001um good evening everyone this is board vice chair johnette richardson i am sitting in for our board chair chenya who is not able to make our meeting tonight i'd like to welcome you all to our public board meeting the public board meeting for baltimore city board of school commissioners if you have not yet done so please mute your phone anyone who does not mute their phone may be muted by the call monitor or removed from the call 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 the roll call for each for each vote commissioner bondima yes vandima commissioner brooks commissioner frank commissioner james yes ma'am commissioner mcfadden mcfadden yes i'm here commissioner reed commissioner
002roberts and do we have our student commissioner sykes with us okay uh commissioner mr reed is also just joined okay commissioner reed has joined us thank you christian is there a motion to reopen our meeting thank you commissioners bandi mcfadden all in favor commissioner bondima yes commissioner commissioner brooks is not here yet okay all correct can everyone dispute commissioner frank commissioner james yes thank you commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes [Music] and commissioner sykes is not here um i am also in favor okay so that is help me out christian six in favor six in favor and all four absent and four are absent thank you we would like to take the time to recognize the passing of a city schools employee commissioner mcfadden can you please read that for us thank
003you i would like to take a sad time to recognize the passing of the city schools employee tonight we send our deepest condolences to their friends and their families it is with deep regret that we inform you of the passing of olivia santillan who served in city schools for 15 years and three months as a teacher at maritime industries academy alternative learning center and edmondson westside high school this is santillan unfortunately departed on january 10 2021 and will be missed greatly by her family friends and city schools would you all please join me in a moment of silence um for miss olivia santillan thank you commissioner mcfadden is there a motion to approve the prior open session meeting minutes i'm sorry the open session minutes [Music] second james can you all hear me we can
004yeah okay i was muted again whoever is facilitating this um please please stop doing that um okay i'm trying to take a motion to approve our prior robert's move and commissioner okay i i didn't hear that okay thank you both of you um so all in favor bandhima yes commissioner bondima yes yes um is brooks or frank with us yes i'm with you now this is frank okay thank you commissioner frank commissioner james commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yeah and did commissioner sykes join us so i am also in favor so christian is that seven in favor and three absent correct thank you is there a motion to approve the closed session summaries so mu bandima thank you commissioner bondima is there a second second robert thank you commissioner roberts all in
005favor commissioner bandema yes brooks has not joined us yet okay commissioner frank yes yes thank you commissioner james yes commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner robert yes and i am also in favor so that is seven in favor and two absent correct yes okay thank you so i want to share um comments tonight on um i want to share comments tonight well first i am sad to announce the passing of the mother of our past chair shirelle khashani our board would like to take this opportunity to share our condolences to the kashani family they will remain in our thoughts and prayers last 10 months we all witnessed a smooth transition of power in our nation's capital last week as president joseph biden and vice president kamala harris took the odes of office our democracy
006was truly threatened with the attack on the capital just two weeks prior to the inauguration democracy prevailed as a black woman i am truly proud of what we all accomplished with this election and for our young people who are growing up in this time just know you can accomplish anything to which you set your minds and intentions in a snippet of a quote from vice president harris she states imperfect though we may be i believe we are a great country and part of what makes us great are our democratic institutions that protect our fundamental ideals for me included in these ideals is the freedom of speech last week the baltimore sun published an op-ed by commissioner darrell brooks that outlined his concerns about the district's plans to offer optional in-person learning during the second semester
007while we respect the varying opinions of each of our commissioners this particular opinion expressed by commissioner brooks is not the reflection of each member of our board clovitt19 has placed us in an unprecedented time and the stakes of offering in-person learning during a pandemic are high emotions and opinions throughout the community reflect that therefore the board utilizes all of our communication pipelines to ensure that meaningful discourse happens and that decisions can be made with full knowledge and feedback from our various stakeholders this is evidenced by deliberations the board has had over these past months in committee and public board meetings last thursday dr salmon our state superintendent articulated that there would be new guidelines for school systems across maryland to adhere to as it relates to the reopening our board is committed to scheduling more
008time to have a public discussion about the impact these new guidelines will have on our reopening plan our ceo is closely following cdc guidance maryland state health guidance baltimore city health department guidance and the city's health advisory guidance to help inform and monitor reopening with that we support our ceo and her team in their attempts to provide reasonable options for students and families of baltimore city we will continue to work with our ceo and her team to appropriately support all our students families and staff thank you we now will have this is the second meeting of the month so we will be honoring retirees with 30 plus years of experience we have four retirees that have rsvp to attend tonight's meeting commissioner roberts will read the names of every retiree with 30 plus years of
009experience thank you commissioner roberts thank you madam vice chair good evening everyone is miss sandra moore on the call miss moore okay if she shows up christian could you just let me know sure thank you sandra moore began working with baltimore city public schools on september 26 1988. she most recently served as a cafeteria manager one for thomas johnson elementary middle school sandra moore faithfully served the children of baltimore city public schools for 32.3 years thank you miss moore is miss gloria price on the call uh commissioner roberts just want to add um if any other retirees on your phone hit star six so if you're calling and hit star six okay miss gloria price began working with baltimore city public schools oh miss price is that you yeah that's me yes thank you so
010much for joining us and thank you so much for your service oh you're more than welcome i've enjoyed every minute of it well not every minute but most of them [Laughter] do you have any remarks in this phrase no i've been employed for 43 years um in the school system and i am one of the things i've really loved about my job is that not only was i working with the students but i my jobs always required me to be in contact with families and um i've just enjoyed every minute of it trying to provide resources and not just to other students but to the families as well so 43 years the last 43 years have been good to me and i'm ready to say bye bye thank you so much mr price okay miss
011sandra aberwick is miss sandra aberwicz on the call sandra alberwicz began working with baltimore city public schools on september 3rd 1979. she most recently served as an audiologist for william s bair sandra albowitz faithfully served the children of baltimore city public schools for 41.3 years thank you for your service ms aberwick is miss wanda thompson on the call okay miss wanda thompson began working with baltimore city public schools on february 18 1975. she most recently served as a special education para educator for benjamin frank hi miss thompson how are you thank you so much for your service did you have any remarks that you'd like to make this evening oh yes first of all my anniversary is my baby sister's birthday so i love it this is the only job i've ever had i had
012an opportunity to work pre-kindergarten through infants i worked at penguin for 26 years starting off as a caregiver and then the director of the center so i had a variety of unbelievable jobs but penguin was my most oh my god to be able to nurture babies and their moms was a that was just a godsend right there i didn't even know baltimore city had a a job like that and i worked i worked that for 26 years now the other funny thing was i went to ben franklin when it was a junior high and to be able to actually retire from the school that you actually attended is amazing so thank you baltimore city public schools for enriching my life unbelievable i can't i can't i can't thank you enough for that because i think
013you know that was going to be my job i was going to be a business person thank god that this happened well thank you for your 45.9 years of service for baltimore city public schools you are so uh thank you enjoy your evening with something is miss joanne carr on with us this evening okay come on miss joe commissioner commissioner i want to see a guest named joanne there's no last name i'm not that in this car or not miss miss carr if you're on a if you want to um again if you're on the phone you can hit star six to unmute okay okay joanne carr began working with baltimore city public schools on august 26 1987. she most recently served as a as a teacher for mount royal elementary middle school joanne carr
014faithfully served the children of baltimore city public schools for 33.3 years thank you so much for your service ms carr claudette davis started her employment with baltimore city public schools on february 2nd 1987 as a cafeteria worker at bernard harris elementary she was later assigned to leaf walk elementary as a food service worker and lastly at dallas f nichols senior element senior elementary as a cafeteria manager one ms davis served baltimore city public schools for 34 years thank you for your service ms davis stanley brown started his employment with baltimore city public schools on march 8 28 1984 as a secondary instrumental teacher at edmondson high school and remained at that location for his entire career mr brown served baltimore city public schools for 36 years and nine months thank you so much for your
015service mr brown uh charlene taylor my apologies if i mispronounced your name charlene taylor started her employment with baltimore city public schools on august 8 1978 as an office assistant under the curriculum and instruction organization she was later assigned to learning technology as a secretary too at her last assignment she served as an office assistant under the home and hospital program miss taylor served baltimore city public schools for 42 years and five months thank you for your services taylor arnold white started his employment with baltimore city public schools on september 25th 1974 as a secondary teacher at paul lawrence dunbar middle he was later assigned to southwestern senior high school northwestern senior high and finished his career at edmonton westside high mr wright served baltimore city public schools for 46 years in one month thank
016you for your service mr right and last but not least miss martina thomas started her employment with baltimore city public schools on january 5th 1974 as a non-instructional assistant under the special transportation organization miss thomas continued her assignment as a school bus aide under the special transportation organization until her retirement miss thomas served baltimore city public schools for 47 years thank you for your service ms thomas back to you madame by share thank you so much chair i'm sorry thank you so much commissioner roberts i appreciate that i would like to acknowledge the generous gifts and donations city schools has received since our last meeting three hundred dollars to be used towards educational supplies from young life city baltimore towards franklin square elementary middle school twelve hundred dollars to be used towards education supplies from
017walden university and this is to be used throughout the district ten thousand dollars worth of computers and technology equipment from constellation towards hazelwood elementary middle school and lastly forty four hundred dollars to be used towards education supplies from darius jennings towards hazelwood elementary middle school we want to thank everyone for their generous donations as they are supporting our school communities at this time i will turn it over to dr santilisas for ceo comments madame by please give the ceo a couple a second i think she's having technical challenges is she okay we will you guys are in the room together right we are socially distant in a room together very good um okay so christian while we're waiting would it be possible for me to do the consent agenda to see if anyone needs anything
018pulled yes okay i'm going to jump down to that and i hope that dr santalis is ready after after we do this um so we are going to pull um policies 8.01 through 8.04 um because those are policies that our student commissioner would be able to vote on okay um and so i'm sorry so you're trying to be hasn't joined us so you won't need to do that that's all i want okay but what if he joins before we right if he joins before the vote but um unless he's joined joint meeting you can just do them all together okay so i'm just going to then explain that we're going to pull those in the event that he does join us um and then when it's time to vote if he has not joined us
019we'll we'll just vote on those um 8.05 is going to be a presentation so we're going to pull that that's the operator renewal 15.01 excuse me commissioner richardson why why are we pulling 8.03 because that is a possible um that's one that the student commissioner can vote on and if he's oh i think i'm trying to vote thank you otherwise we'll put them all together yeah okay thank you so much you're very welcome 15.01 chilmar corporation does anyone need that one pulled and if so give your questions okay 18.01 lauringer and cornell plc and then lastly 18.02 whiteford taylor and preston llp okay um so we are still waiting for dr sun to leave it yay she's here does she have volume do i have volume can you hear me okay i can hear you
020yes we have to do a little switching of devices great thank you madam vice chair for time this evening i want to begin this evening with a huge shout out to the team who worked so hard to set up and coordinate all of our student learning centers since september 28th and just along with my personal congratulations and gratitude to every staff doc you went on mute by mistake you're muted there we go move the cursor sorry about that um but i just really want to express my personal congratulations and gratitude to every staff member both from city schools and baltimore city recreation and parks who really and truly very courageously went the extra mile to support our students and families every member of the slc's teams from bus drivers and aides to hall monitors and
021paraprofessionals stepped into new and unfamiliar roles to help our young people and they truly were leading from different seats on behalf of their of our families and students and each and every one is a star i just want to take a few minutes to recognize their amazing achievement so first from mary e rodman site leader angela fall we want to recognize ms tamara bailey who is a hall monitor who supported our youngest students in kindergarten she showed up early every day to greet her parents um and her students while also supporting all the wreck and parks activities thank you ms bailey next from dorothy i height sight leader kelly casagrande we'd like to acknowledge ms robin ms robin greeted our students every morning with a warm smile as she completed their health screenings and cultivated
022an environment where families and students felt welcome and comfortable thank you dorothy i height team and ms robin next the wildwood site site leader siobhan newkirk and we want to recognize ms ely ms ely was wonderful in helping staff and students to follow the health and safety protocols and create personal connections between all school personnel many thanks and congratulations to the wildwood team and particularly ms easley next sinclair lane the site leader david turner and they would like to recognize mr kevin spriggs who made every interaction with his students memorable he purchased snacks as rewards celebrated birthdays and connected with their teachers and parents congratulations to the sinclair lane team next elmer a henderson the site leader there is karen starliper and they would like to recognize miss evans and miss jackson who embodied the
023notion of leading from your seat as they took on the slc challenges with grace and dedication going above and beyond to ensure a smooth safe and joyful experience for students many thanks to our elmer a henderson team next lakeland site leader tiana lanier and they would like to recognize miss rosalind stewart who usually serves as a bus aide but was a true asset in her role as a proctor meeting kids each morning with warmth and going to the store each weekend to find tokens for her pog we want to say a big thank you to the lakeland team and a particular shout out from ms roslyn stewart thank you lakeland next our slc at calvin rodwell site leader candice purcell nixon and they would like to recognize is elite uh i'm sorry ms elsie redmond
024formerly an administrative assistant who exemplified a true commitment to the safety of her students ensuring her room was thoroughly clean by wiping the desks chairs dust shields and the bathroom after every student thank you to the entire calvin rad rodwell slc team thank you next baltimore international academy site leaders jelena alcia and brian broden and they would like to recognize miss tamika fairley formerly a non-instructional paraprofessional who embraced her role as an slc proctor from day one working with her team to ensure students were engaged in learning in a loving and nurturing environment many thanks to ms fairley and the entire bia slc team next john rura lead was katherine drayton barber and they would like to recognize janelle anderson who is a high school hall monitor as a proctor she supported the kindergarten cohort
025bonding with her students and fostering a safe and nurturing environment for learning she applied and was accepted into the district's para to teacher pipeline program congratulations to ms anderson and many thanks to the entire john vera slc site team next pimlico under the lead leadership of ulrica berry and they want to recognize all of the team members at the pimlico student learning center were special with a unique way of supporting students families and staff by building healthy and trusting relationships and they are proud to highlight ms sharon carter ms sydney uh carrington and ms linda robinson for perfect attendance next bay brook slc under the site lead shirelle marciani mr they want to recognize mr mark brunson who was an assistant at benjamin franklin high school before joining bay brook as a fifth grade proctor
026achieving a reputation for being a team player dependable loving and genuinely concerned about the scholars in his care many thanks to the bay brook team slc next the sandtown winchester achievement academy under the leadership of charlene wilby they would like to recognize mrs margie white who was a paraprofessional prior to being assigned as a proctor at sandtown winchester she epitomized the definition of selflessness demonstrating a deep love for students and serving as a symbol of connecting the home and school community we want to thank her and the entire sandtown winchester slc team next the beach field slc under the leadership of michelle haddaway and they would like to recognize mr dorsey who was previously a hall monitor at beachfield and miss gladden was a non-instructional para from violetville both jumped into their new positions as
027a proctor with a positive and willing communicating with families daily to ensure their students success we want to thank them both as well as the entire beech fields team sarah chelsea and they would like to recognize ms saudia scott who came to the waverly slc from leith walk bringing unwavering energy and commitment to students who were consistently present because they felt supported and loved congratulations to the entire waverly slc team next we have william packa under the leadership of mike benoit and we want they want to thank all of the team members at paca who went above and beyond to support our students william pack of leadership sends lots of support and virtual hugs to their team along with wishes for the best of luck as they return to their previous roles many thanks to
028the william packa slc team and then we would like to give a special thanks to cleo hirsch sonya goodwin and the entire district office team who worked so hard to make this highly successful program possible and my deepest appreciation to our partners at baltimore city recreation and parks for their invaluable collaboration on behalf of our students and their families my sincere thanks to you all i am now pleased to invite katherine drayton barber and jessa jessica hankin to briefly discuss their experience as site leads at the john rura student learning center and i will turn it over to you lady thank you dr santellisis it's a real honor um catherine do you want to start then i can jump in uh sure so um in the beginning i think when we all got the call
029to be a part of this there was some hesitation um there was there there was fear real fear and i can remember i went to uh call on my director jelima when she called me and said do you want to help at a student learning center and i was like well sure okay i would love to help and she said i'll call you back in 10 minutes and that's when i was like uh oh what are we about to get into but it was the best experience it was an experience about building trust trusting the adults that you work with showing parents that you would you were worthy of trust that you would do all you could to keep their children safe in such uh like we we all know the phrase pandemic time such
030a time as this um when jessica and i started we met with our principal at the whole school principal donnelly and mary um watson the ap we also met with directors of wrexham park um and it was again building trust would principal donna leah trust trust us in her new 21st century building can parks and rec uh trust us with the students that they've already built relationships with so i think the beginning was how do we work together how do we trust each other and how do we make this fit how do we make the puzzles fit um and i think if we just we were really clear about acknowledging our vulnerability and emotional truth at the front end you and i were on the same page and just continued to be um that like
031no none of this feels comfortable but yep we're gonna we're gonna move forward anyway and then when we got there we realized quite honestly that the city schools that we've known and loved for a long time um that we knew to have just like many other systems you know sometimes limited resources was not the city schools that we were walking into when we started in these slc sites i don't know what magic sonia and cleo worked to ensure that all of the mitigating things that we were just so worried we were frankly worried weren't going to be in place they were in place and once once we saw that i think we were able to do what we needed to do which was focus on the kids yeah and just to highlight our proctors and
032building trust and the relationship with our proctors after our first day of meeting i can remember us standing in an open space in a circle and just letting them talk and share their hesitations their fears um and just really organically our mantra became we are doing this because it's right for students and i'm telling you like that was our statement that just came from after we we groaned and and we shared our hesitations we knew that this is what our students needed and we were going to commit to that and our proctors rose to that occasions they to that occasion they built relationships with the classroom teachers often exchanging uh cell phone numbers just to make sure that the students while they were in their care stayed in pace with what the classroom teacher was
033expecting online of course they celebrated the students with treats and gifts and pizza parties and costumes they went beyond that and had were a part of parent meetings with counselors there i'm just wrapping around the special needs of students the special needs that some of our students needed just to make sure that we were providing again a safe and nurturing environment that was accessible for all the students that were there um it was really a collective effort yeah we were all in it together for sure and then you know when when i was then posed with the um the understanding that that more um in school opportunities needed to open up for our youngest students in baltimore city with disabilities um it was very hard again for me to have that conversation with the staff
034that i had come to know for a long time in my job as as early childhood early learning coordinator for preschool but um the fact that i was in general with you and was having meetings with them about this from a site in person and you know i was i was administrator who is walking the walk and talking the talk and saying like guys i know this is you know scary but yeah i'm somehow we're doing it safely uh we're following all of the protocols and covet is not passing between staff and um yep i know it's scary but um but but if you follow the protocols we'll make it work and just again to celebrate the proctors the fact that we had folks who were non-instructional who stepped up right um during this time
035and and filled some shoes and fell in love at the same time with the students i fell in love with the kids and not to cut you off but remember we had a bus aide who had applied for leave but then once she was in there for two weeks she was like you know what i want to stay like i i feel safe and i love these kids and i have a purpose and i want to do this yep definitely um so i just wanted to end on a letter that we received just to kind of i could go on and on with all the things that our proctors did that they didn't have to do um we held meetings with classroom teachers again um the first grade teacher team met with us it was
036all about how are these relationships going to work so that the students get the best experience but i think this letter that we received from a teacher at the end of this the slc really [Music] just highlights what our goal and and how we experience this whole um process this whole initiative so the letter says well the day has finally come and i am truly sad that the center is closing i really appreciate and thank you for all that you have done for my student thank you for providing an opportunity where he felt safe and accepted he really enjoyed being there because of you children were able to learn and progress and parents were able to work and provide for their children and their families you all are true heroes special shout out to mr
037purdy who is one of the proctors you are awesome i cannot thank you enough for the great care and support you gave to my student thank you for always being there to help him thanks a billion kelly williams and that was from um the charter school a charter school yeah it was wonderful i think that just ends uh the program that's how we felt it was it just went so quickly the bonding was real between the staff the trust that was built was real and again we knew that this is what the students needed well i i just want to thank you all for sharing your experience um your experiences giving everyone real insight into what was occurring at slc and how your work has really not just paved the way for us to do
038this safely but has really modeled what it means to care for our city's children so i just want to thank all of you again for all your work not only on behalf of city schools but on behalf of city schools families and students thank you so much you represented your group well very good um and i also just want to again continue to thank our meal site workers as well who have continued our non-instructional staff and really that letter said it um better than i ever could um now i would like to read um a letter expressing a different perspective from someone opposed actually to our expansion of in-person learning opportunities and it reads i hear that you want to open and that some kids are not doing as well as others let's be honest
039here that would also be the case with in-person learning as it is every year i hear that some kids are not attending class regularly let's be honest here that too would still be happening with in-person learning now on the one hand this quote prompts me to name the systemic inequities like redlining food deserts economic underinvestment and unequal educational opportunity that have been barriers for too many of baltimore's children for too long i would also like us to consider that quote not so much for what it says or who said it but what for but what it means for our students it also struck me when i read it because for me it reinforces the assumption that unfortunate as it is there's nothing that can be done about the fact that some kids just won't make
040it in our case quote those kids are the most vulnerable not just in our nation but certainly in baltimore city they are primarily black and brown from historically and consistently marginalized under invested in and disinvested communities as the ceo of city schools i am unwilling to accept their disproportionate outcomes and achievement which have been predictable and persistent throughout the history of american education our failure to be forward thinking is going to exacerbate not just learning loss but also what is happening with our students including severe social emotional trauma mental health costs of isolation increased risk of depression suicides and the threat of total disengagement from school as a mother of city school students i can tell you that in-person learning is not equally effective for all children even children in the same family the point
041is not that virtual learning is not working it simply isn't working for all students and our obligation as educators is to ensure that we support those students who for a variety of reasons are not getting what they need in a virtual environment i categorically reject the notion of abandoning our most vulnerable students by doing nothing to support their needs regardless of how reluctantly we do so to put it succinctly there are no expendable kids despite complaints about our lack of transparency since summer i have made our intentions to provide in-person learning opportunities as soon as we could crystal clear since september we have demonstrated that we can do so safely and effectively without a single instance of in-school transmission and to those who talk about students and staff members contracting covid i would point out
042that covet transmission is occurring in the community not in our schools as randy weingarten president of the american federation of teachers and dr rajiv shah president of the rockefeller foundation clearly stated in their op-ed in usa today on sunday quote remote learning is not a substitute for in-person instruction it is challenging to consist to constantly hear and defend against the unfounded misstatements and misrepresentations repeated daily quite frankly it's an unfair attack on the city schools team who as you just heard are working countless and thankless hours to do this safely no one should question the care that has been taken to keep our students safe and the reason why we have a moral obligation to do so i will not take time here to catalog all of the steps we have taken but let me
043say a few things remember thank you notes need to be done duolingo needs to be we have repeatedly described the careful measures that we and our partners in public health have implemented to keep staff and students safe we are committed to reopen our schools in an environment that is safe and secure for students and staff including the installation of mirv 13 air filters and hospital grade air purifiers in response to concerns expressed by parents and teachers and other school staff we are working proactively with johns hopkins and the university of maryland medical system to put vaccine plans in place that prioritize staff as they are scheduled to participate in in-person learning based on the availability of the vaccine more than 4 900 employees have already been invited to participate we are also encouraged that the
044governor announced plans today to open a mass vaccination site at the baltimore convention center starting february 5th we have clear data supporting our success incredibly some people would have you believe that reopening our schools is somehow inequitable to our students of color which is a gross distortion of the concept of equity in city schools equity is about providing choices to all of our families regardless of their color their primary language their neighborhood or their economic circumstances choices for families who don't have the luxury of zooming into their jobs because they are often essential front line workers who can't work from home and can't afford to stay home from work to help their students that's why we saw so many families who chose to take advantage of our student learning centers and other in-person learning opportunities
045we knew we had to earn their trust and over time more and more families chose those options for their children because without the opportunity to choose they had no other options to those who would argue that we continue to wait to do nothing while our students fall further behind i say that we cannot wait for those students for whom virtual learning is not working we must continue to act proactively to support students who need it and the families who want it equity is more than platitudes and more than a vague statement of good intentions it is about the impact of our actions equity is action action that has already been too long deferred i have no desire to allow the word equity to be weaponized in order to move any agenda that is not centered
046around getting the students back who need it most i understand that people are fearful i have talked with teachers and principals and other school-based staff and their fear is understandable like anyone else i worry about my health the health of those i love but i am more fearful for an entire generation of students the 80 000 young people i am charged with protecting some of who will whom will be consigned to the category of quote those who didn't make it no one not one of our kids is expendable i implore every single one of us who supports who purports to have the best interest of children and families is our priority to join us in the very important work of collaborating to get this done safely we have to feel the fear mitigate the risks
047maintain the safety and do it anyway for the children and families who need an in-person option that concludes my remarks for this evening thank you vice chair richardson thank you dr santalisa we will now hear a follow-up from the previous august presentation on how city schools are supporting lgbtq students and other stakeholders mr richardson yes sorry sorry to cut you off we're at six so i think we should probably move to public comment okay okay okay we're at okay right at six o'clock all right thank you so give me one second all right we will move to public comment um speakers from recognized groups have the opportunity to speak for five minutes first we have president diamond tay brown who submitted a video representing the baltimore teachers union that the virus is going to get
048good evening everyone just before his inauguration president biden told the nation that the virus is going to get worse before it gets better but health is on the way yet our school system is rushing ahead with its plan before this help can arrive tonight we have thousands of educators who are filled with fear and concerns for their families for their students and for themselves their voices have been swept aside as president biden acknowledged last night teachers want to work in person they just want to work in a safe environment we call on our school system to listen to its staff to listen to the president and to listen to the great majority of parents who know that reopening schools right now is too soon it puts all of us in harm's way thousands of educators
049have made it very clear they need the opportunity to be fully vaccinated before returning one shot is not good enough and we need to remember that we have hundreds of staff currently in school buildings secretaries and office assistants and related service providers and teachers serving extremely small groups of students and in many cases no students at all and practically every day we're told of three or four positive covet 19 cases in our schools the district's plan could increase the population in school buildings by over 10 times the existing levels educators do not have faith in the system being able to handle 30 to 40 new colbit cases every day the president called for testing but that's not a main feature of city schools is plan testing needs to be a cornerstone not an afterthought the
050district is forcing educators to choose between safety and their jobs and in many cases between the health of their family and a paycheck the system has made it clear they don't care about high-risk family members other school systems might but not city schools our system has made it clear that they don't care about having reopening metrics that ensures we stay safe when transmission is high school districts across maryland had these but not six streams this plan throws in to display the existing structures that our students have come to rely on city schools acknowledges that most families are going to keep their students at home where it's safe but city schools plan destroys the existing structures these families rely on teachers will change class times will change class sizes will change as pre-existing structure and relationships
051will be tossed aside and the mode of instruction will be fundamentally different instead of having a reliable face directly in front of the camera every day students will see a teacher in a math school simultaneously teaching in person and remote instructional quality for most students will decline while at the same time demoralizing and over taxing teachers common sense tells that this is not equity for students and it's offensive to hear otherwise baltimore city educators acknowledge that this pandemic has strained the mental health of everyone our students our families and ourselves students are in families facing job laws illness death and uncertainty these realities should not be marginalized they are fundamental to understanding some of the significant hurdles we face when it comes to student achievement but make no mistake as long as the pandemic is
052ripple let me call you back i'm on the phone with the um they're doing um this is um hold on can everybody mute please all right thank you make no mistake as long as the pandemic is with us these hurdles will remain regardless of instruction being in school buildings or being online this is all made more challenging due to the long history of racism that fuels chronic underfunding about school system and city for some this pandemic has brought to the surface then equities that have long been seen by many of us our system needs to refocus its efforts on the expertise educators have with connecting with our students our students need the adults in their lives to be spending time on keeping them safe addressing their social and emotional needs and the trauma that has
053been experienced and to focus on healing we miss seeing our students in person more than anyone but we will fight against a plan that asks us to participate in something that endangers our students ourselves and our communities given the enormous amounts of dangers and unknowns we urge the ceo and school board to listen to educators and to cease moving forward with this plan which will result in no better learning and a lengthening of the pandemics hold on schools [Music] christian is that our only um recognized group tonight yes uh our first speaker is uh speaking live miss kiera davis griffith are you on yes okay thank you three minutes my name is kara davis griffith today i offer my testimony as a board member of the parent and community advisory board as a baltimore city
054public school parent and a friend to numerous educators and staffers throughout the city of baltimore as you can imagine school reopening continues to be on the hearts and minds of every constituent in baltimore city for folks like myself it's what i personally think about before i go to bed and when i wake up do they have the technology wi-fi bandwidth electrical capabilities throughout each school building to have teachers teaching virtually and in person simultaneously can we just wait until all teachers have their vaccinations both of them as premier scott's order can we stay in a classroom longer than an hour because we can't stay in a restaurant for longer an hour but it's okay for my kid too and after moments of overwhelming uncertainty the question that i always come to is will our school
055communities and our city weather this storm will we look back at this time and applaud our efforts or mourn our loss and it's not just parents like myself wrecking our brains the communities you all serve have real concerns from dr melanie nyes a physician and pediatric sub specialist at johns hopkins university bloomberg children's center who has children in baltimore city public schools she has seen up close the after effects of mortality of the multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children after exposure to covet 19. she's emailed each of you on this board for questions and concern we hope that you take the time to address them publicly from school nursing staff including wendy smith president of local 558 of afscme council 67 who have mounting concerns from inadequate space in the health suites to social distance to
056the lack of sinks required by osha regulations some of these buildings are not prepared to see students who may need care in regards to ppe not only do our nursing staff lack enough n95 masks needed to provide care for students who may have coving but the n95 mats that they have received are in some cases expired even dry rotted half of the baltimore city public schools do not have licensed registered nurses baltimore city is the only city in maryland where school aides in some cases act as the primary caregiver or care provider for that school how will our students receive a proper assessment when suspected to have covet we need more registered nurses and lastly a dear friend who teaches fifth grade math and science her eldest daughter's father died of covid right after thanksgiving
057and the idea of returning to in person is like looking down the barrel of a gun her children her family her students and this community would be left without her amazing skull and that terrifies all who know her these people and their concerns are not unique the city is filled with concerns and questions regarding the safety of our children baltimore city public schools mentions grade failures and learning loss as the issue driving reopening we are not denying that the academic success of our students aren't important it is but let's be honest with grades while grades have decreased this academic year providing a quality and equitable education throughout the district has always been a challenge for baltimore city public schools and that's just fact this is griffin you rap era at three minutes can you wrap
058your thoughts up sure the questions on the minds of of us is that if we bring our children our teachers our administrators into these buildings will we applaud how far they've come in their success or will we mourn their loss due to this hasty decision precab will post the rest of this um this testimony on our social channels thank you for your time thank you next we have a video from this marine flood that i will share my name is maureen flood i'm a nurse practitioner and public health professional with 20 years of experience implementing complex development projects and low resource settings i am also a parent of two children at medfield heights elementary i want my children to go back to in-person learning but i will not send them back based on the current
059city school's plan we are all aiming at the stadium target a safe return to school city schools failure to listen to teachers and families have made this process unnecessarily adversarial we can go back safely using a funded targeted stepwise plan with accountable leadership following the smart risk reduction recommendations the us in smart is for stay home teachers and staff should be able to choose to stay at home if their risk of returning is high mandating unvaccinated and partially vaccinated staff back into classrooms will increase absenteeism put teachers staff children and families at risk unnecessarily and overall make it less likely that children will get sufficient instruction to meet your goal of increased grades in school districts that have returned around the country absenteeism is up and substitutes cannot fill the gap teachers and staff have
060died certainly grades won't improve if teachers are absent or dead because of coping 19 symptoms or illness the a in smart is for air flow i have heard there is federal and state funding for ensuring that schools are upgraded and safe as yet we have seen no budget from city schools showing that supplies equipment upgrades and staffing will be put into place a plan that is not funded will never happen we have also asked for a timeline for the ventilation upgrades which you should have by the rt in smart is for restrict crowds and reduce time with the people outside your home how many people will be in each room by square footage physical distancing means limiting the number of people in each classroom to 8 to 10 individuals if they need six feet of
061distance between them and some space for their body saying you expect 25 of the students back doesn't account for the fact that 25 percent is an average and a guess at that some classes could have 75 or more return while others may have none what is the plan for a class size that exceeds safe numbers if the concern about equity and children falling behind is true target the children who struggle bring them into school in the small groups they need to thrive in buildings that have improved ventilation with dedicated vaccinated teachers who are hired for this purpose the current plan proposes a free for all and we all know that free-for-alls only benefit the privileged higher reopenings are to be accountable for the plan start in schools with upgraded ventilation and the children who most
062need intervention and the teachers who are ready to return use the yellow buses to transport them safely and you can reach your grading goals keep hogan happy and keep people safe pays in schools and expand the target student group as school ventilation systems come online and teachers are fully vaccinated i call on each of you to find the strength in your moral conscience to go back to the drawing board and support the development of a collaborative plan that is better anything less is less than our children deserve uh next we have ms keisha goodwin he's commenting live ms goodwin are you online yes can you hear me yeah yes we can you just find you have three minutes all right good evening ceo and commissioners i am keisha goodwin a parent and product of baltimore
063city public schools as a parent i can say with certainty that my sons will dominate a transgender girl in sports however as a relative of young girls and i myself was once a young lady i cannot say that a xx female will be able to compete for position or on average compare with the xy female in sports so what i'm asking the board to do is to think about how x y females in sports will eventually eliminate x y females so please apply equity when thinking about our cisgender girls and our ex-ex female girls and although i know this is not a popular position to take it is one that needs to be said and one that the board needs to consider thank you ronald what was that thank you thank you miss goodwin uh
064finally we have our former commissioner joshua lynn are you on yes i am christian all right you have three minutes okay thank you let me pop it really quickly good evening all um as a as a student and a former commissioner and then the frustration from both sides as a student i fully do not agree with the reopening of schools for my peers most of city schools has inadequate buildings that were already in need of renovation before krover 19 hit as someone who has experienced covert 19 first hand i would not want to ensure it and i want to ensure that none of my peers experience the same trauma that i have been through there are multiple reasons where the plan is flawed but i only have three minutes so all i will say is
065that there are too many vague thoughts and processes that are not specific enough in order to properly secure the trust of me as well as my peers i'm not only speaking for myself but a variety of my peers that share my same sentiment protecting our teachers is a key structure in protecting the foundation of a school system when bringing up equity it is important to understand that a multitude of students as well as faculty members and teachers have big responsibilities in their lives and as a student that works as a student that is a community organizer as a student that you know has you know a very full schedule there are multiple multiple multiple students out there that are doing the exact same thing as we've seen cover 19 has exacerbated with the black and
066brown community has been going through for the decades upon centuries of years that we have been in this country and as parents you know it is hard because a lot of them sometimes in a sense have you know lost their jobs or they have been going through uh funding problems to their family so it has been taken for older uh children and older youth to take the responsibility and grab a job and so what we have seen is that we have seen an abundance of youth grab jobs and that that is a big responsibility for them because their main factor is important which is their factor is their family so it is important to understand that when we're talking about bringing students back and we're talking about bringing teachers back it is important to understand
067all sides of the conversation as well as the situations and so understanding that teachers can no longer strike since back in 1970 1870 whenever it was um it is important that we are organizing and it was important that the student voices being heard and so an abundance of students of my mind as well as a bunch of other student organizers will be doing a student strike and that can be in a multitude of ways um things will be finalized in the future but i just want you guys to know that this will be a student organized measure in order to properly address and properly announce our disregard in our opposition to this uh specific uh ruling or whatever you want guys want to call it and so i just want to put that out there
068to ensure that any other students would like to contact as well my email is jlynnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn bcps.k12.md.us and uh that's all thank you christian thank you joshua uh our last public comment is uh emailed to be read from ms amelia wiley i will read it now uh my name is amelia wiley and i'm a baltimore city public schools educator i'm writing to you with the hope of changing your mind with regard to reopening baltimore city public schools i am very concerned about the decision to reopen schools at this pace believe me when i say that no one no one wants the schools open more than educators who work in them we have made a conscious decision to dedicate our professional and sometimes personal lives to educating the children of baltimore city we know the stakes are
069very high for the current group of students having to go so go such a long time without regular in-person instruction however to decide to reopen during this time in my opinion is wrong we hear every day about the dire circumstances our hospitals face in dealing with patients sickened by coven we are now hearing about new and more virulent strains of the virus that can spread even faster and are more deadlier than strains with which we have already been dealing while we are also hearing about the vaccine the rollout has been incredibly slow we know that the end of this pandemic is coming but we cannot rush the end of it by opening schools before the risk of illness has been resolved for everyone the decision to open schools without waiting for teachers to be fully
070vaccinated as the school is acknowledged is dangerous and irresponsible you are asking educators to put their lives in danger by exposing to a deadly virus even if we ourselves did not become acutely infected we could be asymptomatic and unknowingly affect our families including our own children and elderly family members while it is admirable the school system is putting safety measures in place they cannot overcome the inevitability that their virus can and will spread it is not a question of if someone including student gets sick is when i'm asking you to please reconsider the decision to reopen until teachers are fully vaccinated one thing that the pandemic has reinforced is how important it is to demonstrate kindness and caring towards everyone waiting until teachers are fully vaccinated is an example of this full consideration of all
071involved please reconsider the plan to reopen baltimore city public schools sincerely amanda wiley and uh madam vice chair back to you thank you christian so to the board based on public comments are there any additional items that any board member would like to pull from the consent agenda so hearing none and we're gonna um just for clarity we're gonna pull and um items 8.01 through 8.04 because i don't believe commissioner sykes has joined us is that correct christian correct so you don't need to pull that that can be part of the consent okay so is there a motion then to approve the um the consent agenda remember we are still pulling 8.05 but is there um a motion to approve the rest of the items is there a second second thank you commissioners reed and
072vandema all in favor bandima yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner frank i abstain okay commissioner james yes commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner robert yes and i am in favor so um that would be no one opposed and commissioner reed you are abstaining no it's commissioner frank i'm sorry commissioner frank you are abstaining so that's seven in favor [Music] one abstention and one um absent is that correct christian yes um i will now turn it over to the office of new initiatives for a presentation on the operator renewal process for 2021 2022 and that will be followed by abort [Music] vote is there anyone present from the office of new initiative is there anyone from your team um or we could could should we go back to the presentation we had to skip sorry sorry
073commissioner richardson i was having a tech issue okay it wasn't unused i don't know what was going on it was frozen for a second so sorry about that delay i just need that threw me off for a minute so i just need one second just to pull up uh the presentation so sorry about that okay don't worry about it take your time i'm just glad we have you um look at you movement [Music] uh [Music] okay um good evening sorry for the delay i'm gonna uh uh getting some help on the other side with uh presenting thank you um uh um good night um board commissioners and um uh dr santalisa my name is angela alvarez i'm the executive director of the office of new initiatives i'm going to have some of my colleagues join
074and introducing chief jones [Music] i'm sorry there's someone who's um speaking that is uh should be muted good evening everyone this is teresa jones chief achievement accountability officer for city schools and trevor good evening this is trevor roberts i'm a specialist in the office of new initiatives all right and so um tonight um we are going to present [Music] our recommendations for how to handle the upcoming renewal process we created this process that we've been using originally back in school year 2012 as a collaborative process that was created with operators staff from organizations that support work around charter and operator schools like supporting public schools of choice the charter and operator-led schools arising board the morel and charter school network and the charter alliance and it was designed to be an iterative process so every
075year since we incorporated this process we have a engagement process where we meet with stakeholders uh to identify ways that we can strengthen recognizing that the context of education is changing testing changes all sorts of things change so we wanted to have an approach that allowed us to be responsive to necessary changes um to take into consideration the context while also having a strong level of predictability for schools last year we were set to begin a process for a set of schools um at the very beginning of us beginning that process which just happens in the penultimate year of a school's contract is when we all learned i think at especially at the state level about covet 19. it was in march when you know the initial order to close at that time was for
076two weeks had happened and so we postponed that first set of schools for a year and so now we're at the point where we have 14 schools whose contracts end at the end of next school year 21-22 and so tonight we need to the board to decide on a path forward um so this list shows you the 14 schools who are up for renault um the asterisks show the schools who would have went through renewal um starting last spring with a vote that would have happened this past january um so one of the things that we did was to begin debriefing early because we knew uh the of these that these impacts and that this was an unusual year and so we had meetings first internally to figure out what we understood about the data
077picture and what could happen then with operators with our charter and operator-led schools arising board with the board's teaching learning committee and we're here tonight to have the board approve and approach their key components of the renewal process are governed by board policy right board policy asks that we consider student achievement academic success with the most weight excuse me so that's where we look at results of state assessments college career readiness graduation etc that school climate and culture be considered in the process and that we also look at financial management and governance so those are the three main areas that we consider in renewal and so while renewal is a holistic review of schools performance and it considers both quantitative and qualitative measures um and not effective in any of those three measures has been
078our historic grounds for non-renewal and so in this year i think we've been just thinking about how what's the same way to approach that so that's a big kind of part of the questioning that you'll see in the approaches um we looked at what other uh operators and organizations were doing nationally uh as well was within the state as um the district with the most schools we were sort of the leader in the state so many other districts kind of look to us to see what we're doing to figure out what's next um one of the organizations that we look for advice to is is naxa who is an organization that provides advice on authorizing charters and all sorts of charter policies and they shared early on that they support efforts that continue high stakes
079accountability for charter schools even during this time of cobit 19 and that we should continue to include pi years assessments as well as the other indicators that are part of the charter agreement and that for any new plans or expectations it shouldn't be to make it less rigorous but to really to center in the uniqueness of this year um we talked to some other districts and many are continuing with their processes with minimum changes some uh many actually continued even last year i'm going to turn around chief jones to kind of talk about what we understand about the data great thank you angela so for these next couple of slides we just wanted to do a quick review of some of the considerations around data availability that have impacted our thinking about how we would
080proceed for this upcoming year so this first table covers a whole host of quantitative and qualitative measures that we have used to take a look at for the renewal process i'm going to go through them really briefly because a lot of this is a reminder for those of you that are familiar with the process um so for our our high school grades of course we do take a look at graduation rate um so that is the four-year cohort graduation rate um we've established standards that we use to determine the points awarded when it comes to graduation rate we also take a look at a variety of indicators when it comes to college and career readiness so you'll see some examples of those listed over on the right we also take a look at an application
081that is submitted by the operator um and we look at not only the application but also the ser which is the school effectiveness review um which gives us a sense of how well a school is actually maintaining fidelity to the charter so their purpose for being the focus that they have for their students etc as it relates to the school effectiveness review we have a number of domains that we we examine and we do that by triangulating data collected through three different methods which include classroom observations focus groups and documents review um and so one of the things that we are going to talk about is what that might look like for this upcoming year when we review the approaches that we are the approach that we're recommending and then we have a number of
082climate related metrics that we consider so we look at cohort retention we look at suspensions and then we also look at attendance both in terms of chronic absence and overall attendance and those are ones that you know we do have data that we use but to a large extent the conversation is really more of a qualitative review informed by the data that are available and then we also in our focus on ensuring that we are meeting the needs of all students we also have a specific focus when it as it relates to students with disabilities and so we do have guidance provided by msde that informs how we conduct site visits to understand what is happening as it relates to programming for those students from a financial perspective we also look at the audit data
083and we also get additional information about internal controls by the examination of the audit data and then of course in terms of operator capacity that is another key area where we examined how well the operator is in compliance with a variety of requirements which includes federal state and district requirements and from a financial perspective it also includes looking at their ability to effectively manage the grant dollars that they're provided and we also look at a variety of different data points to better understand how operator capacity is impacting the education for students in these schools now one of the biggest areas that we've had to contend with no surprise is around assessments so i'm going to start first with a little bit of a review of how we typically look at assessments when it comes to
084renewal and then i'll call to your attention some of the big challenges that we are now facing in light of covid and i'll also call out some of the anticipated challenges that we were into that we were expecting um as the state of maryland has been working towards implementing a new statewide assessment so first in terms of assessment data typically we look at assessments in three different ways um the first issue noted here is the absolute so looking at a single year most recent administration of the state assessments in english language arts and mathematics and so what we typically do is in looking at that particular data um we always try to make sure that when we're in the first year of an administration it becomes a question around how soon we get the data
085and so some of what you see reflected in this timeline um basically reflects the fact that while the state intended to implement the new assessment for the first time in spring 2020 because of covid there was not a statewide administration so that data is not available and right now it is also a question as to whether or not we will be in a position to administer that state assessment this spring of 2021. so what we wanted to note here is that there are some potential delays based on which year that administration happens for the first time and when we will actually receive the data back because oftentimes in the first year of that administration we don't get the data back in that july august period of time which is what we really need in order
086for the data to be considered for the renewal process so that is one of the reasons that you'll see noted in a couple of places that there's a question around the availability of the data as we take a look at what that means in the other two ways that we look at assessments we have both trend and growth and the idea there is that we're looking at multiple years of data again because of the disruption last spring we would not have that particular year of data to consider and then as we look to the out years again depending on how things play out for this upcoming year there's a question mark around whether we would have two years or three years worth of data depending on which renewal time period we are considering in addition
087to state assessments which of course you know we're dependent upon the state to tell us how to handle and whether we can proceed there's also a question around climate surveys and so as it relates to student and staff surveys the survey instrument that we use is actually determined and administered by msde so again because of covet last spring that that survey was not administered we are planning towards administration this upcoming spring but again depending upon how that plays out it will influence how many years worth of data we would have depending on which time period we're considering and then last but not least as it relates to climate we've also looked at a parent survey which has been an instrument that the district has implemented and so one of the key considerations here is number
088one we did not administer our parent survey last spring because of covet so we do have a gap in the data number two prior to covid we were also in discussions about in using a different instrument and so we just wanted to acknowledge as well that our ability to to do that and determine which year we want to use that data is also a consideration as we think about our path forward so again i know there's a lot of information on this slide the key takeaways here are number one we have a dependency on the state as it relates to a number of these items two the number of years of data that we would have available is impacted partly because these particular surveys and assessments were not administered last spring and then three the
089number of years of data that we might have for a given year is dependent upon what will also happen in this upcoming spring 2021. so with that overview i'm going to turn it back to angela to walk you through the approaches we've considered in the recommendation this evening yeah so um so based on that we considered three approaches and i'm actually going to have trevor walk us through each of the three approaches thanks angelo um so the first approach that um we considered and presented to stakeholders for feedback was to do a full renewal review for the um for this school year so um that has some benefits and drawbacks so one of the benefits is that it would give schools a full range of contract terms that could be earned um either a five-year
090renewal three-year renewal for the new extended eight-year renewal in addition to non-renewal it also gives us continuity with prior renewal processes and as teresa mentioned um covid will continue to impact future renewal processes for several years to come um especially with the state assessment data so it might be best to move forward with uh the part data that we have um while it's still recent data um going with this approach would also allow the board schools and the broader community to get a sense and a report on the full range of renewal metrics and so this would um you know renewal is one of the main times when um the public and the board get feedback on how charter schools are performing so if we did a full renewal as normal um we would have
091that full report and finally this approach would also allow for accountability for schools with challenges um but if we would if we had moved forward with this approach one uh we would have to really consider how much weight to to put on those lagged indicators like the state assessment so um that would be a challenge of moving with this approach the second approach that we have been considering is to conduct a review with possible outcomes it would be a more limited review of schools that would allow for outcomes of either a three-year renewal or a non-renewal and a non-renewal would only be recommended in the event of serious financial sustainability concerns or inability to comply with critical state federal and local guidelines that which place students staff or the district at risk so this approach
092would still look at a full range of renewal metrics but most schools um both schools that um are recommended for non-renewal would only be recommended um based on those serious uh financial or compliance concern uh considerations um one of the benefits for this is that any school that receives a three-year renewal by the time they go through their next renewal round after that three-year renewal would hopefully have more up-to-date state assessment data so we can do a more thorough um and up-to-date review of um at that time um and taking this approach would since we are looking at the full range of renewal metrics it would still provide schools um with an understanding of where their data stands in the renewal framework and it would provide data for the information of schools for future planning
093and to address any challenges that had come up in the um the renewal review this approach would also still provide schools in the broader community um in the board with some feedback on performance and um and you know view of where schools are at this time again um that's uh you know renewal is one of the times when uh we like to give feedback to schools about challenges that they're facing so this would allow us to do that and for schools with those serious governance or financial management issues it would allow for accountability for those schools the final approach that we considered was to um postpone renewal for an additional two years um with the thinking that after a couple more years we'd have more up-to-date state assessment data so that would mean that any
094school that is up for renewal this year um would get a two-year extension so some of the benefits to this is that it does alleviate the stress of renewal on schools um renewal is you know a very stressful time for schools in the school community um there's a lot of work that goes into um to renew a process on the behalf of schools so um this approach would alleviate that you know in a difficult time that we find ourselves in um this would also allow us to have more time to understand the lasting impacts of covid in virtual learning um and we would be able to uh use more up-to-date data to kind of understand um those impacts in in a more thorough way um this approach just have some drawbacks though um it obviously
095provides less economic accountability for schools with challenges and it uh does not you know would not serve that function of giving feedback to the the community on the performance of schools and um you know challenges that particular schools are experiencing as shown in the data yep and um just one more thing on that approach three um the the data picture in the future is really unclear so it doesn't so waiting doesn't necessarily solve the problem um and so we know a bit about what we have now so i just wanted to make sure that that part was clear too that that there's sort of a mixed bag in terms of what just waiting would do and so it doesn't perfectly solve the data to the the slides like uh teresa just shared like there's there's
096still some level of uncertainty and some gaps that will happen in the future um and so we you know we met with stakeholders some of the big points of feedback that we heard is um that most stakeholders actually generally supported the idea of approach to you um but you know had some modifications they wanted us to consider if we went ahead with that approach one of the areas that operators expressed can turn around was the amount of time it takes to prepare for the school effect effectiveness review um and doing that in a time and this time um with in person and so they were supportive of their certain components that they agreed were valuable and would not be and you know so intrusive to do like focus groups for example um and a modified
097document review um and so when we get to our proposed path forward you'll see how we took into account that feedback around how to structure the scr so that we get the valuable information from it while being cognizant of the things that are structured for schools they also wanted clarity on if you know we went forward with this approach where the the max term available in this year would be three years what would it take to qualify for an eight-year renewal once that um contract term ends and you're heading into a new kind of renewal cycle so the criteria the normal criteria is you know you have to have had at least two consecutive five-year contract terms and be effective and highly effective in each of the three key areas and the time that we're
098renewing to be eligible for an eight-year contract and so if we're only doing a three-year and we're doing a more limited review what would be the eligibility criteria so that was a big concern for schools how we would address that uh and maintain the ability for schools to earn an eight-year renewal um we also um you know again we consulted lots of stakeholders and experts uh on renewal processes and so it's really clear made clear to us that too for a non-renewal that in addition to the trigger being around serious financial and compliance issues that if a school triggered a non-renewal based on those recommendations that we would still have to be able to consider the academic record of such a school so that's kind of a summary of like the stakeholder feedback and so
099for those reasons we're proposing um a modified approach to as the path forward we believe that this approach um best serves the interests of students and schools and our broader community at this time um and so while we have sufficient data to actually do a full renewal we think this is actually the right way to go forward given the feedback we've had for stakeholders and understanding just kind of where schools are and some of the reasons are it provides stability for school communities the renewal process you know puts on the table the possibility of schools closing which is stressful preparing for it is stressful and the worry about would will my school be successful in that process for the operators for staff and for families is a real kind of consideration and so approach to
100allows us if there's serious things that schools are falling down on to to to to close if that makes sense but it limits the circumstances and takes a lot of that worry off of the table um it allows us as a district to fulfill our responsibilities around oversight um as an authorizer of charter schools but also of other operator types and really understanding and making sure that schools are sound in terms of their practices we can't have schools violating legal requirements those cause great harm to students when we see those kind of violations nor be financially unstable you know where they're not um actually going to be existing as an organization they won't be operating at school and so we don't want to what we see nationally happen you know when you don't have this
101kind of review it's like you see schools close like in the middle of the year that's something we've never had happen um in baltimore through this process and we want to maintain that uh ability to not have those things happen it also reduces the stress of the process on community in the way that we approve we are going to recommend moving forward um we would modify the ser emitting some of the metrics [Music] with this proposed plan um and we would take off some of the metrics that are that we normally look at renewal so we wouldn't do um surveys this year so no students stop for parent surveys as part of the review process for the renewal consideration this year um suspensions chronic absence cohort retention we wouldn't wouldn't rate those measures this year
102this i think balances both the extremes of just waiting and of just going forward as if we're not dealing with a lot of different things at the same time um and it would still give us the us as the district the board schools families and other organizations with our schools a sense of how well schools are performing and certain key metrics um that's really important i don't want to understate that it helps us in our daily kind of monitoring managing of schools and it helps schools and getting prepared to be successful in the future and have a path forward and understanding where they stand in renewal we often get requests for schools to want us to run when they're not going through a renewal there were renewal kind of uh measures to see where they
103stand so it helps with that school planning um and our proposed approach uh preserves the ability we define what it would take uh for an eight-year renewal for schools with that long-term record of success and angela as you move off that slide i do want to clarify one statement that you made sure something surveys what we're saying is that we would not use survey data for this process it does not mean that the district would not be administering those surveys that that's right that's an important point um yes we are still administering surveys and we still need all people to participate in all schools to participate in the service so if approved so this is the key kind of thing schools will be eligible for a three-year renewal or non-renewal and not effective in any
104of the areas listed below would be the grounds for a non-renewal uh and so and not effective and effective programming for students with disabilities audit financial controls operator capacity or strategic leadership and governance from the ser if a school is recommended for non-renewal based on that criteria then the school's record of renewal as well as the school's academic performance will be considered and provided as additional factors for the board to consider in its decision making um the other thing to understand is like for schools who are currently in a five-year contract term now um and that earned the highest ratings in the categories that we're looking at which could be meets expectations effective or highly effective um as well as in the overall academic section um of the rubric would be credited as if they
105earned a full renewal and thus if um would be eligible for consideration um for an eight year renewal in the future renault process uh along with like their performance at that time that we do that review and so we're recommending the board approve that approach before you do that vote we want to kind of walk through what these indicators look like so this these slides just kind of show um how we will display um uh the uh reading information and what and what's considered here so again this is just repeating the four indicators that we talked about and so schools will see in this process ratings for the measures that are in the academic section that are listed here and so we will use those ratings towards consideration for eligibility for the eight year renewal
106for any schools that are recommended for non-renewal because they were not effective in those four categories that we looked at on the previous slide um i think schools should be using this to inform their planning for the knox for the next contract term uh it also helps us in identifying areas where we may pointlessly say the schools what they should be working on for that next contractor and then it also provides stakeholders with a sense of efficacy particularly in the area of school performance um for climate we're only going to look at these three indicators it's a highly effective instruction that comes from the scr again that's going to be an edited ser so it's going to be select key actions and not all of the things that we look at same thing for talented
107people and vision engagement again it will inform school planning and kind of help us um in terms of that monitoring of schools and schools understanding and the community understand the efficacy of their approaches at this at this time so i'm going to have trevor kind of walk us through effective programming for students with disabilities so the effect of programming for students with disabilities um evaluates whether the school has demonstrated a strong trajectory of growth is aware of its data and responsibilities to students with disabilities and does not have any gaps or or has decreased gaps in the in the data um there are several um pieces of evidence that go into um rating this category which is um rated by the office of special education um that's evidence in the renewal application academic performance attendance
108rates suspensions chronic absence rates for students with disabilities and um evaluation of the number of students with missed services and the number of complaints reported from families at the school and um also the results of a site visit normally that is an in-person site visit for this year we will be using a virtual site visit um and i just want to note that those site visits will be held in accordance with msde guidance so um we will be looking at and evaluating the schools in the same way that msde is looking at them at the district um and holding us accountable uh and so the other things that we will that lead to the consideration again are the audit so that's looking at the performance over time leadership and governance from the ser so that
109one will be a domain will include all the key actions um and be consistent with um prior um years um with the only changes made being slight changes in terms of how you submit materials in a virtual environment operator capacity again we'll continue to look at how schools are meeting their requirements under the contract and state and federal guidelines as well as grant and financial management and all of those pieces so those will continue to be looked at hello can you guys hear me okay okay yes i hear you okay sorry my screen at uh was frozen for a second i'm gonna turn off chief jones to talk about the school effect in this review with the school effectiveness review this was one of the areas that the feedback really highlighted that we wanted to
110do some work on to try to make this manageable in light of not only the covid situation but specifically the fact that schools are also in the process of trying to bring back more students in person right through here so um so the things that we have have considered are number one while we want to still consider the same three components focus groups observations and document review we want to modify them so that it's less burdensome on schools so one consideration is that with the classroom excuse me classroom observations that those would be done virtually so it would look at the virtual instruction that is happening with schools and one of the things that we have noted is that schoolworks um who has been a resource for us in prior years when we originally developed
111our school effectiveness review protocol and evolved it over time um they are available for us as a resource to help us work through what that actually looks like and they actually have experience in conducting virtual site visits and they were doing this even before covid so to be able to leverage them to help us work through how we would implement this is part of the recommendation the second part is in terms of the document review we're also looking to streamline the document review and take a look at not only what we're requesting but giving schools more time to provide those documents so that we will be able to again try to create a reasonable um lift on schools when they are contending with so many other things um and then of course in terms of
112the things that we would be looking at we still have the three ser measures that we look at highly effective instruction talented people vision and engagement and we've already spoken about the strategic uh leadership and governance piece yeah and just the one thing i would add for the classroom observations that are virtual they will be recorded so we will we will get recorded so rather than one of the things we heard was just about the level of stress that teachers are under and so having people join while they're doing live virtual instruction was a stressor so a modification that we do is actually have school submit to us recorded lessons that we'll review from the recording rather than live next slide okay so i've already sort of highlighted some of the key points here so
113again the mcapp the maryland comprehensive assessment program was canceled in the next spring because of covid we're expecting to we're planning for administering it this spring um it's still a question mark of our ability to do so partly because the state has made it very clear that it can only be administered in person so we have to make make available of the opportunity for students to test in a in person setting and so what that means is that where we sit right now is that the last assessment data that we have is from the 18-19 school year so i'm not going to walk through like the three different ways once again but again i just want to flag that what we've doted here is the specific years that we would have available so there is
114a lag so the most recent year would in this case be 1819 and then when we look at trend and growth we're looking really at 1617 through 2018-19 or comparing results from 2018-19 to 16-17 um for fidelity charter overall application it's going to be largely the same we did a little cleanup just to make sure the language was clear it looks at three components mission and vision response to challenges and enrollment in demand this is you know really considering what the school's right in their application um and so um one of the updates is we want to make sure that as reviewers are scoring it that the guidance is taken into consideration those three components as well as just a context setting and how we provide guidance to reviewers around those elements so you know
115we're looking at are they making a case that they are meeting the needs of their students have they delivered their mission and vision in a way that meets the needs of all students and is really fully realized in the school do they have strong enrollment attendance and connection to the school so those are some of the key thing how do they respond to challenges all schools have challenges so what are they are they proactive and how they respond to and handle challenges so those are some of the key things that we look at in this particular measure so i'll take this one um so also looking at college and career readiness um so we wanted to call out there are three sort of key areas that we look at participation success and then college enrollment
116um and so what we've noted here is just you know how we take a look at the data that that represents those three different areas um one of the things that we have continued to do is to create greater greater alignment to the way that msde talks about college and career readiness um so there have been some notable adjustments here to make that even stronger so one of the things you'll see noted in red is that when we take a look at advanced placement the idea here is that we're looking at advanced placement scores of three four or five in any advanced placement uh assessment any subject and then similarly when we think about international baccalaureate or ib looking at performance of four or above in any subject area so again just noting that that
117does still speak to a level of college readiness um that by including more subjects um allow us to give credit for more students depending on their areas of interest and how well they're performing in those areas the other key thing that i also wanted to note is there was an adjustment made in terms of accuplacer which was an assessment that we were using to support the college readiness uh requirements so there were students that had to take sort of a special readiness course and that was the assessment that we were using for that um we have since changed our approach around that so we're no longer using accuplacer for that purpose so you will not see that noted here for our ccr approach and then as it relates to graduation rate um one of the
118notable changes here is looking at multiple years of graduation rate data and one of the things that we did just sort of call out we have not yet received the four-year graduation rate from the the class of 2020 um and so it's unclear around what impact the pandemic may have had around graduation rates um which is one of the reasons that we thought it would be more meaningful for us to look at the multiple years versus just the one year and then of course once we receive that data we can then try to make meaning of it with in light of the context of the changes that happened as it relates to code so for effective programming for all racial uh ethnic groups so this is a newer measure used to be part of the
119fidelity leader charter measure and so we separated it out so this measure will uh remain the same so you know we're looking at how schools are dealing with any achievement gaps and that they have a myriad of approaches that they're using to address that that's based in research and so you know are they um making sure all students are gonna access to rigorous um questions and coursework is it all on grade level uh you know how they're attending to students who are having um challenges with certain uh uh in certain areas are they paying are they are there have they um adopted a policy around equity have they done work as a school community and understanding implicit bias how is that informing how they look at student data and interrogate their own actions around that
120um are they choosing materials that reflect their student population both in content and the authors so it's just a mix of things that come out of their research that we look to see that that schools are using um and so the only key kind of update here is that we're making sure that the threshold so this measure is only consider for schools to have enough diversity in the different groups in order to be considered so this threshold is now going to be aligned to uh updates the state has made around cut-offs for identifying students so we're making it consistent with that um those kind of thresholds so that's kind of the key thing so 10 of student population or fewer than a set number of students in a grade band so that's a big that's
121the change there the other thing that we're doing because the academic um measures come into play for eligibility for eight year uh and are part of consideration for any school that is triggered for non-renewal um we wanted to make sure that the weights were cognizant of that lag data that we talked about um and so we've adjusted down you can see the table at the bottom shows what the weights were last year and so the table at the top is showing what where the approach that where we would move forward with and how we've adjusted the weight so you can see we've reduced the weight for absolute and trend um growth has always been a weight where we put more so we've maintained that because there's a level of rigor to that data because it's
122a multi-year data and it really goes at the individual level um to look at students and then we've increased the weight a little bit in the fidelity or charter measure that's really considering like the school's application and the evidence that they provide in this process so giving greater weight to um to that evidence into that review so those are that's how we're handling the academic section um and so if um um so in terms of like the process assuming the board approves the approach that we selected um we would begin orienting schools on the process starting next month um between march and may is when ser and osce site visits would begin renewal applications would be due in the same timeline that they're always so september september's usually the first thursday of that month and
123then the review would happen between september and october uh november is when we were presented to the board and then the board would vote in january so following the kind of normal timeline uh and so now i'm asking the board to approve this modified approach to which means you would be waiving anything that's contrary to this that's in the board policy uh if you approve this modified approach to where schools will be eligible for a three-year renewal or non-renewal and that are not effective in any of these categories and effective programming for students with disabilities or audit financial controls or operator capacity or strategic leadership for governance is sufficient for us to consider a school for non-renewal in the case of any school that's considered for non-renewal the school's record of renewal as well as
124the school's academic performance will be considered and provided as additional factors to the board in its decision making additionally schools who are successful in each of those measures receiving the highest ratings of meets expectations effective or highly effective as well as in the overall academic section who are also in a five-year renewal and are successful in the review at that time would be eligible for an eight-year renault right um we can if we can um and we can pause to have the board vote joe before we go to the slider so we can go back and then after they vote i just want to share i want us just to share that that next one thank you angela i'm going to ask my fellow commissioners does anyone have any questions before we um vote on
125this and christian helped me with hands because i don't my view i don't see it right commissioner uh james has a question she has her hand okay thank you so much commissioner mcfadden commissioner james thank you uh ronald and madam vice chair uh my question ms alvarez is with these four bullets we know we've had challenge in the past of disparities between academic performance that have been fairly wide in in number as well as impact um is there anything in this the modified approach to address schools that might be challenged in meeting the needs of specific targeted demographics outside of students with disabilities so you're saying if a school's having academic challenges um like at the racial gaps or just in general or in math or something how is that reflected in in this modified
126approach yep so in this modified approach um you wouldn't they wouldn't be if if they were effective in each of these four categories right but they had let's say they had poor math performance we would not be recommending a non-renewal for that school they would be getting a three-year renault but we would identify that as something they need to work on during this contract term okay thank you are there any other questions does someone else see at hand commissioner richard reed has his panda commissioner thank you commission thank you commissioner mcfadden commissioner commissioner reed thank you uh ms alvarez and mrs jones i guess my question refers to page 30. how tough it will it be for us to get our arms around the growth because i see how middle school's gone from 21 to
12730 in elementary from 35 to 40. in this these times uncertain times how can we gauge growth how tough is that going to be so in terms of how we're actually looking at growth um we are actually using what's called the student growth percentile as the way that we are looking at how students perform so the idea behind a student growth percentile is it's taking a look at a student's performance relative to their other student peer group that performed in that same way in the prior years state assessment so that approach in and of itself around what how we actually determine growth does not change what we're highlighting here though is that the number of years of growth data that we have might change because we don't have growth data that would consider school year
1282021 because the assessment was not administered so that is inherent to like this whole approach is that we continue to use the student growth percentile but and we would only be able to use it for the years for which we have data available thank you you're welcome yeah i think that's the other thing i'm glad that theresa said that because it just triggered something else i want to add in response to um commissioner james this question so like a school who um you know was not doing well in math for example right like let's say that was a challenge area like in part we're looking at older data so it's revealing it's important it's pertinent because it's during the contract term but there could be things that they have put in place that are addressing
129it that we don't see yet right you know so some of that is also looking at the evidence and so that's why the approach would be more around making sure there's a pointed plan um to continue to approve so that when they when they are up for renewal in three years do we see that improvement vernon is your hand still up for another question or is it um okay any other board commissioners with questions seeing none is there a motion to approve item 8.05 is there a second thank you commissioners reed and robert all in favor commissioner bondima yes commissioner brooks yes commissioner frank yes commissioner james yes commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner roberts yes and i'm also in favor so that is eight in favor and one absent so we're at the
130point of our agenda where we are going to do information and discussion item 9.01 um i want to vote go back i'm sorry sorry i'm sorry commissioner richardson sorry i wanted to have you guys vote on that so so that it was clear but there's one other thing i want to make sure they're just we're highlighting publicly for the broader school community so sorry about that there's just one more kind of piece okay i'm actually going to let um chief jones kind of talk through this yes i'm sorry i'll just make it brief um we just wanted to remind everyone that even though we're not using survey data for this process based on the vote that was just taken we still need people to administer and take seriously the surveys that are administered and so
131we just called out here as we noted earlier that there are the msde surveys and then there are the city school surveys um and we just want to make sure people continue to pay attention to those and take them seriously um and i will say we should know more here soon around our ability to conduct the msde survey but we are fully committed as a district to implementing our parent survey so that is definitely a go um and that would be using the new instrument that we're in the process of finalizing at this time yep and just and so just to be super clear it's a possibility if you're up for no for renewed three years from now that we would use this data from this year so we haven't made a decision about what
132we do from the data that happened during this year and so that's why it's important that people like fully participate we'll again engage the school community just like we do every year around you know what data should be included and not but it's just important that people fully participate because it's possible that we would want to use this data in the future and that now now we are concluded and i thank you guys so much i want to thank you also um angela for such a thorough presentation um yeah thank you and your team um we had to skip a presentation that i want to go back to so i want us now to hear a follow-up from the previous august presentation on how city schools is supporting lgbtq plus students and other stakeholders thank
133you commissioner richardson i'm josh sivan i'm the chief legal officer for city schools and i'm here with jane ehrenfeld he's our director of fair practices um we're gonna present today but i think that what's important and uc noted is that we are very much doing this as our team with our office of equity and i believe dr durant and chidamawe wanda are here as well for questions and it's a broader team as well as you'll see of across the organization working hard so just as commissioner richardson mentioned um this is a follow-up on the work in august the presentation on the board in august focus on the next slide jane where we laid out a number of work streams in our work to support lgbtq students employees and other stakeholders we want an update on
134where we have come in that work since in the past six months as well as the planning that we're engaged with and is underway for the future and also as an important reminder that this initiative this work aligns with the board's groundbreaking efforts on policy ada our equity policy as well as policy gbb around sex-based discrimination so i will turn it over here to get into the details to jane ehrenfeld thank you chief seven good evening everyone so the first thing that we want to highlight as an accomplishment um as promised is a cross-functional team of district office school-based staff and external stakeholders to focus on the work streams that we'll be talking about in a minute we have had two meetings already of this cross-functional team and some important work has already been accomplished
135including dr durant leading uh some discussion of the ccar agreements and talking about courageous conversations making sure we have the right folks in the room making sure that we have the right mission and vision statement which we'll talk about in a minute and looking at a support protocol that we will also talk about we'll be holding three to four additional meetings in the coming year so just going to pause here for a moment these are the current members of the team and we are still looking for additional student members and any other stakeholders who we might have missed but we've been talking a lot about how to make sure that we're really kind of covering all bases and have all the voices in the room that we need all right so back in august uh
136this was the original mission statement that was presented to the board and we wanted to bring that to the team we felt that it was really important for the team to to work on this and think about what is what is the guiding concept for the work and so this is the current um draft revised mission statement and draft vision statement however i will note it's still in draft form we talked about it again yesterday in our meeting and we do believe that there are a few more updates we'd like to make so we're hoping to get you our next update our final final mission statement but i think it's very important for us to have a shared understanding of purpose and i think the the important piece is really to focus on the supportive
137element of this work so these are the key work streams that were identified for the cross-functional team to focus on and i'm going to go through each one in turn and talk about what was said in august and then what updates we have since then so starting with policy interpretation and implementation as you know and and through the extraordinary visionary leadership of the board we have updated policy jbb and policy acb not only to be in line with new regulations from the federal department of education but really to ensure that they are in line with the vision of this of this initiative um and so there's also been some there have been some legal developments um some of these came before the august presentation but some very important pieces one actually was just last week
138as some of you may know president biden issued an executive order that affirmed the rights of transgender students and the rights of students to for example use restrooms and participate on sports teams corresponding to their gender identity and so we we are keeping abreast of all of the developments they're gonna come quickly i believe in the next few months um one so this is what was presented into the board in august as the work and i will talk through briefly some of the updates since then um we've been strengthening the system-wide title ix coordinator role in the in my in my department the fair practices department we hired a highly experienced um new title ix coordinator courtney calhoun who comes to us with 30-plus years of experience we've been participating in trainings um updating the
139non-discrimination statement really important piece is the identification um of title nine points of contact in every school and a shared set of responsibilities that everyone understands and what and really talking about making visible what that role means in schools and then as as i mentioned before updating jbb and and acb and then following on that streamlining protocols for reporting and addressing um and investigating complaints related to policy jbb policy jick and we're really trying to develop approach that is very user-friendly for school-based employees to be able to implement these policies in real time and working under quick deadlines the next work stream is student engagement support and wholeness and so this is what was presented to the board in august i think it's really important just to contextualize before we move into the updates that
140there's a whole lot of data and research that supports this work and we will be diving into that in much greater depth as part of the cross-functional teamwork but i just want to show some of this data before i move on just to give a sense and many of you i'm sure are familiar with it already but this shows some data um that relates to students across maryland i mean and you're you know we see a lot of heightened rates of bullying of harassment for lgbtq students this comes from the youth risk behavior survey and so it relates specifically to students in baltimore city public schools um higher rates of suicidal ideation of depression um these are really you know they're sobering statistics for sure and then finally we wanted to monitor the impact of
141profit 19 on stu lbgtq students and so we just see some impacts that relate to kova 19 specifically in lgbtq plus youth so updates um on this front we have had we had a great conversation yesterday at our second um at our second meeting of the cross functional team about a school support protocol that we will be rolling out slowly to schools with a lot of supportive training around ensuring that what that students are have a safe environment in which to discuss explore their gender identity and that the and that the school is a safe place for all students we've been working with ascbc they have a new lgbtq plus student liaison and so we're working to get that student liaison onto the cross-functional team and and make sure that we're connecting with them um
142and then cross kind of crosswalking our work with the bullying the city schools bullying task force there's been phenomenal work that's happened since long before august on the on the gender sexual alliance gender sexuality alliance front um and we just really want to showcase that continuing work and it's been really extraordinary to see that even with school going virtual um the work continues and so there have been new advisors trained this year there will be more new advisors trained there have been meetings there have been activities it's just been a really really active place and so um tremendous kudos to the folks who are running the gender sexuality alliances and all the advisors because that work as you can see is continuing on the professional development front um this is what was presented in august
143around professional development um we are in process of developing and vetting new a variety of new trainings for staff so we've started to pilot a training on bullying harassment and intimidation and it encompasses kind of all of the world of bullying and harassment intimidation but also relates to lgbtq plus support and title ix um and we've been soliciting feedback from stakeholders we're working to develop a lgbtq plus support training and we'll be talking about a draft outline for that training at our next next cross-functional team meeting um those trainings we expect to roll out to all staff next year in the 20 20 21 22 school year and then there have been other corollary trainings that have been happening through the year as well which is wonderful because they complement the trainings that we're developing
144on the academics front um here's what was presented in august and we've been having really great conversations with the curriculum team on working to continue to embed and align lbgtq plus issues with existing standards and ensure alignment with updated maryland state standards i want to spotlight the health curriculum so there's not only just the legislative requirements we have a really robust partnership with advocates for youth we have the three r's curriculum and there are multiple ways in which that work embeds into the curriculum from elementary school all the way through high school to ensure that lgbtq plus awareness and support are kind of embedded into everything that students are learning in their health curriculum um we certainly need to keep exploring resources and ensure that the curriculum is implemented with fidelity but there's so much
145work going on already in the schools the next work stream is data management monitoring and communication so these are some of the things that were presented to the board in august and one thing that happened in october for the very first time city schools celebrated lgbtq plus history month and there were all sorts of initiatives that went along with that there were we so we issued in september um coven 19 pandemic guidance related to virtual learning platforms to ensure that students preferred names could be displayed on their virtual learning platforms it was it was rolled out to the whole city school system we've begun the process of updating student record systems to include a designation for non-binary students and then really as i mentioned before updating and streamlining our reporting processes finally the last work
146stream is facilities design and construction so um gender-neutral facilities have been incorporated already into two 21st century school projects and just as a last piece here's a design and a photograph of brand new gender-neutral facilities in in one of our 21st century schools and that's all and we can take any questions that you might have and before we open up um i just wanted to give an opportunity for the equity office dr durant if you want to add anything as but if not i just again want to recognize their amazing partnership in this work uh good evening board uh members and dr santolisa chief seven and uh jane um we're here we actually don't have anything else to add so thanks and we're excited to continue this work and to continue providing updates as we
147go forward okay thank you so much team um i i see some hands going up the first hand i saw was commissioner um james and then commissioner brooks madam uh commissioner richardson i just want to um say i know that you saw those hands but dr brooks commissioner brooks did ask in the chat if some of those bullet points um that were mentioned i believe it's in the highlighted slide the preliminary review of existing external data if some of those points can be um elaborated on or colored a bit more i know you were in the presentation so i'm sure someone probably missed seeing those comments i just want to make sure we get there because those were the first set that was the first set of questions okay i appreciate that flag thank you
148so much commissioner mcsadden which which slide would you like to look at i'm sorry so it starts on slide 16 okay ah the data okay and i think that this slide and the following ones are um are important as part of our work to both recognize the data out there whether in the glsen survey or in on the next slide the youth risk survey that is done and this is particularly the baltimore data and just if we focus on this slide um at the top uh just to because commissioner brooks wanted to focus there um um the the figure for instance of 17.5 percent of lgbtq high school students report being bullied in school compared to 12.4 of of non-lgbtq students and going down for instance if you look at the one two from the
149bottom forty-nine start forty one point nine percent of lgbtq high school students seriously considered attempting suicide compared to 13 of non-lgbtq students so this data like this will be considered at the cross-functional team and inform our work as we go forward yeah that would is that what you want to commissioner brooks yes um so i just wanted to um really uh just uh put uh emphasis there because i just want to know this is actually a particularly um significant moment for the district um i think this is the first time at least that i'm aware of that the district has actually highlighted um that uh we have lgbt students um in our district uh and we have data on it and so um that the youth risk behavior survey uh is administered through um the
150federal government and for many many years they've been collecting this data and so i just wanted to sort of bring it to their attention um because uh i think sometimes it becomes really important to contextualize that um our work around lgbtq and particularly my interest in lgbtq advocacy is really tied to the fact that it's hard to do um well academically uh when you're being bullied the target of harassment and not having full support services within your school system um and then the other host of mental health issues and challenges that can arise and so i just wanted to just kind of acknowledge this and lift this up as significant um not only for our journey forward but also deeply uh grateful and in deep gratitude for all of the cross-functional team members for actually
151making this happen and so i just wanted to say that thank you commissioner brooks i want to go to commissioner james thank you um thank you for your work on this team um this is good stuff my question is there's a lot of reliance on the health curriculum to disseminate this information and knowing that we've got actually very few licensed health teachers in the district and in conversations with elementary school generalists as well as middle school and high school specialists in science where this work is is embedded their their realistic piece is that they're not having time within their curriculum to deliver this so what i would hate to have happen is you put this work in we do this great effort and then it just sits on a shelf so what what's the plan
152for ensuring that this content information gets in the hands of young people so i think that's a really good point commissioner james and i and we've started the work with our um teaching and learning team to make sure that we are we we have the latest and greatest in curriculum we have good partnerships and we also have the training and that the time in terms of implementation to do this work and there were we put a spotlight on the health curriculum but i think that the interest of the teaching and learning team is to look at our other content areas in curriculum and then the implementation to see other opportunities for um sharing resources and embedding uh this support work not just so so we're not just putting freight on the health curriculum so and
153is the health and physical education coordinator part of your your team your cross-functional team so um josh bailey from teaching and learning is and he's been coordinating the work through all of the teaching learning units and we will uh and we have heavily relied on the experts on a health curriculum and have pulled them in already okay so then the next piece that i simply request is we this is a big lift and an important work we've also got the work from the state law on heroin education in it and dissemination of addiction information through health education um could we get a a visual of which schools have health educators across the district um how many health educators we have so that we understand better the needs of professional development for these the teachers that
154are delivering this content to make sure they're not using biased language to make sure they understand the full scope of what teaching a comprehensive sex education and body awareness curriculum looks like through an lgbtq lens um to make sure that the resources are in place to ensure this content is delivered in an appropriate manner and and if i could be if i could suggest that that is and will be one of the guiding questions as we look at curriculum so in our next update on this maybe we could incorporate that in unless you want that information sooner and then we'd be happy to follow up um i think definitely ongoing as a continual inclusion um i'm concerned if my time if my term on the board ends the question dies um so sooner would be
155better to have that information um you know and especially because i don't know that we have the capacity to train every elementary school teacher and every science teacher so really looking and ensuring that we have a licensed health educator in at least every cluster of buildings to make sure this information can get disseminated in a way that isn't re-traumatizing and i think this is where our partnerships with external organizations that are coming in and supporting is also really critical so we can also just make sure that we embed that in in what we share out is how external organizations are supporting that work as well yeah and certainly external partners are important but also having that that teacher in place in the building absolutely so um commissioner brooks did you take your hand down because
156i did you did have your hand up um did did you get everything you wanted or did should i come back to you oh you can come back because i think i'm commissioner mcfadden yeah oh okay so we'll we'll do mcfadden then we'll come to you back to you okay great thank you perfect commissioner mcfadden i appreciate it yeah i appreciate that um commissioner richardson um in response to that just to follow up um with uh dr james's um comments i would like a christian mr gann if we could work with the teaching and learning office to have a update with the teaching and learning committee um i'm not sure where that would fit in our calendar i know that this update is coming to the full board um but i think that if we
157um kind of narrow in committee a little bit more um that this will continue to be a way that the board will remain updated um on this work that is happening so that is my ask right now for us to schedule some time for this to come back to teaching and learning committee so that we can have a more robust conversation about this but also about plans where where we're going and where we're moving you captured that christian yes okay commissioner brooks yeah and i just wanted to um say that um i know that having um some conversation so uh building on both what commissioner james commissioner james mentioned um around sort of i know that compliance um is really important uh for us uh uh it's for me specifically in terms of um making
158sure that or rather ensuring that we're capturing the the right and appropriate information um and make sure that our uh our plans uh to integrate these pieces sort of uh happen and they happen effectively um and so i'm so uh um so i think that's a conversation that i would love to continue to have and i met with uh chief sivan um and that was definitely uh on his radar and so i'm really confident that we will sort of have a plan in place to begin to capture um the effectiveness and the fidelity of this work uh moving forward so that's really exciting to me um i mean to really also join um commissioner mcfadden uh in terms of sort of integrating this at multiple different points into different work streams uh i am in
159complete um agreement and alignment with that uh and i guess the the only thing that i also wanted to say is um i think some of our work again as we found this uh this presentation to focus a lot on the the health component of this um and i believe it was dr duran who mentioned it sort of having to sort of disentangle um sort of the compliance aspects of this work with the affirmative um sort of uh proactive approaches and i think this is the beginning of that and i think um if we can continue to focus in on sort of those wholeness um so i'm you know really looking at the whole um whole office folks who are um whole child folks who do that work in terms of building and wrap around
160service to really create a positive environment and culture um that we can get to a place where it's not just in the lgbt folks are just talked about in our health curriculum but actually talked about in terms of every aspect of their education um and even their safety and willingness and mental health um and including their sexual health in schools and so um again you know just major kudos to uh to this work and uh looking forward to watching grow and to that point commissioner brooks i think that you are seeing uh um jane and i presenting today with support from the equity unit but um we have with us uh you see uh sarah warren chiming in and denise lane shining in there has been real support across the organization and including our schools
161and engagement here so um we may not be the best uh vehicles to convey that but i just wanted to assure you that we are really thinking across and we have gotten um very as we as we planned the cross-functional team and we wanted to be very planful at how we rolled it out um we really got very strong engagement from the various offices we reached out to and even the ones that don't have a member there we've actually talked to and they volunteered to come in as as necessary and also those conversations have helped prom prompt already engagement in the work um we had a great conversation that i referenced earlier but just want to stress with um denise lane and her team and josh bailey being our contact to that to think about
162um embed embedding this work across our teaching and learning work in a way that is um sensitive to um and and and thinks about all the different ways in which we can engage with vendors and the like so i really appreciate sarah and denise for chiming in to echo and and emphasize the important collaborative effort here and i think commissioner brooks this is why we want to really make sure to get that mission and vision statement exactly right and that's the conversation we've been having about it because if we have a shared vision of what the work is and that and as i mentioned before kind of focusing on the supportive element the affirmative element then i think that will guide every piece of what we do from here on out so thank you for
163raising that thank you all are there any other questions or comments from the commissioners so hearing hearing none we have a second presentation we will now hear the first reader presentation from the office of human capital on policy gb ebb staff conduct with students good evening commissioners my name is uh jerome jones i'm the director of labor relations and office of human capital and i'm here for the first reader of gb ebb staff conduct with students this policy was originally enacted in 2011 it combined a number of previous board rules and so we're back to update this policy um affirming the need to maintain professional ethical and respectful relationships between city school students and that our staff act as role models for students at all times uh today we're proposing revisions to both gb ebb
164the policy and the accompanying regulations uh since the enactment of the original policy there have been some additions in the law legal requirements that we had updated for and we were very purposeful in incorporating mental and emotional well-being of students when we talk about appropriate conduct in interaction with students we also emphasize uh the applicability of electronic interactions since that has uh skyrocketed without pandemic in the interactions we're doing electronic with our students we've been very explicit about the types of improper behavior the policy addresses and we want to clarify the responsibilities for investigation and into staff misconduct again the purpose of the policy has reaffirmed the board's commitment to safety and the physical and mental mental and emotional well-being of students and set forth standards that require staff to engage appropriately using all interaction
165all electronic interaction with students including all of the messaging apps text apps and other electronic communications okay we uh in the policy updating we will clearly define the list of uh interactions that you see here uh specifically talking about mental injury which didn't exist before and the other one i'd like to call out here that we did not have before was grooming uh and we also we want to talk about that from staff grooming students as well as staff grooming parents to get to students next slide the policy standards again it sets forth expectations for employees to build positive relationships with students uh it behaves sexual misconduct or any other type of improper fast prioritization of behavior between staff and students and it additionally it directs staff not to entertain students socially entertain students socially
166interact with students or spend excessive amounts of time with students in a manner that could reasonably create the impression of improper behavior here's another divisions in the policy discrimination bullying harass inappropriate verbal interactions with students electronic interactions and we also talk about transporting students alone in a vehicle without permission it directs the ceo another piece we have added in here directs a ceo to designate produce and regularly update an employee code of conduct to outline appropriate boundaries between staff and students requires staff training regarding prevention identification and reporting of sexual misconduct and also the policy continues to require an annual report to the board regarding status and disposition of all cases of allegations of violations of this policy uh the regulation uh talks about addresses communication and training related to the policy screening of prospective
167staff the duty and process for reporting violations of the policy investigation and procedures resolution of complaints and a prohibition on recommendations for future employment when sexual misconduct is suspected or alleged so the other thing we've added here is under gb under this regulation we have what's called a discipline committee that would be made up of a chief human capital officer chief of schools uh someone from academics and the chief legal counsel as an advisor that we would present quarterly the trends the data on substantiated misconduct cases looking at any demographic trends to ensure that the disciplinary recommendations are consistently applied from an equity standpoint and also the committee would also review the yearly compliance report that is prior to the submission to the board some of the stakeholders with the office of human capital legal
168offers has been a big contributor in updating the policy we've reached out to schools office last week presented to pcapp and looking for feedback from them we're going to reach out to these associated student congress of baltimore city and all of our bargaining uh units have received a copy of the policy and the company regulation for feedback from them on on this policy because it has the potential to impact every employee uh of city schools at some time if you know if there are allegations or if they see uh inappropriate behavior by any of our students i mean by any of our valuable and that is the presentation um i would look forward to any feedback uh to myself so that when we come back for second reader we will update any feedback from the
169partners we've reached out to in updating the policy and the company regulations any questions from the four commissioners oh commissioner mcfadden has his hand up i just want to uh you know make a comment um to just thank you for the presentation mr jones and i appreciate um you including after our policy meeting um the incorporation of those bargaining units and making sure that they have the information i would just encourage us um to follow up with them also i know we send it and we solicit their feedback initially but i would just encourage to make sure as as much as we possibly can to get an authentic response from them um to really inform this particular policy revision so i just want to say that i appreciate the work that you do on behalf
170of city school staff and i look forward to hearing um what the engagement looks like as we come back the second reader thank you i will certainly reach out and make sure we get feedback from all of our partners any other comments or questions okay so next on our agenda first of all thank you jerome jones for your presentation and your work on this thank you um i as it relates to committee reports i just want to remind the public that our committee meetings are all recorded and you can review them at your convenience i have to give you all a notice of our upcoming meetings and so our next teaching and learning committee meeting it will be virtual and it is on tuesday february the 2nd and it will start at 3 30 pm
171our komar hearing is a virtual meeting and it is on tuesday february 9th and it starts at 8 o'clock p.m our operations committee meeting is a virtual meeting and it will be on tuesday february the 16th and it starts at 10 30 a.m and lastly our policy committee meeting is a virtual meeting and it will be on tuesday february the 16th at 3 30 pm we can adjourn if there are are there any questions or comments from our board before we adjourn commissioner richardson before we do that i just want to um make sure that someone from our board office staff or staff in general just reminds people where they can find those recordings i'm not sure if they're on the city school's website or if they're on youtube i think we should just be
172clear on how to access those committee meetings and then also just as a reminder to the public um how they can sign up to speak for public comment because we do offer public comment at this point and all of our committee so i just want to make sure we're clear about that to the public before we leave sure thank you so much i appreciate that yes uh so they are posted on the city schools youtube page and the board offers also includes a link after the meetings on board docs so you go to the specific meeting and you can click and it'll say video as far as sign up uh sign up be for the committees begins on mondays and ends on at 5 p.m on i'm sorry fridays and ends at 5 p.m on
173mondays and you can sign up for committees by reaching out to school board at bcps.md.ufmdiu excuse me uh as far as the public board meetings uh ms the information's on the notices but latrice jones uh is the staff person uh who is the designated for public comment so you can email her on board meeting days between 4 15 and 5 15 with either an email no longer than no more than 300 words a video of three minutes or less or you can comment live also for three minutes and that that information is um for public board means it's usually tweeted out by our coms team uh every friday so it includes the notice but it's also on the website thank you christian for that that was very helpful thank you i see michelle um commissioner
174bondima's hand yeah and we're at the end of the meeting and i just want to before we close the meeting i want to say and i'm sure the board would like to say it was a wonderful well well-presented well-run meeting in and i enjoy being with you commissioner richardson well done thank you so much commissioner van dimer i appreciate that thank you um are we ready to adjourn is there a motion i move that we adjourn this public board meeting is there a second second reason thank you commissioners mcfadden and reid all in favor bondima yes brooks yes um commissioner frank had to leave james yes mcfadden yes reed yes robert yes commissioner sykes is not here i am also in favor so that is let me see if i can get this one right
175that is seven in favor and three absent correct okay good night everybody thank thank you for joining us in our public meeting we'll see you next time bye-bye thank you you