##VIDEO ID:aTVqaaFEbvY## good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Boston school committee I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for because this is a remote meeting I'll ask Miss carix to please call the RO thank you chair Dr alkins Mr Cadet Hernandez present Mr Omar isma Miss Lima Barbosa present Miss palano Garcia present Mr Tran present Miss Mr O'Neal Miss Robinson present we have a quorum thank you 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 meeting documents are posted on the committee's web page bostonpublicschools.org school committee under the February 5th meeting link the meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BPS languages 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 ceran Creole canines 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 speak 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 begin tonight by taking a few minutes to honor The Life and Legacy of Dr William H Smitty Smith a tieless advocate for race Unity a social change maker and a true education Pioneer Dr Smith founded the national Center for race Amity and was instrumental in shaping the equity work here in the Boston Public Schools we remember his legacy of service his ability to Foster understanding and his advocacy for advancing access equity and social justice his work lives on many on through the many lives he touched within DPS and Beyond and through his children two of which were Educators in BPS we are all feeling his loss as we celebrate his life in contributions I knew him well through his work at whea College where I participated with him for many years in the race Amity work superintendent would you like to say a few words oh thank you chair uh so yes so you know Smitt is going to be remembered as just so many different things but as an outstanding educator you know a true change Force you know in almost everything he did um he was also accomplished uh you know as as we remember he started a high school uh in Boston which was specifically for students who dropped out um he also worked as a longtime administrator in Boston and leader uh he co-founded and co-owned a televis a television station in New Hampshire and he branched out into documentary film making uh where he highlighted the role of soldiers of color during World War II and he later served as uh chair as you said as a founding director uh with the for the am center for the race Amity but also as a member of the Emerson College Center for diversity in the communications industry um you know truly uh Smitty was somebody that he put his mind to it and he did it and no matter what the barrier was he got rid of it um I think perhaps most important um was his role as father and grandfather uh and husband um he inspired his children to become Educators uh and they truly have dedicated their careers to creating opportunities for students who uh others might write off with deficit but they always make sure that the students assets are seen um his daughters uh who Jillian Smith Jillian Kelton uh who is the former BPS chief of student support was also uh a baby counselor at Tech Boston Academy with me back when the school was founded um you know certainly uh Kaylee galano who uh is currently the director of equity and Excellence for the Somerville Public Schools I had the The Good Fortune of working with Kaylee and and uh back at Tech Boston when she was a counselor and then in Somerville um and both of them are just really wonderful examples of Smitty's love passion and deep care and belief in what kids are capable of um and being a champion for them uh his son-in-law Damen Kelton also worked in BPS for many years uh also worked in Somerville and so you know you can just see sm's influence and Marsha's influence in so many different ways from a family who has touched the BPS touched generations of students and certainly touched me uh as I've had the honor and opportunity to work with them um so you know tonight I know that uh Smitty's family is here uh his wife of 54 years Marsha Smith uh as well as Jillian Kaylee uh I think Lewis is here and uh Damen is here and I think some of his grandkids are here so um with that chair I'll turn it back to you so that you can go on with the citation right thank you superintendent I'll Now read the citation from mayor woo the city of Boston and mayor woo share a certificate of recognition honoring the life and leg Legacy of Dr William Harrison Smitty Smith in recognition that his life was a testament to courage compassion and a relentless pursuit of racial unity and social justice as a pioneering civil rights Advocate combat medic educator filmmaker and founder of the national Center for race Amity his impactful contributions Bridge divides and inspired change leaving a legacy that continues to Foster understanding and healing the city of Boston is honored to recognize the positive impact Dr Smith had on countless others during his lifetime signed by mayor Michelle woo on this day February 5th 2025 now let's pause for a moment for a moment of silence in me memory of William H Smitty Smith thank you before moving on I welcome anyone from Dr Smith's families to say a few words thank you so much chair thank you so much superintendent Skipper um my family and I want to thank both the school committee Boston public schools and also the city of Boston and mayor woo for acknowledging the life and service of our father he was a person who thoroughly believed that the future is in the hands of our young people he saw education as a way to unite us and to lift us um a way to Center and celebrate our differences and to build a community that deeply Embraces love respect and friendship so thank you thank you thank you all for joining us okay I want to take a moment to acknowledge the uncertain times we find ourselves in and the range of emotions we're all feeling we have heard the fear and worry from our students families and our staff our commitments are unchanged Boston public school stands firmly in our commitment to being a welcoming district for all we will continue to uphold our district and state policies to protect the safeties of our students the diversity of our school communities and identity and experiences is what makes our district who we are ensuring students feel safe and seeing in their schools and are provided with an education that prepares and inspires them for life after graduation continues to be our core priority we will be steady in moving forward and we are unwavering in our commitment to our students superintendent would you like to share a few words yeah thank you chair and um thanks for reiterating is always our commitment to students and families um you know we understand in and acknowledge fully that members of our community are feeling um a lot of the anxiety and fear that you spoke about uh and it is taking a toll on our community's mental and emotional health our students our families our whole Community um my team has been monitoring the implementation of the new federal immigration policies and uh frankly any other administrative directives so that we can understand them we can evaluate them uh we can mitigate any impacts of the decisions uh that are negative on our on our students and our families uh central office departments are in constant communication with our regional and school-based teams providing guidance and support as we navigate these changes we also continue to work closely with our partners at the state level at the city level the community level to share timely and accurate information as well as expertise and resources to support our school communities our first priority is to ensure that all Boston Public School students regardless of actual or perceived immigration status are safe and welcomed in our school communities we have a legal obligation to provide every student a free public school education regardless and inclusive of race ethnicity religion country of origin or gender identity um I recently sent a communication out to the BPS Community to reassure them that we are fully committed to continuing to Welcome All Families and to supporting them while honoring our responsibility under the Constitution every day we are driven by our values our firm conviction that our work is always in the service of children and their families first Our obligation is not only legal it's ethical and when we lead with compassion respect and understanding we set an example for the students that we serve on Monday I also sent a second communication regarding the pro protections for lgbtq plus students and their families and staff and what they're entitled relative to the classrooms and buildings and while engaged in BPS activities under our District's non-discrimination policies these communications also serve as a reminder to our school communities that as public school Educators our responsibility is to ensure that every student who resides in Boston has access to a quality public education BPS is also ensuring that our school administrators have an understanding of all of their legal obligations to students under federal and state law as well as District policies our team has also provided guidance to school leaders and family facing staff we've been in regular communication with our families and we will continue to be in partnership with the central office departments School communities and Community Partners we provide training and guidance opportunities for staff as we remain focused and committed to our responsibility as Educators to care for and educate all of our students so again I'd like to share for the public once again the BPS heline is available to our families to answer any questions from 8:30 until 5:00 on weekdays at 617635 88 73 or if email is easier helpline bostonpublicschools.org I chair before I I pass it back to you for the rest of the agenda and I I know we we have a deep agenda um I also want to just acknowledge the the beginning of Black History Month um this is a time when we honor the contributions of African-Americans in our country um additionally last week we celebrated the Lunar New Year with special events around the district uh and that culminated with a special event this morning at the jiah quiny elementary school uh due to tonight's full agenda uh I'm not going to be giving uh my traditional soups report however I look forward to updating you on many of the Great events for Black History Month uh and for the Lunar New Year and other bright spots uh that will happen around our district at the February 26th meeting uh so chair with that I will pass it back to you thank you we'll begin with the approval of minutes I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the January 22nd 2025 school committee meeting as presented is there a motion so moved thank you is there a second second is there any discussion or objection to the motion hearing none Miss Parx will you please call the role thank you chair Dr alkins yes Mr CET herandez Mr C herand oh thank you Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss palano Garcia yes Mr Tran yes Mr O'Neal yes Miss Robinson yes the minister are approved thank you we'll now move on to General Public comment Miss P thank you H we have thank you chair the public comment period is an opportunity for parents caregivers students and other concerned parties to make brief presentations to the school committee on pertinent School issues questions on specific School matters are not answered at this time but are referred to the superintendent for a later response questions on specific policy matter are not answered at this time but may be the subject of later discussion by the committee the meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to one hour after one hour anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting we have 42 speakers this evening each person will have two minutes to speak and I would remind you when you have 30 seconds remaining if your remarks Exceed 2 minutes please email your comments for distribution to the committee once you reach your two minutes we will allow you to finish your sentence before moving on to the next speaker the time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time speakers may not reassign their time to others 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 speakers um sorry uh please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or District staff please note that the comments any public speaker do not represent the bostone public schools or the Boston school committee please take your name affiliation and what neighborhood you are from before you begin please make sure you're signning in to zoom with the same name you sign used to sign up for public comment and be prepared to unmute yourself and turn on your camera when it's your turn to test IFI please raise your virtual hand when I call your name please also be mindful of the interpreters while providing your testimony and speak at a pace that allow them to accurately capture what you're saying our first group of speakers are Jalisa Fernandez kylen Velasquez winter Rose and Giana Rodriguez Jalisa Fernandez you can start my name is julisa Fernandes I am I live in Dorchester and I attend the Sarah green one I am class representative for the sixth grade and I'm going to be talking about why ethnic studies is important in the school Community I have choice and have chosen this talking point because many students in my community should be able to learn and understand each other's cultures and backgrounds so they don't have to judge another so they don't have to judge another person so they don't have to join one another because they are different if there's one thing that I learned about this topic it is that ethnic studies teaches students about the experiences cultures and histories of the racialized groups and how power and oppression affects them it it also helps students understand the social dynamics of race racism and colonialism and my in closing my name is Jalisa Fernandes and I believe that anyone should be able to should be able to learn and not judge people for where they are from or their looks I am part of the um Student Government at the S Greenwood ka8 dual language school thank you thank you very much our next speaker is kyen Basquez please go ahead hi my name is kayn Velasquez I live in matapan I am a fifth grade class representative from the Sarah Greenwood School and my talking point is black lives matter black lives matter is a phrase people use because back then black people were treated unfairly were treated unfairly people would use that phrase to protest I feel like some students don't get respected because of their skin color usually about 90% of black kids are bullied because they they have dark skin black kids matter just like any other kids no matter the skin color every kid should be treated fairly I feel like black lives matter and you do too everyone's voice should be heard in my in closing my name is Kaylin Velasquez I'm the fifth grade class representative in the Sarah Greenwood School in my opinion black lives matter wherever you are thank you thank you very much our next speaker is winter Rose winter R you can start hello my name is winter Rose I go to the Sarah Greenwood school I live in Dorchester and I am the fifth grade representative today I would like to talk to you about racism in modern times I believe we should include more topics and lessons on racism for example the black lives matter protests this will help students understand and answer questions they may have on this topic it is important for students to know and learn about racism in America and why these black lives matter Pro protest are trying to prevent racism this knowledge will come in handy so that if students see black lives matter protest they will be able to know what is happening these lessons may also help clear any assumption students may have on these protests in conclusion this is why I believe that we should include more lessons on racism in modern times my name is winter Rose I go to the sah gwood school I live in Chester and I'm fifth grade representative thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Jana Rodriguez good evening um my name is GI Rodriguez I go to Sarah Greenwood I am located in doorchester my name is GI Rodriguez ioud serve as the seventh grade representative of Sarah Greenwood school today I want to empathize the importance of black lives matter an organization that is actively fighting against racism and empowering the black community black lives matter started in 2013 in response to ongoing racism and violence against black people the movement seeks to stop police brutally and promote equality and justice in all areas of life including education and economic opportunities um why do we why do we say black lives matter it means we recognize and support the importance of black lives and their experiences we need to educate ourselves and engage in conversations conversations about these issues we can also get involved in local initiatives that aim to create positive change just as Martin Luther King said before all white children and black children should love among themselves it shouldn't matter by color or race everyone should be treated equally in closing my name is Gianna Rodriguez I proudly serve as the seventh grade representative I believe that all lives matter in the Sarah Greenwood school and in the city of Boston black lives matter thank you thank you very much um Kena Kindle is not in the meeting so we will continue with nazik Muhammad Michael Maguire Jess M FCO and Debra leis farmy nazik Muhammad nazik Muhammad please raise your hand can start thank you good evening my name is nazik Muhammad and I'm a proud Deborah Elementary graduate and a lifelong resident of the Harbor Point Community I graduated from De in 2012 and now 12 years later I recently earned my Bachelor of Science degree in architecture from wenworth an achievement that would not have been possible with without the foundation that the deor school gave me it is more than just a school to me it is where I built the perseverance and confidence that shaped My Success today I'm here today because I strongly oppose the proposed closure of De Elementary this decision will have a devastating impact on students and families like mine for as long as I can remember my family has been a part of the deer it is the only school that we know and trust whether it was myself my siblings my cousins or other relatives every year there has been family members walking its hallways and thriving in their education you could say that we are a loyal deor family over the years we have seen generations of successful graduates within just our family alone and I stand before you today as one of them proof of what is possible when students receive the right support within their own Community but instead of investing Endeavor BPS is choosing to disrupt and this place the very students who need the school the most I'm not just speaking as a proud graduate I'm speaking as a concerned older sister my younger brothers are in third and fifth grade at deor in each term they are growing more confident and excelling at the school 30 seconds this proposed closure won't just take away their school it will take away their stability so I urge the school committee to reconsider this decision and commit to keeping the deor community together thank you very much our next speaker is Michael McGuire Michael McGuire Michael mire is not in the meeting um mik mire is not accepting so we will go with Jess Madam FCO hi my name is Jess Madden FCO and I live in Hyde Park and an English teacher at greater Egleston high school and the mom of two BPS students I have not come to testify at school committee since 2020 2021 when I spoke in favor of the more Equitable exam school admissions policy that you ended up adopting I spoke about how too often BPS prioritizes the needs of privilege and white families and explain that it's like the 38 bus that goes from West Roxbury to the door of BLS a special route that runs at the beginning and end of the BLS school day in which unlike most BTA buses is filled with teenagers who are white this is part of the design of our country as a whole and has been part of the design of BPS for too long but I'm here tonight to advocate for my current students and my former students who do not have a 38 bus picking them up near their home in the morning or bringing them home after school I'm here to advocate for our students who did not pass one or more of the mcast exams which were a high school graduation requirement until wise voters decided it would not be in November I don't know what our statistics are in BPS but Statewide 85% of the students who were denied a diploma were denied only because they didn't pass mcast have a learning disability or are English language Learners I understand that the district is now grappling with what our future competency determination should be for this year and future Year's graduating classes but I urge you to make a quick decision to Grant diplomas to students who met all of the pre-existing requirements for the competency determination except for passing mcass we have students at my school who are still waiting since June for a diploma because they did not pass a single mcast I to isolate this one aspect of the policy these students the diploma thank you thank you our next speaker is Dedra leis fary good evening um I'm Dedra can you hear me yes we can hear you Dedra Lewis farmer um parent of a BPS Elementary schooler uh School counselor at greater eglon high school and I'm here to also um urge to make a decision on the mcast competency I currently have four students from last year who are waiting um for high school diploma one in which who would have been our valid dictorian last year in 2024 who could not get a diploma and could not walk the stage because of the mcast test which was also to um appeals were denied for these four students from last year um I also currently half of my class of 2025 would be impacted because we don't have a decision on the competency determination for the mcast um so I urge you to please make a decision quickly um as it affects my current student population um thank you thank you very much our next group of speakers are Lisa Clawson D raning edit Bazil and Maria Barbosa Lisa Clen everyone please raise your hands when I call your name you can start hello okay sorry about that my name is Lisa clawen I'm the director of community Labor United 8 Beacon Street in Boston um thank you for hearing from me um my children attended the Dr Henderson inclusion school and um I'm here to speak in support of the btu contract and ensuring that inclusion is done right um and ensure and working to ensure that Paras um were see receive higher pay um right now they're paid half of what teachers get and work just as hard um and again on the inclusion point it's really important to have full inclusion for all students um and for teachers to have the full support and assistance and Staffing to accommodate them in their classes um my organization Community Labor United is a coalition of unions and Community organizations from around Boston uh and I hope you will urge you to uh consider supporting the contract thank you thank you very much our next speaker is deed raning can you hear me yes my name is JRA Manning I'm a single parent of two public school children school committee members have frequently complained about not being provided with data that allows them to make an informed decision last April the superintendent promised a discussion on exam school policy school committee members have not been briefed on how students have been performing in exam schools chair Robinson has asked how many BPS students denied seats have remained with the district school committee members should be concerned about high achieving students being denied educational opportunities and that students in elementary school are not being prepared to do well in high school in college and in the workforce voting to approve a consolidation of tiers does nothing to rectify the many problems with the exam school policy a motion and vote tonight should be to allocate the number of seats per tier based on the number of applicants in each tier so that every applicant in the city has an equal chance of admission no matter where that child lives please don't let the sixth grade girl from the Manning school who testified last month that she had recently done so well a map testing but just received a B+ in a single subject which she believes is enough to deny her an opportunity for admission the data supports her concern students with very high composite scores have been excluded from educational opportunities she is a city resident and a BPS student and should be considered by BPS administrators and school committee members to be a member of our community please don't allow her fear to be realized by continuing to support a flawed exam school policy to cheer Robinson's concern and mentioned by the boy from the Manning school who testified last week families are leaving Boston Public Schools if they have an opportunity for better school I remov my daughter from the Murphy School after last year and enrolled her in a charter school because there was a defined path to an excellent High School families have received the message loud and clear that they cannot count on Boston public schools to provide their children with a future I also want to mention that tier Maps were promised to be available in midwinter it's now February the US Census released ACS data in December people need information this Boston Public Schools administrators are not providing us with information ory thank our next speaker is Edith Bazil thank you mayor w to quote embed anti-racism in the fabric of Boston public schools and to work to create long-term solutions for our schools end of quote yet black communities have seen stunning disinvestment and gentrification plans to rebuild the McKinley schools now called Mal kingies has been suspended what's going on Community Academy is reconfigured as a code of conduct school with no diploma track and white stadium is being Recon instructed for a white woman's private soccer team am I the only one who feels that black students are being punked by the green New Deal $474 million in Essa funds and black literacy gaps have widened black history is not a mystery over centuries of enslavement black people built this country while creating everyday inventions you enjoy from the bed you slept in clock phone that woke you up toilet soap shoes hair brush refrigerator door knob car traffic light elevator computer Printing Supplies air conditioning black people created blood banks and pioneered open heart surgery yet BPS claimed you can't teach black students basic reading skills and you push out black Educators who can you don't want to test them because you don't want to reveal what harm you are creating with this population and you you eradicated racial Equity checkpoints because it Expos oses your anti-black policies about quality seats for black students the superintendent said quote a quality seat doesn't mean it's a the right SE end of quote this kind of anti-black sentiment drives black families to leave BPS at the highest numbers black students are ow in educational debt restorative justice and reparations for these historical harms like Dr Martin Luther King said we are here to collect that check and thank you for all the brilliant young people who tested if and the teachers thank you our next speaker is um Maria Barbosa good evening my name is Maria Barbosa I live in matapan and I'm a representative of the Roger clap elementary school as a parent of two children one on the Spectrum and one in general education I can attest to the positive outcomes of the importance of providing enough sta staing support for inclusion classrooms I've experienced both sides of this point I now have a seventh grader at uh Boston College High School who came to the clap at 3 after transitioning out of early intervention we chose the school because they were able to meet the needs of his IEP as an inclusion school he received occupational speech ABA therapy and continued through the summer with the extended school year program they ensured my son didn't regress on all the progress that he had made and during his annual IEP meetings it was suggested that we scale back on his Services anytime they saw progress and my reluctance was met with support from the Roger clap staff shout out to the retired Miss Harris who supported my advocacy for my child uh and with my persistence in retaining all of his Services what resulted was my son no longer needing any Services by the middle of first grade switching into a 504 plan it's imperative that this population of children receive all the support that they can get early on my son was a participant in an outcome stud for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder at Children's Hospital which is finally dep published in November 2023 in the medical journal Jam of Pediatrics I can provide the article if necessary I think it would be extremely insightful on how BPS should frame the educational and support needs for these children and now I'm experienced the inverse with my second grader who again is in general education in a classroom of 20 6 being on IEP seconds all with varying uh needs and I can see what not enough support looks like sometimes it can manifest in disruptions and lack of enthusiasm on the children if as a community we're looking looking to um reach certain education goals for all student populations we need to be Equitable about the support that's being provided one teacher by themselves is not enough to meet the educational needs for all students in an in in an inclusion classroom and thank you for your opportunity to speak and your continue uh dedication to our children thank you very much our next group of speakers are Robert Jenkins Kyle guro Velma Glover Karen Tucker and Carrie FL Mr Jenkins and please raise your hand when I call your names Mr Jenkins Jenkin Mr jenus please accept the prompt okay so we will Mr Jenkins for some reason um okay I think you're here now hello can you hear me yes can you turn on the camera please can you see me can you hear me yes we can hear you can see Robert Jenkins president of the Madison Park Alumni Association I'd like to say uh you know good evening uh superintendent good evening City Council Members good evening chair uh I'm president of the Madison Park lni Association I would like to say everything uh I support everything everybody has said especially the students uh you know I graduated from Madison Park in 1978 and when we came to the school school wasn't even ready yet but again you know 50 years later we don't have a complete School the city has put uh you know the renovation plan on hold even though we have the assurances from the mayor and the superintendent that this is a priority but it isn't really a priority the way we see it because there are other projects that are fast tracked like the fail brick and the summer you know also uh the um the um sha and Taylor you know going under the msba the msba okay again it is something that needs to be really looked at on why Madison after all these years Ren ation are still in the planning stages where we have to do this all over again I'm not going to waste a lot of time another Point School uh the btu teachers on probably going on their 140th plus day without a contract is not fair it is not fair another issue that is really plaguing me and I have and I'm trying to work with BPS and it's not their fault it's Transportation as you know I'm a sports official I will kids are not being picked up for buses it starts the games late today was the first day that we had enough time to start the game on time and I'm want to say something that goes back when you mentioned M Lu King Black History Month Equity thank you very much thank you very much our next speaker is Kyle gisho hi K you can start hi my name is Kyle gishu I'm a resident of Dorchester and the mother of two wonderful Sons one of whom has an IEP and just graduated from BLS as a parent I witnessed that some of his teachers were unable to adhere to my son's IEP which resulted in him failing multiple classes this is a child who scored a 1370 on his essay ATS and who worked on his homework for hours upon hours every night so there was never a question of his Mastery of the content or his effort it was simply not receiving the support for his documented disability as laid out in his IEP that caused his failing grades this is how urgent it is that special education be done right for many students it can absolutely mean the difference between passing and failing I'm also an inclusion teacher in BPS with a co- teer I would like to share what a recent school day was like for me as it is a good representation of a typical school day during first period I had a student who tried to skip class they have a learning disability and were trying to avoid an assignment that they believed they could not do we spoke privately for a bit came up with a plan for success and I was able to get them back into class in my second class I worked oneon-one with a child on the autism spectrum who might need a sub-par environment but first we are trying an inclusion setting with pullout services for math in order to ensure they are in the least restrictive environment possible in which they can be successful my third class involved a student who walked out of class they have an IEP for an and small things can result in a disproportionate reaction so we engaged in self-regulating and calming strategies and discussed the size of the problem in order to help them gain perspective and return to class in my fourth class I worked with a translator to introduce a first then board to a student on the autism spectrum who who's also brand new to learning English it was a great day I was able to meet the needs of my students but I could not have done that without a co- teer I am speaking as a parent who knows what when students are not given the the supports that they deserve thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Velma Glover can start good evening everyone my name is Velma Glover I grew up in Dorchester I graduated from English High I live in Milton but I came back I came back because I care I want to talk about my role as a school nurse the support staff I am the medication nurse the Band-Aid nurse the triage nurse the case manager the cat team nurse the physical and immunization nurse the student support team nurse the team grade level nurse the treatment nurse the individual health plan nurse the field trip nurse the sports physical nurse I am the chronic disease nurse the communicable disease nurse the pregnancy liazon nurse the emergency nurse and I'm sure there's many other roles that I have not put up there but that many of the nurses do who cares about the nurse the expectation to get the job done the expectation is to get the job done how and when you get it done who cares who cares can you hear me our absenteeism rate is high our connection with each other is low who cares all of us are challenged with additional responsibilities with no extra support who cares our plates are full the budget is low united we stand divided we fall who do you say I am thank you for letting me speak thank you very much our next speaker is Karen Tucker followed by Carrie FY hi can go ahead sorry hi my name is Karen Tucker and I'm an 8ighth grade ELA teacher in the Salem public schools I'm also the vice president of the Salem teachers union I'm here to speak on the importance of inclusion being done right by sharing my experiences with co- teing honestly I was very surprised to learn that there are teachers in Boston who are expected to have dual certification and don't have a co-teacher for their special education or English as a second language inclusion classes for most of my career I've had co- teers for my inclusion classes and I can't imagine trying to meet the wide- ranging needs of my students without my co- teers for two of my classes which have students with IEP Services my special education teacher is my co- teer for one of my other classes I have an English a second language teacher as a co- teer we have scheduled time every week to meet review data and IEPs and plan lessons they both have an incredible wealth of specialized knowledge about modifications accommodations and Str strategies help us meet our students needs in the classroom because we plan and teach the classes together we can provide multiple small group lessons in a class period that meet the needs of wide range of students in the room sometimes the small groups we teach are made up of students on IEPs sometimes it's a mixed ability group who need to work on the same skill this model also allows us to give more individualized attention to our students one of us can work with a student oneon-one while the other focuses on the rest of the class another important aspect of co- teing is that it allows us to make adjustments quicker in the moment so that all of our students get what they need to be successful and that's what we all want for stud students to have the education that allows them to be able to reach their goals and dreams ultimately co- teing empowers teachers to use wider range of strategies and tools which leads to Greater student engagement stronger academic performance and a more supportive positive classroom culture thank you so much thank you our next speaker is Carrie flarey car FL could you try again could you please accept the prompt can you turn on your camera y there we go thank hi my name is Carrie flarity I'm the mother I'm Brighton I am the mother of an eighth grade at the Mary lion pilot High School where my niece is also in the eth grade and I've had two nephews graduate from um first off to miss Glover as a fellow nurse I thank you for all you do um I am talking on why the Mary lion should not close um and I stated in an article by the globe on September 27th 20122 um the article the Mary lion way a Boston inclusion School successful approach to re-engagement schools like the Mary lion with its smaller classrooms was built to give all students those with special needs particularly emotional and behavioral disabilities and those with not the best possible chance to learn in a supportive and integrated environment they have learned to socialize interact and become a family along with their teachers it is a unique exp it's quoted as a unique experience in the Boston Public School System and it has offered a model for the district now the district is trying to rid that model and put them into larger schools where they will become a number and probably merely another St statistic of another Boston Public School student not graduating because they are being moved Dr in know was quoted as saying we see students as individuals at the Mary line pilot high school they are an individual and are taught how to act to interact with other students other adults and um the staff there will not let them just be a number or a statistic in 201819 it was marked as successful in several metrics and as a time where diversity is being challenged throughout the country I ask you and I implore that BPS keeps the mar lion pilot High School open for the students that need it and that thank you thank you your time is up our next group of speakers are Cheryl Buckman Christian duon Soliz Kathleen boundy and Ursula Alston Sher Buckman please raise your hand Cheryl Buckman good evening my my name is Cheryl Buckman I'm a former deor graduate class of 1996 I'm also a proud parent to a sixth grader who is at the deor I reside in South Boston I'm here this evening to urge committee members not to let the deor be shut down to most the deor is just a school facility it's way more than that the deor is a family community and the proposal to close the school has come to a shock and such a closure would harm our children family and Educators a school is supposed to be a sanctuary for our children to learn and our teachers to teach then why close a building that means just that the deor is what inclusion should look like why should all of the the amazing strides the school Community has made be put to a close the de school has a lot of meaning to its students Educators and families where students thrive in learning and its teachers teach and where families find reassurance in their child overall academics it deserves the necessary upgrades to continue to do so specialized programs can be easily introduced by using its existing infrastructure and its underutilized spaces it can become a resourcer environment that can support diverse learning including multilingual Learners and special education services in closing the DEA Elementary overlooks its a potential and Community significance transforming the deor into a full service community school with targeted Investments and Innovative programs that can meet the challenges while keeping it open to serve students and families effectively BPS must be committed to keeping the deor community together no closure thank you very much no splitting up the community thank you community wants real answers we will our next speaker is Christian dubon Soliz uh can you hear me yes we can hear you you can start uh good uh good evening members of the Boston Public Schools committee uh my name is Christian duon Solis I live in the East Boston area and I'm an organizer and leader of an organization known as stories inspiring movements also known as him tonight I speak on behalf of stories inspiring movements in support of the Boston Teachers Union who are negotiating for a fair and just contract with Boston Public Schools we are in solidarity with the btu for the demands and in particular I want to emphasize a couple different points the first is that Educators such as teachers and Par professionals schools need a living wage that allows them to stay in the communities they serve I myself grew up in the BPS system and throughout my time there I can't overstate how much impact Educators had in my life my history and English teachers opened my eyes to the experiences of those whose stories never get told in textbooks um and had to craft effec of arguments my Science and Math teachers taught me a lot about the world around me and that our modern-day world wouldn't be possible without numbers BPS is full of Ed Educators who want the best for their students and we should strive to see the best for them as well pay Educators a fair and living wage the second point is that Boston Public Schools must hire enough Educators and specialized staff to meet the individualized and special needs of all students teachers should not be doing the job of two or three it is not fair to them and to the students inclusion should be done right and lastly I end with this Sim organizes immigrant Youth and Young adults just like BPS Sim has seen a wave of fear and worry surrounding ice arrest in Boston Andor seconds immigrant communities we appreciate superintendent Skipper's letter to the BPS community that declares a commitment to upholding protection dignity and respect for all students of BPS regardless of status and I want to highlight the importance of continued efforts to inform family members of their responsibilities uh to inform family members of bps's responsibilities and obligations to protect students and their information uh there's a couple more points here but please I urge you to read the rest of my testimony uh but I will end uh with that thank you so much thank you very much and if you haven't please send us your testimony thank you very much our next speaker is Kathleen boundy Kathleen boundy please raise your hand there stop you can start go ahead I I'm not seeing your timer but okay good evening my name is Kathleen boundy I recently retired as co-director of the Center for Law and education on try Street in Boston where I represented students from low-income families for more than 46 years I continued to provide pro bono assistance there I'm here tonight to support inclusion Done Right based on my own experience advocating for linguistically and culturally diverse BPS students with disabilities reports by mass Desi and great City Schools Council and student outcomes data BPS is still not doing inclusion right to be done right inclusion must be consistent with federal and state civil rights laws that ensure all students regardless of race national origin language status gender disability receive free high quality public education through a curriculum aligned with State academic content standards set for all effective instruction timely assistance and intervention from qualified teachers and consistent with five Decades of state and federal law and inclusive education integrates students with students disabilities to the maximum extent of appropriate with their non-disabled peers I endorse BTU's position that du and triple certif licensed teachers should not be used to meet the needs of diverse students in a single General Ed classroom excuse me please slow down a bit for the inter sure thank you a single educator even with the support of a par educator cannot effectively provide all students in the classroom access to grade level content standards which may need to be modified and adapted for certain students with disabilities and instruction that must also be consistent with each disabled student's IEP let alone provide direct ESL instruction and native language assistance when needed yet bps's use of this embedded certification licensing model permits a single teacher to provide regular Ed content plus specially designed instruction to those students with IEPs in the regular classroom and or direct or ESL instruction to eels with or without disabilities while simultaneously attempting to manage the rest of their students regardless needless to say resulting needless to say in a lesser quality of instruction being provided to all students thank you your time is up such cannot be justified thank you thank you next speaker is Ursula Alon Ursula olon hello you can start thank you good evening my name is Ursula alustin and I am a proud resident of Roxberry for three years I had the privilege of serving as a parent Mentor at the orcher Garden pilot school I still remember vividly the joy in the students faces when they saw me in the classroom their excitement was contagious and they would off often begged me to stay just a little longer when it was time for me to leave those moments those moments were a reminder of the profound impact we as parents can have in the lives of children currently I serve as a parent coordinator mentoring 14 parents from two schools the charter and M hunt I am honored to work alongside these dedicated parents who are deeply committed to assistant teachers in supporting students learning the parent tour program is truly a remarkable initiative it strengths it strengthens the bonds between parents teachers and students while fostering a sense of community parents in this program spend 2.5 hours a day in the classroom directly helping students in their learning they assist with one on-one support and play a critical role in helping English Learners navigate their studies it is a program that not only helped teachers but also benefit the students their families and the broader Community the parent Mentor program was first established in Chicago where it grew to serve 245 schools with the help of 1500 parent mean Boston adopted this program in 2017 started with just one school the Blackstone today we are in six schools can you imagine the positive impact this program could have if it was in all 119 Public Schools the lives it can change the Futures it can shape the Committees the communities it can uplift I am here today to ask you why would you consider discontinuing than you very much transform program that has already touched so many lives thank you our next group of speakers will need Spanish interpretation support and that's simel Rodriguez Martha aru kenesis moreta Oren ortensia Calderon L Perez Dora Sandoval Denise carav and Sant iselia simel Rodriguez and do we have our Spanish interpreter online okay than Brian Sim Rodriguez Brian Brian you need to interpret to English please I'm so sorry but I thought I was gonna um okay Rodriguez and my daughter attends one of the Boston Public Schools I just want to congratulate for the program um Mentor parents from last year and I hope that you continue supporting it thanks to this program I was able to not just be a regular worker I was able to become also coordinator at one of the schools I just want to say that thank you to this program it has transformed my life and due to this program that has a strong component it has helped me with and given me much opportunities academically I am finishing up my GED and I am also studying English not this program is not just helping me but it's also helping families to be educated about the schools and the children and also with this program is also to help families that may not have that um academic knowledge but to be able to gain and to be able to prosper with the education and work I I hope that you guys continue with this program and support it because it is a well a well job or wellbeing for students and the families graas thank you con gracias our next speaker is Martha aru Mara is Mara aru um hi good evening [Music] Mar hi good evening to the Boston school committee of Boston my name is Martha aru sou I live in the south end I am a mother of a four-year-old and a mentor at one of the Boston public schools which is the Blackstone I here to appreciate to the for the support that they have given F mentoring parents fostering parents sorry which it has expanded to six Boston Public Schools given being a mentor mother has given us a lot of benefit and which we are closer to our children and we get to be much more informed than with the with the school thanks to the um mentoring mothers or the mentoring parents program examine the profession it has it will help me prepare myself for the par professional exam give supporting that program um mentoring parents it gives us a chance to for us to progress people that W to uh move on in our lives and come along we hope that Within and the work that you're doing it's included to give the support for this program by the parents being in the classrooms we are able to learn and see the support that we can also give to schools why take out something that is adding rather than subtracting in the education of our children thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity thank you very much gracias our next speaker is Martha Genesis Moretta our next speaker is Genesis Moretta you can start um first I'm going to say it in English so I'm not sure if I need the interpreter but hi my name is Genesis and I'm currently a mother Mentor at the Lee Academy in Dorchester first I want to say how thankful I am for this great program that has permitted me to be more involved in my child's school and have better understanding of her education while helping other children like my daughter get the support they need and not only and not only for them also I'm able to provide teachers with much needed support I am currently in a second grade class of 20 students and one teacher students with different Necessities for learning like bilingual students and students that need extra time and one-on-one support that the teacher and I work on as a team to reach all the student goals during math the teacher and I break up into groups my group consists of students that I translate from Spanish to English to help them better understand while also growing their English vocabulary also students that as I said need extra time to finish to finish assignments and even though teachers must have a superpower to juggle all of this I see how grateful and happy they are with the help and what I bring to the classroom the mother Mentor program is an allaround much needed and amazing program to help mother's children's and teacher come together for the most important purpose the best education for our children that we can provide for six for them to be successful 30 seconds thank you thank you our next speaker is ensia Calderon orens Calderon okay Le Perez Perez is not on our next speaker is Dora Sandoval Dora Sandoval hello good afternoon to the committee of Boston School Boston school committee my name is Dora soval and I live in rockberry I'm a mother of three and the youngest one attends the school early parents Mentor I have been able to work at the school because of the program mentor and parents I help the third grade as an immigrant I have also have learned the English language I had never thought that I would be working for the Boston Public Schools especially in the school where my son attends for me this means a whole lot because the students see me as a teacher that fills me with so much pride inside the classroom I help and support the students with their academic work just like also giving the support to the teacher to help develop her class thanks to this experience and the the letter of opportunity the the program offers mentoring parents I have been able to sign up to Urban College so that I can become an a teacher assistant I want to give the thanks to the support that has been given to this [Applause] program and I hope they continue to do so I believe that programs like this should be a priority for the district with this manner we will be able to involve more families and the Scholastic environment I'm just another mother involved with the school activities and I also acknowledge the effort of the teachers and I also understand the important role that the parents have I hope that my testimony will be listened and valued for this program thank you our next speakers are Denise carav and Sania Denise carav Denise Areo am okay my name is Denise kav I live in Roxberry the school that my son attends is Mason Elementary I want to thank the district for supporting the parent Mentor Mentor I would like for them to continue with this program and for them to also introduce it to next year's budget I am a mother uh for from BPS and I'm here to share my story how parents Mentor has changed my life from before and after as I as a mother immigrant mother that has come here for the American dream where my only focus was just to work which I even had three jobs at the time I never had time to do part of the time or activities in the school for my kid I always had excuses and I was very absent in the progress or in the education of my of my son in which when I would receive the envelope with the paperwork for the I pce I would just sign it and send it back and very few times I would understand it or very few times would know what was going on with the plan but ever since I got introduced to parents Mentor I was able to understand the importance of what the um the IEP was and it showed me how to be much more involved in my in my son's education and how to also be involved with the schools I just don't see any longer the school as a place where it cares for my child I see it like my place as well now I understand the teachers and know how I can contribute so they can and continue with the uh educational system thank you very much have a good night thank youas our last speaker is our last Spanish speaker is Sania s isia okay so seems that she declined chair that would be all the speakers for this first hour thank thank you Miss PRX and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives your testimony is very important to us our first action item this evening is the approval of Grants totaling 968,000 971 now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments wonderful thank you chair uh so tonight there are four grants for your consideration uh totaling $970,000 the largest of these grants is a new grant for $500,000 that will fund specialized electric vehicle technology and equipment and teacher training at Madison Park techb High School this funding will position the school as a leading EV technician training center in our region there are also two grants totaling more than $400,000 which will support the district's College and Career pathway initiatives uh of those there's a $300,000 Early College Planning Grant which will support the office of secondary schools and five PPS high schools as they develop Early College Programs those high schools are Margarita munise or MMA Tech Boston Academy Boston International newcomers Academy or binka English high school and Holland Tech there's also a grant for just under $119,000 which will support Early College programming at four additional schools Dearborn STEM Academy Boston high uh sorry Brighton High new Mission and Madison Park we're also seeking approval of a new $50,000 plants PL NTS all capital Grant to support food and nutrition services um this will help us to develop value added and culturally inclusive products for our K12 students so um just a really great array of Grants supporting um all of our schools in a variety of ways and I would just encourage chair that the committee give full support thank you you're welcome and now I'd like to turn it um now I'd like to open it up for questions and comments from committee there any questions if there are no okay there are no questions I now would like to entertain a motion to approve the grants as presented is there a motion so MO is there a second second thank you is there any discussion or objection to the motion is private here please call the RO thank you very much chair Dr alkins yes Mr K Hernandez yes Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss palanco Garcia yes Mr Tran yes Mr O'Neal yes Miss Robinson yes the grants are approved thank you I second action item this evening is the approval of the exam school's admission policy recommendation which was presented at the December 18th 2024 meeting I'll now open it up to any questions and comments from the committee Mr card Hernandez yeah I we we're talking about this earlier chair so thank you I am curious in previous conversations um we've been talking about how to further localize points to individual students and so I'm wondering from last year to this year what have we done to do to sort of address those questions so I'll have uh Monica Hogan come on to also um talk about this but I think that uh one of the things that we looked at um and we discussed here at the committee was that in order to do anything like this we would have to develop a mechanism for collecting documentation uh and that this would be like an example of something where it may address a particular group of students who are lowincome at our no point schools but it would also because of the collection of documentation and particularly in this environment a nervousness with that it would actually screen out potentially a lot more students than that um anytime you're asking for documents financial documents or any of the sort uh there was also the remaining issue uh of the students who are not ours uh who are applying from other variety of schools and how to actually be able to get that documentation in a timely manner so that the process itself Could Happen uh Monica do you want to uh is there anything else you would add to that and Monica while you're adding to it just one clarifying piece here there is underlying data that tells us that a school is lwi income which is based on the student information that's already there and so I know there was also conversations and we had said last year the state has that information we wouldn't have to collect it from an individual student if we were to get if there was a relationship with the state to have that information in a safe way so that we were able to sort of further Target those points and that could be true across other districts other schools and what I left under understanding last year was we were going to look into that further so I'm curious what happened there less about the collecting of some sort of forms but more about an agreement with the state to get the level of data that they have that informs how we're able to say a school is 80% uh you know economically disadvantaged yeah I think um we've had some initial conversations I think um at this point in the process um we're not ready to move forward with that for the submission cycle but it is um one of the questions that you might remember um was in the presentation in December that we're continuing to look into this spring as we do a a fuller look at the policy um so we we have had some conversations I think there are some limitations around data sharing and what those agreements look like and um additionally just thinking about what information is actually captured in that system um and what that would mean to use it at the individual level um as opposed to the aggregate level so I think it's a um something we're continuing to look into but not something that was ready to sort of move forward with in this timeline right I will say and sometimes I know sometimes I create lots of noise but I actually think the noise I make is quite consistent year-over-year I this predates you superintendent I have been talking about this since I got on the committee so I for whatever it's worth just as a member of the body it is a tough moment where you're like I've been asking the same question for multiple years and every year I'm just sort of told we're looking into it wait till next time and so I trust that it is happening I just you know I fear that my concerns don't ring as urgent and um I I think that's tough I yeah thank you thank you are there any other questions okay there if there are no further questions I'll entertain a motion to approve the exam School admission policy recommendation as presented is there a motion so move thank you is there a second second thank you is there any discussion or objection to the motion Miss PEX will you please call the role thank you chair Dr alkins yes Mr K herandez no Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss palano Garcia yes Mr Tran Mr Tran you're muted Mr TR I'll obain Mr Neil yes Miss Robinson yes the motion passes with with five Y and one nay and there and there is one abstention thank you um tonight we have three reports our first report is the presentation of the Massachusetts school building authority msba accelerated repair projects let's aim to keep the Pres presentation to 10 minutes I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower Pace to assist our interpreters I will now turn it over to the superintendent wonderful thank you chair um so school committee members are in receipt of a memo that outlines the district's proposal uh propos submission uh to the Massachusetts school building authority which we call mba's Accelerated repair program called ARP uh and this is for Capital planning funding just as a reminder the ARP supports specific replacement and repair of school building roofs Windows Doors and heat pumps which were forly boiler Replacements uh these repair projects are designed to extend the life of a school building BPS proposes to file statements of interest for three roof projects three window and exterior door projects and three heat pump projects including a roof for one of those projects the prioritization of these projects is based on asset conditions data from these specific categories of the facilities condition assessment and just as a reminder that's are indexing for all buildings kind of their infrastructure all parts to them uh and so that is the data and and the mechanism by which we analyze what needs replacement uh the just as also a reminder the facilities condition assessment uh adheres to the criteria and guidelines given by msba so they're in alignment as you may remember the district submitted eight applications that you voted on for window and roof projects last year all of which were approved and all are in the predesigned phase starting this year ARP will operate on a biannual basis instead of an annual cycle which means that after 2025 this year they will not accept appliation applications again until 2027 ARP is so important to extending the life of our buildings especially given the age and the condition of of our facilities and it's critical to improving our building infrastructure while we take on other large construction uh and building projects through the long-term facilities plan we'll ask the school committee to approve this application with these admittance at the February 26th meeting before we seek city council approval which so this vote will take place March 5th uh with city council the submission deadline is March 21st so we want to make sure we have your approval and then City council's for that final submission where the deadline is March 21st so at this point I will turn it over to BPS Chief Operating Officer Brian Ford Junior uh and he will just do a short presentation and answer whatever questions you may have on this group of ARP uh projects Brian thank you superintendent and good evening and thank you for having me just give me one minute while I pull up the presentation good evening thank you for having me here to present on the msba ARP I'm Brian Ford Chief Operating Officer for the Boston public schools and tonight I have members across the district as well as the city of Boston here to support including Brian mlin senior program manager specializing in the msba program the msba has two main programs the first is the core addressing the full building's worth of needs or major Renovations and the second is the ARP which is what we're here to discuss tonight which is still a major repair over 250,000 focusing on a few areas this year being roof Windows Doors and heat pumps and years prior this SL last option was spoilers in order to be eligible we must meet the standards set forth by the msba every year which means roofs that are older than 25 Windows older than 30 cost that's over 250,000 no overcrowding within the School Educational use cases that are applicable to our uses today lastly with heat pumps we have a little more as they are a newer submission this year buildings must be without steam piping windows are under 30 years old the roof is older the roof is older than 15 if the roof is older than 15 we need to submit an application as well this year we were able to use our overall facilities condition assessment our BPS Capital plan and the msba criteria to make these decisions uh these schools list here are the ones that we will be putting forward for the roof submissions which is Boston adult Technical Academy the Hurley K through 8 and Mild Avenue High mild School the window exterior door on this slide you'll notice that we also have included the Mary Lions High School in this submission the school has been announced to be under changes for the school year of 2627 We are continuing to Envision this school to have uh educational capacity to serve the district in part or in full for the Mary Lions Community this also includes the mendal and the Kilmer lower School uh right here you can see that we have the heat pump submissions for the munus Academy Orchard Gardens and the trer and then lastly we have a quick timeline of what this process looks like our votes and presentations are the following dates this year the msba announced that it'll be doing a process every two years additionally we have uh conversations with the city on being clear of our commitment to the ongoing msba projects with around $110 million in projects to date we've already seen reimbursement of 62 million making this the very beneficial program to the Boston Public Schools thank you sorry yes thank you Chief Ford I'll now open it up to the committee for questions and comments Dr alins um thank you for the presentation so could I just get a little bit more clarity on how this process also speaks to our long-term facilities plan and how yeah buildings of course need to continue to be repaired um but is there any communication around this process speaking to the long-term facilities plan um that might be forecasting foreclosure I'm not forclosures I'm sorry closures and mergers um that might just be on the immediate Horizon um not saying that we don't need to invest in in in these schools because we do just making sure that you know we're not necessarily going full speed on schools that may not be in use in like in in the future thank you for the question I appreciate it so it's definitely a difficult one for us to answer because we don't like to put out the projections of what the school will look like in the future if the decisions around certain schools have not been made but what we have looked at here when we compare the 18-month roll out of the long-term capital plan is a a close connection between the FCA data the data that's been put together by the facilities team and making sure that there's a cross analysis of the projected Five-Year Plan that doesn't have any changes happening in these schools uh also with the msba commitment that these remain with educational use for a period of time based on the Investments we put in for doors windows roof boilers Etc um we do know that they will remain some portion of an educational facility whether that trans change happens or not thank you Miss fanco Garcia thank you Madame chair I thank you for the presentation um well thank you very much uh for the presentation thank you Madam chair there was a question regarding of uh how were these schools selected there was a question regarding that okay I would like to you to expand a little bit and that why this particular schools were selected and why other schools did not meet the crit ior did not qualify for example the blackon is an excellent School than P calls for the community there's been multiple requests from different different families from different organizations regarding the lack of doors the conditions of the walls Etc at the Blackstone school that I'm cited that as an example so I was wondering if you could please expand and elaborate a little bit and what what was the criteria by which some schools were visited and uh some schools were not and why why did that happen if you could please expand on on this and the the community will be we'll appreciate very much if you inform them as well good evening thank you for the question uh very much appreciated I'd like to dive into the details um with the facilities condition assessment that was done in the district a little over two years ago it allowed us to rank um every specific asset within a building and give us different conditions um in the heavy metrics that lie underneath those reports it gives us the remaining useful life of many different parts of the asset such as the boilers the windows the doors and um every affected part within a school it will let us know the the current condition uh ranked from failed poor good uh and kind of in perfect condition uh we then take those metrics right now for what are the yes excuse me nobody nobody interpreted in Spanish in the line I'm sorry just I need to just understand sorry Brian should be providing simultaneous interpretation in the channel at this moment where Brian interpret Sim I can hear you so she's not being able to here Brian on the other channel just ask so she's not here in Brian providing simultaneous interpretation Brian are you there he needs to unmute he's fro is he Frozen oh you need to unmute Brian okay it's important because Community is connect and this right now you need to understand exactly what happened why the some school not qualify you know and that's is important listen the interpretation in Spanish Channel thank you is Brian all sad ready yet she's not a to by what I can do is provide consecutive interpretation in the mean time I'm not sure exactly what happened with the other interpreter if you don't mind saying what you said ser and then pause frequently go slowly for the accuracy and completeness of my interpretation I appreciate it go ahead sir one more time sorry yes um so i' like to dive into the details related to how we've made submissions to the msba program msba go ahead please based upon the multiple different assets that we are looking at for these submissions a little over two years ago we did a facilities condition assessment across thect this gave us uh industry standard and non-objective way to look at our District's assets compared to one another this allowed us to look at uh areas such as the remaining useful life and installation dates and conditions such as poor failed good uh and excellent across all of our assets this allowed us to make a list of all of our schools in order of which they need to have major improvements or repairs to each one of those assets and and the dollar values associated with those repairs with all of these analysis done from the facilities condition assessment the next was to make sure we factored in the msba requirements needed for each of those asset submissions so at this point we have removed the human error um from most of this by making sure uh all the buildings now qualify for all of the msba metrics and all of the facilities condition assessment metrics to be put forward for a repair the last piece that we factor in is any ongoing projects and the long-term capital um the long-term facilities plan to make sure there is no overlap in our submissions in our intent and funding when it comes to buildings such as the Blackstone it's not because the we do not want to submit it it's just the the metrics and the data around these points didn't have that building ready for selection this doesn't mean that we are not able to submit more buildings in the future that may or may not include the Blackstone or other schools that are in Choice communities thank you um thank you so the other question that I do have it has to do with continuity of the projects themselves what type of strategies are you putting in place to make sure that once this projects are ongoing there are not interruptions or how those interruptions could be minimized one clarifying are you referring to the msba projects or msba project exactly it is my understanding that these schools were approved because they fulfilled the requirements that you covered recently okay is that correct so my question is when these projects are ongoing when the construction starts taking place providing the presence of different stakeholders such as families and students and different is there an strategy or a strategy that you have in place in order to minimize any interruption in this particular project or any construction that will be going on what's the strategy that you have in place to minute my interruptions yes thank you um so with the msba projects we work with our partner City agency public facilities Department to organize the project management team go ahead uh we have many preconstruction meetings with our internal BPS staff as well as the school staff to plan out an efficient timeline for completing the work and what it involves we work on communication first and foremost and often and plan for the bulk of the work to happen in the summer in some cases the work goes over multiple Summers and in some cases in very few the work happens during the school year when the school work happens when the construction work happens during the school year it's up to BPS to work with our public facilities Partners to create contingencies that make sure educational time is not disrupted and both contractors and students and teachers and staff are kept safe we and act daily check-ins with internal and external project managers and School staff for efficiencies in making sure that it goes off as seamlessly as possible for all parties involved we've even done so this past school year with a few of our buildings Boston day and evening and the Hernandez which also went very well thank you okay Mr cardet nandz Yeah my two question one comment one question that we may get later uh I guess I think stating the obvious when I think back to sort of the the things I keep saying on repeat this is a moment for me that feels like without a master facilities plan and a plan of what we're doing with what buildings we are sort of just rubber stamping a process we don't have enough information to actually inform and I think that's just the reality like we vote Yes on this but we have no like from a financial responsibility and oversight like we don't have enough know if it's right or wrong and and then from a logistics standpoint and operationally we don't have enough information and that's not about you Brian that's sort of a biger thing but we've been saying we need this plan with a a window into what the future of the system is and what we're planning for and I think this is another moment of just like making decisions with like one eye open um so I'm naming that and I hope we get closer to that um and yeah and then I guess the second maybe which would be helpful before the vote is in each of those categories what other schools met the criteria for consideration and if we can get that information so like we're seeing which schools are being proposed but which schools could have been proposed in each of those categories without knowing our future plan for any of the buildings more or less it still would give us maybe something for a a richer discussion but anything absence of that is like feels like yes improved buildings all good and we want that and we want money to do it but we don't know if we're making a smart investment in a building we plan on continuing to use or not or one priority based on some bigger vision for what we're doing with a building so those are my thoughts but that's my request in before I go for before we go for a vote is to see in each of the tranches sort of what could have been offered instead does that make sense yes absolutely that that does make a lot of sense uh I I'm not sure if I'll have that information for you at this moment in time but I can tell you that the opportunity index is a factor in this so that it is racial equity in the opportunity index the FCA all of this data put together does kind of give us an order um that we start looking at the submissions and it's not just we went from one to five because we thought the munice should be uh selected over you know any other school that's helpful and that frame you are incredibly clear so I I appreciate you and your communic too that frame is really helpful to see and what would be helpful is like here's who qualifies and then the opportunity index and then we can sort of see from there the sort of the thinking and then I think for us on the body then it also I can imagine hopefully if we're making smart long-term decisions then people can begin to start sort of seeing the tea leaves like this is what that means more broadly for the system superintendent yes uh thank you chair I just wanted to say um again on our long-term facilities plan the five-year window with projection is about as comfortable as we can be based on the enrollment projection I think if you would have looked five years ago at the enrollment and to look at what's happened in the last three years of stabilizing and actually growing in populations that was not on the radar at that time neither from census nor from us so we know we're a district that has the ability to swing in enrollment in particularly for particular populations um so I think what I think what um Chief Ford has indicated is based on the fiveyear looking at the buildings that we put forward we feel very confident that these buildings will be used for educational purposes and therefore the repair work is Justified in them Beyond five years that is where each year we have to continually look at those projections to be able to see how BPS is changing and in what ways but for the next five years these buildings which is the amount of time that the ARP program covers for usage for educational purposes these buildings we feel very confident that they will be used for educational purpose so hopefully that helps a bit Rec Miss Lima Barosa um thank you chair I didn't really have a question uh but superintendent thank you for further clarifying how we're making these decisions because I I understand a member C at Hernandez concern about making decisions now but there are things about longterm that we still want to see more uh I think your team has made progress on being able to come to us and having conversations about school mergers or closures but um for me what's what's important when we look at what the msba like what are we are asking is to address roofs and doors and windows and pumps for me I feel like if the district has buildings that meet whatever those criterias are now uh I think it's important that we address them that we apply and we put our name on the bid because the last thing I want to see is a school not opening in the fall or in a year because there's there was no work done on their roof or we're having safety concerns because of doors and windows not being I I don't know I think for Me Maybe the facilities team and Brian's team knows better than me but I feel like those should be easy fix I wish we didn't have to go through all of that bar accuracy to get funding to even fix those things but I that that is just one thing in terms of like the msba why why is it important we can see the lists on the memo of so many applications that have been completed and work that have been completed and have been able to maintain some of our buildings but I do share the cons concern about as we're making these decisions making sure we are being clear on how we're identifying these buildings that with projections with the data it's not school that in five years you're going to come back to the committee and say we're closing because then we have to look at the investment that we made the last five years into a building that we're now we're saying is no longer going to be a use of the district so I think it's a fair concern I think just Pro continue to providing Clarity on how these decisions are being made and how it gets to the school committee and then city council um it can facilitate the conversation not only for the committee but for the schools that are potentially receiving these funds um and their community and parents etc etc but no question there just wanted to highlight important to get things done if we can get them down get them done now as well thank you thank you Dr alins so I think something that would also help in this is for future because you know this is not the first time that we've received a presentation around like msba recommendations um I think at this stage it would be helpful to uh hold on crying baby hold on Yes dear okay let me see let me see I apologize about that um so something that would be like also helpful is that as we're seeing the list of recommendations is to also see something like the building utilization score that we've seen from other presentations because that would also show us well currently how how do the enrollment projections sort of fit into how this building is being used and then maybe we might have some insight to project whether or not a building will maybe in the next 18 months or whatever be on track to either be merged or closed potentially and that can just allow us to just have that cross talk that I was talking about earlier um and I and I trust that some of that was taken into account I'm just saying for us as a body it would probably be helpful for us to also see that data alongside the list of recommendations thank you yeah I'll definitely make sure that we uh start to capture that information thank you Mr card Hernandez this is actually just a clarifying question for the superintendent too I guess in this Five-Year Plan is the plan then only to show us the future every five years or is well next year there'll be an a revised fiveyear plan that goes one year further so I think the intent on the projections at least is to continue to update them right so that as each year passes we can say whether the enrollment state steady in particular groups and how that might impact facil needs but in terms of the 18 months the reason we picked the 18mth cycle is because it can take into account enrollment change so we're not closing too much or merging too much but we are being efficient about what we're we're choosing to do uh in the different areas of the city the other thing as you know with any of the long-term facilities plan this is also about having the capital dollars to be able to move the work as we do it so it also Capital planning happens in a 5-year cycle so for lots of reasons the 5year piece uh is both from an enrollment perspective in uh being able to sort of see what's happening with the enrollment uh looking ahead five years and the capital budget those two sort of come together in a way that it lends itself to what we think is a good fiveyear Lookout you know as our enrollment becomes steadier you know if in fact that's what happens and what we're seeing is sort of a leveling off and that continues then we become more and more confident in those enrollment projections but I think as you know um from looking at the projections before pandemic uh that enrollment was declining and it was declining each year so where that would end where that would level off was not clear now it seems that is clearer but again our multilingual Learners have accounted for a big bump up with everything that's happen happening we don't know if that bump up will stay will it grow will it become less so I think it's going to be really important year to year to be looking at those enrollment changes yeah yeah we could have a different conversation I think most um people would assume the next four years we're not seeing major um major waves of migration to the United States unfortunately but you know just for sort of geopolitical reasons the so like I don't know if that's a a serious question mark but I hear it the the I guess the yeah the question Still Remains it took us three years to build this plan so I guess I'm just sort of what like if it takes us three years to stop and analyze to build the plan I I just don't know the speed that we're moving in so we could this is a conversation for later but it does I think deeply connect to a sophisticated vote on msba yeah I think it took three years to build the sets of tools that the district never had to be able to look at all of this in a more strategic way such as the facilities cons cons uh facilities condition assessment the design study seeking Community input those all took time so it wasn't three years to the plan it was three years to have tool sets that were transparent school committee could look at the public can look at we can look at for planning purposes and I think like a perfect example is the work that Brian's putting forward tonight on what we're recommending having used that facility condition assessment that the district in all of its time never had and now it does for every single building yeah you know interesting yeah it'll be good to see the request from Dr alkins plus the sort of the trunch of what schools would have qualified for submission and then how we made the choices thank you any other before we move forward I just I have one I guess really a request I know that each time we come forward to look at msba Etc there are always several schools that get names that are not on the list and it would be helpful separate from this conversation to get an update on what our current thinking is particularly on the Blackstone and on the McKinley um these are two critical schools that we've been we've been talking about for several years now um you know we know many of our schools need this help it's great to be able to go forward with the ones that we can but I think it would help this committee if we could get a little bit more solid information around particularly those two in any other schools that have come up that don't seem to fit current criteria for um our ability to move forward okay thank you so with that um thank thank you um Chief Ford for your presentation and we look forward to um an up taking action on this at our next meeting on the 26 thank you for your time appreciate it our second report is the competency determination for the class of 2025 let's e let's end to keep the presentation to 10 minutes um and I'd like to remind our presenters to speak at a Pace to assist our interpreters um and I'll now turn it over to the superintendent great thank you chair so uh I think as everybody knows the ballot initiative number two was passed by Massachusetts voters in the fall of 2024 which was eliminating the mcast as a graduation requirement for public school students in our Commonwealth as a result each school district is required to develop new competency determination requirements for the class of 2025 and members of earlier classes who no longer are eligible of Competency determination based on mcass the mcast test we're proposing that students in the graduating class of 2025 and earlier who are no longer eligible to meet the competency through the mcast retest or the mcast appeal process show competency with a passing grade in identified eligible English language arts mathematics and science courses tonight the leadership of teaching and learning secondary schools office and the office of data and accountability will give a short presentation on our recommendations uh tonight we're joined as for presenters Ted Lombardi who's the secondary superintendent for college career and life Readiness Leslie Miller the chief of teaching and learning and April Clarkson who's our senior executive director for the office of data and accountability uh and they're here to support with questions after the presentation um we will ask for school committees approval of our proposal for the class of 2025 at the next school committee meeting on Wednesday February 26th a highly qualified and talented team of school leaders and representatives of several BPS departments the ones I've named and also including specialized services and multilingual Multicultural education work together to develop this proposal if approved the office of secondary schools will support students in determining which students in the class of 2025 and earlier meet the new competency determination requirements as additional guidance is provided by the department of Elementary and secondary education or desie and the governor's Council will revise the competency determination for the class of 2026 and future classes and come back to share these changes with our school committee we'll also stay in close contact with desie and the governor's office for future recommendations beyond the class of 2025 so at this point I will turn it over to our team to do a short presentation great thank you superintendent appreciate it and thank you uh members of the school committee uh for your attention to this uh tonight a share screen here great so I will begin tonight I'm Ted Lombardi the secondary superintendent for a college career in life Readiness um and I will just start tonight with a little bit of historical perspective on how we got here um a little bit of a timeline which I know many are are aware of but I think it's an important framing for um how we move forward so the the current state that we are in is that in order to graduate from high school in the state of Massachusetts students must meet their school's local graduation requirements as well as now uh what's called competency determination and that has come into play as a result of the passage of ballot question two back in November which eliminated mcass as a graduation requirement as the mechanism to prove competency for students in the state of Massachusetts uh and the law I'm sorry my fault the law that was passed uh as a result of that requires that that we that districts use cour work uh to demonstrate competency in lie of an mcast test so to back us up a few months again question you pass back on November 5th 2024 uh there was a set of guidance released from the Department of Elementary and secondary education in the middle of December that uh implored districts to come up with a a competency determination uh I'll say equivalent I don't say equivalent it's the right word but as a substitute for the mcast test in graduation uh we have now gone through this process again the colleagues that you'll hear from tonight uh my office the office of secondary schools along with data and accountability and the office of teaching and learning have a uh proposal for a competency determination requirement for this year senior class the class of 2025 we have reviewed that with our school leaders we did that last week um concurrent with that Governor hilly announced at the State of the State address that there will be a Governor's Council formed to to establish a set of graduation requirements or to determine what to what extent there should be Universal graduate uh graduation requirements at state level this month so right now we are working with schools to ensure that this class of 2025 are that students are in the necessary coursework to meet the compens determination we can talk a little bit more about that in a bit the next steps of this is to determine after this process um if we can go forward with this proposal we will then sh uh to again working with those students in this class to make sure that we're meeting individual student need but then also focus on determining the same CD requirements for the class of 2026 again that's dependent on additional guidance we may receive from Desi we will be conducting additional stakeholder engagement around that process where we'll have more time and then at the end of the calendar year this December we do anticipate recommendations from that Governor's counil which could uh impact the uh graduation requirements as there could be uh more of a state level uh set of requirements moving forward let me uh pass it along to my colleague Leslie Ryan Miller to go through the next couple of slides great thank you Ted um good evening everyone um uh I'd like to walk you through just where we are in terms of uh the proposal um and what that means for the current class of 2025 um which is also our currently enrolled grade 12 students um so I'd like to take just a moment to to speak to what the data tells us so what we know is that 80% of students have met their competency determination in all three subject areas across Ela math and science that leaves about 20% or approximately 841 grade 12 students who have not met their competency determination through mcast testing these 841 students will be eligible for the following proposed competency determination process which we are suggesting this evening um it's important to note that about half of these students which is about 408 or is 48 need to meet the competency determination um in a single subject area approximately 200 students need to meet the competency determination in two subjects and 238 students across three subjects the table to the right shows the proportion of students who have met competency determination in all three subject areas um 80% for all students 58% for students with disabilities and 58% for our multilingual Learners we also see that about 46% of students in alternative ed schools have not met um the competency determination determination that we're outlining in all three subjects um this data is really critical important because it really alerts us to where we need to focus our efforts as we go forward um to make sure that all students have an opportunity to meet the competency determination based on this proposed process um which I will outline on the next slide um just to share um this week um by the end of the week schools will receive uh student level data so that they know exactly who the students are in their building that may be in need of supports uh to achieve the competency determination across all subject areas next slide Ted thank you so in essence um bullet one is our is a statement of our proposal um the compet competency determination for the class of 2025 and earlier um our proposal is that students in the graduating class of 202 2 and earlier can meet competency requirements by earning credits in eligible Ela Math Science and courses identified um by BPS um this approved list of cour courses which you also have access to um was procured by teaching and learning um and shared with the office of data and accountability office of secondary schools as well as our Secondary School leaders um that process took place over the last few weeks um and this these courses um align with State academic standards and mcast high school test competencies um that is critically important um if the proposal is approved by the school committee the office of secondary schools will then support schools in identifying students who meet the new competency determination um requirements um as well as supporting uh schools with those students that do not meet the requirement um and there are a number of ways that we're already thinking about supporting those students which um uh Ted can talk a little bit more about um I wouldn't be me if I didn't bring up hqm at some point um but uh this is one reason uh or just one of the reasons that hqm is important um high quality instructional materials um the fact that we know high quality instructional materials are standards aligned that gives us some assurances that the work that students are doing that Competency Based work is aligned to standards and demonstrates their proficiency uh within uh the standards um also just to share the courses that are being proposed are again across Ela Math and Science and they are standards aligned aligned to the Mastery of skills and competencies and knowledge contained in the State academic standards and curriculum Frameworks um and also as uh measured by the uh mcast and the one that was administered specifically in 2023 um these courses are not new um these are courses that all students should be taking they are related to mass core they have long been established as part of the district course catalog um and these are courses that the current 12th grade student would have had would have had opportunities to receive Credit in uh in the ninth and 10th grade as part of their Preparatory cours workk for both mcast as well as graduation um very quickly just uh to give a a quick synopsis of the courses that uh we're suggesting so in science um looking for course credit and one approved science course um which is outlined in the document that is in the slide deck in math a passing grade in both Algebra 1 and geometry and then also credit for in English language arts in ninth and 10th Ela 9th and 10th but we also uh on the approved list are ESL classes um for ninth in ninth and 10th grade um ESL 1 and2 as well as um uh Hilt uh 1 and into which is uh interrupted um literacy training for students that may have had uh interrupted schooling that said um we will open it up for questions right start with Miss Lima Barosa thank you chair uh thank you for the Pres presentation um I know we had to figure something out and I'm just a little bit concerned and we love to hear a little bit more how is this proposal going to impact students that are already behind uh when we look at the number of students that haven't necessarily completed all three subjects why who are these students I know you um the table does give us you know if they're students with disabilities or if it's a non-el um but I I am concerned how it's going to impact students that are already having a hard time meeting uh requirements when it comes to overall graduation requirements right is that does that mean that they're going to go to summer school what the summer school is going to look like for them um can that be talked about a little bit more uh and that that's honestly the only question that I have at this time is how we're supporting because we know what we know what student who are these students most likely so I just want to make sure that we have a plan that it's not their fault that you know the valid question ended up the way ended up I know the district had to work with guidance of desie um and and we're waiting on the governor's Council but I just want to make sure at least for the class of 2025 that we are being urgent on creating a pathway that everybody gets to the final um or meets the requirements and doesn't get hindered or hurt more because of the situation that we're in right now thank you sure yeah I it's it's a great question and I think the uh the short answer to this is that you know what you see tonight datawise is first the SWAT of students who have met Competency Based on mcast already the remain students are are those who may not have reached competency because they didn't reach it based on mcast what we've given uh we've given out on a district level and to schools at as school level data are the students that we need to check for competency and that's the process that we are about to embark on so we anticipate that number is going to be smaller than what uh than than what you see in the in the gross data as we dig into the trans cripts um I think the the the key to this is getting this in front of you all to be hopefully approved to move forward with as a policy allows us then to move forward at the individual level where this work has to happen this is a truly a set of individual work at school level with students that we will be supporting uh from our various offices in the ways that that we can across the three offices that are represented tonight um but this is truly work that can that will happen meaningfully at an individual level once we have now that we have a district plan that we can hopefully move forward with but this to to the very long answer to your question that is fairly simple is that we need to get into the student level transcripting which we will be doing at school level uh B with our counselors primarily um sorry chair just a followup also just want to confirm so what I'm hearing is right now the only data that we have in terms of students not meeting their competencies is through their mcast completion right and their scores that they got if they were proficient or not so we don't have any projections of like on that individual or by school um how many folks could potentially have a challenge meeting this this my concern is that we don't have that but we we are we already talking about a proposal um and I get it it's everything is happening uh it just it just happened in December or November so I just want to name that but I I just feel like we would need to know how it's going to impact students I'm not saying like you said going through the transcripts of checking everybody like where they're at so we're not making a decision and then it's actually a still a good trunk of people that are being you know left behind lack of better words right now so that is my only concern is that we don't actually know what that looks like by school because I really want to see what population which schools this is going to be impacting in a positive or in a concerning light um so just keeping that in mind if that's something that can be shared prior to vote voting that would be wonderful thank you superintendent thank you chair um so just I think that's a really important question um and I I think the the good news to this is that previously with mcast in place the students that we would be showing you not having who are actually missing an mcast test would not really have an option other than the mcast and I think what you see in the data our particular groups to underscore which is our special education students our multilingual Learners uh and our students who are in alternative schools right you can like we see the percentages much lower uh what the team has put forward for proposal uh in many ways is giving a pathway to students who otherwise wouldn't have it and I think for a multilingual Learners in particular and I lesli or Ted either of you could speak about it but I think the ESL uh in the hilt uh actually will help our multilingual Learners who come in later and uh need uh and don't have the English proficiency to pass mcast um they in particular can benefit by some of the courses that have been put forward I also think um Miss Lima Barosa that uh the district has put a lot of energy into this piece which is students who get near the finish line and then need to get over it and so we actually offer multiple graduation periods we do a summer graduation we have credit recovery running at a lot of our um a lot of our school sites uh and so there's lots of different opportunities for students to be able to earn these credits and literally it's a small enough number that we can actually go kid by Kid in each of these sites as we go through that over the next several months to get as many of these students across that finish line as possible possible with a plan for after that you know whether it's career or whether it's college so in some ways what's being asked with the competency determination is to give us that ability to actually get a larger group of kids particularly those that in the past with mcast would not have had that option of special education multilingual Learners the other thing that's in here is students from earlier classes and I think you heard in public testimony uh Jess uh who I've worked with for a long time time uh Jess kind of brought this up at greater egeston can we look at the students who previously were from past graduation classes and they were denied a diploma can we look pleas to say how might we give them one so we're actively now with OD with April that's on looking at that data from five years back to say who are those students did they uh were they able are we able to attest to them reaching it through coursework so that we in fact could um give them a diploma thank you s um that was helpful I definitely don't see the proposal has a barrier so it was more to understand even if it's five seniors that's right because we're always going to hear a testimony of that one family because of the new policy my kid didn't graduate I wasn't told what would be the solution the plan the pathway so I think the community engagement here like I always say has to be on point for families to understand what this ballot question truly did to their kids U you know final stretch to graduate I think that's what I'm concerned um especially when we think about newcomers or uh students um yeah it's a lot but I I appreciate the direction I think like I said I just wanted to have a better understanding of are we prepared to support students that might felt short because of some of the challenges that the district is having on meeting the different asks that are coming from everywhere so I appreciate the effort uh and looking forward to continuing the conversation thank you Mr card Hernandez uh Miss palanco Garcia was up before me so I'll let her go okay thank you thank thank you so much yes in order to be able to have that determination to to compete the students and thank you Mr and thank you madam chair so according to slide number three regarding the determination the competence determination so according to that it says that the students that are to graduate in 2025 and this will take in February apparently the conversations that they have to have enough uh credits or requirements so they will be able to graduate that is my understanding according to slide number three is important to work towards the students that will be graduating 20125 so the students that will graduate it is important to make sure that they enroll into the courses so we are in February already it's February the 5th already I would like to hear about the plan that there is some courses for teachers for leaders how is it that we are preparing for this I would like to hear about what plan is in place regarding this yeah it it's it's an excellent question I think the again to to sort of go back to an earlier point we are not trying to create any further barriers for students to graduate this is truly the opposite of that um and as we move into the student level data what we are are hoping is that there are obviously as few students as possible I'm sorry I'm sorry don't listen the interpretation so apparently RF is having the same difficulty the other interpreters not providing the simultaneous someone have to do it consecutive sir if you pause and then I'll interpret after the you don't mind go ahead sir no problem start yes please if you mind pause frequently for the accuracy of my interpretation go ahead sir thank you no problem um so as we get into student specific data what we anticipate is that there are hopefully very few students that we need to take a lot of intervention with in this process and just in general what I would say is these are all students that are currently coded as grade 12 as seniors seniors and and the requirements set out in compet competency determination are essentially 10th grade requirements for ELA for English and math and then the one uh science that would be that would be testable for mcass so our hope and our belief is that most of the work we would need to do is really with the transcripts to just confirm that students have past the coursework that is set forth in the competency and that there isn't a ton of intervention that we would have to do okay thank you very much Mr CAD Hernandez two questions was there a consideration and if so why not to just keep the exam for this year to not over complicate the experience and because yeah I guess that's the first question um so I think one of the things we were thinking about was um how this might support um some of our students um who to give them more access thinking about our multilingual Learners our students with disabilities um and we really focused on the standards and competency of the standards and so given that that was really our endgame um was to ensure that students had both access to instruction around the standards and the opportunity to prove their competency um we thought that this made the most sense in terms of a way to move forward I would also like to add on that in des's December guidance to us and the writing of the statute um by Mass General law it says that after the law takes effect which was in December of 2024 the mcast cannot be used may not be used as uh as demonstrating competency for gradu ation purposes and so we students in for the remainder of this year have opportunities to take the retest in February and in June their results may not be used to support decisions around competency the language of the law clearly states that it must be coursework and so we don't even have the ability to be flexible about um like individual Capstone projects unless that's part of the course work or the the grade we can't have other unit tests um and so it's really constrained by the law in terms of like what we're allowed to what we're allowed to consider and especially to determine what happens by this spring for current seniors who you know the 841 that will need to make decisions about because it's not through the mcast we wanted to provide a viable option that's within the letter of the law um we understand it right now that makes sense and then I guess two things then the next step that happens is there will be guidance from the state to potentially bring together a new Statewide policy is that my understanding so this may hold us over for a year maybe two yeah potentially so when we started doing this work um in our cross functional team we were thinking very broadly about what the future could look like and how do we put a stand on what competency means for our students and then kind of Midway through desie and um the governor's Council kind of like noted well this can be at least till 2026 we'll have more to be updated with so we're finding out kind of as the Public's finding out as well and our our goal is to be involved in those conversations along with other districts so that we can collaboratively decide what um what competency looks like and what that like Future Vision of a graduate from BPS or any Massachusetts high school can look like thank you it is I think I was I brought this up as we were going into the vote um which we didn't really speak about or give a public stand um as a body but the I mean the removal of rigor to me is is so um I think like sometimes people believe it's like fighting something that is like anti-racist but I find the removal of rigor to be deeply racist because we send when we have 30% of our kids reading on grade level and we are sending them into the world um to compete without those skills that part makes me very nervous so I hear you I think you guys are trying to do the best in a very strange very political um environment uh and I just hope we continue to raise standards so that our young people are are getting a diploma which is a beautiful thing but that that diploma means something and allows them to compete uh with peers from across the country um yeah and so but thank you for this and for clarifying that superintendent yeah I just want to say I appreciate um your focus member kadet henness on the rigger and keeping it on it I think for us like things like early college and having every student be able to participate and successfully earn that credit is a step toward showing right that rigor same with care career credentialing actually and being able to pass an industry test so our hope is that we can continue to build multiple ways for students to be able to show um that they're that they have learned and mastered particular skills so I appreciate that comment Dr alkins yes thank you um for the presentation um I second what m cardet Hernandez says with regard to rigor we all know that high expectation is perhaps the biggest indicator of success um when bestowed from teacher to from administrators um we know that to be true um but um so I just have a question because I think my time in coming on to the body was the transition between like Mass core and HQ imim and so were and are all schools aligned to mass core if I'm understanding that correctly BEC because I'm also looking at those those 841 students obviously students with disabilities but also the alted programs and I'm thinking that I'm wondering if there was alignment because I know that alt Ed you know does competency based curricula so is that aligned to like is that all aligned to mass core so how I guess when we're talking about these new standards that are going to be the that that are determining competency right how like what is the plan for and I guess particularly all Ed like students who those schools weren't necessarily um aligned to mass core so that that's a sort of deep SWAT of of questions there and I'll I'll April I'll probably call in you to clarify a little bit of some of the coding issues with with um Competency Based course work and a bit but I think the the initial question member alins is that the our Mass core work which you know I we talked about a couple of months ago is really work around aligning our local graduation requirements and that and our adoption of local graduation requirements that uh mirror the mass core framework from the state so this is a little bit of a departure from that and that we've this is sort of a you know emergency is probably a little bit of a strong word but it's an urgent situation to respond to the ballot question to replace the competency that would normally be in place with mcast so this competive determination framework is not meant to be at the sort of rigor level of graduation requirements it's meant to be more at the rigor level of the mcast competency which is a 10th grade test and one subject course in science I think what the interesting piece of this going forward is that we've done a lot of work with our schools to further universalize the local graduation requirements and I think you know in the conversations we had back in November I hope it was apparent that our schools are very aligned on graduation requirements now much more so than they've been in the past um and so we have that moving forward and and adopting that piece of the puzzle for local graduation requirements but meanwhile we also have the state process that we aren't sure what's going to come of that in terms of a Statewide set of graduation requirements that maybe in parallel with what we're doing maybe sort of either way in terms of more rigorous less rigorous we need to think about how we're going to move forward so there's a bit of unknown in that to be perfectly Frank about you know that process in parallel with the state process in terms of alternative ed students and particularly students that have Competency Based um grades or compet Bas Competency Based coursework which exists in a few of our schools particularly our alt dead schools um the the important piece for us on that is sort of an extension of what I was saying before and that it's really transcripting work in that even though they're Competency Based grades they would still be coded in a way that is in keeping with what we've put forward on this list so that students would still receive credit for them so I'm going to stop there make sure I didn't say anything incorrectly which I'm veering right into April's wheelhouse here so April if there anything that I missed feel free to jump in but I'm getting a good thumbs up so far um so we are hopeful and anticipating that that is not a significant issue um because those students grades the competency grade should count just the same way that a traditional course would in another school okay Mr ishmail hi so first I want to start by thanking you for the presentation just want to ask like and I just like wanted to get like know more specifically on after you check the seniors that didn't P that didn't qual qualify for the didn't pass the mcass and then see if and see if they pass the competency courses for like any seniors that who do not who do not have a qualifying grade on them like what specifically what's like will they be giving the option to like enroll in the course on online or is like the only option to delay their gradu delay their graduation and how are you going to like work with them around like their schedules because I know some students have responsibilities say after school or after school and other thing yeah that's a it's a great question and it's fortunately I think in this case um the work that we will do to help students get to the Finish Line based on this context is actually very similar to what we've done in Prior years so there are uh some District supports that exist um in terms of credit recovery in terms of online cours work depending on sort of how far a student needs to go to get back to on track to graduate but a lot of the work actually happens at school level so when schools have you know schools do really diligent work with their 12th graders and many schools you'll see in sort of conference rooms in the main office you'll have a kind of board of of seniors and their progress toward graduation so that if they need to implement like an after school class an online class to uh recover credit that was lost through you know whatever situations happened through that student's High School career this would be the same sort of situation for this for any uh coursework that was missing based on a student failing a class or missing a class or whatnot so um I think that's part of the real hopeful thing here in terms of the goal of not creating any more barriers to graduation through this is that the work to accelerate students toward graduation is actually the same as it would be for any sort of typical senior in any other year who was missing one of their credits they would need for local requirements okay thank you sure you find a mistake Mr O'Neal thank you madam chair I I'll keep this brief most of my um thoughts on this have been answered by others uh issues that others have brought up including Dr alkins bringing up the um potential alignment in the future with mass core and look forward to that I understand Mr Lombard Lombardi how this is basically a bridge proposal right it's from the quickness of the um it's from the quickness of the ballot vote while we await fur the state guidance on what it would be so I think it may have been Mr Cat hernandes who said this is probably a one or a two-year proposal um and I understand that what I am interested in is how as we look at these eight roughly 850 students that right now um um have not met the requirements the competency requirements how does that align with prior years at this point you know do we have numbers for example of of students in Prior years that had not passed mcast at this point to that type of thing is this you know I'm just trying to get a handle on this number thank you for the slide that show the breakdown of Miss clocks in the slide that show the breakdown of you know special ed and and non-sp special Etc El nonel exam schools alternative schools it was very helpful to see but do we have a sense of this number how it fits in perspective for prior years yeah I'll have to share thank you um Mr oil for that question I'll have to share what the exact figures looked like in previous years um this does not look largely different it's not much higher than what we've seen in other years um I think the one thing is probably around timing so right now we are in the midst of like our February retest where we would have seen numbers inching up and then we would have a June retest as well each of those retest options always lowers that CD number and so what we can do is we can give you like as of the November retest how those numbers compared to previous years right thank you and I appreciate that you you have a plan to work with the students I just I wanted to get a perspective on on how that number thank you thank you madam chair Mr um is do you have another question okay your hand was still raised yes I forgot to I forgot to lower it I'm sorry okay fine um again most Mike thank you again for the presentation most of my questions also have been raised just one I had um what is the conversation that you're having with other districts that are facing this also particularly others that you know some of the larger districts how are others thinking about these issues uh yeah thank you for that question chair uh the it was one of the first things that that I did in this process um as someone who has worked in a couple of other districts before coming to BPS um and I reached out to you know folks sort of in my network that work in in districts around the area and and we are very much aligned with what other districts are doing um there's really only very slight degrees of difference with how other districts are approaching it um so I mean I I think the the hopeful piece here that that felt good that that was the case because I think part of what um my hope is is that we can help shape some of Desi's thinking moving forward with this sort of universal approach to how we do this as as districts um in the area and so we are we are very much aligned with what most of our you know sort of parallel is districts and and larger districts are doing in the state and I and I know because I mean we're almost at the end of this year and so there's probably very little students can do particularly the 205 you know this year's graduates with regard to courses and course selections but moving forward particularly for next year students Etc will there be a different level of guidance around course options particularly as it's looking at competencies to making sure that students are taking the courses early enough so that if they or if they fail them Etc there will be again timely manners by which they can um redo or retake a course so that they can walk in gym superintendent yeah it's a great question chair I mean I think uh this is a process that we can continue um through my cap to try to strengthen which is a Readiness with the coursework students understanding what courses they're taking what they need to take for graduation parents understanding that and so I think is we've gone deeper and deeper into my cap and it's become routine uh students are seeing that these courses are again traditional sophomore level courses so for a student to not have taken these it's generally because either they have a gap in their education at some point uh or they might be in an alternative Ed setting and there uh the way that the courses have been developed doesn't neatly align so I think that's the work that the team is doing both an alted we've got a a grant and we're working really hard to look at the whole alted system as a way to create that alignment so whether a students transferring between alt EDS or students going from a regular a Traditional School to an alted all those credits flow in a much easier way um so this is all of the work that the secondary office with Ted and uh April and Carlos in alternative Ed have been working uh toward but yes uh the idea would be when a student's entering their junior year they know their courses they know their transcript they know if there's any gaps the guidance Department knows that and that's being reflected either in Credit Recovery that they're being encouraged to take and or the courses that they will be taking for the remainder of their High School great thank you with that I want to thank you all again for the presentation I know members have asked a lot of questions so we look forward to getting in those answers but also look forward to taking action on this at our next um meeting thank you all thank you Al righty our last report is the superintendent's preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget recommendation let's keep the prese let's aim to keep this presentation to 25 minutes and I'd like to remind again speakers to speak at of slower Fai to insist to insist our interpreters and now now turn it over to the superintendent for opening comments wonderful thank oh sorry by David Bloom and others okay thank you great uh so thank you uh and thank you to the committee I know we had a lot on our agenda tonight so thank you for your good questions and patience with all of it so um at the December 18th school committee meeting uh Chief Financial Officer Bloom presented the district's annual Financial update um this was in fact the first public preview of the FY 26 budget and our financial projections for the coming fiscal year uh tonight I'm joined by Chief Bloom uh who will present our spending plan along with Dr Linda Chen who's our senior Deputy superintendent of academics tonight we'll present our preliminary 1.58 billion do budget for FY 26 and officially kick off the 2025 2026 budget season um before we dive in though I want to take a moment to just share some context about the different macro trends that affect this year's budget to begin with this is the first year entirely without essr funds and because of our careful planning over the last two years we able to sustain the Investments that are showing real impact on our students after transitioning these costs over to our general budget uh over the course of the last two years secondly we're continuing to see inflation impact our maintenance costs uh meaning it costs more next year to continue the same levels of service as this year in particular areas of the organization uh finally over the last four years our students enrollment has stabilized this year it actually increased for the first time in a decade uh and although our total enrollment is lower than it was a decade ago the number of students with disabilities and multilingual Learners has steadily increased and this means that the way we allocate staff and resources has had to change which Dr Chen will share more about a bit later tonight in the presentation when we began this process in December in collaboration with school leaders I directed the team to look closely at our investments and the outcome of that spending we applied a zero based budgeting approach to our Central budgets and prioritized all available funds for our schools while eliminating what is not providing the desired outcomes for our students we we considered several guiding questions to build off previous Investments and identify efficiencies what are we already have for programming and Staffing how are we using what we already have what are the outcomes from these previous Investments and where are we cutting maintaining and investing the result is a budget that honors our commitment to putting students first while maximizing our previous Investments and strengthening proven programs and initiatives in each of the last three years mayor woo has made historic investments in VPS these new dollars from 2023 24 and 25 made it possible to navigate these Trends putting resources directly into our schools so that our students could begin to recover from the pandemic both academically and social emotionally this year working with the mayor and her team we were able to put together a budget that continues our commitment to our core priorities while bringing annual growth back down to a more typical level of 3.5% this is only possible because of strong fiscal stewardship over the last few years putting us in a position today to navigate the end of Esser without any major disruptions and without losing focus on what's really working for our students the Investments we're recommending this year will look familiar as they represent the same core priorities we've been discussing for the last few years at BPS we often say diversity is our greatest strength it's what makes us special and to ensure all students have access to high quality education we must build a broader Continuum of supports to meet the needs of our diverse community and provide opportunities to all students in BPS in tonight's presentation Chief Bloom will share how the deep and long- needed Investments since the pandemic have allowed us to make significant shifts in the way we're serving our students today the vast majority of our funding 93% is allocated directly to student services including which are included in our school budgets in the coming year we'll continue to focus on the following priority areas while continuing to identify important efficiencies and cost savings priority areas of implementing inclusive education across our schools expanding access to native language through du language transitional bilingual education and multilingual programming continuing our long-term facilities plan that will lead to important structural changes and long-term savings strengthening our Secondary School ecosystem with new and expanded Early College and Career Pathways growing our Hub schools and providing students with increased opportunities and supports to thrive and families with the resources to help their students succeed before I turn the meeting over to Chief Bloom I want to thank mayor woo and her team for their support and partnership as we do this vital work together I also want to acknowledge the entire Finance team as I know it's been a lot of long days and nights to get us to this point and finally at a time where there's a national debate about the value of public education I want to thank and appreciate the thousands of BPS employees who wake up up every day to ensure all of our students are educated cared for and loved for who they are we're grateful for our teachers and Educators and staff in our schools and classrooms and the bus monitors and drivers who safely get our students to school and home we appreciate our cafeteria workers who ensure our students are served healthy meals and our custodians who ensure our buildings are cleaned and ready we're thankful for our school nurses our social workers our school psychologists our counselors who make sure our students receive the social emotional support and guidance they need and truly so many others who care for our students every day your work all of you is so important to our Student Success so at this point I will turn it over to Chief Bloom and we look forward to questions after the presentation so Chief bloom thank you superintendent and um thank you chair and members of the school committee for having me tonight to present our FY 26 proposed budget um I'm I'm here tonight to present that budget for the school year uh school year 2526 in of 1 b580 uh excuse me m476 that's is a $ 53.4 million increase over the budget you voted on last spring or about 3.5% this budget represents the work of hundreds of members of our school district and broader Community including the superintendent and her leadership team um but also more than 100 School leaders dozens of District Liaisons and close to a thousand School site Council and governing board members including parents staff and students I do want want to give a couple of special shoutouts before I begin in Earnest um a shout out to our budget director Serena Lorac at her team assistant director Chris Williams um Ty Christina Salam G and Trey um they've all been really focused on keeping Equity at the center of our work as they've had hundreds of meetings over the last two months to plan the budget that you'll see before you tonight I also want to shout out Henry Farnsworth who does a lot of our data work behind the scenes and our new deputy Chief Financial Officer Blair Dawkins who got to step right back into finance and put on her old budget hat from when she was a member of the team to support um during the budget season finally a big shout out to the district's planning and Analysis team led by Jamie ranelli with assistant director Karen book uh Daniela Maria and Patty um they do a lot of work to project enrollment as you know but they also support schools and designing capacity and schedules that work for them it's work that's rarely seen but a critical part of our process as the superintendent mentioned this budget is grounded in work we've done with the school committee and with the community over the last several years to define a high quality student experience we know that right now not every student has access to that high quality experience and historically that's particularly been true for students with disabilities and multilingual Learners particularly coming out of Co where that level of need has only grown the Investments you'll see tonight tonight in the Investments we've made over the last few years are laser focused on closing opportunity and achievement gaps and ensuring that every single BPS student in every school in every neighborhood has a high quality education over the last several years we've seen historic investments in BPS this is only possible because the mayor and the city have recognized the tremendous value of investing in public education and in Boston's young people particularly as we've emerged from the pandemic the Investments you see on this slide also represented a landmark contract the Boston Teachers Union this year because of careful planning and close collaboration with our school leaders and because of a clear directive from the superintendent to prioritize all available funds to go directly to our school communities we are able to recommend a budget that continues the core Investments of the last several years but at a much more typical annual growth rate of 3.5% which amounts to a little bit more than a $53 million invest we'll get into this more over the next few slides but here you can see how our investments over the last few years have allowed us to work on these transformational projects in each of the four buckets of the high quality student experience work that has begun work that has begun to shift student outcomes understanding these Investments allows us to do what chair Robinson and other members of this body have asked plan for FY 26 what do we have and how are we using it so why before we go into the FY 26 Investments I want to take a moment to review Investments we've made over the last few years because our FY 26 budget isn't just what we are building it was also about how we review and manage what we are already doing to expand access to rigorous and culturally affirming learning experience es we have created a new core of teaching positions to serve students with disabilities and multilingual Learners we've adopted high quality instructional materials across a variety of content areas we've hired mtss coordinators in our schools to coordinate academic social emotional and behavioral supports expanded early college and dual enrollment programs and launched newcomer and S programs with more bilingual programs on the way next year to support access to Wellness and enrichment we focused on experiential learning jobs for students expanding mentoring and College advising initiatives launched a successful campaign to reduce chronic absenteeism and expanded athletic offerings and summer programing it's important to note as a superintendent mentioned earlier some of these Investments started on Esser but there have been intentional strategies through our last three budget Cycles to move them on to the general f recognizing the essential role of supportive adults and Student Success we've invested in new family and student support positions like family Liaisons social workers guidance counselors and school psychologists we've expanded our community Hub schools launched the multilingual BPS helpline which took more than 30,000 calls last year we've also redesigned our website and secured new technology across our schools to improve language access for families in more than 250 languages finally for our physical spaces much of the work is funded by the city's capital budget and won't be a part of tonight's presentation but it is important to note the tremendous investment we've made in BPS facilities addressing Decades of deferred maintenance dramatically accelerating the pace of new builds and major Renovations so with that history in mind that brings us to today's presentation uh we started this work back in October with enrollment projections and planning we came to you in December with an update on our process which include the launch of a zerob based budget initiative with the central office departments and the continuation of rollouts for inclusive education and multilingual programming in our schools today launches our public review process while this is begin the beginning of the formal process the feedback of the school committee and the Public's feedback influenc the priorities and strategies we've taken and what we've invested in as a district and is reflected throughout my remarks tonight is also important to note tonight is the first of five meetings during this process we'll come back to you and the public for more detailed hearing on schools next Thursday February 13th just a note for everyone watching at home that is a Thursday night not Wednesday and then for another hearing on Central budgets on Wednesday March 5th based on the feedback we've heard through this process we will share a revised budget proposal on Wednesday March 19th before returning for your uh vote on the budget on Wednesday March 26th as I mentioned earlier tonight's budget proposal reflects months of work from over a thousand members of our broader District Community parents staff students School leaders District staff throughout that process we reviewed four questions based on feedback we've got from Community from the sorry in years past what do we do already for with programming and Staffing how are we using the resources we already have what are the outcomes from these previous Investments and therefore where are we cutting maintaining and investing for schools this meant engaging with a new method of grounding their work in the highest need students which Dr Chen will walk you through shortly for our Central offices this meant starting with a true zero based budget and engaging deeply with what is the most important work happening in their Department we found efficiencies in central office that we are able to reinvest directly in our schs so here are the numbers as I mentioned at the start of today's presentation the superintendent's budget proposal for the FY 2526 year is 1 b580 m477 this represents a 3.5% increase over the budget you approved last year or a total new investment of $ 53.4 million this is a much more typical growth rate after several years of historic investment to transition out of the pandemic and alphabest of that 53.4 million we had to take 31.4 million to pay for the cost of maintaining level service which left us with 22 million for new investment how however in addition to that 22 million we have $21 million of cost savings that we are redirecting to invest directly back into schools so $43 million of new investment in our schools these cost savings came from efficiencies identified through our zerob based budget process but also from the first round of closures and mergers which a school committee approved last year and will go into effect in June through our zerob based budget process the superintendent directed central office departments to identify offsets to pay for any additional cost on their budget before asking for additional resources as we completed that review We There were some costs that we were not able to offset those make up 31.4 million of Maintenance increases what we call maintenance increases that is not facilities maintain Main but maintaining level Services these expenses broke down to four main categories the first was an increase in our health insurance costs if you recall at my presentation in December talking about the current year I discussed an overage we were seeing in our health insurance costs this is a reflection of both the number of FTE in our district and the cost per FTE of that health insurance we continue to work with our partners to confirm we have what we need for next year but we believe we will need at least that $10 million increase and so working collaboratively with the city that is reflected in the budget you have before you today second I mentioned that this budget is a 53.4 million since what you approved last spring well in that time we have brought three collective bargaining agreements to you for supplemental appropriation these agreements represent over $8 million of additional cost for FY 26 third we have an increase for outof district expenses these include tuitions for special education out of District placement transportation for those students but that also includes transportation for students experiencing homelessness and those in the care of the Department of Children and Families we are optimistic that we will see State reimbursement increases for these costs through circuit breaker which rep which reimburses up uh 75% of costs over a certain threshold however those reimbursements for additional costs won't come until FY 27 the projected increases we are expecting for FY 26 based on our current year cost are baked into this number the fourth main driver of some additional cost for special education related services this is based purely on the number of minutes and services required ired in students IEPs both for students in our district and for those that we are required to provide Equitable Services to outside of the district finally that leaves about 3.4 million in assorted other smaller items uh such as utilities um our employee te pass subsidy that total 3.4 million during our central office budget hearing I will share more about some of the strategies we are using to examine both special education and transportation costs over the next several years for example since implementing the new technology that tracks student ridership we've been identif able to identify over 2,000 students or nearly 10% of our uh transported students who do not consistently ride the bus through Outreach to those families we have opted out over a thousand of those students once again that is an affirmative opt out the contact with the family this has the potential to save us millions of dollars of Transportation costs in the future I'm very excited to walk you through the main categories of investment in this year's budget Dr Chen will dive into more of the academic specifics on some of these Investments but as I shared earlier the number of multilingual Learners and students disabilities in BPS has increased over the last several years years we have been working in partnership with school communities to ensure that all schools are inclusive phasing in particular grades over the next few years these Investments include uh $10 million for inclusive practices 4 million for multilingual uh education five million for program and school expansions and six million for new classrooms in existing programs in schools 6 million in other rules-based positions in schools schols like social workers and transformation coaches $5 million to reestablish our annual reserve for future student needs which we have not needed to budget for the last several years when we had eser funds available $5 million for maintenance and Staffing for 15 pools which includes the expansion of school swim programs $1 million to support schools in buying replacement equipment and supplies for their highquality instructional material that Dr Ryan Miller mentioned earlier and a million dollars for continued investment in welcome Services the BPS helpline and other community initiatives as I mentioned before the reason we're making these Investments back into schools is by reinvesting the school-based savings that we've exp that we've collected this year we had $21 million in school-based savings including $12 million and savings from the closures and reconfigurations going into effect at the end of this year as a reminder to the committee and the public these are not any changes that were just announced and those are not reflected anywhere on this slide these are the changes that were voted on by the committee last spring summer for in that were going to affect this fall there are also $9 million in classroom consolidations in under enrolled schools and once again all of these dollars were invested directly back into schools finally We are continuing to identify central office budget reductions as the superintendent mentioned in her remarks we had some strategic investments in the end of Esser which went through September of this year and actually we could spend through the end of calendar year 2024 by intentionally investing uh in programs over that time frame we were able to a spend down all of our eer funds and be continue important programs like academic and mentoring initiatives Hub school expansion and adaptive online tools these programs will continue for next year and the cost will need to move from this temporary funding from the end ofer to the permanent budget the superintendent direction to us was clear because these expenses do not show up on school budgets we need to work to scrub our budgets through the zerob based process to identify offsets for these programs and that is the work our central office teams have done she also has directed US based on feedback we've heard so far from schools and school communities to identify another $5 million in reductions to help pay for continued investment in schools and one thing I would like to note about this in the process as we work to become more responsive to the community and take Community feedback live what that means is we are bringing you something in this budget which is not 100% complete right and that's because we are responding to what we are hearing through this process so based on what the superintendent heard through the process so far she told us identify $5 million of additional Cuts we are actively working to do that we will have those ready for you by the March hearing on central office budgets to help explain more about what they are and then those things will go right back into schools to help fund additional pools we can open expand libraries uh expand High School programming and more finally as we discuss each year over 90% of the District budget goes directly to programs at schools and Families I was just talking about efficiencies in the central office budget and it is important to note the vast majority of the central office budget is in services that are experienced directly by students and Families versus in the bowling building that means we know that efficiencies in that central office budget can be felt by our stakeholders and we are working with our departments to minimize the impact I will now turn it over to senior Deputy superintendent Dr Linda Chen to discuss our academic IC investments in more detail thank you David good evening members of the school committee and public as we Face the fiscal realities of future budgets we must ensure we're still able to invest in priority areas that support strong student outcomes close opportunity gaps and eliminate disparities in achievement this is particularly true for our black students multilingual Learners and students with disabilities I am grateful to my colleagues and academics Chief Bloom and his team and the superintendent who have worked tirelessly over the past several months to identify cost savings so we can strategically invest in our schools and students tonight I'll be sharing more about those Investments starting with creating truly inclusive learning environments where all students are welcomed supported and empowered to succeed in FY 26 we're allocating resources directly to schools to support the expansion of inclusive opportunities we will use these funds to invest in professional learning to support teachers and building skills with specific with specially designed instruction invest in staff that allows schools to expand partial inclusive opportunities and expand multilingual programming next slide over the last several years we've seen an increase in multi lingual Learners we celebrate the richness that multilingualism brings to our community we know it has positive impacts on all members of the school committee and our district as a whole we've committed to expanding multilingual programming and the FY 26 budget prioritizes investments in nine School communities in partnership with these School communities and desie we are adding four bilingual programs serving students who speak Spanish and Mandarin at the Blackstone uh Spanish and English and uh at the Blackstone quinsey uh with mandarin Phil brck Sumner and M in Spanish this is particularly significant because students learning in their home language is not only affirming but also supports their academic achievement in all areas we're also adding three newcomer programs serving students who recently arrived to the United States at Tech Boston Academy orberger Elementary School and English high school and there we'll be adding two s programs uh serving students who have limited or interrupted formal education experiences at the Sarah Greenwood and the orberger these investments will help ensure that our multilingual Learners re receive the language support and academic instruction they need to reach their full potential I'm excited about these nine programs as well as the work we are doing with other school communities to add more programs in the future like a Cabo Verdian dual language program a secondary Spanish transitional bilingual education program and more new newcomer program sites we look forward to sharing more every year one of the biggest shifts to how we're planning for fiscal year 26 is by using a new tool a process to determine the allocation by school specifically for our multilingual Learners and students with disabilities we used a service mapping prog process some of you may be familiar with this but tonight I want to share with you what service mapping is and why it's so important in order for us to truly get at the student level to ensure aligned resource allocation service mapping centers your highest need students first and asks who are you serving what services do you need and how will these Services Services be provided I want to note that this process is also intended to help maximize access to grade level learning for all students alongside their peers at next week's school budget presentation you'll hear from two School leaders who will share their real examples and experiences using service mapping as they plan their FY 26 budgets mapping out Service delivery in schools allows us to confirm the allocation provided to schools uh or work with budget teams to allocate additional dollars asking and answering these questions allows schools to build schedules that best groups students based on their needs and utilizes staff and other resources to service students at the in the least restrictive environment some of our schools have been using service mapping for years in various ways but what is different about this year's budget process is we did this with all schools in a consistent manner this process allows school-based teams and central office teams to visualize and analyze the resources currently available to students identify any gaps in service provision and strategically allocate funding and support to maximize their success service mapping provides a clear picture of how our programs are serving students in order to maximize their access to grade level learning which allows us to make datadriven decisions to improve outcomes the $10 million investment that David mentioned earlier is what we are using to pay for services identified through this process in addition to multilingual programming and inclusive education this year's budget includes significant investments in targeted interventions to accelerate great learning for all students we're investing $1 million to expand access to highquality curriculum materials that are evidence-based aligned to grade level standards and are culturally and linguistically responsive to our Learners this investment allows us to strategically complement grade level learning with high dosage tutoring that provides intensive individualized support to students who need it the most and to bridge gaps in grade level learning to further bolster literacy development we have launched a cost share program with schools aimed at increasing the number of reading interventionists in our schools ensuring teachers have expert support in implementing effective reading instruction in addition we're continuing to invest in access to technology enhanced tier 2 interventions offering flexible and personalized learning opportunities for students requiring additional support in specific subject areas all the Investments here build on the previous Investments mentioned around high quality instructional materials and Equitable literacy we heard earlier about the investment made to expand College and Career Pathways for all students growing the program significantly in just a few years we're building on that work in this budget by launching Innovative programs like the aviation flight simulator and Robotics curriculum at Madison Park expanding technology programming at Halland Technical Academy to include high demand Fields like clean energy and cyber security and creating more opportunities for students in our alternative education schools we're also continuing our commitment to dual enrollment and Early College Programs giving students ahead start on their higher education and maintaining the vital support provided by our College advising Corp this work is so important to ensure our students are prepared for whatever path they choose after graduation and finally one last highlight is the Investments we're making to expand access and opportunities for our students in need of alternative Pathways to learning we are excited to announce the opening of a new East Boston location for the Boston adult Technical Academy increasing access to vital vocational training to meet growing demand for multilingual Learners we're also expanding seat capacity at Boston collaborative high school and finally recognize ing the unique needs of our students in alternative education programs we're hiring a director of special education for these programs ensuring that they receive the specialized support they deserve there's so much more I could talk to you about tonight but these are some big areas we wanted to lift up for this first budget presentation at next week's hearing on school budgets two of our school leaders as I mentioned before will share how they have planned for a fiscal year 26 I look forward to discussing the Deep work happening in at our schools because of the significant Investments we've made and how we're building on that for FY 26 I'll now turn it back to David to close this out um thank you and then I promise two more slides that's it um uh before I close out I did want to share an update on a highly requested new project we've been working on and I promised I'm not just excited about this since I get to combine my two favorite things big spreadsheets full of numbers and reading very long books um so tonight we've shared a number of materials about our budget with the school committee and the public we're still working on developing our full budget book we'll share a working version of the book with the committee and the public later this month for your review and feedback and then a final version will be published after the budget is approved each uh in March this work is happening thanks in large part to the dedicated effort of another member of our finance team Katie Klein who is learning from the best practices of other districts around the Commonwealth in the country pulling together what will likely be close to 500 pages of detailed information about our district schools and departments okay closing this out once again just a quick reminder this is the first of our five formal hearings um about the budget that allows for a final round of feedback before our school committee votes as Dr Chen mentioned next week we'll be talking about school budgets in detail and you'll be hearing from from two School leaders thank you so much for the feedback you've given so far in the process and please um questions and comments there's a little um QR code in the bottom that you can scan to give us additional feedback from the public as well and with that I'll turn it back to chair Robinson for questions from the committee great thank you so much for the presentation um I'll start with Mr card Hernandez thank you so much for the presentation um really informative I will start with a question that I have asked um every year that I've been on this body and maybe we can get closer to it this year um if you go to slide iOS which one is it if you go to slide two we call it the high quality student experience we when I first started on this body it was referred to as the quality guarantee um and each time we've talked about it it's been sort of hyperbolic like we're gonna you know access to Wellness and enrichment a network of caring adults but I have requested for multiple years sort of like a stuff and things here like what is that actually mean in terms of the lived experience of a student so if we're looking at our high schools is there a number of AP courses that we believe every student should have access to is there a number of sports teams that we believe every student should have access to is there a student to guidance counselor ratio we believe every student has access to is it a two teacher special education model some of those things that then on the literacy interventionist is there a ratio for how many interventionists we believe we need for each child I think that sort of um Clarity over what we believe the guarantee is um might help us understand if this budget is moving us towards that versus the conceptual idea of like access to Wellness versus like what does that mean structurally does that make sense yes I thank you for that and I think as we go through the work um that has been ongoing this year of uh developing goals with the school committee and defining a little bit more our you know the next round of our strategic plan as a district I think we're going to be continuing to make that work more and more clear I think what we were hoping to do with slides um four I think this is through 8 was give you a little bit more concrete information about what what that looks like going through the examples so you could see it um I know this isn't fully what you just mentioned right that every student would take four AP courses or whatever the thing is but I think that is work we are continuing to build up this for us just so you know it feels important and it is similar to the comment I made you weren't part of this earlier in the evening about just like being taken seriously as a school Committee Member like from I think this it was my second meeting when I joined the committee and we heard about the quality guarantee and I literally asked for that like what are the things if I'm a parent like the hyperbolic like culturally affirming curriculum and all of that stuff like sounds really good to all of us but like if I'm a parent walking into the system it's like what does it mean is every classroom have a library in every Elementary School I don't know right like does do you always have art do you always have PE how far are we from funding that because I never know what we're funding towards and even on our previous it's like it's getting us towards what goal and the goals that we're working on as a school committee is about outcomes yeah like we're our goals are about student outcomes and what we're I guess what we're asking for here is the inputs that would get us to that output but those inputs have to have a floor and a ceiling and now we're just getting like all this cool stuff we're doing versus what is actually building towards does that make sense it it does and I I appreciate that feedback and I think what I would say in response is a little bit of an I'll turn over to the superintendent I apologize but um you know I think we are trying to present that in in in pieces right and I think one of the challenges is as you build a system for 48,000 kids across 120 schools um it's not something that can fit onto a simple slide and so I think for example as we present work about the facilities condition assessment and our understanding of the condition of our buildings that helps answer the question of what are we looking for in our physical spaces and how far away are we from that as Dr Ryan Miller presents information about high quality instructional materials and I believe the last time I saw it the number was at like 95% right that's a part of our answer on how we are ensuring access to rig rigorous and culturally affirming learning experiences and I think I do hear your feedback that it would be great to have sort of a dashboard that says this is the number this is how far away we are and this is how much work we have to go and I think as we work through each of these areas we're working to provide you with that information um I can't I can't see anybody because the presentation's still up but um oh there we go okay so uh so I think so this is so first of all it's an interesting question about how to present the information I think the quality School guarantee had a particular set of um commitments that uh you know ranged with Staffing and programming the highquality student experience actually comes for the first time from Community data so this was what was directly attached to long-term facilities plan that when we talked about school design we talked about in prek to 6 and 712 what did families say they wanted what did students say they wanted in that experience so what we list in the high quality student experience are those elements it was not granular in the sense of we want like a guidance counselor at this Ratio or this or that um but there is far more detail that we've listed about the high quality student experience in the long-term facilities plan we can certainly take that and part of the goal with the budget is to sort of show how we're moving toward those things uh I also think we can show with the high quality with the um School quality guarantee which was the previous um set of commitments uh we can also show sort of where those things are which is the libraries and the things that you just talked about member K Hernandez so we have a little bit of um overlap right that happens sometimes when administrations change but I think what's unique about the high quality student experience is that that really for the first time here came from our community that is the the elements of the data we collected uh I think what David can do is we can go back and take a look from a budget perspective to sort of say What are the easy figures or numbers that we can kind of speak to with that uh I think certainly in the reimagining funding as we move toward that as a budget mechanism that's a great way to be able to sort of uh anchor the camera um so we'll definitely take that that specific feedback on this um we know that it's important to you and to other members and we'll do our best to figure out how to represent some of that information I think you're muted it was is profound what I said um no I think it is less about also just backing into it maybe it is a type of goal setting we have to do it's like I I'm appreciative of the community engagement process that got us to some of the these categories but then it's like what are we funding towards and that is we do have to have like a vision for our counselor to student ratio our vision for the number of sports teams a high school student will have access to the number of Music Pro or foreign languages a student will have access to because without that we just are going to keep funding but to what end and to what purpose and that's the I've just felt that since we've been here I'm like we just say yes to a budget but it's unclear what it's what are the stuff and things it's trying to build yeah I think that's the definition set that sort of you know we've got you know we know from the community what they're looking for but there wasn't specificity of I want music or art three times a week or right so what we do know is that we want all students to experience AR in music as a core not just as an adjunct so we have data that can show we're making that progress through budgetary Investments that now actually says half of our high schoolers are able to experience at least a semester right and I guess yeah and then it's like well then what would get us to close the goal so like without knowing what we want it's like if we're saying it's like as a whatever the sort of frame was then it's like well if half of them have it what would it take for everyone to have and then we because that's the lever of funding then that we start moving and then you start getting into actual priorities of like I don't know I think everyone knows where I stand like if you ask me the most important thing we do as a system is get kids to read and 30% of our kids are reading on grade level so like then I would be pulling the lever around literacy interventionist to be like oh well if it's going to if your actual vision is we need 200 literacy interventionists not 50 well then that's the lever I'd want to pull and then we'd make hard decisions around I don't know insert whatever we kids have access to five sports teams and we pull the lever down I don't know right but without that it's just like here's a little bit of money a little bit of things without knowing like when does that actually become a whole a fully funded vision for the system I don't know what it would take to do that and that's maybe that can be part of how we're presenting in the next conversation but talking about it because even with like the intervention and I will stop but like I couldn't tell you if the literacy interventionist at this point gets us to Great gets us to good gets us to okay I don't know if the same is true with ESL I wouldn't know and that it goes back to like the responsibility for us is like we'll say yes that's what the we do but like we don't really know if it's getting us to exactly where we need and what we would choose if if we knew more got Dr alkins um thank you um for this introduction and I'm pretty sure that each of us will have questions that we explore in our one-on ones and things like that for sure uh I I I feel my fellow member um in the it it is difficult and I think that's the thing like it's difficult to sort of pinpoint what that is I think in a for example like in a in something like Slide Five if you had you know we've now we've done this we we've made this accomplishment is there a sense of a Tipping Point of once we reach a particular bar that you know we you know and it's hard because you can't predict and I think I keep going back to uh one I think as a body we should all begin each of our conversations with the five stated goals of the school committee as to remind us as to what our priorities are um especially for our newer members who may not have been involved in that process to even know what those those priorities are um but um I think being that I know that the first goal is around student outcomes and achievement um and particularly around closing the opportunity gaps is there any sense I mean is there any sense of is there any sense that the Investments are actually helping to do that um I know we've heard testimonies we've seen data that says that no in fact and even during Esser like it was still maintenance right so I think I'm wondering like what is the thinking around what can close some of these gaps um and perhaps a more robust way um and obviously that's a that's a very tough question to answer but just I'm I'm just you know your philosophy your thinking around these things yeah so I think on the literacy side and I think you know we've we've had this Con we started having this conversation right with the uh literacy presentation but when we look at the nape data and we look at the fourth graders right we are seeing certainly with math moving were're pretty close to where the prepandemic uh uh levels were when we look at uh you know the broad like our Brad nape National Data compared to other districts when we look at literacy we're heading in that direction in the fourth grade we're not there we're not back near pre pandemic yet but we're moving in the right direction that those are things that tell us that some of the work that we're doing with the early literacy uh is starting to take hold but but as we've said before just getting high quality instructional materials in training and calibrating and doing PD it's it takes several years till you start to see that kind of kick in but we're at least seeing some good Trend data there but fast forward to the eighth grade and that's where we get real concerned because what we're seeing post-pandemic nationally State and district is kids are not recovered right and they're not moving in that direction which is why in this budget you'll see us deliberately shift and really start to talk about tier 2 and tier three for our middle and high schoolers because we know that the gaps are significant and we've got to work harder to close those so there's like a deliberate moving of resource in that direction when we look at Early College completion and we think about early course Early College cours workk as signs of Readiness at graduation as one example uh or career connecting right we see great movement of what we've put in for the budget we see us moving from 2122 where we had 179 students accessing Early College to where this year we have 790 students to where with these budget Investments we'll have over a thousand and very similarly what's also really significant is that early college isn't just what we were seeing before and who's accessing but multilingual Learners are accessing now special education students are accessing now that's that's M that's really meeting our mission of all students um so I think we are starting to certainly see some things in the data and one big thing we did with the Zero Sum budget that Chief Bloom talked about is we asked in our Central programming and offices to look at program data to say what is moving the needle in the right direction for students and what is not and if it's not then we won't continue to do it and if it is then we need to continue to invest and do more of it so I think that's the strategy that we are we have been embracing we continue to sort of move with this but Dr alins you're right like the this some of these things take foundation work and it is several years before you start to get that indication of what's moving in the right direction or not in this case I do think our youngest data is showing us that we are starting to get traction because they've been the beneficiary of the deep literacy work for multiple years now and and thank you for that and and I think this this also Echoes because I mean I know um we've talked about on this body about like what we've seen in some other districts and some of the strides that they've been able to make in certain areas like talk about literacy for example uh right and so I'm wondering um just in the process like if you all are in communication with other districts and just saying like what have you all been investing in in particular that might be something that we could take in uh to our um investment strategy as far as that goes so that's like one question I have and then the second I had was around um I think it's slide 18 just the I'm you all may have explained this but the logic um of phased implementation um like for example Y in year 2 like which we're embarking like on like y one 2 grades 1 2 8 and 10 like what was what's the rationale for that grade configuration uh for those for the for those four years right so Dr Dr Chen might want to talk specifically about the RO out of the inclusion plan but to your I think it's like a great point which is what are we learning from other districts what are we seeking to learn and then investing I think high dosage tutoring is a good example of this you know we really wanted to get tier one set we wanted to get strong foundation in the classrooms before we added lots of intervention in now we're at that point and ready so we've done you know uh Leslie Leslie Miller and her team have done a lot of looking at talking with other districts both at the national level and the state level and that's how we ended up landing on some of the high dosage tutoring that we're going to be doing for math in the middle and the high schools uh it's also both the formula of how we're going to do it as well as um the partner that we're going to do it with so that's like an example where we took that in um and I think in the academics there's several examples of that we could provide I think in also there's lots of academic enrichment that we're working across between student support and the academics Division and a lot of that is coming from partners that we know are tried and true um they've get good results with the kids output is there and so we're going deeper with them uh alt dead a lot of the revisions we're doing right now that's in uh with springpoint uh and um well with springpoint really trying to learn from their work uh in the alted sphere uh and the bar foundation in their sphere and tapping into different partners so that as we think about what design for our district could sort of bring alted to the next piece the leaders are having the opportunity to have those dialogues both with each other and outside of Boston so I love the idea that we don't have to re vent the wheel that we can in a lot of ways learn from others and I think that's what a lot of the work that we do whether it's with the Council of great City Schools whether it's with uh DMC wherever it is uh it's trying to bring that best practice back into Boston and then Dr Chen do you want to just talk about the how we arrived at the grades sure um as as uh this group knows we had an extensive review from the Council of great City schools on special education and based on their experience with large urban districts across um the country um as well as in-depth interviews with how the BPS has implemented various reforms in the past um they suggested a similar not exactly this roll out because we had to take into consideration our largely prek to 6 7 through2 configuration versus what other districts tend to have as more of an elementary middle High School model so it's a variation off of their recommendation and it's it's a couple of things one is um we certainly have learned that you know even in the first year it takes time for the system to really build the capacity both in terms of the structures for how like we enroll students in our processes for assignment of students with disabilities and and multilingual Learners as well as just Capac capity for teachers um and Educators to really get the kind of professional learning and the resources that are needed and so it's not really um feasible to do all of that in one year um both on systems capacity and frankly um budget and secondly um a lot of times what happens is initiatives start or strategy starts in the early grades and then when it inches a long it doesn't always get up to the higher grades and it doesn't um signal to A system that this will happen for all of us because too many folks and a lot of our high school folks experience this some strategy dies on the vine by the time it gets up to them and so here there's an intentionality around largely paired grades to work together so that those kids will will roll up but that every part of the system every school would be expected to implement the inclusive education plan um and so overall over time initially it was over it was suggested to do over three years time and after the first year last year it was very clear a lot of the capacity Gap that we needed to really build so we've stretched it out more to a four-year model at this point um so that is really in large part why the implementation of across multiple years and the way those grades were selected and the last thing I would say about that was um uh it was it was found that that and we know this ourselves that our early grades starting with our prek um grades have the most consistent um experience in terms of the curriculum and instructional practices and so that's why there was a recommendation to do more of those early grades long um early on and build from that from that um Foundation okay Miss panco Garcia thank you Madame chair thank you for the presentation thank you very much for the presentation and I do appreciate very much that this was the one of the first presentations regarding the uh budget so definitely we there will be a lot of questions regarding this so for example I would like to check slide 14 that talks about it talks about the fund allocation for example it says about10 million for inclusive practices that's what the slide says so it is part of the process of doing the inclusion right that is being the call of the community as well that that's what it it is all about I do imagine that that will be itemized in detail how many teachers we're going to have how many specialists we are going to have in order to be able to implement an inclusion well done that is the purpose correct thank you very much for that question and giving me the opportunity to explain in more detail uh to the public at large um so the short answer to your question is yes that funding is for expanded inclusive opportunities at schools specifically targeted in our rollout grades of first 2 eth and 10th grade for this year but over overall we've encouraged schools to review their full plan as a part of this process through the service mapping that um Dr Chen was referring to Next in next week's hearing we'll bring two School leaders in to talk a little bit about how it worked for them but in general every school started with an allocation and what I said to the school leaders is this allocation we're pretty sure is right on average which we know means it won't work for some of you right because anything you do right on average there will always be some exceptions that need special review and so what happened was we gave every school and allocation in December based on our understanding of need at their school and they did a couple of things with that information the first is they went back to their school community and engaged in a service mapping process to look at the needs of the kidss in their building then they thought about okay how do those needs of students translate into staff needs to meet meet the student needs and then how do I use the funding I was given to ensure I have the right staff and in some cases it may have been training for staff or materials for staff in addition to the staff themselves finally we've kept some funds in reserve about $1.5 million because we know what works on average for schools won't work for every school and we've had a number of schools submit some proposals for where they think there are gaps between their service mapping and what's available in their budget we have a team from our both our schools Division and office of specialized Services reviewing those as we speak well probably not tonight but over the next over this week and we will be allocating every single dollar of that 1.5 million out to schools to ensure that they're able to meet the needs of their school communities we will also have our $5 million Reserve established because the thing that our schools can only plan for the IEPs that are in their building right now for the students who are in their building right now and a guess about who they will serve next year and even our best guest won't be perfect so through the process of enrollment starting as soon as April as they have their list from round one we will be reviewing with schools their revised need and providing additional staff to schools that need additional staff to meet the needs of the students they serveas thank you so much um I was very curious when you were doing the presentation I believe I heard that you guys were able to save $21 million I'm very curious about it about this because as you mentioned the you were able to save $21 million so I was curious regarding because as we know there are multiple needs and multiple things that those resources could have been allocated so I wanted a little more clarity if you could please expand on which uh resources were not used and what was the purpose of of those resources because $21 million there's a lot of money saved but there are many things to be done so I'm curious about it yes so the $21 million are resources that are currently in schools this year that that are being used this year but we're we we will not be needing next year and those fall into two main categories the first is um schools that are closing and grade levels that are closing through the reconfigurations that were voted on by the school committee last year so about $12 million in savings are coming from the closure of the Frederick the closure of the West Zone and the conversion of the gardener the Haley the Hernandez and the henan to be K to sixes and the Savings in that case are all of the staff associated with those schools or grades so um all of those resources are no longer going to be needed because those programs won't be operating next year those resources are then put back into other schools for additional teachers paraprofessionals social workers um and so on uh as part of the $43 million of new investment in SCH schols so all of the resources that came out from those $12 million went back in in the same way then the second part of the $21 million of reduction our classrooms that we anticipate will no longer be needed next year right these are um I have there's an example of a school that opened two classrooms this year for kindergarten but has less than 20 kids in rooll we think they will only need one classroom in kindergarten next year because they'd have less than 20 kids enroll as a result we're able to save money from that school as a reduction in a teach single teaching position and reinvest that money either in a different school with increasing enrollment that needs to open a new classroom or in more of those additional resources uh for our schools and families so every single dollar from the 21 million was turned around and put right back into schools okay thank you Mr TR um first of all thank you for the uh like a all other members on the committee uh I thank you for your presentation uh a thorough presentation on the U proposed budget um I also share a lot of concerns from other members as well I I I hear where they are coming from some like to see or some question regarding in inclusion some questions regarding um literacy I I hear all that I uh well I have a bunch of thoughts and thinking running around my head and I'm trying to somehow create an interconnect between all of that in in in making my my presentation to you but uh here it goes it's going to be kind of short um in my mind uh while I understand that the allocated Investments that you have made or that you have proposed are based on data uh factual uh um and and um educational uh support uh evidence you know in making those uh proposed uh allocated Investments the investment that you are now trying to and I appreciate that as well uh you are now trying to pour into is the uh inclusion practice which I as you know had always expressed my concerns regarding that and I can see that what you are trying to do right now is to to allay concerns from the uh teachers from the union from even from me even though it is not it is not um uh perfect but at least it is you know it is moving in the in in my mind in the right direction the only thing I have given all that I'm not going to question why you put 21,000 million or 10 million into this or that that rest with your perview because line items I believe is something that rest with the administration uh we we We can question it we can question them we we can make recommendation the ultimate uh decision in allocating line items are with you and I I I see that the the the uh central office um funding uh take you know subsequent to all the funding that you are are proposing for schools I do see that as you know as as a very Goodwill kind of work and I appreciate that now regarding the inclusion evidence had shown and I share uh member Rafael Gia regarding inclusion practice as well evidence had shown us before and even current currently that E ESL students students with disability even prior to the inclusion are lacking behind in all you know uh in terms of uh competency in all um in all required areas for graduation the the percentage of of of them accomplishing the requirements are kind of low and and in in my mind very low and I know that that that issue you know the the the student achievement Gap and competency is a never ending kind of issue it will stay with us pretty much like the like the Civil Rights issue that stay with us since the founding of the the the the the country my concern is given that given the the the the uh the deficiency or the below average in uh obtaining or accomplishing uh competency you know adequacy for graduation uh uh of students with disability as well as student with um with language difference now the inclusion is imposed on them is there any way any any yeah I know you you're doing mapping okay is there any way that mapping and all that tools that you are you are implementing will somehow contribute to a slide a slide I I hope just a very slight increase in their competency is there any kind of data any kind of uh educational support any kind of best practices out there or anything at all that will somehow prove to us that I understand I I appreciate the allocation but but that prove to us that inclusion will in fact increase their competency that's my question the other request just one small request I like to you know um sometimes down the road once we implement this kind of um uh allocated Investments I like you to provid us with data you um comparative data in students with disability Group and um ESL students who are uh who are now [Music] um uh absorbed into the in inclusion practice you know what they the data on on the accomplishment their competency as well as the data on their competency prior to the prior to to to the inclusion so those are the kind of information I like to to get in the in the future thank you thank you Miss L Barosa um thank you chair I'm going to leave my questions for the remaining hearings for the specific topics I just wanted to um I appreciate seeing the the reinvestment of dollars from central office uh going directly to schools so I'm expecting to see more details when we say directly to schools what does that mean uh at the next hearing to really show like what were those additional Investments that we were able to do because we cut cost somewhere else um I'm really interested in seeing how we're implementing inclusion since there's such a huge investment there um we heard so many testimonies this past year in terms of you know Educators that are concerned about requiring or having to have multi licensers in order to be hired in order to be in the job so how are these Investments not necessarily creating that narrative or um or putting you know how are we investing on hiring teachers where we don't have to have one educator doing everybody's job which I know that's not the district's uh uh objective or goal but how are we're doing that with with investments in dollars when it comes to the inclusion uh piece of it I think another thing that I would appreciate when it came to the community engage engagement I know you've you've heard our feedback as committee members but you've continuously heard also feedback and suggestions from uh different members of the the committee different organizations so it would be nice to see if there were any of those feedbacks that were somewhat um considered or taken that we can highlight uh throughout your presentations for the remaining of the budget process because I think that's important one of the things that folks really asked last year is how are you involved in the community when you're Drafting and proposing set said budget so if there are examples of how you did that differently I know um Chief uh Bloom you did mention that it was a community input but that's another thing that I would love to hear more specifics in the future as you all are explaining how the decision got to X Y or z um I'm going to stop there just appreciate the overview for to for tonight I will be coming with specific questions related to the subtopics that we have for the remaining four hearings uh but thank you so much I know this is a lot takes a lot of people so I just wanted to commend y'all all for initiating this with a good plan but really looking forward for the remaining hearings thank you Mr O'Neal thank you madam chair um it's been a long night it's the beginning of a long process a two-month process for us now so um Mr Bloom thank you for the presentation I'll be interested in future presentations if you could better align for us the Investments that are made tying to goals that the school committee has set right part of our responsibility as a board is to make sure that you know a we're setting policy and B that the budget aligns with the policy that we have set and you know I go back to I think Mr kadad Hernandez made a great point if if literacy is job one for our students talked and 30% of our students are reading at grade level then what's the right amount we need to be investing there and you know often times when I'm presenting in my my day job de clients we'll talk about good better best scenarios right depending upon how much budget they have and so I'm I'm interested as superintendent and Mr Bloom and and Dr Chen about um you know what is the right amount particularly for literacy so I'm using that as one example it was brought up earlier but it's a key goal that we have set as a committee and superintendent was set as a goal for you right so how how does the budget align with the goals that we have set to date and that maybe Fosters a conversation with us as a committee of what are the right goals um that we should be aligned on as a committee and so that is one question I appreciate that in one of the next presentations coming up the other is um and I'm just channeling What I Hear around the city when I talk with fellow residents right and um a billion five is a big budget and with federal funds slowing down and potentially really being impacted in the future we need to make sure that we are as efficient and as effective with taxpayer dollars as possible and so Mr Bloom I appreciate you highlighting you know this amount came from closing schools the decision we made last year and classrooms and then you kind of alluded to I think the number was 5 to 10 central office savings and now the superintendent asked you to find another 5 million and you gave one concrete example which was in transportation where you said I think it was a Zoom app that allowed us to see 2,000 students aren't using it regularly you've reached out a thousand of coming off the transportation roles and that's a potential Savings of a million I think it would be worthwhile for us to learn more about that and in particular as we have over the years added a new program added you know there's the the program of the day so to speak the new the newest Trend and that's okay we try new ideas we're testing we're trying to improve educational opportunities and results outcomes for our students but how if we kind to look at what's not working and what we are stopping what are we taking off the table and that can be hard to do both because people get tied to programs the aid to admit defeat um or that you know justifies FTE or that type of thing but hearing that we're taking a hard look and and you've used the term Mr Bloom zerob based budgeting in central office but how have we done zerob based budgeting and what have we takeen off the table because we've simply said it's not working and we shouldn't be investing there yeah I think I I appreciate that feedback and Direction and I think at the central hearing I think one of the things we're aiming to do is bring back some of those specific examples of uh what's what's come out of the central office process um some of those things will be pure efficiencies like the transportation example we shared tonight and then some of those things will be some more difficult conversations about programs that we may we may be ending even if they do have some impact because the return on investment may be isn't isn't worth it so return on academic investment do we do do you use that yeah we don't have a formal measure um and I think one of the tricky things about academic return on investment is you know it's it uh unlike real return on investment where it's dollars and dollars yeah right academic return on investment is is tricky because it's you know one investment is a making an impact on absenteeism another investment is making an impact on graduation rate and and so we are trying to look within um I'll try and give you the specific I'll give you the general the example now we'll give you the specifics of the central hearing just because in part we need to connect to the people involved in the program about this thing changing before we sort of announce it publicly but uh we have a central Department that manages a certain initiative and there are five or six different programs under that initiative that they're all tied to the same goal and the chief in charge of it has looked at those programs and realized that there's one that is not getting better outcomes is not serving more students and is more expensive and so actually in that specific example that we're not going to save money but we're going to reallocate the resources so we're going to be able to in serve more students in programs that are cheaper in that area and I'm I'm being vague at the moment and I apologize because I understand I respect that we will and so in a month we should be able to give you some more specifics on things like that where we're really trying to dive in and say sort of this is how we are more efficient and effective with those dollars and the last thing I'll say about it and then I promise I'll I'll I'll let go on because I know it's getting late but um you know we still believe deeply in the work that we did and and chair and vice chair you were both here for this work uh sort of eight or nine years ago now around the uh long-term financial plan and what are the main drivers of cost for the district and if you recall there were five items on that report there was Revenue and we're always working on getting more Revenue right but we know right now is a tricky time for Revenue with the federal government there's collective bargaining and those are constant conversations we're having right and not something we're talking about directly today but a conversation we have with you frequently and then there are three main other drivers there's the the facilities and our district footprint which is a conversation the committee has been having in depth for years and we are seeing some movement and action on there's transportation and then there's special education and so I think all three of those things are things you've heard a lot about tonight and over many school committee meetings recently over the last couple years and items where we're going to try and provide you with more information in upcoming hearings especially the central hearing so you can see a little bit more about what we're doing to attack those major items because without attacking those major items we're just tweaking around the edges and while we might save a million dollars here are there and that's very important don't get me wrong every million we save we can reinvest back in schools those five major levers are the real ways we get big dollars to reinvest which you've seen some of tonight thank you this will be a two-month conversation so I'll startop there thank you so much for all of the input that you've given us today one one of the areas though I I keep feeling that we don't address that has a major impact on what we're doing is um how are our classrooms staffed how are our schools staffed how are we looking at all of the people who are in our schools given that our classrooms are changing because of them becoming full inclusion but how are we evaluating who's in our schools doing what in our schools and the skill sets that they have because irregardless of all the inputs we do with new curriculum Etc do we really have the the staff who are able to take these things on and bring us to the outcomes that we're looking for so I'm thinking we we've we've we've invested lots of dollars over the years but our outcomes are not changing so we've made those Investments so I mean until we begin to look at literally the quality of teaching um you know where do we do the assessment of you know we're always assessing our kids but where are we looking at you know you know what are the qualifications our teachers have now do people have the um CER certifications that they need do we really need to be talking differently about how we staff classrooms and then how do we look at all of the staff that are physically in a school to figure out if they have the right job descriptions that allow as much time to support students as we need it because we have a lot of people but what are the people doing that are have helping us to get to the outcomes of our students because I feel like if we don't do that and we're just continuing to put more dollars down and and not question for ourselves the outcomes we're getting with the previous Investments what's going to change because nothing really has changed much over the the pre and post um the pandemic in terms of student outcomes and and we you know we saw tonight all of the Investments that we've made and so I know that's a tricky conversation to have but I feel like until we can have it well you know it's it's Goodwill we're putting a lot of Goodwill on the table and we we're hoping that next reading you know program can help us but right well Dr Chen I hope you don't mind if I spoil the surprise of it but um uh I got an email back today from uh uh principal pado at the Channing who's one of the leaders who will be here um next week and we were doing some scheduling for prep for her coming to testify or not to present next week and she was just saying um she's really excited to talk about how this new approach we're taking to thinking about service mapping and and grouping kids and starting with those groups has built on the great work she's doing at the Channing but also like helped her and her school Community think about the needs of students a little bit differently and build up from those groups when I started here I mean almost 10 years ago now right we sort of thought about things in budget season as okay you've got 100 kids with disabilities so you need 10 teachers and that's how things were right when we started and then we moved to this more detailed classroom process where we said okay here are the different classrooms you have and here are those classroom types and that was really helpful and helped us get a more nuanced understanding of the Staffing we needed for our classroom and then I think it this is also potentially in response uh to a point from uh member Lima Barbosa earlier in in part in response to a lot of feedback we've been getting over the last couple years what this service mapping approach really does is break down specific student needs like literally looking at kids IEPs grouping those needs together and then pairing those need groups okay we need we have three kids in first grade who need rules-based reading for 45 minutes per day which teacher is providing those circum those and they're reviewing that now not when the kids show up in September but they're reviewing that now because now they can make different budget decisions based on I realize all of a sudden that I have a little bit of excess resource here but I need more reading intervention right and people are able to make adjustments to their budgets based on that review and so I think that's what some of our lead I'm not saying we're getting it perfect yet but that is what our leaders are coming to discuss next week is how that approach is different and I really do think as the superintendent Dr Chen were mentioning earlier we are setting ourselves up for different results going forward yeah I mean I think that gets to part of it but my question is even after we've done the mapping and have it in place and are implementing where are we evaluating if we're getting the results with the kids that we want even though I can put it in there is what's the outcome coming back and I feel like that's where I get skittish often that I don't see the outcomes and I know there's lots of best intentions and people are very very busy at what they do but still the outcomes numbers don't change so what's the what what are we needing to do differently there that we'll actually begin to see the outcomes shifting for kids I I so I will just um I will just say chair that I think that is the pressure point with our regional networks that we're attempting to do which is to make sure that like our plc's are focused on student data what the outcomes are what is happening what's not happening how that ties back to instruction how that ties back to the use of support reports uh and I think that's happening at a level now where the conversations uh and the focus in a region now with a smaller group of schools with a school with a regional soup with a whole support system you can have those conversations and look at the data in a very deeper way than you could when we've had other ways of uh kind of configuration within the district um and so I think it's that I think it's Fidelity to the use of the materials Fidelity to the use of the strategies the deeper PD all tying together that we're starting to see that shift happening in the P where we can better count on walking into any classroom and being able to see Equitable literacy in action being able to see across content areas the use of high quality materials with students being able to see students not completing worksheets not not being the ones you know being the actual uh ones to answer the questions to ask the questions to do deeper thinking it's lifting the system right with the tier one in that way and then using some of what we're proposing in this budget with the tier two to fill where those holes are to know the data well enough to know where students aren't meeting uh with proficiency literacy or in math and then being able to match that to the appropriate intervention or resource so I think this is a process um but this is this is the first time like the first time in a really long time with academics where you're seeing it broadly across the district with impact uh since I can remember back when like Dr pan and Dr Johnson were here initially so I do think this is what will ultimately yield the results we're all looking for and most importantly close the gaps that we all find unacceptable I'm sure this conversation will continue absolutely yeah because I keep because you know I want to keep saying but if it still isn't working then what at what point do we say enough something drastically has to change and I think that's what I'm looking for is like how many years will we be happy that the NP SCH still say 40% in spite of millions of dollars of input you know I and I don't know the answer I'm hoping you all know the answer I you know I don't know if it's a teacher training institution somebody has got to have a better answer or we need to find the district that's actually doing something different that's getting the outcomes because I think we've waited too long you know with the Investments and thank the city you know and everyone for the Investments but we're not delivering back and I think that's what we're looking forward now particularly as we walking into a year when we have no idea what federal is going to do Etc but we still will have our 50,000 kids to educate how are we Boston going to do a better job yes so again thank you for tonight and I know this is just the first of several other conversations so we look forward Ward to um learning more about schools next week and particularly um looking forward to getting the budget book so thank you all for everything um we'll now go back to public comment Miss farx thank you chair our next speaker our next group of speakers are Mike hman haval Abdul Rahman Bailey Mo Jess Ellis and Darlene lombos Mike hman I'm so tired Mike kishman's orchester the school committee and the public and the public today's meeting marks the official beginning of the creation of our 20252 26 budget every year the school committee approves a budget that is insufficient to provide enough funds and resources that are needed to provide a high quality education for all of our children how many of our children will attend schools that are too cold in the winter and too hot during the warmer weather how many of our children will attend unhealthy unsafe facilities that are an inadequate to house quality education how many of our children will attend schools with inclusion done cheaply and poorly because inclusion done correctly is too costly the same for elll and literacy done cheaply and poorly how many times will the superintendent thank mayor woo for providing our children with insufficient funds how many times would the superintendent emphasize the small number of gains while dumpling or ignoring the major cuts no matter who we elect or reelect May or November whether it be the encumbrance or the son of one one of Boston's billionaires what is desperately needed is more funds by taxing by every means possible the wealth of the super rich until until that day comes many of our children will be harmed and disproportionately our immigrant children are children with special needs and always seconds until that day comes institutionalized child abuse and neglect will perade the BPS until that day comes the sco department will engage us with the budget spe spectacle of the BPS Hunger Games we live in a very rich country state and city this deplorable situation should be considered shameful and unacceptable I call on the public to rise up and speak out against this harm that is being planned for our children their thank you very much Mr hman your time is up thank you thank you our next speaker um haval Abdul Rahman is not in the meeting so we will go with Bailey Moors good evening everyone I do wish there was a snow day tomorrow to make staying up this late a little bit less painful but I'll do my best my name is Bailey Morris and I'm a teacher at the deor elementary and live in Dorchester there have been many speakers before me giving incredible points why the deor elementary Community needs to be maintained and I plan to add to that tonight to prevent this mistake our school has an incredible community of students teachers Administration and families that has gone grown stronger and stronger every year part of this growth has been professional development that every teacher and most pair Professionals of the deor take part in every Wednesday we also come back sooner than all other schools in the district what this adds up to is roughly 150 PD hours every single year 150 hours annually of collective growth 150 hours annually of focused learning 150 hours annually of moving forward and bettering our practice 150 hours annually that has allowed us to move ahead of the district and have a full inclusion model for all grades kindergarten through sixth grade for teachers that have been at our school for just 3 years that has over 450 hours of shared learning for the several members of our school who have been here for over 8 years that is over 1,00 hours of shared learning learning that we use every day to better our school and better educate our students disbanding the deor either by closing the building or not merging us with another school will be a great law to Boston our Educators need to be kept together with our students to continue this growth and to continue to Foster the welcoming and nurturing environment that we do at the deor thank you thank you next speaker is jell Jess Ellis Jess Ellis please raise your hand I'm here oh thank you you can start good morning uh good evening see that's how tired I am um my name is Jess Ellis I'm a 19-year veteran of Boston public schools and uh just a quick note Mr Bloom um service mapping is actually continuing segregation instead of doing inclusion just want to point that out um so imagine you had to have a critical life-saving operation you're dressed in your gown flat on a gurnie ivy in place and you're rolled down the hallway and into an operating room they're waiting for you as a surgeon by themselves you ask wait where's the anesthetist oh I do that too I just got that license what about the nurses and support staff oh I hold those licenses too so so you're good that sounds insane doesn't it what if something goes wrong what if expertise is need what if the surgeon needs help and that's with only one patient not 20 asking one professional to fill the role of many is unattainable yet educators are forced to do this every day you need staff to effectively manage something is complicated as an appendectomy or educating a room full of children in the operating room different professionals have different roles to assure they're prepared prepared for anything don't our students deserve this same thorough preparation isn't a good education just as critical to one's quality of life as proper Medical Care tonight I urge you to revisit some current standard Staffing allocation um a few members of BC have actually alluded to some of this earlier um every inclusion classroom needs a teacher and a parah full-time Services should be push in so students are not segregated lunch monitors should be more than one per 80 students one nurse one psychologist is not enough for 600 students one family liaison is not enough for schools with high need inclusion classes should not have more than 25% of their class with IEPs and one teacher should not have more than one license to do the work the math is just not mathing we need to codify some better thank you your time is up our next speaker um darene lomos is not in the meeting and Sharon Hinton is not in the meeting either so therefore the next group is Ari bran Kathleen chardavoine Mariano Humphrey sua Soo Nicole Livingstone and Gabrielle anato anano har BR hi can you hear me yes we can hear you you can start thank you my name is Ari BR I'm the director of organizing at St Stevens youth programs and a resident of matapan I'm here to ask for your support for the parent Mentor program in the FY 26 budget St Stevens has been running the parent Mentor program in partnership with PPS schools since 2017 we are now coaching 40 parent mentors to work daily with over 800 students at six schools in the South End Roxberry Dorchester and matapan our participants reflect the BPS population 56% Latino 31% black 69% immigrants parent mentors are match with a teacher I'm not going to go into the details because you heard from some of our parent mentors but this year they will log over 12,000 hours of direct student support the program also opens a door into a career as an educator last school year 38% of parent mentors were hired into school-based roles including lunch monitors bus monitors and Paras this year 17 are earning their Lead Teacher credential with Urban college and 10 more are becoming parz we support BPS to create a talent pipeline of Educators that match the cultural racial and linguistic backgrounds of students wellb building economic stability for BPS families we're grateful for the many public acknowledgements from the superintendent and District leadership but the truth is without resources to back up these words we will not be able to continue to run the program at its current level much less scale it up we have been told that schools alone will need to step up to cover the $400,000 in aser funding that we are losing this is simply not possible we need cost sharing from central office there are benefits to the district overall that are more than the sum of each school's investment we are asking you as a school committee in your sole authority to increase or adopt specific items within the superintendent's recommended budget to ensure a sustainable centrally funded line item for the parent Mentor program the parent Mentor program is a family engagement strategy that works it's a student support strategy that works it's educator pipeline strategy that works thank you very much thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is Kathleen shardon hi good evening I'm Kathleen chardo I'm a BPS parent from Charlestown and tonight I'm at advocating for additional changes to the exam school admissions policy first I want to Echo deodor Manning's testimony from much earlier tonight um her request to fix the math and allocate seats to tiers based on the number of applicants the the newly combined tier 4 has averaged over 500 applicants over the past 3 years and with the hard cap on seats to teers that means 200 50 seats for tier 4 that means half will be rejected this is on top of 771 applicants rejected from this tier over the last three years these students live in every neighborhood of the city they come from a wide range of incomes rejecting half of them is neither Fair nor Equitable nor sound public policy I also asked that if despite member cardet her and's advocacy if the district continues to arbitrarily award school-based bonus points to almost everyone regardless of their individual circumstances that school-based bonus points for nth grade applicants be reconsidered these points are not just arbitrary they're ineffective published BPS data shows that before any policy changes lowincome nth grade applicants were earning 52% of invitations that went down to 47% last year when 63% of applicants got those bonus points in addition the district says that n9th grade applicant scores are unpredictable and skewed so they're going to use seventh grade scores to calculate the school-based bonus points for 9th grade this arbitrary approach only cement the exclusion of the applicants who don't receive the points thank you thank you very much your time is cation thank you our next speaker marianao hre is not in the meeting suoo hi I'm tired too um good uh night good good evening black history is American history um I just wanted to say that genuine two-way dialogue must come before any recommendations brought before this committee including the capital plans budgets and more too often the decisions made here leave family students and community members with minimal opportunity for Meaningful input realing engagement means collaborating with the community from the start not simply informing School communities of finalized decisions and transition plans this top- down approach undermines trust and disregards the valuable perspectives of those most affected BPS and the mayor have not provided a clear consistent explanation for these closures the data shifts often leaving school Community struggling to understand the decisionmaking process they are left to piece bps's fragmented information often contradictory about enrollment and other factors how has the data in the city provide the the BPS and the city provided been interpreted communities are actively analyzing available information and finding a lot of discrepancies has this school committee analyzed the same data that we're looking at are you deeply engaged with these issues not just receiving presentations but each and every one of committee members ask asking the tough questions and demanding clear answers even if it's not public a public comprehensive facilities plan and Equity analysis is needed if not these proposals will continue to unfairly impact our most vulnerable students and it's okay to name them black students Latino students students with disabilities students that are native speakers of languages other than English lowincome and overall High need students we need to understand how BPS and each person in this committee considered the equity implications of these decisions before you make any thank you very much your Equity impact thank you our next speaker is Nicole Livingstone hi uh my name is Nicole Livingston Stone I've been a teacher at the deor since 2015 and I'm here to speak in opposition of the proposed closure of our school the justification given for this decision is based on claims of a low building score and limited number of students within a walk Zone which has been interpreted as a sign that we don't provide a highquality student experience as I testified in the last meeting the deor has consistently met and exceeded growth requirements as shown in our school quality reports we've excelled in our inclusion model and furthermore we've surpassed the district and expectations in our service to multilingual Learners which has been discussed at length here tonight these accomplishments clearly demonstrate that the deor is offering more than a high quality education so let's get to the real issue there have been many contradictions in the reasoning for closing our school first our building itself is being eyed for use in the RBA Renovations next door superintendent Mary Skipper you can be quoted in a January 7th press conference regarding school closures as saying quote the deor is in direct proximity to the old McCormack bcla now Ruth Batson Academy building we will need the deor building as either a swing space or some combination of Building Solutions as we go through this msba process end quote needing our building for another school should not be a reason to penalize our thriving school committee Community second there have been concerns raised about the deor not having enough students within a walk Zone to merge into the Frederick building as other school communities are however it was mentioned in last week's Capital planning presentation that the Frederick would be a great option for deor students to attend if our school were to close so these contradictions just don't make sense is it a low building score or because you need the building for another school is it the walk Zone and then why should our students then attend the Frederick we're asking for truthfulness clarity and recognition for the work that happens at our school and our request is simple instead of closing our school entirely allows us to merge with another or you very much your time is up thank you our next speaker is Gabriel anano please raise your hand you can start good evening my name is Gabrielle anano and I'm the family liaison at the deor elementary school I'm here to express my concern over the proposed closure of our school which blindsided our community as recently as this fall we were engaged in discussions with desie to develop a post receivership plan and closure was never mentioned at a time of political instability resulting in students and their families fearing for their physical safety due to the current political climate shutting down and dismantling a school Community where they feel safe is a harmful decision relocating students to an unfamiliar School Community without the support of trusted faces is unfair especially for our most vulnerable students the deor has a special focus on social emotional needs and making sure students feel safe heard and seen dismantling our community is unjust when so many of our students already face instability at home including experiencing housing instability the lack of transparency with this plan to close the deor is punitive to the Columbia Point Community at large including the Harbor Point housing community and Denny Boys and Girls Club which has a long standing relationship with the de going back decades closing the school would have a profound and Lasting negative impact and I hope you will take these concerns into account and keep the de together thank you thank you very much our last speaker um speak on reports is e pil thank God how do you expand inclusion when you can't even keep the Lion's K through2 model open other previously inclusion models are unraveling because BPS leadership has no institutional memory where's the professional learning mentoring ongoing coaching support collaborative planning time for teachers and reading Specialists regarding competency competency ratings how many students dropped out because they have given up what is the racial breakdown where's the data on the transcript study of transformation high schools that water down the curriculum and don't even assign homework how can you guarantee a high quality experience when assignment algorithms Force black students into chronically underperforming failing Schools central office needs to cut the fat you can start with the superintendent's multiple advisors and instead invest in schools teachers and students bps's chaotic Master facilities plan or doesn't exist makes BPS a makes BPS a failing money pit of failed promises and racial Injustice McKinley schools are crumbling in unsafe buildings and all they get are more cameras Equitable literacy represents a sunk cost fallacy it's easier to be fooled that you'll get better results if you keep it than to be convinced that you've been fooled with a curriculum that is not evidencebased a waste of time energy and money seconds Le your data pursuing pre-pandemic literacy levels reflects a deficit mindset of loow hanging fruit just remember BPS received a rating of systemic disarray just before the pandemic so trying to hit those targets is insane saying saying diversity is our strength during Black History Month when black students are de prioritized and black educators are pushed out sounds like rehearsed soulless thank you Miss Bazil your time is up thank you chair that concludes uh public comments thank you um is there any new business all right this concludes our agenda for this evening our next meeting will be um on the BS school committee fiscal year 26 budget hearing scheduled for next Thursday February 13th at 5:30 pm we hope to see you all then if there's nothing further I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting is there a motion so moved thank you is there second second is there any any discussion or objection to the motion hearing none Miss car will you please call the Dr alkins yes M K Hernandez Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss poano Garcia yes Mr Tran yes Mr O'Neal mril yeah to ER Miss Robinson yes the meeting is ajour thank you all have a good night good night thank you have a good night