stonley Elementary School. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the 7330 special project request for Stoneley Elementary School's Memorial Garden? So move, Stleski. Thank you. May

176I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? Mr. McMillian? Yes. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? Yes. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Dleski? Yes. Miss Lter? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jones. The next item on the agenda is consideration of course changes for the 2526 school year. And for that, I call on Dr. Donado. I don't know. All right. Good evening, Chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, Dr. Rogers, um, and members of the board. I am bringing to you this evening the annual course updates for school year 2526. Um, part of the course, sorry, and I forwarded my own thing. Part of the uh course change process is for us to use a process called

177phase forms where we identify courses that um need to be added to the curriculum. That might be because we have um an extension of a leveling of a course or courses that need to be discontinued for a myriad of reasons. Um this year we did a complete review of the entire uh digital course catalog in focus. Um and as we were making changes with the half course credits um we needed to renumber all courses. So there were uh thousands of changes that were made in our course catalog um in order to provide that update so that scheduling would be easier for school staff. Um the course names were uh revised to enhance and make sure that they were very descriptive of the courses that uh the content within the courses. Um we removed duplicates. we

178had uh clarity of content because each of the courses includes a description that aligns with um the MSDE uh course standards so that uh again what we're submitting to the state as far as credit for a certain course especially at our secondary level is indicative of what the state expects to be taught within certain course levels. Um and again the dividing of the courses into an A and B the two parts for 0.5 credits each. So when we look at new course codes again some were to provide clarity. Um some of the specificity that we added was specifically around reading intervention so that that what type of uh tiered intervention a student was receiving was indicated within the course um name which is helpful to both parents as well as uh the master scheduler or

179to uh the front office secretary or counselor who might be scheduling a student. Um, we added additional AP course offerings. Specifically, um, an example of that is we did not previously, um, offer AP pre-calculus in BCPS. However, our AP our pre-calculus course that we offered, many children in the class took the AP pre-calculus exam and did very well. So, we might as well give them credit for it all around, not only in the course, but in the quality points for their course. So our syllabus currently aligns very closely with that for college board. So it was natural for us to want to add that because that's a a great gain for quality points for students for their GPA. Um we also looked at um integrating learning opportunities for our students who are accessing our alternate

180learning framework. Previously our students who were um working towards a certificate versus their diploma had several courses that repeated over time. So it looked like the student was just retaking the same course. In fact, it was actually changing, but we only had a few names that we were using for those courses. We've now refined that so that it is more descriptive. It provides parents with better information. And for the child's transcript, it actually you can see a progression of courses versus a versus a duplication of courses. Um, we also uh revised our courses with regards to pre kindergarten. So since we have more and more full day pre kindergarten courses, we need to make sure we actually had all the content that's taught during preK labeled out correctly. So we added those corrections. So um

181there is a large chart tried to group together and cluster the areas of um new courses. Um you can see they are across the area um in language arts um English language development special education early childhood world languages CTE again the addition of that pre-calculus um AP pre-calculus um as well as um redefining the science STEM course names in our middle schools um we were using course titles from our high schools which the students don't actually earn credits in the middle school for those courses they're actually different courses ources, but because of similar content, we had previously used um the same name. So, that was clarified. When we look at course courses that are deleted or eliminated, um again, we had duplicate course codes. We often um there was a system that was previously in

182place. Whoops. There is a system that was previously in place that for each course that we had, there was three different ways to number it. um that created a lot of challenges when we looked at credit recovery and how to um when students transferred between schools. So we eliminated the duplicative courses. So now there's a single number for each of the courses. Um we had courses that didn't align to the college and career ready standards. Um some of these courses have not been used for many years. Um old summer school course numbers and those kinds of things. So we eliminated those from the course catalog. Um, our course catalog was rather large and when you've got lots of courses listed, people can schedule children into the wrong things. What that means in the future is

183then they get the wrong or old or no information sent to Schooly for them. Um, and so eliminating that provides clarity for schools. It provides more clear information for parents. um renamed courses following the ransomware when we did the very quick transition um from our former um student information system into focus. Um some of the ways course names transferred um included amperands and other symbols. So again we had some nomenclature issues. Um we cleaned up all of that this year. So again all titling is actually indicative of what the course is and it is clear. Um and again that's great for students transcripts. Changes in level is really looking at when we're offering courses at just a standard level or whether we're adi um offering it as an honors or a GT course. So there's

184a process where content um offices review courses look at the level of rigor. Um there's a framework and matrix that they review to identify if a course um should be leveled up. Um, and so we looked at that for some courses where we'd received feedback or the content offices really felt like the courses were more challenging. And so again, that affects the quality points for students GPA. Um, and then in some cases, course codes or were eliminated if the content was being taught in other courses or was obsolete. So um, this we saw in a couple of our science classes where there was duplication of content and so we're offering a single course. all the content is covered within it um that needs to be covered, but it versus having two courses that teach overlapping

185concepts. And again, there are course deletions across the board in all of our content areas. And this was really part of a a largecale cleanup of our course catalog. And that is it. I certainly take questions if you have them. Okay. So, let me do this part and then we'll do the discussion. May I have a motion to approve the course changes for the 2526 school year presented in exhibit P? Point of order, Madam Chair? Yes. Um, the PowerPoint file we have on board is different. Um, could Miss Gover upload the version? Yeah, I will. Before we vote, we're trying to follow along with Dr. Donado and Okay. We have different versions of the file. Then why don't we take questions first then? Mr. McMillian, you had a question. Yeah. Dr. Dionado, I got involved

186in a conversation with a teacher from Solers the other day. Okay. And they were she was talking that a lot of those teachers were upset about changes coming to their classes and she said it was MSDE that was requiring these changes in and this coursework. Does that follow fall under your responsibilities? It does, but I don't know. I We will have changes in our math courses, but that is not for another two years um because the math pathways at the state department um are changing and so we will have to adopt that but that is not for next school year. So MSD does have lots of changes on the horizon. Most of them will be in school year 26 27 and 2728 with changes in courses that they've identified. So in um math is the

187probably the biggest change. So instead of having an algebra and geometry algebra 2 sequence, there's something called integrated math. It'll be integrated math 1 and two. So integrated math 1 will be a combination of algebra 1 and some geometry. Integrated math 2 will be algebra 2 with again some geometry. So it's really integrating mathematical concepts versus the three separate courses that we've previously had. In the technical and vocational areas, will they have half credit and credit classes? They're all of the all full credit courses are going to be divided into two sections. So, uh you'll earn 0.5 credits after completing semester 1 and 0.5 after completing semester 2. And the same will hold true with our CTE courses. That is that something that will start next school year? Yes, it already started this year for

188all courses with the exception of our CTE courses. So that's probably what they're talking about. Yeah. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you. Any further questions? I do. Did Did we process the motion? No, because I was waiting for Mr. Hey, I just thought I fell asleep for a minute. No, no, you didn't. You didn't fall asleep. I was just allowing for questions while everybody got what they had asked for. Do you have a question? No. Either way, you don't have a question. Okay. Miss Booker Dwire. So in the power point that I'm looking refresh because my question was around that course algebraic topics for multilingual learners. Could you tell me a little bit about that course and it so yeah tell me a little bit about that course. Okay. Hold on. Yeah, it's um

189Yeah. Yes. Let me pull up the right PowerPoint. So that um Miss Booker Dryer, that's like a prerequisite algebra course for our students who are newcomers, multilingual learners. So, it's meant to be taught in conjunction with algebra 1 so that they're getting it's like pre-alggebra concepts. So, they're getting both that at the same time um as they're taking algebra 1 to try to build those foundational skills. Um so, it's really meant to be a complimentary class. We used to do um like a resource room or some other sunundry scheduling things to try to make sure that they had almost a double period of math. um this actually gives them another elective credit um while they're earning their algebra 1 class. So, it provides a much more cohesive instructional program for them. Okay. Thank you. You're

190welcome. Any other questions? Mrs. Stleski. Just have a follow-up question to that. Um in the algebra course, do they learn in English and Spanish in combination? It's taught in English unless there's a bilingual teacher who happens to be a math teacher, ELD teacher, and they might infuse that, but it is taught in English. Okay. And then is there anything that's done to support the language transition to help the students with comprehension as needed? So that's really why we try to have those classes whenever possible either co-taught with an ELD teacher to provide that language support or if we are unable to provide a co-teer that's really that instructional planning. We did a lot of professional development this year with algebra 1 teachers and our ELD teachers to work on pedigogy and practices that would support

191our multilingual learners within the classroom. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else? Miss Kaloo. Um I just wanted to clarify, will two credit courses still exist? So like for AP Biology, since that was a two credit course, would it one credit in semester 1 and one credit semester 2? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the course changes for the 2025 2026 school year as presented in exhibit P? So moved. Booker Dwire. Thank you. May I have a second? Second. Young. Thank you. Any further discussion? May I have a roll call? This is board member FPM Pong. Yes, Miss Fong. Thank you. So, I just had a question I guess about communication um to parents. Is this um I guess what type of communication will go out to parents about the

192differences in this more? So I guess like for example if you have a a parent who has had an older and a younger child and is used to a certain academic path um for a child and then um now if they're working with a younger child and they see that there are different courses. So how is this information communicated and um so that the parents are clear like what are the academic the new I guess if you want to say new academic requirements um that the students need to take courses in order to meet requirements for graduation. Um, thank you for that question. That's actually a really tight partnership that we have um with the office of student support services. We work with our stu um school counselors who really provide that guidance to the

193students and families with regards to scheduling courses um and really uh help map out the course trajectory with students um beginning in middle school. So that's really done through a collaboration. So not necessarily directly from CNI. CNI works with the school counselors to create um a digital version which is posted on the website of the downloaded version of um the student information system course regist to create a course registration guide so parents will have access to that. Um additionally with regards to some of the big changes which are really going to be the changes that happen in math in upcoming years there will be a very deliberate communication plan about that. That's actually something that the state department has talked about. How do we start communicating with families um beginning in the spring of next

194year about the new course pathways for math? Because I think that will be one of the most salient um changes with the traditional math pathway of algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2. That will be a very big change for families. So I think the communication depending on the change will um eb and flow a little bit. It will be very robust about the math. Um and right now we really work in partnership with our office of school counseling. Thank you. You're welcome. Miss Dominowski, just one more clarifying question for the um Orton Gillingham High School and Middle School. Will they all be the same vendor or are there two different are there different vendors that will be using to to provide that course? So the Orton Gillingham ped pedigogy is what's being used whether the

195staff member was trained in um or Bowman, we would use whatever the teacher is trained in. Um, and that wouldn't be delineated in a scheduled transcript because that's something that's common to Baltimore County or Maryland. Um, other states use other vendors for Orton Gillingham training. So, we wouldn't put a specific vendor in our course catalog. Um, the MZ, I just looked it up real quick. They have uh the professional development in K through two and three through five. So, would those students in middle school and high school be like at reading levels that were equivalent to that? and that's why they're receiving that. So if the student and I'm ask Dr. Craft because you're getting a little off the course catalog and more into reading intervention discussion, but the students would be identified based on

196their needs for Orton Gillingham and it's our students with the more significant um reading disabilities or who identified and just to add to what Dr. Donado said is the uh training actually says intermediate and so that would be for students that are not at that beginning level but we do place them based on their grade level and that's where we start them in the scope and sequence and if a student in secondary does need um decoding intervention then they are usually four, five, six years below grade level. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Okay, may I have a roll call vote please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dinowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, yes. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss Gulu, yes. Mr. Dleski, yes. Miss Lter,

197yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is contract awards. And for that, I call Mr. Young, chair of the building and contracts committee. Thank you, members of the board. The board's building and contracts committee met on Monday, June 9th, 2025. Items Q1, Q2, and Q4 through Q21 were forwarded to the full board for approval. Item Q3 was forwarded to the full board without a recommendation from the committee. Thank you, Mr. Young. Board members, we will separate items Q3 for the vote. Are there any additional separations being requested? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve items Q1, Q2, and Q4 through Q21? So move. Thank you. No second is needed since the recommendation comes from the committee. Any discussion on those Q's? May I have a roll call vote,

198please? Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumprey, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hem, yes. Miss Fmpong, yes. Miss Booker Dwire, yes. Miss Harvey, yes. Miss G Ku, yes. Miss Dleski, yes. Miss Lter, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve item Q3? So moved. Booker Dwire. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Harvey. Thank you. Any discussion? Dr. Craft, please come forward. Miss Bumphrey. Um, first I I had I have a question. I listened to the contract meeting last night and I thought that it was mentioned that we were going to get more information about this contract today. I don't know if I misunderstood that comment. Uh just uh Mr. McMillian had asked about the teacher train. So uh I said that I would be happy to provide that and

199of course to answer any other questions. And so, uh, what we did was we went back and looked through, uh, 20, uh, 22, um, and we had 86 teachers trained in, um, Ilet and 101 trained in read 180. I do want to know note that literacy intervention is a very transient, uh, teacher population. And we, so all of those teachers that are trained aren't currently teaching. And based on if they moved schools, we could have teachers that are in both counts. they could have been trained in read 180 and pilot based on I was in this school and then moved to this school. Um and so uh those are the most accurate uh numbers. So I think that was the main followup that I was going to have. But I certainly I I also thought

200and maybe I'm mistaken somebody was in the committee meeting might be able to clarify. I thought Mr. Saras mentioned that we were going to have additional presentation about this contract. So, I think that we just updated the um sheet to reflect um the price per student. Um and so that really um and so while the contract is presented as a whole, it's really for both read 180 and ILT in conjunction. So when you see that total, it's to fund both of the programs. We are scaling read 180 back significantly um based on our own um review of data um and looking at schools with high fidelity and high growth keeping those schools only. And so we've already started to have those conversations with schools uh to let them know if they are moving over to

201eyelet where we do have that four-year historical trend data where we're growing two years at a time. So if a student enters sixth grade reading at a third grade level um in sixth grade they grow that two years. Now they're at fifth grade they're entering seventh grade they grow another two years by the end of seventh grade we can exit them out of intervention and not only that they're going into high school only taking credit bearing courses. And so that really is the goal. Um and so for u a handful of our schools read 180 is working exceedingly well. Um and so we would like the option to keep it at those schools but the schools that are showing the low growth we are going to do a reboot with eyelet. Um and so for

202example with read 180 for the school when I did the data for just the schools that were recommending to keep um what we were seeing is that students were starting um based on uh map norms at the 18th percentile in the fall and they were going to about the 36th percentile in the spring. Now, I know that doesn't sound significant and I'm going to talk a little bit about that covers up, but what I can tell you is that 78% of the students in those schools were making their growth goals. Um, and so when we talk about those in an aggregate way, what you lose is, and I'm just using an example of one school in the fall, 40% of their students fell in the first through 20th percentile. um and 54% of their uh

203students fell in the 21st to 40th percentile, 4% in the 41- 60, and 2% in the 61 to 80. By spring, 23% were in that red 1st through 20th, 21% in the 21 to 40, 15% in the 31st to 60th, um 8% in your 61st to 80th, and 33% were at the 80th percentile or higher. So when I give you averages, while that might not sound significant, 18 to 36, we are moving holistically students up to where they are what we would designate as college and career ready. Okay. And was this used for all students or only ELLL students? Uh read is used for anyone that needs literacy. I'm sorry, I apologize. I meant eyelet. Oh, so eyelet. Yes. So that's a great question. It's used for everyone. Um, we do use the ELLL version

204and I'm I'm really glad that you asked that because I know that sometimes people think that it is just for ELLL and what I call it is is a value ad. So their eyelet 45 and their eyelet ELLL are identical except what it adds in in addition to the common core state standards. It adds in the WEDA standards. So for teachers that are teaching multilingual learners, they would have the Maryland uh ELA common core standards. They would also have the WEDA standards and they also provide additional scaffolds, one of which being the ability to translate in about 70 languages. So what we know from the research is L1 to L2 um ability for a certain word or sentence increases comprehensibility for students. And so by having that available, we're not taking anything away, but we're

205adding things for students that will really help support them. Okay. And one more question. you you mentioned that the um for read 180 we were decreasing the use. Yes. So I'm looking at these numbers I'm probably misunderstanding but it looks like HMH which I believe is read 180 is listed a significantly higher amount than the um SAVIS which I believe is eyelet. Um so read 180 cost per license about twice as much a student which is why we went ahead and backed it up to understand the price per student. So I'm going to give you approximates because schools are still finalizing recommendations for next year. So what I have is really the kind of the midyear recommendation. So this year we had about 3,300 students in read 180 which is a lot. Um next year

206it will be between five and 700 students. So we are significantly decreasing and only keeping it working. Thank you Mr. I just want to be sure in the schools where it's really working, are we ensuring that the teachers that are implementing this that they're going to stay that they're because they're the ones that have been trained to to do it with high fidelity. So, Miss Dominowski, if I were Queen of the World, I would absolutely do that. Um, we make strong recommendations for that. Um, and we have also created um a leadership cadre to really honor those teacher leaders that are doing really well. And so by doing that, we're hoping that elevating that teacher leadership will also allow them to stay in that position within their schools. Um, but I don't have direct control

207over staffing, but I certainly meet with the principles and the EDS. We have conversations and we talk holistically about what makes sense. And so, um, I do know that one of the teachers that we have really tapped as one of our teacher leaders, um, will be continuing next year. Um, I can't say for sure 100% will, but that is always our strong recommendation when we see that growth. I I think that's that's where my biggest concern lies in with this is that we're making an adjustment to keep this for those students because it's working so well in there because those teachers are teaching it with the Fidelity and if that changes, are they still going to have the same results? And that's why I'm just I'm I wanted to ask that question. Yeah, it's a

208really good question and I certainly am willing to go back and talk to those principles of the schools that are keeping it, which I think that those schools are very excited that they are having the opportunity to keep it and just see what the plans are. Now, that's assuming they're staying at that school. Um, but within that school, you know, to see if we can really make sure that we prioritize that staffing. Miss Stleski, thank you. Just a follow-up question to Miss Dominowski. So for those um expert teachers, yes. Were any of those teachers excessed? So that that that would mean like they were Yeah, as far as I know, they were not. Um because we do we talk to them a lot. Um and so at this point, we have not um heard specifically

209um any of those. And so right now we're in the uh process of doing what we call materials meetings where we go and we kind of just make sure we have all the accurate information to place our order to make sure everything's in place for August. Um and usually at that time if there's any staffing changes, they let us know because we do offer we're going to offer a June training and an August training in a in an effort to hit our 100% of teachers train before they walk in day one in the classroom. Okay. Thank you. And Miss Booker Dwire, the 1.8 million that's for the 3 to 500 students or is hold on I have right here. Let me pull it up. Um so the do you mean the whole contract? There's George.

210Yes. So for that um that the line item that HMH education company digital license. Yeah. So what we did was and thank you for that. Um I do think that they are going to upload the way we broke it down differently. So the HMH education company digital licenses cost 109 per student per year. Um the student consumables is 30 per student per year. Um then there's a freight cost for the shipping of the consumables. Um and then SAVIS um cost 83 per student per year, but that decreases when we do the multi-year bringing it down to almost $62 a student. Um, and then we wanted to make sure that we buffered in money for schools. Some schools do buy the student libraries from the the companies and so that allows them to do that. I

211got it. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. You Dr. Rogers, you could have cut me off a lot. I I know. And I'm like, and we also have Sorry about that, but I was thorough. So, Miss Booker Dry, did you have a Did you get your answer? No, that I mean Well, yes, I got my answer. I got my answer. I don't I don't have a followup. Second chance. Give me a second chance. You don't have a no followup, Mr. Million. Dr. What happens to the child at a school that's doing 180 and they're not having success with that? That is a great question. So, we um monitor. So, there's a couple I'm going to answer multiarts. So, first of all, we do three data meetings a year. So we do a beginning of the year after

212the beginning of the year testing to make sure people were students were placed in the correct places. Um then at mid year we do another data meeting and if we notice students that are not making progress we discuss lots of things one of which could be do we need to change interventions. Um our goal is not to have a student go through an entire year of a program where they're not making progress. Um, and so we look and say, do we need to do a a a more intensive tier? Were they in the right placement? Were they in comprehension, but they needed decoding? And so those are the questions we have. And we meet with every single school in this kind of one-on-one setting. So, uh, I have my instructional specialist, uh, member, me or

213Miss Wix or Miss Goisovvich are in that meeting with the principal or AP um, and their reading teacher and we go through the data um, down to the student level. Mr. Dominowski, I'm sorry. Just a quick followup. So, I'm looking at this. It's 109 per student for the read 180 and 83 per student for the Savis. And you said it goes down after a multi-year deal. Yes. So that doesn't I don't understand how that breaks down to 1.8 million for spending authority for um the read 180 and then 750,000 for SAVIS. So we prepared these exhibits before we had all the data. Um, and so when we originally put these in, we hadn't planned to move so many read 180 data uh read 180 schools over when we did the um we had the map

214the spring map testing which is what we didn't have when we did that's the data I was using with you all tonight when we prepared this which is why we had asked for that special exhibit to just break it down by license. So originally remember when I said we had 3,300 students in read 180 that's really where a lot of that number came from. Now what I would say is we still are requesting well what so now we have to take that money and put it into the SAV because now we're just adjusting numbers right so all those schools which is between I think 15 and 17 schools we're moving from read 180 to eyelet they now have to have eyelet licenses so we're just we're just moving things around um and really until the

215final recommendations are in we don't have accounts so um what we were doing was estimates based on the midyear recommendation and looking at the midyear data when we looked at the and so for some of the schools we had kept them to say like okay we're going to keep them in read 180 but then when we got to the end of the year data we just don't feel like it's working holistically at that school and we have a responsibility to make sure um because in our eyelet schools we are making that two years of gain and it is our responsibility to make sure that we are doing right by every single student and that we are not wasting their time and we are giving them exactly what they need to make the gains and get

216out of intervention. Thank you, Miss Booker Dwire. So, how much are we asking for? Because the two documents have two different maximum contract spending authority. So, is it 3.2 or 3.9 million? Yeah, great question. Um when we went to revise it, we did um bump it up to uh allow for additional school-based spending um because we did realize that if they want to buy libraries, which we highly encourage, books still being in students hands, um that we would allow for that. Um and because it is a six-year contract, it's really, you know, we're doing our best to do a guesstimate, but yeartoyear, we don't know the number of students. It's not like where we can look at in uh enrollment projections when we're just planning for English. We are basing it on okay if we

217are looking at how many students are in need of reading intervention yeartoear that number fluctuates. And so that it just allows us to have some flexibility as we um as first of all program costs could increase but also we just don't know numbers for the next six years. Mr. Young. So the simple answer to Miss Booker Dwire's question is we're using the revised contract which is asking for a maximum contract spending authority of 3.9. That is correct. But I did want to un I did want to Yes, that's the bottom line. But I did want to explain why we buffered it a little bit for school spending. Right. And we understand that um things change and that you know prices and consumables all that factor in and change and and trust me when I say

218we do not want to put any additional students in reading intervention that don't need to be there. In fact, one of the things we've worked really hard on is to have an exit plan even at midy year um so that when students um if they hit their goal by that midy year that they can exit out. So our goal is to always and I always say let's work ourselves out of a job right like they don't need reading intervention anymore. Um I mean not a job completely but an intervention. Um and so really understanding that it would be great if we didn't need to spend all this because our numbers keep decreasing and that is our goal. Yeah, I just want to make clear that the prices are not going to change based on the

219contract. It's the enrollment that the students that are participating at these per pupil fees that are going to that's the the variable in here. Okay. May I Mr. McMillian, Mr. Sarah, considering this is two different products, would there be any need to separate this into two contracts? Well, I mean, there are two vendors. They each submitted price proposals for their products. Uh, from my standpoint, there wouldn't be unless the I mean, and they're both tiered uh reading and EL interventions. So I mean they're comparable from the standards that we use for procurement. Miss Webster, what do you want to say? Good evening, Mr. McMillian. They the solicitation was issued as a single solicitation which is why it appears before you as a single contract, single exhibit. Thank you. Okay. May I have roll call vote

220on Q3? Mr. McMillian? No. Miss Pumphrey? Yes. Mr. Young? Yes. Miss Dominowski? No. Miss Hen? No. Miss Franong? Abstain. Miss Booker Dwire? Yes. Miss Harvey? Yes. Miss Chica Kulu? Abstain. Miss Dowski? No. Miss Lar? Yes. Favor is five. Okay. Contract does not pass. So does this mean our students won't have any reading intervention or what what are the next steps? That's correct. They will not have an intervention. And so we are okay as a board with our students not having a reading intervention. Like what what action do we need to take? And I'm and I'm speaking as this as someone who who who has experienced read 180 in a school and had that was implementing it well and have seen students move. So I get with what Dr. Craft is talking about. Um and so

221I'm just as a board are we okay with our students not receiving any reading intervention from um from pro like what what are our next steps? Have you been I I Miss Stephanowski I I think that the next step would be that we need to go back to the drawing board and if we could come back with a contract that is more specific as to what we're spending it on for it. We had two versions of a contract here and one and the one that was passed by the curriculum committee is not the one that was being presented tonight. It it was it was changed. It went from 3.2 2 to 3.9 and um in that right like we don't know we would like to see the numbers of the schools where it's being spent

222how much we're spending on read 180 I think that we do need two separate contracts one for eyelet and one for 180 because in this way like there's no limit as far as yes port sorry okay so it's done okay discussion's finished okay I know I shouldn't have let I didn't realize what Miss Booker Dwire was going to I'm sorry. What? Mr. Burn. Okay. Okay. Okay. I will. You want me to comment? Sure. If you're allowed, I think so. Okay. We'll bring back uh something different to the board. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the report on the hiring update. And for that, I call Mr. McCall, Miss Gisinger, and Miss Simmons. Good evening. Thanks for hanging around. All right. Good evening, Board Chair Licer, Vice Chair Harvey, uh, Superintendent

223Dr. Rogers, and members of the board. Tonight, we want to bring to you a hiring update, and of course, I have with me Miss Anne Gisinger, the manager of staffing. tonight and will be talking about the Oracle HR recruitment cloud system. Uh specifically about the application as well as the onboarding process. In addition to that, she'll be talking a little bit more about our recruitment events and those things that we've done actually to build our pools for the 2526 school year. And then I also have with me Miss Carla Simons who is the manager of educator um I was going to say certificate but licensed uh office. And of course, Carla will be talking with us about the um grow our own program and those things that we're actually doing with our partnerships through colleges

224and universities here within the area to actually help those who are conditionally certified to be or licensed to become uh professionally licensed uh educators in the system. So without further ado, I'd like to turn it over to Miss Anne Gisinger. Good evening. Good evening. Oh, better click. We're excited to announce that on Monday, June 16th, we will be using our Oracle HR recruiting cloud system for our applicant tracking system. We put a lot of work into this. It's a very robust system that offers a lot of options for us to continue to recruit and hire staff that are effective for our schools, our offices, um, and other areas of the county. Um, with that, on the 14th, our applicants will actually be able to begin to apply. So, we'll start using it on Monday. The

225applicants can actually apply via the BCPS website at the jobs careers click to apply to jobs. And our team has been uh working this week in building the system and getting our postings up and ready. And soon we will be doing um training with our principles and other staff out in the offices to do our hiring. One exciting thing I just want to point out about it is our applicants will start in the system and run the full life cycle to get their paycheck in one system. Oracle isn't the only thing we've been working on in the staffing office. We've also been doing recruitment events this year. between both inperson and virtual events. We did 66 um events that were by us or um offsite. Our big event this year, which attracted over 800 attendees,

226was the second week of March. We had three events and they were spread throughout the county in different geographic locations. Um the date that we created this presentation, we had just 150 vacancies, but actually as of today, we're down to 135. And we will continue to um do some of the items that you see listed here on the slide to continue to find that quality staff for our students. And with that, I will turn it over to Carla. Thanks. Uh good evening. Um thank you. Uh so collaborations uh with our local colleges and universities now sit in the educator lensure. Um this upcoming school year uh we are pleased to offer several cohorts um that reflect our recruitment and staffing efforts. Uh those cohorts include uh fun uh teacher educator preparation programs for conditional teachers

227um and those uh teachers interested in achieving national board certification. Um institutions that are not approved cohorts, they may share their programs with us and we post that with to our our employees. Um employees that wish to enroll in these programs may request tuition reimbursement um through the teacher quality and diversity program. The uh Maryland Higher Education Commission uh approved $1 million uh to fund 11 Maryland institutions to support them with building initiatives to help train um our federal workers who were displaced um as well as conditional teachers. Um so the grant emphasizes a special um uh emphasis on training and ensuring these individuals receive lensure. Uh five of these local districts reached out to the division of HR um uh to as a a level of support and um we answered that call and

228um you see them posted here on the slide. um they will be working with us to to design uh pathways to teacher lensure and address critical shortage needs. Overall, these partnerships support the efforts uh for our blueprint for Maryland's future pillar highly qualified and diverse teacher leaders. Um the Baltimore Teacher Apprenticeship Program or BTAP um is one of our grow our own initiatives in Baltimore County. Uh it create it creates a pipeline um to uh create highquality teachers in our county. Again, this is another initiative under blueprint pillar 2. Uh our goal is to increase the number of licensed educators by creating a pathway for our para educators and uh community members. Um the program addresses shortage areas in the area of elementary and secondary special ed. Um the initiative was successful this year. We're

229just ending year one. Uh we had four apprenticeship four apprentices who completed their their program this year. Um we serve this year served as a pilot. Um and they were received structured mentorship uh coursework in school training experiences. Um we provide them with support around tuition assistance um and a designated mentor. Um throughout the year, BCPS or the Office of Educator Lenture met weekly or excuse me, monthly with the Loyola team uh to ensure joint planning and that our efforts align with the curriculum realities of being in a BCPS classroom uh and lensure requirements per MSD. Uh as we move into year two, we are currently recruiting um uh we've decided to scale up the number of participants uh and expand the program from one year to a two-year structure. Um the two-year structure allows

230participants to uh work on the coursework on a part-time basis versus um the one-year structure had participants in a full-time M's program in one completing it in one year. That was a heavy load and we saw that very early on. Um we as a program have joined the NCTR network. Um, BTAP is a member of this National Center for Teacher Residencies network. Um, it is a partnership that allows us to participate in professional learning. Um, tech receive technical program assistance and uh, access to national best practices uh, for implementing a teacher residency or apprenticeship. Um with the membership it opens up to us up to the opportunity to apply for um the NCTR boundless educator initiative grant. Uh this grant is awarded annually to residencies or apprenticeship programs in the network and the money would

231go directly to um the participants in the program. So it can include tuition assistance, uh assessment fees, um increased support and one of the uh initiatives in this grant would be to train the mentors assigned to the apprentices. Um we are waiting on notification uh for this application. So please send well wishes. Thank you. Excellent. Excellent. Of course, that concludes the presentation. Any questions? Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions? Mr. McMillian, who knows how many high schools have the teacher education programs? Do you wouldn't know that, would you? Mr. McMillion, we wouldn't get that information. I don't know off top. I'm just curious, have we looked at that? Have we tapped into that at all? Because some of those are pretty extensive, I think. you know, we might be able to get

232some PAR educators out of that or or we we probably are, but maybe even a couple teachers out of those programs. I would agree with you on that. As a matter of fact, we in the past, we've actually had the um the scholarship program that we've also had with our um I think you probably um to what you're referring to. We've had that in the past and of course we're looking to continue that because if we don't start, you know, early on to get a lot of those individuals who are currently in the system to come back into teaching, then of course that that puts us at a deficit because other systems are doing it as well. So I think that's uh something that we could certainly uh uh continue to do and continue to

233uh recruit from. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much for that presentation. Thank you. You're welcome. The next item on the agenda is the report on academic achievement highquality instruction professional development update. And for that I call on Dr. Jones, Mr. Damal, Dr. Burquist, and Miss Demino. Dr. Jones will sit this up. Oh, Dr. Jones is sitting this one out. Okay, minus Dr. Jones. Good evening everyone. Thank you for your patience tonight. Good evening Dr. Rogers, board chair Licter, Vice Chair Harvey, and esteemed members of the board of education. Uh tonight we are going to speak about our focus on professional learning that supports high quality instruction. So we'd like to speak to you a bit about where we've been, where we are now, and where we're going. So when we began

234this journey, we thought about what our system data tells us related to instruction. And we realized that we had not had any systemic training on instructional expectations across all of our leadership groups in many years. And that is definitely something that contributes to what our data tells us about student performance. So we did a significant amount of research um looking at texts that can help us solidify a common language around beliefs and expectations um highquality instruction, the ability to design learning environments, the ability to plan instruction, and the skillful teacher text rose to the top. So something that's important to note because we're going to tell you about the company that wrote the skillful teacher. Um, it's not anything that's earthshattering or brand new teaching topics. It really does represent a return to the basics

235and it helps us think about a common language across content areas, across grade levels and it's a framework that is going to help us level set and it actually already has. Um, so we'd like to tell you a little bit about the research for better teaching company and then we will get into some of the work that we've done in addition to the work that we've had through the trainers from the company. Research for better teaching represents a professional development organization dedicated to improving expertise in teaching and school leadership. Founded in 1979, Research for Better Teaching strives to strengthen organizational culture and institutionalize the study of teaching within schools and throughout school districts and systems. For more than 45 years, Research for Better Teaching has delivered professional development to teachers and leaders across the country

236and internationally. They have worked with educators in 41 states and 18 countries. Thus far, we've had 318 employees who have been trained, 151 teacher leaders, and 167 leaders responsible for providing feedback and evaluations uh for our instructional program. All teachers have been afforded the opportunity to attend professional learning that embeds the core foundations of quality instruction. [Music] And when we think about the learning, we we've been excited with the way that our principles and our school leaders have taken the learning back to their buildings and what we've been able to see come out of that learning. So, we have a brief video where two of our school leaders are sharing on some of their experiences and takeaways. [Music] Because my ILT is fairly new in their positions, this was a great jumping off point for

237us to really talk about what feedback can look like and what how we set expectations with our staff uh for every day in every classroom and to really hone in on what are the specific skills tools and teaching strategies and teaching uh moves that teachers can make that we can replicate across all classrooms in our building to make sure that we're getting the same results across all those classrooms. One way I can take this back into the schoolhouse is first exposing my assistant principal and my leadership team. So in working with the ILT, I've already brought back following every meeting we've had so far that to my ILT and said this is something that I've learned that's new and how do we see it happening already in our building and what are those next steps

238that we can do with our teachers? even speaking as low as the objectives and what we see written on the board and how we write the objectives. Are they meeting the needs of the student learning and are the teachers really having that great understanding? So, it's allowed us to step back really evaluate kind of where we're at as a school and where we're at as individual teachers and then my instructional leadership then as we push in and we have those grade level meetings with our teachers and we have those um one-on-one meetings with our teachers, we're able to really implement some of those things. also that long range planning component, planning forward into the next school year because where we're at in this year, how are we going to leverage some of these components and

239build them into our professional learning for teachers and just into our planning stages? So, the course is based on the belief that skillful teachers never stop learning through experimentation, data analysis, study, and collegial sharing. Participants engage in reflective dialogue while applying research-based strategies to enhance teaching and learning. [Music] So the courses that the administrators took were taught by the folks from the skillful teacher company research for better teaching. So our administrators um participated in analyzing teaching for student results and then we also had um teacher leaders participate in the studying skillful teacher course. So those were taught by the company. Something that we're very excited about is that we were also able to for the very first time train give the opportunity to train every single teacher and para educator in BCPS on the core

240components that are part of the skillful teacher framework. So the company does the specific training on their text and their materials and then our leadership teams um we developed materials based on those core components that you can see on the screen. So, we selected five last summer. That was routines, momentum, and attention, clarity, high expectations, objectives, and we were able to work with just under 8,000 staff members, which is a great number. Um, this summer we are on track to um have everyone trained by August 19th. In the summer, our number for registration is just under 6,000. And then the remainder of the teachers will go through the content on August 19th which is a contractual duty day for professional learning and they will focus on the topics on the right hand side which is

241personal relationship building and high expectations the science of learning and using time wisely. So that's a huge win for us to have that staff all of our staff have the opportunity for that. Um we also have been working to monitor the implementation like what's going on what are we seeing and the chart on the left hand side that is evidence from our executive directors of what they saw when they went on their classroom walkthroughs um based on the content that we taught last year and then we are developing a walkthrough tool that is um going to be used next year as well for the topics that we're teaching this summer. During this upcoming school year, 28 learning sites will be piloting an evaluation tool that is aligned to research of better teaching. This pilot will

242allow input from teachers and administrators in preparation to adopt a new evaluation system during the subsequent school year pending approval from MSDE. Researcher Better Teaching Company representatives will participate in an evaluation steering committee. They will engage with the subcommittee of the educator effectiveness committee with the strategic intent of applying experience and expertise to enhance the development and growth of teachers. 29 course offerings will be offered during the next three years. Four system leaders will work with company representatives to become certified as system trainers to eventually lead the courses. Company representatives will also participate in site visits to schools to engage in reflective dialogue and observation of instruction. As we continue to devote efforts and time to enhancing teaching and learning with highquality professional development, we sincerely thank Dr. Rogers, executive leadership, and the board of

243education for investing in the growth of our instructional leaders. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Um, any questions from board members, Miss Booker Dwire? So, I love research for better teaching, and I I was talking with a teacher at a bingo night, a Baltimore County teacher, and who just happened to bring this up and said it was the best professional development that she's ever participated in. So, um, this is I think this is definitely the right direction. I do have a question around the evaluation development. So this evaluation is for teacher evaluation, new teachers, correct? Is it going to be built into the principal's evaluation with how the principal is evaluating new teachers based off of this? So will anything change with the principal's evaluation based off of the new teacher evaluation? So,

244Miss Booker Dwire, if you're referring to whether or not there's going to be an expectation set that principles are using that and that's part of monitoring them. Yes. But this upcoming year is more of the pilot and making sure that um the schools that have volunteered to be a part of the pilot, they're trained, they're implementing, they'll work out all of the kinks, give us feedback before we scale it up to um other, you know, uh across the board. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you so much for that presentation. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is information which includes the 2025 climate survey system report annual report on the education foundation and the Southeast Area Advisory Council meeting minutes of April 28th and May 19th. Um based on a request

245from board members, the 2025 climate survey system report will also come back as an agenda item in a future meeting. Wait a second. Okay. Next on the agenda. Whoops. Is Whoops. Board member comments and agenda setting. And I'll start with um anybody I'll just because of the late hour. Is anybody if you raise your hand if you have any board member comments or agenda setting items that you would like? Miss um Pumprey. I know everyone's tired, but I just really want to say this. On Thursday, I attended the 37th annual high school art exhibition. Um I learned that I give her one of these pamphlets. I learned that visual arts has been part of our BCPS curriculum for 118 years. If I'm incorrect about that, somebody tell me, but I'm pretty sure that's what I

246learned on Thursday. Um, I've been attending this event every year since I was elected to the board, and each year I'm more and more impressed by um, the artwork that I see from our students. This year is beyond amazing. Um, the judges uh, have their work cut out for them because I don't know how they select the winners for this. Every piece of artwork is just absolutely amazing. Um, the exhibition is still available for viewing at the startup at Talson University through June 30th. So I encourage if you can to attend and see the artwork of our students. As with many other departments, changes have been made within the office of visual arts and I would like us to ensure that our students and the visual arts curriculum and instruction that is provided to them

247is not negatively impacted by any of these changes. Our arts our arts curriculum is important um just as important as math, reading, science and social studies. Um there are several career pathways for students through the arts and those pathways continues continue to grow. We need to find a way to keep the quality of our arts programs in place regardless of budget constraints. Um, I wanted to offer a special thank you to everyone in our office of visual arts who organized the exhibition and continue to have a positive impact on our students by giving them access to highquality art instruction. And finally, I also wanted to express my congratulations to all of our graduates. I attended several graduations across the county and just seeing the looks of pride on our students faces, some in tears, others

248smiling, um, and the excitement just brought me joy and it was a wonderful reminder of where our focus should remain, which is on our students. So, congratulations to all of our graduates and I'm so proud of all of you. Thank you. Thank you for that, Miss Pumphrey. Anyone else? Missy? Thank you. Yeah, the arts department in the county is incredible. music, um, dance, visual arts, really an incredible program. So, in response to public comment from this evening, and I do believe, um, it's been a request from a board member in the past, and I know the public has requested it as well, um, I would like to make a motion that board members can ask questions and obtain answers following the monthly superintendence report. Oh, you mean not the written one. You're talking about the

249during the board meeting. During the board meeting. Yes. And I can clarify that. Is there a second to I will second so we can discuss. Okay. Would you like to talk to your motion? Sure. Yes. I know that it was a request from the public this evening but also in the past that you know we do our due diligence in terms of um our role as board members and um I do believe it would be an incredible act of increased transparency. Okay. Any discussion? Sure. Miss Pumprey, I would just like to hear the superintendent's thoughts on that. Like is there is does it bring you more I don't know. I guess that's a bad question. I apologize. Do you oppose the questions? Would you rather us send you questions through an email once the report

250is given? Um are there any prior um has this been done in the past at all? Is this something that would be new completely to the system? So it is not Thank you, Miss uh Pumphrey. Uh it is not typical that in the report that there is question and response the monthly report. uh typically the uh superintendent, board chair and student member of the board provide an update. I have in the past depending on the contact uh depending on the content departed from past practice and and announce that uh I would open it up uh to questions uh you know depending on what that content is uh more so if you know if there's a topic of discussion uh we're happy to uh consider that for addition to the agenda and provide it as a

251traditional report and then engage in the uh normal discussion and I think that was the point of my question is a better way that we can handle this. Can we ask for an agenda item if there's something that needs further explanation or clarity? Um, Miss Harvey, did you have your hand up? Miss Hen, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I support this motion. I think, and thank you, Miss Dlesky, for making it. Um, oftentimes the most important topics are addressed by the superintendent in her report. The most timely updates, um, areas of content that we may not always foresee coming in in the report because we don't receive outlines. These are very timely updates. So, it's not always possible to request agenda topics in advance when we don't know what's going to be in the report

252in advance. So, I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss and ask questions. Um, so I I am in support of this motion for that reason. Thank you. Thank you. Other discussion, Miss Fong. Oh, Miss Fong. Thank you, Miss Fong. Miss Framp, I had put my hand down once this had started. I actually wanted to make comments on something else. So that's why my hand went back down. I do have something, but it's okay. to stay on topic. It's for something else. I'm putting my hand back down. Okay. Thank you. I'll come back afterwards. Any further discussion on Miss Delesky's motion? Miss Harvey, I I'm just asking a clarifiying question. Mr. Delesky, can you can you speak to your motion again? I I heard something about transparency, but I'm not making the connection between information that's

253being reported and what people who you've talked to or whatever feel is not transparent about the report. Sure. I know um Miss Ston in her speech tonight that was something that she spoke about was um you know just the importance of us asking questions and being actively engaged. So there may be uh superintendence reports where we don't have any questions, but I just think having that opportunity can just be transparent with the public. I know sometimes immediately I have questions, but then the followup isn't the same. I feel like the opportunity to to respond immediately to um whatever the superintendent res uh presents um as opposed to a follow-up later just the the public can hear the responses as well which I think is imperative and you know the call is always for increased transparency.

254I do believe this is a very reasonable and natural way to be more transparent. Thank you Miss Pri. I just I my concern is although I understand the point about transparency and asking questions and questions may arise my concern is that we have an agenda to keep the meeting running smoothly um and depending on what the superintendent's report is composed of at that at at each meeting um it could really take us completely off of agenda. U I do think it's important that we get the information. I'm just not sure asking questions immediately after the superintendent's report is the um most efficient way of doing that. Um and I'm als and and because of that, I also feel like maybe if we put this in place, the superintendent will be more reluctant to provide as

255much information in her report knowing that questions were going to come um that needed to be immediately answered um and that would compromise our agenda at the meeting. Thank you, Mr. Pump. Mr. Pumprey, Mr. McMillian. Okay, I'm sorry, Miss Han. Thank you. Um, I appreciate board member Pumprey asking about alternatives to this option and thank you for your thoughtful question um to Dr. Rogers on that because again I appreciate not wanting to put the superintendent in the hot seat um and asking questions in an ad hoc fashion. Um that's a very difficult position to be in. However, um sometimes when we do ask questions by email, our public doesn't have the advantage of getting that information and we're it's not easily shared or sometimes if it's shared thirdhand or by board members, it's not the

256same as hearing it directly from the superintendent, which is of course our preference, right? We we prefer that it be shared directly by you, Dr. Rogers, and so that the public hears it. We're hearing it at the same time. If we have clarifying questions, as Mrs. Dowleski said we can ask them when they're fresh on um everyone's minds and we all receive the information at the same time. So I think it is the most efficient and most truthful if I know we're talking about transparency but most accurate way of getting the information to our public also and we've talked a lot on this board about misinformation being out there and I think in order to avoid that this is one way to avoid misinformation being put out there is by having the superintendent address these

257things immediately when she's prepared to do so. she's already presenting on those topics and if we u make sure that our questions are very focused to the material at hand then I think we can stick to um any time constraints and and be timed you know by Mr. Burns or whatever madam chair um deems reasonable then we can limit our discussion to that. So thank you go ahead Mr. McBillian by law we have one employee that's Dr. Rogers, the superintendent. So, I think I think this is a great idea and I've told her today I've seen her dozens of times speak in front of people in front of groups and I think she does an excellent job. I'm confident she can handle our questions. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Stleski. Yes. And just one final

258comment. You know, perhaps um and I'm happy to amend the motion. We put some kind of limit. Maybe instead of the three minute time each board member has one minute or you know we allocate a total of 10 minutes. Oh okay sorry instead of two minutes we each have one minute or we allocate a total of 10 minutes. So so certainly a time constraint is certainly reasonable. Mr. Young, I think we can um put a better process in place where the superintendent is not necessarily put on the spot but yet the information is still received. Um similar to like what we do during the budget where we submit questions, they are answered but they are also posted. This would also give the superintendent um while I commend her for her in-depth knowledge of the system,

259this will also give her the opportunity to ensure that the information she is providing is 100% accurate. Thank you, Miss Harvey. So, I I don't question uh if any member on this board wants the public to be informed. I think when we when we talk about transparency in particular, uh we need to be careful that we're providing information and that we're providing it accurately and in context. And I think, you know, a asking questions is completely within our uh our sphere of responsibility. Uh but I do think the superintendent should have the opportunity to consider uh the answers to those questions, consult her staff. she does not run BCPS by herself and that those responses should come to us and to the public in good and decent order. And so I am not in favor

260of an ad hoc question answer um session uh from the superintendent report. Well, I also agree with the intent. I do realize that while she appears to be able to speak all of this information off the top of her head, I realize the amount of preparation that goes into her board reports and goes into any public setting where she is. It sounds as if she's speaking just freely, but it is hours and hours and I don't want to speak for you, but I've watched you work and I know that it is many hours of preparation. So, I agree with that we should follow up in some way and there's other processes to Mr. Young's um comments, but I am reluctant to put her on the spot without enough preparation and research um which is the

261way she works um to put things together. Miss Doowski, I this might be to Miss Stilleski's um motion, but we can only ask questions about what was in the superintendent's report. Correct. I think that that that would be the the would be the intent of this is just we can't go off topic. It could only be what was discussed in the superintendent's report. Correct. If we can if we can do that sometimes we sent Yes. And it is with the I think that would No, it's okay. I think that would be the that we would have to rein it in. We couldn't ask questions that were off topic that were off the report. I mean just like any other. But I think that it's and if if you would assume that I mean I know

262that you do all that you've done all the research and what you put in front of us and just to be able to ask clarifying questions specifically about what's in your report. That's it would be good. But that would just be my suggestion. Okay. Oh, we got lots of them. Mr. Young and then we'll come back around. I mean that to Miss Dominowski's um statement that sounds good in theory, but we do have the tendency at times to fall down the rabbit hole and ask that one question that we feel is related to the information that was given us, but takes us through a whole another path. Miss Pumprey, two quick things. First, um I'm not sure if any of our legal team has any information regarding LEAs that may or may not do this

263and what that looks like. And my second comment would be if this if depending on how the vote goes tonight, I would like to see this in the future as a discussion regarding another way to to get this information if it's not, you know, if it's not asked directly after the superintendent's report. Okay. Mr. McMillian in regards to staying on topic. I think that's the chair's responsibility. If a question is offt target, just I'm sorry that question is off target. Secondly, you know, and I'm like I said to you in the dining room, I think you do an excellent job of this and I'm I'm not putting you out there, you know, to expose you in any way, but if you thought stop and think about it, all the all the different conversations we've had

264about budget, you answer those. You know, all you have support out there, but you don't seem to need it. and what's wrong with if you need support to ask support to help you with that question. I don't see a problem with that. I just think it's a great way to get information out there to our people and our listening and our viewing public. Thank you, Mr. Delki. Yeah, and just one thing to add on to that, when um we have presentations and there's a question, they sometimes say we'll follow up by email and or we'll follow up um in writing. So, I think that's perfectly acceptable. You do a great job addressing questions. you certainly um are more than capable, but I think it's also very reasonable that not all questions would be answered. For

265sure. What our public may or may not know is we're hearing the information for the first time as well as they are. So any questions that um come up to them, chances are we're having the same questions come up. So it it serves them, it serves us, and if we don't ask them, they're going to be asking us this those same questions. And I would rather them hear from Dr. Rogers directly than be asked a question and get get the wrong answer, right? And and try to interpret what I've heard. Again, I'm hearing it for the first time. We don't get the presentations in advance. We don't have the opportunity to have one-on- ones. We're we're hearing it for the first time as our public is. So, I'm I'm asked questions frequently after board meetings.

266I mean, our public is engaged with us. that's great, but I don't I'm not capable of answering those questions based on the presentations we get when I'm just hearing it for the first time and can't ask clarifying questions. And I rather than put the wrong information out there or try to serve my constituents by giving them answers that they seek, I would rather ask those questions directly myself and make sure that they're getting it from from the source. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Miss Harvey. Just uh really quick, I I just want to uh be clear. One, I agree with Miss Pumphrey. This is not an eitheror situation. This is not a situation where questions don't get asked immediately after a report that they don't get to get asked at all. There is no statute of

267limitations on time frame from which a board member can ask a question. And I think that the superintendent has demonstrated her willingness uh and her uh discipline around making sure that we have accurate information. And uh so I agree with Miss Pumprey that um should we go another route from this motion that we have a discussion about how we can continue to ask the superintendent questions and how those responses would be uh disseminated not only to the board but to the public. Miss Booker Dwire. And I just want to make sure that there's accurate information out there because whenever we ask the superintendent a question, we get a response. We can request a one-on-one at any time and has never been denied. The content that's in that board report oftent times is discussed in other

268meetings or it's leading up to it. So this idea that this is the the superintendent's report is just coming out of nowhere um is an inaccurate um it's just is inaccurate. And so I just want to make sure that um that that is clear and on the record. Um and I do agree with Miss Pumprey and Miss um Miss Harvey and and Mr. young like let's do this um in a thoughtful way and if this is something that we want to do then let's do it in a thoughtful way. Um so I will be voting no on this motion. Do you want to say anything? You want to say okay? Okay. Mr. McMillian I want to go back to the viewing and listening public. You know we can email any and we can request conversations

269and everything else but that's just it. that's oneonone or that's an email that we get. I think it's the viewing and the listening public. There's people listening right now. Even though this room's empty, there's people listening to this conversation. And to me, that's critical that they get feedback, you know, right from your statement, you know, for whatever your report's about and you construct it and and I give you credit for it, you know. Uh but I think that that interplay, that engagement with the public is critical to me. Thank you. Okay, last comment, Miss Stleski. Yeah, I chose to make the motion directly based on Miss Ston's speech because I know that she's representing thousands of teachers and the message that I heard from her was that they want to see us more engaged in

270a way where they can hear the answer. So, just that's what inspired my motion. Thank you. Thank you. May we have a roll call vote, please? No. Okay. All right. Roll call vote, please. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, no. Mr. Young, no. Miss Dominowski? Yes. Miss Hen? Yes. Miss Fong? I appreciate the intent, but a different process. So, my vote is no. Miss Booker Dwire? No. Miss Harvey? No. Miss Chica Kulu? No. Could this be added just as an agenda item for another meeting instead? Okay. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, Miss Jleski. Yes. Miss uh Licer. No. Favor is four. Okay. Any other Miss Fong, you had an comment before your hand was up before the motion was made. Thank you. Um, so just also wanted to speak to our graduation season.

271Um, so we had spring graduation season that began on May 20th with our first BCPS graduation at Ridge Rston and it just ended this past Friday on June 6th with Woodlon High School. So congratulations to our graduates and their loved ones who have supported them and poured into them to get their graduates this far. So, as this chapter of their lives end with high school, new chapter begins, no matter whether the graduates are attending two or four-year colleges, trade school, working or entering the military, or even starting their own businesses. So, for our graduates, you heard many inspiring um comments. And just to add, I guess a little bit, um I would encourage you or remind you that true destiny never requires you to sacrifice who you are. And so as you have your experiences

272in life, please don't twist yourself into shapes to please others. As even if you make mistakes, you're still worth worth it and doing it your way. So believe in yourself and even amaze yourself by doing beyond what you think you could or would do. So may you live and live more abundantly and congratulations to the class of 2025. Look forward to seeing the summer graduates in August. Thank you. Thank you for that, Miss Rampang. Any other last comments, Miss Stleski? Yeah, I'm sorry. I do have one other quick thing, but I know we don't meet again for a month. Um, so I also want to make a motion that we discuss the censure of Miss Damonowski. Mo to discuss the censure right now? Yes. Okay. Um, is there a second? Second that. Okay. And you

273want to talk to your motion? Um, yes, please. So, I've done a lot of research and um nationally there has never been a censure of a board member for the reasons cited. Um I look at this board, there are times we're passionate. I know Mr. McMillion, he kind of jokes that he's animated and um I I just feel in the in the public eye respectfully the the optics look terrible and um I believe that she has conducted herself with grace and with 100% diligence to the school system and um you know if anybody is willing to share I I I really would like to better understand um the reasons for either your hold out to to revoke the censure or for your support for revoking the censure. Um, again, respectfully, I I really think that

274this looks unfortunately very um poor on our part in the public eye. Thank you. Thank you. Point of order. Um, being that this matter is currently has just legal advice, is this something we should be discussing right now considering the the status of where this um where we are in the process? Miss Booker Dryer, I think if you were asking if we should discuss some sort of strategy related to the case, I would say no. Um, it was at a meeting not that long ago, maybe the last meeting if I'm recalling correctly, while the case was pending that a motion was made on the topic and nobody had a point of order at that point in time. And and I don't I you know, this part of your meeting seems to be about offering comments

275about recent activities and and things that are going on in the school system. This is one of those sort of self-governing things. If this is something you all are comfortable with doing and having substantive discussion of topics that weren't on the agenda pri uh heading into the evening, you'll have to decide that. Um it does seem different than what you normally talk about when you talk at this point of your meeting. But beyond that, I can't point to a law or rule that says that that's an inappropriate comment. Mr. I think it's a great idea. I think it's an opportunity to fix something and make it right and then we all look like we all come out the good guys on this. Thank you, Miss Fong. Um, this was a Is this a motion that

276we actually be discussing this again at this point? Am I clear on that? Or is it just asking that are we Yes, I made the motion to discuss. I believe I can't word a motion the same way as I made it at the last meeting. So, um, you know, I'm happy to amend the motion. So, so the motion is just to discuss. Correct. I mean, if So, I think we should have voted on that before we had the discussion. So, may I have a roll call vote, please? Well, that's why I wanted to be clear, Madam Chair, because I would actually ask, I guess, if we're making the motions that at this point we would lay on the table as far as this so that we temporarily postpone the motion for later consideration because we

277have talked at length about this in open and close session. Well, that her motion is to discuss. So, right now, we'll vote whether we want to discuss this further. Mr. McMillian, yes. Miss Pumphrey, yes. Mr. Young, no. Miss Dominowski, yes. Miss Hen, yes. Miss Fong, no. Miss Booker Dryer, no. Miss Harvey, no. Miss Chulu, no. Miss Dleski, yes. Miss Licer, no. Favor is five. Okay. The last item on the agenda is announcements. The board will hold a special virtual meeting for personnel matters for personnel matters only on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. The board's next full meeting will be on Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Thank you for joining us tonight. The meeting is now adjourned.