001if you have not yet done so please mute your phone anyone who does not mute their phones may be muted by the call moderator or removed from the call additionally if you are not a board member or the ceo and her staff please turn your video off i will now read a roll call of the board to identify who is on the call please identify yourself first before speaking for the record i will go through a roll call for each vote commissioner bondima commissioner brooks brooks here commissioner chenya president commissioner griffin commissioner horwitz commissioner mcfadden yes thank you commissioner reed commissioner roberts here commissioner sally present and i am here um we are nine here with one absent is there a motion to reopen the meeting thank you commissioner mcfadden is there second second thank
002you commissioner bandima all in favor commissioner bondima yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner chenya yes commissioner horowitz commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i am in favor the motion passes with nine in favor and one absent i would like to now ask commissioner brooks if he would um read the recognizing of the passing of um some of our city schools employees and students great um so warren glass started his career with city schools on september 2nd 2006 where he served the staff and students for 14 years and six months as a temporary professional too assistant hr pre-enrollment and supervisor a pre-employment and supervisor pre-employment under the human capital office he was later served as he later served as a trainer maintenance and operations and a supervisor a mail room
003under the chief of operations until he retired on november 30th 2019. mr glass unfortunately departed on march 24th 2002. uh 22 and he will be missed greatly by his family friends and city schools kathleen steinbauer schools on february 27 2006 where she served the students for 16 years and one month as a custodial worker won 12 at facilities north cluster 2 and mary ann winterling elementary miss steinbach unfortunately departed on march 26 of this year and will be missed greatly by her family friends and city schools braelyn gannon was an exemplary ninth grader at carver vocational technical high school he left a meaningful impression on the hearts of his teachers and his peers during the short time he spent at carver he was a well-rounded student who did his best to succeed in all of
004his classes even though he was playful at times his intentions were always to be a respectful and responsible young man braylon was a friend to everyone he was a social butterfly who made meaningful interactions in the hallway the cafeteria as well as the classroom braylon's passing has left a void at carver an unreal feeling that would linger for a very long time the memories we have a breelan will always be dear to our hearts forever a carver bear it is also without deep regret uh we inform uh you of the passing of velma b evans miss evans began teaching in city schools uh in 1951 and later began working with preschoolers in the early 1960s she became a teacher in project hope an early school admissions project that was aimed at culturally disadvantaged children according
005to a 1963 sun story the project aimed to teach basic learning skills that were necessary for survival and growth in the first years of school at mount royal elementary school miss evans was a senior member of a four-person teaching team that included an assistant teacher teacher's aide and a volunteer their mission was to give maximum amount of attention to each child ms evans later was one of the early teachers to join the head start program in city schools and was then promoted to the old school headquarters building in on 25th street where she was a supervisor of elementary grades and finally as a program director of early school admission program and was a title 1 coordinator she retired in 1978 miss evans unfortunately departed on march 14th of this year uh and we will be
006uh and will be missed greatly by her family friends and city schools uh would everybody just take a moment of silence to recognize the passing of these uh important people to our district i think i pass it back to you chair richardson thank you commissioner brooks is there a motion to approve the prior open session minutes so move thank you commissioner reed is there a second second robert thank you commissioner robert it's all in favor commissioner obama yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner kenya yes commissioner horwitz commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i am in favor this motion passes with nine in favor and one absent is there a motion to approve the closed session summaries so move junior thank you commissioner chinese their second second read the commissioner
007reed all in favor commissioner bondima yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner chenya yes commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i am also in favor this motion passes with eight in favor and one absent the springboard youth forum intended for monday april the 25th was postponed the decision to postpone the event was difficult the youth forum is an incredibly important event for the district and it is one of our favorite ways to interact with our students hear their voices and let them know how the district can better support them and to hear from them on how on what they need to be supported on however we felt that it was equally important to prioritize the needs and wants of our students that our students have previously expressed to ensure our
008students have the most productive and insightful event possible it is crucial that we take more time to gather sources and effectively address our students concerns as we take more planning time to attract a wider cross-section of students from the district we hope that you will accept our sincerest apology for any inconvenience this may have caused we look forward to seeing our students very soon for the youth forum when it is rescheduled stay tuned thank you we will now have the honoring of our retirees for 30 plus years of service um done by our commissioner sally great thank you so much so right to recognize antoine mciver began working at with baltimore city public schools on february 4th 1985. he most recently served as a supervisor school projects at facilities the southeast cluster four mr mckyber
009faithfully served the children of baltimore city public schools for 37 years and one month congratulations sure thank you commissioner sally is there a motion to approve the personnel matters so move mcfadden thank you commissioner mcfadden is there second second robert thank you commissioner robert's all in favor commissioner bondima yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner chenya commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i'm also in favor that motion passes with aid in favor and one absent i will now turn it over to dr santelisis for ceo comments thank you very much chair richardson um it is now my pleasure to invite sarah diehl our interim chief human capital officer for this evening's pep agenda thank you sorry i'm not going good evening everyone uh here's tonight's pep it is recommended that
010camila reese currently iep team associate of bay brook elementary middle be appointed educational specialist 2 tsi program manager multi-tiered system support effective may 2nd 2022 it is recommended that michael turlick currently education program specialist at the maryland state department of education the appointed educational specialist 2 mathematics initiative mathematics education effective may 9 it is recommended that tiana linear currently principal elementary middle virtual learning program west be appointed director virtual learning the chief academic office effective april 27 2022 it is also recommended that maureen gershberg currently temporary worker 4 in planning be appointed director school and facilities planning effective april 11th and finally it is recommended that alan russell currently founder and ceo of the russell group the appointed director it technical support services in in technical support services effective may 9th 2022. congratulations everyone doctors
011thank you very much sarah um i would like to begin this evening by recognizing some outstanding work by our students and staff the lyric baltimore recently announced the 12 finalists in their fifth annual dream big contest this contest which kicked off in january on martin luther king jr day asks baltimore area students in grades 5 through 12 to consider their big dreams for their lives their communities and their schools then students submit a one-page poem a 300 word essay or a one-minute video bringing that dream to life well i am very excited to announce that five city school students were named finalists in the dream big contest we'd like to offer congratulations to fatu joof an 11th grader at baltimore city college asia webster in grade 9 at baltimore city college jamya anderson grade 5
012at dallas f nicholas elementary school and joy ontario grade six the bel air edison school finally carrie snowden grade 11 at the baltimore design school for the first time a believer award was presented to an educator in the baltimore community dedication to arts education and unwavering commitment to students this year's believer's award and let me tell you if there's anybody who embodies a believer it is our very own chanelle howard who our fine arts coordinator for baltimore city schools so i want to get a heartfelt congratulations to chanel and all of our student contestants congratulations and now i want to turn to what is a troubling but a very important issue and that is the increase in violent incidents in our schools unfortunately while the stabbings at mervo were particularly alarming and even the concept
013of students bringing loaded guns to school is unthinkable the fact is that both things occurred in the same school in a single day and the reality is that a pattern of increasing behavioral challenges this year is not limited to mervo or even just high schools or even just baltimore city this is occurring across our state and nationwide and i will say it is not just students because last week there was a fight at one of our middle schools that involved not just students but primarily adults i think it's important to understand that these incidents are not unique to baltimore city in the past year violence threats of violence have dramatically increased across our city our state and our country people of all ages are fighting on airplanes supermarkets and while gun violence continues to rise
014in baltimore um and other cities nationwide in the case of our schools our culture and climate efforts have been made much harder by student feelings of isolation disconnection from school fear and frustration resulting from the pandemic but at the end of the day our schools are part of this ecosystem and this school year that ecosystem has seen increasingly more challenges as well as um the recognition that this problem did not originate uh schools it's a societal issue that is coming into our schools nevertheless it's our responsibility as a district and a school community to keep our schools our students and our staff safe that requires action on both the physical security of our buildings and the culture and climate within those buildings in the area of long-term physical security additional police resources have been allocated
015for arrival dismissal and throughout the day at key points throughout the school and in the community and school police will be coordinating with baltimore city police department as needed i want to give a shout out to chief ham and all of our school police uh chief ham even earlier today was meeting for a cross city meeting around how we uh can better make sure that we are addressing issues of school violence uh excuse me youth violence and then we have also increased staff support to address the security of access doors the operations team is currently exploring and moving on door security hardware and mechanisms first for high schools with several options from basic alarm systems to door egress locking arrangements as well as additional monitoring cctv systems and sensors decisions on these systems will be
016made shortly after further discussion with the school administration and city building code regulatory team on feasible door system solutions on this past legislative session the maryland healthy schools funds were increased to support school safety efforts these funds including maryland school safety dollars will be used to help to advance equipment and infrastructure improvements for the exterior doors with a plan for all high schools first and then we will have additional planning uh for uh k through eight schools i think it's important to note that this funding is key options for high schools in particular exterior doors range in cost from 250 000 to more than a million dollars per school based on whatever the system requirements and needed facility upgrades will be the timeline for construction and implementation will also vary based on the selected door
017security system in the area of social emotional care um within the immediate aftermath of the incidents at mervo the district sent a crisis response team to support students and staff in processing their experiences and to address immediate mental health needs i want to give a special thanks to our crisis response teams who have been doing amazing work given some of the challenging circumstances and events our school communities have been facing we also sent district staff to support school-based staff in holding restorative circles with students and most immediately affected by the incident moving forward we will continue to support the school in reviewing and bolstering its plans for improving culture and climate as well as attending to the social emotional needs and development of students we will also be making more safety screenings a regular feature
018of our security protocols at our high schools finally i do want to point out that our work on culture and climate and the need to have a cold climate reset includes not only our schools but our entire school community students staff families volunteers and community organizations we need to remind everyone that the establishment and maintenance of caring relationships these are the caring relationships that schools have spent so much time building so much emphasis on that those caring relationships really rely um on the clear consistent communication and application of appropriate consequences for negative behavior most importantly we need to recognize that this is not just a school problem violent behavior is a society-wide problem and part of that solution relies in the ability for us to establish caring relationships i do want to point out that
019on a number of occasions uh where guns have been found where confrontation violence has been averted it really has had that prevention at its core has been relationships students who report seeing things that are questionable or hearing things um about about a fight or a confrontation that's about to occur or plan to occur that i want to emphasize that the strength of the relationships between students between students and adults between administrators and school safety personnel those are all part of what undergirds our ability to continue to avert these incidents but also our efforts to stem incidents long before they happen we are committed to keeping our schools our students and our staff safe and we need the help of everyone who cares about our young people to do it and madam chair that concludes my
020remarks for this evening thank you dr santalisas we will now hear a presentation on new charter applications for school year opening good afternoon afternoon angela alvarez executive director of the office of new initiatives and joined by kim coleman hi everyone i'm kim coleman specialist in the office of new initiatives all right and so tonight we're going to share for information um the application the summary of the applications this year only received actually one application for opening new um charter schools um uh and so can we go to the to the next slide so this aligns to board priority six around city schools to increase the number of educational programming of all types and levels throughout the city while ensuring that all schools including charters guarantee a high quality educational experience um and so um kim
021is going to kind of go over the process and and the rest of the steps just want to emphasize again business for information the board will not vote until june 9th um and so this is just our place where we kick it off for members of the public that we have an application and what the application is so that's the purpose of tonight's presentation i'm gonna go over to turn it over to cam to kind of walk us through thank you um so first we're gonna talk about who participates in the review process um there are three main players in this lengthy process and it starts with um the charter and operator led schools advisory board an internal external group that uh advises the ceo on issues related to our operator led schools and a
022group of designees from this group um formed an initial review panel to conduct a thorough review of the applications to conduct um interviews with the applicants and to provide advice um to the ceo and then based on that advice those recommendations the ceo through her staff might ask for supplemental information um and appeared in the development of the ceo's initial recommendation uh she finalizes her recommendation to the board of school commissioners beyond her review of the application advice from the advisory board the applicant's testimony at the board work session and any supplemental information provided from the applicant throughout the process and finally the board of school commissioners has ultimate deciding authority on each app and makes its decision based on a review of the application the extent to which the application meets the board's priorities
023which we'll review as a reminder in a moment um the applicant's testimony at the work session and supplemental information provided afterward and on the ceo's recommendation um here's a high level uh overview of the process a lot goes into each of these but um on an ongoing um nature there are prior applications available for applicants to review um and potential applicants can schedule appointments uh with uh staff as requested um we hosted three technical assistance sessions this year throughout december and january um and those resources are also located on the city schools website um present at each of those technical assistance sessions are operators who have recently gone through the process and had schools approved by february 4th uh letters of intent are dues for applicants to express their intent to submit an application on
024the deadline which is uh if there's a window on march 3rd between 9am and noon at that time uh come our clock starts ticking we have 120 days um as a district board does to render a decision um and then in those those first few days between our staff does a technical review of the application um to ensure it has acquired components um prior to beginning the review process and then between march and april the advisory board begins their review of the applications and they schedule the applicant interviews um and brings us to this point where we bring a summary a high level summary of the applications to the board um the applicant materials have been shared for your view um and oh we have a date wrong here soon we'll have to fix this
025the um ceo's preliminary recommendation is uh communicated at the may 17th my apologies um this is the time when the applicants present um at the public works session and they can take questions directly from the board in the ceo um they have uh up until may 27th to submit any supplemental information and then the board vote occurs on june 9th at which point the ceo's final or commitment is also communicated in writing with applicants um so we'll do a quick review of the board priorities um in 2022 the board's priorities for opening new charter and contract schools are specifically prioritizing applications that propose to convert an already existing underperforming school to a charter program with an accelerated learning model additional consideration is given for conversion applicants who are also proposing um to implement a high
026performing charter in areas of the city where the model doesn't currently exist and where that operator has a track record of success already um conversion applicants who are looking to convert a high school that it takes in students below grade level and provides access to rigorous content that prepares them for high school college and career a conversion model that is dual language or late language immersion advanced high school programming including early college high school where students can earn their associate's degree alongside their high school diploma or ib programs and lastly a conversion model that would be proposing a career readiness program that meets one of the district's identified cte needs and would lead to certifications and credentials um so we're gonna go right into the application as angela mentioned we only received one application this
027year and that's from shining willow charter school inc um they are proposing a k through eight charter school um that would have enrollment of 208 students at full capacity opening at 104. um they are expressing and goodness to other areas of the city but the proposal is for uh northeast baltimore and this would be to operate a charter school guided by the core principles of public waldorf education using an arts integrated cross-curricular and developmentally appropriate approach to learn holder of g engages and integrates cognitive physical emotional social and the creative imagine itself and these are traditionally private school options there's presently only one uh urban waldorf inspired um charter in the u.s um there are other public waldorf inspired models in non-urban areas of the city um and that is the only application that we
028risked this year do any of my board colleagues have questions okay they're ready okay we're at we're 5 37 so i want to go to our next presentation thank you uh ms alvarez and staff for giving us that information um and we look forward to what is it the may 17th that's the work session around this uh so colleagues be mindful of that that's coming up thank you stay thank you and thank you commissioner mcfadden um we will now hear an information item on policy adg sustainability first reader hi good evening oops sorry having a moment here oh okay okay we hear you so whenever you're ready okay i'm trying to share my screen one moment okay is that coming through okay yes it is great thank you uh good evening everyone good evening commissioners
029and the public i'm joanna p sunyay and i coordinate our sustainability efforts here at city schools and tonight i am presenting the i'm sorry okay uh tonight i'm presenting the uh update to policy adg sustainability which was first passed in 2016 and so we are uh going through an update process i'd like to pause for a moment and just uh get us all on the same page about sustainability first i like to think about it as the word itself what is our ability to sustain both ourselves and the planet and the people today as well as into future generations so if we look at the three primary pieces of the people the planet and prosperity we really want to think about where is that sweet spot of of meeting all of those needs as i
030say not only for today but for future generations as well the sustainability policy meets all of the board priorities in one form or another so i really think that this is a very broad policy that uh encompasses lots of different work lots of different people can um really be a big tent and can help us achieve all of the goals that the board has set when we were looking at updating the policy we really had three overarching goals the first is to decrease the environmental burdens and increase the environmental benefits in a racially equitable equitable way in support of our equity policy the second piece is to improve the process of how we develop and monitor our sustainability goals and the third is that we need to comply with some new state regulations regarding our
031electricity use and reporting so to the first piece about equity we know that um negative environmental burdens are disproportionately born by people of color and people with lower incomes and that is true in baltimore city it is true in maryland it's true in the mid-atlantic in the country and the world and uh that has been throughout time unfortunately and with climate change it is uh ever more present and so it is our duty and our role to try and disrupt that and that can take for lots of different forms but it's something that's really an overarching piece of the policy and of this work we also wanted to reflect on other pieces so um you know this has been an opportunity to build awareness about this work at city schools and presenting in front of
032lots of different groups talking with lots of different people some people are well aware of this work other people it's brand new to them um we are trying to figure out and in talking with people what have we what are we doing well what can we improve what issues are most important to our many many stakeholders and then how do we compare and get ideas and be inspired by other school districts some of whom are ahead of us some of whom are behind us and then are we in compliance with any state local rules regulations that may have changed since the policy was first passed so the policy has four sections there is the policy itself and then there are three supporting regulations one of sustainability one of energy water and resource conservation and one
033for green cleaning the policy also calls for a sustainability plan and that is a staff level document it does not come to the board for approval and this graphic shows the six areas in our current plan that grew out of the first policy so when this policy is updated we will revisit the plan we will uh work with other all the departments within city schools with stakeholders to update this and so these categories may change may be rewarded maybe reworked but i wanted to describe and sort of show that this is how the work on a day-to-day basis is really broken up and can cover all of these different issues so to summarize the key changes to the policy um the first regarding equity in a number of places we added language uh committing to
034ourselves to address environmental injustice and in in doing that we thought about uh you know and some of the questions that have been asked of us are how can we tailor our support and our services and our work to students who are most impacted by environmental injustice and that's a a tough question for us and is something that really to date the work has taken two approaches neither of which have really focused on this question the first part of the work has either been district-wide how do we make sure that opportunities are equitably distributed across the district so it could be a ninth grade biology stream study experience that we're working on trying to get to every single school so that it doesn't vary based on where you go and whether your teacher or your
035principal thinks that this is an important piece the other side of it is responding to requests for assistance so we have a lot of schools that have green teams teachers that are asking for support and so that is in response to school-based requests um there are situations where we have been able to include community conditions factored into decisions particularly when we've applied either for grant or other support that has guided this work we've been able to say you know what areas of the city may need this more than others or may benefit from a certain program so going forward we are committed and we have spoken with office of the whole child about finding ways to look at some of the health data and other information from uh the city at large and figure out
036better ways that we might direct these services to schools that are most impacted by injustice the other piece of a key change has to do with process so we have moved away from having a standalone committee to having a more integrated goal setting process and so we have added language about incorporating sustainability priorities into uh those goal setting and the decision-making processes so the proposal is that myself as the sustainability analyst will then meet with chiefs or their designees through the goal setting process to determine both short and long term sustainability goals that then go into that sustainability plan and that becomes the document that we report on annually to the board and to the public on our movement along towards achieving those goals and that plan must be updated every three years the key
037change is to be in compliance with state law so there is a new law that the maryland energy administration is coordinating we have been in conversation with them and we need to share data about where our electricity is coming from from renewable or non-renewable sources and share that with the state and so we added language to that and i want to just call your attention to the fact that there could be more that comes down the pike in the coming years because the climate solutions now bill passed at the legislature this is becoming more important at the legislative level and so there may be things that filter down to the school district in coming years additional changes that we added are adding language about tracking greenhouse gas emissions we want to try and encourage nature
038connections among students we didn't we realized we had a lot of things about you know environmental literacy and sort of knowing as as we talked about with the bio water quality you know what macro invertebrates are there and what's the water pollution and what's a tree and you know identifying trees by leaves and all these things very um you know academically focused which are very very important but also having room and promoting the uh connection to nature that is really important and can be transformative for people and that we have some students who don't feel that way about nature and how can we find ways to promote that that awe and appreciation and enjoyment of being outside and and nature and then we added some language about um better more connections on the career and
039higher education side for the green economy so one thing that has been asked is about the sustainability budget and right now the sustainability funding is spread out across the district so we do not have uh there's my position which is within operations and then we have lots of different programs and so this chart is a sample this is by no means all of the programming and all of the funding that is being allocated to this but as an exam shows the different sources where some of the funds may come from so we in some cases we have departmental budgets where we may provide uh strength for staff on systemic professional development days and or we may you know food nutrition services buying compostable lunch trays we may have miscellaneous funds we're in the midst of
040a of a large energy and lighting retrofit project right now which will lower our energy consumption we have lots of different grants and donations that have come in from government agencies from non-profit organizations um corporate foundation that may support our net zero energy schools they may support field experiences our green teams etc and then we have some partnerships for example with local government so the city of baltimore collects recycling from schools at no cost to us now i will say that that program is struggling right now because the city department of public works is struggling with staffing and equipment we are hoping that that comes back on track next school year so uh just to recap these are just examples and uh demonstrate how the the funding is really dispersed and as of right now
041we don't have a a budget per se for sustainability uh speaking about sustain stakeholder engagement for this process uh about updating the policy i made a number of presentations to lots of different organizations uh spoke individually with people put it in newsletters updates we had a number of a variety of different ways that people could give their comment we did hit some obstacles between covet 19 survey fatigue generalized um you know situation that everyone is in right now um however we were able to get some good feedback from people and i won't read everything on this slide but these are some of the comments that came in sort of grouping them into the categories of of people giving us their thoughts about how we might strengthen our work and i will say most of the
042comments have to do with sort of the implementation side of it as versus uh large like the the policy should be rewritten or this you know sentence should be removed or anything like that so but these were all very thoughtful commentary about things that we are doing well and things that we can really improve on so we had 571 people so far respond to a survey we had a mix uh in when when grouped together sort of three broad categories of students staff and partners and families and we 35 of all of the respondents are hispanic and latino 28 are white 16 are african-american uh the folks at the bottom i just wanted to give them a shout out for helping to administer the survey and share it with their schools and families and partners
043as well one key piece of the survey was asking people what were their top three priorities or most important things that they saw about sustainability at city schools and this graph represents the feedback into those three categories so in the first left blue the students the top priorities they spoke about were or chose were mental health trash recycling and climate change staff the top priority for mental health trash recycling and spending time outdoors in safe welcoming spaces partners the top priorities were mental health nutrition and food education and gardening and then all respondents together are those top three the mental health nutrition and trash so i want to take just one moment to go through very quickly about the rationale for this work and just to say that we have a significant environmental impact both
044as a as an organization in baltimore city we own hundreds of buildings millions of square feet thousands of students and staff lots of energy lots of trash we can do better we can run them better we can reduce our footprint and our impact and then on the student and staff side we really owe it to everybody to have our buildings be welcoming safe healthy places for everyone staff and students to be and there is so much evidence of the impact of all of these pieces on student well-being mental health physical health and academic outcomes and the research as i say is just has lots of different pieces whether you are someone who you know is looking at teacher retention if you're looking at rates of asthma if you're looking at civic engagement if you're looking
045at critical thinking there are lots of places where this work can help move that forward so we have come a long way we've made great progress since 2016. we have a long way to go um this map is a just a sample of schools that have either received the green healthy smart challenge which is a program we operate in partnership with the city office of sustainability so it's schools that have green teams and activities and also schools that have our maryland green schools and i will say that we just had nine schools learn on earth day last friday that they two new schools and um seven renewals of maryland green schools so we we know we have still have our work cut out for us and we want to keep equity front and center and
046we want to figure out in that sustainability plan how we can set aspirational but also achievable goals for the district so thank you very much and i welcome any questions that you have commissioner reed uh thank you very much for the presentation and especially the part about being just and equitable uh that's really important driver uh you can't hear me yes i can hear you okay uh thank you mike my question to you is in terms of the resources uh the regulations and improvements what are the core requirements and costs is that going to be like a dramatic change or are you referencing the electricity reporting uh well if you're gonna if you're gonna go through the whole process of changing the environment making it better socially and having better i guess governance or prosperity
047there's got to be some financial acumen to it yes so financial accounting to it so i guess my question is when you when you create these programs in terms of looking at the changes the growth the betterment there's got to be a financial aspect to it you know my question is do we have numbers is there some estimate in terms of the cost the timeline that kind of thing yes so first of all i apologize because i did not introduce two of my colleagues who are also here raj bachubai and sharika bolden so i'm gonna give my answer to that question and if they would like to add in i invite them to do that um we have sort of individual some programmatic budgets of you know would be great to have another staff person
048working with us um we know that to get every grader out to do a stream study it's gonna cost x amount every sixth grader to do such and such um we do not have sort of a all encompassing like let's add all of these wish list items up and figure out how what that would cost and how we go about funding that honestly in sort of a incremental steps forward and maybe we're really getting to the point where we're embedded in enough that we can sort of start to be thinking in a bigger more holistic way and i think that the question that we had received about the budget is also getting at that is like how do we figure out a better way to track and monitor and therefore allocate resources to continue these
049programs on exactly yeah any other questions and okay thank you so much thank you very much i will now review the consent agenda for colleagues please let me know if you would like an item removed and please state your question for staff i am going to pull item 8.01 revision to board policy kcd public gifts and donation second reader um also pulling 8.02 say it again oh 8.02 ikeb revised graduation standard second reader and the proposed academic calendar 8.03 proposed academic calendar school year 2223 so that our student commissioner can vote on them eleven point zero one crc salomon inc help me with the screen if darrell needs to pull something 12.01 snap-on industrial 12.02 professional development services ed scale 12.03 goucher college the ones which would you say is that a continuation of you
050pulling um 1201 and no she's asking if anyone wants to pull any of these do you want that poll no oh okay okay okay cool 13.01 compliance mate 13 i'm sorry 15.01 centis corporation inc and eighteen point zero one jack pull 15.101 please 15.01 okay and what's your question uh my question is i think the public would be it would be great to have the public listen and hear uh the nature of this particular procurement okay uh because this presentation yeah i think it's helpful okay thank you so if the staff is listening just a quick presentation on that procurement item 18.01 jackson lewis pc and 18.02 pessin cats law pa alrighty so we're going to go to public comment we will now move to public comment speakers from recognized groups will have the opportunity
051to speak for five minutes we have kimberly mooney representing the baltimore teachers union okay our board executive is going to grab that video so while we're waiting we'll come back to the btu um is sheila billups available representing scheck it's miss phillips on okay is um do we have the what'd you say okay is the president of the pta council of baltimore city deborah demurry available yes i am there we go you got one at least okay can i just go ahead and start yes ma'am okay good evening everyone i'm debbie demery with the pta council of baltimore city and tonight i want to share some really exciting pta news with you um reflections is a national pta arts program which provides opportunities for recognition and access to the arts each year over 300 000
052students grade pre-k through 12 create original works of art in response to a student selected theme the program helps students explore their own thoughts feelings and ideas develop artistic literacy increase confidence and find a love for learning that will help them become more successful in school and in life the theme for school year 2021 and 2022 was i will change the world by student winners at the local level have the opportunity to move up through the council and the state level to the national level this year the pta council of baltimore city move four entries to the state level all four artists are from renaissance academy high school i would like to recognize yayanaji for her entry the place tyler mcfadden for his entry hands corey jones for his entry entitled baltimore and camisha norman
053for her enter her work looking through the window at the state level corey jones received outstanding interpretation and commission norman received the award of excellence and both were moved to the national competition the national winners will be announced in may we would also like to acknowledge our reflections chair miss deborah wallace who worked extremely hard with these these young artists to be sure all deadlines were met and we congratulate them all and we wish corey and kamisha luck in the next round so if we could just kind of give them a round of applause i really would appreciate it because they've worked extremely hard and they really deserve this opportunity thank you so much for hanging out with us deb um do we have sheila billups miss phillips or anyone from ccac here with us
054and um christian if you hear me or have you teed up the video from kimberly mooney with the btu hello sorry i'm just joining um i'd opportunity to check the video and they were uh it was password protected so i think while we wait we can uh move on to some other ones although if we i just went upstairs so if you move past the recognized groups i can just move to the two uh public comment signups that we had yes so why don't we do that we have gone through um the special sign up groups miss phillips or or um ccac we've called for twice so i don't think that they're with us this evening um and kimberly mooney's was the only other presentation so you can take us to public comment okay great
055uh first and uh miss mooney i don't know if you're online if you are available but if you are on the meeting feel free to jump in uh our first public comment sign up is miss julia debuts loops live julia are you available yes thank you thank you you have five minutes i mean i'm sorry i'm sorry three minutes three minutes okay [Laughter] all right thank you so much good evening madam chair commissioners and dr santelesis my name is julia debuslow and i am the director of arts every day a nonprofit partner to the district and organizer of the baltimore arts education initiative otherwise known as baei i am here behi on behalf of the budget and policy working group of paei this evening we want to begin by thanking you and dr santolisis for
056prioritizing the arts in your essar plans and in the fy 23 budget guidance we do have a few recommendations to share to share for sustainability regarding those two pieces the first is a recommendation regarding the fy 22 esser allocation 200 per student to support arts and athletics programming um i am hearing from many principals that they are having difficulty spending down funds before the encumbrant date of june 30th there are two big issues at play here one is around the procurement caps many program and supply and equipment vendors have met their procurement cap under their existing contract with the district we ask that the board approve procurement adjustments as soon as possible so that schools are able to use that funding for arts programming the second piece that is at play here is around timing
057esser allocations for large enrollment schools were enormous in some cases since funding is one time and cannot be used to support staff we ask that you extend the spending deadline through june 30th of 2023 this will ensure funds are used with intention and as complement to the expanded stuffing funds that are being made available within the fy23 budget um and so the second set of recommendations has to do with the fy 23 budget guidance we also submitted these recommendations in writing to the board and dr santolisa's on april 18th so as many know during the past few decades arts programs have frequently been discontinued when school administration or systemic practices change this results in our present situation a severe lack of equitable fine arts opportunities for students and substantial financial waste on the purchase of
058large equipment instruments and other types of things that are necessary for fine arts programming in order to encourage implementation in in order to encourage uh preservation and sustainability in investment we strongly encourage you to consider implementation of the following the first recommendation is to lock newly created and existing fine arts positions within the school-based budgeting process the second is to develop a central systemic plan for staffing across all arts disciplines and across all schools the third is to make sure that there is proper and appropriate support for teacher recruitment right now our fine arts office does not have a list of vacancies separated by school and arts discipline this information is really necessary in order to better assist schools with uh matching um candidates to vacancies julia sorry to interrupt your time is up if
059you can uh wrap up your thoughts yes thank you and finally we are always encouraging the increase of fine arts staffing to support the increasing number of arts educators and programs and we hope that fine arts will be included within the 2022 ceo's principles institute this summer thank you very much and sorry i went over my time thank you i did receive the video so i'm gonna go to our second and final public comment jocelyn providence and then i'll play the video from earlier jocelyn are you available i don't see her so i'm going to go back to the video and this is the video from earlier from the baltimore teachers union hi my name is vice chair for the baltimore teachers union and i'll be delivering remarks today on behalf of the btu there
060are two topics i'd like to discuss one is in response to the educator recruitment and retention presentation that was given a few weeks ago there is a lot of national context about the drop in teacher preparation program enrollment and uh and the potentially massive incoming set of reservations but i did not see in the presentation anything about the city schools resignations in particular so how many folks need the system each year why did they leave and it seems to me that it would be really hard to answer the question of why do people leave because city schools doesn't currently conduct exit interviews with educators that leave the system i think that doing so would provide crucial data in understanding our specific context around retention issues um and while exit interviews for hundreds of staff is
061a large labor intensive list a first step in that direction could be for human capital staff to identify several high priority groups so for example black male teachers special educators and then setting a goal for interviewing a representative sample of the departing educators that fall into those groups um that would be one way to get some insight into why folks to fall into those groups leave and then also we could do some interviews folks that are choosing to stay to know what we're doing right to retain the people that do choose to stay here in city school one of the recruitment strategies that we didn't see in the presentation was how to encourage city schools graduates to become city school teachers in particular leveraging the maryland teaching fellows scholarship which we really haven't seen promoted
062to high school juniors and seniors additionally um ctu did try to push for expanding eligibility in the program during the blueprint for maryland's future legislative site um and we could really collaborate with the board next session if you're interested um to work on that um currently there's a heavy emphasis on standardized test scores and grades in order to get in right now and that uh reliance um as a gateway uh will just reproduce the racial and economic graphics of the current teaching force which runs contrary to the legislative legislation stated goal of creating a more diverse set of teachers and leaders so we recommend expanding the eligibility to include graduating in the top 50 percent of one's class um stops expanding the opportunity to segregated black and brown high school students who've been underinvested in
063and therefore may not achieve at the level of their more excellent peers despite having the ability to thrive as future teachers the scholarship program should also be extended specifically to address black and brown teachers who are either on conditional certificates or who are paraprofessionals the other topic i'd like to talk about today um is because uh at the end of march we marked the national transgender day of visibility uh we know that there's been recent vandalism uh at baltimore safe haven um that may even rise to the level of potential hate crime um we also know that there have been murders of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in the baltimore area in recent years and we also know that several state governments and school systems have recently passed laws and regulations limiting young people's access
064to affirming health care and curricular studies that are known to be life-saving and embracing of lgbtq people um so uh because of that we would like to call on the baltimore city public school system to offer both trans affirming pd and pd on creating safe school environments for all lgbtq class students to its staff we call on city school to provide school leaders the team on the implementation of ford policy jdb and the lgbtq plus support protocol as well as to provide a dedicated district point person for school leaders who need guidance implementing these policies we urge city schools to conduct curriculum reviews to identify and address gaps and errors that disadvantage erase demean or otherwise harm lgbtq plus people and finally we urge city schools to take action to protect and include lgbtq club
065students and families by providing gender-neutral bathroom and locker facilities and gender affirming after-school sports access at every school thank you for your time and uh for your attention all right and again that was the baltimore teachers union public comment i'm going to go back one more time is jocelyn providence available are you available all right madam chair that was um all these sign ups for public comment thank you why am i hearing doubles okay i want to call one last time for kimberly mooney representing oh that was kim okay sheila phillips with seacac is miss phillips here there's yeah i'm seeing a feedback what's the last four digits of that number oh we can't i checked for her phone number earlier i didn't see it oh okay okay well we're gonna move on then thank
066you very much based on the public comments are there any um are there any additional items that board members would like to pull from the consent agenda right all right so i'm going to go to the ones we've pulled is there a motion to approve items eight point zero one eight point zero two and eight point zero three so move mcfadden thank you commissioner mcfadden is there second sec robert thank you commissioner roberts all in favor commissioner bandima yes commissioner brooks commissioner chenya yes commissioner horwitz commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes i am in favor i want to go back is commissioner brooks with us okay that motion passes with eight in favor and two absent we also pulled 15.01 is the staff available for a quick presentation on
067that item yes commissioner this is blaine lipsky with operations i would like to provide a little background on this request for procurement but back in 2021 the general assembly is identified this bill is handled 205. bill basically requires that each school local board of education ensure that each public school provide at no charge to the students menstrual hygiene products via dispensers in the women's restrooms at the school and in regards to that a public middle or high school must install mental hygiene practice spencers and at least two women's restrooms on or before october 1st and in all women's bathrooms on or before august 1st 2025. now a public elementary school must install menstrual hygiene product dispensers and at least one restroom on or before october 1st 2022 the state may reimburse the local school board
068for the cost of purchasing and installing the dispensers by required by this bill this bill took effect in july of 21st so in to in order for us to be compliant we were asking to proceed with this to install and maintain the calendar timeline that's been established by the house bill commissioner reed did you have any uh further thoughts yeah i guess i think it's important for families to know that the state and in the house have basically come up with the process where they install it but i think in the out years after the first year it falls on the schools uh i guess uh dr washington could correct me and add more to it she was really helping the uh in the operations community what i what i gathered from the meeting was
069then the out years after the first year it falls upon the schools in the district to maintain the process so i think it's important for the schools to know and the families to know how important it is for the process i'm not conversing at all in terms of this realm but it sounds like it could be really important for the the female students the lady students so so just to provide additional feedback on that commissioner um the schools the responsibility does fall on the schools in order for them to replenish the item so when we go through the budget process for schools we will make sure that we help schools budget appropriately for this particular item which means that the the district would give additional funds to the schools for them to to support them
070with this item and also um the operations team will also support the schools the same that we do with water so if there are any concerns with the schools working directly with the vendor then we'll provide consultations with the school and also work with the vendor to make sure that the schools have the appropriate quantity of the item that they need and one of the reasons why the responsibility is sitting on school side is because each school may use um the item differently and so instead of the district trying to you know keep up with that um the inventory of the quantity of the the item um the hygiene item that is being um distributed um the schools are responsible and they work dearly with the vendor and so that's one of the reasons why
071um after the first initial installation it is then the school's responsibility to work with the vendor and get additional um quantity thank you commissioner bandema thank you and i want to thank commissioner reed for bringing detention to public um because we did have an empty discussion on it but i also want to mention that being a member of the maid board when this came before may back in what 2021 i think yeah it was a lengthy conversation with representatives from board members all across the state of maryland and um and it was more of an information session because people who who did not understand the importance of having those vin vin machines in the bathroom they wanted they need to they we had to explain to them why and i want to thank baltimore city
072public school and i want the public to know that we want to thank them for this is something that should have happened years and years and years ago and and some people might remember the reason why we need to have it there and i think that it's one of it's very very important and i want to thank you for doing this i said because it's been needed forever and um and we will think of a way to pay for it i'm sure in the future but i want to thank you again for for allowing this to happen in our public school from elementary school all the way through high school thank you commissioner and i want to thank the staff um blaine and lynette thank you very much so is there a motion to approve
073oh yeah is there a motion to approve the remaining consent agenda we're going to lump 15 back in so move we read thank you commissioner reed is there second second second i'm sorry thank you commissioner bandima all in favor commissioner bandima yes commissioner chenya yes commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i am in favor is commissioner brooks back all right then this motion passes with seven in favor and two absent board committee reports is there an update from either policy or ops any of the members on policy or the chair of ops no okay and for policy no okay all righty i will just quickly say that we had a brief discussion about the conversion we've been talking about this for some time the conversion of board rules
074um and just making sure that we're um on track um to just having those updates so there were a bunch of board rules and now we're going through and reviewing them as as now policy so staff is still doing the work to condense and and just support us with the calendar um so i think that that's important for the board to be aware of and then also colleagues if you have ideas around compliance reporting um you should send those to the committee chair as well just to update the chair but so the staff can be made aware of what we're thinking as far as updates around some of our policies a lot of the policies and the updates um some of them can be grouped together some of the policies because they relate um so
075staff is definitely being intentional around that and making sure that we're not inundated with information but we're receiving the most accurate and up-to-date information so that we can do our best job to govern the system so just keep that in your brains as we move forward that's it thank you very much commissioner mcfadden um i want to give the notice of our upcoming meetings we have our springboard budget hearing which is a virtual meeting on tuesday may the 2nd at 6 00 pm we have our teaching and learning committee meeting which is also a virtual meeting on tuesday may 3rd at 3 30 pm our executive session meeting is going to be tuesday may 10th at 3 o'clock followed by our public meeting which will start at 5 00 p.m on the same day may
07610th our spring board parent and family forum which is an a hybrid event will be on thursday may the 12th starting at 6 pm our operations committee meeting a virtual meeting will be tuesday may 17th at 10 30 a.m our policy committee meeting also virtual meeting will be on tuesday may 17th at 3 30. and our new charter applicant work session also a virtual meeting will be on tuesday may 17 at 6 pm we're at just before 6 30 which is unprecedented um i want to invite any of my board colleagues to engage in open conversation about any topic that you feel pressing or that you want to just bring up no thank you madam chair okay really quickly i'm chair richardson go ahead i do want to um just uh mention a meeting that
077commissioner sally and i had last week with deborah dembry and the pta council of baltimore city i just want to take this opportunity for members of the public and our community members and all staff available that can hear to really get the word out about our ptas and the involvement that our family members can have in those at the school level and if there is support if we can support in any way as commissioners or as a school system to make sure that folks are involved in the pta council of baltimore city i would i would really like that so this is just a clarion call to all of our families and our parents if you're not involved in the pta at your individual school get involved and if your pta isn't an active uh
078organization talk to your school leaders make sure that your voices are heard in that way and then become a member of the pta council of baltimore city i think that's really important um it's really important that that organization is fortified and strengthened um and we certainly want to hear from our parents consistently as uh members of the public know members of our board um have to be made up of parents as well and so becoming a member of that pta increases your ability to be an advocate but certainly sets you up for an opportunity like this where um very soon if the mayor hasn't already done so um announce vacancies on the school board coming up it is open it's posted so that's another thing so if there are people out there that may be
079interested in serving on the the board of school commissioners a great way to start that is by becoming um an an active member of your school ptas really hearing the voices of the the communities that you're already a part of um but then taking it to that next level um and applying to serve on this body because certainly our parents and our grandparents they make the world of a difference and just will round our perspective in the work that we do so i just wanted to make sure that i highlighted that particular organization um tonight and just calling more and more parents especially with the issues that we're hearing as dr santelisis mentioned earlier we can't wait until events happen and then raise our voices it's important that we're actively involved in shaping policy and
080shaping decisions that are made at the school level so that then informs the the work that we do thank you so much commissioner mcfadden commissioner kenya this is really short but tonight we had a little history lesson i don't know if people uh realized that but when we were acknowledging velma evans she was one of the early pioneers in pre-kindergarten in baltimore city and i know that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten registration started this week so i just want to use that as a reminder to folks to please get to your schools and register your children and just remember that uh that there was a really great lady who helped us start to do that work in the public school setting in baltimore thank you so much for reminding us of that thank you commissioner von dimag
081thank you for mentioning that uh commissioner kenya um my friend rose mcneil said that she became a teacher in the very beginning in those days she was at hilton elementary school i think and because of this wonderful lady that's why she became a teacher so i'm glad you mentioned that thank you so much thank you so very much commissioner bandema is there a motion to adjourn so move mcfadden thank you commissioner mcfadden is there a second second sally thank you commissioner sally all in favor commissioner yes commissioner chenia yes commissioner horowitz commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed oh yes commissioner roberts yes commissioner sally yes and i'm in favor that motion passes they in favor and two absent good night everyone have a lovely evening