August 25, 2020 School Board Meeting

001[Music] good afternoon again this is before chair linda and i'd like to welcome you all to the public board meeting of the baltimore city school of school baltimore city board of school commissioners um just a reminder to uh folks listening to be sure to mute your phone i'm going to start with a roll call uh to identify which board members are on the call and a reminder to board members that continue um even though i believe i have a video please um identify yourselves as we go as you are ready to speak so let's um see who's here i see commissioner bondima yes commissioner commissioner yes yes okay commissioner frank okay commissioner james yes ma'am commissioner mcfadden commissioner i see commissioner reed commissioner richardson commissioner roberts commissioner sykes and i am here okay so i

002have i'm counting five uh am i correct um board exec yes although commissioner mcfadden is having uh we're texting he's having some tech issues so he'll be joining momentarily oh okay all righty thank you um is there a motion to reopen the meeting thank you okay and all those in favor commissioner vandim are you in favor of reopening yes yes thank you commissioner brooke yes thank you uh commissioner james yes commissioner uh okay has commissioner frank joined or mcfadden commissioner reed yes um does commissioner richardson join okay commissioner roberts i see you are you in favor of reopening remember the robbers are you in favor of reopening okay i see commissioner frank are you in favor of reopening yes thank you um commissioner i'm yikes favor uh did commissioner mcfadden rejoin us i don't know

003if you all can hear me but i'm completely knocked out of all of everything so can you hear me okay we can hear you are you in favor of rejoining i am reopening the meeting i'm sorry not rejoined yes i am okay okay so i have um seven in favor i'm i'm going to commissioner kenya richardson yes okay thank you um so i have eight in favor and um am i counting this correctly one absent that's not correct did we get commissioner frank's uh vote yes okay i believe that's nine and one you're right thank you okay so this ocean passes thanks a lot i'd like to take uh time to recognize unfortunately the passing of uh city school employees and students and um we know that they could all be remembered fondly by the

004greater city school community and tonight we send our deepest condolences to their friends and families um dr ann osborne emery was one of the most beloved and venerated educators of the baltimore city public school systems and she has done she was 93. her career in public school education spans several decades from louisiana to maryland and during the course of her career as a teacher and school administrator she positively impacted the lives of thousands of young people she all uh that she that all referred to her and she referred to them as her children dr emery was born on may 15 1927 in thomasville alabama she moved to baltimore with her husband and their three sons after successful after a successful teaching career in louisiana she attended what was then morgan state college where she earned

005a master's degree in education and then attended attended temple university in philadelphia where she was awarded a doctorate degree in education dr emery served as the vice principal of lamell junior high school in west baltimore in the 1960s and early 1970s before moving on to become principal of walbrook high school she later helped to found the blueford jamison stem academy and dr emery also provided leadership and service for decades with her involvement in several groups and organizations including the baltimore chapter of 100 black women the baltimore city commission for women and the tuskegee national alumni association judith dixon and dixon passed away on sunday june 21st 2020 judy was born in baltimore and um has one daughter she was and also a granddaughter judith had a passion for helping others and teaching children she earned

006a master's degree and was an educator and principal at james mchenry elementary and other students for over 30 years she loves spending time with her grandchild and she will be lovingly missed by her family and many friends angela seton began her career with city schools as a special education teacher in 1972 until becoming an ard manager in 1984. after joining city schools central office staff as an ard chair person in 1993 she transitioned several times with each physician earning additional responsibilities and respect until ultimately becoming the principal of francis m wood high school for which she retired in 2013. during retirement she often used her extraordinary educational experience to assist former co-workers by taking on short-term assignments such as the agile professor and clinical supervisor at coppin state university along with acting director and other

007administrative assignments for city schools angela used her educational proficiencies to enrich the lives of thousands of city schools students and their families in addition to the same experiences they also influenced her to become an exemplary person and example for her family co-workers and many friends it's with deep regret that we inform you of the passing of janelle robinson who served in city schools for 12 years as a teacher at yorkwood elementary miss robinson unfortunately departed on june 30 2020 and will be missed greatly by her family friends and city schools we also inform you of the passing of shannon riviera who served in city schools for 17 years as a psychologist at gardenville elementary mrs revere unfortunately departed on august 12 2020 and she will also be missed by her family friends and city schools

008junior molina de moos rising senior at national foundation baltimore he went through a metamorphosis during the past two years and transformed into an amazing student leader who supported esol students and worked with staff to make naf a great place to learn unfortunately his life was accidentally cut short during a family outing at fedora state park where he drowned while swimming with his family he loved soccer helping others and coordinating events through his hospitality pathway junior was loved by many and will be missed by his family friends and the entire naf community may i ask that we take a moment of silence remembering all of these folks who were a great part of our city school system thank you and now is um is there a motion to approve the open the prior open um session

009minutes so moved richardson thank you there a second second brooks thank you and those in favor commissioner vandima commissioner bondima are you in favor yes okay commissioner brooke yes commissioner frank yes commissioner uh james yes mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes richardson yes roberts okay i'm in favor and they're no up no on the pose of saying so that is nine in favor and one absent an emotion carries now is there a motion um to approve the closed session summaries so move on dima thank you sarah second second richardson thank you and those in favor uh commissioner von dimas yes brooks yes frank yes james yes mcfadden yes reed yes richardson yes uh roberts yeah okay i'm in favor that's nine in favor um and no one opposed so that's this also passes so thank you

010uh this evening as part of the board chair comments i'd like to acknowledge um several new members of the parent community advisory board pcapp um angie winder melissa strober kiara davis griffin and schiller uh welcome aboard we look forward to working with you i also want to congratulate the new peak cab executive committee chair uh the chair is joe kane vice chair linea cornish secretary rachel duncan and treasurer larry simmons i also want to congratulate miss winifred winston and mr mike benoit on their elections as chair and vice chair respectively of the special education citizens advisory committee ccac we appreciate your partnership and look forward to working with you as well and now i have the pleasure of recognizing uh retirees with over 30 years of service i believe that mr augustus harrington is on

011um mr harrington hopefully you're there are you there sir okay well he began working with the baltimore city public schools on september the 1st 1986 he most recently served as the assistant principal of carver academy mr harrington faithfully served the children of baltimore city for 44 years so congratulations we also want to recognize cassandra edwards who served baltimore city schools for 31 years and 10 months she retired her last assignments were included vanguard and digital harbor high school we recognized odetta i'm sorry uh loretta drake sorry who served for 34 years and five months uh who um served at um as a non-instructional assistant at this at the same location at northwood elementary for her entire time susan penn uh is another retiree who served baltimore city schools for 40 years and 5 months retiring

012from william packa and victor i'm sorry i'm having trouble with my glasses tonight victor sisson uh retired after 45 years and one month um he's he which he served the school system he completed his career at eager street academy and last but not least we also want to acknowledge laurel delaney who served baltimore city schools for 31 years and 10 months as a special educator uh um she retired i believe from digital harbor but she also served no our final assignment was at waverly elementary school so congratulations to all of these folks we hope that you will enjoy uh your retirement we thank you for the for all of the service that you provided for our students and uh the last thing that i'd like to do is uh to on behalf of the board

013just to acknowledge that we have been we have received uh petitions from several folks uh uh only one safe petition uh we do want you to know that as board members uh we we have read these and we do listen we will continue um to offer opportunities for the community uh to share ideas and concerns and we will also promise you that we will continue our very strong collaboration with many folks to try to address some of the issues that you've mentioned and and our collaboration will be with both our local state and federal representatives leaders and legislators um also our partners in advocacy we also have uh collaborations with uh philanthropic supporters with community organizations um uh with some of our local other schools and colleges and universities and so we want to encourage

014everyone including the folks who have sent have signed the petition to really join in um an important area of advocacy and that is going to be around funding because many of the issues that were brought out in the petition are really going to hinge on having the adequate funding to provide what we know should be adequate educational opportunities for all of our students this is going to be an important year given both uh the fact that the current legislation was not signed off on as well as the um impact that we've had from the corona virus and so it is going to be important that we stay together in collaboration uh to support and to remind all of the folks who make decision decisions about the importance of having the kinds of funds that we

015need to support the work that we need to do with that i'm going to see ask if there is a motion to approve the personnel employment payroll the pep agenda so moved richardson thank you is there a second second brooks thank you um just just to let folks remind folks that i i have separated the two pieces because we need to have a vote for one of them so um those in favor uh and this is for the pep agenda uh commissioner bandina yep yes brooks yes mr frank yes james yes mcfadden yes reid yes richardson yes roberts yes and i'm in favor so that's nine in favor no abstentions and no opposed and now is there a motion um to approve the quasi-judicial matter so move brooks thank you is there a second second

016richardson thank you uh those in favor uh commissioner bondima yes brooks yes frank yes mcfadden yes reed yes richardson yes roberts yes okay i'm in favor are there any opposed or any abstentions james abstending i'm abstaining okay abstaining i'm sorry okay so we have uh aid in favor one abstaining and uh this motion also passes thank you so i'm not going to turn um over to dr lisa's uh for ceo comments thank you commissioner kenya um good evening everyone um uh this will be our last board meeting uh prior to the opening of school on september 8th and so i wanted to take this opportunity and review some important information for our families and students i am very excited uh for the start of school um even though it will be the first time um

017for baltimore city schools that we will be opening 100 virtually and i do want to emphasize that all students um are still are required to um fulfill the immunization requirements as we prepare to reenter by the first day of school this is a state department requirement city health department is partnering with us to make sure that all of our children your children are protected um the rails clinic um at kipp baltimore is also providing this year immunizations to all bcps students um but both there and through the city health department uh just keep in mind that they do require advanced appointments um and that appointments are available from eight to five um on weekends city schools is also this year offering online registration for all students in all grades this year so if you haven't

018yet enrolled your student please as soon as possible by visiting our city schools web page and clicking on the registration link for those with limited technology access in-person enrollment will still be available buy in by appointment uh please email or call to set up a convenient time but i do want to emphasize for those who can we are finding that the online registration process is in fact much faster now in in speaking about online uh city schools to be committed to provide students with the devices that they need to participate in virtual learning this school year families may obtain laptops and internet hot spots if needed for their students directly from their schools we are beginning that process have begun that process this week but please note that you should cut after you've contacted your

019school about your desire for a device the school will then let you know at their site when it will be available we have really worked to make sure that we will have a device available for every student but please know that there is also some international challenges around delivery of devices for schools across the country so we may have some delay but just a shout out to the team for locating kind of emergency procurements of devices in the face of this international challenge but families the major message is to contact your school directly about need and then they will contact you about when in fact you can pick up your devices as you know based on the current covid progression we continue to confer with the city health department with our health advisory team and

020so we have decided to delay that start of in-person learning but again school will officially open on september 8th and families should note that attendance will be taken daily as we begin the new school year and as we really move to implement additional structures and supports based on our learning uh from uh from the school year uh in the spring um i also want to invite uh everyone to review closing the distance which is our plan for reopening baltimore city schools this fall you can find the plan it's available on our website and it is filled with information that will answer your questions and help families prepare students for success the district will continue to plan for some small in-person opportunities for learning but please make sure that you stay tuned to our website in

021contact with your school and we will absolutely be sure as promised to update you on a future steps within the fall by mid-october but in the meantime we are looking forward to a more enriched and engaging virtual learning experience based on our learning from some of our model teachers as well as from families and feedback from young people themselves i'm going to take a brief pause in my comments right now and ask chief grant skinner for this evening's pep agenda and then i will return after the question she's brent skinner thank you son good evening commissioners we have nine appointments this evening and except for a couple where i will know otherwise they are all effective tomorrow august 26th uh first carolyn rason fernandez educational specialist too is appointed coordinator for specialized instruction monique smith

022a social worker is appointed educational specialist to student wholeness uh effective august 31st anitra washington uh educational associate at western high school is appointed assistant principal at western jacqueline giddens uh director of teaching and learning at the bel air edison school is appointed assistant principal at the beller edison school kimberly davis elementary teacher f furman templeton preparatory academy is appointed assistant principal at furman templeton samuel coffey elementary teacher at rosemont elementary middle school is appointed assistant principal at rosemont monica campbell educational associate at baltimore montessori public charter school is appointed assistant principal at baltimore montessori uh theodore spain assistant principal at the william s baer school is reassigned assistant principal at joseph c briscoe academy and jane ehrenfeld legal consultant is appointed or was appointed director of fair practices and compliance effective today thank you

023very much thank you chief grant skinner for this evening's pep agenda and congratulations to everyone who's either joining city schools or continuing with city schools in a new role thank you chief starting tomorrow teachers and 10-month staff will return to provide additional time for a high quality professional learning and really to make sure that there are additional learning opportunities and time to acquire skills and tools and to really have more robust learning than we were able to provide in the fall given excuse me in the spring given the short notice and the quick turnaround time as part of our commitment to support school readiness any school-based staff directly related to instruction who need a computer for instruction should notify their school administrator and a computer will be provided it was good to see and to

024have um educators uh beginning on monday um who are coming up picking up devices and giving great so feedback make sure that you notify your school um if you are a teacher or a an educator directly related to instruction so that we can make sure you have a computer i also want to give a huge shout out uh to laura o'hannian and more than 50 staff who all volunteered and i want to emphasize that to participate in our very successful in-person summer learning program we had thanks to all of you 200 students who were most impacted by distance learning meaning young people who either were unengaged did not connect had low engagement during the spring benefited from in-person in-person engagement in small groups in july and august a big thank you to each and every

025one of you for your leadership dedication to our students in real commitment and to helping us learn what school and teaching and learning can look like in this new environment so thank you to all of you at the same time i have been receiving and reading feedback regarding our plans for virtual learning as we launch we are committed to remaining open for feedback throughout the fall i do know that there are some who feel that our decision to conduct online live slash synchronous learning with teachers five days a week is asking too much from both teachers and students and i absolutely do realize that we are asking a lot from our teachers which is one of the reasons that we've scheduled the eight days of professional learning prior to the arrival on september 8th we

026heard from large numbers of teachers the need and rightly so to have greater opportunity to develop their skills their get acclimated to this new environment and so we are working very hard to ensure that our teachers have the appropriate equipment and training to deliver high quality virtual learning to our students including our most vulnerable student groups many of whom really did not benefit in the spring but that we want to benefit from virtual instruction and the fact that we really do need to get this right this fall we should also bear in mind that our students are among those making a number of sacrifices families making frontline sacrifices to protect communities during this crisis so we really believe that it is important that we remember that our most vulnerable students especially our black and brown

027students are most in danger of being left behind really by this unprecedented interruption in their schooling we are asking students to sacrifice the in learning opportunities and experiences activities from which they normally would have benefited so it is our collective obligation to deliver a virtual learning series of opportunities that effectively engage our young people nurture their curiosity foster their academic success and provide opportunities for social connectedness and we know that we have the seeds and some of the practice of our very talented educators um who really led um in the spring with very engaging continuous teaching of new material throughout the spring and so we must be sure um that we meet both the social emotional needs and the academic support that our young people need and that can only be accomplished by providing them

028with as much quality time and instruction as in pot as possible um with with the teachers who know them and care for them um so yes it is vital that we provide daily synchronous learning environment for our students that will meet their needs recent studies project potentially significant learning loss when students received even average remote learning in the spring and much larger losses when they received low quality remote learning um and it is projected that the learning laws would probably be greater for low-income black and latino students so we opted for more synchronous learning time with teachers to help prevent that learning loss we believe our students deserve similar live instruction to what they might find in other schooling environments rather than less in order to connect early on with our students who have told

029us overwhelmingly that connections to teachers that regular touch point the ability to ask questions and providing more in-depth supports in more structured learning environments has a positive impact on their learning we know that the amount of course time provided to students in a virtual model is less than what they would receive in an in-person model and we will work to make sure that that time is not just students spent aimlessly in front of screens but really bringing some of the creativity and focus and actual teaching support that we saw in a number of classrooms already from the student perspective prior to the outside of the pandemic this spring the limited amount of distance learning they experienced in public education precluded significant research into appropriate screen time specific to synchronous instruction in the absence of definitive

030research we looked at best practice from other long-standing providers of distance learning with more than two decades of experience in their models students can spend anywhere from three to six hours daily in live instruction with additional asynchronous learning i understand that it's not easy but nothing that we have done together since march and least of all for their students and their families has been easy we will continue to adapt and adjust as we need to best serve our students there is no way we can make up for the loss of learning that occurred with schools closing in march without live instruction which many students reported over and over that they needed and missed acutely this past spring in summary like many of our experiences under covid our school schedules and times identified for synchronous learning

031represent our review of best practice and available research as we now have it we know that this information will continue to evolve as school systems across the country and schools across our district adapt to the current situation we will absolutely continue to assess the efficacy of all of our practices through learning acquired as the year unfolds and make whatever adjustments are needed to accelerate student learning and wellness during this very challenging period in the mean time we will continue to focus on what is best for students that concludes my remarks for this evening thank you chair chinea i will turn um turn things over back to you thank you thank you dr santolisas we have uh one information and discussion item on this evening and we will actually have that presented uh after public comment

032so i just want folks that you're checking the the um the schedule our agenda to to note that all right so with this commission going to oh commission i was gonna say we have to wait until six for public comment so i wasn't sure if we could uh do lgb uh do the information discussion item now staff was ready thank you i wasn't looking we also haven't reviewed the consent agenda we could do that as well i'm sorry i didn't hear the last thing i'm sorry we haven't gotten to jennifer madam chair um we haven't looked at the consent agenda for what items might want to be pulled i don't know that that's correct that was that's where i was heading wait that's why i thought you were going that's not right okay um the

033question was if we wanted to do the information first and then i moved to that before public comment so that that that's where i was because we have to wait until six o'clock anyway for the public comment so i if if um if the presenters are ready i would suggest that we do the information um item and discussion item and that will give us that time and then we'll then then we'll move into the consent agenda um so can we do the presentation um on city schools supporting the lgbtq plus students and other stakeholders are those folks ready we're ready and i thank you thank you i think dr santalisis wants to start all right sure thank you um uh josh i will just say uh directly but thank you um so uh where we

034are now with regards to uh what we are presenting um is absolutely uh the follow-up uh to a lot of our discussions around policy but also we'll touch on areas with regards for implementation as we look to better support our lgbtq students and other stakeholders what you will see from our chief legal counsel from chief sivan is a walk through of the general areas and target points and will be followed subsequently as an actual implementation plan so what you will not see this evening uh will be actual dates or timelines those will be forthcoming but tonight really is to provide the board of commissioners and the public with an update on how we are moving with this work that chief sivan and his team are leading along with cross-functional participation from different teams thank you

035chief sivan thanks for those framing and let's start with the first slide and wanted to start with policy jbb and acknowledge the board's work in april of 2019 really in the work leading up to that to adopt our and and revise and update our policy on sex-based discrimination to confirm that city schools long-standing prohibition against sex-based discrimination also includes discrimination based on gender identity gender expression sexual orientation and non-conformance to stereotypical notions of masculinity and or femininity the other key work in that policy is to clarify complaint and investigation procedures and also to cover a number of key topics ranging from dress codes to access to gender segregated facilities to student records and athletics and physical education so um that was the work in april and i think that this presentation if we switch to

036the next slide really is situated in policy and legal compliance and this is a key moment for a lawyer to say it's not just policy and legal compliance but we're really trying to move beyond with the idea that we as city schools want to ensure robust compliance with our all our legal requirements and board policies but also we want to put in place a framework that can mitigate complaints over the long run really by building capacity to implement safe and secure environments for all we serve generally but particularly to this presentation in the lgbtq plus community and to that end and really with the framing that dr sandalisi has set out we're working to establish a cross-functional team of both district staff and school-based staff co-facilitated my my office in the office of equity and

037you may have seen on the pep agenda that uh jane ehrenfeld is joining us as the new director of fair practices she couldn't have come at a better moment because this work will be something that she spearheads and she's worked um started as a teacher but also has worked at the office of civil rights in the department of education so really brings that knowledge and energy to this work so so this cross-functional team of offices and district staff and school-based staff wants to work to build out what we talk about in this presentation for key work streams for 20 20 21 school year and beyond and we want to some of the key work that the committee will the work team will do the cross-functional work team will do is to really make sure that

038the presentation here is a framework it sets out key work streams but we want to make sure that all of our work is informed by our stakeholders starting with our students and moving behind our students to other community advocate staff and stakeholders to ensure that we're flexible nimble and responsive enough to make sure that we're really meeting the needs of our community starting with our students to promote that safe secure and healthy environment and that is particularly important in the work we're doing to respond to the copen19 pandemic just some framing as we go to the next slide that our work in cities so sorry um the key work streams that we'll get to i start to jump but the key work streams we'll get to are the ones listed here um lots of work

039across cross groups various work groups so these are the initial framing of them but we can adjust these as we need both policy interpretation and implementation student engagement support and wholeness staff professional development academics data management monitoring and communication and facilities and then to the next slide we want to make sure just to situate for the board and particularly when we start with policy development implementation that there's a broader legal context in a legal landscape out there so as a lawyer i had to go back to the law but just a really important development was that the u.s supreme court ruled this term in a case called bostic that the prohibition against sex-based employment discrimination covers lgbtq plus employees very significant development by a court in opinion authored by justice gorsuch then the u.s department

040of education has issued new regulations for title ix which prohibits sex-based discrimination in k-12 schools and higher education you may have seen a number of court cases have been filed around these rules and we're watching closely as they go through and they may as we go on require us to look again at the grievance procedures and the complaint procedures in our policies and regulations and we will continue to update the board in the community about that to make sure that we're aligned with the regulations as they evolve and any court cases that come out of that then the final development just to note as we're going through and you'll see how we're responding to it is that the maryland state department of education has issued updates its student records manual which really are helpful to

041clarify processes for students seeking name and gender changes based on gender identity and off also in line with recent state law on driver's licenses authorizing use of non-binary gender designations in school documents including school enrollment documents i'll come back to both of those points but just again to be clear that the there's a broader context in forming our work which we want to be responsible to that broader context but also what's happening on the ground here in baltimore so switch to the next slide so in the slides that follow we really talk about some key points on the various work streams that we identified this is not meant to be all inclusive but some key highlights both in terms of current work and work for the future um so a couple current points on the

042policy interpretation and implementation we're working to strengthen the system-wide title ix coordinator role in the office of legal counsel which really makes sure that we are ensuring compliance with those federal laws that under guard our policy and regulation we're also identifying a bullying cyber bullying and title ix point of contact in every school and clarifying and ensuring that they have the support they need to have those roles and so folks in schools will understand who that person is and they can reach out to them we've also provided important updates consistent with a policy to our non-discrimination statement on the website and in key publications so people really understand in plain language that there are a variety of important non-discrimination rules out there that protect all the members of our community in court including our lgbtq

043plus community and then i think that as we go forward we also really want to make sure that we're streamlining the protocols that are used for reporting and investigating not just policy jvb complaints but also complaints under related policies we have another policy on bullying harassment or intimidation of students and one on student non-discrimination we want to ensure that for students parents and staff that when they have a concern it's accessible to make sure that the forms that exist are available and that there's no there's we limit and minimize the confusion among the various strands because what we really want to do regardless of who files what forms to make sure that concerns are raised elevated and promptly addressed and then ongoing work that i believe starts to come to the policy committee this fall

044is to update our employee related anti-discrimination policies to ensure that they align with the work previously done for the board on policy jvb that applies to students so let's switch to the next slide so now we're moving beyond the policy implementation really to what i emphasized early really thinking about how we can not just be ensuring that we are fully compliant with all laws and regulations but really moving to a support focused approach to our work to ensure that in our work we are moving step by step to put student health safety and welfare of all students at the forefront of the work that we're doing and so in the bullets that follow focus first on our student engagement support and wholeness work you'll see some strands of that work emphasized as we move forward

045one of those strands focus is on expanding the work that um our wholeness unit does to prioritize creating a greater sense of student emotional safety and belonging focusing on supporting students and expressing their identities including their gender and sexual identities and then also really developing what i'd call a playbook to ensure that our school leaders and and key personnel like counselors and social workers have the protocols the tools in place to ensure students are having equal access and opportunity to participate in programs we also want to recognize and support the good work that's going on in schools already including student-led groups like the gsas or gender sexuality alliances we want to focus particularly on targeted outreach and just mentioned in particular lgbtq students who are homeless or at risk of being homeless we've done important

046work in our wholeness group around supports for homeless students and recognizing supports for this group of student homeless students as well and we also want to support school-based initiatives and explore ways where students can feel comfortable going to particular safeguards or zones or places in schools where they can feel safe and comfortable and free from judgment i we put up the safe zone sticker that a number of other districts have used and so we'll explore that work as well and i should mention here that our work has been informed by what's going on in other student school districts and a variety of stakeholders and will continue to expand that benchmarking work let's look to the next slide so staff professional development will be a key part of this work we want to roll out during

047this 2021 school year training beginning with school leaders and other key players in promoting safe and supportive environments including such as counselors and others there's been some significant training but we want to deepen that work as well and then you'll see on the slide some of the sample training objectives that we think will be important both based on models from other districts and organizations but we really want to do the work to make sure that we're informed by input from city school stakeholders in developing effective and supportive training let's switch to the next slide um in in our academic work we want to hold up the model of our health education curriculum which provides lessons at all of the age all of the levels where we do the health curriculum on treating people of all

048gender identities and expressions with dignity and respect and we want to expand our inclusive curricular content across other disciplines as well to make sure we're supporting lgbtq students and also we're raising the awareness of all students let's switch to the next slide so we grouped a bunch of things together in this slide and maybe we'll break out as we go along but a couple key points on data management monitoring and communication one is that and this is particularly timely in light of the coven 19 pandemic we wanted to make sure really in response to questions from students and from teachers and parents that all of our virtual learning platforms appropriately are able to display students name and gender consistent with their gender identity we also are working remember the student record manual guidance that i

049mentioned at the beginning we're working to clarify our protocols for student name changes and gender requests in alignment with this updated guidance as well as our student record systems to include a designation for non-binary students if students choose to identify that way and then we want to in the forward-going work we want to evaluate data on our current reporting processes so that that helps inform opportunities for refinement and integration of our sex-based discrimination processes with other school climate and equity related data and make sure that we're focusing on identifying and addressing root causes of lgbtq student bullying and harassment along with other student bullying and harassment and there is some data already up you can see on the msd website that we report every year to the state on bullying and harassment but we want

050to make sure that our bullying harassment data and our data for sex-based discrimination are really aligned and then informing areas where we need to work to redouble our efforts to really systemically address those complaints and then we really want to identify opportunities to integrate support resources for lgbtq students into our family and community outreach and engagement efforts at the school level and district levels working with our communication staff to build this out so let's go forward from there and then finally on the facilities design and construction front i hope i'm not um stealing thunder from the ed specs presentation later on in the agenda but we have added gender neutral facilities to city schools updated head specs for school construction and renovation projects really based on a student-focused design developed by an in-house cross office

051focus group that will be the model for some of the work we're doing going forward and some updates here on gender neutral facilities incorporated into 21st century school projects as well as into other capital projects including the ones at graceland and holliberg and then we're working continue to work to seek funding opportunities for renovation of additional existing facilities to add gender neutral facilities really responding to students interest in and the student-focused design that i mentioned above so those are the the key work strands and um wanted to emphasize again in closing what dr santellisis said at the outset set that this is a framework we want to really make sure that it continues to be informed by our stakeholders and we want to move beyond compliance although compliance is important to really focus on support

052for all of our students and here are lgbtq students as we go forward so that was a lot to digest but we'll open and welcome for questions and have others in the team here if uh to chime in including key partners in the equity office who are standing by as well commissioner brooks did you did you have your hand up or you did you want to make a comment um uh thank you for putting this presentation together um and i know this has come from a number of years of uh in the making from community activists and folks all across the district um trying to make sure that baltimore city public schools are a safe space for lgbtq students um and i would also like to sort of also acknowledge that um while this presentation

053is really really helpful i feel like there's so much more to to know and so much more to go and and to do and so um i have a series of questions but i'm going to try to just sum up in a a few of them but if you could talk to me or anybody about any current data points that we have about lgbtq students specifically in the district are regarding their academic achievement or their experiences with bullying and harassment so um we do have and that will be part of the jbb report that will come later in the year but we do have data on the initial uh the last year of complaints this is the first year and we also have the bullying data which we want to make sure that it talks

054to each other and there are a number of of complaints of bullying and harassment that are flagged specifically because there's a designation on the form and you want to make that sure uh that can mark that it's discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation so that's important to our work and it's also important to our work to make sure that that form continues to be accessible to all students so they can fill it out and that we respond swiftly and then i think that on the broader um work one of the bullet points that i may have skimmed over was an interest in developing surveys uh and both qualitative and quantitative to better answer the questions that you're raising here so thank you so again so are you saying that we don't currently have

055any existing data on lgbtq issues specific to our students beyond the the this form we have we have data on bullying and harassment um that that is important data and um and as we move forward we'll work to flesh it out more great so i this is uh you know so i asked this question um partly because uh there is data about sort of lgbt students experiences with baltimore city schools through the youth risk behavior survey so yeah would have been helpful for me in this process is to look specific at what's going on at the district level with our students um and sort of what this presentation is missing for me is that context so i know we have this policy in place but i'm interested in so i know because i look at

056the data that that we our students are having issues with um violent relationships they having issues with drug abuse um that they're skipping school like that is baltimore city lgbt data that is not being presented in this comp in this presentation i'm trying to get a cl a sense as to why that did not show up here so we're we'd be happy to follow up on that data it's a good point and i think we can build on that going forward as well yeah i think commissioner we can make sure that this that as we move on with the work we have consistent data points that we're referencing and benchmarking against um with regards to actual city schools data as well as outside data i think at least the way i had first charged your

057question was what is kind of city schools data that we are currently maintaining not just all of the available data but the work um which frankly cuts across a number of areas that that we do have examples for i think at least to the point i'm hearing you make is what is also data that might reside in other places that we might not norm that we might not have previously incorporated in a full examination and in a full tracking so i think that's some of the work represented by that last slide of the work we need to do in making that data as i think chief sivan said actually speak to one another right like so if we have data in different pockets of places but we're not reviewing it in systematic ways then it's

058not going to have the desired impact or the potential impact it could have yeah and i and i i wanted to say thank you for that and i i raised that partly because um being a part of this district uh and being a as i keep saying a black gay kid growing up in in the city schools um that sometimes our narrative is often erased um and overlooked and i know that we're here i know that we've always been present and i also know that we have also systemically not shown up in support of lgbt students in this district and so when i raise the question about sort of the data points what i'm really trying to get at is visibility um and so not only do i want to know what we're doing internally

059as a district but also the fact that there is current existing data that talks about the the academic achievement of our students um who are lgbt and the district feels important um and sort of who in what ways are we going to change the curriculum to be in alignment with msd passing policy just this past year around our um inclusive sexuality education components right so there's these really concrete things and very specific um deliverables that i'm just not seeing here and i a part of it is going to come from the work stream so i get that and i just want to acknowledge that you know i really appreciate all of that that's the work that's been going on and putting that together but i really wanted to sort of get some at the baseline

060sort of where are we currently what did we currently have so that when i see this next year that i could see a path forward around sort of where we've grown um and sort of what we've expanded on and sort of how we go on to the next place um and the next piece um and uh uh chief seven i think you mentioned it is particularly around our lgbt uh staff members like i can't do this work it's students and staff so how do we make sure that our staff are all felt supported and whole have a mechanism for reporting issues of bullying and harassment um and then also that we're tracking systemically when we're hiring folks uh whatever the position is that we're also paying attention to sexual agenda identity to make sure that

061we're getting accurate representation in this space and so with that i'll open it up to my other colleagues to see if they have any additional questions to um commissioner brooks this is this is janet um i just wanted to ask have you had an opportunity to work with um josh sivins and the staff on um some of these items that you're looking to see because i would love for that kind of foundation setting to happen and then we can kind of build um around that that would be great i think have you had a chance sorry go ahead okay no i was just asking if he and if he's had a chance his mic is on mute so i want to want to hear his response to that you owe me hon okay so no

062um i have not i did i had a chance to check in with uh chief sivan uh briefly um before the presentation uh and i what we agreed to is that we will definitely be working to sort of build out okay on this body of work so that we could baseline um to move okay chief someone did you want to jump in oh perfect i just said that i i welcome i welcome that that those ideas uh for the process and to filter into what we want to do because i think that um we want to really make sure that we're benefiting from and looking across the community and i think that making sure that we ensure that lgbtq students staff and others feel seen and feel heard in this work so i have said

063this to commissioner brooks privately i will say it publicly i really appreciate his advocacy here and we are having conversations now because of his presence that i haven't had before on this board and so i just want to thank you dr brooks for your work here and i i really i'm hoping that you're able to work more closely with josh sivans and the team so that the final product in this will be something that can take the whole system to the next level and be and so that we can be a better support for our students all of our students okay thank you uh um mcfadden did i see you earlier or you were just getting hooked in i just want to make sure i'm in the right order we're just getting it together madam

064chair i'm all i'm all right okay okay commissioner bondima has our this is going to be very quick and i think that this is the beauty of baltimore city public schools board is that having the opportunity to bring to the table people from different areas and with expertise and having uh commissioner brooks on on board with and i'm so happy to say with plenty of experience in research and bringing that research to the table makes a tremendous difference and and not that we don't have the information we don't have the information that you need but the bottom line is his research can bring more information that we probably would not see a previously and i was and before someone already said what i'm saying so i appreciate the fact that we have uh commissioner dr

065brooks available so you can open that door and be much further ahead than any district in the state of maryland or around the country because that's what you bring to the table and thanks and i just want to say that thank you thank you doctor any other any other comments thank you uh thank you um sieven and um we look forward to uh how this plan works out in the collaboration of dr brooks in terms of working with you as we as we move ahead so thank you absolutely thank you all okay so at this point folks i'm going to uh move into the consent agenda review remember this is not a time to vote i'm going to um review the agenda if you uh colleagues if you please want to let me know an

066item that you would like to have removed and state your question uh or if or concern for the item so that the staff can be prepared when we come back uh to address those um so the first item is zero one comprehensive maintenance plan i there's a there's a phone that's that's and i can't tell who who it is so if uh okay i'm not hearing anything 8.02 educational specifications 12.01 targeted leadership consulting vandima i would like to i have a i'm not sure if it's a question or just a explanation that um i needed to be explained to me i'm not understanding some of the information that's in this in this um procurement and um it's a general it's not even a question but i want them to give me a brief explanation of

067um maybe i should say i don't understand how this proposal was written without having a current or they're looking at current or prospective vendor vendors they don't have a vendor for this amount of money i just need to 2 million 16 100 whatever they don't have a um they don't have them for that amount of money and i just need for them to explain to me what that's about and maybe it's already written somewhere but it shouldn't take longer and with that explanation i think it would also be helpful for um the academic team and procurement uh team um to just explain a little bit more also where we are in in regards to covet how um we're being asked to approve these things but um it does not guarantee us having to necessarily spend

068um if i'm making sense with that explanation for for this particular item is that what you're saying for the majority of these because most of them have the covet explanation in them also i think that could also support the question that dr van dima is asking so that's that's for staff that's listening that's all madam chad okay i i need clarification are you is that just a general question that you're asking about all of the procurements all of them that have the covet statement attached to them which i believe is all of them you need so you want an explanation about the covet statement a general explanation about the colbit statement yes okay uh commissioner jenya maybe let me make it a little bit more clear when i read the document when i read the

069procurement i was not clear about the set-aside of two of the money without having a vendor gotcha and you see what i'm saying and now that i think the staff is here in that part i just wanted to make sure i got the two different pieces okay correct okay thank you thank you okay 12.02 ed scale 12.03 amplify education 12.0 center for applied linguistics 12.05 young audiences call for a vote please madam chair 12.06 learning alliances 12.07 teachtone training 12.08 service learning company llc 12.09 north bay education incorporated 12.10 holistic life foundation 12.11 west ed 12.12 community training and assistance center 12.13 l education what is that el education sorry 12.14 targeted leadership consulting 12.15 engaged to learn 12.16 innovative educational programs 12.17 international center for leadership and education 12.18 hope mifflin car court 12.19

070teaching matters 12.20 great minds pbs con pbc contract 12.21 arts every day madam chair uh-huh we can pull the four-ball well just for a vote yes okay well i heard two voices is it that what the second voice is also asking that's what i was asking run okay excuse i'm sorry the one that i asked to pull was that targeted leadership consulting 12.01 yes okay go ahead thank you 12.22 institute for student achievement 14.01 archangel tablets llc 14.02 daily computers incorporated 14.03 t-mobile usa incorporated 15.01 tennis courts incorporated and p flanigan and sons incorporated asphalt and concrete repair and replacement services 15.02 commercial cabling and sound incorporated and denver ellick incorporated 19.01 holistic life foundation incorporated 19.02 the movement team 19.03 continuous growth llc 19.04 concentric education services 19.05 imagine me ministries incorporated please uh-huh

071yes what's 19.05 is there a question or is this for a vote i have a lot of questions for it we need to let the staff know it's just a lot of information in that in that contract that's missing it's a lot of numbers missing a lot of percentages not showing uh in detail um what those percentages mean and um and it doesn't show any uh evidence of previous programs by this organization the the results of the programs the outcomes of the programs and um who the evaluator when they say university of maryland uh we'll be evaluating which university of maryland are we talking about and and um and who's the person at university of maryland that's evaluating the program when you say university of maryland okay so it's a number of questions that i

072have and they probably have the answers to it i just it's just not written in the and maybe it's already there and i'm just missing it okay and madam chair this is commissioner james i would like to have a conversation about the separation of church and state in our procurement all righty okay so hopefully they got all that alrighty so i have pulled at this point uh 12.01 12.05 which is for a vote 12.21 for a vote and 19.05 and there's also a general question for explanation about the covet statements on on particular procurements all right so at this point um we will come back to those after public comment [Music] speakers from recognized groups will have the opportunity to speak for five minutes and first we have joe kane who's chairperson of the parent

073community advisory board welcome mr kane good morning good evening madam chair thank you for having me so uh good evening and congratulations thank you thank you happy to be here so good evening school board members dr santolisa's staff and everyone viewing the parent community advisory board is ready for school year 2021. uh we're back with new members to the board and a new executive committee i have the distinct honor of serving as chair for the school year uh with number a number of other members who have a proven track record of selflessly serving uh their school community uh linear cornish is serving as our vice chair larry simmons is serving as our treasurer rachel duncan is serving as our secretary and jessica fauntleroy our outgoing chair will be staying on for another another two years

074other board members are amanda obay charles smith courtney c d witherspoon jessica schiller a principal monique dubai melissa schober jermaine drayton and kiera davis griffith these folk are a microcosm of one of the most valuable tools in our district toolbox are parents and community members as parents and community members we understand the challenges that are faced every day in the district that has been continually underfunded and attacked as a result we understand that some of the choices aren't going to be easy and universally liked um as others additionally we know that like us you want the best for our students here in baltimore city a few weeks ago i stepped off the scale and i turned to my wife and i told her that i needed to lose some weight i asked her to be

075my accountability partner uh yesterday i looked in the fridge and didn't see anything i wanted and said i'm gonna call my favorite restaurant and order four wings fries salt pepper ketchup and hot sauce right um and my wife looked at me and said i'm holding you accountable like she called me out on making that order and so instead we took a walk around the lake uh the merlin legislator had decided that a group of parents and community members should serve as accountability partners to our district our role isn't to stand by the refrigerator waiting for every mistake to happen but rather walk around the lake with you conduct meal prep and everything in our power to support you in keeping your commitment to our children some days are going to be easier than others but

076rest assured that everyone on our board shares the same commitment to our children as you acover 19 has brought the challenge of a generation unfortunately there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to the obstacles we face as we start school in two weeks uh the decision to start school virtually was the right decision but parents still are left with questions after we're still one of the only districts that hasn't announced a full semester of distant learning uh as someone who started the 11th grade in a studio part living in a studio apartment with my mother and three brothers i fully understand the challenges our district faced additionally i know how much more difficult it would have been for my mother if she not had the ability to plan for long term for my brother and i my

077brothers and i um there are families in baltimore facing the same dilemma my family faced 20 years ago i hope the board considers making a long-term decision sooner than later this global pandemic has highlighted the inequities and challenges of our city uh none of them has been more apparent than the digital divide in the face of those challenges our city has shown up for our students the partnership between city schools city hall and other partners to eliminate that digital divide has been remarkable um there's more work to do but these type of relationships and partnerships is what we need to see more help in our district um one partnership that we're particularly excited about is the healing city initiative uh by zeke um headed by councilman z cohen uh p cab has been at the

078table since the um onset of this initiative and we're looking forward to baltimore city schools and city hall coming together for mou and finally um for those watching if you want to be involved in what's happening at pcat this year send us an email pcap bcps.k12.md.us and again thank you all for listening to our comments this evening i look forward to any questions that you may have wow thank you i think we all um everybody on the board get your sweatsuits and your sneakers and your walking shoes all ready since we're about to start heading around the lake together thank you so much thank you and congrats again congratulations we look forward to being great partners with you thank you mr king thank you uh next week thank you next we have christina duncan evans

079who's representing the btu i'm looking uh is duncan evans are you close by okay i don't i'm going to move i know we have um we have several folks that have signed up for um public comments so i'm going to turn it over to the board executive for additional public comment if miss duncan evans uh or someone comes through let me know and i i will i will come back sorry linda's going to shoot her yeah i'm going to shoot her a quick email to see if she's joining um okay and that's and i'll go ahead and start our public comment uh first up we have a video from this uh rebecca yenaway from teachers democracy project okay can everybody can see my screen this summer teachers democracy project supported educators and parents in coming

080together at their schools to talk about the needs that families are experiencing right now we'll see the issues with how i'm going to work how i'm going to work and educate my child planning out ways to help with babysitting um to figure out who's short on food and my school parents are coming together to discuss new ways for the parents to be able to get a better understanding on how to do the math parents are coming together to discuss online learning and ways to help families negotiate the alienation and logistical challenges that come with balancing school family and work this work is essential because when families struggle with virtual learning their children are less likely to engage what was important was that people had a chance to share the issues and had a chance to

081connect with one another about those issues working together has empowered teachers parents it just helped to make our community stronger we need to have the understanding that when things get hard people show up and they help each other figure it out we need spaces where parents can connect pair up create pods babysitting co-ops or to just address their very basic emotional needs with one another we need the district to support them in doing that this isn't an alternative situation and with alternative situations we need alternative solutions some students are not going to be okay just being on a laptop all day then what they may do better having a trip to the park we would love to see the district support our work by ensuring that school schedules take the realities that families face with

082online learning into consideration alternatives have to be available so i think the district has to think about how to partner with all these educational facilities and organizations that we have in baltimore parents would like for the district to be completely transparent when it comes to everything dealing with virtu learning and openings so that we can know we'll have a way to actually you know prepare um in a timely manner for us we know that it's not possible for the district to solve every issue that families are facing right now but we would like to see the district encourage principals and community school coordinators to have conversations with parents where they can make connections with one another okay all right and then um i've been in contact with miss duncan evans she's on i believe she's

083uh unmuting at the moment ms duncan evans are you unmuted hi can you hear me yes we can thank you so much uh good afternoon board chair my name is christina duncan evans and i'm representing the baltimore teachers union i'm coming before you today to express concern over the working conditions of our school secretaries and office assistants school secretaries were ordered to report on-site at schools starting yesterday monday august 24th previously they had been designated to work from home last week and continuing into this week there has been a lack of clear consistent procedures being followed inconsistent and incomplete safety procedures put the health of our school secretaries and office assistants at risk additionally many of the duties that school secretaries are being told to report for can be completed from home having school secretaries

084and school buildings sends a message to our families they can physically gather safely at the school despite the fact that the protocols and procedures to gather people safely in buildings have not yet fully been implemented a little less than a week ago at 10 pm on tuesday the 18th school secretaries and office assistants were emailed instructions to report to schools on the 24th since that time school secretaries have reached out to the btu leadership with questions questions that could not be answered by their administrators or had not been answered by central office leadership questions such as what are those with pre-existing conditions supposed to do why is the building all of a sudden safe next week when it's clear that there are surfaces and areas that have been untouched and uncleaned since the spring will

085every secretary be provided with a plexiglas partition what will our hours be why do administrators get to trade off being in the building but secretaries have to report every day some front offices do not have windows and adequate ventilation what proof do we have that there is sufficient ventilation to release potential contaminated air and so on and on and on less than 48 hours after the announcement was made we had collected dozens of questions from school secretaries each question that came to btu demonstrates a gap where the plan as communicated by the district has fallen short any plan that attempts to reintroduce physical contact into our schools should not have this many gaps while some of our questions were answered in the weeks that followed the announcement many questions have not been answered at all

086some questions were answered and then retracted some answers were given and then subsequently those answers were shown to be incomplete or inaccurate this has led to an extremely chaotic and challenging week for our school secretaries who ironically are brilliant at logistics and operations if our school secretaries had actually helped with the formation and execution of this plan it would be nowhere near as confusing and inconsistent the topic that has been the most challenging and concerning has been the question of leave and accommodations many of our school secretaries and office assistants have health conditions for other factors that make working in a public-facing job an additional risk right now the district has not completed the process of identifying high-risk individuals and providing them with the accommodations they need many secretaries are still waiting for a response

087to their accommodation despite this principles said that they are not allowed to permit their front office staff to work from home however just yesterday union leadership was informed by central office staff that people waiting for a response should stay home but this still has not been communicated directly to employees the school secretaries of baltimore city just want to serve their families students and communities we believe they should be as safe as possible while doing their work and that they need clear information and directions in order to work effectively many of the tasks that school secretaries are being asked to do can be done from home the main reason given that school secretaries and offices assistants need to report to buildings was that too many calls to the building were going to voicemail however bringing school

088secretaries back into schools wouldn't solve that problem a school's main office line rings directly to secretary's cell phones so calls are answered in real time if people are getting voicemail it's because the secretary is on the line with another call having secretaries take calls from the school building as opposed to their home wouldn't change the fact that the phone line goes to voicemail sometimes adding more staff to front offices would keep phone calls from going to voicemail if you're not going to increase the number of people responding to school calls changing the secretary's location won't make that much of a difference the only difference it makes is that it encourages families to go to the buildings to speak with a real person instead of staying in their homes safer and getting their issues resolved with

089a phone call the decision to have front office staff refer return to building is more performative than substantive although we've received many concerns time does not permit me to discuss the final concern i'd like to bring up affects our that affects our secretaries are their plexiglas barriers across the district we have received several concerning accounts of the installation of plexiglas barriers intended to keep secretaries safer we've heard of plexiglas barriers that are installed to hang from the ceiling and leave a four inch gap between the desk and the plexiglas we've heard of plexiglass falling down after it was installed just today i've been sent pictures of plexiglas barriers that are not affixed to the desk they are free standing the way that a booking sits on a shelf the barriers have gas both at the

090bottom between the desk and the barrier and where the barriers meet these barriers are very concerning because these types of barriers will eventually be needed for all desks where people are interacting in all classrooms and office suites additionally secretaries were told to pick up ppe by august 20th their ppe allocation was two mass and a face shield and no additional information has gone out about how and when they will be given more on behalf of the secretaries office assistants and the btu teachers psrps clinicians and central office staff that stand behind them we are requesting that secretaries and office assistants work from their homes until safety protocols and procedures are in place and can be implemented with fidelity as a final note the first day of professional development for 10 month employees is tomorrow and

091as of right now staff has not received a start time or a link to ant to access their professional development instead we've been told that that information will be shared tomorrow as you continue to assess the efficacy of your practices per the ceo's comments tonight we ask that these self-assessments of efficacy be shared with the people who are depending on city schools your staff families students and communicate community members thank you very uh much you thank you miss duncan evans mr grant do we have another yes yes we do um next up we have mr jabari lyles jabari on the phone hey good evening everyone can you hear me okay yes we can hear you and see you okay awesome um so so good to see many of you i hope everyone is as well

092and safe and for those who don't know me my name is jabari i work in the mayor's office as mayor young's director of lgbtq affairs in that role i support and advise the mayor and city government on needs and opportunities concerning the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer community i'm also a very proud former city teacher um and so in my work i care very deeply about lgbt young people and how they fare in our city schools um so starting off it was really refreshing to see the report earlier this uh tonight um you know i started my advocacy work with city schools in 2009 and so uh to see that 10 years later we're finally seeing a presentation that talks in a very comprehensive way about lgbt student affirmation is really exciting i've been

093doing some great work with the office of equity and the office of legal counsel to collaborate on much of what you saw tonight on that presentation and um i just offer my uh very full attention and collaboration to this work um wanted to just highlight tonight about uh you know a lot of this work was done before coven and now that we live in this new virtual world this work is just as urgent but looks differently we know that many lgbt students um they possibly are at home with parents and guardians who are not affirming of their identity which puts them in a possible you know hostile and unsafe position school uh for many of these young people was a safe haven or break away from being away from families who were hostile to their

094identity and now they have to be there 24 7. uh we also know that many lgbt students or teachers might get a break from school or break from a bullying harassment at any rate i would urge the board to think about in the in uh in the immediate time what are those ways we can talk about lgbt affirmation in this new virtual world looking at making sure young people have access uh to uh displaying their proper names and pronouns making sure that teachers are equipped with uh recognizing the signs and symptoms of young people who are impossibly abusive or neglectful situations we've seen an increase in intimate partner violence and domestic violence uh reports and so i know that lgbt young people are suffering from some of those same things um and i'm just helping

095young people generally cope and connect during this uncertain time um and so i'm really excited to continue the long-term work but i think you know what does looking at a current plan to equip teachers with the resources and knowledge to get this virtual school year started strong and making sure that lgbt youth are thought about um i also want to mention that uh the current forum online for reporting for policy jbb um is really cumbersome for a young person to navigate it currently is a link that goes to board docs that you have to print um it's not provided in spanish um and so this is something that i've suggested before about having an online form or something that's a little bit more easy for young people to navigate it's very cumbersome um and lastly

096i'll mention that october is lgbtq history month um i think it's really incredible opportunity for city schools to be visible and vocal about their solidarity to lgbt young people um today city schools is not seen as a very visible or vocal partner in this work um and so i think that lgbt history month as well as national hispanic heritage month and other days of recognition are really easy opportunities to provide educational resources and district-wide campaign and community communication efforts to really show visibly that you are walking side by side with lgbt students and families um so i'm really excited about the work uh to continue i'm glad to see some of you in this weird way um and i'm on board to be a partner so thank you for the work that you're doing uh

097thank you mr lyles we look forward to continuing our collaboration with you thank you mr gan is there was there a third person sorry struck this was a little slow with the unmuting uh we have one final person miss angie weiner ms andy wander are you on hold on let me see if her phone number is listed uh ms wander i see you on you have to unbeat yourself you can also hit star um astrid star six if there's if you're um the regular mute is not working but i do see you on hello this is angie winder yes we hear you thank you i had to do the star six i'm sorry um good evening everyone my name is angie winder i just wanted to come on here it's actually going to be a

098little different because earlier i did hear the appointment of some principals and yet marvel was not listed so my my comment is a little different now one thing i want to say is just on behalf of the marvel alumni association and the community and marvel community i want to one just say thank you for listening i'm not sure where it's even going at this moment but it was kind of breath you know it was kind of good to actually not hear the appointment yet when there were still a lot of concerns and questions so one thank you to everyone the school board dr santolisis again everyone just thank you for listening uh we actually had an online petition there are almost 800 signatures from alumni and community members i'm sure you've already seen our letter

099so i don't want to kind of do that you know putting anything out but i do want to say again thank you i also want to just see if there were any updates at school will begin tomorrow um for teachers and staff and yet um they are unaware of what's the direction as far as their leadership at the school at this moment not sure if that can be spoken on now and or if we can um kind of go back to the square one and uh find our leader for the school but we want to make sure and i hope that we've made you know our voices clear that we want to be a part of this process and um i believe that you know even with me being chosen to speak on behalf of

100the alumni association i was also the former ptsa president at mervo i'm on the board for the alumni association and i'm on the school family council i was on there when they previously um appointed their previous uh principal i'm sorry as well as this last time and so i just wanted to just say that there were a lot of flaws um that needs to be addressed um going forward um even earlier today i was actually appointed as a [Music] board member i would say um for the for pcat so it's very strong um for me to make sure that i'm a voice for my community for our youth um as we're going forward with a distant learning i think it's very important to have someone that will be boots on the ground someone who's already

101aware of the situation and will make sure that our scholars continue to strive we are very much involved and love our community as well as the community that's surrounding the school and we just wanted to just again say thank you for this evening for not appointing someone at his moment not sure again if we can get an update as the um last meeting was on august the 11th where there was a closed session um and i just would like to know if there's any way that we can get an update and or a special meeting with the ceo or um just another appointment um principal selection interview and thank you again for listening to me uh thank you miss what i'm gonna ask is because as you mentioned this is a personal issue but um

102i think if we have your uh mr again has your phone number in terms of what the status is i'm going to ask that um we will take care of somebody contacting you uh for that piece of it but as you said we can't discuss um the the full personnel actions and and things here in public thank you so much okay thank you i believe that was that the last person we had for public comment am i correct list again yes it was okay so um with that i'm going to uh ask the board members based on public comment if there are any additional items that board members would like to pull from the consent agenda and if not is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so move frank thank you sarah second

103one demon second richardson okay i heard bandima first so i'll go there those in favor uh commissioner bandima yes okay commissioner brooks yes commissioner frank yes commissioner james yes mcfadden yes commissioner reed yes commissioner richardson yes commissioner roberts yes and i'm in favor uh no one is opposed no one is abstained so we have nine in favor uh for the consent agenda has been approved so now we're going to go back to the items that were pulled um and one first is i'm gonna ask if um uh there could be the the uh explanation that was requested around this the the covet uh statements on some of the uh items this is joe vogel the interim director procurement what we've tried to do with agenda items that we're bringing to the board in this current

104situation is to assume that we will be back in schools in buildings sooner than later so we make that assumption and that is where we then estimate what that dollar figure might be uh in those cases where we're not going to be back in the building and some vendors cannot perform virtually uh then we will obviously not be able to give them purchase orders so the actual expenditure will not be as high as you see so we're trying to plan for the the what if commissioner mcfadden is that does that help you yes i just wanted that to be made clear again i appreciate that thank you thank you okay so the first uh pulled item was 12.01 uh targeted leadership consulting and uh uh commissioner bondima i believe has some questions hi dr hey

105there good to see you thank you thank you can i you want to speak first you're going to go first go ahead um thank you so much i when i read it it sounds it sounds a little bit different and i just couldn't see and you can explain to me and i'm sure we talked you did an excellent job explaining um for 2 million a little over 2 million dollars it doesn't look like you had a set agenda or set project for the amount of money that you're setting aside and i'm not clear about i've never seen it where you you haven't identified any um vendors and you're creating uh projects that that needs to be done with money that you're using but you haven't zeroed in on how much money you're going to be

106using for each vendor and you haven't selected a vendor i'm not clear but it's just explain that to me sure so i think that what might be a little bit confusing is that at the beginning of the letter what you're reading where it talks about the purpose of this pre-qualified selection or pqs is to identify current and prospective vendors that's the overall frame for what this letter is but the vendor that we are have selected is targeted leadership consulting so that's the group that's being referred to throughout this letter in the work that we are asking them to do is tied to our ninth grade initiative specifically our we're calling it on track work because it's work that's focusing on using early warning indicators to track where our ninth graders are in terms of being

107on track with what they need in order to graduate and that's based on a lot of the research that's looked at attendance at student behavior and looked at student course completion and said that if we can help students get on track in ninth grade we increase their chances of graduating significantly and so what targeted leadership is offering is the opportunity for schools to purchase essentially coaching right so we are running this ninth grade initiative across the district in all of our high schools we've set the expectations that there will be teacher teams and leadership teams that are working through support for our ninth graders knowing our students well and knowing how we need to support each of them individually and what targeted leadership is offering is professional development training both for the district team and

108for school-based teams that schools could that schools could opt into where there would be coaching on how to actually implement this initiative on the school level given their context does that provide a little bit more information for you you did a lot you did well i am i you put a lot of emphasis on ninth graders when you talk you just presented i didn't get that in the um i saw it was ninth graders were mentioned but i didn't get the scope of what all that you would be doing with ninth graders and um and i think that i was missing something and i mentioned before that i must be there but maybe i didn't i didn't get it but now i kind of understand a little bit more okay so this organization is the

109one that's going to be getting the money right that's right and they would get money specifically for coaching but we can have schools who we will have schools who will be running this ninth grade work because all our high schools will be doing it and they may not opt in to have targeted leadership provide that coaching and that's that's absolutely fine we just wanted to provide them as a resource to schools that wanted additional support and these students will be getting this on site is that right these students will be getting it in whatever format we are in at a given time so right now we will be organizing to support freshmen virtually and in fact many schools had summer bridge programs for incoming freshmen that they ran over the summer and did it virtually

110and made connections with parents and with students and that's all part of that ninth grade work and then when you know whenever we move into a hybrid setting we'll continue that work there in that setting as well okay thank you very much dr you're welcome thank you all right if there are there any other no other questions are we um ready to vote for on this particular item is there is there a motion um uh in favor of twelve point zero one targeted leadership consulting so move but [Music] okay so i'll go through for those who are those in favor uh commissioner bondima yes uh brooks yes okay frank yes james yes mcfadden yes reed all right richardson yes roberts metal cat i'll be abstaining from this boat okay okay so china um is in

111favor and roberts is an abstention okay so we have aid in favor and one of staining so this mo uh this um motion is approved this procurement is approved thank you the next one that was pulled is 12.05 and it was it was for the vote only was my understanding so is there a motion to approve of item 12.05 so moved richardson okay is there a second second mcfadden thank you okay those in favor by uh commissioner bondima yes brooks yes okay commissioner frank yes uh commissioner james i'm a sustaining okay commissioner mcfadden yes commissioner richardson yes commissioner okay um and i am in favor so we have um seven uh in favor and two abstentions so this um uh procurement is also approved the next one that was pulled is um 12. do i

112have the right one 12.21 is that correct for a vote that was arts every day that is correct yes okay so is there a motion to approve this item so move frank thank you is there a second second richardson thank you and i'll do the vote for approval uh commissioner bondima yes uh brooks yes okay frank yes james i'm standing okay mcfadden i'm abstaining uh reed yeah richardson yes roberts made i'm sure i'll be obtaining okay and i'm in favor um that we have six in favor and three abstentions i believe this one also has been approved the last item is 19.05 imagine me and there were several questions for this one also this was um both commissioner bondina and commissioner uh james everybody thank you commissioner i was really um concerned about this this

113particular proposal for one thing i tried to do some little research on it and it doesn't list that it has a director i'd like to if it does i'd like to know who's the director of this program in addition to that um it says it's being evaluated by university of maryland uh but it didn't go into detail university of maryland could be any university of maryland in the state of maryland so who is the who is the evaluator for this program in addition to that one thing that and i guess you've probably heard me say this before i have a lot of problems with what percentages when one shows percentages of participants or information because when you show percentage you're not showing the exact number a percentage could be you could have five people and

114100 could be five so and people have listened to before they usually come to the table with numbers in addition to that it said that the mint one thing uh outcome of a previous program that you've had well they've had um several of the students continue to have a mentor after nine years but to show several students when you say several what does several mean um what what are the numbers and then again uh maybe you can explain to me uh when you say it's going to be working with 500 students or you've had 500 students in the program one thing that people have done and everybody and all of you guys are pretty experienced with it with this when you have had 500 students in a previous program with this particular program you might

115start with 500 very very very seldom do you end up with 500 and the sad part about programs when you're working with this different any school system you might end up with 100 at the end and to be really honest with you a lot of times you don't end up with 100 and we all know that so and then i would like to have seen and maybe this can come later i would like to see comments made from parents and students who have participated because i'm all for programs that dealing with girls it's wonderful when you do that but i would like to have seen um comments made about the program um it was if if you were a reader a federal reader of a program this would not pass because it's not enough information

116and that's not saying you can make you can make it go but i'm just saying there's so many questions in here that i'm really concerned with and maybe you can answer those questions then thank you yes thank you yes so i'll go ahead so i'll start from the beginning the director is pasha lee pasha pay li is the director and they are currently getting their program evaluated by the university of maryland school of social work it is being researched by dr hammingberger dr angela hamminberger and then dr vashana mushanga i'm going to hope that i pronounce that correctly um if you would like for me to give you um that information i can definitely make sure i'll follow up in writing so you can have those specific researches as well um in terms of the

117numbers that were listed in the um proposal those were 66 students who were part of the program were given that post survey um so based upon that i'm trying to go back to the letter um out of that um 70 i'm trying to find the letter that was done in 2018 for 66 of the young girls who were participating in the program and that was for all of the students who were at one particular school i'm not sure if i can state the exact school that that was at but it was one particular school and i can definitely give you the additional follow-up information for that as well there were other questions you had did i answer them all i feel like i still miss one the um research study the they were hoping to

118have the data produced in july of this school year it started in february but of course through the covet they had to pause so of course they will reconvene with the study as soon as they are given the green light to start again i will share that this program was able to continue in the spring and as a part of their program they were able to give their young ladies a laptop that was given through a donation from an outside organization they were also able to provide them stem kits as well as journals and yoga mats and the young ladies when they signed on were able to engage in health and fitness they were able to do science and then for the high school young ladies they were also able to engage in weekly sessions

119around college prep and study skills um can i answer questions the 66 students you said that were in the program of those 66 students that started the program right how many students completed the program i do not have those specific numbers i would have to go back and ask them directly how many completed the program of that number but and back to what i was asking before i don't want to interrupt you please no it's fine okay of the students that when i was talking about that were had mentors for nine years how many of those students that started that continued with mentors throughout for nine years how many students are you documented in to complete that worked with mentors for nine years how many would you say but you just said several several could

120be three yes that's a very good question so they have that there were 15 of their young ladies who kept their mentor over nine years 15 yes out of 15 out of the they have currently served over 500 young young ladies in our schools so 15 of them have kept their mentoring relationship nine or more or close to nine years okay uh i i just need to say that i'm not saying that this is not a wonderful program you need to infuse some information in there and just you know not assume that the board can guess at the rest of it you know what i mean because when you look at the numbers we look at numbers and we evaluate the whole project and when you talk about the amount of money that's involved in

121it we need to know how many students start the all of the participants and who responded to your data your survey and the end product the outcome of the program because you're talking about a large amount of money okay and we all know you've ran programs you know when you start one amount what do you end with sometimes you end with one and i've seen that happen so i think that is a great idea we always want programs to deal with girls and guys but to me it's just so much missing from this document and maybe it's already there and i'm missing it you can help me with that yes absolutely so many of the young ladies particularly when they're starting in sixth grade continue through on to eighth grade so while only that 15

122may have extended beyond those years that they were in middle school 50 of their young ladies continue on for the duration of the year and then they are also able to continue and have those young ladies participate in the program through sixth through eighth grade they also have on a yearly basis the mentors are able to attend a banquet in which they're able to bring all of the mentors over that they have supported and served over the past 13 years and the young ladies are able to come back and able to share short of their stories and their connections with the young ladies that are currently in the program as well so it's quite an extensive program and you're right we probably did not include as much information in the letter for you to get

123the full scope of the support and services that they provide and i do have you said you would like to have heard some quotes i was able to pull up the proposal for you and you don't really have to do that right now because i'm gonna move it along the one thing that i do want to emphasize the worst thing in the world is to come to the table and say several a percentage it would be yours your p it will go through so much quicker we need numbers because several most of all of that to me means absolutely zero if but when you start putting those numbers to it it's like wow that's what we want to hear or at least i as a board member want to hear yes absolutely but then the

124numbers are critical yes so they do have i can give you a strong number that they have a 90 retention rate for the young ladies that are starting in their 6th grade through 8th grade in their middle school program 90 remain for that duration of that middle school year but you didn't give me when you said 90 out of the beginning with the whole the whole amount 90 sounds great but how many started within 90 of what you see you see you get what i'm saying so the 90 really out of 10 how much is 90 out of 10 people right so they so they are able to service 40 students per year so in that number in that in each year that they're serving at a school ninety percent of those students remain on

125for six years how many schools so currently they are in 40 out of how many okay yeah but anyway you can you i'm not going to hold you like that i'm just saying when you say 40 out of each school how many schools are we talking about four schools okay you see so you said that you could have said 40 schools i'm just you know the numbers are critical really thank you might i make a suggestion and i know that um commissioner um james also had a question um is it possible and i'm i'm just gonna just just my just a suggestion that perhaps we hold this uh to the next meeting and if you could rewrite the portions given the uh the the information uh and the recommendations that you're getting from from commissioner

126bondima so that we have a a a more complete picture that might be the better way for us rather than trying to do it all right now sure absolutely and then looking at the start date that would still give you i mean it could still be approved in time for this for the around the start a little past but we could take care of that piece yes i can do that absolutely okay thank you yes i know commissioner james also had a question i want to make sure that one is given so that you can include that in terms of any any revisions that need to be done all right thank you mediterranean miss stokes um two quick questions for you yeah wanting to continue um on the questions around numbers that commissioner bondiva brought

127up um in 2018 it showed that you had a 30 000 dollar contract with city schools and now you're going to a 430 000 contract one of the challenges we know with mentoring organizations in expanding capacity is finding and recruiting mentors so i so i'd love you and and you don't have to mention now but if you could talk about how you're going to bring that from you know if you were 40 students at a school in four schools and that was thirty thousand dollars what is four hundred and thirty thousand dollars as far as as impact you know numbers of students numbers of schools you're trying to get to and numbers of mentors and where will you recruit them from yes so this organization gets their mentors from maryland mentors and then they also

128have many of the teachers who are at the schools that they're working with then also volunteer to be mentors as well so if you could just say how you're going to get to capacity in that in your explanation that would be great and the other part that that is concerning to me is that we do have a value of separation of church and state in this country and this is a a ministerial oriented uh mentoring program so if you could talk about how you how you separate that um how you welcome non-christians into the organization that would be um beneficial to me as well and again you don't have to answer it now but if you could in the proposal that would be fantastic thank you yes absolutely it is a registered nonprofit and so

129when we review this we reviewed it for its mentoring capacity and its ability to be able to support students with social emotional learning and development of those skills so in that proposal this program does not push forth any religious ideals and they do not push forth any religious programming for students at all but i will definitely make sure that i update that website would say otherwise so and again not anti-god not anti-religion just making sure that we're doing due diligence on and keeping everybody in their lanes yes absolutely i will be showing the update in the letter okay just one more question yes i'm sorry madam chair is it okay just wait where did you come up with um a hundred one 125 dollars an hour how did you come up and did i had

130to see the right thing went in for the teacher's salary if i look at the wrong one yeah look at the right one 125 an hour so this would be based upon each organization is asked to submit um their submit a proposal for how much it would cost based upon the hours and then based upon the hours per day and the numbers of students that they would serve so i have to go back directly into the proposal to see the exact numbers that this organization put forth to get forth to get the 125 per hour so if that needs to be clear in the letter i can make sure we will articulate that a little clearer please show evidence where you got that information from thank you yes okay so i think you have quite

131a few um you know things that we need to have much more clarity on and then we we will table this um to the to the next um board meeting if you want to uh submit a review a revised letter for force yes absolutely yeah well thank you okay thank you okay so i think we've um that was the last of the procurements folks and i'm gonna move back to um see if they if if our uh board committees would like to do any um updates or report outs and so i will start with the teaching and learning committee commissioner mcfadden madam chair i don't uh have a a particular update i mean the i don't have one just our next upcoming meeting you'll announce that at the end of the meeting okay thank you

132um operations committee commissioner roberts uh alameda i will mirror commissioner mcfadden's statement i don't have any updates uh but our next meeting is september 15th thank you and uh policy commissioner brooks yes so i would just uh like to say um we had a wonderful uh presentation um at our last policy meeting um we explored two policies new policies that are being in development one revision and one new policy um and just really wanted to invite um participants to come in and really weigh in on those uh policies um and to really help us to be informed in that space so this is a place where we can continue to sharpen and make sure the policies are actually effective in the types of policies that we need to move the district forward and uh just

133really uh grateful for uh the space and and it's really an open invitation to continue to help us shape policy that will last uh for a number of years to come okay and so just for everyone's um information um as louis mentioned the teaching and learning committee uh will have its next meeting on tuesday september the 1st at 3 30 these are all virtual meetings uh operations on tuesday september the 15th at 10 30 a.m policy tuesday september the 15th at 3 30 p.m um and the um next um meeting for the board uh will be on tuesday september the 8th that should be a date that everybody has in their heads because i know that that is also the first day of school um so um after everything is done uh for one part

134of the day you can join us at 5 p.m for the uh for the board meeting at that time is there um any any other item for the good of the group that a board member needs to bring up before i ask for a motion to adjourn madam chair yeah i'm sorry go ahead john oh yeah i was just gonna say the pcap meeting also i didn't want you to forget to mention that i'm sorry yes i didn't flip my page sorry about that pcapp and we're walking with you so i got to make sure i tell everybody thursday september the 17th at 6 30 pm uh another virtual meeting and an open invitation to join us sorry uh madam chair there are two birthdays i'd like to acknowledge we haven't met since uh dr

135santilisa's birthday earlier this month um so happy birthday belated to dr santelesis and also to commissioner roberts commissioner roberts just celebrated a birthday last week so i just wanted to make sure we acknowledge these wonderful women great happy birthday to all of you thank you i hope you enjoyed them and um thank you commissioner in the midst of all all of all the things that were happening and um i would just like again like to uh thank everyone um who has been uh in any way supporting and helping as we have tried to plan and get ready for the opening of school to to uh to teachers who are returning and staff for returning tomorrow our thoughts will be with you as you begin that process of of a lot of professional development to be

136ready for students uh for parents i know that you're starting getting your students ready for the routine of you know the right bedtime and the time to get up in the morning and be to uh to look at the screen or to look at you or whoever but thank you all for that know that as we said earlier we will we will always be there to listen we need to hear from you as we continue monitoring whatever plan we have in place as as we're going through the implementation we know we must we must be flexible um we must be supportive and we must collaborate and so with that i'm gonna ask if there's a motion to adjourn so moved madam chair thank you uh commissioner james okay james uh if there is no objection

137from the from the board i'm going to take this by consent that we will adjourn yes have a good night everyone see none heavy good evening and thank you everyone you