good good evening and welcome to this series of fiscal year 26 budget hearings hosted by the Boston school committee and superintendent Mary Skipper we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I will ask all of my colleagues to unmute and join
me pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all because this is a virtual meeting I
will ask Miss parix to please call the role thank you chair Dr alkins Mr KET Hernandez Mr isma Miss Lima Barbosa present M poano Garcia Mr
Tran present Mr O'Neal present Miss Robinson present we have a quorum thank you Miss Prix tonight's session is being shared live on Zoom it will be posted on the school committee's web page and on YouTube tonight's
hearing documents are posted on the committee's web page bostonpublicschools.org commun school committee under the March 5th meeting link the documents have been translated into all of the major BPS
languages and any translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized the committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation in Spanish Haitian Creole Cape Verdian
Cantonese Mandarin Vietnamese and American Sign Language the zoom interpretation feature has been activated Zoom participants should click the globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language
preference I want to remind everyone to please speak at a slower Pace to assist our interpreters I'd like to start tonight by sharing my gratitude for our mayor thank you for representing our values as a city and standing up for the needs of
all bostonians who made us proud during our February 26 meeting we ask the superintendent to share a brief update on the community engagement process for the long-term facilities proposals superintendent I now welcome your
comments wonderful thank you chair uh good evening everyone um so tonight uh before we begin the FY 26 budget hearing would like to just take a few minutes to provide an update on the district's Community engagement work related to our
long-term facilities proposals uh this was requested specifically by Vice chair O'Neal at the previous school committee meeting um chief of Capital planning Dell Stanislas and Deputy superintendent of community and family advancement uh
Dr Anna tovaris are here tonight to provide more details about our recent Outreach efforts and the district's 18month planning cycle as well as some historical data on past engagement timelines so at this point um I will
turn it over to Chief Stanis loss and to Dr Taris and school committee for the opportunity to present alongside my colleague Chief Stannis La I'm Dr Anna Tavarez Deputy superintendent of the division of family and Community advancement our update is
a follow-up re request from Vice chair O'Neal on the most recent Community engagement related to the closure and merger proposals this evening we want to highlight our cross Division and cross departmental
collaboration and share what we have learned from communities I first want to ground Us in the mission statement of the office family and Community advancement which states that each one of us has an
important role in every student success story as you hear our update this evening please know that Chief Stannis laow and I are one example of many of our cross collaboration I now turn to
you Chief I'm actually looking um I don't see logged in yet well I can continue you like me to yep she might be
no worries no um and uh school committee members please know that Chief stanisa and I we've done this together and I'm happy to start off there's Dell okay uh dell there we go okay there
you are okay perfect great uh sorry about that team um good evening everyone D Stanislas chief of capital planning thank you Dr Tavarez
um Let Me project the slide sorry I am projecting this slide in one second can everyone see the slide we see your sign in Zoom signin
page we saw the clap win a minute ago but now it just says Zoom sign in I'll pull it up slides up sorry for the technical difficulty sorry about that team um on this slide we have outlined the full
timeline of Engagement starting from the initial announcement to impacted School communities we understand that school closures are difficult news for communities schools are more than just buildings There Are Places filled with
memories relationships and history at these meetings we acknowledge the many emotions and challenges families and staff are facing we emphasize that these tough decisions are made with the goal of creating better experiences for current
and future students the goal of this engagement is to make sure that families and staff understand the timeline and the options for themselves or their students we know this is disruptive for those impacted so our goal is to do everything we can to make the
transitions for them as smooth as possible while this side slide uh captures what we have done so far it is just the beginning of the work that will happen over the next 18 months next slide
in the past BPS has followed an inconsistent timeline and process for school closures ranging from four months to a multi-year process based on Direct feedback from parents and staff we believe the best timeline for transition
is 18 months this ensures a more tful and supportive transition for students families and staff a full year allows for a few things a case management approach for all students with a particular individual focus on our
students with disabilities and multilingual students to ensure there's no impact on their service delivery needs these students and their families have designated support staffs within the office of specialized services and
the other in the office of Multicultural and multilingual education whether students are transitioning to a new school or emerged school this timeline ensures they have enough time to prepare adjust and
receive the necessary resources for a successful transition without leaving too much time for a school to destabilize passing it back to Deputy uh superintendent tarz next thank you Chief
the thank you Chief the specific engagement you see listed is of community meetings and their attendees these numbers are specific to community members it does not include Central
office staff interpreters or support staff regardless of the number of people that attended the meeting the capital planning team provided full presentation to everyone present as
you 106 community members and also small numbers of community members attended nonetheless they left understanding the purpose and proposal for the long-term facility plan since the
announcement we have had numerous formal meetings but what this slide does not cover is the numerous informal conversations we've also had with families and staff things like breakfast meetings classroom
conversations with students and individual phone calls with parents and staff this is much harder to capture but equally as important from these meetings these are some of the positive key learnings we have
heard people have appreciated the multiple forms of Engagement access to languages and platforms for example families at the lion appreciate it that we held both virtual and inperson
meetings these meetings have also confirmed how incredible our school staff is while they are processing their own transitions they have prioritized creating space for students to process these changes and provide them with
resources so they understand their options we've also heard feedback about the 2030 vision from the broader Community our families know that our district can and should be serving
students better and this affirms the process is the right direction for our schools we are committed to increasing transparency to fortify trust between the district and the communities we
serve Our intention is says share our criteria for selecting schools with the public as our partners in decisionmaking Chief I hand it over to you thank you next
slide actually can you go back one slide sorry while while we have while we've come a long way we have also taken away some key learnings on how we can continue to improve this process for family Staffing
students we could more clearly articulate the full 18mon timeline of activities so parents and teachers are assured um they would receive the full one-on-one support and they understand
they will have a significant voice in shaping the future of their school communities particularly in the case of mergers we have to be more conscious of timing for future proposals many of our families expressed that it would have
been helpful to know of the proposal prior to the school choice season we will follow up later this week with a memo with additional information on our engagement with communities next slide
a lot of what we shared tonight is very technical and those details matter but before we move on before we move on we wanted to share some pictures it's easy to talk about
this in concept but it is important to see how it plays out in the field here we have a picture of the federick tour with the family from the windr and clap families were so excited about the new building there's so much that the
Frederick has that their current schools do not one example of this is a little boy from the club who screeched with delight when the tour guide said and next up we'll walk to the gym the little boy looked at his mom eyes wide open
mouth dropped and said a gym this seemingly small detail meant so much to him this is what this work is all about thank you and apologies for my tech glitch this evening so chair I
think uh I just want to check uh dell and Dr tarus are you guys all set we're all set soup great so Cher I think um this was to really just give the committee an idea about the types of Engagement that we've been involved in
um with the community uh what led to sort of the recommendations and then working with the with the um impacted communities on what would be helpful with transition what types of questions emerge um we tried to do I think as you
saw um frequent levels of Engagement multiple meetings different modalities of the meetings in a way to engage as many families students staff as possible um and even with that there's lots of times that folks are reaching out to the
team in capital planning or to AFA Dr tovar's division to ask follow of questions so there's really a lot of ongoing dialogue that's happening within our communities relative to any of the changes that are being proposed great yes thank you all thank you
superintendent Dr Miss Stannis and Dr tar for the update um the slide shared will be posted on the school committee's webbsite and we will not have a full dis conversation at this time as this is a budget hearing however we understand the long-term facilities plan may come up
later in relationship to the budget and we will now move on to tonight's presentation for the budget hearing I want to okay as we begin I want to briefly review the committee's budget process on the 1 Wednesday in
February as outlined in the city Charter the superintendent presented her preliminary fiscal year 26 budget proposal to the committee on February 13th the committee held a budget hearing focused on school budgets tonight's
hearing will focus on the central budget the committee will hold the third and final hearing on March 20th at 5:30 p.m. immediately followed by a regular school committee meeting at 6:30 pm. over the course of the next weeks committee
members are invited to ask questions and suggest modifications to budget items the community is also invited to ask questions and provide feedback about the superintendent recommended budget by offering live and written
testimony the superintendent and her team will work diligently to respond to the committee members questions and suggested modifications as well as clarify areas of concern before presenting a revised budget to the committee on March
20th I'll now turn it over to the superintendent and her team for the central budget presentation I'd like to remind everyone to please speak at a slower Pace to assist our interpreters wonderful um so thank you chair very much uh it's great to be here
before this committee for the second FY 26 budget hearing which this time as chair said we'll be focused on Central budget um as chair also explained uh my team presented a 1.58 billion FY 26
preliminary Boston Public Schools budget in early February and that for us officially kicks off the 2526 budget season we identified um along the way the high trends that um at a very high
level um impact this year's decision-making um just as a reminder some of them included uh First full year without Federal Sr dollars um which as a reminder was the pandemic relief dollars
um shifting enrollment Trends uh from general education to multilingual Learners uh and special education students and the impact of inflation on maintenance and other costs uh at our first budget hearing on February 13th we
we reviewed our school's budget um we explained how we collaborate with school leaders to build out their budgets what that process looks like all the way back to when they get enrollment figures uh and then how we identified identified
cost savings that we then put funds back into the classroom with um we were also joined just as a reminder by several School leaders who explained how we use service mapping in the inclusion model to take a closer look at individual
students needs um tonight we're here to focus specifically on central office budget and this for us contains four main components our academics the office of family and Community engagement uh advancement which we call Offa
operations and superintendent's office the presentation tonight will be given by uh Chief Financial Officer Bloom who everyone knows quite well and he will be joined by Dr Linda Chen who everyone knows as well senior Deputy superintendent of academics Dr Sam deina
who's our Deputy superintendent of operations and Dr Anna tovaris who was just on the screen who's our Deputy superintendent of community and family advancement um they're going to speak to each of their own areas of work which accompany the budget uh Chiefs of the
central office divisions are also here tonight and are ready to answer questions and the deputies May pull them in to be able to give a fuller picture as I've noted before this year's budget honors our commitment to putting
students first and in the center while also maximizing our previous Investments and building that Foundation out and strengthening our proven programs and initiatives that are yielding outcome in the ways that we we had hoped um thanks
to strong fiscal stewardship f Ally responsible investments in strategic reductions and efficiencies we have not lost Focus or compromised our core mission in the delivery of this budget
and as members are aware we applied a zerob based budget approach to our Central budgets and asked each department to identify cost savings and anticipated increases and you'll hear a bit more about that tonight um this
budget represents a total of $ 53.4 million spending increase over fy2 which includes $22 million in new Investments and $21 million in cost savings due to
reductions which include things like the closures uh the grade configuration changes and that's allowed us to reinvest a sum total of $43 million back into the schools um additionally I've asked our team to
identify and um earmark $5 million um of further efficiencies in central office budgets that can also be reinvested in schools um these these efficiencies come from across our
divisions uh they include um oper operational areas such as Transportation facilities uh reviews of contracts spending in academics uh reduction in positions with a focus on vacancies in particular so those positions that have
not been filled for some time um and tonight our team will walk you through in their respective areas those reductions um for the budget as we also explained in the earlier budget presentation the vast majority of our District's funding
93% is allocated to student services including School budgets the remaining 7% supports services that are budgeted centrally such as Transportation specialized services like special education facilities and uh
salary benefits as well as services that the district is required to provide to non-bps students um smallest portion of the budget goes to central office administration and that can also include constituent
Services um which which provides resources to families uh caregivers and other BPS communities in response to school committee members advocacy you're in receipt of the draft FY 26 budget
book which provides and this is draft um which provides great detail about this year's spending plan and in his presentation Chief Bloom will walk you through how to read it by sharing a few sample Pages um and again it's draft and
we update it as changes are made recommendations are made and numbers are altered um book will be available to the public on the budget office web page at bostonpublicschools.org budget all lower um this link is also
available on the Boston School committee's web page under tonight's hearing so at this point chair I will turn it over to Chief Bloom and to the deputies to be able to further explain their respective areas Chief bloom let me restart my intro off mute thank
you superintendent and good evening chair and members of the school committee I'm excited to be back in front of you today with members of our broader District team to discuss the impact of the FY 26 proposed budget on central office as always always I want to start
tonight's presentation with a highlevel summary of our FY 26 budget proposal for those who may be joining the budget process for the first time we are currently several months into what is almost a year-long budgeting process this evening marks the
third formal session of our school committee engagement around the budget but this is a conversation that's been going on for the entirety of this school year our FY 26 budget reflects our commitment to keep school committee and District priorities that were reflected
in the fall school committee Retreat these include accelerating academic performance ensuring access for all students and consistency and high quality learning opportunities as we work together to build a highquality student experience
we are listening to the community we've heard directly from the community Through focus groups and listening sessions with over 500 community members as well as a survey that yielded 9,000 responses to help us outline the four main elements that you see before you on this
slide this brings us to the superintendent's proposed budget for the FY 2526 fiscal year the proposed $ 53.4 million increase to the budget 35% is a budget that combines a
commitment to fiscal responsibility with continued investment in our district priorities in addition to the new funds from the city we've identified $21 million in savings from the ltfp and capacity management as well as a newly
identified $5 million of the superintendent mentioned coming from central office budgets to be reinvested in schools during our February 13th budget hearing we went through $43 million in new Investments in detail these Investments Advance District priorities
and show the beginnings of what we can build by reinvesting the savings from the difficult choices we're making with our long-term facilities plan in that same hearing we also discussed the school-based efficiencies we found these were identified in two
main ways first those savings from closures and reconfigurations under the ltfp second classroom closures from under en roll programs every dollar saved from these in this matter was reinvested directly in
schools this brings us to the subject of tonight's hearing our central office budgets in the fall we engage in a zero-based budget process with our central office departments through that Pro process departments had to identify offsets for
10 to 15 million in programs and priorities that were funded using one-time revenues primarily the tail end of Esser in addition after the initial presentation of budget priorities in December the superintendent listened to
feedback from the school committee School leaders and school communities and came back to our central office team in January and asked us to identify another $5 million of cuts to allow for additional investments in schools our Deputy superintendent will be joining later in this presentation
and we'll share more detail on these processes and the cuts but before we go into that I want to share some Basics about our Central budgets as a superintendent mentioned earlier over 90% of the District budget goes directly to programs at schools and
with families but about half of the budget actually lives on central office departments this includes many things that are directly experienced by students and families like Transportation Facilities Management out of District services and benefits for
all employees we wanted to provide a little bit more detail of what goes into these items before we go in to talk through our uh divisions tonight this slide provides a more detailed breakdown of central office
budgets by our leadership structure as you can see the vast majority of resources are devoted to school Services budgeted centrally I will also note um that the office of the superintendent includes multiple departments it's not just the superintendent's office um so when you
see um $4 million here that's that's me that's multiple departments under the division of the superintendent not just the superintendent's office to be clear um but academics includes things like all of our special education programming uh that's on our Central
budgets all such as special education related services and uh onetoone pair professionals uh it also includes our omme budget for things like instructional coaching curriculum resources our teaching and learning budget that provides all of our
online um learning tools and many more we have our AFA team as the superintendent mentioned earlier under Dr tovaris this includes things that you would traditionally think of at like our family engagement work but also a much
more complex system of things like managing our welcome services an assignment as well as Partnerships with nonprofits across the city our operations team under Dr deina includes uh budgets like
facilities um Finance which includes all the benefits for the District transportation Food Services and more and then the superintendent's office obviously includes the superintendent herself but also the office of the chief of staff
Communications the office of of civil rights as I mentioned before our central office distribution strategy was based on a zerob based butt approach we gave departments a blank page to start which was a scary exercise
for many and really asked them to build up and outline the programs and services that they were hoping to offer in the upcoming year and really think about the priorities that meant that some programs that were temporarily funded were moved over onto
the permanent budget and some programs that had been longstanding are now going to be reduced or eliminated we also know and we've gotten feedback from the school committee and the public That central office budgets can be hard to identify with and
understand at the level of detail we're able to present in the meetings like this one and so service of that I've finally been able to update this slide very excited for this day to come to say that we have presented the budget book not that it's coming but it's actually
here um so our budget book is now published and it has more details and I'm going to just take a minute to walk through a little bit of what that looks like but this outline walk through the main sections and for those of you following along at home in the budget book like I am um you can go to the
section on central office budget that has one page per central office Department to learn more about what we are talking about tonight here's an example of the information that is on that page we tried to balance giving
information that people need to understand the work of the department with not being overwhelming with the volume of information we gave even with that this section of the book is 50 pages but as you can see here each page has a
mission or vision for the department and explains a little bit of the work they're trying to accomplish we also listed anywhere from three to five priorities per Department of what the work actually entails dayto day we then listed out the actual budget
items that things are paid for the Hope here was that it could provide some detail and understanding of what goes into building a budget like this for example in the Athletics office you'll see a line for contracts and non-personnel
when we say School Services budgeted centrally in the in this office we're thinking about things like athletic trainer contracts MIAA fees film supports for the inter Scholastic
teams all of our coaching stiens for example are included in this budget the other thing is there's hundreds of thousand dollars for equipment and supplies things like uniforms supplies for sports teams athletic equipments personal protective
gear and more so um you have a page like this in your book for every Department that has a budget in the BPS and with that I'll turn it over to my Dr Linda Chen to speak a little bit
more about the academics division their priorities and the work they undertook this budget season thank you David good evening school committee members our core Mission and the foundation of our budget request is to ensure the success of
every single student in the Boston Public Schools we achieved this by providing our schools with the necessary resources and support to create robust learning environments this includes includes a strong foundation in evidence-based
literacy which is essential for all students to engage meaningfully in grade level learning across all subjects to realize this Mission we have identified some key priorities that will drive our budget allocations and strategic efforts I'll share a few
examples here this evening first is to invest in high quality instructional materials this ensures our students have access to the best resources for learning learning we will also provide our Educators with
professional learning opportunities and individualized coaching which will Empower them to implement effective teaching strategies and meet the diverse needs of their students another priority is to cultivate strategic Partnerships by
collaborating with colleges businesses and Community organizations we can expand learning opportunities provide real world experiences and offer valuable mentorship for our students we're also committed to expanding bilingual and multilingual
educational supports and programming Boston is a diverse City and we must ensure that all students regardless of their language background have their resources they need to thrive leveraging student level data Dynamic digital learning environments
Regional coaching supports and professional development systems this datadriven approach allows us to monitor student progress identify areas for improvement and tailor our support to meet individual needs some of these things you've seen in some of our
transformation updates and so on these priorities are not isolated initiatives but rather interconnected strategies designed to create a comprehensive and Equitable educational experience for all Boston school
students the budget we are presenting reflects these priorities and our commitment to investing in the future of our students on the next slide I want to just provide some
context for how we've looked at reductions excuse me just a minute building upon the mission and prior priorities outlined in the previous slide this slide details our strategic approach to Resource
Management we' focused on maximizing the impact of every dollar allocated to academic support we understand the importance of fiscal responsibility and we've actively pursued efficiencies to ensure we are using taxpayer funds
wisely these efficiency measures have allowed us to reinvest in critical areas that directly support student learning and well-being some of these efficiencies include I'll give a few examples here one is we closely reviewed all of our vacancies as
a team and deliberated on which vacancies and positions we could eliminate for next year in alignment with our priorities we also negotiated reduced pricing and adjusted scopes of contracted Services by reviewing our
existing um contracts to identify areas where we could achieve savings without compromising quality so some of this also looked at usage levels and so on of of current resources um we also uh again Consolidated positions and work
responsibilities to maximize our support for schools this strategic restructuring has allowed us to streamline operations and ensure that resources are directed where they are needed most we've conducted a thorough review of contract usage stipended and other expenses which
allow owed us to identify some redundancies and ensure that we are getting the best value for our investments these efficiency efforts have resulted in significant cost savings which you have then reinvested directly into programs that benefit our students some of these reinvestments
include adaptive online learning resources that provide personalized learning experiences for students allowing them to progress at their own pace and receive targeted support another example is expanding academic mentoring and high dosage tutoring programs that will provide
individualized support to students who need extra help ensuring they have the resources they need to succeed another example is is strengthening our dual enrollment and early college programs these programs provide students with the opportunity to
earn college credits while still in high school increasing their access to post-secondary education enhancing secondary Pathways and alternative education is another PRI priority which ensures that all students have access to engaging in re and
relevant learning opportunities regardless of their individual needs and interests and one last example is also investing in community Hub schools these schools serve as centers of Community Support providing students and families with access to a range of resources and
services to best support every learner thank you and I now turn the time over to my colleague Dr Taris thank you Dr Chen thank you for a second opportunity to provide a glimpse of the work led by
the division of family and Community advancement school committee members I will not be able to share all of the incredible work that every Department in the division is completing however I want to give you all an opportunity to
have a glimpse of how our investments in the work that we lead to support our families is really an exciting and um wonderful way for us to really focus this evening I want to First
highlight our cross Division and cross departamental collaboration and as you can tell I'm very excited I want to share what we have learned from communities and how we're implementing the feedback we've received including feedback from this
body I also want to ground us once again in the mission statement of the office of family and Community advancement and reiterate the importance of how our teamwork is critical and we understand that each one of us has an important
role in every student success story my fellow deputies Dr Chen and Dr deina and I were in tandem to support our teams and colleagues across our divisions and among our departments next slide
please we have responded to the priorities of our district to continuously improve our engagement process by direct Investments to support our families language capacity has been a
key lever we know access to resources is key one example is our helpline this is a trained team of multilingual staff that connect families
to resources and departments as well as ensuring we close the loop on any supports needed as of date I am proud to share we have supported over 25,000 families this
that is over 10,000 families more than this time last year we will have almost doubled the support we provide to families by the end year this is a data point signals we
are responding to the needs of our families and our community in real time thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share an example and now I welcome my colleague Dr
deina thank you Dr zarus good evening Madam shair members of the school committee and public joining us this evening on behalf of the entire Operations Division is my pleasure to be here this evening to discuss our division and our mission to create the
conditions needed so that all our students can learn in a healthy safe and beautiful learning spaces I want to take a minute to publicly thank everyone on the team for all the work that they've done in the assistance of developing this budget and the work we're going to
continue to do on behalf of our students and families of the district we do so through demonstrative priorities across all six of our operational departments in capital planning we continue to build the foundation for the future of Boston Public Schools through
physical spaces that support learning and Encompass all aspects of inclusion education inclusive education in operations our facilities condition assessment dashboard or FCA that we refer to it as allows us to make timely
Equitable decisions about repairs Replacements and Renovations in all of our school buildings our transportation department with the launch of the Zoom app it provides us real-time Transportation data so we can safely track and transport all students to and from
school safely finally our food and nutritional services department is working every day to prioritize and prepare fresh meals in our cafeterias our human resources team contributes to this Innovation and
transformation of teaching and learning by supporting employees at every stage of their career from recruitment to hiring and on boarding professional growth leadership development and eventually
retirement in our safety services is um in Safety Services we continue to develop and Implement plans that create and ensure a safe and secure educational environment for all students and staff our student support team uh takes
a supportive and holistic approach in supporting our young people this includes but is not limited to focusing on Equity academic success social emotional well-being and creating the conditions that will provide the total
educational K12 experience for our young people both in school after school and during school vacations our division of data information and systems Improvement is a new department that brings together our
it data planning and planning and Analysis Division and systems Improvement teams in service of cons of uh of consistency in the use of available data and strategic decision- making across these departments this team empowers
datadriven decision making and forces a culture of continuous Improvement in the district they provide reliable accessible and secure data streamline information flow optimize
systems facilitate cross functional project management and oversee the implementation of District initiatives to support student achievement enhance instructional practices and strengthen operational effectiveness last but certainly not
least our finance team um they accurately um provide financial and strategic support to schools and the community and central office teams we aim to maximize distribute and Safeguard the resources available to
carry out the educational and support activities of the district again I want to thank you all for your time um next next slide please um while keeping our sites laer focus on operational priorities we have continueed to identify where operational
efficiencies can also be realized our long-term facilities plans will continue to reap savings that would then be reinvested in our school communities this year this was realized with the closing of the Frederick the West
Zone and the great configurations at the Hernandez Gardner Haley and henigan in the transportation department today we have had 1,000 students yellow bus drivers Riders opt out of
Transportation these opt outs have led to $1 million in Savings in our transportation budget that can then be put back into schools for repurposing and programs facilities contracts are our biggest contracts in the district a thorough review as well as a stricter
management of all of our contracts led to additional efficiencies that could be realized reinvestment highlights and operations focus on strategic Investments such as the following our human resources team is undergoing a functional restructure
based on the recommendations made by the Council of great City Schools review earlier this year the core function and workflows of the office of Human Resources will will be reorganized and focused on three key areas Recruitment and on boarding employee support and retention
and exit transition with continuous Improvement in student supports we are making targeted programmatic investments in direct student supports through mentorship career exploration college and career opportunities and tele behavioral health
programs thanks again for your time this evening and with that I'll turn it back over to David Bloom David thank you Sam uh as we close out our presentation tonight um I just wanted to take a
moment to talk in a little bit more detail about the uh increased costs that I had mentioned earlier as part of our central office budget these increased costs uh come into four main areas
health insurance collective bargaining out of District costs and special education services one thing I wanted to make sure to discuss with the committee tonight is we know that health insurance and collective bargaining are cost increases
that we should expect every year as part of the inflationary cost of doing business but we are in the midst of continued efforts to reduce cost for growth in as many items in the BPS budget as
possible for example as we go the Carter grow The Carter School in its new building we should be able to save money on outof District costs and that's an item we're hoping to continue to reduce as the year goods go on finally as we close out our presentation I want to remind the public
of where we are in our process we'll be returning to the committee for a final hearing to review bps's updated budget proposal on March 20th before returning to a regular school committee meeting for a vote on the budget on March 26th and with that myself and the team look
forward to answering your questions thank you I'll now open it up to questions and discussion from the committee I'd like to remind everyone all of my colleagues about our agreed upon Norm that we each
have five minutes per meeting per excuse me per member per round not including District response when there is one minute remaining I've asked Miss Parx to give member reminder to the members she will also notify you when your time is
concluded right who wouldd like to start Miss Lima Barosa thank you chair uh thank you everyone for the presentation I wish we had more time so you all could actually go in detail of all the great work that you
all are doing um I know we've had opportunities as members to have one-on-one meetings to better understand where uh the Investments are going especially for the repurpose of the monies dollars that we were able to save
um I think for me what I wanted to highlight more tonight is how important family engagement is I think we've done some great Investments there uh of course we will always have to do more uh to become better especially on being
more creative on how we are engaging with families in 2025 and Beyond I think there's a lot of the traditional practices that are still very important on how we're communicating with them but uh there are best practices that other Industries are utilizing to engage with their target
audience um and for me especially with the climate of our country right now there's so much more misinformation going out when we think about uh particular communities that you Services um I think about even walking to welcome
centers um navigating all the different testing that they have to uh practice so I know we've expanded staff in East in East Boston I know uh We've made some changes there but I would love to
challenge this this District to really think about not just expanding the existing sites but creating other sites in um our neighborhoods especially when when it comes to testing cuz some of them can go and register for example in Dorchester but then still have to go do
testing in Roxberry so how do we become a little bit more accessible to some of our communities so it's not a logistical nightmare another thing I wanted to point out soup and I know some of some folks on your team have had this conversation and I've had this
conversation briefly with the city on how we can really uh think about bowling center having more of a presence of the district and I think a lot about the Welcome Center I I think it's concerning that our lobby or lounge area per se is
not as not that it needs to be private but I would love you know if all your cubicles are full I appreciate the flexibility of Staff coming out and really meeting them out but some parents don't want to talk about their family business out especially if it's a family that
requires some sort of language support for example examp Le or have things that are a little bit more private that they want to share we do have neighbors in in the in the in the uh external partners that are our neighbors in the building that also do amazing work in the
community I want to name that I'm not asking at all for folks to be displaced but would love to learn more and I know that's a conversation with the city is not just with the district and I want to acknowledge that as well but we have to
make investments in our City uh in our um uh services our constituent Services it's not just about of course our buildings and our schools or teachers educ and Educators those are important but you got to think about the moment
that a a family wants to register in the district and our welcome centers I think there's a lot of potential there there's a lot of work that's already uh being done but I think we need to think a little bit outside of the box and think about expanding Beyond what we already
have uh of course they need more support we need to continue to sustain and make sure our staff is prepared but families are not stopping to come to Boston and our mayor is making that very clear that we want to make sure our city is safe so we can continue to receive families not
only from outside the country one sec one minute other states uh I don't have a particular question at least for this round but I really wanted to talk about seeing more Investments and I'm using welcome s just as an example but any Department that really serves that face
uh direct service with a student outside of the academic support because I think uh we're doing some progress but I would love to see if we're cutting or we're saving uh in this area let's say next year we come and it's like the top two
of the more invested uh areas in the district's budget uh so I'll stop there if anybody has any comments just a your thought process on how where we landed at least for this this conversation but I'll have more questions for the next round great so I know Dr zarus is still
trying to figure out her Tech we seem to be having Tech bad luck tonight but um but I I so I got you um so I mean I I I think you know as we've talked right we we love your thinking we loved um the
feedback that you gave when you came and saw the Welcome Center and I think we've started those conversations about the assessment piece because it is very true that we need to streamline the assessment there's also a lot of time that parents have while they're waiting at the engagement at the Welcome Center
and so how can we use that to our uh ability but the other thing that I really appreciate that I think Dr Tavaris is attempting to do with the team is create those moments of Family engagement as we're doing different initiatives so whether that's long-term
facilities and as Dell and Anna co-presented the teams working together there whether it's inclusion and helping a parent understand and become engaged with the IEP uh Andor the inclusion plan and options for their student uh you
know whether it's um you know Corey and student support and actually having many of the events where the whole family comes to it there's so many different opportunities we have to bring families into our schools into our centers like wherever we're doing the activities um
so in addition to the Welcome Center and that focus and evolution we also need to be thinking about what does that look like throughout the organization and how can we make sure AFA is the fabric of the organization uh Dr tarus did you have other things you wanted to yes
superintendent I better jump in before the Wi-Fi betrays me again um one of the platforms and and um uh member Barbosa I love that you're pushing the this conversation for more details so as you know asella that we are now referring to
as great starts is actually a platform that's going to allow families to be able to do their entire application online with support of a registration specialist in their first language and it's going to accelerate the
process and that's really exciting another point of Technology that's really critical and important for this body to know and I'm um hopefully going to be able to demonstrate at one of our school committees is the translate
live so that's the device that many of you may have heard of and I know a few of the committee members actually got to see it working um that every single main office across our schools in the district have access to any family with
any language as a primary language can walk into our building and even if the staff may not have that language capacity in the building this device allows us to simultaneously communicate with families in real time and that's
huge and revolutionary and of course having the devices at the school is step one now really being able to continuously train folks on how to use the device and the and then keeping track with the device of what schools are using what languag is where is data
that we're super excited to begin collecting in this school year thank you the uh I like the um application being online just wanted I'm just curious if you all are also thinking about having you know your team at at particular
events or sites with tablets where if a family comes down they're like hey I want to do it now so things like that uh uh I'm sure you all are thinking about but thank you so much for sharing a little bit more I'll have follow-up questions in the next round just
remember Barbosa we don't just think about it we actually do it right so yeah we do popups often and to your point earlier how can we access the opportunity to have families really engage with welcome Services I mean even this past Saturday our welcome service
specialists were at the lla Frederick welcoming the clap and winthrip families that were visiting the school so I I think it's really important for this body to understand that these teams are out in the community all the time and
it's it's critical because sometimes it's one or two or three people you know um our director happened to be the one our executive director happened to be Sonia who was out there in this past Saturday but and they rotate among the team so maybe two or three people but they're out there and they're out there
almost every single weekend every single night great thank you Dr alkins um yes thank you for the presentation I think um one thing I I had asked previously was also it would be helpful
for us to see some Trend data just over the past few years how central office Investments have changed over the past five years and so I think just to really show how it's been
reinvested um over the course of time and I think that's also good for the public to see um because I know that that's been something that has been uh stated by the public um and and schools like like as well so I think um that
would also be helpful um and then I'm actually curious about um if you're using some of these reinvestments um it's not just having the the money but it's how you're thinking about using it I'm really
curious on on like experimental strategies that you might be thinking about with teach teacher staff and recruiting um recruiting and retention practices like Etc um if you're really thinking about how like how do we do um
make more or try to just be creative I think you know to Echo the comments of my uh uh of my fellow Committee Member but um really curious about like those things so I I certainly can answer that
uh Deputy DEA do you would you like Chief KY to come on uh yes I was just about to go there off but Chief KY can speak to that um uh Committee Member alins Francis good
evening um so we are always looking at ways obviously um to maximize the way we use our recruitment dollars and how the recruitment dollars impact our um our teacher retention or like what
impact like how we're using the dollars um what are the outcomes of those dollars um those are things that we're always looking at um this year we've been really um strategic about the way we are um we are looking at what the um
what the outcomes are are going to look like we um we right now are are following a little bit more than they have in the previous years um I think it's um we have been more strategic and trying to figure out
if we um because we even like we're looking at like if we attend a fair or if we attend um um a certain Fair what are the outcomes of those fairs do we get how many people do we get from those fairs so we are looking at those things
um now um I I just I just want to caution that I don't know what the data looked like prior I know now that these are things that like I am very much focused on to see what what the outcomes are of the things we attend if something is not yielding anything if we're
attending like 20 fairs but you know when we go to these fairs we're not getting the candidates does it really is that an investment that the district needs to make or like how do we like realign um our strategies to make sure that it makes sense for us so those are
things that we are looking at and um when you talk about retention we are also looking at that like we you know the district um one thing that like we are thinking about investing in is like really looking at like the surveys that we do when people are exiting the um the
district and seeing what like what is the data really saying and what are we seeing and how how do we what investments can we make to make sure that like we invest in these things that we're seeing from this data so we are I this is a roundabout way to say to you
that like we are being more strategic this year at looking at the dollars to make sure that it makes sense um and um we're being very intentional about it this year and and the last thing I'll add is that we're also looking at um in our reorganization shift into a real
case management model for retention of Staff um so I don't if you want to speak a little bit more about that um um Chief Ki yes so one of the things at the Council of great City School um the audit that we did of Ohr it um it realigned the work for us and um one of
the things that we um Recruitment and um Staffing wasn't really connected to together um the way just the way that the office was structured and one of the um one of the recommendation was for us to realign those two PE um those two um
groups together um and seeing like and now we can really manage like from the Staffing point and the like understanding what school leaders need and then so that we can then go out and make those recruitment efforts so there are some realigning that's happening that's going to um we're hoping we'll
yield some better data as to how for us to like really spend those dollars and see um and really see um benefits of how how those dollars are going to um are going to either you know um really um
speak speak to what we were looking to do like what does strategic um Strategic Staffing and recruitment look like um because it's something that we haven't been doing so um I'm hoping maybe by next year we'll have a better data point and that we'll be able to talk to you
about some of the um outcome of that um realignment and how it's working yeah I think this was why we undertook Dr alkins the Council of great City schools for OC at this time I also think that the hiring and um recruitment and cultivation and
retention has shifted post pandemic and post Esser where you see for instance waivers which were plentiful um and allowed districts to be like really Nimble with hiring things have scaled back considerably so when we hire somebody we have to think about how if
that person's coming in and needs to work on a license and they're under a waiver what are the steps we need to take in a very short amount of time to get that person licensed so it's definitely um causing us in a positive way to be much more efficient and strategic and
make sure that as uh Sam began sort of with the council great City Schools there's deliberate strategy around the recruitment piece and data collection there's deliberate around the cultivation and development and then deliberate around the retention we need all of that so it's a great it's a great
question and one that is definitely represented in our budget um both in the uh Council great City Schools fin ings and then in the reorg thank thank you and and I guess also as a as a followup just with the the
reinvestments um could you provide a little bit more rationale on like how you how you're deciding um of the money that you're now figuring we can now reinvest this like how are you deciding it goes to
Alternative Ed programming or or non-personnel support could you just give a little bit more insight as to how you all were doing I don't think it's like a application Phase where schools say hey there's there's this much money can we have I think I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that but
I'd love to hear a little bit more so I think like going back to thinking about students first and students in the center that was really the North Star for us of making sure like most of what we're reinvesting is being directed toward schools and being
directed toward direct supports for students it's also building on the foundation of what we've laid that aligns with our priorities and the goals that the school committee set forward all the deputies and the Chiefs have those and in their decision making
they're looking at outcomes to say how do those align uh and then from an efficiency standpoint we're just looking at how do we make further investment in areas that are going to yield greater efficiency going forward so like a good example of that was zoom and the
technology with transportation that was an initial cost both of training and people and Technology but we know that through ridership identification transparency to parents uh OTP improvements like all of those things
are ways that that gave back further efficiencies that's really the strategy that we're using in this that the deputies and the Chiefs have kind of undertaken and chief blue I don't know if there's anything else you want to add well the the thing I'm just going to
add is I think many of these items um if you think about the $5 million of central reduction that's being reinvested in schools these were primarily things that the superintendent and our leadership team heard both from
the committee when we were discussing the initial ideas in in December but also from school leaders so in the second Monday in December we gave School leaders the budget that for their schools right and then we had school leader PD and they all came together and
it was a great opportunity to listen for sort of feedback and then as we engaged with School site councils at schools there was more Community feedback that came in and what that led to was um I think it's roughly four main categories of things there might be a fifth as I
count through them that we're investing in so for example some additional libraries um is is one example um another example was some additional in school swim programs that we had an original been planning on and then so
sort of the way to think about how it worked is the superintendent identified the priorities with the deputies for us and then individual members of our teams work to establish criteria for what the Investments were inside that area so for
example for high schools an investment in high schools that was a later breaking investment right not in the original what we sent to you not in what we originally proposed in December as our main priority and the high school team working in collaboration with school leaders and
others put together a proposal for that so I think each sort of bucket had its own sort of equity based process it went through to determine the resources that went that are then flowing down to the school level and we'll be providing in
um the memo we give you with the updated budget we'll be providing sort of some of the details of where those Investments are going right that's okay so that like like that's helpful and so I think particularly like then what I'm getting at is is that if each of these processes
has their own sort of equity process that they're using to figure out what the investment should be presumably in all of this there's also uh documentation that we can look at or review with regards to like how each program might be using the racial
Equity tool right to see like what's the what's the data that's going to create this ask for us so I just want to make sure that like we have all of that rationale um because I think that's one of the things that gets lost particularly for families where it's just like oh yeah like how did you
choose adaptive online learning how did you choose like this right and so I think it's really really nailing down as Gran and I know you all are doing it I trust that you all are doing it um but the level of like the the granularity that's that's that's there for for us to
like look at and and review super helpful we can certainly work on put something together for you on that Mr TR uh thank you for presenting a very
thorough budget uh uh budget and um I do appreciate the fact that um a lot of uh cable uh consideration had already been uh put in to the the
process in your reinvestment so to uh Mary Skipper you get high mark from me for the next evaluation given the fact that you surround yourself with a very very
competent staff especially regarding U budget um my question or as a matter as a matter of fact my my my request is kind of akin to what uh member Alin mentioned
but it is more toward um two specific programs that you uh decide to um put extra dollar in the reinvestment uh the first one is the
balango program and the second one is the um uh student with disability uh in the inclusion process um the request is is of course
when when we decide to add additional money into areas that we think needs Improvement um the two areas that I just mentioned I believe that you know um the
staff and you have already uh uh seen issues that need to be improved the request is very simple um I like to see I would like to receive data
supporting the areas the specific areas the specific issues in those two programs that the additional uh reinvestment help improve
uh be students uh achievement um closing the Ed educational Gap or whatever I I like to to receive information data that would prove to us that the that least to
me that the um additional investment does help so in another word maybe I I'm I'm looking for some sort of a detail rather than say okay here here's another $1 million to your school and I want you to
do um to use it in your um in your program in your inclusion program involving students with disability and then you know once you give that you wash your hand and it's up to the the the um principle to decide how how to do
with it I'd like to see some you know some some some Nexus some details how I'm not questioning their their profession their their profession I'm not questioning their their experience but I like to see data showing the areas
that the the the money help given the fact that these two areas have been um for the last 40 years or so because the last time I got involved with with school was more than 40 years
ago it has always been there and the the in inclusion talk has Al always been there as well but here we are uh we we continue to talk about it I like to see some some improvement thank
you thank you and I think um as part as we sort of this is all this feedback is really helpful as we think about what materials to provide you all with um next week as we give our updated budget materials and the details I think uh
member TR to your point we can we can give some information about the data we used in the review process for inclusive Ed allocations that's certainly something we can provide thank you Mr O'Neal thank you madam chair and thank
you for the team to presenting Mr Bloom um as I start talking would you just please pull back up your presentation and go to the slide about the reinvestment that show I I think it was a slide that showed a listing of reinvestments you just happened to go through that page very quickly so it was
a I want to focus on it a little bit was before it was before this this one yes thank you so uh first of all thank you for the budget book and I look forward to going through it and of course it will raise
loads of questions that will inundate you with um and I'm appreciative of the details on both the cuts to Central that were made and the reinvestment such as this I'm just reading through it I have
had the opportunity to reach out to a number of school leaders across the district just to get you know one-on-one thoughts about how the budget is impacting them the vast majority are fine they've had to make some adjustments uh but they
certainly get it and knowing that it's coming down off of Esser the guidance that your team and the superintendent has been giving them the past couple years is very much appreciated so um all
in I do get a good report I will say superintendent there is the natural and you spend so much time in schools yourself it will not surprise you to hear that there is the natural hesitation of what is coming to the
schools and is it being spent as much as possible and are their inefficient inefficiencies in central or bowling and so hearing that there are investments that are going back into the schools these these couple of slides are
extremely helpful the devil is obviously in the details as they say and so when we talk about um thank you Mr Bloom for that you can you can take that down um when we talk about each of the areas and how they
are um providing services to the schools that is not under School leaders control I'm curious superintendent this may be a question for you it may be for office of human capital maybe for the
individual area heads how do we ensure that those doing those roles yeah are doing it as effectively and efficiently and as beneficial to the schools you know we we now have the regional structure there's a lot of Liaisons as an
example H how are we training and coaching and evaluating the Liaisons are we getting input from school leaders on that you know and and this could be in academics it could be in special it could be an early literacy well early literacy is part of that obviously it's
we have a bunch of Liaisons how do we ensure that they're all um adding positively to the schools that they're working with yeah because otherwise we run the risk that school leaders are like Hey we're spending a bunch of money on this they're not any
value I'd rather have an extra XYZ yeah how do you balance that superintendent yeah so this is it's a really it's it's a it's a interesting good question um VI cheron Neil because there's you know there's there's lots of um there's lots
of positive aspects of the regional model um because it does allow you to break the work down more concretely and um get to the particular issues that schools and school leaders are facing uh however there are layers to it and anytime you have layers you can get
degrading through the layers of uh Effectiveness right and so um I think what we've been doing is a couple things we have a leader cabinet um and that leader cabinet is very good at representing um their peers they're very
honest we have very good dialogue um I meet with the monthly as does the team and so particular issues will come up there um but then also we're evolving our survey you know so the one of the questions in the survey is around central impact um and what we've come to
see is the aggregate question was really good for showing us there was Room to Grow but we need to go to the individual Department in Liaisons to figure out where this breakdown sometimes that breakdown can be um individual needs
more training or is very new uh or might not be effective um sometimes uh it can be the structure that um you know we have we've added Liaisons in from the different departments and it can be that
sometimes uh a particular Department would be better structured into uh talking and working with the school leaders rather than in the actual Regional Network so it can be sort of a individual issue or it can be uh a departmental issue and that's the next
step of sort of peeling back the survey data to sort of look at that as we refine the regional Network um but it is a balance right it is a balance because in any of the communication it's the school leader uh and or the leadership team at the school it's the liaison it's
the department they represent uh and a a good example I'll give you is that sometimes the answer is not what a leader wants right I was certainly in this situation in my leadership where I would put in for facilities that I felt
were extremely important that needed to get fixed at that moment but back at facilities they're dealing with 119 schools and they're dealing with range of safety to cosmetic and so sometimes the answer is we can't
do that and for the school leader that can be really hard when there's several of those and they don't understand that it's because the broader the resources we have and what we're able to do doesn't match all of the different issues that leaders might bring so this
is an area that we're spending a lot of time with school leaders to unpack because to me it is the magic of the regional Network to get it working fully and as a team so I hear what you're saying it's you know it's great that we
have the regional Network you know I'm a huge supporter of it and it's great that we have the liais on I think it's a little challenging because the regional superintendents don't oversee they don't evaluate they don't coach they don't train the liaison because they assigned from another department to work with
them right correct the schools that they visit those School leaders don't valuate they don't train they the Liaisons because so it would be interesting to hear how and you can pick any Department that has Lia on so I'm
thinking more on the academic and special ed side Etc that they how they approach training and coaching and evaluating and getting feedback from both the regional heads and the school leaders who have these people in their buildings that's and actually go out and
visit schools with them to exact it's like I I've been with you in schools where you're evaluating teachers by standing in the back of the room and you're evaluating the school later as you walk around there's no better way to evaluate how a liaison is doing than being in schools with them so
I'm just I'm intrigued I and I only bring it up in the budget context because it does impact perception on budget and is Central adding value or is it taking away yeah no 100% And I do think that the construct of these slides
is intended to make very clear where the dollars are going and the direction that they're flowing but dollars don't always lead to impact and that's where getting the additional data uh the regional networks are actually at that point where they do their team meetings they
often do it in the school they visit the schools with the Liaisons and it's a process and I think the survey data can be helpful in accountability and that's kind of this next layer that we're taking on yeah we just need to really show every dollar we're spending that's
right is adding value and helping us academically Etc at the school school level I'll pause Madam chair because my five minutes are up um so I'll defer it to you and other members and would love to have one more opportunity to ask
questions okay um we'll go back around and then I'll speak at the end Miss Lima Barosa did you have your hand raised for a second round no no I'm all said thank you Dr alkins back to you Mr
O'Neal thank you I just um one item you know when we look at centrally is transportation because it is such a huge item and and back to you Mr Bloom you you mentioned two things that caught my ear one is I think it was an $8 million
increase because of the contracts and I'm glad we um reached uh um a collective bargaining agreement there actually two and we were able to increase hiring particularly on monitors so but that was an increased cost you
also mentioned a million in savings because or maybe um Dr DEA did a million savings by going through and having people you know opt out I just could you spend a bit more time I don't know if you if it's possible for you Mr Bloom to pull up the budget book and have us look
at the transportation page but it's such a key line item for us and it attracts so much public attention could we just talk about Transportation a bit more and and where we see that heading and Crea of ideas
we're working on to continue to find savings there as as we improve service wow I really promise to everyone else on the committee I did not plant that question um despite the not in the slightest because I thought of it looking at you despite the amount of joy
just brought me um and I really appreciate it so let me go to our beautiful budget book much thanks to our Communications team um actually let's see here if I can do it this way yeah look at that the find
Works um so let's get sorry I just have to hide the um view screen here so here's our transportation Department budget and their
priorities um and then you can see the vast majority of the money and we will fix the formatting issue there um is going into contracts and non-personnel and that's because our contract with our um with transdev is the is the vast
majority of of our funding um I think we are cautiously optimistic about the savings we're going to acrw um from the Transportation off so
oops sorry um and I think you know we've taken a million dollars as Dr deina mentioned so far but uh working together with our transportation office our team is pretty optimistic about the future of of our cost management and so I think
you know we really do hope that each year going forward we're going to be bringing you more and more identified cost savings um going forward but if I read that properly Transportation with trans stev next year was costing us 157
million um that line also includes um so it's 157 million in contracts but that also that includes a combination of transdev um it's also our contracted services with the MBTA for T passes okay and it's our contracted services with
other providers who do out of District um as well as some smaller things like um it's all of our uh vehicle insurance right it's sort of all the contracts for the Department we can certainly give you um an updated estimate for transdev itself as
well but the fact is we're spending 157 million to transport all of our students on a combination of school buses MBTA you know private services for out a district Etc including you mentioned in one of the slides out of District transportation homeless youth who
outside the city right to come back into BPS yeah that's right yeah so let me jump I'm going to jump into this one um so I actually am very optimistic um as I usually am uh but the the the reason is
because we can see some of the drivers to the cost that we can actually influence I think um when we talk about about the long-term facilities plan and we're talking about the footprint of the district changing and bringing high
quality seats closer to students what we're also talking about is less time sitting on buses and the fewer students we have sitting on buses for the shorter amount of time the shorter the routes the less buses you need and the less overhead that you have so long-term facilities is
one big solution to some of this the other is the inclusion model and that is parents and students having more Choice than they've ever had to be able to choose schools close to in their region and closer to their homes uh when
previously they might have had to leave the area that they live and go across the city to access a self-contained classroom or a more restrictive classroom than previously those are two that are you know relative to long-term facilities and inclusion we're actively
working on and we can see in um both the closures and consolidations that happened last year and the ones that are being proposed right now with this real time savings for kids not sitting on buses and that in fact starts to look at
the whole ecosystem of how we bus uh and it also opens up opportunities for bus in other ways like Athletics and enrichment and things that we don't always have the actual bus capacity to deliver um the other is that we're doing
a lot of hard work with the charters um because as you know in Massachusetts we have to bus charter students and uh in some cases parochial students and
so we're working hard to talk very concretely with with our Charter peers around um how to be more efficient with the tiering and having them align to our tiers which again shrinks routes um uh
and uh uh also um there is within special education um you know students that have that uh initially get door Todo or initially get corner to corner part of the IEP process is revisiting a
transportation goal every year yeah that is just part of good practice in the IEP to become more independent and least restrictive um so we're actually working within special education around that reminder and that
training um so that it isn't just a every year you roll forward the same number of door-to-door students or the same number of corner to corner but it's actually a thoughtful piece of the IEP as to what is going to best benefit that student um audo districts is another
one where I think as we develop the high quality programming that parents are looking for for and they can keep their kids in the BPS that's going to cut down on the number of students required to go out of District to get those services and it's also you know with the
AO District uh Transportation uh uh also uh again the number of buses that we have and how those routs are done those are all opportunities to be able to better
align be more efficient and ultimately have a better experience for student students and families using the bus system on time percentage improves uh and uh savings gets ACR so I think this is an area that we're going to see a lot of development over the next several
years uh that isn't just about the money but it's also about the experience thank you very much thank you thank you um I have a couple of questions many of my questions have been answered and again I want to thank you
Mr Bloom very much for the um but book and I look forward to spending a lot of time with it um a couple of things um I've been interested a lot in the regional model that we have these nine regions and in my mind sometimes I think
of them as sort of being their own self-contained school districts they're about as big as many of the smaller districts around the Commonwealth has there ever been any thought given to treating them like you know region one or region whatever really is so
contained and thinking about what's available there if for Trina to um you know are the kids who go to those schools they you know is it neighborhood based enough that you could begin to look and and figure out you know what are the Investments that we've made how
strong are they where are they weak how do we how do we make them better so that we're not transporting people outside of them you know what else needs to be contained inside that Regional model that allows it to become who are
self-sufficient uh so so chair I think these are these are good points and actually kind of underpins why the regional model is so important we want to strengthen each of the regions not not just in the k6 K8 side but also high
schools school that we're making sure the secondary picture is one where a student can choose a high school that's close to them that they don't have to take the MBT across town you know an hour or more because it has the Early College it has career a set of
Career Connections choices uh it has the Athletics opportunities that they want you know this is as we think about the footprint um why it is important to have slightly larger schools that can offer a lot more for the students um so I think
you're right I think the the reason we are broken up into the regions is both from a support standpoint but also that as this evolves those high quality options are right there and students don't need to rely on transportation to go to go across the
city yeah the the other question I have regarding Transportation I know we must provide transportation for the charters Etc but it feels like the district is always put in a position of having to respond to what somebody wants I mean
has it ever has the district ever or Transportation ever proposed back two charters here would be the best way you could be organized so that we could actually get you all to school on time and get our own I mean have we suggested
back um changes in school start times Etc um because the city is the city um there's going to be traffic Etc but by now you know I'm sure that there's someone that knows you know if this school started 15 minutes later or that
one started 20 minutes earlier or whatever we could actually get kids to school where are those kinds of conversations um happening yeah if I can pretending yeah so the team constantly been communicating with with our Charter colleagues and pario colleagues and we
have uh proposed those options and um try to make it um work for everyone but unfortunately we can't mandate those changes so to the extent possible um we Charters could or privates have met us halfway we've been able to accommodate and make those changes but for the most part we haven't really been able to move
the needle so much because they each have their different nuances around when they start and when they end in their programs but we have tried the short answer we can't really mandate it I don't know if Dan you want to add anything to that but I I'll defer to Dan if he wants to say more Drina thank you everyone Dan
Rosengard executive director of Transportation I think Dr top hit it pretty spoton we we have done that analysis we have uh you know we are constantly working with all of the charters schools and um you know in some cases we've been able to work with
schools and shift their bus time slightly to to align them to the three BPS tiers but you know as as Dr Pina said we can't mandate it and there are still um you know a number of charter schools who are not aligned that you know we're still working with them to to
see what we can do yeah we have a we have a compact chair that um we meet with the the leaders of the charters and the Catholic schools um and we've done a lot of I think really good work um in a number of areas of good collaborative
work um and so we have another meeting coming up specifically about the transportation to have a further conversation because I think we get to a certain point where we have to get kind of better and full cooperation it will also help the charters right because it
helps ensure that Transportation can be reliable and on time right and that kids aren't sitting on bus for over an hour so um there's lots of reasons why it makes sense the issue of changing star times is um it's sort of like changing
schedules in general it's a lightning rod that most people don't like because parents Orient around those schedules teach Child Care Orient around the schedule so we have to enter it with and I think I'm G to compliment Sam and Dan
on this because I think um we've done several now over the last couple of years um and it's been it's very well because we we were able to give a lot of notice but I think at this point we sort of have to have that deeper conversation
with our Charter colleagues so that they do understand you know what's at stake yeah because I mean the district takes the criticism all the time of not getting kids able to be getting kids to school on time and it feels like we've got to utilize every strategy possible
um to make that possible and particularly we got to do that in collaboration with others and hopefully again there will be some cost savings coming back our way when we can do that um congratulations on getting a thousand families to step up to recognize whether
they're using the services or not um you know every penny save gets to go um to something else um within the budget book and again I haven't taken a closer look but um you know I've seen on that slide when we looked at the Investments you
would say $6 million in new classrooms what kind is is what specifically with that kind of investment entail sure um I can answer that so the $6 million in new classrooms is a a
variety of different um things so one very common example is we have some programs for students with disabilities and substantially separate settings that are growing um you know maybe they started a couple years ago in k0 K1 and
now they're adding a second or third classroom um to the grade the other thing um sorry the other thing we're looking at is just tracking enrollment overall so there are some cases where a school
maybe used to consolidate their strands so maybe in in the ca the case of a k6 maybe in fourth or fifth grade their numbers didn't support second home room but now they're opening up home rooms okay so those are the types of
things that new classrooms support um and then the program expansions which is was another item there that could be things like opening up a new dual language or newcomer program um expanding the eighth grade for the mun
for its expansion to 712 um em K's growth in their new partnership with ber and things like that yeah so I know this is a lot to ask and I haven't looked at the budget book in depth enough to see that would we be
able to tell as we were reading through the the budget book two things some places where their new Investments are made so like I could understand where those new classrooms are happening or on the flip side where something has been taken
away yes um so that's so so if you look at well It's tricky because the easiest way to see those things is to look at the individual school and sort of see the changes that each school is undergoing
okay I think we could certainly provide you with a list of all the changes that happened inside any of the categories um so for example you know we have a Tracker and it has every single school that got a classroom
change what type of classroom was it what was the Staffing for that classroom what grade with in and and so on and so forth so we could certainly um give you a list of with all that information I don't believe that list is currently in the budget book but it's certainly something
we okay my other question is I'm glad to see that we were able to do some changes to make more Investments back into libraries and wondering where we are with the commitment of bringing a certain number of libraries on line each
year I think um I'll certainly uh throw this over some of my colleagues in academics um but what I will say is I believe we're going to end up making a solid Dent this year and one of the bigger issues we have that we're working
on is frankly just facilities limitations right we have a number of schools that just can't they don't have the physical place for a library um and so so our number one priority is ensuring that every school with a
library has a staffed library that is really the number one goal and then ensuring through our long-term facilities planning work that every school has the space for a library and so I think those two things are really working well hand inand a partnership
between our facilities and operations team and our academics team with me just coming in right at the last minute when they flag a library being ready so they're doing all the hard work I just get to sort of do the accounting at the end yeah great and I know you've all
done a great job this year in terms of you know trying to meet School needs and that as Mr O'Neal has said many times that many of the school leaders he's talked to have been happy is there any area of concern that this budget is not
allowing us to attend to that you've either heard from school leaders or parents about saying wish there' been more investment or an X or Y you know it's the the number one thing I've heard personally is actually sort of it's it's it's obviously a concern
but it's also sort of exciting that we're moving in the right direction it's schools that feel like they're ready to move accelerate beyond our timeline for the inclusive education roll out right where they're sort of like I know you're doing grades one and two
this year but here's what we're thinking about for grades three four five and six um and so you know we are trying wherever it makes sense and is possible to do in an equitable way to think about if there's something we can meet there
for those schools that really are ready but we know you know with limited funding we do need to ensure that our rollout grades are getting everything they need first before we're investing in maybe grades that aren't ready yet so I think for some of our school leaders
and school teams they're they're at this exciting moment where they're really they're loving this work of inclusive Ed they're getting very excited about it and now they're just they're ready to Sprint Full Speed Ahead and we're sort of saying actually just stay with the program take the time with the roll out
it's worth focusing in on you know doing it well in these grade spans versus trying to do everything all at once and so you know it's a balance but I think it is exciting that makes us feel like we're heading in the right direction at least for myself I would um I would say that it is
before school and after school programming um I mean I think one of the things Esser did was it really allowed schools to develop that programming out um and I think what has kind of happened is partner capacity is reduced in
general uh in the nonprofit world and um and then you know certainly we moved over the things we could um but I still think there's a gap so one of the things that um you know Carissa is doing in
Partnership division of AFA is to really first of all get an actual audit of who's doing what so we can see where those gaps are uh and then starting to really uh kind of try to go out and recruit Partners to fill that Gap
whether it's we meet with philanthropic and funders who might be interested but we have on April 17th we're bringing back principal for a day um which was one of my favorite programs in BPS because it gave a chance for businesses
to really sort of um see what all like all the good that's happening in our schools and come to learn about particular schools and my guess is uh you know things like uh businesses offering tutoring support or mentoring support or things that can happen in the
afternoon or before school those will be some of the things that get evolved as more and more schools do principal for a day um and so my hope is that that really like start really um starts to address some of the Gap uh that we have in this particular
area great thank you um those are my questions for now and I look forward to a deep dive into the budget book so I know that we'll be sending a lot of questions your way um there's nothing else um we'll now move on to public
comment Miss carix thank you chair the public comment period is an opportunity for individuals to address the school committee on school related issues questions on school on specific School matters are referred to the superintendent questions on policy
matter may be discussed with the committee later we have 44 speakers this evening each person will have two minutes to speak and I will remind you when you have 30 seconds remaining once you reach your two minutes we will allow you to finish your sentence before
moving on to the next speaker please feel free to email new comments for distribution to the committee speakers may not reassign their time to others the time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time
please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or District staff please note the comments of any public speaker do not represent the Boston Public Schools or the Boston school committee please take your name affiliation and where you live before
you begin please sign in to zoom using the name you register with for public comment and be ready to unmute and turn on your camera when it's your turn to speak please raise your virtual hand when I call your name please speak slowly so The Interpreter can capture
what you're saying our first group is Travis Marshall Mike heishman po Bastian John mud and Betsy y Yoshimura please raise your hand Travis Marshall
hello hi hi good evening um apologies I not F home yet but uh my name is Travis Marshall I live in Rosendale I'm the proud parent of students at the English high school and the Bates Elementary School I'm also a member of quality schools for every student student Quest
um and you all are here tonight to talk about a budget that's a public document that's voted on by members of this committee and by our elected city council but what we are not discussing is the separate and significant funding stream that exists for schools serving
communities with social capital and wealth four years ago quest released a report based on the 2018 ernston young audit of individual School accounts and their Associated nonprofits the report revealed a large gap between
a minority of schools with significant fundraising operations and the majority of BPS schools with modest or non-existing fundraising it also revealed start disparities correlated with the racial wealth Gap in this city as school
budgets tighten private fundraising plays a large but invisible role in exacerbating the gap between halves and have knots between schools that supplement with large scale philanthropy and schools that rely solely on the
budget you pass based on IRS reports the largest fundraising School in this District have increased their revenues substantially in the years since the audit the equity Gap continues to grow but BPS cannot measure what it does not
track Quest continues to recommend that BPS create a dashboard that is updated annually for all funding sources so that the funding of our Public Schools remains transparent to stakeholders and taxpayers this is an issue of
transparency and it's an issue of fairness thank you very much thank you very much Mr Marshall our next speaker is Mike hman Mike heishman arester last night I watched president
Trump's hysterical state of disunion speech dominated by his racist attack on our migrant siblings was not an attack on all immigrants he offered a gold card for $5 million you could purchase entry in a
pathway to citizenship if you have enough green you could get the gold and the color of your skin won't matter earlier today I attended a pro-immigrant rally at Boston City Hall I am currently multitasking watching the hearing while
writing tonight's testimony I want to thank both may woo and my Congress person aana Presley for their principal participation at this Witch Hunt unfortunately there are similarities with Trump's racism and this wool
Skipper budget let's look at the facilities plan most of our schools are unhealthy unsafe and in other ways barriers to providing a highquality education for all of our children what we need is an aggressive plan to
rehabilitate existing schools and even better to build new ones but W Skipper tells us that they cannot afford an ambitious plan closing schools however saves us lots of money the question for past present and future budgets is which
school communities will be destroyed the answer destroy School communities inhabit majority of of black and brown JW and low income Children and Families many of them multi-lingual immigrants
and many with special needs destroy school with low mcal scores destroy School communities with successful inclusions on right and co- teaching models schools inhabited by a large number of white children do not get closed against their will instead they
get the gold card I call for a major expansion of the successful parent men you your time is up thank you thank you hope basan hi my name is Hope Bastion and I'm a parent of a Gartner at the Hurley in
the South End and I'm here to testify for the importance of the parent Mentor program for our school and our district and share a minute of my experiences over the last year the many positive impacts of this program and a glimpse of all that could be lost if this program
is not fully funded in the future Community listening sessions and your surveys have told you what's important to families and where budget dollars need to be allocated we want a highquality education for all of our kids you all know that diverse student body is not served when Educators and
the adults around our students do understand their lives their language and their cultures and their context through the parent Mentor program I spend two and a half hours a day in a dual language fifth grade classroom to support Learners and teachers this program creates an unparalleled
opportunity to bring parents and schools together building Mutual trust and deepening all of our understanding of the challenges going on within the school and how to make things better multilingual parent mentors are irreplaceable they're culturally
competent native language learning supports that all of our students need and you don't need to train us we're already there we're our we're our children's first teachers and we're ready to keep doing that work for all of the kids in our schools and our communities um as a parent Mentor I've
seen my peers and the students that we serve achieve amazing things every Friday our group of parents get together um and we speak four languages and we come together we get trained there's people who are taking classes in college there's people who are becoming um
taking on new roles in the district as par professional substitutes with after school programs and in the kitchen um this program has changed me and it's changed us all I'm making plans to apply for the baa program to become a teacher next year this program has made uh has
been a success and we need to keep it we need to keep our schools rooted in our commun par ment time our next speaker is John mud my name is John M I'm from Cambridge uh than school committee seems
to to Value the advice of the Council of great City schools in the council's guidelines on student outcomes focused governance it says that a school board should approve the annual budget only after determining that the governing
board's goals are the first priority in resource allocation and in reaching the smart goals of this the board as I've testified earlier there's a cut of $8 million in the proposed BPS budget for support of multi Learners and an
apparent cut of 71 bilingual teachers and AIDS suggested Cuts in the St Steven parent Mentor program would remove scores of additional native language speakers from classrooms all of this is happening when BPS has seen an increase of a thousand immigrant students this
year in this context the council's guidance on the budget raises a number of questions that the school committee needs to have answered how will these Cuts improve multilingual learning student performance how could these Cuts achieve
the goal of increased access to native language and native language instruction in comparing the four new small programs with the continued uh sending and assignment of multilingual Learners into general education classrooms in fact
what is the committee's overall smart goal for M multilingual Learners and what is the theory of action on how this will improve outcomes for multilingual Learners I want to congratulate the finance and budget office for the initial draft of the of the budget book
and I'll have obviously more comments later but broadly the the council guidelines suggest what are the committee's student outcome smart goals overall for each area the council's guidelines call for answers and so do
many of us thank you very much for hearing me thank you very much our next speaker is Psy Yoshimura all right hello my name is Betsy Yoshimura and I live in East Boston I have two children who attend
the K through 8 Mario um dual Language Academy I here tonight to advocate for an increase in the umana's budget to allow for the hiring of five additional staff members so that we may in Linda Chen in Dr Linda Chen's words ensure every Student Success by being equipped
with the resources and support needed to cultivate a robust learning environment we have approximately 650 students and 41 Paris teachers in Paris we have been operating with only one instructional coach for at least the past two years
but as she is as she only has the bandwidth to provide instruction to our K through four teachers teachers our fifth through e8th grade teachers um have been left without the benefit of her coaching uh we were denied funding for an additional instructional coach
recognizing that all of our teachers benefit from and deserve an instructional coach to help them evaluate and continually improve their classroom instructional skills we made the difficult decision to eliminate a different position to pay for the additional instructional coach out of
our discretion discretionary budget however based on our enrollment and our students needs across our programming which includes s ABA ESD and dual language programs we believe that the cost for this should not come from our discretionary budget and should instead
be allocated To Us by the district we also have only one uh Community Field cordinator to service all of our 650 students it is simply not tenable to have only one person responsible for f fulfilling all of the duties assigned to
a CFC in a school of our size as such we requested a second CFC but we're not granted the the position and due to our enrollment and student needs across our diverse programming we believe that the funding additional CFC should have been
provided in our next speaker our next group is Connie Cummings Amaya cinton Maris Lugo Nathaniel utter and Al Aaliyah Ford Connie Cummings you can
stch um hi uh thank you school committee and superintendent Skipper my name is Connie Cummings and I'm a teacher at the Roger clap Elementary School um I'm here on behalf to testify for the parent Mentor
program from St Stevens for three years I've had the privilege of having a parent Mentor in my classroom it has made a tremendous difference in my classroom more importantly it's made a tremendous difference for my students my parent Mentor is there to help students with
extra support to give students who've been absent an extra boost and to give support to students who might be having a difficult time I've got years of experience and I've raised my own kids but my parent Mentor gives me a un
unique perspective she's a BPS mom who is raising kids in 2025 I cherish that perspective the bond makes us closer it's an invaluable exchange because of this program I've seen parents become more involved in our school including
taking on leadership roles in the school side Council I've witnessed parents become mentors taking concerns to the uh state house this program exemplifies that parent resources are among the most valuable resources that we can offer our
school Community because of this program I've seen students feel unaccepted feel accepted at our school many students who have not 30 seconds English Learners come to our school running and shouting into the arms of our parent mentors to
say thank goodness you're here and share a few languages in their native tongue this program is a huge win on so many levels dear school committee I urge you to fund this program to the fully
extent possible we're a stronger School because of this parent Mentor program please please please support the program our next speaker our next two speakers are not uh signing into the meeting so we will go with Nathaniel
uter please raise your hand you can start we we can't hear you Lena can we try to see if n Daniel can go after this I'd like to see if we can allow him to speak yes absolutely so our
next speaker is um Aliah Ford hello can everyone hear me yes we can hear you okay hello every everyone I would like to share my experience transitioning into Community Academy I originally attended new mission High School toward the middle of my nth grade
year I transferred to ca at first I was very nervous about being in a new setting But as time passed I felt very comfortable within my environment as CA I began taking classes more seriously I was able to connect with my classmates and staff as if they were family being
in a smaller setting CA helped me stay more in tuned with my class CL I chose to stay at CA because they introduced me to many different things such as the ca Garden du enrollment opportunities out of state field trips and a serving learning trip to the Dominican
Republic I encountered many new experiences that I couldn't have done in my previous school after I graduate from CA I plan on getting my associates degree in radiology and working towards attaining a bachelor's degree CA should remain open because other students
deserve the opportunities my classmates and I have experienced unlike a regular public school I feel supported every step of the way because the CI staff here ensures that all students are supported and know the steps necessary to succeed thank you thank you very
much let's try with the Nathaniel utter again hello can you hear me yes we can hear you okay thank you thank you um I'm Nathaniel and I'm a 10th grade attending Community Academy I live in
Boston I came to I came from Boston L school and transferred here in ninth grade throughout my time in Community Academy I was able to spend my time on how it fit my needs and venturing different career paths more constructively while still getting
education to still challenge me but not to the level where I would be unable to handle the workload I was able to focus on my academics along with making connections and future planning I feel like the proposal of closing Community Academy
came off to me as a total surprise because although there were attendance concerns for those who did come the school was extremely helpful filled gaps with learning and made meaningful connections I also feel that this
decision was made without the student voices the ones who actually attended Community Academy this school has been extremely helpful to many people as it gave us staff that could help us to strive and become our best
selves teaching us valuable lessons and overall helping us to grow in both academically and personally I hope this school can continue being diploma granting school because it has been extremely helpful to
so many students not just me in a countless number of ways Community Academy is structured in such a way so that each student gets exactly what they need although limited funding they go above and beyond to give students as
many opportunities for growth they also tailor the curriculum to make it fit each and every one of the students needs to learn the best making this a special place for many students to grow and Achieve great things this school changes
life trajectories and I hope you all could witness what I've experienced all right thank you thank you very much our next group is calel Rivera Nyla Nyla Phils Leia Serena Gabrielle anano and Nicole Livingstone please raise your
hand calel Rivera please turn on your camera yeah we can't hear you I don't know if you're you're unmuted so can you guys hear me yes okay uh does my
time start now yeah you can start uh good afternoon my name is St I was referred to Community Academy due to a code of conduct issue from Snowden where I struggled academically because of the lack of individualized academic support frequent
violence and feeling discouraged by the way teachers sh students since enrolling at Community Academy I've EXP Eren a positive change the treat the teachers treat everyone with respect I genuinely want to attend school every day that environment is much safer and the
teachers truly care about each student's success after graduating from Community Academy I plan to be an artist to do so I've been working hard in school and have been on the honor rooll since joining Community Academy and plan on
continuing my education here I'm done thank you very much no problem our next speaker Nyla Phils is not in the meeting
layer Serena good evening my name is Leia Serena and I am a proud Boston Public Schools Alum elementary teacher and the Executive Vice President of the btu while the btu is nearing 200 days of working under an expired contract and it is past time to
come to an agreement that meets the needs of our students and our Educators I'm here this evening to speak about the proposed school closures that you will be voting on at the next school committee meeting for too long many students in Boston have been denied Equitable access to Modern sustainable well-ventilated and learning centered
school buildings to achieve the stated goal of the district's own long-term facility plan to ensure a highquality student experience closer to home it is imperative that the district commits to completing the construction of at least three buildings annually and should detail such a plan to the public in the
coming weeks not years a plan that allows fam students and Educators to plan and participate in the decisions that impact their schools and their education unfortunately instead of focusing on buildings and Renovations for too long the BPS School conversation has revolved around closures and
disruption since 2000 Boston has closed 35 schools and constructed less than 10 school buildings how have these school closures benefited students and gotten us closer to high quality experiences for every students from where we stand as BTU members we have experienced over the years is a string of broken promises
our ask is simple that school communities are allowed to stay together in given guarantees and voice when transitions need to happen as you prepare to make decisions about the school closures proposals I urge you to listen to the school communities that are being impacted to listen to the families at the de the students at the
Mary Lion and the students in educators of Community Academy school communities have come together to Rally petition and testify and we urge you to listen to them as we close out I would like to draw your attention to a well-documented fact that school closures disproportionately impact students of color and most most vulnerable
communities it's imperative that we know that the demographics of our schools that are being proposed to have higher percentage of students of color and will have an impact on educators of color as well thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Gabriel anano okay St thank you thank you my name is
Gabrielle antignano and I'm the family leison of the de Elementary School in Dorchester I'm here tonight to once again ask you to not close the de since there seems to be a focus tonight on community engagement I'd like to start by asking some clarifying questions is community engagement telling our staff
and families at 8:00 pm on a zoom call and sending an email that their school is closing because BPS officials leaked the news to the media is it not being able to guarantee that our students and staff won't be forced to go through another school closure in the future since BPS is still refusing to release a
detailed and transparent longterm facilities plan is it about submitting a proposal and forming a partnership with local community stakeholders like the boys and girls club for a new State ofth art fieldhouse in the Columbia Point Community and then excluding the deor from the plan when we are originally a
key part not to mention just this past Friday the capital planning team sent an email to the entire BPS Community announcing that Ruth b Academy students would have access to the fac to the new facility while neglecting to mention the de despite our involvement in the original proposal and before a closure
decision has been made is it having zero meetings with the directly impacted dor Community about a proposed closure before it was announced but having 30 meetings with the Madison Park Community about getting a new school members of the school committee everything I just listed are all action steps that were
taken or I could say not taken by the capital planning team and other BPS district officials regarding this proposed closure it seems the district is unaware of what community engagement entails 30 seconds it is essential that BPS and the school committee reconsider and oppose the propos oppose the
proposal to close the deor closing our school would have a profound lasting negative impact on these students and families in a school that has made significant gains to be supportive and inclusive to all Learners the decision to close our school without meaningful Community engagement is unjust and without a clear plan for the future it's
become apparent the district does not have a thoughtful thoughtful plan for our students and families please allow our community to stay together thank you very much our next speaker is Nicole Livingstone hi hi you can start okay
good evening members of the school committee my name is Nicole Livingstone and I'm here once again to speak in opposition of the proposed closure of the deor school the argument that this decision is data driven doesn't hold up especially when it comes to the deor first let's address the claim that smaller schools should be closed in
favor of larger ones the deor is already a large school we serve prek through sixth grade with 444 students next the idea that declining enrollment being a reason to close schools doesn't apply to the deor since our enrollment has arose over the last three years another point
is the issue of building usage in capacity BPS has two different capacity figures for the deor some Reports say we can hold 514 students putting us at 86% full While others say that we can hold 424 students which actually puts us over
capacity this discrepancy shows that the data being used isn't consistent and then there's the argument about facility quality the deor facility score is higher than approximately one-third of the schools in BPS that aren't being considered for a closure not to mention that we have a gym and a fully staffed
Library as we brought up in discussions tonight so why are we being singled out these inconsistencies in the data are alarming but what's even more troubling is that this decision further marginalizes vulnerable communities at a time when they need the most support mayor Woo is in Washington publicly
committing to protecting immigrant families yet this closure would harm those same families who rely on the deor for support this plan is not well thought out it lacks a long-term vision and has not included the voices of community stakeholders seconds we heard an update on community involvement which
only included highlights from schools that are merging these also are all Community meetings held after the notification of closure not involvement in the actual decision-making until a true comprehensive plan is developed one that benefits our students and families
I ask you to vote against this proposal our children deserve better thank you thank you very much our next group of speakers is Madison moley chery Buckman Caroline branka Katrina Jackson and Jamal rakman
please raise your hand Madison Moy good evening my name is Madison Morley and I'm a deor teacher and Geor Chester resident I'm here to speak about decisions that are not just policy choices but moral failures the proposed closure of the deor is an act of cruelty
against our immigrant families especially in the current political climate these families rely on the deor for much more than just an education it is a place where children feel safe and where families receive huge amounts of support closing the school means
uprooting stability for families who have already faced significant hardship it is not just a school we're closing it's a community but perhaps the most troubling of all is the lack of community engagement and unwillingness to see the full deor picture decisions that affect student lives and Futures
cannot be made in a vacuum yet this decision continues to be carried out without the proper dialogue and we have definitely not seen any of the family breakfast or classroom conversations mentioned earlier tonight I also take issue with DPS trying to diminish this trauma by pretending that all students
will be like that clap student excited about his new gym mergers preserve School communities closures do not so please do not insult our intelligence and pretend they're the same we are also told that no consideration was given to our receivership status or the immense
amount of work we have put in to claw our way out of it nor was consideration given to our school quality review reports which have consistently shown us as a model for educational practices and is a school that our evaluators use as a model for their other districts as I
have said before if I looked at my students just as a set of numbers like BPS did with us with this decision I would be fired for being a bad teacher but it's okay when BPS does it I am tired of constantly coming to these meetings and begging to just be allowed
to do my job but that's what I'm doing I beg the school committee to allow us to continue teaching to allow our students to continue learning if we need to leave our building then so be it but find another space for us because the deor community is worth fighting for thank
you thank you our next speaker is Cheryl Buckman good evening my name is Cheryl Buckman buma deor graduate parent to a sixth grader at the de and spokesperson for the deor I'm also a resident of South Boston I'm here to oppose the closure to
the deor elementary the de the deor to this community isn't like any regular Elementary School it's an extraordinary school with dedicated Educators and staff the deor thrives on community in a
sense of belonging the deor is a school that is so diverse in ritual culture this school makes sure that their full inclusion model that each child no matter what learns together as one if you close the
school it's not about losing a school it's about taking away a safe place for our children especially the most vulnerable ones in families who depend on the deor you're about to tear apart a thriving family community that
is built on helping one another succeed BPS you're about to break a decades long promise to a community at Hara Point me many have CA came together to sign online petitions and campaign letters to save the deor and many
education activist groups find this unjustified and desie broke a promise to the deor and let BPS do what they saw fit in the words of my child I love my school 30 seconds we are all like brothers and sisters I'm losing my place
where I truly felt heard and belonged two past and current students that they have all called de home I'm not here to ask you to give us the moon I'm here to kindly see if you can reconsider keeping the deor
intact and give them what they need don't break a promise thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Caroline branka can you guys hear me yeah we can hear
you you can start thank you hi my name is Carolyn bronca and I'm from Rosendale I'm here in support of keeping Community Academy open as a diploma granting school as the guidance C Community Academy my responsibilities include admitting and discharging students one
thing I can tell you about the referrals I receive is that I accept everyone Community Academy accepts students that other schools don't want in addition to students with long-term suspensions and expulsions students with open felony charges in the community and students
transitioning out of dys custody Community Academy accepts students who have chronic poor attendance lack of Engagement gaps in their learning every type of IEP including substantially separate students Community Academy is considered a last stop for high schools
in BPS and for many it is a Lifeline that is why I have a very difficult time discharging anyone even if a student has been absent from school for three months as long as they're texting with their school social worker that's a connection even if a student only shows
up one day a week and is an occasionally handing in an online assignment that's a connection the reason I don't discharge students for so long is because I recognize the lifeline that Community Academy is for many of our students who would otherwise be drowning how can I take this Lifeline away yes this makes
our attendance rate pretty low but we're not doing this for the attendance rates we're doing it for the lifeline connection because every student matters CA is not can be measured by traditional data everything about CA is special and
different that is why truly knowing and understanding the success of our school can only be done by truly knowing and understanding our students and families and hearing their personal stories knowing where they started and how far they've come school committee members please hear those stories tonight please
read the letters and testimonials that are emailed to you please keep Community Academy open as a diploma granting thank you thank you our next speaker is Katrina Jackson can you hear me hi my name is Katrina Jackson I'm a math teacher at Community
Academy um reading testimonies from our petition that we gave at the school against closing Community Academy and um as a diploma granting program the first testimony is from a parent it means a lot to me and my child has come a long
way with his studies I love that the classes are small so my child isn't being left behind he gets help he needs um he needs my child is more happy to attend here and uh than a regular BPS school it's so much chaos for him at a
regular BPS school but by attending Community Academy he feels more safe the next comment is from a student from Community Academy this school is the best high school I've been to it gives me space and the right attention with
teachers I've gained and met so many awesome people who want to see me win the knowledge and information I've gained from this school is 100 times better than the two public high schools I've been to this school gives students
a second chance don't take it away and the last testimony I'm going to read is from another former student this school is more than just a building it's a Lifeline for students who who like me needed extra support to succeed the staff is truly amazing going above and
beyond to ensure every student feels valued and capable their encouragement and dedication helped me graduate and without them I wouldn't be in college today let alone on the Chancellor's list it's heartbreaking to think that trying to shut down a place that changes lives
the way this school Chang mine so I'm here to ask that you hear these test tonies that you read all of the testimonies that come from the Community Academy and every other school that's being affected and I also want you urge you to know that Community Academy gives the students opportunities that they need we have students that play play
sports outside of the school that we're connected to all type of resources thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is Jamal Rahman are you able are you able to hear me yes we can hear you you can start please um
my name is Jamal rman I'm a door chested guy um I've been a staff at community for 13 years um one of the reasons why it's been proposed to close Community Academy is due to the low building score and um that the school received in the facilities plan it's clear that by using
raw satellite data the district has been disingenuous in giving the score by leaving out all Street data we've been resourceful Innovative creative in our building to ensure that our students have a well-rounded High School uh experience that they deserve um the building Score says we don't have an
auditorium true but we convert the staircase for you into a banquet hall every year for um to accommodate large celebrations says we don't have a gym true however we have a full weight room basketball court we use Franklin Park um we have partnered with Reggie Lewis
Center and used their gym to hold gym classes says we don't have a library true however we frequently take trips to Cofe Library it's an easy Orange Line ride that we do um and we also have a multi-purpose media room Arts well we've been working for the last eight plus
years with TCP to offer uh dance classes hip-hop classes studio recording Tom and Copley and um they've transformed the cafeteria into an art space in addition to these things um we have a partnership with bu where we've built um community
garden and we have full use of the state-ofthe-art um Earl Center we also partners with Boston um English high school for All Sports as a matter of fact 30 seconds the first baseball state championship since 19 19 uh 71 was led
by a CA student our 2024 valid Victorian um we've worked hard to fulfill these components of our school despite the building um our students who have come from schools that have all these quote unquote high quality amenities have come to us because they haven't been successful in these schools regardless
of the schools building scores um they Thrive here maybe the most important thing is that that's not accounted for is the fact that um thank you thank you very much time is
up our next group of speakers is biley moors Chris mclen Simon mleo Jamal Grant and Anna angelova please raise your hands da mors you can start good evening everyone
my name is Bailey Morris and I'm a teacher at the deor elementary and a Dorchester resident I don't have much to say tonight this is largely in part because it feels pointless to repeatedly testify and to rally and find other co-workers families community members uh
you name it to testify and write an opposition to the deor school closure because it doesn't matter it doesn't matter how often we find issues and flaws with a capital planning team's plan or reasoning it doesn't matter how opposed students teachers parents families and because it's
ignored it doesn't matter that the black advocate for educational Excellence black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts Boston Network for black student achievement black teachers matter citizens for public schools harborpoint Community task force NAACP Boston branch and the St Stevens youth
program to name a few all oppose this method of school closure and it's not that it doesn't matter because it truly doesn't matter it doesn't matter because it seems to fall uh it doesn't matter because through dozens and dozens of counterarguments affidavits and proving reasons given
wrong it feels like it falls on deaf ears students teachers families in the community feel ignored please allow our community to stay together thank you our next speaker
is Chris mclen you can start thank you thanks uh good evening school committee members my name is Chris McLaughlin and I'll be speaking on behalf of a former Community Academy student in opposition of the closure my name is samoya
Galloway and I graduated from Community Academy High School in 2023 I was sent to ca from English high school because I was under accredited and needed a smaller more focused environment to succeed at first I wasn't sure what to expect but the school gave
me the support and push I needed to make it through the years the teachers and staff here not only helped help me with school but also opened my eyes to the realities of Life they taught me how to navigate the real world from understanding responsibilities to making
better decisions for my future the support didn't stop at graduation Even After High School the staff is still here for us helping students sign up for jobs enroll in college and stay on the right path that ongoing support has been
invaluable for me and so many others with that said I don't think proposed transition program will work well for students who are placed here due to conduct issues or through dys many of my peers who came from those situations struggled to adjust because they had
already been through so many Transitions and traditional environments that didn't work for them 90 days is not enough time to make a real difference for these kids I've experienced my own trauma losing close friends to the system or the streets so I know how
important are this school gave me that but constantly switching programs for kids in the system only sets them back further they need consistency and a chance to truly heal and grow not another program they're just passing through I hope you
can consider my experience and your decision-making process this school is not only important to me but the future of the young people in Boston thank you thank you very much our next speaker is uh Simon mle hi good evening
um I'm going to be sharing testimonials from two parents I am a biology and psychology teacher at Community Academy and a proud graduate of BPS school system ector pental parent writes
Community Academy is exactly what I was hoping it to be words cannot express what it means to me to see my son approaching graduation the structure of the school and its format addresses and focuses on getting the student moving
forward meeting the requirements for graduation and Beyond second parent Charlene utter my son struggles in school in every school I've placed him to find a connection eager to learn and
strive in when we found this school he went from barely passing to straight A in this school he loves going to school now and looks forward to being part of a community at this school this school help families and help the kids that are
in the school and turn in to Great adults by listening to them by giving them opportunities that will shape their future and they don't limit themselves to help one or two kids like I have issues in the past with they dedicated
themselves to help in every student parent and even in my case my younger daughter that doesn't even go to that school so instead of taking this away from a community that is already struggling you don't you guys look into 30 seconds of building them up and
protecting the people that can help in the future thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Jamal Grant see hi there can you all hear me yes we
can hear you okay wonderful thank you uh my name is Jamal Grant I'm speaking against the closure of Community Academy and I'm here to share an anecdote from uh Eli Tucker Raymond our community partner at Boston University Community Academy creates an environment for
students and staff that sponsors emotional support academic success and strategies for accomplishing both it works because the relationships that people build with students it takes time to build relationships with students to support their success and 45 days won't
do it those children will have to try and form bonds with faculty and staff at Community Academy then have to do it all over again when they go back to their home school if that's even a good idea the criteria that has been used to shut down all schools should particularly not
apply to community Academy students go to the school because they are chronically absent they go to the school because they are not thriving at their typical high schools the school also received a below building score the school is not the building if the intent is to shut down the building the school
should remain a degree a degree granting High School in another location um I have about a minute left so I do want to share some personal anecdotes as well um students at Community Academy when they go there they choose to stay there more often than not and they stay there for a
reason uh Community is a profoundly powerful thing with transformative properties that you can't necessarily quantify easily but the impact is no doubt uh 30 seconds now a lot of our kids have never had a
safe space to learn in until they've come here and if BPS is really invested in serving all students then the decision to close this school without consulting our key stakeholders the community and their families feels
disingenuous and outright counter counterintuitive to bps's Mission to serve all students thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Anna angelova good evening do you hear me yes
we can hear you you can start my name is Anova um and I an inclusion specialist at Community Academy a significant part of my role involves providing academic support for our seniors and tonight I would like to bring attention to a critical issue the glaring discrepancy
in the reported graduation rates at Community Academy this is not just a statistical matter it is a matter of the future for our students data plays a crucial role in decision- making especially when it comes to shaping the future of
educational institutions and here the data we have been provided with by Desi does not reflect the reality of the situation at CA graduation rates are typically calculated based on a cohort of students who entered the institution at the same time however as an alternative high
school our student population is highly transient which means that the cohort numbers we are measured against constantly shift impacting the accuracy of the reported rates when graduation rates are calculated based on an uninterrupted 9th through 12 grade
enrollment it fails to account for The Unique challenges we Face here at CA where many students enter and exit at different points throughout their High School careers just a few examples school year 22 Desi reported a graduation rate of 29.1% with a cohort
of 17 students the actual graduation rate was 70.5% with 12 graduates last year we had a cohort of 12 students 10 of whom graduated proudly with an 83% graduation rate it is evident that the disparity is
startling while this is numbers show a lower graduation rate C actual graduation numbers are significantly higher these discrepancies do not just misrepresent our success they fail to reflect the true dedication and achievement of our students and staff I urge everyone to please reconsider the
data being used in decision-making we must look Beyond these flawed numbers and truly recognize the hard work and resilience of the students at Community Academy if we allow misleading data our future we risk losing a vital and for our students
our next group of speakers is Deedra Manning Lakesha Williams Mansour buffins Alex olinsky and Dr Malcolm Bryant D raning and please raise your hand um could I please go in the next group I'm not at my house I just need
another five or 10 minutes yes thank you sure um Lisha Williams hi can you guys hear me yes hi how are you guys doing I'm the family liaison at Community Academy I've been
there about four years now I'm going to share some thoughts from a parent and one of our partners so I'll start off with a parent it's important that Community Academy stays open so that children attending can have staff that care about them the teachers staff the teachers and staff are amazing and
really care about our children the children have another place to call home it would really hurt the lives of children if they were to close down we need community Academy in so for children uh and I'm also going to read another statement from one of our
partners uh from TCP her name is l and she explains TCP has been a proud partner of Community Academy for over 10 years the relationship we the relationships we've built with both students and staff have grown Beyond
programming it has truly become a family we've witnessed students grow in so many ways both academically and personally because of the love and care poured into them by the school I've also observed how comfortable students are around the staff and How Deeply rooted the family like connection is within the school
Community Schools that genuinely care about their students are rare and it's essential to keep them open strong trust in relationships like these take time to build and it would be a tremendous loss not only for the staff and partners but most importantly for the student if these things if this were taken away and
thank you that's all I have thank you very much our next speaker is mansur buffins please unmute yourself and turn on your camera thank you hear me yes we can hear you you can start good evening my name is Mansour buffins and I mov to the
Boston area from Atlanta to attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a few years ago I graduated and since graduating I've been teaching Humanities at Community Academy and I just want to say that Community Academy is a special school with outstanding students for the entirety of the school existence um the
predom the staff has been predominantly black as well as the student body and these conditions have allowed for the development of a really unique community and with that Community we've been advancing black education in the district and the education of black
students um black brown students and more marginalized students in general and the successes of this school cannot be measured by conventional methods year after year CA has been graduating high capable students some of whom may have never seen a cap and gown
increasing them in esteem spirit and capability but CA didn't always Grant degrees like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly there were internal forces that made the school change from a program to a degree granting institution of learning an alternative school as
opposed to a stigmatized program so why why revert back I ask that you all don't be complicit in the destruction of another black school our schools have been burned down our schools our school have been burned to the ground our schools have been
desegregated to the ground our schools have been underfunded to the ground and I'm asking not vote our school away and I implore you in this moment to be anti-racist and I'll end with um the
words of a former student Jason cross when I look back for here heroes in my life that planted the seeds of becoming a black man with convictions for my freedom to be lived out on purpose I Look to Community Academy thank you please make the best decision because
that decision will be remembered thank you very much our next speaker is Alexander Linsky hello can you hear me yes we can hear you you can start thank you hi good evening my name is Alex rinsky and I have taught of the deor for seven years
I'm here tonight because de is more than a school it is a Lifeline for our students a foundation for our families and a pillar of our community BPS claims that this is about high quality student experiences yet deor already provides that with a proficient rating in curriculum assessment and strong
instruction just last month our school quality review highlighted our strengths and rigorous instruction student engagement and datadriven interventions deor is not failing it is growing this past fall we collaborated with BPS desie and commissioner Johnston on a post receivership plan the end of
receivership was in sight we were committed to de's future but BPS and desie canceled our final meeting and blindsided us with closure even worse desie has admitted that they were unaware of this closure plan calling it in oversight we have been a leader in inclusion since 2021 deor has had full
inclusion and and this year we dismantled SEI classrooms something BPS keeps delaying to do districtwide our students know the value of this school one of my third graders recently told me quote the school means a lot to me and the other kids here because we have fun and we learn a lot of new things for
building our careers this school is getting us prepared for our actual life we are all getting older to the point where Life is starting and is going to be hard so I ask you what school committee what will the Boston school committee say to my third grader that the square footage of our classroom is
more valuable to BPS than the education and stability of our students this has never been about student outcomes superintendent Skipper admitted on January 7th that deor would be considered for Ruth basson Academy use and this presented to the deor community
on February 12th this closure has never been about students it is about real estate BPS is using walk zones and building scores as an excuse to justify this closure hoping recycled slideshows repeated speeches and free sandwiches will keep the community complacent if BPS truly believes in a community based
education work with us not against us move us merge us but do not close us do what is right keep de open thank you thank you very much our next group is Dr Malcolm Bryant is not in the
meeting our next group is Hilda Gonzalez soy Alvarado Haley petratis Leia Thomas and Antonio Benson hey Gonzalez is not in the meeting zoa Alvarado H you can start all right good evening and thank you for being here my
name is zoa Alvarado and I'm a first grade teacher at the deor elementary this is not just a meeting it is our last chance to fight for the deor elementary the decision to close our school is more than a logistical move it is a decision that will uproot children disrupt their education and strip them of a place where they feel safe
supported and valued more than that it threatens to break apart the school Community we have built the family that we have formed and the Deep connections that make the deor more than just a school my students just six and seven years old are already facing a challenge many of us never had to learning a new language while trying to find their
voice every year argu writing is a struggle but when they heard that their school might close something changed their words came alive they found their voices for the first time they weren't just writing an assignment they were writing a plea writing is hard for them but they push through because they know
what's at stake they need the adults making this decision to listen not just to hear but to truly listen their words are simple but their message is powerful deor is their home and no child should have to fight to keep their home so now I'll let my students speak for themselves dear Mary Skipper I think
think you should not Quil the deor we love the school we are a community because I have friends I love the school because I love my friends thank you Wendy dear Mary Skipper please do not close the deor we love the school because everyone is kind the deor teaches us to be kind to students please
do not close the deor love Ana Dear Miss Mary Skipper please do not close a deor we love it it is special I love the deor can you not CL the de thank you Alex dear Mary Skipper please keep the school open I love my teachers because they
help me learn so much I have friends please do not close a deor thank you w dear Mary Skipper please do not close a deor I have friends I like the deor I like my teachers I like my classes because I learn thank you Wellington dear Mary Skipper I do not want to close
the deor I love my friends I love my teachers because they are kind I like to play outside please do not close a de love noia thank you kind thanks Hale Haley good evening my name is Haley
Petrus I am a teacher at the deor school I'm here to fight for our school to remain open but also to shed light on how this process has detrimentally affected a community and will worsen if the closure continues it is glaringly apparent that the deor community is not going to accept the ludicrous reasons
that the district has presented for closure of the deor school we represent the resilient community of Dorchester that love and depend on the deor the district has been notorious for taking and taking more from the deor each year began with putting us into receivership
next we had to readjust to numerous changing receivers and initiatives then last year you took away $1 million from our budget this year you physically gave away our classrooms staff rooms and even our bathrooms to the RBA school and then turned around and said we didn't have adequate spacing despite all this taking
we have risen to the challenge and provided high quality education and resources to our students and families yet here we are fighting to remain open while you toy with closing our school as a final act the lack of empathy shown to the community is baffling it hurts real people and devastates the Very fabric of
the community you supposedly said that you value I asked my fourth grade ESL students why they love the deor this is what they said I love the deor school because it let me learn English and Miss Gabby gives us clothes another student wrote These are people's homes you are taking
people learn here including me so don't take away the one thing we love a regular school educates students but the deor provides safety guidance and stability in addition to a great education don't take more from us than you already have when a school like the deor is shuttered it strips away
opportunities for the most vulnerable forcing children and families to navigate a new system in a new school the loss of the deor means the loss of a sense of belonging a hub of support and a vital resource for Upward Mobility it sends a clear message that these
families Educators and our efforts are and have been Expendable therefore eroding trust in a public system that is meant to serve all thank you thank you very much our next two speakers are not in the meeting so we will go with the
next group um KY de Roa Chas Glick Jasir kahur Audrey Martinez Kap pakam paval Abdul Rahman Liz Everson Christine stigman and drra mani ktie dear Roa you can start thank you good evening
my name is Katie de Roa and I've been a BPS educator for 15 years I'm speaking tonight to stop the proposal to close the maryon upper school I was one of just four lead teachers who started the maryon pilot High School when it opened in 2009 and I worked there for 13 years
A lot has changed but what has not changed are the core principles of what the Mary lion is as a K12 fully inclusive school what makes the lion different is that the foundation is built on the idea that Educators can and will change the learning environment to
fit the needs of students and not the other way around the foundation allows Educators to individualize all aspects of the school experience for students what I've heard from families and students over the past few weeks validates these efforts made a difference one alumni said I never would
have been able to navigate the world as I can now without the support I received by including us with gened kids social socializing us as if we're not different and giving us the support we need another alumni wrote many of my college friends could not tell me about a fellow
learner with a disability that they had a meaningful friendship with they missed valuable allyship opportunities and Life Lessons by not attending a school like the Mary lion it's so important that BPS is now expanding inclusion across the district however I Echo the sentiments I
hear from many others who ask why does Mandela school known for inclusion instead of investing in it as a model for other schools who are just starting out what will be better relyon students as they get reassigned to other schools who also have low building scores or high
quality experience scores what will happen to the k6 students when they lose access to the upper school cafeteria gym and Library I ask that you keep the Marion as a k12 and not take away such a valuable resource for BPS students and families especially without the guarantee of something better for them
thank you thank you very much our next speaker is chess Glick hello hello you can start I'm chess Glick an in an instructional coach at the deor like others I express my opposition to closing the deor when a
school closes an entire Community is dismantled and the lasting impact of the work done of the deor will be unfairly disrupted students and staff who have worked highly to build a positive and supportive environment are now facing separation through no fault of their own if the current de building is unable to
provide a highquality student experience the priority should be relocating students and staff together to another location let me reiterate we want to remain together 30% of students are facing homelessness and have been specifically assigned to the deor it's unjust due to their living conditions
these students are not factored into decision-making regarding the closure of their school there is an increase in concern that closing School is a recurring cycle where students are repeatedly displaced due to decisions beyond their control our students would benefit from the Assurance they can remain with teachers and staff who know
and support them the deor community did not receive feedback from the district about the state of our school building until the closure announcement this is troubling considering the capital planning team is saying they working transparently the quality of our school community and instruction has been praised by the school empowerment Network reviews disbanding our community
due to an inadequate building ignores these achievements Investments and undermines the progress we've made in initial meetings with the deor the chief of capital planning stated the building would not be used by Ruth Batson Academy yet in a school committee meeting on January 22nd it was revealed that the de building would in fact be utilized by
RBA and renovated for their future use it is both deceptive and insulting to suggest that they would not use the space so which is it the Deo Community was told the building is unsuitable yet yet it's been deemed acceptable for RBA your decision sends a message to the students that they're not worth the
investment there are 38 schools with lower building experience scores and nine schools with both a lower utilization rate and lower building experience score so why the deor this raises questions about the criteria used to determine school closures we urge you to reconsider this proposal and explore
solutions that will keep the de Community together our students families and staff deserve that our next speaker is just just bre C H you can start great good evening my name is JRE Carr and I'm a social worker at Community Academy I am reading a
letter on behalf of a senior at Community Academy in opposition to the closure her journey is important to share because it highlights what our students are currently experiencing my name is aaria and I am a senior at Community Academy I was sent here in the nth grade for conduct reason
and decided to stay even when I could go back to the school that sent me here since then I have worked hard to turn things around I've had my ups and downs but Community Academy has always been there to support me this year has been one of the hardest of my life I experienced housing issues and it ruined my attendance my attendance went down
not because I didn't want to be in school but because life was too much even then the staff never gave up on me they made sure I had support resources counseling and school work to complete outside of school so I wouldn't fall behind they even put together a transportation plan to help me get to
school but some days life was just too hard to make it there now the district wants to close Community Academy because of attendance but that decision doesn't show what's really happening attendance is not about the school itself it's about the struggle students face outside at CA the staff understand that they
meet students where they are at instead of punishing them and giving up on them for things they cannot control they work with us to make sure we still have a chance no matter what's going on in our lives for so many many of us like me Community Academy is more than a school it's a second chance it's a place where
we're not judged for our past but focus on building a better future if CA is taken away where will students like me go 30 seconds please keep Community Academy open we need it more than anyone understands thank you aaria Davis
close thank you very much our next speaker is Audrey Martinez Gap pakam can you hear me now yes could you please turn on your camera all yes sorry about no problem thank you good
evening I I asked that before before deciding about the parent mentoring program at St Stevens and closing schools like smaller schools such as Mary lions that you put on your parent hat like many of the good parents in BPS
who have shared with me countless stories about sacrifice and risking their lives for their family they understand the importance of finances but they also make the impossible possible for their children they know not all children are the same and some
children need more attention in smaller schools these parents keep in mind long-term goals and it's why they are willing to endure countless hardships so that their children can succeed in the future this is why I know parents and parent mentoring programs can become the
best teachers for our children they are inspiring role models who persist when the situation is tough and constantly look for ways to improve this is not just my opinion but it's based on over six years of collecting data from many
BPS Paras who are also BPS parents when given support and opportunity these parents go far because they know it contributes to the success of their own children and others as one parent explained these parent mentoring programs Empower her because she can
help teachers and other students and then when she goes home she can help her own children so although in the short term it may be financially more efficient to cut costs to make decisions that don't upset rich and greedy
developers and put all of our children in large schools please instead think like one of these good BPS parents about the long-term success of our children because as parents we know that not all our children's needs can be met in the
same way please have the courage to be willing to make them possible possible thank you your time to families who do the same umal Abdul Rahman is not in the meeting so we will go with Liz Everson good evening school committee
members my name is Liz Everson and I'm here to speak in support of the BTU's contract for fair pay I have been a LIF long doorchester resident a BPS parent and most importantly a par professional at the Murphy K8 for the past 20 years I've spent the last two decades in the
Heart of the City dedicated to its children to its future I've seen them grow learn and overcome I've held their hands wipe their tears and celebrated their victories I've worked alongside dedicated teachers filling the gaps and providing the individual individualized Attention our students desperately need
I've navigated complex IEPs implemented specialized strategies and offered unwavering encouragement I've seen the power of Education transform lives and have been privileged to be a part of that transformation but here's the Stark reality for 20 years I've done this work without a fair living wage I've
struggled to make ends meet in a city where the cost of living skyrockets while our salaries remain stagnant I've worked second jobs sacrificed family and personal time and worried about how to pay for basic necessities for my children Boston a city of innovation and progress often forgets those who are the
backbone of its educational system power professionals the UN heroes are essential to Student Success yet we are undervalued underpaid and often overlooked we are not asking for riches we are asking for respect we are asking for a wage that reflects the value of
our work a wage that allows us to live with dignity in the city we serve we are asking for a fair chance to build a stable life to provide for our families and to continue the commitment for our Boston children we are not just employees we are Partners in education we are invested in the success of our
students and the future of our city we deserve a living wage not just for ourselves but for the sake of the children we serve because when we are supported they are supported when we Thrive they Thrive it's time to pay par professionals a respectable living wage I'd hate to leave a city I love and have
called home for 40 years because I can no longer afford to live here and send my children to BPS thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Christine stigman can you hear me yes we can hear you you
can start thank you thank you good evening members of the school committee my name is Kristen segman I'm a lifelong resident of bright my daughter is a current eighth grade student at the Mary line I also have a niece in the eighth grade and anise in the sixth grade at the Mary line two my
two sons have graduated and two nephews have also graduated from the Mary line and all are either in college or have graduated from college I'm also the president of the friends of the Mary lion board and co-president for both the high school board and the lower school board I'm here to speak in opposition in the closing and reconfiguration of the
Mary line how can you close the doors on the program that started inclusion our staff and Headmaster Dr erano has worked extremely hard day in and day out to teach and guide our students in our program our teachers are fully invested
in all of our students lives both regular Ed and special ed our building might not have all of the shiny bells and whistles and a gymnasium and an auditorium that all the new schools have but it has something different it has staff that care a Headmaster that can
walk through the Halls and name every student and families that choose to send our children to the school on a daily basis the Mary lion is Hope and home to these students students staff and families continue to work hard to fight
for the Mery lion our school may be small but it is mighty our school creates an inclusive learning environment that help all students learn to develop and work to their potential please keep our students in the school where they feel safe to be who they are
their home at the Mery line I urge you to reconsider and to keep our school open thank you thank you very much our last speaker is stra Manning um it says I can't start my video because the host has disabled
it just a second there oh yeah sorry um thank you everybody um I I also wanted to Echo the sentiments that chair Robinson made earlier um about mayor Woo's performance
today um before the Congressional hearing um it's great the sense of humanity that she has that everybody who lives in the city belongs I also would like to Echo the sentiments that I've heard the superintendent herself stay when talking about the increase in enrollment that came from um immigrant
students um it puzzles me that there's such a disconnect that there's welcoming for some folks but for the construct of the exam school policy that is targeting students for inclusion exclusion excusion from certain parts of the city
is to me really troubling um and it sort of just speaks to the lack of a customer service mentality or stakeholder mentality that I see in BPS and I hear echoed in all the comments of people who've spoken in the many school committee meetings that I've participated in I sort of see the
implosion of the Henderson as a microcosm of what's happening with BPS in terms of reduction in enrollment this the the district doesn't listen when problems with security and problems with certain students the it all ends up
happening that um a 16-year-old girl assaults a principal knocks are unconscious and then people immediately started to leave and then dribs and drabs over that year I didn't end up pulling my daughter until three years later but the school literally lost all the people who had options I felt that I
needed to stay um because I felt if I were fighting for the school that the kids who didn't have choices the kids with cognitive issues ETC I I just don't understand why BPS is not looking to serve the people in the city all of the
people in the city please do something about all of the problems that people are mentioning and and please don't exclude students from exam schools I just it just doesn't make sense thank you very much thank you very much chair that concludes public
comment thank you Miss parvex and I want to thank everyone who spoke tonight your input is critical as we consider the students superintendent budget recommendations for this next fiscal year I want to remind you that you can
view all of the budget documents and share your feedback by visiting bostonpublicschools.org budget you can also email your comments to the school committee our final virtual budget hearing will take place on Wednesday
March 20th at 5:30 pm followed by a school committee meeting at 6:30 p.m. the committee will vote on the superintendent's final fiscal year 26 budget recommendation on March 26 if there's nothing further I'll entertain a
motion to adjourn so moved thank you is there a second second thank you is there any discussion or objection to the motion N Miss P will you please call the RO yes M K herandez Miss Lima Barbosa
yes Miss poano Garcia Mr Tran yes Mr O'Neal yes Miss Robinson yes we are adjourned thank you this meeting is adjourned good night everyone thank you everyone thank you all