001Mr. Lou is the person who pushes students and shows them the way. And this is why I think he truly deserve this honor and way much more. I've known him since middle school and he's just been helping me so much and he's just amazing. He's so supportive and he's so humble. like he'll tell you like I don't know everything but he really does. I want to congratulate him. So thrilled about this honor for Mr. Lou. He's so deserving. He started the AP calculus program here at ACE which is enabling so many young people to pursue engineering but at the same time he is an amazing teacher of special education. He's a special educator and the fact that he has this range and is so passionate, so um emotional and allin when it comes to young
002people in Baltimore City, Mr. Lou represents why we have teacher of the year. This is one of my favorite days of the year and always will be. No, I can say about Mr. Lou. Uh he is truly a teacher that believes in all students as a special education teacher, also as an AP calculus teacher. He pushes students to as far as it can go. I've been spent all my years here, all my six years here at ACE. I've been incredibly blessed to have students who work so hard and they need us teachers to push them in toward help reach the research success that they want. Our students need a voice. Our teachers, our educators in the school building need voices. And I'm going to do my best to leverage this platform in order to help
003build bridges to be in tune with what's going on in our schools. Every day in neighborhoods across Baltimore, students from city schools are dreaming, building, and becoming. They're not just preparing for the future, they're shaping it. Graduates like Angela Pali are proof of that. Baltimore City Public School means to me opportunity. I immigrated from Trinidad and uh got a a lot of exposure to a lot of different things. I went to Northeast Middle School, also went to school at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. In high school, I got exposed to architecture, which uh some of the projects forced me out into the city to visit a lot of the historic buildings to learn about why they were there, how they were constructed, who constructed them. Also gave me the opportunity to meet my wife in the after
004school program at at Baltimore School for the Arts Twigs program. And all of those opportunities I think helped me uh become the person that I am today. For Angelo, City Schools was more than just a place to learn. It was a launchpad, a space where mentors encouraged him. Always interested in architecture. My father was um in construction in Trinidad, so I was always wandering around the job site, but I also loved to draw and those just seemed like a natural marriage. Justice Sawyer, who I believe is a principal of Poly right now, ran the CAD or computer AED drafting class and again um gave me the tools to learn how to think about drawings technically. Then went to um Penn State and even though I always was interested in architecture, I took that as an
005opportunity to explore a lot of other things. So, one point was an English major, was one point an art major, uh, one point was a teaching major, but none of it really uh, sang to me. And so, when I transferred to College Park, Maryland, um, applied to the architecture program, got in and really just enjoyed the challenge, this helped me kind of center my life and create things that'll be here for a long time. Architecture became more than a possibility. It became a calling. Today, his work helped shape the future of education in Baltimore. And as he looks back, he has one message for the students who are walking the same halls he once did. Everyone has talent. Um, but how you cultivate it comes from that hard work and discipline. And and by that
006I mean just kind of showing up every day, working at it, working at your craft or or what you're trying to learn. And if you put in the time and the effort, usually you will see the results. Um, and so that's the advice I would give almost anyone is that just be consistent, identify what you want to do, and then work at it. My name is Angelo Parali. I'm a project manager and architect at Michigan State University and I am city schools. We are going to start in about a couple of minutes. Um, we just have a couple more personnel were waiting to join us. So, um, we'll holler when we're ready in just a couple minutes. Thank you for your patience. Crazy. Good evening everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'd like to welcome you to
007our May 27th board meeting. Um I'm just it warms my heart to see just a very full room. We appreciate everybody's participation and joining us this evening. Um I'm Robert Sally. I'm proud to serve as the board chair here along with 10 of my additional colleagues, the CEO and her staff um this evening. Um just a general reminder to our public who's online. If you haven't done so, please mute your phone. Anyone who does not mute their phone may be muted by the call moderator or removed from the call. Additionally, if you are not a board member of the CEO and her staff, we ask that you turn off your video. I'll now read a roll call of the board to identify who is present. Please identify yourself first before speaking for the record. Vice
008Chair Parker, Vice Chair Parker, present. Thank you, Commissioner Ames Messenger. Ames Messenger, present. Thank you, Commissioner Koy. Commissioner Koy, present. Thank you, Commissioner Espazito. Commissioner Espazito, present. Thank you, Commissioner Kinyata Bay. Commissioner Kinyatta Bay, present. Thank you, Commissioner Muhammad. He'll be joining us shortly. Commissioner Reading Lawer, Commissioner Reading Linger, present. Thank you, Commissioner Rooks. Commissioner Rooks, present. Thank you, Commissioner Simmons. Commissioner Simmons, present. Thank you, Commissioner Slater Harrington. Commissioner Slater Harington, present. Thank you. And I'm also present. Is there a motion to reopen the meeting? So moved. Kenyat Bay. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Espazito. Thank you. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Ames Messenger? Yes. Commissioner Koy? Yes. Commissioner Espazito. Yes. Commissioner Kinyatta Bay. Yes. Commissioner Reading Lawinger, yes. Thank you, Commissioner Rooks. Yes. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Commissioner Slater Harrington,
009yes. And I'm in favor. This motion passes. We have a moment of silence that I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Ring Linger to read. Thank you, Chair. I would like to take the time to recognize the passing of city schools students. Each of these individuals were a part of our school communities. They will be remembered fondly by the greater city schools community. Tonight, we send our deepest condolences to their friends and families. We have one tonight. Coppen Academy. Tyel Finch, grade 10. Tyel Finch was a 10th grader at Coppen Academy. He was a respectful and kind student. He loved playing video games and watching videos on his phone. He usually kept to himself, but he started coming out of his shell this year to create meaningful relationships. He was quiet but mighty. He
010connected with peers around anime and video games like Sonic. Tyel will be missed by his peers and the staff at Coppen Academy. Please join the board for a moment of silence. Thank you, Commissioner Reinger. Um, is there a motion to approve the prior open session summaries? So, move Parker. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Rrooks. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Amasser? Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Koy. Yes. Commissioner Espazito, yes. Commissioner Kinyatta Bay, yes. Commissioner Reading Lawinger, yes. Commissioner Rooks, yes. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Commissioner Slayer Harrington, yes. And I'm in favor. This motion passes. Is there a motion to approve the close session summaries? So move. Kinyatta Bay. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Espazito. Thank you. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Excuse me. Commissioner Ames
011Messenger. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Koy. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Espazito. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Kinyatta Bay. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Reading Lawinger. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Brooks. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Simmons. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Slater Harrington. Yes. Thank you. And I am in favor. This motion passes. Is there a motion to approve the personnel, employment, and payroll? So moved as Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Senator Harrington. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Commissioner Ames Messenger. Yes. Commissioner Quain. Yes. Commissioner Spacito. Yes. Commissioner Kenyatta Bay. Yes. Commissioner Muhammad, sorry, pardon me. Commissioner Reinger, yes. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Thank you. And Commissioner Slater Harrington, yes. And I'm in favor. This motion passes. I'll now turn it over to Vice Chair Parker before we uh begin on the consent agenda this evening.
012Good evening everyone. Good to see you all. In February, the board posted a request for proposals seeking a firm to assist us in our national search for the next CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. Since then, the board has carefully reviewed and evaluated each submitted proposal to find a firm that would best facilitate and manage all search related administrative services. understand the unique needs of Baltimore City Schools and its community, has their experience in recruiting and evaluating top candidates, and ensures community input included throughout the search process. Tonight, the board will approve the contract for ALMA Advisory Group. ALMA has a tr a proven track record of successful talent management searches for districts large and small with a clear focus on equity and diversity. Their customized approach meet meets the unique context of our district
013and their transparent and inclusive community engagement sets them apart in the executive search field. To stay informed about the CEO search, please visit the CEO search web page on the Baltimore City Schools website. There you will learn more about the three phases of the search, our timeline for completion, and how you can get involved with the CEO search process. For questions, concerns, please email us at CEO search atbcps.k12.md. us. Thank you. So, for the public, um, that's going to be item number 11.01, which is Alma Advisory Group, um, on our agenda this evening. Um, I'll now read the consent agenda. Board colleagues, please let me know if you'd like an item removed, and please state your question for staff. Item 5.01, gifts and donations. Item 5.02, gift and donations to item 5.03, proposal for naming
014spaces and buildings. Items 5.04, 04 comprehensive educational facilities master plan known as the CAFMP chair poll for presentation. Thank you so much. Um staff please note that item 11.01 alma advisory group. Item 14.01 01 application software technology. Okay. Thank you staff. Thank you so much Kushar Messenger. Staff please note that for item 14.01. Item 14.02 audiovisisual hardware and services. Item 15.01 01 James Contractor item 15.02 Autumn Contracting item 15.03 Eornius Construction item 15.04 Autumn Contracting item 15.05 Clyde Mckenry item 15.06 fire alarm installation inspection repair and preventative maintenance. Item 15.07 Chillar and 15.08 belong to Chillar Corporation. Item 15.09 09 CNN Associates and item 17.01 NCS Pearson Schoolnet software maintenance and support. I'll now turn it over to um actually I we'll now invite the public for public comment this evening before we vote on
015the consent agenda. We'd like to welcome Melissa McDonald from the Baltimore Teachers Union to lead our first public comment this evening. If not, do we have another representative from BTU here or online the video? Okay, so just give us a moment. We'll ceue up a video from BTU. I'm going to skip this if that's okay. Uh we'll come back to that. So item 4.02, 82. This is the special advisory, excuse me, special education citizens advisory committee. Tangi Smith, welcome. Come on forward. Good evening. here. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm the um vice chair of the CCA committee. I had previous previously held the position of recording secretary. My journey with CCAC began in 2020 um the school year of 2020 when I became the recording secretary under Mr. Mike Venois. Before this, I enjoyed attending the
016meetings um to understand the many aspects of special education. I am a a Baltimore City school teacher. I'm a home teacher. So, I do work heavily in the special education early learning arena. Um, but I had enjoyed learning um about such things as transition planning for students, um, trans transitioning out of high school and working alongside Miss Bilips. I've gained access to not to and knowledge about many topics that impact the school system and our students such as ways to help our children communicate their feelings so they know that they have a voice. I have also had the pleasure of meeting so many people who do so much for our school system to ensure that our stu children get the best possible education. Ultimately, I have learned by working with Miss Bilips that she is
017very passionate about the children with special needs and does her best to make sure that these children of Baltimore ch of Baltimore City that have special needs have the support they need to succeed. Um, and that has been one of my um biggest um rewards just being on the team. Right now, I wanted to take this time to tell you a little bit about um what I want to plan to do. As I've said before, I am an early learning educator and I want to do more with CCAC having more information about the early learning aspect of special education so we make sure that we hit the babies from the beginning all the way till the end of their school journey. Um, and then lastly, I would like to invite you all to our last
018CCK meeting of this school year on June 9th in room 301 from 6:00 to 8, where we will present the OSC staffing staff plan, staffing plan, as well as presentations on mainline benefits and an overview of the MedStar family choice. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. We appreciate very much your comment this evening. go to for the Associated Student Congress of Baltimore City, Fatima Grano, our treasurer. Yes. Hello. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Um, feel free to come off camera if you'd like to. Um, yeah, give me a minute. Sorry. [Applause] Special guest Kitty as well as well. Hi. Can you all see me? Not yet. Not yet. There we go. Um, okay. Good evening. I am Fatima Roas and I am ACBC's treasurer as well as a current student at the Joe Harour
019High School and I will be delivering testimony on behalf of ASBC, the Associated Student Congress of Baltimore City. Um, ASABC held its annual election last week. And before I welcome in our new officers, I'd like to share some of the accomplishments our outgoing executive board is most proud of proud of. Throughout this year, ACBC has been growing uh participation from schools and students across Baltimore. We held our largest general assembly this winter and brought the largest delegation to um the Maryland Association of Student Council convention. We have also deepened our advocacy work with multiple trips to Annapolis, focusing on supporting the blueprint for Maryland's future and increasing the MTA funding funings so that our public transits um system can better support student success. We campaigned an issue platform set by our general assembly focusing on
020mental health, student safety and language across multilingual families. Uh there has been growing participation in our committees and an increase in applicants for elected and appointed roles. Members are building skills and envelop in development in their schools through workshops at general assemblies and opportunities to practice leadership. These experience have had a longing impact feelings feel students feel more confident, capable and ready to use their voice to influence decisions decision making here in city schools in Baltimore and across the state of Maryland. um now and in the future. Today I am proud to announce the winners of this year's student commissioner and ASBC officer election. 3,980 students turned out to vote last week. Over 10% of our eligible voters. Uh thank you to the students, teachers, principles, and their district staff who supported their students in
021participating in this election. This is really a powerful opportunity for students to have their voices heard in selecting their representatives in 2025. Um, our officers will be student commissioner Zyra Chicas Guzman from Digital Harbor High School, ASBC President Isaiah um, Gregory Baltimore Science School, ASBC Vice President Campbell Anderson, Baltimore City College, ASBC Middle School Executive, um, Amir Matthews L Leo Lee Keith Walk Elementary. Um Derek Derek Chloros Wood um Elementary. ASBC secretary Jaden Moses Wood Woodhome Elementary and ACBC diversity chair Camille Vender Pu Bryant Francis Scott Key Elementary. Congratulations to the winners and to all of our camp candidates on a great race. As for those students who are feeling inspired, applications for ASVC staff roles are still open until May 30th. This is uh your chance to join the movement, develop your leadership, and
022help shape the future of students voices in our city. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Fatima. Uh first of all, I want to thank all of our young people who turned out for uh the ASBC elections. This is an exciting time to see democracy and action happen in each and every one of our schools. Um we want to take a moment to um first of all um acknowledge our new incoming student commissioner who will be um Commissioner Guzman from Digital Harbor High School. Would we be remiss to not thank Commissioner Rooks for his service and tireless service this past year, the entire we'll have an opportunity to um celebrate um his leadership. We look forward in his senior year just to see all what is going to transpire and as he gets
023ready for the next stage postsecary. So, thank you again, Commissioner Rooks, for your service this past year and beyond. Thank you. Um, I also would like to see, do we have the video just yet from Baltimore Teachers Union? So, why don't we turn to that um before we go forward in public comment? Name is Melissa McDonald and I'm a middle school vice president for the Baltimore Teachers Union and teach English at Connections. I want to begin with a sincere thank you. We appreciate the district staff for organizing a successful PSRP professional development conference. We've heard from many PSRPS who shared that the conference was a valuable and well-run experience. That said, PSRPs have expressed a clear desire for more jobspecific professional development, not just at conferences, but built into the regular work site based and
024systemwide PD days. Ensuring that PSRPS receive training relevant to their role shows respect for their expertise and supports their growth which ultimately benefits our students. As we reach the end of another school year, many of us educators, students, and families alike are feeling the emotional weight of this moment. And those feelings matter. For staff, our day-to-day experiences and emotional well-being are directly shaped by decisions made at the district level and by you, the school board. One issue we have is that there are transfer restrictions for untenured staff. One issue the board can help address is the restriction that prevents new and non-tenured teachers from transferring schools for their first three years. While the stated goal is to reduce turnover and increase stability for students, this policy can cause real harm. For example, a new educator
025joined the district hoping to teach high school only to be placed in elementary school. Their request for administrative transfer was denied. They now feel stuck in a setting that doesn't align with their expertise and professional contributions. And let's be honest about our district. Not every school environment is supportive. Some lack a strong school culture or suffer from poor leadership. Early career staff frequently report experiencing a minimum standard of support as an early career teacher, disrespect and blame from their principal, or even retaliation. It took the BTU years of organizing just to add language to the contract to protect us against abuse of language from administrators. So, how do new staff feel under this current policy? Discouraged. The first few years of teaching are already incredibly tough. Being placed in a school that's a poor fit
026only increases burnout. They also feel trapped. 3 years is a long time to endure a stressful, unsupportive, or mismatched environment. solution. The contract can be updated to during negotiations to allow non-tenured staff to transfer schools. This would be a practical and compassionate change. A second issue is with staffing and hiring practices. Another major concern is the lack of effective and intentional hiring practices. Outside candidates often don't hear back from human capital. I personally know a 15-year veteran educator who applied for elementary position in August months when It's like we may not. Let's see. We'll give it just a second. No, given that um we'll make sure if we have additional time at the end of public comment to circle back and see if we can get this from unbuffering. I'll turn it over to Dr.
027Duckkins for that was our last recognized group for general public comment this evening. Thank you chair. Um to those who are coming to provide public comment, the board recognizes the importance of receiving public comment on matters of educational interest. Each speaker shall be granted three minutes and speakers may not yield their time to another individual. Official time will be kept and at the end of 3 minutes, please conclude your remarks. Reminder to not use the opportunity to air employee grievances or make complaint make complaints on behalf of or about specific individuals, students, staff or family. Um comments can be general in nature but cannot mention a specific individual's name. Speakers must stay on the agenda topic for which they are signed up to speak and may not verbally or personally attack a school system employee
028or board member. Should speakers stray from this guidance, they will receive a warning to immediately redirect their comments and may have their microphone turned off and a comment stricken from public record. Thank you again for your interest in participation in city schools education. And we'll move to our first public comment from David Schmidt uh BCPSS EL teacher and agenda topic is teen disengagement crisis and this will be commenting live in person. You'll have three minutes. Um good evening members of the Baltimore City Board uh school board of commissioners. My name is David Schmidt. I'm a middle school English language development teacher at Armstead Gardens. I'm also a professional development um designer and facilitator for EL teachers. I'm here to advocate for the integration of self-determination theory into our district's educational practices and policies to better
029support student motivation, engagement, and long-term achievement. My experiences using autonomy, supportive practices as an EL teacher have shown me that our students desire for human connection is far greater than the draw of modern technology when it comes to learning and engagement. By focusing on supporting autonomy, belonging, and competence, I watched disengaged students who doubted their own competence and talents flourish. Students who I was told were lazy or too far behind have thrived. Every student who has persist participated in the social, emotional, and academic learning routines that are aligned to self-determination theory that I'm implementing has made measurable growth in I Ready andor in Weda. Self-determination theory is a well-established framework in educational psychology that highlights three core needs that are essential to student success. Autonomy, which is feeling ownership over one's learning. Competence, which is
030feeling effective and capable at learning and developing. And most important most importantly is relatedness, feeling connected to others, feeling like we're in a community. When these are needs are not met, students are more likely or I'm sorry, when these needs are met, students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated, persistent, and resilient in their learning. Unfortunately, many current approaches such as high stakes testing, rigid curricula, and extrinsic reward systems undermine these core needs, especially for students in underresourced schools. We must shift our focus from compliance and performance to cultivating environments that empower students to take ownership of their learning and develop a sense of confident confidence and relevance um for the learning that they're experiencing. Not to mention building meaningful relationships with peers and educators. I respectfully urge the board to consider the following actions.
031Encourage student voice and choice in classroom activities, curriculum design, and school governance. Provide professional development for educators on autonomy supportive teaching practices. Promote project-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy that connect students lives to their learning. Decrease the emphasis on punitive discipline and exttrinsic rewards. Replace them with restorative practices and intrinsic motivation strategies. We can't punish or pressure students into engaging in learning. We have to build environments that meet their human needs. That's what self-determination theory offers us. A roadmap to re-engage our youth, not with force, but with dignity. Imagine classrooms where students co-design projects, schools where relationships come first in curriculums that connect learning to life. This isn't about fixing behavior or raising test scores. It's about building schools where every student feels seen, heard, and empowered. By applying the principles of self-determination theory, Baltimore
032City Schools can create learning environments that truly engage and uplift all students. Thank you for your commitment to the youth of our city. I urge you to lead boldly and reimagining education through the lens of human motivation and dignity. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for your service to the students at Armstead Gardens. We appreciate it. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Dior Brown. Agenda topic concerns with leadership. Uh commenting live in person. You'll have three minutes. And just that reminder to not mention any specific names. We can keep the comments general though. As you mentioned, my name is Dior Brown and I'm here to speak tonight on behalf of the educators, staff, families, and community members of Waverly Elementary Middle School who are united in one clear message. We
033have a great and impactful leader, and we do not need another. Dr. Green has been unwavering in her force of excellence, equity, and integrity. Under her leadership, Waverly is not just surviving, it's thriving. Our literacy data has been on the incline for years. By January of this year, over Let me stop. Um, and I do appreciate the public comment. Um, one of the rules of kind of public comment engagement is that we want to make sure that we're not specifically mentioning staff by name in public comment. And so we'll allow public comment if you have comments generally about Waverly uh but not about specific staff this evening. Over 57% of our K through five students were on or above grade level in reading which is well above the diff district average of 46%. This level
034of datadriven instruction and sustained growth does not just happen by accident. It happens by leadership. It happens by a culture being built of accountability, care, and academic excellence. Yet, despite all this, we're losing a leader, being reassigned, no explanation, no transparency, and most importantly, no voice given to the educators who live this work every day. The timing also coming after the voluntary transfer window robs us of the ability and the opportunity to make informed career decisions about ourselves. Regardless of what many believe, this is not an opportunity for someone's leadership to be placed in a different setting. This is a political move. And we ask tonight that you look at our results, you listen to our voices, and you honor our truth. We're not here for politics. We're here for our students, and they deserve
035the continuity and not chaos. They deserve our school leader. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, our next public comment is Tracy Averman. Uh, teacher agenda topic leadership. So once again, just no specific names. Keep the comments general and we appreciate that. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tracy Amberman. I have been a Baltimore City school teacher for 26 years. I have currently been at my at Waverly Elementary School for four years under the current leadership. In those four years, I have thrived. I have grown. I have pushed my students with the leadership that we have at that school. I strongly feel that you need to reconsider reassigning our leadership that we have there now. She is very impactful to the school. Um during a crisis when we lost one of our beloved staff
036members, she put our needs first and not um hers. She was very supportive. She made sure that we had the needs that we had. She's constantly in the halls talking to the students, greeting the students. They all know her name. When the letter came out last week about the reassignment, the kids were in tears, wanting to understand. And as a teacher, I couldn't give them the answers that they needed because as teachers, we don't understand. We were not given a voice. We were not heard. and that is unfair to us. Through her leadership, as uh Miss Brown said, we have grown. I have pushed myself to limits that I never knew existed and I strongly respectfully ask that you reconsider the decision to move the current leadership. Thank you so much for the comment. We
037appreciate it. Thank you. So, next public comment is from Melissa Scher. Uh, parent top agenda topic is graduation and retention rates. You'll have three minutes. Good evening. My name is Melissa Sher. At the last board meeting, I testified regarding school choice. I'm returning this week to connect choice to promotion, retention, and graduation. Using data IMPIA last year, I mapped the 75th percentile score of each middle school using a 650 and 700 cut score to better understand which schools were likely to send students to entrance criteria high schools. I chose 650 and 700 as those scores represent the three-year moving average needed to gain entry before and after COVID. Since the 2122 year, students have generally needed a score of 700 or better to gain admission. This is from the May 7th policy committee meeting and
038shows the schools with the highest four-year graduation rates. Of the 14 schools listed, four with arrows are entrance criteria high schools, six are contract, charter, or specialized schools, and four are traditional Publix. I think about the students with lower scores and where they'll end up. Will they have luck in the charter lottery? If some students don't get into reach, the single option listed here in East Baltimore, how will they cope with their commute? How will students in South Baltimore, which has no high school with a graduation rate of 71% or better? I wonder how many students with what composite scores, end up here, one of the nearly one in three retained ninth graders. Policy JFBA states that this board is committed to maintaining access to highquality schools and programs for all students. Full stop. But
039in practice, it would be more accurate to add some terms and conditions may apply, including a willingness to let your child face a long commute in the dark from unlit and unsheltered stops, and the ability to shell out for the privilege of returning home if they happen to participate in sports or arts or anything else that might keep them past 8:00 p.m. Once again, I am asking this body to consider the interplay between choice, closure, and equity and its governance of this system to ensure that all young people in all quadrants of the city have access to an excellent highquality education that is likely to make them college and career ready and for which they have a practical hope of graduating in four years or five years. That is what we are asking this body
040to do. Please take it under advisement for the future. Thank you. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Dr. Kimberly Ferguson, special educator Waverly. Agenda topic continuity and leadership. Good evening, Board Chair Sally, Vice Chair Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Santis, and board members. Thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak on something that deeply impacts the direction and stability of our schools, the importance of retaining effective leadership. Specifically, I want to speak to the leadership of the current leadership at Waverly Elementary School Middle School. We all recognize that strong schools are built on strong teaching. But behind every thriving team of educators is a leader who sets the tone, keeps the vision focused, and builds a culture of high expectations and support. That is what the current leader does at Waverly
041Elementary Middle School. The current leadership has brought more than just management skills to our school. This person has brought clarity, consistency, and compassion. Under this person's leadership, teacher morale has improved, disciplinary issues have decreased, and student engagement has climbed. She listens carefully, acts decis decisively, and ensures that every decision reflects what's best for students. This kind of leadership is not easy to come by, and it's even harder to replace. National data shows that nearly one in five principles lead their position each year. When leadership turns over frequently, we lose momentum, momentum, vision, and trust. It takes years to build what has been accomplished at Waverly and only months to lose it if continuity is broken. That's why the retention of the current leadership is not simply a matter of convenience, it's a matter of strategy.
042When we retain effective leadership, we retain stability for our staff, consistency for our students, and credibility with our community. As a board, you have the power to support that retention. Retaining the current leadership is an investment in everything we say we value. Student achievement, staff well-being, and long-term success. Let's not un underestimate the power of continuity or the cost of losing someone whose vision is already working. Let's keep moving forward with the current leadership leading the way. Thank you. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Timothy Smith II as he's an educator. Uh agenda topic concerns with change in leadership. Three minutes. Good evening, members of the school board, parents, and fellow faculty. My name is Tim Smith, and I'm here tonight not just as stag, but as a witness of transformation, real meaningful
043change brought about by our principal who has been the heart of our school. When our school faced one of its most difficult chapters, a time of loss, uncertainty, and pain, it was our principal who stepped in not just as an administrator, but as a human being. She brought compassion into every hallway, listened to every concern, and restored a sense of security and belonging that we had feared was lost. She didn't shy away from the hard conversations. Instead, she leaned in. She showed up and she stayed present. And in that presence, something extraordinary happened. Healing began. Under her leadership, the culture of the school has blossomed. The climate shifted from one of anxiety to one of support and respect. Teachers felt heard. Students felt seen. Parents felt supported. The changes weren't flashy, but they were powerful.
044Morning greetings at the entry, restorative practices, and consistent communication. These things matter. They build a foundation for success. And the results speak for themselves. Test scores are up. Attendance is better. But even more important than the data are the stories of students who now look forward to school, of teachers who rediscovered their passion, of families who feel hopeful again. This didn't happen by chance. It happened because of vision, commitment, and a love for the community. To even consider removing our principal now after all she has given and all we've gained feels not only shortsighted but deeply unjust. Stability and leadership, especially one that fosters trust and excellence, is essential. We need to hold on to what's working. We need to continue building the future our children deserve with our current principal leading the way. So
045I ask you as a teacher, as someone who has seen what true leadership can do, let's not undo the healing. Let's not halt the progress. Let's stand by our principal just as she stand by our school. I appreciate you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next public comment is from John Glatz, teacher, agenda topic leadership. I need to No. Okay. Good evening. Thank you for giving me some time to talk here about Waverly. I've been at Waverly through three leaders now. And when I first came to Baltimore City Schools, I was a career transplant. I was in the restaurant industry for years as a business owner. So, I understand finances. But I'll be honest, I came to Waverly and I came to Baltimore City Schools to get a certification and get
046out and go back up to Pennsylvania where I live and hopefully be able to teach there. Something happened. After three years, I was all set to go. Then I fell in love with my students, fell in love with the community, fell in love with my co-workers, fell in love with the new leadership of the school, the change that was taking place. The final straw for me one day when I wanted to leave was a student's head popping out the tiles, laughing at the kids in classroom. and there was just very little accountability. That all changed and we've worked our tails off. I feel like Waverly is on the at the cusp of greatness. We're so close to making three stars this past year. We work so hard and it's all driven by our leader. She
047works so hard. She supports us. She's a great mentor. She shares her leadership in us. She holds us accountable. I've been held accountable, but I love her for that because it's made me better. It's made me a better person. It's made me a better teacher and educator. You've already heard we've had tremendous loss. That's not just the only loss we've had. We have another staff member who's now going through through terminal cancer that's just come out. We have another staff member who within this past week is now detained by ICE. These are family members to us and we c we can't lose our leader right now. We can't we need her. She's helping us get through this. We are in a state of low morale from suffering pain. Please, I beg you, don't take her
048from us right now. We need her. We need this leadership. We need to be together. to be there for the kids, to help them continue to grow because through all this pain and suffering, they're still growing. They're learning, they're engaged, they're accountable, they're determined. Please come see it in action. Come walk our halls. It's pretty amazing. It's a special place. Thank you for your time. Wish you all well. Thank you. That's our last public comment. Thank you so much. I appreciate um all the comment that we received this evening from um the community as well as um our general comment that comes in externally as well. Like to circle back um to the consent agenda to make sure Oh, I'm so sorry. Do we um was the BTU video able to queue up? Patricia, can
049we try the BTU video one more time? Yes. Hello, my name is Melissa McDonald and I'm a middle school vice president for the Baltimore Teachers Union and teach English at Connections. I want to begin with a sincere thank you. We appreciate the district staff for organizing a successful PSRP professional development conference. We've heard from many PSRPs who shared that the conference was a valuable and well-run experience. That said, PSRPs have expressed a clear desire for more jobspecific professional development, not just at conferences, but built into the regular work site based and systemwide PD days. Ensuring that PSRPs receive training relevant to their role shows respect for their expertise and supports their growth, which ultimately benefits our students. As we reach the end of another school year, many of us, educators, students, and families alike, are
050feeling the emotional weight of this moment. And those feelings matter. For staff, our day-to-day experiences and emotional well-being, it are directly shaped by decisions made at the district level and by you, the school board. One issue we have is that there are transfer restrictions for untenured staff. One issue the board can help address is the restriction that prevents new and non-tenure teachers from transferring schools for their first three years. While the stated goal is to reduce turnover and increase stability for students, this policy can cause real harm. For example, a new educator joined the district hoping to teach high school only to be placed in elementary school. Their request for administrative transfer was denied. They now feel stuck in a setting that doesn't align with their expertise and professional contributions. And let's be honest about
051our district. Not every school environment is supportive. Some lack a strong school culture or suffer from poor leadership. Early career staff frequently report experiencing a minimum standard of support as an early career teacher, disrespect and blame from their principal, or even retaliation. It took the BTU years of organizing just to add language to the contract to protect us against abusive language from administrators. So, how do new staff feel under this current policy? Discouraged. The first few years of teaching are already incredibly tough. Being placed in a school that's a poor fit only increases burnout. They also feel trapped. 3 years is a long time to endure a stressful, unsupportive, or mismatched environment. solution. The contract can be updated to during negotiations to allow non-tenured staff to transfer schools. This would be a practical and compassionate
052change. A second issue is with staffing and hiring practices. Another major concern is the lack of effective and intentional hiring practices. Outside candidates often don't hear back from human capital. I personally know a 15-year veteran educator who applied for elementary position in August. Months went by with no response and by January they took a job in the private sector. This is someone our district needed and we lost them. Meanwhile, our schools remain deeply underststaffed, but the board rarely speaks about it directly. We must normalize acknowledging the staffing crisis because the impacts are visible and growing. Students are in classrooms supervised by long-term substitutes rather than taught by licensed teachers. Students are sitting in teacherless classrooms entitled calculus and chemistry and they're not learning the content putting them further behind. Teachers are pulled with increased frequency
053to administer state tats leaving less time for instruction. PSPs and teachers are covering classes leading to loss of planning time and reduced one-on-one support. Classrooms are overcrowded conditions that hinder quality learning. This is contributing to further learning loss at a time when we're trying to increase our students academic gain. Staff are overwhelmed, stretched thin, and feel taken advantage of, especially when district leadership has the means and the opportunity to improve hiring outcomes. Internally, the hiring process has become disorganized for both involuntary surplus positions and voluntary transfers. Instead of hosting full district job fairs, we're seeing smaller social hours by network. One recently surplused educator attended a human capital social hour event only to find that the schools advertised didn't show up and the schools that were there had no relevant vacancies. Their follow-up emails to
054human capital went unanswered. This leaves staff feeling stressed, unsupported, and powerless in trying to find the right placement. Solutions. one hold district-wide weld publicized hiring fairs inclusive of both external candidates and internal transfers with full participation from all work sites. Two, partner with the BTU to create a real-time transparent district-wide vacancy list. This simple logistical fix would help us understand where high and frequent staff turnover is happening and allow us to address vacancies strategically. The union is ready and willing to help with this. We need real partnership between the board, the district, and educators who serve our students every day and make this system run. We need this board to ensure that the next CEO prioritizes new leadership and the Office of Human Capital that is proactive, solutionoriented, and collaborative with the Baltimore Teachers Union.
055And it begins with recognizing the realities we face and taking actions to solve them. Thank you. Right. Thank you so much to BTU. I appreciate the comments tonight. Very helpful. Um, we'll now turn back to our consent agenda. So, based on public comments, are there any additional items that board members would like pulled before we vote? Uh, 14.01. Yeah, 14.01 was pulled. Hearing none, um, I'll invite U Chief Washington and team up for item 5.04 for a presentation on the comprehensive educational facilities master plan. Are we presenting it or someone uh shown the slides for us? Good evening. My name is Lynette Washington, the chief operating officer. Moren, give me one second. I can cue that up for you. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Uh my name is Moren Gersburg. I'm the director of facilities planning
056and strategy. And tonight we're going to be going over the comprehensive educational facilities master plan, also called the CFMP. All right. Next. The CFMP aligns with board priority 3. Next. So the CFMP is a state requirement. It's a continuous process where trends are analyzed, captured within the document, and ultimately used to inform district decisions. So, while the document itself is a static snapshot, it's really more of a continuous process that we in facilities use to help capture information, analyze it, and then share out with the district. Next, these are the topics we'll be walking through. They cover trends and issues that consistently impact facilities planning. Next, so great news. Uh Baltimore City's population is potentially stabilizing. Uh though a one-year change is in no way a guarantee that there's going to be a reversal of
057trends. Uh we're hopeful that at a minimum the population losses might at least be slowing down and possibly even plateauing. Next, Baltimore City trends are often mirrored by our student enrollment, and we definitely saw that this year with a gain of over 1,000 students. Next. So, the biggest factors that have contributed to the trend reversal have been the increasing Latino population and the significantly smaller black losses that we saw this year. Uh, since about 2015, we've been seeing black student losses of about 1,800 students each year. And so, it was significantly less this year where it was only 474. So those two factors coupled together uh were the driving reason why we saw that population increase this year. This map is one of my favorites since it helps demonstrate the inconsistent demographic patterns we have
058in Baltimore City. We'll get into district-wide data points later when we discuss utilization, but we often have excess seats uh where they're not needed the most. And so that's a something that we're constantly having to look at and analyze to see how we can best address the needs of the city. Baltimore City has had significant demographic shifts since the 1960s, which is a very rough average of when most of our buildings were built. Next, this graph demonstrates the historical inverse relationship uh between the black and Latino student enrollment. So you'll see that pink band of Latino enrollment increasing over time and that darker blue on the bottom decreasing over time. However, we did see a change this year where the black population uh really more plateaued instead of uh continual decrease. Next, here's a map
059showing our Latino students. uh for several uh years now at this point they've been one of our they've been our biggest growing demographic. So this is absolutely something that we track and uh include within the CFMP each year. You're going to see um a a very similar pattern with several of our maps throughout the presentation where you see these pockets happening in the south, in the southeast, in the northwest. And then the inverse of that um seeing like uh lower utilization, less need in areas where it is emptying out in the city. So just a pattern that you're going to be seeing throughout. Next. Right. Uh, one of the state requirements for the CFMP is 10-year histo uh 10-year enrollment projections. Previously, when we were losing kids each year, we had losses of about 5,000
060students each uh 10 years out. Because this year we increased in our enrollment, we don't have as much of a decrease planned. It's only been one year of gain. So, we can't say 10 years out we're going to be increasing. We can't say that yet. But we have only anticipated a 3,000 student loss over 10 years compared to the prior losses of 5,000. So, that is something different uh with this year's enrollment projections. And it's our hope that with the next few years, we'll have increased stabilization and potentially those projections might eventually go up. We look at birth rates as part of the projections since they help inform kindergarten projections. The big takeaways on this are that people have been having less kids now for years and that is a nationwide trend. But our K
061enrollment went up. Common sense would say less births equals less kindergarteners. But we know the large number of Latino students migrating into the city have had an even stronger effect than the lower births from 5 years ago. So this graph shows Baltimore city births uh in the red line and then the corresponding pay enrollment 5 years later. Um one of the things that we do want to note here on this graph you'll see where that dotted line is. That's where we are currently. You'll see the red line plateaus out for one more year and then it declines. So that decline is during the prime COVID years uh 2020 2021. And so we are keeping our eye on that. Um, and hopefully the continued growth of our Latino population will continue to be stronger than that
062birth decline. Utilization is the enrollment of a building divided by the state rated capacity. Uh, ideally utilization is around 86%. There are state rules for capital improvement funding tied to utilization. You need to meet a 60% threshold to receive uh CIP funds. This means that we are less able to replace systems in underutilized buildings. It can be harder for them to get approved for systemic projects such as roofs, HVAC, and windows. And um so one of the things that we do have to look at when we are creating our CFMP and then ultimately our capital improvement program um is again how these different factors of utilization, the funding available, the building needs, how this kind of all fits together. As part of the 21st century buildings plan, city schools made a utilization commitment. the district
063met and surpassed the 86%ou target utilization rate in SY1920. The SY 2425 utilization rate is 87%. Um, so that's still in a very good position. However, it is projected to decrease. This chart shows the percentage of seats by grade band. Keep in mind that buildings come in all different sizes. So the 41 elementary schools have a smaller footprint than our 19 high schools. Next slide. So I mentioned how the 86% is the ideal utilization. It allows room for growth in a building while maintaining efficiency. Uh but if you recall from the beginning of the presentation, we have shifting enrollment patterns across the city and where we need seats is often not where we have them. This occurs both uh from a gradeband perspective and then also a regional perspective which we'll see on the next
064slide. Uh as I said, districtwide utilization is 87% and that's great, but if you zoom in and look at it by grade band, you'll see we're a little we're not quite where we need to be at the individual gradeband levels. Uh, elementary middle is and has been particularly overcrowded. Uh, while we still have a lot of excess seats in our secondary schools. This map shows our elementary and elementary middle schools by school zone. The over and undercrowding aligns with our Latino map and then also our population increase decrease map. So that blue pocket you see is West Baltimore and that's where we've been seeing a lot of our um population losses over the years. On a different note, uh city schools have made great strides in reducing the district's footprint by surplusing over 2.7 million
065square ft since the start of the 21st century buildings program. Uh this map here shows the locations of those that have been surplused and those that are planned and the size of the circle indicates the overall building square footage. Determining the number of seats needed in a specific school zone or geographic area in a choice district can be hard. The K to5 out of zone rate for SY 2425 was 45%. So, if we break that down, that 45% about half of those out of zone kids are attending a charter or they're in specialized programming or maybe they might be homeless. But the other half of that 45% they don't fall into any of those categories. Those are families choosing to exercise their right of choice. And so, we often get questions or we might get
066feedback like, "Oh, you didn't build this school big enough or something some other reason along those lines." And um while we look at developments and we look at uh enrollment trends, sometimes within a choice district, it can um students exercising their choice can make it a little hard to plan. So our office does work with the city to ensure we're aware of any developments that come online and could potentially bring more students to a specific school. In Baltimore, new developments rarely yield new students coming into the district. Uh if they attract new families at all, they're often being poached from somewhere else in the district. Uh the big developments that are on our radar are Keys Point and Perkins Somerset Oldtown. Keys Point is the next phase of an existing development owned by um the
067housing authority of Baltimore City, HABC. There's already students who live in phase one, uh, which is in the Hallebert zone. The new development is in the Graceland zone, which is right next to it. And this is in southeast Baltimore. It's the teal dot over to the right. Uh, if uh, folks recall, as part of the annual review um, board approved decision this past January, the Southeast building is going to be retained within the district portfolio. The amount of overcrowding in this part of the city is quite significant. And so the when we look at information around buildings and seats that are needed, we're looking at again the current overcrowding, current trends, then also new developments that come online that might be further increasing that overcrowdedness. The other development that is high on our radar is
068the Perkins Somerset Oldtown. That's tied to the redevelopment of the Perkins Somerset Oldtown uh development and the new City Springs building. So, we do have enough seats for that development. Um, but we are keeping an eye on the timing of that given when the housing comes online and when the new building will be ready. Next slide. The current maintenance and capital budget is approximately $375 million less than what is needed. This means we're constantly having to make difficult decisions on what we can do and what we must postpone from a facility's perspective. Uh and unfortunately the amount we have received historically is slated to decrease due to uh state changes around healthy school facility funding for FY27 and going forward. We have been getting a lot more students into 21st century learning spaces. By 2030,
069almost half of the students that are in buildings owned by city schools will be in a new or renovated space. That being said, there are still going to be 87 buildings that are unrenovated or not replaced. A new addition to the CFMP this year is the non-academic consolidation plan. The plan calls for eventually surplusing three non-academic facilities and demolishing two others. This will reduce the non-academic square footage by over 400,000 square ft. That's equivalent to about two Forest Park high schools. However, please note that except for some minor movements at this point, the plan's on pause due to financial constraints caused by the loss of federal funding. And I always like to end our presentation with a plug for our dashboard. Please check it out. Uh we have a lot of interactive maps and we
070have uh PDFs of the individual chapters and appendices as well. Thank you so much Morin and Chief Washington. Um I'm going to pause just for a minute because I know there's going to be a lot of interest in the presentation and how that really affects the work of the the board. But um I want to make sure that we have an opportunity because we have young people here who have just some exciting things that they've engaged in. I want to turn over to Dr. sent to Lisa to lead us through something if that's okay. Um, and then we'll come back for this particular presentation. So, I'll have you guys retrench for a little bit and then we'll welcome you back. Thank you. Thank you both. And I appreciate that. Thank you, chair. Um, and part
071of um why I appreciate the board's flexibility in the schedule tonight is um because we have fabulous news as a district. Um, I will say that I was on my way um on a plane back from California with some of our team members who were at a Wallace conference and there was a bunch of hubbhub um getting on the plane. Um, and I realized that there were dignitaries getting on this plane back to Baltimore. And at the time, I did not realize that these dignitaries were some incredibly special young people um who had just made their mark um on the world uh for Baltimore. And I had I known at the time, I probably would have asked for autographs, but there were throngs of people um around. And so, um, it is my pleasure this
072evening, um, to acknowledge, um, that city schools students, um, this year in the 2425 school year, 58 teams from city schools participated in the VEX IQ robotics platform, which, by the way, was 15 more teams than any other district in Maryland fielded this year. So, our longstanding um investment in robotics continues to pay off and five city schools elementary level teams finished in the top 10 teams in the Maryland state standings. Now, we have some pictures. Two weeks ago, four teams of city school students competed in the World Robotics Championship in Dallas, Texas, representing Baltimore Polytenic, JROTC, Ferman Templeton Preparatory Academy, Arlington Elementary School, and Commodore John Rogers Elementary Middle School. Tonight, it is my great pleasure to recognize those dignitaries that I met or or got to see um boarding the plane in all
073of their glory. the Commodore John Rogers robotics team who made history by becoming the first Baltimore City Public Schools team to win a World Championship trophy at the 2025 VEX Robotics World Championship. [Music] Now, this team, I'm going to invite them to the table now. So, if you all would like to um speak, so they I'll tell you who's here. But I think it's important to know that these young people competed against the top 400 elementary school teams for over 109 countries. The Commodore team won the prestigious build award for excellence in robot construction and engineering documentation. Please welcome fifth graders Musawir Gadahi. Did I say your name right? Oh great. Um, Bryson Jackson. Did I say that right, Bryson? Okay. And James Tidwell. Oh, thank you, James. Appreciate that. Along with fourth grader Cus
074Nolan, who has a fabulous mommy in addition to also being fabulous himself. Accompanied by their coaches Jamie Casser, Mike Renard, and Ben Tidwell, as well as principal Mark Martin. Congratulations, And if each of you would like time just to say one or two things that you um value most or thought was the best part of all of this fabulous work that you did to be world championships, one of your most favorite things about doing robotics. We'd love for you to share that. the chief of staff is coming over to make sure you have the right mics. You're going to press that button until it's green like mine and then we'd love to hear from you and remind us of your first name when you speak. Okay, ready? So, something you love about robotics or loved
075about going to the world championship. My name is Musaware and my favorite part was uh com competing with teams and having fun and seeing other teams robots that's uh great like ours and winning an award. Absolutely. Absolutely. Would you like to go next? My name is James. One of my favorite parts about going to the World Championship is getting to meet teams from all over the world and seeing how they come up with ideas to do the challenge. Excellent. Excellent. My name is Bryson and my favorite part was just getting to like collab with different teams and work together with my friends and just compete. Absolutely. Uh probably my favorite part of the tournament uh was probably like meeting new people and um seeing new cultures and um competing with friends. Yeah. Yeah. So, we
076are so proud of you here in Baltimore. You all represented not only yourselves and your families and your amazing teachers and coaches, um, but you represented all of Baltimore City. Um, this is what student wholeness is. Student wholeness means that young people have the opportunity to find out and develop their talents. Um, and to kick a lot of butt along the way. I just had to say that cuz I'm really competitive. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I want to know what the robot what it does. Oh yeah, tell us what it tell or can you even show us? I don't know if that's this catapult that lowers the uh the catapult down which it shoots the ball. It shoots. And we have this end take that roll uh that rolls the ball. That's excellent. Thank you,
077Madam Chief of Staff. So that we know because you I could tell you I could never have built that. So I'm very impressed. Um, in honor of your record-breaking achievement, we would also like to present each team member with a special gift, the free node ultimate starter kit for the Raspberry um, you can tell I am not robotics PPCO2W. The board features dual core cortex M33 and risk v microcontrollers giving you powerful powerful performance to explore projects. Now I don't know what any of that means um very honestly but I am told it's a complete hands-on learning package for anyone interested in programming or robotics. Uh we want you to accept them. we have them for you um with our congratulations and our thanks for the great honor you have brought to your school and
078to all of Baltimore City. Congratulations. I know we have glasses. One more Yeah. Action. Yes. All right. I'll turn it back to you for this minute. We'll come back to my other big announcement later, but thank you, chair. I appreciate my pleasure. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you for your immense patience and thank you and congratulations for your honor and award. This is very exciting and thank you for sharing it with all of us. Um I'd like to invite our colleagues back um to help guide us through the CFMP. Um I appreciate the presentation um getting us through understanding at high level what's driving that. Invite my board colleagues who may have questions um related to the CFMP um and what that will drive for us going forward. Okay. Yes. Yeah. just real quick,
079uh, one of your previous slides, um, and that really just I just wanted to clarify your projection because your projection actually shows uh, a decline in population um, and our our student population and projected over the next what was it? Which slide? I can't I can't remember which slide that was. Was it? But why do you foresee this u dip that that the Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the the curve for the 10ear projections was a slight dip. And so when we look at projections, we're looking at the math. We're looking at the number of the past 10 years. And it's not going to be a perfect straight line. And so when you get beyond year three, it's projections based upon projections. So it's it becomes less and less precise the further you get out. And
080so really when we're looking at projections we're looking at um again kind of three years out and then also that that 10year out kind of look. And so it's take it with a grain of salt there again to become less and less perfect as you get out. But the overall loss that we do anticipate is that 3,000. And we do anticipate that shifting again depending upon the trend for next year. Is that historically ba? I mean I mean because there's the immediate history of growth. Uh is there a possibility of plateauing somewhere along that line? Oh, we hope so. We're really we hope so. But the um for the since 2015, Baltimore City population and Baltimore City enrollment has been declining. And so we have one year of growth. That's not enough for us to
081say going forward we're going to plateau or we're going to increase. We really need at least like two the more years you have of growth, the more um optimistic you can be with the projections. We only have one year of growth after uh 10 years of decline. So we're not in a position yet to say that we're going to be increasing. Uh but that's the question. By the same token, couldn't you making that same judgment, that same gauge, could you predict the reverse of that curve? Actually, you know, I mean, could that be a a a predictable outcome? If I if I can add one thought, commissioner, I do feel like the national trends, the demographics of of the country are seeing writ large decreases in student age populations. And so, you know, I I
082think there's like a larger demographic shift that's happening around the country that's not unique. So, so I do feel like the projections of decline are what we would expect. And the fact that that this past year we've seen that increase, I think is is a, as you pointed out, like it's not a predictable plateau yet, but I do feel like it's a really important factor for us to look at and say and consider. A and as you've highlighted the changing demographics of the district are are something that we are I think as as a board needing to be really attuned to and it's why I know there has been investments made including in a study around the demographics of of our uh district um and and I look forward to I know as many others
083uh to the the conclusion of that study but but I think as a board we do need to look at and think through the budgetary implications and the ways in which we should be investing especially multilingual and I know commissioner your history especially in that you know just speaks to personal experience along those lines you know so I I I love your optimism about like can we project increases but I do think the it is the more expected to see the decline and you know I I would like for us to see those those inc those those increases right if that's what you're sort of speaking to. Yeah. Often you get what you expect. And maybe a little bit of of the point here is like we should be really uh working hard to uh
084to have outreach to have um you know to be very welcoming like the more that we are um good at receiving the more that that we'll receive right to um and so I think those investments that have been contemplated um you know and that's where the CMFP I think speaks to is like how are we perceiving what we can expect and then how are we acting in accordance with that? Yeah. No, no. I would say um Moren is always our go-to when it comes to looking into the future in terms of the projection um around population and she's very diligent and I think rightly is a great throttle to some of my enthusiasm that might be more akin um to what you're describing because I think it's important when we're talking about buildings and space
085to really have that balance. Um, and so to make sure that we are really taking that into account, I think there's a part B plus right to this conversation, which is the work that we have to do to get a tighter, for lack of a better term, fix on our market. Um, and I actually was having a conversation last week in DC with a number of school districts um that had become far more refined in pinpointing which schools had the bigger draw. Um, what are some of the factors that make a difference for families? I don't think it's insignificant, frankly, that this year was our lowest year yet for losing um a number of black families, black middle-ass families. like that to me was as significant as the population growth because it signifies that we're
086actually doing something to keep people I think the work we have to do that we actually have not been as good in doing is that market level research to partner with the population stats that I think Moren does has always done an excellent job on tracking for us but to your point like what we actually have control over sometimes is does somebody smile when I come into the office and I'm a new family right from the neighborhood or what makes me want to stay in the kindergarten you know past if I come in as a kindergarten parent what makes me want to stay past second grade and I will say I think that is an area of work that we have not done as much work in that we're going to need to and we
087have schools that do that incredibly well and you see it in the patterns but you also have places that frankly we need to shore we need to shore up our ability to do that. So I think that's the part B that's not this discussion but it certainly is one that I think is more holistic as we really look to how do we stabilize the population and I did have some to to your it was funny I had an offline conversation with um with someone who had been in Baltimore a long time back when I think all the way back to Kurt Smoke's time and one of the things that he said to me is he actually thought that a lot of the investments we were making back in sports, in arts, in things like robotics
088were actually keeping a lot of families, particularly black families who might have moved out previously, who wanted their children to have those enriching experiences, but did not see city schools as the place for that to happen that actually our investments in building a lot of that back were having staying power. Now again that's just one side conversation. I don't want to make it into a formal study but I think it does point to the fact that some of the work we have not done that we do need to do is be far more astute in the market research so that then we can map it to what has always been I think robust projection data um from from Moren and her work with the city. Does does that help? Okay. Thank you. Yes. a two
089I'm sorry I see um and this and this pardon me this might be for the the part B or 2.0 an old conversation, but really my question or just my thinking is really around the PSO work that that um Perkins, Somerset, Oldtown work that's happening and um just kind of looking at um City Springs being a charter school, what if what is the what if, right? If there not enough seats, right, because of it being a charter school, are we thinking about touching base to the other schools that are in that community like Commodore John Rogers, right? just really thinking about the seats and then also thinking about the slow movement it has been to get folks back to um Somerset Perkins Oldtown right we we the city offered vouchers and people took those vouchers
090and said see you later I'm not coming back right so are we thinking about thinking about that as well yeah so with city springs it is a conversion charter which means if you live in that zone you're guaranteed a seat and so yeah it's not no one who lives there is going to be pushed or denied a seat Um we did um we've worked with both the school and the city on the newer build bigger building that will be able to properly accommodate all the kids who both come back and maybe the new ones that come in if there were as you said uh students who receive families who receive vouchers and opted to not come back. Yeah. Yes. Um thank you for the presentation. Um, you mentioned an 87% utilization rate and that's predicted
091to go down. Is that just predicated on the predicted enrollment decline? In other words, if the enrollment did not decline, the utilization rate would stay stable. Uh, we have several projects that are coming online. So, there's going to be a very slight increase in seats, but yeah, that larger 3,000 kid decline outweighs um in conjunction with that. Yeah. So to be clear, the only way we keep our utilization rate where it is or higher than what it is, is either uh to outpace the projections for uh students enrolling in the system, which is probably unlikely, or to reduce our footprint by thinking about mergers or thinking about closures or having the the hard conversations about how we actually rightsize the footprint of the district to ensure that over time in a declining enrollment population, we
092are going to keep that we can keep that utilization rate the same. That's really the only thing that could could correct one of those two things. Yeah. Okay. So, again, it's I I appreciate the the presentation and I think this comes on the heels of a conversation that this board had two weeks ago about what are the financial implications of having a whole bunch of schools that are underenrolled uh under 350 in size. And I think I just I said it last week, I want to say it again. I think we owe it to the community to have those really difficult conversations that nobody ever wants to have. Talking about merging a school or closing a school is the least popular thing that we can do. But if we don't have those conversations, we're not
093being responsible stewards of the resources that we have here. And this is the second presentation in a row. One on finances, now one on building utilization rates. And I just think it's a it's a call to action for us to have those conversations. Thank you. Yeah. And commissioner reading laundry just want to underscore exactly this point that you're making you know which we as a board you know while this presentation is today in front of us and obviously this document uh needs to go through a process up to the the state that this really is a dialogue over time you know and that uh as we are going into next school year as we're referring back to this document back to these projections back to the like the historical data that is in here. It
094is such an important conversation that we as a board are having. Um, and you know, and I do think there's been so much progress that has been made in our in our operations of the facilities where our students learn, you know, and and so coupling both those hard forward- facing decisions with also, you know, I do think we should take time um, you know, over this next year especially to just think back to where we were 9 years ago from a facilities perspective and, you know, frankly just underscoring ing uh Dr. S is your leadership, your team in making a lot of hard decisions and recommendations um very much in line with with what you're speaking to Commissioner Ready Lawinger and I do think the board has has a duty and obligation of care to
095to think forward uh at this moment. So um so just underscoring that point of that you're making. Good evening. So uh I want to highlight a couple of questions. Some of them were asked and uh I think that and they were answered but I think for the sake of the community and transparency there are going to be some that are asked uh again. So the first is um just around the I think I want to start off with where we're losing students because we're talking about losing students. Uh but getting into the details of where we're losing students is really important. uh we are losing African-American students and there are areas of growth and areas of decline but the area of decline is with African-American students particularly there's a strong loss in West Baltimore as
096we're looking to support and and assure that our buildings are maintained for those that are coming. Can we speak towards our efforts to make sure that we retain those that are leaving those African-American students in particular? How what does that work look like in West Baltimore? Because unfortunately when I look at the data, it looks like that's where we're heading. So I think that the for the first part in terms of what investments we're making in West Baltimore are the same types of investments that we're making across the city in terms of facility infrastructure investments. Um for our capital improvement plan, we're looking at all of our buildings and looking at the conditions of our buildings. So we're not prioritizing or targeting facility investments in any parts of the city. I think for your um
097the second question, it's that part B, right, about um what's happening in West Baltimore. Um I will say that, you know, Meen can speak to it. We are losing population also in West Baltimore, too, which could be contributing to why there's a decline in our student enrollment and our student population in West Baltimore. Did you want to speak to that? Uh no, no. Uh there we go. Sorry, that's spot on. Um, and I just also want to highlight a lot of the 21st century work that happened um, in West Baltimore. There were a lot of difficult closures and mergers that happened, but it was also to be able to get the students over there uh, brand new facilities. So, there were a number of improvements and new buildings that did occur in those areas where
098we did see the population decline. I appreciate that and I raised that as you are doing the hard work. you're doing a hard lift and you're doing an amazing job to ensure that we have clarity on how to move forward. But when issues like this come about, uh some of these issues are not we can't lean on uh our school staff to be able to fix. They are larger than us. So my call then is to our board and leadership to uh really look at how we partner with our city uh to be able to address this concern. This is a concern that is going to impact us as a district and going to have a large impact on our students as a whole. If I'm correct, there are particular areas that you identify that
099we're going to be overpop populated in. Um can you speak towards those areas that we're going to be overpop populated in? Yeah. Um so the areas where we're seeing a lot of increased enrollment and shortage of seats is aligns with where we're seeing a lot of our Latino growth. So that's South Baltimore, that's southeast Baltimore, and then also in northwest Baltimore. And so some of the facility planning surrounding that work uh includes some CIP uh capital improvement program projects that are currently underway. So, Armistad Gardens in southeast Baltimore, uh, Marie G. Fairing in South Baltimore, and, um, even beyond that, we have several projects in the queue that aren't funded yet, but it's, um, it's on our our plan, uh, our long-term plan on how we can address those the need for seats in those
100areas, including, as I mentioned, the Southeast building, which is where Comeer John Rogers is actually currently swinging. will be retaining that building um to serve that area of the city. Between Ruba, Hallebert and Graceland, the overcrowding alone in those three schools could fill a school. So unfortunately with construction projects, it is a long game. We can't just make seats appear overnight. Um we have some projects that have taken 10 years to get done and so it's um often a difficult balance between getting to the end goal and where you're starting. I appreciate it. One last question uh before I pass it to you, chair. Uh regarding uh academic and enrollment alignment, uh with our long-term facility decisions, how are we incorporating um where we're looking to be able to bolster the enrollment? How are we
101incorporating uh CTE? Uh how are we incorporating uh multilingual programming? and particularly important for me uh middle school algebra in uh areas like West Baltimore to asssure that our buildings and our programs uh are attracted to those to want to because we are school choice uh to be able to bring some of that population to West Baltimore. So when we have a major project, we have a document called the educational specifications and it basically outlines the programming that's going to be needed at that school. And so that's where you might see specific spaces such as CTE. Uh it might call for a baking lab or a Cisco lab. And so when we have new projects that come online that have those types of spaces, we work with both the CTE department and then the schools
102themselves to make sure we're capturing all of that specific programming and all the needs. Um the the is sitting at the table with Angela um and contributing to that conversation. So I would say that a lot of this is happening during the portfolio period. Yeah. And and just to build on what Dr. Washington described in terms of the robust nature of the process. I think one of the things that that has been true is the reason why we have been able to frankly close as many schools as we have. I mean just to put it bluntly to consolidate has been that crossf functional co collaboration so that over the years we have really focused hard on making sure that there are programmatic enhancements that accompany the physical enhancements. So when we did an equity map
103on for example what you mentioned where is middle school mathematics available and saw that in certain sections of the city it was not that programmatic consideration was built into um that same conversation where operations needs were um were also discussed and I think it's a a credit to the team and a strength for the district as the board considers portfolio that the team is already used to queuing up numerous um kinds of considerations, not just a siloed look at facilities or a siloed look at CTE programming or a siloed look at kind of community demographics and where people are moving in and out. And I think it does go back to this piece about creating schools that people want their children to attend. And and this is why I always go back to Moren and
104she's in a been the throttle in a number of meetings I think in a good way for me of saying but the families actually have to be there and in some cases other decisions at the city level like who gets vouchers who gets encouraged to move out where does a new business or a new um you know development housing development all of those impact like you know you can have a school play in middle school algebra but if the families aren't there right as part of the city planning then that's a challenge and I remember that there were there were families who came in and have had conversations with principles at some of these turning schools who have actually said and I'm thinking of a form the former principal at Abbottson as well as principal
105Ricetta right popular schools at the time but whose family said it's actually not you we like the school but we can't take the lack of resource in the neighborhood and I'm putting it in a general way, right? We can't we can't take the lack of, you know, other other things that are going on. So, I think part of what Baltimore as a city has tried to do is have those conversations joint, but there's only so much as as the school district that we can do. That doesn't mean we can't do more, but you know, it's just to emphasize Dr. Washington's point that I think a strength as the board moves forward in these discussions is that the team is used to having this in a crossf functional way so that that's not going to be
106new or difficult as we move forward um with what and and I will note how many schools have we closed in the last years 49 since 2012. So 49 schools since 2012 and there are other urban school districts who can't close four because of just the community acrimony around it and the ability to do that. So I think when we're talking about doing hard things, there is a history of doing hard things in this city. But when it's been most effective has been when we have coupled building enhancements, programmatic enhancements so that people don't feel as acutely the loss. Um, and frankly, that's a model that other school districts across the country have picked up. But I I do just want to put that in kind of clear relief when we talk about the need
107to to consolidate programs. Baltimore City has done that in ways other urban districts have for a variety of really good reasons really struggled. So I think we have good milein built up and good collaboration but it is hard and to your to everyone's point it's something that's not going to go away next year. Can I can I just say one thing on that and then ask one quick question which is I think you're exactly right that um sometimes we can figure out how to actually uh enhance students opportunities through these kinds of difficult decisions and doing things like offering innovative programming making sure that we are uh thoughtful about where students are going. I think those things are a must. Um and so I appreciate you raising that up. The question that came to my
108mind was around the trends that we're seeing um both leaving and coming into the district. You talked a lot about racial background. I'm curious about socioeconomic status. Folks have made a lot of uh the black middle class leaving Baltimore City. Is that reflected in the data in in students who are leaving? And then also for students who are coming, is there a correlation between socioeconomic status and their decision the rates at which they enroll in city schools? Are we seeing folks from across this the socio economic spectrum enroll in our schools or are we seeing are we not seeing that? Um so I don't think that we've layered in the economic piece as much. We know a lot of the families coming in are um we have a lot of new to the country families
109coming in as part of that Latino population. We there's something called the housing market typology which is something that the city puts out um I forget if they update it every year or every 3 years but basically it's an overlay map of the city that divides up the housing into um a kind of more your top um more expensive housing and then it grades it down to H&I and so they have something called the middle market that they've been t targeting um for like families to kind of come and move into Baltimore to work with the families about the school. So they have we've partnered with them in the past on that. And so when we overlay that housing typology on um kind of where our students are, we have seen it be steady within
110that middle market area. So basically that's a little complicated but the those middle kind of more middle h housing range has been relatively steady the past couple of years. We can certainly look at uh try and see from a more um economic standpoint how that overlay looks. Just want to get to Commissioner Espazito. Yes. Um I'd like to re raise an issue that I've raised in the past as far as our need to have like more inter agency work and historical context cuz I do think that there's a relationship between the housing market and closures. Um, and I've seen areas where there is displacement, whether it's temporary or permanent, where new development has been ushered in, like the some of the areas where you said there's growth back in 2015, 2016, those were areas that
111got redevelopment, like they were at the very beginning stages, and where those um housing prices are now sort of put it out of reach for the people that live there at the time. So, the reason why I'm raising this is I'm looking at areas that are in West Baltimore like Reservoir Hill and and other areas that are seeking investment uh for the housing market and to rebuild communities. If we're closing schools there now, um I'm just wondering, you know, I know like I've raised this before that in my community if you were to close the school, you would lose a lot of families and we would be looking for other neighborhoods with an elementary school in close proximity. Um, so as we're talking about like what our work here, I do think it's important to
112connect it to like redevelopment that's happening and have almost like a 10-year projection of like how that impacts our trajectory for um for enrollment because I do think that a lot of that development appeals to people that don't currently live in this city. And so if you think about it in the context of attracting new families to West Baltimore, um I want to be sure that we are whether it's guard rails or just having conversations, we're ensuring that the kids that currently live in those areas benefit from the school investments that we're doing and don't get displaced because we were part of the displacement. If I can just so I will say that we do do the inter agency conversations um and so in Moren's um comprehensive education facilities plan she has a section where
113she talks about investments and I will say that in past history we used to use the city's investments in our projection assumptions um but the challenge is was that they did not they did not realize and so because of that the state stopped actually accepting our projections and so we've since removed them from the projections but we still take them into consideration. So when we are having conversations again those portfolio conversations we do have those discussions about are there investments happening in the community and do we think that those investments will yield families. So I will say that there is some consideration that's given um when we're making some of those having those discussions. Yeah, I I think that would also be really helpful to add that to the information that we receive and just
114the community because there's also reports that have come out recently about how how much lending is still deeply rooted in systemic challenges. So, I yeah, I just think that as we're talking about, you know, the work that we're doing, we we have to yeah, just have that deep dive into everything. Yep. Thank you, Commissioner Espo. Anything additional on this topic before we move forward? Good evening, Dr. Washington. You know, you and I talk all the time about transportation. How did transportation and trends we're seeing in transportation um impact this or your thinking around uh this plan? So again, it goes back to that robust portfolio conversation. You sure? the city so to speak, you know, in their newfound interest along with well, not newfound but but but in their interest along with our interest because
115both of we we have a symbiotic relationship. So our projections are based upon historic data. Uh we get into the weeds within within the document, but basically we look at the number of females between I think 18 and 44 in Baltimore City and that's one of the starting points for how we determine our projections. So we wouldn't, as Lynette said, we wouldn't necessarily take the city's promise about bringing something in or like again that new a new development would not directly mathematically impact what the projections are. But if it did come to fruition and it did start changing that overall number of females within BSR city that are between 18 and 44 which is one of the starting points of a projections that would then increase them. Well, and if I may, maybe Commissioner Kabe,
116I think your point is really well made that like we we are seeing this growth and we have been managing things and perhaps the place for advocacy for us as a board is actually more with the state uh because so much of the decisions have to be reviewed, approved at a state level and we as Baltimore City are disproportionately um uh under that review process. other districts across the state just don't have that same um uh that that they have more freedoms, degrees of freedom of movement. And and I think perhaps one thing that we could do is is use some of that leverage to say look at what has happened over the past nine years. Look how well it has been managed. you know, cuz the agreements that were made were made, you know,
117when there was the the blueprint and some of the the the school building um work and the way it has progressed, I think gives us um some some ability to to renegotiate some of those pieces. And I think that's perhaps a little bit of the place that we as a board could lean in and say, you know, we have earned a greater degree of of movement and freedom from some of the exact percentages that means the state won't invest in projects unless it meets certain utilization. Uh and so perhap the you know show based off of what we have done the state is where we should be focusing some of that advocacy uh effort. Yeah. Also, yeah. Yes. And thank you, Commissioner Messenger. Um, build on that a little bit. I think first of shouting
118out the brilliant work that you've done, uh, being at Claremont, looking at Lois T. Murray, that some of our special day schools that have very unique environmental needs and that you've found ways to build them into beautiful new spaces that those students deserve. um that you're balancing that also with utilization rates that are not flexible and I guess wanting to think a little bit for the board knowledge as we move forward how some of those schools with unique and I will also tap into kind of when you're talking about some of our CTE when we're talking about our MVOS and our Edmonsons about way that those schools kind of fit into that formula and how that impacts decision- making and usage for the district as a whole. Yes. Um, no, you're fine. Um, so the
119I might not understand your question, but uh, so we do have, um, the remaining schools that are not collocations that are separate public day schools are William Bear, which is our only prek through 12th grader, and then we have Brisco, which is slated to be a collocation with Frederick Douglas, opening summer 26. And so that one um is most fresh in my mind. I'm sorry, but so there's actually a CTE program on the Brisco side of the building. And one of the long-term goals is that the be able to facilitate so that the schools get to a point where both schools are able to utilize that CTE program. I don't want to um speak for academics, but I believe the Brisco students are on a uh diploma pathway, which does enable a lot more. So
120if I sorry I can't if if I can just so it's a very good point that you're making commissioner. Right. Right. So right right so I will I will say that during this process particularly when we're building new buildings when we're talking about the um the formula for how they calculate utilization. Um we did have to have conversations with the state because things that were happening in Baltimore City was uniquely different than what was happening in other parts of the state. Right. So how we represent a space in some of our special need spaces like Claremont and some of the other spaces was were different, right? So how we were counting cuz utilization counts the number of students in a space and how we were counting spaces was also very different too. So and it
121also brings to the point of when we had these conversations about utilization, a lot of our utilization is not at our elementary middle schools. It's at some of our standalone schools that are more specialized schools. And so these schools because they're specialized, you just can't consolidate them um and and close one and bring it because these are they're specialized to meet the needs of students. And sometimes they tend to be colllocated in very large buildings because we we still have a building challenge where we don't have enough funding to rightsize our buildings. So if we're closing a program, we don't have a smaller building to put that program in. They end up being in a larger building, which shows that demonstration of higher utilization. Anything additional on this topic? Hearing none, I'd like to thank
122Chief Washington and Marine for your presentation this evening. Thank you so much for attending board's questions, but it is worth a round of applause. Uh 14.01. I'd like to invite Chief Tommy Jones up for some questions from the board regarding the procurement before us. Sure. Uh something came up in this presentation and if we had the ability to have uh 9 03 would be like 903. Um can you highlight 903? What item number is that or what item is that? Uh homeless students. Oh, I'm so sorry. You want that full for presentation this evening? Uh yeah, please. Yeah, we can pull it. Fine. It's the first reader. Oh, it's our first reader, so it's going to come for presentation. Yep. Yeah. Thanks. Yep. No problem. I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Ames for
123her questions regarding this procurement. Yeah. Um hello, Chief Jones, and thank you for all your work on this. What? Oh, okay. It's okay. I did. Um, so I was curious, uh, what would be the consequences for not voting on this tonight and kind of pushing it out. This is a big oracle. We're waiting for the timeline on the AM roll out coming in a couple of weeks. Um, just looking at kind of some things related to the budgeting conversation last week. Like what's kind of the impact of not voting on this tonight? Um good question. Good afternoon, good evening everybody. Uh we are contractually obligated to meet certain dates to um you know to sign our contracts and renew for the next year and this is both a renewal of new um years out. Um
124I don't think there is a consequence of not doing it tonight but there will be a consequence if we don't do it very soon. uh because we have to pay the um change orders that we had. We have you know uh appenders could very well say we don't want to do the work for you. Uh but I don't think there is a tonight consequence next week consequence. Yeah. So commissioner message are there additional items that you would like um the staff to present to justify the increase to the ceiling of the contract? I think I'm less concerned about the just like the increase to the contract overall and I think looking for some increased information on the strategy moving forward. I think some of that is looking at the roll out around AM and kind
125of what the strategies there. I think looking at last week when we're or two weeks ago talking about the budget and looking at how we look at schoolsbased budgets and looking at how we look at um compared to the districtbased budget about how we're able to pull out um how we're spending money and that's aligning to a strategy not just at the district level but really like whole-fledged like what how we are talking about what is our goal and I think just to be able to have a little bit better of an understanding of what this trajectory I know we been on this Oracle process for a long time. Um, but at this moment, as we are in the midst of a bunch of other transitions, we're looking at a time of federal transition where
126accountability is going to look different at the state and the federal level to be able to answer questions in detail. And I guess I'm just kind of curious about um we would like some more information to be really confident that this Oracle suite decision is going to get us where we want to go. Well, one of the things that I would say in regards to that, we are um there's no such thing as half pregnant. Uh we are in we are in the middle of the throws. We have rolled out the financial uh applications. We are desperately trying to get HC and human capital out the door so that we can get payroll up and running. And every time we delay something that has such a huge ripple effect. Um, so that would be my
127concern is that we don't delay it very long because it is important. We are um we are right now trying to set up to get all of the payroll processing done which requires all of the human capital work to be done which requires all of the financial work to be done. those things have required uh changes in our specification to the vendor and the vendor of course like I will do the change but I need to be paid because this is different from right up up front. So my only hesitation is saying that is that it is very timesensitive because each delay ripples through the whole project. I think in that light I would be curious. So as part of this, it's also folding in some additional monies for revisions to the procurement and the
128um AP like roll out. So I think just looking at like some of that is also I'm curious about satisfaction satisfaction around those rollouts and then I think still getting to that higher level budget like at the end of this road to the point of being only half pregnant but it's still at some point we have control and are we going to end up in a place where we have the information to be able to really make the best decisions as a board but also more importantly for you. You know these numbers better than members of the board will be in each of your offices. You have people that are making decisions and part of that knows that we're dealing with the whole picture, not just the subset of the 25% that's being allocated as
129a district, you know, and looking at how these strategies align. We were talking about this like earlier with other members of like when you have high performing schools, how do we amplify what's happening for them at a budget level? And I I guess I'm curious about how that is going to be able um will this get us where we want to go with the quality of data that not only the board but the district needs to make the best decisions for kids and use our decreasing funds to the maximum capacity. Yeah. My only like I said my only question is that we are going to be very careful not to waste the funds we've already expended. Uh, one of the questions that came up at the operations committee last week uh was about how the
130schools fare in this case. Um, every school is getting the exact same services every individual across the board. It I mean the payroll pays teachers, janitors, CIOS across the board. So um that would be my only sort of like caution is I don't want to lose the momentum that we have going u because it's been a rough battle. Uh and as we go through this of course um there is always the we always bring up the cost and the cost is very important but we also have been refining our processes and what that requirements are. So all those things play into this. Oh Chris is coming too. I was just wondering if we could speak a little bit to some of the um increased reporting requirements like the ways that we think that this will
131enhance our ability to answer some of the questions that you're asking Commissioner Ames Messenger about you know uh accounts payable about procurement just about budgeting some of the pieces that will be better under this system. Um, hello commissioners. Chris Dy, chief financial officer. Um, happy to add my um my two cents to this and it's it's a tricky one in that it's a multi-year multi-phase implementation. So, generalizations are even more problematic than in some other things. But but at the same time um you can't use that as a as an excuse not to make some uh generalizations. The the first phase phase one was finance and we went live at the beginning of FY 24 and we have with this new system and which we kind of have a lovehate relationship with frankly. Um, and
132to remind some of the board members, we moved away from an Oracle e-business suite on premises solution, not really because um we were grasping for the stars, but because it was no longer being supported and um it would have been irresponsible to keep going that way and more expensive. um they essentially say, "We're not going to give you any more updates. If you insist on keeping it, we're going to price it accordingly." Which is to say like a encouragement for you not to do that. Um so we went to and we had a full an open RFP. We didn't go in saying, "Oh, it has to be an Oraclebased system." it wound up being the the the winner from an from a quite a rigorous RFP and we're on the on the phase one side.
133We've gone through the missing the old system and saying we'll never like this new system like we got to know the highly customized I mean really bespoke add-ons that the IT department would make. Um but but we're we're there now. I mean we we have we've turned the corner with phase one and that is to first of all we've we've paid hundreds of millions of dollars to vendors. Um our procurement system remember K12 buy it was the system that people love to hate and then they missed it uh very very achingly when it went away. We have we have very good reporting and tracking uh with the procurement system. We also have gotten out of an a we had a rough uh few months at the beginning of the implementation. Definitely not going to say
134otherwise, but we're we're now at a place where we've we've dug out. We've paid all of our vendors. Vendors are very good about letting us know if they haven't been paid timely. They're their own best advocates and they are being paid timely now. Um, and the reason I say all that is we're not there with the rest. Uh, I do think we're going to get there, uh, genuinely. So, we we we're now halfway through a home rebuild. And so, the next year or two is going to be like living in a home that's being, you know, re remodled. So, not great. But I to answer one of your questions, I think with this new influx of cash, which is again in lines with what we originally estimated, we just didn't draw all the money down.
135So the good news is rather than it being something like holy cow, this is a big uh cost overrun, it's actually more or less consistent, right? Which is good because we keep an eye on cost overruns and I think we're going to get there. Um, but it's probably the remaining bits of the implementation are probably going to be as bumpy as the phase one one was. But hopefully, and I know I don't say this lightly, but in many projects, the avoidance of catastrophe is not a goal that you want, you know, a gold star for. With ERP transitions, the avoidance of catastrophe is a big one. And um we we know of many many instances with other uh districts that we think we stack up pretty well actually in the following way. Um we have
136had a a bit of a delay in the phase 2 implementation and the hay's not in the barn but right now it's kind of a modest delay. other districts who have done this uh transition to um uh cloud-based systems, delay after delay after delay, doubling and trebling of original estimates. And thank goodness we're not there. And we don't think we're going to be there because we know our implement as we know we're getting smarter and better about the the systems. So, I think we're in a pretty good place um knowing that we have a couple years where we're, you know, living in a house that's under um significant demolition and we can get um all, you know, any manner of additional information to the board. Uh for sure. And and one thing is we've um
137we've had candid conversations with our impleer as well. They could be hearing this and they would be nodding accordingly. But we we never thought we should undo the decision. Um because that gets back to Tommy's analogy about being you can't be half pregnant. That that you can do it, but that's that's when you triple the budget and you and you triple the timeline. Let me um defer to Commissioner Cy for just a couple comments here. Yeah. Well, I'm going back to your question actually, Chair Sally, to Commian's messenger, which is sort of probing a little bit more to say what if we were to delay to what end, right? Uh, and I do think it's it is important to acknowledge uh that this there have been parts of this that have been rough uh and
138have been bumpy. And one of the ends I could imagine a two-week delay would provide is for more commissioners to ask more questions. This did come in front of operations a week ago and I'm thinking back to some of the, you know, questions that we had then and what we have done as a board uh since then. Um, and I could certainly imagine benefit for a delay to give time for more commissioners to ask more questions along these lines. Uh, I could also envision a scenario in which those questions are asked um, you know, without a delay uh, in the in the vote. But I do think um this has been a certainly complicated but there have been parts that we see and we hear as commissioners that do give concern uh around uh around
139the build out you know and one of the points in which commissioners have the ability to really ask questions that have um that force the issues around approving procurement items. Right? uh there there are not as many other times that things come before us of this nature. So, you know, I I if if other commissioners, right, those on the operations committee had a chance to to ask some questions. But if other commissioners are interested in digging into this, I would be supportive of a twoe uh delay. If commissioners are saying we want to dig into it, but we don't feel the need to delay, uh I certainly could be supportive as that as well. Um, but I I think it comes down to like what are we committing to do with that twoe time? Yeah.
140So, I want to ask Commissioner Ames Messenger or anybody else on the board who may want to entertain a motion related specifically to 14.01 just given what we've heard and discussed. For example, to propose a a vote, two week engage in additional conversation, etc. I would be inclined to provide a motion to wait for two weeks partially also just the event that we have many people that have been waiting very patiently for loved ones and it would be this conversation I think deserves to be had in full rather than rushed and holding valuable employees on a school night. Okay. So what I hear be voted on. All right. So just what I hear is a motion on the floor to delay um a vote for two weeks until the June 10th board meeting. Thank you
141chair. Uh for item 14.01. I'll second that. Second by Commissioner Koy. Um to go through roll call this evening. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Ames Messenger. Yes. Commissioner Koy. Yes. Commissioner Espazito. Yes. Commissioner Kinyat Bay. Yes. Commissioner Muhammad. Yes. Commissioner Reading Lawer. He stepped out. Uh we'll collect his um opinion later. Commissioner Rooks. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Simmons. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Slater Harrington. Yes, I'm going to circle back. Um there's a motion um Commissioner Rang Lawinger on the floor to uh delay for two weeks um for this particular item. Abstain. Abstain. One abstension and I'm in favor. This motion passes. So we'll be back on June 10th for this particular item. circle back to the top of the remaining consent agenda. Is there a motion to to approve the remaining consent
142agenda this evening? So moved Espazito. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Kinyatta Bay. Thank you, Commissioner Kinyatta Bay. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Ames Messenger. Yes. Commissioner Koy. Yes. Commissioner Espazito. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Kinyata Bay. Yes. Commissioner Muhammad, yes. Commissioner Reading Lawer, yes. Commissioner Rooks, yes. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Commissioner Sler Harrington, and I'm in favor. This motion passes. I am now going to turn it to Dr. Sentis to walk us through um some additional uh comments from her that will guide us through most of our guests this year. No, most of my comments, thank you chair, uh this evening are directed towards the guests who I just want to say a big thank you um for your patience um as you wait to uh celebrate. So um first what I
143would like to do um is to introduce um our Baltimore City Public Schools teacher of the year for 2025, Mr. Jeanslu, a national board certified mathematics and special education teacher at the Academy for College and Career Exploration. Mr. Lou founded the AP Calculus program at ACE where he also oversees academics for student athletes, mentors new teachers, serves on the Maryland Teacher Advisory Council, and co-chairs the Maryland Blueprint Pillar 5 Advisory Committee. Now, those are the official comments, but I would like to add just some personal observations. Uh, first when we went to announce um Mr. Lou's um win um which is one of my favorite things to do over the year, there was not a single one of his colleagues I ran into who did not think that he was absolutely the right person um
144to win this award and represent city schools. even though up until about a year ago he was the youngest um tenur um teacher on staff. The other piece I would like to note is that I cannot remember a single candidate or winner who literally brought an entire committee to tears including the CEO uh with his story. and I have a special love um for anyone who makes highle math accessible for all young people. And in part of his storytelling as he was relating his commitment, Mr. Lou described um some initial reactions to his desire to establish an AP Calculus course at Academy for College and Career Exploration. And he told poignantly a story about how one of his students said to him that he wanted to be an engineer or some math-based profession. And Mr.
145Lou had the experience of going back as a real dedicated educator would and realizing that actually that young person's aspirations would not be filled with the current course load that was represented at the school because you cannot in this day and age be an effective candidate for engineering if you do not take AP calculus at the high school level. Mr. Lou knew that. He told the poignant story about how that need to make sure that his young people had that opportunity led him to weather some of the scrutiny, some of the comments that said, "Are you kidding me? You're at ACE. You can't do AP Calc at ACE. Are you crazy? These young people aren't ready for that." And not only did he prove them wrong, not only did he win the support of his
146former principal and his current principal, but he actually brought a team of his colleagues with him in his belief of our young people. Since the establishment of AP Calculus at ACE, ACE has sent each and every year since the founding of AP Calc there at least one and sometimes up to three students to John's Hopkins for their highest science awards. And as the daughter of a chemist from the back hills of Jim Crow, Mississippi who also had teachers who believed that it doesn't matter what your zip code is. Highlevel math is accessible to all people. I have a special place in my heart for this year's winner for proving that everybody can do highlevel math and every neighborhood and every child from every neighborhood is worthy of being viewed as being capable. And some of
147our best science and math students come in packages that the world misses every day. It is my pleasure to invite Mr. Lou and the ACE principal Luis Espinosa to come forward and be recognized. Um, so I'd like to invite you, we have certificates and all that, but I'd just like to give both of you a little bit of an opportunity. We know we've had a long night thus far, but would love for you to just take a brief moment um to just share a little bit um you'll have we'll see each other again on Thursday. Um but just to share a little bit about um this award and what it represents about your teaching and teaching in Baltimore City in particular. Oh, thank you so much. Uh, first thing before I even say anything is
148just I really want to thank you guys so much for always uplifting the excellence, potential, brilliance of our students here in city schools. Even today during today's meeting, it was really inspiring just to hear you uplift the voices of our student who joined us online, our student commissioner, the work that you do. Um, some of the students from Commodore, incredible accomplishments. And it really reminds me that, you know, no matter what role we have, teacher or not, whatever school, wherever you are across the district, we're all here for the same purpose, to empower our students, to hear our students stories, and to help them reach the aspirations they desire. Um, everyone here is very well aware of some of the narratives that are cast upon our students here in city schools. And you know, as
149a special education teacher, as an AP calculus teacher, I see every single day in my school when I go to work every day that all of our students are capable. And let me be clear when I say all my students, I mean each and every single one of them. All of them. And I just wanted to make a promise as the teacher of the year. Um, I'm going to, no matter what space I enter, I'm always going to challenge some of the narratives that unfortunately sometimes cast upon our students and always say the message that all of our students truly are capable and there's nothing I'd rather do. And I'm just so incredibly happy to get to work and be part of the team here at City Schools. Thank you. He He said it all.
150We're good. Ace. Ace is the place. He's here. Yeah, he's good. I got to say. Very good. So, now I am going to um I'm going to present uh Mr. Lou with his certificate that will uh verify what the state already knows that he will represent um Baltimore City Public Schools in the state u Maryland teacher year. Um, but I would love to invite you forward to receive the certificate and take a picture with the board. Way to go, CLN7. Uh, Mr. Lou will compete for the title of Maryland Teacher of the Year. In the past 10 years, five city schools teachers of the year have gone on to become the Maryland Teacher of the Year, more than any other school district in the state of Maryland. and four more City Schools teachers of the
151year were finalists for the Maryland Teacher of the Year. Congratulations also to Mr. Lu, fellow finalist, Caitlyn Frink from Holler Academy, and Franka Mueller Paz of Baltimore City College. You all made it very, very difficult to choose this year. And just a special thanks to all city schools teachers for everything you do for our schools and students every day. And finally, um I would invite um uh Chief Emily Nielsen forward for this evening's PEP agenda um so that the families and friends and colleagues that are here can celebrate um the number of folks that we have who are officially either joining or being um promoted to new positions in city schools. Thank you, Chief Nielsen. Thank you, Dr. Santis. Good evening, board commissioners. On tonight's PEP agenda from the office of the chief academic officer,
152appointments recommended that Lauren Destasio, currently director, summer and expanded learning, be appointed director differentiated learning multi-tered systems of support effective June 14th, 2025. And yes, I should uh remind everyone that if you are here, please stand to be recognized when I read your name so we can applaud you or come on um turn on your camera. Also, an appointment from the office of the chief academic officer recommended that Nina Riggs, currently academic coordinator mathematics and science, be appointed educational specialist to math implementation and TSS effective June 14th, 2025. from the office of the chief human capital officer. for an appointment recommended that Jenna Nemes, currently coordinator instructional leadership, be appointed director career advancement effective June 28, 2025 from the office of the chief of schools recommended that Renee Balo Nurona, currently dean of academics, be
153appointed assistant principal at Patterson High effective July 12th, 2025. recommended that Lori Bush, currently assistant principal at Patterson High, be appointed principal at Vivian T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy High School effective June 28, 2020. Recommended that Jamal Kandle, currently assistant principal at Career Academy, be appointed principal resident at Forest Park High School effective June 28th, 2025. Recommended that Nikesha Fair, currently assistant principal at Harford Heights Elementary, be appointed principal resident at Hollird Elementary Middle effective June 28th, 2025. Recommended that James Gordon, currently superintendent designate, be appointed assistant principal at Edmonson Westside High School effective June 28, 2025. recommended that Samantha Hutchkins, currently assistant principal at Highland Town Elementary Middle 237, be appointed principal resident at Franklin Square Elementary effective June 28th, 2025. Recommended that Brian Jones, currently Esau, district manager, be appointed principal at Highland
154Town Elementary 237. Effective June recommended that L. Lucas Olivera, currently vice president of schools at Idea Public Schools, be appointed principal Baltimore Montasauri public charter effective June 28th. Recommended that Abigail Pullium, currently assistant principal at August Savage, be appointed principal resident at Hamilton Elementary Middle effective June 28th, 2025. recommended that Ryan Stokeling, currently assistant principal, be appointed principal at Katherine Johnson Global Academy. recommended that Christopher Razer, currently coach student wholeness and uh student wholeness, be appointed educational specialist to SEI, effective May 31st, 2025. Recommended that James Thurman, currently principal resident at Paul Lawrence Dunar High School, be appointed principal at Success Academy West effective June. recommended that Alicia Ward, currently teacher elementary at a Rendle Elementary, be appointed assistant principal at Arundle Elementary June 28th. Interim appointments recommended that Shante Beard, currently assistant principal, be
155appointed interim principal at Westport Academy Elementary Middle, effective June 28th, 2025. recommended that Charerelle Barnes, currently principal at Edgewood Elementary Middle, be appointed interim principal at Waverly Elementary Middle, effective June 14th, 2025. Recommended that Tanya Green, currently principal at Waverly Elementary Middle, be a reassigned interim principal at Lois T. Murray Elementary Middle effective June 28th, 2025. Reassignment recommended that Lawrence Ashworth, currently assistant principal at Bay Brook Elementary Middle, be reassigned assistant principal at Edmonson Westside High School effective June 14th, 2025. recommended that Barbie, currently assistant principal at Benjamin Franklin High School, be reassigned assistant principal at MVO effective June 28, 2025. Recommended that Cole Bishop, currently principal resident at Forest Park High School, be reassigned principal resident at Baltimore Design School effective June 28th, 2025. and high school. Recommended that Danielle Canazi, currently principal at
156Hilton Elementary, be reassigned assistant principal at Montabelloo Elementary Middle School, effective June 2025. Reassigned assistant principal. Recommended that Susanna Wish, currently assistant principal at Paul Lawrence Dunbar, be reassigned assistant principal at Patterson High School, effective June 28th, 2025. And from the office of the chief of schools, an appointment Chad Ellis, currently assistant chief of police, be appointed Baltimore school police major effective June 14th, 2025. And finally, an extension. Carl Perry Perry currently principal external assignment be reassigned principal external assignment to serve as paza president effective July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. Congratulations to everyone on tonight's PEP agenda. Thank you. And um as thank you very much Chief Nielsen and for uh the hard work of this time of year where we do have lots of appointments. Congratulations to everyone. Um as has become
157our custom, I will say a few additional words um for our newly appointed uh principles. So, first, Miss Lori Bush currently serves as an assistant principal at Patterson High School and was previously There you go. Oh, you can stand again. Nothing wrong with that. You've been here long enough. You can stand as much as you want. And was previously assistant principal at PEC Carver. She began her career in DC public schools before spending the last 20 years in city schools. Principal Bush holds an MBA, MA, and MAT and is pursuing her EDDD at Morgan State University. Congratulations, Principal Bush. Um, next I will say a welcome home to Brian E. Jones, who currently serves as district manager of Esau services for secondary schools in DC public schools with 22 years of experience in education. A
158graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, Brian holds a bachelor's in Esau education, a master's in English education, and a second masters in school administration and supervision from the City University of New York. Welcome back, Lucas Oliviera comes to us from IDA public schools in San Antonio, Texas, where he was vice president of schools, but he began his career at city schools. Congratulations and welcome back to you, too. Teaching at John Rura Elementary Middle School. He holds a bachelor's degree in public relations and communications from Talson University and a master's degree in educational leadership from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Congratulations. Um Ryan Stokeling comes to us from the school district of Philadelphia and I just want you to know that front row of family. We don't normally keep people this long, but
159we we welcome you in Baltimore City. We're glad to have you. Where he served as an assistant principal for three years. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in sport and entertainment management from Newman University and a master's degree in educational leadership and policy from Temple University. Great to have you around. And then finally, James Thurman, there you are, currently serves as resident principal at Paul Lawrence Dunar High School. He holds a bachelor of arts in English literature from Southern Illinois University, a master of arts in secondary education from National Lewis University, and a master of science and educational leadership from Concordia University. He is pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership at Aurora University. Congratulations, Principal Thurman. Congratulations every but one. Welcome aboard. And that concludes my comments for this evening
160chair. Thank you so much Dr. Santaissus and congratulations to everybody on tonight's pep agenda. We're excited to welcome all of our new principles into their roles. So congratulations again. Um also want to take a moment just to acknowledge on um item 5.03 renaming a school. So Augusta Fels um that renaming was passed on consent this evening. So, um, want to acknowledge that school community, um, as we move forward this evening. Um, I'm going to turn over to Dr. Sentis. We have three items available um, for information and discussion. So, our night keeps going here on city schools, but these should be briefer items, but if families want to transition or any additional folks from the audience, it's a-okay by us. Okay. And somebody somebody please let that baby know that next time I will hold
161the baby. I hold all babies. So don't worry about it. All right, I'm going to move us forward uh pretty quickly this evening so our um night can end. Um Dr. Santis is going to lead us through I'm so sorry. Dr. Junkkins is going to lead us through 9.01 um policy BDB. Good evening board, Dr. Santaasis and those folks who are still here from the public. Um, I'm Dr. Jennifer Judkins. I'm the board executive officer and I am presenting updates to B to policy BDB board officers. Patricia. Okay. So this policy relates directly to board priority 7 implementing policies, practices and procedures. You can take it to the third slide please. Uh the primary purpose of the revision to board policy BDB board officers is to convert the remaining board rules into policies and incorporate
162active board rules into the existing policies. These revisions are being proposed to incorporate board rule 202.05. Uh board rule 202.05. The prior board rule described the position of board exe executive which is my position. Um which serves as the board's administrative board's administrative officer and operates as the liaison between the CEO's office and the board. Uh the board appoints this position and this position reports directly to the board. Additional revisions to the policy are to give the opportunity for board members to provide feedback on the operations of the board that are consistent with board policy BBA which is board powers, responsibilities and professional standards. Next slide. This is a tier one stakeholder engagement which is a minor update technical change or change to incorporate the board rule. This was posted to the city schools website
163for public feedback and draft revision shared with key stakeholders which included the groups that are listed on the screen. We had two recognized groups who responded. Uh next slide. ASCBC did not have any substantive feedback. Uh BTU did recommend that there should be follow-up actions to the annual review feedback. As a result, we did add this piece to the policy after the initial review in committee and that is that the chairperson and vice chairperson person shall offer board members an opportunity to provide feedback on board operations at the annual business meeting. In addition to that, the piece that um they wanted us to add was to in addition to giving that feedback for the board to actually add appropriate action steps um identify those so it's consistent with board policy BBA. I just want to
164clarify was that from BTU or PCAP? That was BTUT. Does it say BPCAP on there? Okay. So, we'll make sure that we fix that or check it. Thanks. Um and then next slide. Okay. And just as a note, um in the policy committee on February 18th, we actually presented both BDDB and BDD. So at this time, um BDD is about committees and that is postponed um for the board to take more time to look at committees. So we're just bringing forward uh BDB. And next slide shows the timeline. So, it went on February 18th to policy, tonight for first reader, and then our next board meeting for second reader. And again, it's just a minor policy update. And that is everything. Any questions? Defer to my board colleagues for any questions related to this change?
165Sho, just one question. as it relates to the timing of elections for board officers. Is this the policy where that would be uh discuss or or enumerated or is that a different policy? Um that can that is a different policy change. Um but that can be looked at by the board if we do want to look at that. That has to be on a real short order if that's going to be on policy. So I would defer that's something that we need to look at if we do want to make some changes to that in this cycle or perhaps next cycle. It may not be until next cycle but yeah why don't we uh defer to look at that. Yeah, I do think making a note of looking at it whether it's in this cycle
166or the future cycle and an additional question I would have is is there legislative changes that are that are would be necessary to change the frequency from bianual to annual for officer elections. So that we can ask um we do have something definitive on that. So that does require some leg legislative change um but we can flag that for discussion. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Anything more on this policy? Nothing else on this policy. We'll see you on June 10th. Thanks. So, I'd like to invite up Chief Sharter for 9.02 update to the general orders. Uh, good evening board chair, board commission, Dr. Sus. Before I begin, I just like to begin with uh Okay, before I begin, I just like to um begin my presentation with a short quote. Um safety is not just about the
167absence of danger, it's the presence of care. Author uh Commissioner Muhammad, he stepped out, but he said it on our last thing. It it it resonated with me. So, I just want to just give him his props today. Uh Jonathan should have Okay, here we go. All right. Proposed a vision to these 12 general orders align with the schoolboard priorities four and five emphasizing the importance of engaging all stakeholders who can who can contribute to student success. These priorities also highlight city school's commitment to providing access to services resources that support the success of the school school and surrounding communities. In this instance, the school police. Additionally, these proposals align with law enforcement 21st century community policing best practices. Next slide. Our mission is to foster and sustain safe learning environments by building positive relationship
168and providing professional high high quality police services grounded in equity and impartiality. School police are committed daily to supporting students, administrators in a broader school community. Our approach emphasizes collaboration and empowering administrators to address and deescalate situations appropriately. At the same time, we stand prepared to step in to provide the necessary support and when needed, fulfill our fulfill our law enforcement responsibilities to ensure the safety and well-being of all involved. Next slide. School police are integral to the district comprehensive school safety strategy and in accordance with administrative regulation EC ECA ECAE RA school please operate under general orders approved by the school board of commissioners. These general orders are reviewed by annually with stakeholder feedback encouraged and welcome. All current general orders are public avail publicly available on school police uh website to ensure transparency
169and accountability. Next slide. The key revision to general order 104 and 105. 104 organizational structure establishes the patrol administrative section clarifies their functions, roles, responsibilities, and units. The updated organizational structure of school police aligns with the current operational and staffing needs. General Order 105 changes the rank from captain to major and delineates the job duties. Next slide. General order 1012 take-home vehicles departmental vehicles. This new GO outlines personal responsibilities including the responsibility for impound fees and citations. Members need approval from the chief of school police to use a take-home vehicle for secondary employment. When off duty, officers cannot drive the vehicles more than 50 miles from city school central office and is road miles not a straight line. Vehicle must be relinquished of police powers are suspended or during expendit extended or administrative leave. Next
170slide. General 1039 nepotism and fratization. New provisions prohibit romantic dating or intimate relationships between supervisors and direct subordinates. They define key terms and align with board policy and regulation GB, EBA and the subsection of RA. It all also affirms that applicants will not be favored or discriminated against based on family ties to board members or employees including school police. Next slide. General order 1041, secondary employment. New definitions are established for secondary employment, including categories coordinated by city schools, third parties, and external employment. The policy affirms that secondary employment is a privilege for members in good standing and is subject to denial of performance issues arise. It also safeguards city schools confidentiality and sets limits on work hours to ensure primary duties remain a priority. This u particular general order is still under review with the
171FOP, but we're really really close on getting it done. Uh general next slide. General order 1043 vacation person on holiday leave. This policy reduces the allowable consecutive illness days without medical certification from 3 to two which is alignment with the Maryland Healthy Book of Families Act and a union contract. It expand leave categories to match the school calendar and updates recognized holidays to include the day after Thanksgiving, President's Day, and Junth. Employees required to work on designated holidays will receive compensation for the negotiated contractual agreement with the FOP. General order 1044 medical per the FO Agreement and the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act. The updated policy permits supervisors to request documentation for illnesses lasting two or more days. It designates the Office of Human Capital to report medical findings and recommend personal actions as needed.
172It also aligns with board policies and administrative regulation GBN- NA regarding prolong or repeated absences including potential recommendation for disability retirement or dismissal subject to board approval. Next slide. General order 1053 light duty. This is a new policy that provides eligible personnel reasonable access to temporary light duty assignments limiting the number and duration to 12 months. It prohibits secondary employment overtime for officers on light duty without approval and allows medical evaluation to determine long-term or permanent disability. Periodic assessments will of require also be required to maintain light duty status as directed by the office of human capital. Next slide. General 1050 general order 1056 overtime compensation. This policy ensures regular shift coverage is prioritized before assigning overtime and limits overtime to prevent duty impairment. All overtime must be processed through the school police online system
173with operational overtime taking precedence. A maximum of 32 hours of secondary employment overtime is allowed per week and total hours for regular duty. Secondary employment and daily overtime cannot include cannot exceed 72 hours per week. There also must be eight consecutive hours of non-employment within any 24-hour period. This uh general is also under review with the FOP. Next slide. General order 134 and 1317. 134 is internal investigation. This policy updates language to reflect the school police organizational chart. Authorizes the chief of school police to approve joint investigation with internal or external entities and assigns administrative major to oversee internal investigation and reviews. General 1317 a search and seizure prioritizing wellness checks. This policy permits school police to conduct student welfare checks with approval from the chief of school police or designate and at a principal
174request ensuring they are lawful, respectful and professional with parental or guard guardian consent. Officers may be accompanied by city school staff or refer cases to other agencies needed. It also authorized warrantless welfare checks in an employes home if they have reasonable grounds to believe the employees in imminent danger and other contact methods have failed. General order next slide. I'm sorry. General order 1801. Community relations. My favorite. This policy established a community relation unit to enhance trust between school police and school communion through non-inforcement activities such as mentorship, coaching, and relationship building. In line with board policy ECAE, school police will also convene an annual a quarterly, I'm sorry, student advisory board, which is currently in development, promote sustained engagement and dialogue. Additional provisions outline the community relations unit's role in family engagement, coordination with school
175climate teams, God bless you, and inclusion of revelent data in the school police annual report. Jonathan, can you um play that video? So before you press the play, this is uh this is just a highlight of one of the um initiative that we've done with the community relations unit. Two minutes and Jonathan, we don't have any um sound for this just yet. So basically, I can just summarize it. Um he might Okay, so we did a uh an initiative called haircuts for the holidays. Let's see. He might be able to get Okay. If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you come to school and you want to learn. Creating that relationship between school, police, and the community is what my goal and my aim is to make Baltimore City Schools a
176better place to come learn and an environment that we all can feel safe, comfortable, and do the right thing to be better citizens and stewards of Baltimore City. Today we have an event, a special event where we've invited some local elementary schools to come participate in our barberh shop. Just having a safe space to have barberhop talk for restorative conversations has been really great for us. We were able to partner with the Baltimore school police department to bring some young people from a variety of elementary schools to come and get haircuts from not only our staff barber, but we also actually have some students that are earning their barber credentials and they're cutting students hair. We are partnered with a Rundle Elementary, Dorothy Heights, Ferman Templeton, Hazlewood, Cecil Elementary, Johnson Square, and Barkley for them
177to get haircuts. We know that some of the parents need assistance right now. And so we thought of doing haircuts. It's important for us as Baltimore City School Police officers to build relationship with our students to let them know that that we're just like them and to build those relationships, which is very important. Barbers become counselors, therapists, everything. It's a it's a deep thing about history of barbering. A lot of people don't know Barbers. We're the first surgeons. Means a lot. Telling them the history of Barbara. Yep. As soon as I graduate after the summer, I'm going to go straight to barber school. That's my plan. I like the satisfaction when I'm done. My customers smiling, feeling like new people and thanking me for, you know, changing their day. young men getting a haircut, our
178young ladies getting a haircut, it makes them feel good, right? You look good, you feel good, you behave well, and it really makes such a big difference. And it's just been such a value ad to our community. And also the ability for some of our students to learn under a master barber to be able to get their hours and get their credential to be a barber. So, it's been a really, really great space and place for our school and we hope to continue that into future years. [Music] We'll get back to the summary, but just it's uh initiatives like that that just plant no seeds for tomorrow, establishing the things between police and our young people to show that like we are all the same, right? We all have the same goal. We all have
179the same theory in mind. It's about safety, but it's also about love and care. And that's what we these initiatives led by uh corporal soon to be caught Sergeant Coington is is it just warms my heart to know that it's happening now. If it wasn't happening before, it's happening now. Um this is the summary of engagement. Um it's a list of stakeholders and partners that documented responses and how the responses have been addressed. The FOP is the last partner we are currently engaged with regarding revisions. The engagement tools used were emails, surveys, and telephone questionnaires. Next slide. Um these are some of the stakeholder groups. These were this is the feedback and these are the responses in reference to those um reference to the feedback that they presented. The next set of slides is just
180an appendix which includes our school police mission statement, the district-wide safety strategy core principles and the updated school police organizational chart. So, I invite my board colleagues for any questions for Chief Shorter. Commissioner Kinyata Bay and uh Vice Chair Parker next. First of all, I'd like to say um how ecstatic I am, how proud I am of the work you've done since you've walked into these doors and taken on this uh mantle and you've done a superlative job. I did inquire as to um the alignment of these general orders with uh union and it seems to be all in alignment very well. Um I also wanted to look at and understand and this is something that Baltimore City police could learn if they learn to take toutelage from us how to interact with our youth
181and how to grow it. So, I just want to applaud you for a superb job. Um, and glad to have you leading our troops. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you, Chief Sharter. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, I'm definitely looking forward to inviting you back maybe late summer, early fall to see how your first year was and um to have dialogue around maybe some things we can um look forward to. But I just wanted to take this time cuz that video is just you and people who do not know the work that you do. That's what you did on the police department. Um, I remember when I started in community work, you got like community people together and we got in a van one time and just rolled around and um talked to like squeegee kids. That's
182before the city was doing any of that stuff. And um we had lunches, we had people from different um places giving resources. So I know that's like you, that's your heart. Um so I look forward to the great work that you'll do here at Baltimore City Schools. And listen, we'll keep on talking. Yes, ma'am. Congratulations. I remember that too. Right by MLK. We had the lunches in the back. Can't forget to your board colleagues this evening. Just uh same as my colleagues. I want to commend you both on your work to date and then also I know it's a lot of regulations. It's not easy going through all of those, but they all look like um I got a chance to to review them. They all look like sensical uh changes and Um just appreciate
183all the detail orientation around it. So thank you for your work. Thank you sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We are going to move from Chief Shorter to our last presentation of this evening. Um 9.03 JF homeless students. A dynamic duo presenting. So welcome. Welcome, welcome. Good evening, Dr. Santais, board chair, vice chair, commissioners, um, chief of staff. Um, we are before you today to do the first reader for um, JF um, students experiencing homelessness. Um, I am joined, my name is Sonia Goodwin. I am the executive director for whole child services and supports. Um, I am joined today by one of our fabulous coordinators from the Office of Health and Specialized Student Services. Um, and she is actually going to go through the presentation for us today. This is her body
184of work. This is her baby. She's going to give us some updates and some proposed changes. Thank you, Miss Goodwin. Good evening, everyone. So, today we will be talking about the updates to the board policy JF students experiencing homelessness. Uh, next slide. The purpose of the policy JFE is to highlight our services and resources that city schools provides to students experiencing homelessness and to ensure that they all receive the same services as all of their other peers. Next slide. The JF policy is aligned to the board priorities four, five, and seven. Next slide. So our mission is it is to ensure that all identified students experiencing homelessness of city schools have access to immediate resources and are ready and equipped to attend school for academic success. Next slide. So this is a bit of our
185McKenna Vento data uh for this year. Our McKenna Vento data shows ho how the number of students fluctuate throughout the school year per grade level and over time. At this time, our current number of students identified under McKenna Vento for city schools is roughly 5,830 students. The charter network currently encompasses 679 identified McKenna Vento students, but we're not done yet, so the number isn't complete. Next slide. So now we'll talk about a brief overview of our practices uh for the McKenna Veno program. So here is a breakdown of the city schools McKenna Vento program. The central office staff cons uh encompasses myself as a one FTE coordinator, two full-time FTE staff specialists and four FTE temporary staff. Each school should have a school-based homeless liaison at every school and city schools to provide the appropriate
186support and community service and resources. Next slide. So the role of the McKenna Vento liaison is to oversee compliance, coordinate with schools and families to ensure best interest determination takes place and to monitor services provided to McKenna Vento students. Next slide. Here are some key features of the JFE policy that are imperative when working with students experiencing homelessness that include enrollment and services. Next slide. So why are we re revising some of the JF JF policy? Several reasons are to align with the new Komar regulations, changes to the following sections, the definitions, general responsibilities of the school system, school placement, and our dispute resolution. We want to also align the internal guidance to include best interest determination, and also add references to other relevant school policies. Next slide. So some of the terminology that we're
187proposing to change is change homeless students to students experiencing homelessness and or unhoused students and unaccompanied youth. We are also proposing to change homeless education liaison to the McKini Vento liaison. Next slide. Many of our proposed changes are to clarify the regulations of an internal protocol to align with Komar and also to streamline practices with schools to ensure students are receiving the resources and services needed upon enrollment and best interest determination. Next slide. We want to make sure that we clarify supports for students experiencing homelessness to ensure that JFE cross references with other policies throughout to ensure that all the services and supports for students are rendered. Next slide. for supports for unaccompanied homeless youth. We want to ensure that all unaccompanied youth have immediate enrollment while still maintaining our board policies as mandated reporters
188if concerns arise. Next slide. We want to also uh have the McKenna Ventos uh liaison work with the school choice representative to ensure that students are actively participating in the school choice process and that families are aware of the city school choice process. Next slide. Some of the revisions since the policy committee met on March 18th were to include uh the number of McKenna Vento students who participate in our extracurricular andor athletics and also to clarify that both McKenna Vento liaison andor our school-based liaison may contact families during our annual status review for homeless verification. Next slide. In our alignment with Komar Komar, some of the changes are to provide user-friendly information for our families to understand. We want to also update our best interests, fee waiverss, and other language regarding educational access. Next slide.
189For our stakeholder engagement at tier one, we were able to provide feedback via our city schools website. Next slide. While we did seek stakeholder feedback for the policy JF, we did not receive any feedback. However, we had a great deal of questions regarding our staffing and supports for students experiencing homelessness. Next slide. So our timeline was March 18th that we met with the policy committee. Today our first reader and July 22nd his second reader. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your work. And just so everybody knows, so the McKini Vento Homeless Assistance Act is a federal law. Um this is an area of work that I've done a lot of work on the federal level doing. Prior to my time here at City Schools, I used to sit on the US um
190agency um I'm sorry, the US inter agency council on homelessness. And so these laws um are put in place to ensure that there's a safety net for our young people who are experiencing um homelessness or they move between statuses pretty frequently. And so um I appreciate the data that's put here. Uh but there's also those interconnections with academics, right? to to ensure that we know how many students are graduating, um how many students are receiving supports. Um but there's also that other work that needs to transpire as we work with the city. Um Commissioner Muhammed, did you have questions this evening? Good evening. Good evening. So, uh I'll say not a question, but a statement. Uh I want to thank you for the work. As I reviewed, uh it was detailed and it was clear.
191So uh no no no questions but there is a level of ownership that's created through this work and the ownership lies and uh the liaison's creating partnerships academically that the uh success of our students are is really being put at the foot of everyone that our students who are experiencing homelessness. Thank you very much for that. Our students who are experiencing homelessness deserve the best of us and there are uh other departments within city schools who we have to prioritize them and this uh this work that's being done under this umbrella allows for there to be an advocate within uh for these individuals. So I just want to thank you and uh just know that to my other colleagues from the sense of reviewing it with the lens of safety and they are really doing
192the work. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Slayer Harington. So, we work very closely with the Office of Transportation. They're our best friends. And so through the best interest determination, we're able to work with them to determine if the student is receiving transportation, continues transportations, or limit transportation. During the first year, we really try to make sure all of our students are covered with transportation and or MTA bus pass, especially our secondary uh students. I think where we run into constraints is just not enough buses to uh be able to transport and sometimes we run into issues between elementary students and middle school uh students who are in shelter together but middle schools get MTA passes while elementary can get bus. So we really have to work with them to u try to make sure that
193siblings are able still to provide get transportation together. So those are some of the things that we see and then of course just uh with the transition of uh families um over and over again we have to stop services and then uh reactivate services and things like that. But I think the biggest portion that kind of uh balances this out is our best interest determination that talks about where are students if they're across town and their school of origin is in a place. Is this the best interest for the student? And we try to look at that holistically. meaning we look at grades, we look at attendance, we talk to families, we talk to schools, and we really want to make sure that we're making a conscientious effort around making sure that student is able
194to either stay at their school of origin or they may need to transition to somewhere closer so we can alleviate barriers because what we see is the school of origin can sometimes be that same barrier. Um I guess just a little more detail on the um consideration of best interest just a little bit more about terms of like who are the parties that are involved in that process? I know the policy did a good job outlining specifically, but in practice, what does that look like in a school? Um, and then I guess also what's the timeline for renewal of when those like once that consideration is made, when is it made again? Realizing that could change really rapidly, right? and um given a district with finite resources and that transportation continues to be one of
195our greatest challenges and as we think about portfolio decisions um kind of what are the timelines and the role of the school in making those points. So thank you. So for the initial best interest of a child enrolling in Baltimore City public schools or they are all already in city schools and they become homeless. the latter they they're in school and they become homeless. So our liaison um is in the school. We have a case management model where they provide direct support to the that their assigned school. So they are always in the field and so the the social worker and or the registar will let them know that hey we got a family in we try to turn that best interest around no more than 5 to seven days. So, we want to make
196sure that we're talking to the family, uh, the principal or the um, assistant principal may be involved. Um, the parents are involved. So, we want to make sure and the social worker and or the school-based liaison. That might not be the social worker. That may be your community service coordinator or it may be your wholeness specialist. And we tell schools that it does not necessarily have to be the social worker. It can be the caring adult that really wants to do this particular work. So, these are the parties that are involved in that particular meeting and we're gathering that information. Like I said before, uh how long are you going to stay at this resident? Do you need any resources? Um after that time, we'll do a needs assessment to see what are their needs.
197We constructed a whole um clothing closet in our office where we're able to give them immediate uniforms, uh street clothes, shoes, you name it, we try to have it for them. And so we try to just do that uh right like I said between uh 5 to 7 days because we we really don't want to delay the enrollment for the student. So, but hypothetically, so that person has then those children have then been enrolled in a school for six months and the situation is like or might have changed four times in that time period. Yeah. Um kind of at what point are there uh guardrails in the system that are indicating that we are then realizing that that determination might change and that that busing decision might not make sense anymore. And then part two
198is also what's the training that's going into that to supporting the school-based staff in making that determination realize sometimes that takes a broader systems lens right so usually what we look at is the trend of how students are moving so if they move one or two times or their attendance is beginning to get sketchy then our liaison begin to talk to the school and also reach out to the families to find out what's going on again we work closely with the office of attendance uh the multilingual center because again we want to be comprehensive about it. Um then we will then um even though we usually do the best interest at the beginning, we will also have another best interest determination meeting because again we want to bring everybody back to have the conversation about
199what's going on. Is it additional supports that you need? Where are you living now? Um do you need transportation to somewhere else? But we really want to talk to everyone involved now from those meetings. Sometimes we do have to move children to again the place where they're closest at for a period of time or just in general and then sometimes we can say okay you can stay at your school of origin with these parameters in place right that means you have to come to school every day you have to make sure you're maintaining grades and then we're talking to the staff repeatedly about how are you best supporting these students what is happening so we'll tag into uh the schoolbased leaison to ensure that that work is happening or not happening and when it's not
200happening then my liaison contact me and then I have to go have a conversation with the good principles but nevertheless uh again our goal is to kind of safeguard it and that way meaning we're monitoring that and then if need be when we start seeing that trend fluctuate we call another best interest to bring everybody back together again to say is this what we really need for this student what is in the best interest of the student right now. Thank you. Any additional questions? We'll see you back this summer for second reader. Thank you so much. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our agenda this evening. Um, a couple of things I just want to highlight. Um, we have a whole bunch of events that are transpiring coming up. I do want
201to do a retro look back at this past week where, you know, our board was out a lot in community. want to give a shout out to the equity office. Um, with the plethora of events happening, um, well, I think five or six different events were transpiring last week, including the Be More Me Conference that Commissioner Brooks and I had an opportunity to join, but want to thank the equity office for um, all of their work and supporting our young people and highlighting the opportunity. Coming up this week, we have graduations transpiring. We're really excited about that. Not this week, next week. Um, and we will be back for our June 10th board meeting. Um, right here. I want to give a uh phone a friend over to Commissioner Muhammad for his next listening session.
202Appreciate it. Uh, I want to uh make a uh call for those of us that are interested in the safety and wholeness of our young people in our district to come out on June the 5th at 5:30 at Edmonson High. We will be holding a listening session where the board will be present to be able to hear not only your concerns and challenges but particularly to be able to hear solutions that you have that we often don't get a chance to have conversations about. The short amount of time that we have here during session does not give us the uh opportunity to hear clearly from you and this listening tour opens up an opportunity for us to hear directly from you. So, we want to invite everyone out on June the 5th. And uh I'll
203just say that the next safety and wholeness meeting, so you don't have to come back to me, will be on June the 18th, Wednesday, uh because the third Thursday is a holiday, Junth. Thank you. Thank you so much. And one additional um highlight is we have teaching and learning coming up on Tuesday, June 4th. So, all right, join us then. Um, is there a motion to adjurnn? Is there a second? Second. Sign. Uh, I'll signal by uh their signaling their favor by saying I I thank you. We're joined this evening.