e recording in progress R Ryan okay if she joining us okay all right everyone uh good evening and welcome to the March 13th 2025 meeting of the Brookline school committee uh we have uh eight of us
around the table tonight and our ninth member Mariah noga is currently remote I don't know whether she'll be joining us in the room later um all right we have just one big agenda item tonight and that's continued discussion of the fiscal year 2026 uh budget development
um before we get started I just wanted to outline uh which topics we expect to be coming up during which meetings uh we have three remaining meetings during March this one next Thursday and Thursday the 27th um so tonight we
expect to be discussing uh Food Services um office of student services workloads um the office of educational equity and uh math Specialists and K8 curriculum coordinators U on March 20th we expect
to be discussing um base Brookline High School custodial services uh Transportation excluding special education Transportation uh buildings and it and I take that to include computer software online services uh and
finally on March 27th we expect to be discussing office of student services settlements transportation and tuition um the Adaptive Learning Center at Lincoln and beep um so I don't expect us to be taking a vote at any of these meetings to send a
completed depending on what motions get made and seconded we might be voting to accept or reject uh individual proposals for reductions all right so um to begin with let's go to our public comment so following our usual uh procedure we have uh 28 uh people signed up actually two
have dropped out so 26 now um so the first 10 who signed up uh will speak at the beginning of the meeting until about 6:30 um and then the rest uh will speak uh at the end of the meeting after we finished our um our scheduled business we expect that to be about
8:30 um so um okay let's uh let's start with our public speakers I'll just remind everyone that you know we we love to hear from you uh we listen attentively oh here's Mariah so we now have all nine of us in the room um we listen attentively to everybody we read
all the emails that we get um but we do not respond in the moment to public comment that we get during our meetings all right um okay our first Speaker of the night is Eric Hansen and the floor is yours for three minutes good evening Brookline school committee
members my name is Eric Hansen and I'm here tonight as a k through2 brookln Public Schools alumnus a lifetime resident and a passionate advocate for our children's future my story is uniquely Brookline as an IEP student
navigating our school system I experience firsthand the challenges and triumphs that shape our students while some may expected me to follow a more limited path I received my BS in Communications and my EDM in elementary
education I then Channel my Brookline education into building a successful company that currently enriches children's lives across Six Massachusetts communities and it all began a decade ago in Brookline when I first became deeply invested in
brookline's after school and vacation programs tonight I'm thrilled to propose a partnership that will ensure the thriving future of Brooklyn Community Ed head and perhaps even Star Academy and project Discovery I'm offering a seamless transfer of ownership to my
company that will maintain the quality and integrity of the children's programs that thousands of Brooklyn families rely on each year we would recruit Brookline teachers who were laid off and all current summer school teachers and Paras we would also provide jobs for Brookline
High School students which would enhance their experience and resumés a gift to brookln driven by my unwavering commitment to our community and the transformative power of these programs this is a heartfelt investment not a profit-driven venture I want to ensure
that programs like video production and graph design classes that ignited my own passions continue to inspire future Generations I vividly remember teaching video production at the peer school in 2014 years later at Boston University a
former student stent told me my that my class was the spark that led her to pursue film culminating in her winning the prestigious VI Redstone Film Festival that's the kind of impact we're talking about this partnership would deliver some immediate and Lasting
Financial relief to the school district by transferring ownership the district would be eliminating all future expenses associated with these programs I understand Bas is working on its own proposal and my proposal is not meant to compete with their
it is an alternative to the closure of these programs my programs provide the same relief to the district that closure would but without the closure I hand delivered and emailed my proposal to each of you last week with the full details Brookline residents who are
interested in learning more about my company can visit SG edu.net this is about preserving the opportunities that shape me and my former students providing some Financial relief to the district approximately half a million and ensuring Brookline remains a beacon
of educational Excellence thank you for your time and consideration thank you Mr Hansen our second speaker is Jim Durkin uh good evening uh my name is Jim Durk and I'm here on behalf of the more than 100 asme School custodians and
cafeteria workers who are under the threat of privatization and I'm here tonight to respectfully pose a series of questions for you to consider as you continue to deliberate this issue on other badget budget matters in the coming weeks but before I get to my first question I want
to dispel a myth that you will undoubtedly hear from management should a formal privatization proposal come before you and that myth is the workers will be fine you're going to hear things like don't worry about them we're going to make sure they're all offered jobs with the contractor indeed these workers
will not be be fine they're going to be cast into economic chaos and under the best case scenario get an offer to do the same job for a lot less money and lousy benefits if any benefits at all with that in mind please ask yourself
the following question would you ever consider going to the superintendent his Finance director and the rest of the administration which has grown by 43% in just four years and say to them you're all doing a great job and we want you to stay working for us but time are tough
so we need you to take a 30% cut in your six figure salaries and give up your health insurance coverage and your eligibility for a decent pension I don't know if you'd consider that but I'm confident in what their answer would be a resounding no but make no mistake
about it in the very near future that is exactly what they will be asking all of you to do to the people in this room the people who take care of your schools and make sure your kids are serve good nutritious meals and they'll ask you to do this without even offering to make a
token sacrifice themselves in fact they want to go in the opposite direction and keep growing just two weeks ago they reposted yet another deputy superintendent job with a salary of $190,000 a year I also have two specific questions for the administration as they
continue to crunch numbers when you lay off all these workers what's the cost of meeting your contractual obligation to pay them for unused paid leave time and will that cost be reflected and what you present to the committee and when all these workers refuse the lousy job offers they get from the private
contractor have you estimated the cost of unemployment benefits this town will have to pay to reimburse the state for those who may not be aware Brookline uses the reimbursement option meaning they don't pay a UI tax like businesses but they are responsible for reimbursing the state for every penny these workers
will collect that's 50% of their pay for as long as 6 months finally I'll close with two questions for the committee and the parents to consider setting aside for a moment that you will not get nearly the same quality of service for a for-profit company it may not even save
any money are you comfortable with the idea of replacing these trusted long- serving workers with a revolving pool of strangers in these times when we're all understandably Vigilant about keeping our schools safe do you think it's a good idea to literally give the keys to
our schools to strangers I left you all with a packet of news articles that shows how things can go wrong with privatization they detail the disaster in shsu where over just a few years four employees of the contractor were arrested for offenses raging from drug crimes to
theft of school laptops cash and even students prescription drugs from a lock cabinet in the nurse's office this is just one example of how things can go bad very quickly when you get rid of trusted employees for the possibility of
some short-term savings thank you thank you Mr Durkin our next speaker is Laura Miller hi um my name is Lara Miller and I'm a teacher at the Lawrence School um I'm writing because as you know the oee department and the positions of CLA Galloway Jones and Christina Hernandez
are on the list of possible reductions due to the budget deficit and I want to take a moment to express my profound gratitude for the essential role this department and these fantastic leaders play in both our schools and our district as a whole Christy has been working tirelessly with teachers and leadership in many k schools throughout
the district to help our teachers grow in our profession and make more strides in helping all of our students and Educators as well as continuing to build relationships with families she meets monthly with both Administration and teachers to further our learning and is by far the most visible Central administrator in the district Claire as
well is essential for our work as a district as she works behind the scenes to enact initiative reportedly important to the town of Brooklyn in fact the oee department is Central to the whole District's Mission and our schools Improvement initiatives that principles have been writing and working on the last few years the town of Brooklyn came
up with a core values and strategic plan that was voted on in February of 2024 included in this plan were the values of celebration of difference and commitment to equity if we get rid of the oee we are directly going against both of these core values additionally since the school committee just voted to get rid
of a position that would specifically look at and analyze data we are at increased risk of not keeping track of this work keeping this department just became even more crucial progress can be slow but I have felt a direct effect on my teaching practice from the leadership of this department and taking away that
support would be against everything Brooklyn claims to Value as a school district and a town personally this is my 14th year teaching and not my first year on my anti-racist journey every year that I've worked with the oee department and in the last two years with christe and CLA I have learned new things and grown in my understanding of
the importance of equity and inclusion the lessons they have taught me have been invaluable in my own ability to teach and grow all my students in the classroom regardless of their background additionally with the anti- Dei initiative that the current Trump Administration is pushing throughout this country we would be capitulating to his administration by cutting this
office and these positions from our district Timothy Snyder a leading expert on the history of authoritarianism says in his book 20 lessons for fighting tyranny that the first step to resist authoritative rule is to not obey in advance if we cut this department we are obeying an advance in fact the fact that
cutting this department and the important work they do is being considered or was even put up on the position or sorry the possible lift of cuts to begin with shows that the district is not really committed to making change and making Brooklyn a welcoming environment for all students the District of Brooklyn already has a poor reputation in regards to hiring and
retaining educators of color and this is an example that feeds that narrative rather than putting the money in the budget which which is an expression of our values if we were truly committed to equity mom and inclusion hold on please we wouldn't even dream of cutting the two people in the whole District who are coordinating and leading the work on
making Brooklyn a better place for our students colleagues and families of all historically marginalized identities I have a version of this letter that I will share with the committee that is currently signed by over 110 teachers and staff of Brooklyn Public Schools showing that keeping this department also has strong support from staff of
this District thank you for thank you for considering the importance of retaining this department in position and I apologize for my children disrupting my thank you very much Miss Miller our next speaker is Michael Rubenstein thank you for this
opportunity to speak my name is Michael Rubenstein and I am a town meeting member from Precinct 13 as well as a candidate for select board today I am speaking as a resident of Brookline concerned about our school RS I come from a union household my wife is a
member of the American Federation of musicians Local -53 5 and we both appreciate the protections and the services that the union provides its members last week you heard during the public comment how much Our Community
Values the hard work expertise and their relationships with the custodians and the food service employees in our schools we can't just speak in platitudes about supporting these workers we have to find a solution that keeps their
jobs I propose a solution that is not only fiscally responsible but also rooted In fairness currently Brookline covers 83% of employee Healthcare premiums I suggest a temporary one-year reduction
in this percentage for fiscal year 26 only a reduction that would also apply to all non-union personnel up to the superintendent this shared sacrifice would minimize the impact on take-home pay especially crucial given the high
cost of living in Massachusetts I believe there is a small number less than 3% that would provide the savings necessary to save the jobs of our custodians and our food service workers this is not a permanent cut but
a bridge to a sustainable solution next year when I expect there will be an override before voters we must work together to eliminate this reduction and ensure Fair compensation for all I acknowledge the difficulty in asking our
lowest paid employees to bear this burden even temporarily however the alternative Contracting out their jobs is far worse for everyone I urge you to redirect your efforts from negotiating Outsourcing
contracts to finding the smallest possible adjustment to healthc care premiums that would save these jobs collaborate with Union leadership and let's show our custodians and Food Service workers that they are valued
members of our community our schools depend on it thank you thank you Mr Rubenstein our next speaker is Jen Malone good evening to the members of the school committee and my name is Jennifer Malone
and I'm a licensed clinical social worker who has served as a middle school guidance counselor for the public schools of Brooklyn for the last 19 years as a mental health practitioner and educator with 30 years experience advocating for equity and inclusion in public schools
I'd like to speak to you tonight about the importance and the excellent work that is being done in Brooklyn by the office of educational Equity the Mandate for this obvious office is obvious all students regardless of race ethnicity gender socioeconomic status or other
identities must have access to fair and supportive educational environments this is a human right civil right and a priority in a community like Brookline that is proud and lucky to be home to a diverse student body 50% of our students identify as as
Hispanic African-American Asian or as part of other nonwhite groups 41% of our student body is considered high need and 15% is economically dis disenfranchised 19% of our students qualify for special education services
and 11% are English language Learners OE OE exists because our data shows significant differences in the academic achieve ment and belonging outcomes for these students as well as those who identify as
lgbtqia O's purpose is to analyze the root causes of these discrepancies and then address them by providing sustained consistent professional development training and support to teachers par professionals and administrators oee
Works in collaboration with OTL and OSS to ensure every single child has access to an excellent educ by training staff in best instructional P practices and pedagogy I have witnessed and benefited personally from
this work firsthand at the florita Ruff and Ridley School where Christina Hernandez assistant director of educational Equity has dedicated her time and talent for the past two years by attending weekly team meetings observing students in classrooms and res
and running restorative circles Christie has become an integral part of our prevention and intervention efforts when it comes to issues of by diversity equity and inclusion she has slowly and carefully built relationships of trust and collaboration with every member of
our Middle School team Educators and administrators alike so that we can saely and constructively look at data and teaching practices with an eye to creating classrooms and curriculum that elevate the experiences and the backgrounds of all Learners her capacity
skill and tenacity created the conditions to engage in conversations and relationships that dig deeply into the systemic issues of racism poverty and the inequitable resource resource distribution once the groundw work was set we were able to confront some
painful realities in our school staff of color not feeling safe and supported in our building and and seal surveys demonstrating a lack of student belonging resulting in lagging test scores poor attendance depression and
anxiety with Christie's leadership we have enhanced our culturally responsive teaching methods more fully reflecting and respecting students diverse backgrounds with christe's example and accessible curricula we have W addressed bias and discrimination in ourselves our
colleagues and our students ensuring a more safe and welcoming environment for all with Christie's encouragement teachers have become more confident in their ability to run restorative justice circles and at staff request she co- facilitated circles for the entire sixth
and seventh grade communities sorry to interrupt if you could please wrap it up yes he has earned the trust of students and staff by being visible on a daily and a weekly basis and helped us move forward from places of Despair and
negativity to spaces of Hope and empowerment whether it has been bringing Arab Muslim and Jewish students together in dialogue or allowing for ongoing racial e Reckoning after the murder of George Floyd she has provided spaces for aapi students to share their stories and
struggles earlier this year in the same public forum one of I'm sorry could you please wrap it up yes there was a three minute limit oh thank you thank you for your time tonight and I hope that you will do the right thing in in continuing to support the office of educational
Equity thank you very much Miss Mone our next speaker is Ed Wong it's actually Wang like the Wang sander Ed Wang y or the Wang computer um Ed Wang good evening everyone um
chair of the former human relations and youth Resources Commission I think some of you still remember um I'm against student facing cuts of custodio Food Services and other
Educational Services that's going to be decided sometime during this whole process it is easier to physically demolish an Antiquated peer school with a racking ball to build a new one that
is far conducive to learning that makes a lot of sense but reducing staff and services a wrecking ball techniques it's not going to work as a homeowner when our school ask for
support I continue to do that to support what we need in this town after my children graduated from BHS 20 plus years ago and I'm still going to support what we do best because Brook line
Education Works let's not get too shortsighted or too reactive to what is happening for next year deficit I appreciate the hard work of the school committee in upholding your
fiscal and advocacy responsibility it is not you guys are not using a racking ball approach it is far more than just numbers on a
spreadsheet many of you said in previous meeting that you do not have enough information to make good decisions I heard that I think a lot of others that participated heard that and also some
said at the end of the day the proposed cut of 8 million is unrealistic unable to meet that deficit for next year the Town School partnership review
will provide some very critical information to support more informed decisions I know about the timelines the town meeting starting on the 27th of May and so forth and so forth but this is a
very unusual critical juncture of decision point I hope that the school committee as well as the town will request preliminary findings so that we all are
more informed when completing the final budget that minimizes the longterm impact of our school broke line Education Works so bottom line I'm against in
terms of the reduction of Staff student facing staff custodial Food Services and additional uh Educational Services custodians and I'm sorry worker are much more if you could please wrap
it up soon very quickly thank you than cleaning up the school or putting meals together for our students when our kids lost their teeth retainers during their meals who did the dumpster diving to retrieve them the custodial
here a Brookline school custodian used his off hour to coach Elementary School students for a Rec team those he coached in the elementary school continue their trusting relationship with him in high
school I can share many more stories of these trusting and durable relationships that are critical to our children during their formative years of development I too was an immigrant if you could please wrap it up Mr wayang Mr
Wang you've gone way over and we appreciate the comments can I have one more minute no not one more minute please wrap it up in the next few seconds all right okay I just want to say this because I heard um from previous speaker and I'm respectful the other uh speakers too you know my M Mo
has always been leaving possible solution to disagreement what we don't need is a Wrecking Ball but a strategic laser focus on how to we deal with the next year budget
deficit so thank you so much for letting me speak and um they are always solution let's work harder what these Solutions are for next year thank you thank you Mr langang um our next
speaker is Greg Porter good evening everyone uh my name is Greg Porter and I'm the k38 social studies curriculum coordinator I've been in Brookline for my entire 20-year career including roles as a building vice principal Middle School social studies teacher grade five teacher and
grade three student teacher and I'm here to Advocate tonight for the k38 coordinators by outlining the importance of these roles and their direct student facing impact the curriculum coordinator role predates my 20 years in Brookline and has been vital to the creation
maintenance growth and success of the public schools of Brooklyn for decades curriculum coordinators provide direct and ongoing support to roughly 200 teachers each across eight schools and nine grades impacting thousands of students and families and it's important
to stress this phrase direct and ongoing we are the direct contact for each of those teachers as it pertains to our respective content areas in the area of curriculum coordinators outline the scope and sequence of units and lessons identify and provide instructional
materials such as slides handouts assessments projects labs manipulatives books and readings we lead curriculum development and enhancement projects organize order and maintain materials for all eight schools work with teachers
to differentiate curriculum to make it more accessible for all students specifically those who receive special education and or El services and all of this work is to ensure a consistent cohesive and Equitable curriculum across all schools every one of these items is
student facing impacting students education experience every day coordinators also support instructional pedagogy by being up to dat on best practices within our discipline and ensuring that our teachers receive training and support in building their capacity we have specialized knowledge
and provide instructional support to teachers as coaches and mentors by engaging Educators in individual grade level and department meetings and by providing quality professional development opportunities for teachers coordinators strategically utilize District funds to maintain and support
current programming while simultaneously driving improvement we write grants to tap into additional funding to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and we are often tasked to identify painful budget cuts to Department materials and trainings to help Stave off teacher
layoffs in this most recent budget crisis the K througha coordinators have offered up hundreds of thousands of dollars of materials cuts the equivalent of at least four full FTE in support of this crisis but our roles are critical
to working successfully with the now dramatically reduced materials budgets coordinators work with teachers and building administrators to collect analyze disseminate and utilize assessment data to track student progress support each student and inform
educator instructional practices and lastly coordinators are present in schools and classrooms on a daily basis meeting with students and teachers and families and administrators special education and El teachers it's my favorite place to be is the classroom in
conclusion I ask you to consider the following what is the true value of the K3 coordinator role and all of the programming worth in comparison to a one-time Savings of $400,000 and remember that these roles and their accompanying programming would
not be a one-time loss it would be an annual one that would contribute to the deterioration of the quality of Education in the public schools of Brooklyn for years to come and even a potential restoration of these positions in the future will carry the loss of Decades of educational and historical
knowledge of Brookline schools for all of these reasons I ask you to please remove the K througha curriculum coordinators from the budget cuts list thank you so much for your time thank you Mr Porter our next speaker is Donna Odell
hello my name is Donna Odell and I'm the kitchen manager at the peer school I'm speaking to you tonight on behalf of the food service department to express our strong belief that the current team should remain in place and the district should not move forward with privatizing
our dedicated and hardworking staff have proven time and time again that we are an essential part of the school community and it is critical that we continue our work as we know our students their preferences Health needs and the daily routines that help help
them succeed in the past a management company was used to oversee the food service operations and it was not well received by either the students or families our current Food Service team has built relationships with students staff and families making us
Irreplaceable we take pride in being one of the first faces that our students see in the morning we go above and beyond to make sure that every meal is nourishing and meets the the specific needs of our diverse student population we ensure that no child goes
hungry or without a meal that fits their needs our staff often comes to work early stays late and if necessary will come in during school vacations to ensure that that we are fully prepared for our students we invest our time and
resources to decorate our cafeterias for special events because our students enjoy it as much as we do we have consistently gone above and beyond for our students especially during the pandemic working tirelessly preparing thousands of meals and delivering them
to our students we we are a department that is diverse in every sense our team feels strongly that we are often overlooked and underappreciated we're feeling a lot of unnecessary stress and worry over the thought of losing our
jobs however we continue to work with heart dedication and a deep commitment to every student that we serve our Stu students deserve a food service department that is familiar dedicated and committed privatizing will break the
bond that we have worked so hard to establish please make the right decision to keep our food service department intact and do not privatize our current team is the best decision for our students the district and the community we care deeply about the work we do
thank you for your time and consideration thank you Miss Adell our next speaker is Judy atanasov can everyone hear me now yes yes my name is judia tanisa and I'm the districtwide school psychologist
for brookln public schools with 21 years of experience in public education and this being my ninth year in Brooklyn I'm speaking tonight with my deep concern regarding the proposal to eliminate the districtwide school psychologist position I have also submitted letters with numerous Brooklyn staff signatures to members of the select board in school
committee and requested that members of the select board move the necessary funds to eliminate the need to cut any positions my position is essential to staff and students across all schools in Brookline I conduct between 50 and 73 psychological evaluations per year for bookline students in beep all of k38
schools BHS and students in private day residential and Hospital settings last year alone I completed 20 evaluations specifically for Brookline students placed in private day and residential settings these evaluations sometimes additionally include academic evaluations and range anywhere from 18 to 17 hours per student some of the
students I assess are part of my as part of my role are often among the most vulnerable Brookline students and present with the most complex learning profiles that demand not only special specialized knowledge but also significant dedication many of these students are non-verbal and face severe medical and mental health disabilities
which necessitates a comprehensive and compassionate approach to assessment that goes beyond standard practices to meet the needs of these students I have had to adopt a new assessment techniques that are not commonly us utilized in the public school sector I also have training and assessments specifically
related to autism that not all School psychologists are trained in and I'm asked to administer these assessments as part of my district by position in all buildings in Brooklyn in addition to my role I also consult with providers school all school
teams and providers such as psychiatrists pediatricians therapists and developmental Behavior pediatricians to support students functioning in their school settings to be clear the district wide School position is not an additional position I work directly with students every day and my case load is equivalent to each school psychologist
in the district the position is essential to prevent misidentification and disproportionality meet the compliance of nasp recommended ratios assure all of our evaluations are completed within mandated timelines to appropriately identify special education students with the use of comprehensive
data assure that our students who receive Clinical Services continue to be seen by highly trained staff and assure this District's resources are used in the most efficient way should the district by position be cut building vas psychologists will face an increased workload as they take on the district y
position case load which will necessitate travel to locations such as Providence Wister Acton resulting in loss times that could otherwise be dedicated to their responsibilities within their schools the district will have to spend additional funds to pay for contracted services to complete psychological evaluations these expenses
are 1.5 to two times the amount of a salaried school psychologist and the services these agencies provide are not consistent with the current standards in place with the proposed cut and the current needs of Brooklyn students the district will also experience the cost of lawsuits due to the lack of
compliance with providing mandated IEP services and adhering to mandated test lines test timelines for all these reasons myself and all of the school psychologists in Brookline insist that you vote to retain the districtwide school psychologist position it's imperative to maintain the current
Staffing of school psychologists and all clinician team members clinical staff team members so that we can continue to provide the highquality support our students deserve thank you for your attention to this important matter thank you Miss tennov and I apologize for mispronouncing your name
earlier um so we've heard from nine speakers so far uh two of our original 10 uh had to drop out so I'm going to move down the list um and ask whether ma Kelly is in the room and would like to speak now instead of at the end of the meeting um okay I don't see her so I'll keep going um is Dan Lipton here and
would he like to speak nope okay that's not him all right next on the list would be Mary Ellen Thorne y yeah right I'm sorry about the short notice
um you can hear me okay good good evening uh members of the school committee Dr gillery and fellow attendees of tonight's meeting my name is marielen Thorne and I am a Middle School Learning Center teacher at drll
school prior to this I was a par professional at Lincoln for 20 years in my time supporting students in Brooklyn I have worked with all grades in K to8 and spent a year working in the adapted Learning Center in my current role I support students in two grade
levels each student's educational placement is promised to be in the least restrictive environment for that to happen I need to provide various res uh resources in different spaces throughout the day I can go from teaching math or
Ela in a small group setting to providing pull out services for phonics instruction to address executive functioning skills or curriculum help in my Learning Center beyond the small group setting I also push in to provide student support in
the general education classroom such as math and English the I and IEP stands for individualized my students as individuals have various needs where in the same grade and the same cohort they with the same teaching team I can be
responsible for addressing their their potentially unrelated skills in their in the same class to make my student facing time as meaningful as possible requires consultation with several adults in the building I meet weekly with the general education teachers for curriculum
modifications and accommodations I can set with our math specialist I partner with the members of the clinical team whether it's a school psychologist the adjustment counselor our guidance staff or a combination of all three students can receive pull out services from our
occupational therapist and speech and language pathologist where we meet and to coordinate the general relation generalization of the skills throughout the day my students may require unique behavioral supports which requires work
with both of my vice principles and for to understand their presentation in the hallway in the classroom and outside at recess to ensure empathetic and appropriate reactions to unexpected behaviors in reactions the administrative part of my
job can include testing a student for an initial or a reevaluation writing reports on my findings and attending team meetings my calendar changes with each new deadline added for filing reports or when a student supports needs change or a new
student is identified and added to my case load I communicate with my families to cultivate trusting relationships that assume the best intention on both sides of this partnership working together to meet the students needs and allowing for maximum growth
over one two or even three years that we may work together this takes time it is a proactive step and I do my best um so I can service the needs of my case load the proposed reduction of Learning Center teachers in the Brooklyn schools
will translate to real life increased case loads uh per special educator which will make completing all the tasks I mentioned really hard or next to impossible to lose these positions would be a detriment to our
most vulnerable students in this population I am invested in Brooklyn I have been here close to 25 years I just want you to think about our students and that's all thank you for listening thank you very much Miss Thorne and that
brings us to the end of our first segment of public comment uh we'll hear the other speakers um after uh our presentations and discussions have ended for the night um okay so to remind everyone the five uh topics that we'll be discussing this evening are Food
Services workloads in the office of student services the office of educational Equity uh math Specialists and K8 curriculum coordinators uh Dr Giller um would you like to start us off with a summary sure thing thank you and good evening everyone thank you all for being
here tonight as well as those listening um we did I just close it I hit the wrong button there so tonight we want to as Dr L shared walk you through a couple of um
slides to accompany each of the various um areas that we're going to discuss first up we're going to give a progress update and I think the order of operations will be Dr given then Dr
schmuckler um then I'll walk through the question around OE and the equity leads and then uh Dr Fortuna I think will close us out so where we presently stand um our initial budget Gap was 8.2
million we received an increase in um revenues from the group health cost that brought the um our 8.2 down to 8 8, 57,58 and the school committee has
presently accepted some proposals as such which uh bring um which have contributed $3 million to the reduction so now our revised Gap presently sits at uh $ 5,163 so with that I will turn it over
to Dr given to walk us through the first part which we've just heard about um is our food service uh Department can you hear me no I'm not going to grow any taller so I'll bring the mic down a little can you hear me
now um is that better okay so one of the um strategies that was brought forward for consideration is uh to move towards a hybrid model uh in
our F food Food Service uh program the estimated uh cost savings associated with that uh was approximately 22249 this number has been updated slightly because as you know from our
meeting last week that we received the FY 26 health insurance uh rates from the town and so I went through the proposals and I updated them based on the actual
um uh costs for next year so not not a significant variation there um but nonetheless uh it's a little bit lower than it was originally as presented so you know we all recognize um that
students need to be um I don't really know what to do to make it better closer is this better now okay Y no problem um so as I was saying uh
providing students with high quality meals is uh very important because hungry kids find it very difficult to learn and focus on um their educational uh learning opportunities and so uh what
we were looking at is is to maintain the high quality that we provide now and see if there was a way to um optimize costs uh so that we could um uh reduce uh the the uh benefit costs that
um um offset our uh educational costs so uh so that was the model that we had presented but in conversation with the um the uh uh director
uh and with all that's going on in Washington right now with cuts we would like to propose um a revised recommendation the recommendation would be that we um we retain the current model for the upcoming year uh while we
explore options um and part of our rationale I'll I'll speak to in a moment but that we would take this charge of 22249 3 and we would uh pay for that out of the revolving
fund so the rationale behind if you could go to the next slide please rationale behind this recommendation is that this program relies heavily on state and federal support to operate in FY 24 28% of our
uh receipts came from federal uh sources and uh 68% came from the state and as we're watching um budgets and programming get slashed at the federal level um we realize that uh this program
in particular is very vulnerable uh since uh the funding is predominantly uh generated from uh municipal government sources so since we are not clear about
what um The Fallout from further reductions will be be to the federal and state aid that's available to us we feel that we should um pause uh any changes to the program until we can see what
funding uh will be available to us in the coming year this isn't going to happen in time for us to make any complete overhaul in a redesign or even modifying the service delivery model if we have to completely reimagine um what kind of program in we
will be able to offer so um since there uh is we anticipate that this year we will um end the year uh um to the Good by a couple of hundred thousand um both the director and I felt confident that
we could absorb this cost in FY 26 without causing any um changes to the service um or the program for the upcoming year so you so if you go to the next slide please I don't know
who's okay great so you know the question is the ability to pay so as I mentioned if we went to a hybrid model again let me explain like the hybrid model isn't Outsourcing everything so I just want to be clear about that there seems to be misunderstanding that we're going to privatize the entire program
that is not what this proposal was about um and is not our intention to Outsource the entire Food Service program or custodial program so I I just want to lay um that to rest that's that's not at all what this uh proposal is about that
a hybrid model means that you have a certain number of In-House employees that continue to be employed and you Outsource a portion of the workforce so I just want to be clear about that if we if we went with a hybrid model we had estimated the
savings of 22249 benefits for the the staff that would remain um the cost of those benefits uh at this time are 121,122 4345 the fund balance I'm giving you the fund balance uh for the last several
years and as you can see the fund balance for the Food Service program has been declining um um over the last several years and um we're pleased to report that uh you know we we'll be able to close this year uh with a positive uh
uh profit and loss and uh that will increase the fund balance in 25 and we estimate between 250 to 300,000 and that is where um we would get the uh funds to support uh this this this reduction
without changing the mod model so that is our uh revised proposal before you tonight um and uh happy to answer any questions you might have uh regarding the plan uh we do seem to have reached a
stopping point for the moment would you like to take questions now or are you continuing it's entirely up to you let's have questions or if you have questions I'm happy to answer so I saw Helen so I have a clarification question are you proposing 222 493 or 344 345 we were
proposing the 222 493 and if we were to do 344 345 which is close what you're proposing for the increase for all of the benefits yes would you feel then you would lower the
the fund balance would go down further than right yeah but our deficit would go down yes there's a correl between the two our thank you our Gap I'm sorry yeah wrong word Steven
okay thanks Susan um I'm confused can I can I ask you to go through a lot of that again absolutely okay so first can you explain why the program is vulnerable exactly how is it funded now and how is it vulnerable right now so
the program is funded 28% of the revenues come from federal sources and which federal sources from the federal government from but more specifically um so Department of Agriculture thank you USDA USDA yeah um
federal school F yep um and it funnels through the state but it's the federal government's uh contribution reimbursements is what we call them sometimes grants and then uh the state is uh provides 68% of our funding so the
two together uh represent the majority of the revenue for the Food Service program with Federal cuts that will trickle down ultimately to the state um the state is then going to have to Grapple that have or have not yet been
made that have well we we saw a cut this just this week right that the cut that was made to the usdaa program um impacts up Us by 3 $4,000 so uh whatever cuts are made you
know that that could impact any of our food service programming um will definitely hinder our ability you know to be able to continue to provide the same level of services that we are now $34,000 is something we can obviously we
can make uh we can absorb some of that but uh without knowing you know kind of the end game at the federal level um it's really hard to to you know move forward with you know so either way revenue is going to be a
challenge so can you go back two slides please two two SL no back one more I'm sorry can you go forward one slide then apologies so in the Food Service hybrid
model yes you're saying return retain the current Service delivery model while exploring options so does that mean the same Staffing profile for FY 26 yes so
then can you go to the next slide please so what does it mean to say I'm sorry can you go one slide ahead I apologize so what does it mean to say benefit savings and benefits for remaining staff what's the staff profile
difference that's being referenced in this slide so if if we went to a hybrid model as I said in originally um we would we anticipated we'd realize $222,000 in savings the hybrid model
retains a certain number of Staff in housee those staff in house some of them also receive Health ins wait but but I thought we're only exploring in school year 26 we're not changing our model we're not I'm I'm talking about the
original program so I wanted to walk you through I didn't want to change the number so you would know where it was coming from so so this is where I'm I'm struggling to understand maybe somebody else in the school committee understands it already and can help me understand what's your question I'm trying to understand what
savings is being referenced you you got it Helen I do then please explain to me I can explain it I'm not sure but we were assuming the 222 493 if we were to privatize okay okay so that was the number that they were
carrying in this sheet however the r if we were to add up all the benefits it would be those two numbers together meaning 344 all the benefits for all the people
in that um in that group in the Food Service workers I was trying Stephen to illustrate health care costs uh retirement costs whatever costs that our benefits are point is the point
is maybe I can try the 222 is the positions that would have been outsourced the 121 because it's a hybrid model are the positions that would have remained and so she's just showing us that either way there would have there was a larger pool of benefits costs
there is only the 222 that we are talking about whether or not it would have shifted or or would have been eliminated but for school year 26 we're not proposing changing the stat profile all it's already proposed now we get to consider it as a reduction because it's
being shifted to the revolving fund so it because it shifts to the revolving fund and off of the general fund it still acrs as a savings for us so the savings sh General to revolving that's that's the only way in which we're looking at a potential
savings to the budget correct thank you correct yes okay yes Helen I would like to make a motion everybody agrees to take the 344 savings out of the revolving fund there
is there's 800,000 now we are assuming more money going into it it's money that we own in the the budget uh I wouldn't take more I mean people are looking at a million there possibly because in past
history Food Services has already run with the def it once the state and the FED started paying for Food Services we were able to to have a bit of a surplus and I think we need to protect that Surplus but I feel comfortable proposing
the 344,000 and that people can go home tonight and know that things are I'll wait so have you made a motion okay well has anyone going to Second Helen's motion to begin with and I have a question
for Helen sorry I did not I'm asking whether anyone will yeah all right second okay um all right so that's on the floor sorry go ahead Caroline you just said some people are talking about a million well there's a million I mean I didn't
say anybody's talking about it what I was trying to say is people can see that we have a fund balance of a million and I was trying to explain why I would not take more from that fund balance I think but why would we need to take more
because we have $5 million right right right okay to be clear to you answer your question you can't okay there's nothing you okay yep understood I understand yep thank you and just to confirm this means no
change no change and no change but you you get the savings that you were relying upon or that we had proposed um can I just make a comment which is before drawing on a um on a revolving
fund balance I would want to know like what percentage that is of the annual revenue um it seems like the annual revenue for food service is a a little over 4 million so we're talking about a a balance that's about a quarter of annual revenue here that I mean that's where it's expected to be sitting so
that's what we're drawing from um Mariah then Stephen um I appreciate the changes that are being proposed um I'm a little bit concerned about proposing the entire 344,000 Helen because I think
that and maybe I don't remember how many people even remember but maybe it's just you and I and Suzanne who Remember The Saga of Food Services every year of in terms of having a fund balance um and having to find for anyone who doesn't know the revolving fund cannot close the
year in deficit and so what was happening in Prior years the the only reason it was mentioned that we have these balances now is because of the federal and state funding and in Prior years the fund was ending the year in deficit and we were having to find or PSB was having to find funds to close
the year at Net Zero um when it was already under its own Financial strain under its regular general fund and having to then take funds from the general fund to close the Food Services deficit was always an endof the year stress and while um I see the million dollars up there and I think it's great
that um the director of Food Services has estimated another 200 50 to 300,000 going in I'm pretty concerned about um what may happen at the federal and state level um of cuts that are even for the current year to be frank with you and um
we've received information through our um I can't remember the name of the advocacy group but it's the advocacy group that PSB participates in around food um Ser or food funding through the state I believe there was a $12 million cut to the next the next year for the
state already for the food Services Program and the mayor or the mayor the governor has said she will not um find other funds and so again I'm just very concerned about um where we're going in the long run with being able to keep um Food Services solvent over the long term
and so my amendment to your proposal Helen would be to almost split the difference and maybe take it as like 300,000 or something like that which represents um the Food Service director's um you know the higher end of the profit and loss again I feel like this is a somewhat stressed ful strategy
but I'm I understand where we're going with this and so I would just like that would be my amendment to here I would find that as a friendly Amendment okay very good thank you I'd like to offer yet another potentially friendly Amendment perhaps unfriendly to separate this into two
separate votes one first to withdraw the proposed cut entirely of the proposed food service hybrid model as it was presented initially of 222 493 and then separately to consider an
alternative mechanism for paying for Food Services as presented by Susan so first to withdraw the proposed cut and then second to consider an alternative mechanism for funding Food Services going forward into Sy y26 why do we need
to withdraw it since there's no motion before because we've been considering Cuts one by one anyway and I think it would help to remove this entirely and then consider separately how we want to consider funding Food Services because if I understand this correctly this is a
consideration of a change in mechanism for payment of Food Services also I think it helps in terms of clarity if I'm a a sample of the kind of person who might be struggling to understand what we're what we're talking about right
now I appreciate what you're saying in terms of if it if we accept funding benefits at some at this level or some other level people might think that we were still going ahead with a hybrid model so rejecting the hybrid but then funding separately okay so who has to
accept the amendment me or you I think you would have to because he made the motion I made the initial okay I will accept that do we need two actually I think it's I think it's up to this no I think it's up to the school committee to ass you don't own the motion now that it's on the floor right the Comm the
committee does so um we can we can vote first to U make Steven's amended version the main motion and then we can vote on the main motion so I would move to remove the Food Service hybrid model as as presented initially as a 222
493 cut to the s26 budget I'll second it thank you Helen um is there any further discussion on that before we vote and then after that if if if we well regardless we can then go to a discussion of what what would replace it okay I don't see any hands up so
let's vote um Jesse yes Sarah yes stevenh yes Mariah yes Suzanne yes Helen yes Val yes Carolyn yes and I vote Yes as well so that one is off the table so let's talk about so let's talk about the um the
latest proposal for for funding Food Services um any more comments or questions about that motion um oh that's right I guess we do need a motion now um well then I'll make a new motion to um
reduce our deficit by 300,000 using money from the fund balance of food services for the Food Service benefits second good sound very
good all right is there a second 3 I'm sorry you said 300 yes yeah sorry I was just trying to assimilate what you had said Helen um no problem okay um stepen you have your hand up no I don't any further comment or questions on that
one all right let's vote on that uh Jesse yes Sarah yes Steven yes Mariah yes Suzanne yes Helen yes Val yes Carolyn yes and I vote Yes as well so guess we'll be doing it that way for one year
and thank you Susan for the revised proposal okay Dr G should we go back to you yes next up we have Dr schmuckler to talk us through um student services um case loads and uh workloads I believe
good evening good evening y me okay no no not really I don't know how to get closer we have to stack people in order thanks I'm sorry I was so slow down is that better good evening okay I'll give everyone a
minute I really was struggling there yeah I'm didn't motivate to do it earlier in the day I don't know no no test test you good okay well good
evening in this my first role as interim um I would love to be able to be here and talk about the incredible work that our teachers par CH I would love I would love to be able
to talk about the incredible work that our teachers par professionals Specialists so this is our speech OT bcba AP PT our counselors our social workers our psychologists um our guidance counselors
do every single day in our schools in support of our students in support of families and in support of the whole school Community um unfortunately what I'm tasked with today is to talk about the proposed reductions that have been made by OSS leaders ship and we're
really going to focus today on as you can see on the screen the first one uh in terms of Learning Center teachers and you heard really eloquently from Mary Ellen Thorne and I want to thank her for coming and presenting tonight just the diversity and the range of things that a
Learning Center teacher does and so we're going to really try and give you both the data that you've asked for as well as the context in which Learning Center teachers and special educated teachers at the high school work and there's a difference which we'll get
into a little bit in terms of what K8 Learning Centers do and our 912 special Educators do um and so we're going to focus on that next slide please so one of the things that people have asked about is what's the threshold
right and this is set by Desi so you can see there in terms of instructional groupings for all students who are outside of the general education classroom less than 60% of the time in an instructional grouping so that means in a Learning Center environment you can
have eight students with one teacher 12 students with a teacher and a par and 16 students with a teacher and two para professionals so that's the requirement that we have to meet we cannot go over that threshold uh in terms of uh
instructional groupings next slide please so one of the things and as you heard again from Mary Ellen in terms of case load and workload right so we're going to we're going to look at a lot of numbers which speak about people's case loads and what we've been digging into and there's still much more work to be
done is really looking in terms of this proposal is what does that look like in terms of workloads uh and you'll see that Learning Center teachers and our Learning Centers offer students with mild to moderate disabilities and so there's a huge range of what Learning
Centers teachers do so for example as you can see in the first that teacher there are 11 students um right and so that's the case load but you can have if you look on the other slide you can have one student with five
hours a week of special education services and so for that Learning Center teacher that's five hours of workload you can have another student that has three hours a day of Learning Center and that's 15 hours a week right and so that's your difference between case load
and workload again as you heard workload includes all of your your special education Ser service deliv a few minutes your consults your work with teachers your testing your meeting with families um and so all of that make up
uh workload and so as we're looking at this proposal and this reduction we're very carefully matching case load and workload across the district we are talking K through 12 um you will see in next slide
please you will see this modeling is for K8 and as I said we'll talk about the high school later but this is the proposed reduction for8 FTE is a K12 reduction so what the slide shows and I'm going to walk walk you through it is
the number of students in our Learning Centers across our eight elementary schools this does not include our specialized programs so we have a number of schools with districtwide programs those students are not in those these numbers this is pure Learning Center
numbers so you can see the number of students across the district the next column looks at our current FY 25 teacher FD number of students per teacher so that's your ratio right so that's your
case load um and then you can see the range and right now we have a range in our Learning Centers between six and 17 and as I described the reason why there is such a wide range is based on level of intensity of the students needs in every Learning Center and you'll see
that it's very can be very different school by school because as you heard IEPs are individualized and different cohorts of students have different needs in certain schools and those often change year by year right and so our schools and our Learning Center
compositions and our instructional groupings also change year by year based on what are the needs across grades I just ask one yeah May when it says modeling for presentation purposes only does that mean that these are not real numbers no these are real numbers but
it's I think I don't people to get the impression that we're looking at a at K8 and a cut at every K8 school so we're looking k12 and so when you look at this we're only talking about our eight elementary schools so but these are these are is
this not the plan then like this proposes I don't tell me if I should stop asking questions because you're going to get there well I hope I get there yes then I'll stop asking questions and I'll ask at the end perfect perfect um so again so this is Elementary but we're
looking the eight fdes were proposed K12 right I think people the impression was that it was and it it may have started there that it was one cut per per elementary school and what we need to look at as again you'll see the ranges in our learning The Learning Centers in schools are very different so when we
actually dig down into workload we need to look at school by School in terms of what makes sense in terms of that cut and you'll see next slide please if you look at the visual what it looks like in terms of fy2 to FY 26 and you can see just on the
visual there's there's different impacts for school right in terms of some schools this change will be an increase of one student per Learning Center on average and in other schools there's a change of three students per Learning
Center per average right and so that's why when I say this is for in only we need to take a look at that y Helen this just a clarified question so you had said if there's a teacher and a par professional you could have up to 16
students one teacher and paraprofessional 12 teacher and two par professionals 16 two teachers and a par professional yep any questions before we and all these classes have par
professionals yes and our paraprofessionals and our teachers just as you heard do pull out services so that's in the Learning Center and they push in to classrooms in terms of inclusion support right and so it's a very fluid model and every Learning Center looks a little bit different
because it's based on the needs of the children in that Learning Center well um so I'm assuming that this modeling is based on minutes and IEPs um and I'm wondering how you accounted for the assessment and the the non so
testing and things like that this modeling is is case load right now and so I think in terms of the work that needs to be done we have been looking at workload and I'm going to talk about I'm going to show you an actual workload um but in terms of and I think that's why there's more work to be done on this is
this is case load and what's behind the scene is the work that needs to get done on workload which is what the the directors are doing and I think there's collaborative work to be done with the directors principal school by school as we dig deep into this in terms of making sure that again we are not uh making any
reductions that are going to impact uh student service delivery and individualized educational plans so the next side of I think there was another question s Suzanne yeah just a quick clarifying when you had the FTE that included CL the teacher and the
Paris no go back you want to go back a slide back what I'm that is just the Learning Center teacher so that does not include to the par professionals that support that Learning Center teacher okay thank you big number so let's so let's look at what workload
looks like oh not yet so this is the high school um and the reason so first of all at the high school high school teachers are called special Educators because they do multiple things right they work in the Learning Center but they also co- te so it's a very different model they
they co- te academic classes they talk they teach strategy classes and then they also teach small group content lessons and one of the things that also happens at our middle schools is many of our there may be cohorts of middle
school students who also need their academic content taught by a Learning Center teacher and that's when you get a Learning Center teacher who might have five students because those students are getting their academic content English math social studies and science or some
variation thereof outside of the general education classroom right and so those are all of the variables that we have to take in account right what what's happening in the Learning Center and it is why you see case loads across the district from six to 17 right your teacher with six
students is likely to be teaching probably academic content and again this is in the middle middle and upper grades outside your Learning Center whereas your younger grade learning center teachers for the most part are are in and out of the classroom teaching special instruction within the Learning
Center uh Learning Center so at the high school um again that's approximate they're 23 special Educators and their case load is 23 to 30 what is in that count however is if you're co- teing and you've got a class of 16 students eight
of those students are in special education that is in that 23 to 30 count so any questions just understanding sort of the differentiation between Elementary and high school I have a question on the VHS report yeah okay I'm going back once so oh please okay go are
you going backward so to stay here is it reasonable to say then we we've got 23 Educators say times 24 25 students on their case load that's what up around five 450 to 500 students getting so 25%
of the student population is receiving stud special services yes okay thanks for clarifying yeah Karen I'm just if you go back one I just want clarifying question oh no go back to another one so when you say arranged that means
some Learning Center teachers have six children for their entire case load or work corre case load case load yes right and some have 13 for their entire case correct or 17 or 17 right okay thank you and the the teacher
who has six is workload is equivalent to the teacher who has 17's workload potentially based on the needs of the student that they're serving right I I understand that do we know that's true mean yeah yes so one of the things
we we have been doing and I'm going to show you a schedule is as we're looking at case loads we're also looking at at what does that workload look like in terms of the schedule so we we do know that this is this is based on fact we do know that that is true but we've got much more work to be
done Carolyn um can you go back to to the BHS slide sure so in the um teach small group content classes y so are any of these and apologies if you said this no are
any of the 23 special Educators um specifically and uh and exclusively assigned to any of our substantially separate programs or this is all Learning Center Lear Center
small group co- teing okay so within that realm yeah thank you so again just like the what you saw K8 this is not our specialized programs at the high school this is just students who would be in you know what's Learning Center or co-taught or small
group sorry just can I just yeah so going back to the K8 model um none of those numbers represent for example um teachers in Rise teachers in ALC these are all just learning CER yeah yeah and
and the students are in Learning Center so it also doesn't there may be students who just are an IEP for speech and language those students don't go to Learning Center so they're not in these numbers either right it's just students who get Learning Center services are we good to okay so um so
really looking at a translation from case load to workload so this is an actual schedule the names are fictitious um and I'll give you just a minute to it's it's a lot going on there um so this is actually a K2 Learning
Center teacher with a case load of 14 which is high if you look at um for our Learning Center teachers at K2 um and as you can see uh there are a number of students um who are receiving and you
can see at the top we've got students in groups of two or three students who are individually who are see who are receiving phonex instruction who are receiving math either individually in small group right I again we're modeling and so again
students of intensity so if next year we added two students to this our Learning Center teachers case load she would have had 16 students which is really pushing it for a K2 so we wouldn't necessarily want to do that but I wanted to show you
a K2 schedule because I know there's a lot of concern at the at the lower grades what that would look like so Andre for example uh joins his second grade colleagues in phonic so his IEP says he needs four times 45 minutes of phonic instruction every day and so you
can see Liam and Sue were in a group and we're adding a third person so we go from a group of two students to a group of three students Pat has much milder needs two times 30 a week in terms of math and some in in pushin uh Readiness
uh which is joined with Emma and Pat and emmer in the same classroom so again this is a model it's just to kind of give you a sense obviously uh if a student moved in with much much more intensive needs this Learning Center teacher would not be able to serve those
needs so that's sort of how case load and that's what we're looking at so how 14 students on this learning SE Center teacher case load goes to the week and then all of the other things that the teacher has to do she has to test she has to go to IEP meetings she goes to
consults she works with families and all of those different things so that's hopefully just kind of just Illuminating kind of what we're looking at when we're looking at the proposed reduction in terms of eight Learning Center
teachers questions but in this in this fictitious case at this fictitious School presumably no teacher is significant like there's no teacher to spare so how I I guess my point is if if there's a staff member who has this much
work going on and we were to eliminate whoever this is where does their work go Al so if you look if you look at the range in terms of all of the schools would need to redistribute so if you go back to again when you're adding you're
adding one student per in many if you look at either this or if you look look at the if you look at that so you're adding one student per case load right and so what what people would do is you look at your case loads and you look at where they are grade wise which is why
sometimes you see heavier case loads in some grades versus others depending on the school because it's just that's sort of what that cohort is so I understand what you're saying but what what you would need to be doing is a redistribution of case loads from nine special Educators for example to eight
but when I look at the case loads here and again this is case load and not workload so it's hard to tell y um I guess what I see is for example I don't see one additional student in some schools I see three additional students I see like that's a significant and
again we don't know yeah yeah we don't know if those students are 1 x30 or 4X 45 right we have no data on what's going on there yeah but um but but on the aggregate again so we're looking at you know there's a range from low intensity to high intensity so you're looking at
the aggregate in terms of what Learning Centers are currently doing but yes and it's a student per Learning Center teacher it's not one student you know in terms of you're looking at incre understood but I guess my question is y how do we know from this presentation whether it's possible and
appropriate which I think is the question to take the eight Learning Center Cuts so you know I think from this presentation I think my goal was to kind of give you a context and um a sense of you know what we're talking about I think there's more work to be done in
terms of making sure that school by School Learning Center teacher by Learning Center Center teacher we've looked at workload and also modeled the workload exactly as you've said from what would it look like again taking a
school and this is day four um just want to remind you yeah taking taking a school and actually modeling this out and looking at what would this look like say at so for example Hazen riscal where um they're already pushing to the higher level of you know in terms of Learning
Center what would that look like and that would give us the answer where where is this proposed cut not going to have um you know everything has an impact but where is this proposal going to have very minimal impact when you're talking about adding a Learning Center
ratio from 11 students to 12 and as you can see from the schedule that doesn't mean there were ever 12 students in the Learning Center if you look at that K2 schedule the most students that are ever in the Learning Center at one time is three so we're not talking about and I think that's why we need to you know
think about instructional groupings we're not ever talking about 15 students at any one time in the Learning Center it's that's across the week I think that um I guess part of my question is really
what does this look like when you model it because I don't feel at this point like and especially also Al knowing what we know about how which of course you know too but maybe not everybody knows that if you have an IEP signed then you're expected to provide those services and so we can't have a system
that is that has zero slack in it because we because it has to be designed to accommodate new students needing services so and certainly I think if you look at the numbers this is not a system that has no slack at all in terms of um you know looking but nor can it right we
can't take it to zero slack either no absolutely not right yeah and and and we also have movein right so we know that right so you know in terms of we know what the pattern is we know what the turn is in terms of what that looks like and I think what you know in terms of the work that I think special a directors and principles need to do is
really model for their schools what that would look like in terms of this reduction and this proposed reduction based on the students they have now if we did it now what would it look like right in terms of of of doing
that to really that question and I have one more question which is um are there national standards for Learning Center teachers in terms of workload that we're adhering to or not adhering to so uh the national standards and I can certainly talk about the the districts that post it so for example Boston which is part
of their contract is 25 25 25 um case Lo 25 students on on a case load um some of all who also posts it it's between I think 15 and 25 I have
to double check our like districts um when I sort of Benchmark and talk to colleagues are very similar to us right it's somewhere between 8 and 15 um but certainly we are you know we don't want a benchmark against the national in in and nor should we right um that's not
what Brooklyn has done we provide robot Services we will continue to provide robot services but we're very much under National benchmarks uh in terms of you know and you'll see in the liter it's called reason resource so if you look in terms of national benchmarks they're
called Resource Centers in most other states could I ask something I just wanted to uh get a more granular understanding of that sample workload you just presented so I mean looking at it so supposing that uh an extra student had to be added to that person's case load and I understand you said that was
a relatively High case load to begin with but where in that schedule could you even think of doing it yeah well and so certainly um I wouldn't necessarily okay so you're I'm hearing people say at a kid meaning like just add make the instructional groupings larger knows
this but yeah that she did that she added Pat and Andre those yellow so you find students that have like IEP so required services and you combine them so you know some of them it looks like
um the one above Adam is that Adam I can't see very well on Friday looks like he's the only one yeah right so she has a oneon-one and that's that's a gift to give that but that would be easy if you had someone else who needed those same
uh instructional skills right to add somebody that's how you do these and I think what also happens you know in terms of I think again I don't know why this particular case is often you you match kids to their needs right so if you're teaching phonics and you have new students you
look at your case load you look at what that student needs and you group them based on what you're working on and so it may be that you might have a you know a higher number than somebody else but your kids so like our three friends um are getting phonics a new student
matches that group and so Learning Centers look at that and figure out what what's going to make sense okay I'm trying to remember who raised their hands in which order so Caroline then Jesse thanks um thank you for this Dr
schmuckler without wanting to create more work for you um and without really even knowing how we do this but if it's available and not not to answer right now um but for the next time or the time after that I'd be interested to um
understand more of in our current Staffing how are we doing um on outcomes I don't know how our our special education outcomes are are benchmarked or measured but um and and I'm not asking you to answer that now but can so
that would be that would be helpful for me to kind of understand like are we doing great as is or are we already struggling Jesse yeah hi thank you um it seems first of all that there's lots more work to do so I appreciate how far
you've come in four days um and the second thing I wanted to say was that this you know sort of a um a snapshot in time of like a week ago that was real but not that you're showing us tonight and then taking a
look at you know once that model's in place that capacity managing model or resource models in place then we can you know work to tunea to say well if two more kids came in that had a general kind of
you know IEP for something what would it how would it perturb it and then it makes it pretty sort of striking I guess if half were removed of the um Learning Center staff what would happen to the coverage and then you know we'd be able to see or you'd be able to see or show
more strikingly what how dramatic differences would be because these are real people with real children absolutely you know yeah with with only a only six or less hours a day schools correct and I think as as you've seen the proposal is for a reduction by one
FTE and again it's K12 right and so in terms of it's it's it's a one ifte reduction uh and that in terms of The Proposal right hey Suzanne and then Stephen so just to note that this is a
schedule for a k to2 person so you know there somebody else for I don't know three to five to right so when a new student comes in and they're a k to two student you're going to be able to fit them in somewhere on your schedule already depending on what their needs
are yeah so so that's not so hard I will tell you that developing the schedule is the hardest part of the whole year so um you know kudos to all the work they have to do to get ready to make that happen but once it's in place you know you can tweak things here and there but you can
add students and you also might lose a student if a student either moves or if a student meets their goals and they no longer have an IEP and and one of the things that um schools do is not everybody has the same grade bands because it's really dependent on student
needs so it's common to have sort of K2 35 6 8 but some schools have different grade bands and have needed to hire over the years special Educators to serve the needs of certain co-ords of students that move up grade by grade so there is variation in terms of how schools are
using their Learning Center teachers and at what grade levels um and so we sort of we really have to look at the distal of all of that um thank you for this so um so so I know this proposed this proposal
was not yours and so thank you for walking us through the Practical consequences of this this potential decision couple thoughts and a question one is that you know we're coming off of a of a period where there was an
interruption in services to students with special needs for Budget reasons and so I think I think the school committee is likely to be uh to scrutinize the consequence of budget-based
decision budget constraint on on uh on on on these students um second one thing that you said when we were talking to you before you took this position that I thought was really encouraging and exciting was that you you had been thinking about
what kind of strategic analysis the district would benefit from um in thinking through what kind of efficiencies we might find in in uh providing services to students with special needs um I know you haven't been
on the job for long but I guess my question to you is is this likely to be the kind of cut you would have proposed is this where would you is this where you would have started do you think I I have to say I I feel very strongly
disinclined myself to support a budget with this cut given the recent uh difficulty in providing adequate services to students with IEPs and 504s especially in advance of any strategic analysis that recommends a cut
like this so it would go a long way for me to hear from you that this and again I know you haven't had the time to do an in-depth analysis to hear that this is something that you would be likely to recommend um before I answer that can I clarify and I think I I think I tried to do this at you when I spoke to you
before um to my understanding the issues there's a difference between students getting contracted Services that's right and what's happening in schs it wasn't that's right it wasn't staffed Services it was contracted Services contracted Services often for students some of them would be Services potentially at home
homebased services Shoring services and so you know I think we I think those got merged in terms of um what's happening at the school level in terms of um and and absolutely in terms of you know those contracted services are integ to
those students IEPs but it the impact was not on necessarily special ed Service delivery across our schools on during the school day so I think you're separating those out but I think that makes it even more urgent that we don't make an error on yet another side of the
equation so that's why I think there may be at least for me special sensitivity right now absolutely as we should have right we are talking about our most vulnerable students who are have you know are plans that need to be implemented with Fidelity and every student you know needs to needs to have
faith I mean I think to answer your question when I um you know when you look at and even this you know looking at the schedule um this is a very busy week and the largest grouping has three students in it there are many students
in the schedule which is which is high for K2 as I said who are getting individualized instruction one-on-one during the school day um and you know I think as you know Suzanne said that is a norm in Brooklyn um but
it is not the norm in terms of um you know I think many of many of our districts so do I think this is a um a a prudent proposal in terms of where we are yes I I I feel comfortable in terms
of the gastal of the proposal I think you as I've said I just need time to make sure that I want to make decisions with with more data than I've been able to look at um and it's not to say that they haven't looked people have looked at the data I think they came up with
this proposal by looking at the data in terms of all the special AED directors this proposal came from a collaborative effort between Lisa and all the special ed directors so it wasn't it wasn't a proposal that came out of nowhere in terms of really looking at in many
schools we do have what would be considered anywhere in the field lowcase loads not everywhere not in every Learning Center but it does it did feel like and I think you know even looking at the schedule that adding you know moving a group from two to three is is
not would not create any substantial impact in terms of special ed Service delivery across the board um and so I think that is why this was put forward as a proposal and again I think as you can see it doesn't mean that the
elementary schools can each take a cut right we have to look at that there may be some that can't right and then we need to look and and the high school is looking at those as well in terms of case loads and numbers right so I think that's I think that's the that's the work that needs to happen now thank you
sure something went by me really quickly and I must not have been paying attention because it just sort of surprised me could we go to where Jesse asked about the high school that slide again because your answer to that so when Jesse did the math he was saying that that would be about 25% of students
are are on case load 2,000 in the school and about 4 450 to 500 there and that number surprised me does that seem it's a bit high it's a bit High I don't think the I mean the the high school special a case load is not 25% um and I don't know what it is off the top of my head so in terms of you
know I think 23 to 30 eligible students um it's not you know they're not 25% of students at the high school on IEPs yeah but there may be 20% or 21% it's not 25 um as the district I think we're up 19 or 20% on the
agregate across the whole District across the whole District yeah marah oh unless this is a follow-up Mariah had her hand up it is a followup okay go ahead Helen so and if you look back from when you were here before so
long ago U what was the percentage of students um was around 16 16 that's what I thought so and today I'm sorry you said it's 1920 I think it's 19 on the and
obviously part of it is probably covid but there's probably other things too yeah okay thank you um I have a follow-up question about par Staffing in the Learning Centers because um I recall for example last
year at Lawrence there were the Learning Center for K2 did not have enough Paras to fully staff and so and I I know that they weren't alone right that was an issue throughout the district so will you be looking also at par Staffing as you're thinking about this because
especially for students who perhaps have a parah on their IEP but then the Learning Center doesn't have a parah you know where does that like it just sort of snowballs in terms of the strain on the Learning Center teacher and the Staffing available so making sure that we're considering that that par Staffing
situation as well that would be great and then my next question is when will you think the deeper analysis be ready day six just kidding um you know I think it's it's you know needs to happen in terms of you
know I think the next step is really for directors and principles collectively to really look at it together uh in terms of um sort of at the school level uh just in terms of the impact and again principles and the directors and principles and their Learning Center
teachers in fact you know need to be part of this discussion in terms of they know what's going on in their school and sort of where the pressure points are so I think that analysis has to be done um you know and again we know times of the essence in terms of decision making um
so it's it's ongoing I would say I guess we need to figure out sort of what what your office feels able to provide in a reasonable time frame and also what the the commit can provide at least you know school by school some a more
in-depth workload analysis within two weeks um we'll certainly take a look at that and will you also do you have more slides on the 4.9 or are we just talking about the eight tonight we're just talking about the eight I can if you go back I can talk a little bit about
just to the first slide um and so that that's with the remainder of the proposal in terms of the 12.9 um as they stand so you certainly heard um the district white psychologist point for nurse a social
work at the high school which is retirement guidance through attrition um the bright Center clinician which is a an in-house Swit switch and a reduction based on need um other point2 at guidance Elementary and then there's 1.1
overall at beep I think as you you know your um Margaret is working on consolidation and as she's been doing that work she's also realized that given the consolidation there may be different Staffing implications and so I think really and she's going to come back and
talk about that so that 1.1 in terms of cuts is not under review in terms of whether that 1.1 will be cut will be reduced but really what makes sense for her in terms of Staffing based on both her programmatic cons considerations and her consolidation so in two weeks time
we will come back with um Clarity on all of those as well okay so that'll be quite uh quite an OSS presentation two weeks from now because we're currently also planning to do settlements transportation and tuition at that meeting okay so I mean we can we can
discuss but that just yeah yeah I mean okay and so is from the committee's point of view is the idea that um sort of every Learning Center reduction would need to be like for we would need to have explained how that case load workload would be T is realistically
taken over by others at that school okay yeah yeah well I'm asking the committee I mean is is that the level at which we're asking Dr schmuckler to to present next time I don't know we need it at that level if if she can assure you'll show us the case loads and you've showed us
the numbers I think that should I mean you know I think that should be okay okay uh what I was going to ask though for is is those positions that we're cutting just I guess to somehow inform
us of what who will do that work if that person that's the question yeah okay yeah I guess that's a less convoluted way of asking what I was asking then I agree with you are you asking about this list or more specifically Learning
Center you asking about this okay yeah can't I'm sorry taking for example the retiring social worker how how is it thought to divide that case load and Matt Matt has looked at that in terms of the data and we'll present that in two weeks time in terms of it every one of
those cut has an impact because it pushes other people's case loads up yeah um and so the data will show what does that look like and by how many and by how much um and and he has done that analysis um and so he'll share that in two weeks time the yeah of all of the
the 3.8 or whatever that is at the be cor correct yeah you and the beep Margaret will talk about um what makes sense in terms of um the programmatic decisions that she's making with consolidation um actually can we go to
Jesse first and then back to you Mariah is it um too early to ask about the districtwide psychologist then do we want to wait until it comes back up Andy or can I just ask a clarification question about it so um there are today
school psychologists onsite at each school yes and given what um our speaker um spoke about before on the districtwide level it seemed like a lot of um her work was um specifically and explicitly student
facing is that correct I mean absolutely yeah so and and is she certified at a level higher or different with additional certifications than the other no not necessarily I think because of the work that she's done she's developed expertise in certain areas as she explained because she does do a lot she
does do the out of district testing um so many of the out of district schools do not have their own psychologists and so we end up having to do some do but a lot don't and so we end up having to do all of the evaluations through District Personnel
so so she does she does all of those as well right so there again it's that look at how how what what the impact would be on the steady state y of the one psychologist per school if suddenly a districtwide psychologist isn't there
and now you're pulling people out to go to out a district and all of the other functions so that's ACC that Gap needs to be looked at because that could end up being more expensive than the 1ft sa some of our bigger schools we have 1.5 1.6 they're 4.0 psychologists at the
high school um so but but yes yes thank you that that will have impact yeah Mari so um you said in two weeks though Matt will sort of talk more about all of that um my question now I'm really interested
to hear that but and maybe you can say oh well Matt will talk about this but the the bright Center clinician and just more or less how this impacts our relationship with bright in general okay but it doesn't have to be tonight you can say I'll do it in two weeks I I can do the quick um so we currently have a
contract with the Brooklyn Mental Health Center for two social workers this actually came on their request they have struggled to staff the two fdes that serice bright um and currently there's actually one social worker serving bright and the there's one vacant
position right now that they have not been able to fill so we're moving it inhouse and because they've had the one clinician they have really managed really well with just the one clinician so this proposal came out of just our experience um and so it's that's sort of
it's a budget neutral um piece in terms of we're bringing the contract inhouse right now it's in contracted Services we're bringing it inh house um and it is one of the pieces and in terms of where we need to do work on this is that it it might have already been double counted
uh in terms of that so we just we have to um kind of calibrate and make sure that that hasn't gone twice in the count by twice in the count you mean it's not actually a savings because we're shifting it from a contracted service to inh housee yeah it's budget neutral but
it may have already come out of the base so we'll wait to hear more about the actual in two weeks exactly and if that isn't then we're going to need to look at um at other efficiencies in other places but more broadly if I recall
correctly bright is for students who are returning from significant absence so we will still be addressing the needs of those students like I don't know whether we're currently meeting our needs whether we're overstaffed but we but Matt will also talk about whether we're meeting the needs of those students and
I think that decision was made because we are very much meeting the needs of the students in terms of the volume also in bright they've also been using it it is for kids Who coming back from hospitalizations but they've also been using it to prevent hospitalization so it's really really providing sort of that that wraparound support but it's it
has worked really well with the one clinician and it is my understanding that the current clinician is interested in shifting into the FTE from you know contracted clinician to a BHS clinician so the continuity will stay will be
there this might not be a question for you because it's because I don't I don't know how much you've been able to delve into but where in the budget book does contracted Services show up um under the professional isn't it
the professional and Technical Services L that's that's what that means okay thank you okay uh are there any more questions or comments for Dr schmuckler right now okay so U you have quite a job ahead of you in the next couple of weeks oh
Helen yeah I want to thank you for jumping in in four days and being able to explain all this and getting us the slides and getting us at least three qus of the way to where we need to be so thank you so much my pleasure thanks Ellen
thanks can I just make one comment yep Andy so are we agreed that we not voting this tonight we will wait until two weeks to F just close the just to make it explicit I didn't think it was even necessary to say that but um yeah it is okay okay um all right um so this takes
us to the office of educational Equity Dr gillery do you want to um remind us of what was on the table here yes so the I think there was a question about the um the equity leads so this uh slide is
to provide some clarity around that the fy2 26 budget uh requested $44,000 to support the work of the 22 Equity leads um this was being charged
to the title two Grant and should um there be a widescale shift to oee or to that office uh this These funds would need to be reallocated so uh last week or last time we
presented um the Oe reduction that was listed there was for the uh entire office the two staff members and the um the accompanying budget that went along with that minus some reductions that we
had already taken out but the question was about the equity leads and where was that funding source and that funding source was in a different uh budget line which is titled to we currently have 12 Equity leads um at 24,000 for this
school year that have been charged again to the title 2 Grant um an additional additional connections to oee is that the bef has also um committed to providing uh funding
for um OE for next year which was is the ideas membership um as well as tech services to support the equity Cycles um at the to the tune of $99,500 so all of this in
total the 44,000 for title 2 the 14,000 from bef and the 9500 from bef should total to $67,000 14 of that is um well the what is that
235 is on um on bef and so we would if OE um is reduced in its entirety we'd have to reach go back to the bef to repurpose that particular funding or um
look at other ways to provide services inhouse I'm sorry I I maybe missed something how what adds up to 67,500 here 44,000 from title two and then the
235 from bef oh did the proposal presented last time include um not funding the equity leads the propos last time that funding did not include the equity leads oh y
that was one sure so um does this mean that you're saying that in addition to the $337,000 from last week you're saying there's an additional $667,000 in savings I guess I'm I'm confused what we're seeing here so what you're seeing
in addition to what was shared last week okay what you're seeing is $44,000 entitled too yeah and then that so this is additional um savings associated with that and you're seeing $23,000
23,500 from the bef okay a bef Grant thank you all right that's and then Carolyn yeah thanks um so what what are we allowed to charge the title to Joe do you want to speak more to that it's professional title two
is professional development services as such but Joda can give more details around that that's basically the detail um is the only allowable expense for title 2A is professional development expenses actually what is our grant for
title 2 this year and or do you know next year's even we are Level funding um next year not knowing what's happening with the federal government and I didn't bring my budget book in so I can't tell you how much it is this year in total it's in the back of the budget book
though oh okay thank you Sarah is commentary allowed or just questions of course commentary is allowed y um some of the people that we heard from tonight said so much so I just want to make sure that everybody
heard when laara Miller Miller said that people who have been in this type of work for years find that what they're learning what the equity leads are learning is is still you know current and pushes them up to another level and
so I just wanted to break down a little bit what's up there for you is that when you have a model where you have um the assistant director of oee training the equity leads and then the equity leads eventually bringing that to um to
teachers you have a very coste effective um model where we're using our in-house staff in order to get to the teacher and then to the student so I just want to make sure in case people don't kind of realize just how valuable that is that
you heard it when Laura Miller said it um that what the equity leads offer the teachers is even for somebody who's experienced in this type of work is still outstanding Carolyn and then Helen so Carolyn and then Helen so sorry that's okay I had had my hand up and then I ran
out for a second no problem um where it says the bef is funding for FY 26 bef has already made has already done grants for f26 yes
okay in their current cycle like rolling or from or that they or that they granted last year in October yeah they moved it to align with our budgeting cycle oh perfect right they're systemwide GR perfect thank
you Helen y so I'm curious this year we have 12 this is for you Jody uh we have 12 Equity leads and you're talking about going up to 22 for next year and the reason being the plan was always for the 22 but
this year we were only able to secure the 12 I see so so not for lack of funding it's for lack of people who wanted to do it that we're able to commit to it at that time I got it
y b thanks does the the BF Technical Services support training the equity Leeds that was more for the um the services for big I believe um for the
video modules so chrisy was working um on a resource uh repository for educators and a video repository for educators and so she um rather than doing that herself as she had started
doing it um we pitched a proposal to bef to have big support that work believe and that's a real current way of offering um training to teachers is like on your own time with videos heavy moduls and the moduls you know sometimes
can be multifaceted you'll have both video and readings and and then time together to talk about it and it just it's a way to reach more people um I'm just trying to get clear is this an informational slide or is is the administration now proposing that in
addition to the um two positions that were proposed to be cut last week we also cut these things I think this is this is an informational slide but it was in response to the questions around um the equity lead funding so we wanted to provide you with where that comes
from now if that um so what's sits within our budget purview would be the $44,000 um under title two um and we would have to then um if this is um
absolved then we'd have to look uh go back to the bef to say how we could we repurpose These funds um for something else as such bless you that um this would not acre to any
savings that would be related to closing the Gap I just want to make sure everyone understands that because the 44,000 we have already cut all of the PD out of the operating budget
so there's no other there's no other there's no other purpose to which those funds could be put right had critical PD and literacy PD retained why couldn't you reallocate it to literacy PD I don't know could you do that I guess you could okay and the same thing for bef I mean you could I'm not saying we want to do
these things I'm just saying we don't know if they'll allow you to reallocate but if they let you reallocate you should be doing it to something that would save money I mean gez why would we be doing this if we're not trying to save money right like that's the that's why we're here unfortunately so
okay yeah right is there any further discussion or would someone like to make a motion so I'm confused what what are we moving I know we haven't moved it yet no one has done it yet I I have com okay um so s Steven's hand first and then Mariah um I have question for Dr Giller
so if the oee office were to to cease to exist where would some of the core functions of the OE office move specifically um where would the work around reporting out on on bias
incidents go where would some of the work um reporting and adjudicating cases of hate and bias incidents go and this is just putting aside work relating to
um their core Mission relating to dis disproportionality across academics and so on so great question Stephen we're actually looking at that for all of the central reductions as such um the work that uh
the team had been doing was in close connection with uh student services so some of that would live there um as such um uh the certainly the bias work um much of that lives we have it in Human
Resources uh as well certainly the the adult pieces of that and then the schools it's still that work still sits with the schools as well but it's coordinating it centrally and we still have quite a bit of work to um do around that once the dust truly settles with
all the decisions that we're making am right um I have a very hard time voting in favor of this proposal um I think it was the right thing to do to bring it to the table to talk about it because it is a
central office and I think we needed to look at all of the options um and I think even in the was it last week that this came to us okay last week um we have seen
further dismantling of um the federal infrastructure that protects our students the Department of Education half of the employees were Rift last night two nights ago two nights ago um we have or at least I have
I didn't look at the news today so I could be behind um very little information on the impact of this on our students and the protected classes of students um within our district um and I have similar feelings about this for office of student services as well as we
see the federal dismantling of um supports and and protections for our students um letting go of any of those protections here where they most directly are seeing our students and ensuring that those protections will still be retained for our students who
deserve them um it concerns me greatly that we would um that we would take that that we would open our student and our staff up to that level of risk um and so I think that when it
comes down to it I don't see myself being able to do that I think that our students and our staff deserve better they deserve to feel safe they deserve to feel protected and while the federal government is not providing those levels of protections and in fact is making people feel vulnerable and scared um we
need to be reinforcing those protections locally so that's where I am on this right now I don't know if we're taking a vote tonight or not um but I feel Gravely concerned for all of the different groups impacted um and I think we need more
people supporting our students and not fewer um Val and then Suzanne um maybe Susan if you want to go first you're making a comment I'm making a comment what are you doing comment and AEM motion go ahead
oh um I actually agree with Mariah wholeheartedly um as someone mentioned tonight uh we actually are very close to a minority majority in our student population certainly at the high school probably down at the kada eights uh this is part of our core values we saw that in our
strategic plan we see that in our budget book uh this is a resource for 8,000 people plus 7,000 plus students and 8,000 plus staff all needing protection and help I do think that this is a student facing uh department and many
ways we've heard from many people uh the the contact they've had with oee the help they've gotten the the resources they find there uh are OE people are hard at work out in the field they're not up here on the fifth floor sitting down they're out in the schools they're
working with students they're working with families and I believe now is the time to recommit to our core value and to offer our support uh through the office of OE thank you thank
you thanks suzan Val thank you um I I don't disagree that at the federal level in particular we're seeing horrific horrific um policies and decisions hourly by by tweet or whatever it's
called now um at the same time I think that our um our students and our staff are best served in the buildings with programs like Steps success the calculus project
tutorial Scholars metco um Ace in the in the face of a $5 million budget Gap it's hard for me to think about a $337,000 office when we still have a $5
million gap um I want to support safe spaces I want to make sure that we're fully funding all of those building based programs um but I would move that we take this $337,000 reduction is anyone seconding that
motion I'll second it thank you Helen right so just to be clear you're talking about the 337 from last week nothing on the slide that was first presented tonight well I don't think I understand this slide I don't think I
the 337 is when I'm moving yeah I think the actual amount is 45045 um oh um it's that it's our original number can I plus this yeah well but that's the that's my question Val Val who just made the motion says she doesn't understand this slide um
this is a new proposal tonight um in fact it was a surprise to me that it it was it's Being Framed as a proposal at all because it was actually as you said Dr Giller a response to some questions actually members I think were seeking reassurance that some of these activities could continue um without the
without the central office staffing um and yeah I was personally surprised that this has now become a proposal to eliminate these things as well um I don't know how other members are understanding it um Val yeah you want to clar or just I want to be sure I'm understanding your motion correctly my
motion is the original amount yeah so not including this I don't think I understand this one yet okay can I just comment first on my second yeah um because I I want to make it clear I value the people who do this
work I think it's really important I think if we were in any other situation right now we would not be cutting this I think that um but I do believe as Val said we do have what's the most important thing are the programs that we
do do for kids that directly affect them um steps of success the uh calculus project um all the um the other ones that we have and taking kids into beep which is a critical piece I mean we
presently are supporting 40 kids on scholarships mostly from brooklane housing that kind of work is really critical so um like I said it's really pains me to do it but I think we have
to okay Sarah and then and then Mariah I think our commitment to equity is one of the things that defines Us in um this town and I um feel that you know it's throughout our strategic plan it's something that I when I think of who we
have as students and what they get out of um what what coming to school here um tolerance for each other and success for everyone is a big part of what we do this feels really core to me and you'll notice that it is in you know all of our
different departments doesn't just live in the office of educational Equity I think that when people say that we have these programs they're specific to certain groups and in order to continue the work that's been going on for years here in Brooklyn that we feel very proud
of um I think that we need to have an office that oversees all of that especially at the K to8 level where those programs you've mentioned aren't as strong as they are at the high school um and the thing that really brings it home to me is the response to racial
incidents I don't think that our building principles on top of everything else that they do can really delve into these issues in a fair way to have the the work that Claire and Christie do to have them show up and back up the
principles when they're you know sorting through these different issues are invaluable and I I just can't really imagine what's going to happen if we don't have them marah um I I just I guess I would frame
a question to Dr who would even do these things on the slide my understanding is these things are going away because there would be no one to lead these efforts so is that correct because that's why this money would be acred to the original proposed savings because there is no one to do this
work so when my team and I discussed this earlier today the the we asked that very question if the office were to be dissolved um that leadership piece the
part that um Sarah talked about earlier um would be missing and so this synchronized coordination I think is what gets lost there it um and so that's that's that
was our hard grappling Point um as well so that's the the manner in which we thought about it doesn't mean that it's impossible for it to occur but it won't have I think the same
gravitas um with the the coordinated efforts um that both Claire and Christie have been leading within the organization so you know part of it was to your response uh to your question Andy was um yes this was put up in the
context of these were responding two questions and the question was what where what other funding was connected to the office of educational equity and that additional funding was the
$444,000 that sits in the title two grants um and then Claire also share shared where we also have the bef funding that's connected to that so that coordinated effort is the reason why uh this slide was created just to say here
is the rest of what's connected to the office of educational Equity is it the recommendation of the administration that if the two central office positions were to go away then this activity would be so hard to carry on
that that we should also make these Cuts as well well it it's the the synchronized the synchronized leadership of it I think so um you know if the entire office goes
away um that coordinated effort I think is the way uh is Claire back there um Claire do you want to share your thoughts on
this uh yes so without Christine and I it it would be incredibly difficult to continue to do this work we are still our our plan was to train the trainer and we have started doing some of that work but we're not nearly where we need to be in regards to making sure all of our Equity leads are trained so they can lead that work in the buildings we only
had three Equity Cycles this year and so we still have schools to get to we're doing residencies we just did Lincoln this week but we have not done our Equity Cycles at Lincoln Baker and so there's still a lot more work to do um as well as Drisco And in regards to the memberships
and things like that you know um if we don't have the equity leads and we don't have professional development that's what the membership was for so we can make sure that we can make um ensure that we have professional development all of our Equity leads and people participating in the cycle thanks now
Caroline thanks um just general comment and to kind of bring it back to um what we're doing which is trying to balance this budget and kind of where Val started um we have a long way to go
we've um been talking about amongst ourselves hearing from the community um hearing about the changes you know we know what the changes have been um in the central Administration over the past number of
years um and it's grown substantially um you know we've gotten a lot of feedback um some feedback from from teachers former head of the high school who I I think uses the phrase raise
equities in the schoolhouse we have wonderful building leaders we have wonderful teachers um this is an office of educational Equity um we want to ensure
that our our students are are um in small classes to the extent possible with teachers we heard this from building leaders um at a curriculum subcommittee meeting talking about um improved mcast
scores um so and and we have to cut things we can't not um and and for anybody who's thinking about not cutting this to zero and and having to go to the
town um we can't do that if we have not exhausted every um possibility that doesn't touch um Educators in the classroom so um that has to be our our
Focus difficult as it is H yeah Stephen um I just want to make two remarks um one is that um as as we all know we've
received we've we've we've watched many presentations on the school committee about various disproportionalities and academic achievement and socio emotional learning and belonging in uh sped referrals in disciplinary action and
they've all they've all shown um Stark racial disproportionalities the Stanford opportunity project prior to covid showed that Brookline was trending the wrong way even relative to our peers and that difference was also
Stark um our solution to this at the time was to staff up the office of educational Equity because even though we have many individual programs that are designed to remedy some of these disproportionality specifically at the time we diagnosed the problem to be
systemic so our solution at the time was to try to address the problem systemically through a centralized mechanism that was the office of educational Equity we then wanted to staff it up because now I feel like I'm being Helen trying to give a historical
perspective but this is where this is where my mind is that then we wanted to staff it up because we thought if we weren't sufficiently addressing it systemically the what we had to do was double down and put more resources towards the systemic
problem um the second comment I want to make is that we've received a tremendous amount of uh comments on the office of educational equity and one thing that to me separates these comments from the comments on other budget items that they
is that they seem to be markedly ideological very few of them I think actually concern themselves with what the office of educational Equity actually does um some of them did a few small number
of them did actually talk about what what OE actually did those were written by students who UNIF warmly advocated to us for retaining uh Christie who they thought was providing real value to them as students and teachers who talked about
the the professional development work that the office of educational Equity was was doing and that was not ideological they were talking about the real value that OE to their mind was delivering and that really made an impression on me and I'm saying that because if we are finding that oee is
not delivering results if the data does not show as it does not that there has been a change in the disparities of outcome and a lot of this of course is not O's fault there are National Trends but there we are also investing locally and making a
difference and if we're finding that we're not making a difference that does not necessarily mean we have to abandon a systemic investment in making a change it could mean that we could change our approach I think to divest from an oee means that
we divesting from a systemic engagement with racial disproportionalities in the district it means we're in the name of closing this budget Gap I know we have major budget constraints right now but the idea of abandoning a systemic
problem in Brookline is that's right it's not just racial but it's all kinds of inequities that's deeply troubling to me even if it's to go back to a deeper investment in individual programs that we know that
work I think we have we have systemic issues in Brooklyn and we need to address them systemically so that's my comment and that explains how I'll be voting thanks for listening all right the motion on the floor is to eliminate uh the two central office positions in the office of
educational Equity if anyone wants to propose an amendment it better be now all right uh let's move to a vote and let's start at the other end this time so Carolyn yes yes Helen yes Suzanne no
Mariah no Steven no Sarah no Jesse yes and I vote Yes as well yeah given that sorry given that vote um is one of the people who voted yes maybe going to move
the additional 675 I'll move it if no one else will do I have a second second any discussion on that one Carolyn
yes yes Val yes Helen yes an I don't even know abstain Mariah abstain Steven yes Sarah no Jesse yes and I vote Yes as well all
right and this brings us to math Specialists and K8 curriculum coordinators Dr Giller or Jody uh it's Dr Fortuna the office of teaching and learning holds a critical responsibility to support the academic growth of every
student in our district our work is ink in a vision where every student is equipped to grow intellectually think critically and develop empathy as they navigate our complex and everchanging world this Vision shapes and drives our daily efforts within the office of the
7,080 students the district serves 4,69 are in grades K to8 the OTL budget reductions being discussed tonight will directly affect these K to8 students this impact to K to8 adds to the already difficult Cuts we've had to make in
supplies professional learning and Leadership with in the office of teaching and learning this evening I'm presenting a revised proposal for the curriculum coordinator structure a plan developed with a deep commitment to a vision the belief that every student
deserves the opportunity to grow intellectually think critically and understand empathetically has been Central to the reflection and revisions of this proposal reducing one senior director position and non-essential PD have also been key factors in reshaping this plan
despite the significant budget deficit propos projected for FY 26 I have modified the original proposal to reduce 2.8 FTE positions to a proposal to reduce only 1.3 FTE positions for the curriculum coordinators after careful
consideration it became clear that our Middle grades particularly in curriculum content areas require more direct support with that in mind I'm presenting the following revised curriculum leader structure for the office of teaching and
learning one director of Elementary education for K to 5 a director of Middle School Humanities a director of Middle School stem the new one is this one and the reason for this is um to
have content specific PD and and meetings for um our stem departments and our humanities departments where we cut all non-essential PD um this year I felt
that this would be an important ad um back in for our structure also given the loss of a senior director there won't be somebody centrally that can backfill some of that work um so the recommendation is to have content area
collaborators for our middle school and a director of Elementary education which is a fairly standard model for our K to5 do we want to take MTH Specialists separately yes wait so the curriculum coordinator reduction is now the top proposal from
the previous proposal yes it's um 1.3 okay and I'm sorry Jody this is thank you so the previous the previous proposal would have eliminated all curriculum
coordinators had a director of Elementary education a director of middle school education and it also would have completely um eliminated our director of World Language position this takes that position Our World Language position down to a 0.5 position she'd
have a approximate case load of um 14 teachers and the humanities and stem Coordinator would have a case load of 41 to 42 so I'm wondering why we wouldn't have the high school coordinator do six
through 12 it would be adding eight schools onto the high school coordinator's um position this would actually create positions that are equal to the high school positions so it would add three
subject areas three different contents six seven and eight even though it's also um use social studies for an example um since we heard from Greg tonight it would add um those three content areas on top of the four that they already have spread across eight
schools I didn't feel that that was realistic for them at one point it might have been but um Jody could you comment on how the literac the literacy data work will be done now and I'm just sort of looking at
the director of Elementary education and now there's two Middle School positions but only one Elementary education position and maybe none of these positions we're going to do the literacy data work but where is that going to work going to be done now that will still live um centrally with either me
doing it or me in a combination of our elementary um director this okay this position I see but in terms of um students served and and staff served is
it not quite discrepant to have two Middle School directors versus one Elementary director it is the um thinking behind it is at the elementary level we don't want to be starting too many initiatives at once so we really want that person that can follow an
initiative from beginning to end and make and then start the next initiative with the elementary um people the difference for me and thinking about this between the elementary and the middle school is that our Middle School
people really need that content subject area specificity elementary teachers do as well however there's only so much that an elementary teacher can handle coming at them and we don't want them drinking out of a fire host
Caroline um and then I'm looking at the so and Visual Arts health and wellness and Performing Arts no change no change okay thank you Sarah I'm surprised I don't know the
answer to my own question I'm gonna ask um you for something specific so I see in the title curriculum coordinator right and I know that our town holds really dear the idea of not putting a textbook in front of everybody and
teaching our kids the same things that are taught in Florida California and Texas right we want we want to have our our teachers really you know teaching what they're good at I'm not convinced that what I see up there would help with
the curriculum coordinator part of it so are we is you know we're getting to know you are you assuming that we will rely on textbooks and paid for curriculum more often um if we replace our
curriculum coordinators um with these directors of Elementary education um and the other two I could understand how they could be very good at at helping us out with differentiation and how to teach like what are good pedagogic pedagogical
strategies but I'm not sure where the curriculum coordination sits anymore this is where the change actually comes in Sarah I wasn't sure that one Middle School well I lost confidence that one Middle School person could do it and so
by giving somebody two departments to be able to coordinate that curriculum it won't be at the high level that we have now because we have a single coordinator for each department but with the middle school focus and the um ability to have
just two departments I was hoping that that would actually help more with the actual curriculum coordination and not allow us to slip back into a simply textbook based um model for our middle school I guess I understand your point
about how the um elementary teachers can't drink out of a fire hose but I don't really understand how a general educator could be specialized in you know third grade teacher could be specialized in math science Ela and um
and social studies so is the reality that we don't teach as much science and social studies and we you know really dig deep on math and and Ela is that what we could expect to
see um I think that's a yes and a no um piece it's a yes and um our new literacy program is not a replacement for science and social studies instruction at all but it does have some science and social
studies woven into scope and sequence that our curriculum coordinators now are really working hard to align and to make sure that um the the units are in place um are we have a fairly established math
curriculum with um investigations right now we have um a social studies curriculum that Greg Porter has worked and written grants for that is coming into play now and science is probably our weakest area
where um central office and um that would be the next area that the director of Elementary ad would really have to focus in on I'm trying to think of other Solutions and I don't know if this makes any sense at all but I think about the high school where the curriculum
coordinators have a number of courses that they coordinate but they teach course would we be able to get these kinds of savings if each curriculum coordinator taught one course in one of the schools so point two we tried to
figure out how that schedule would work with continuity and we couldn't come to a good place with anybody besides the World Language coordinator um because World Language doesn't meet every day within sixth grade it's easier for her
to teach a class and have a common section um um with having them just do a point two they wouldn't necessarily have the same kids every day and it could be disruptive to the students learning because of the different schedules between the
buildings they could oh I see this um could I ask you a question um about of what um what the OTL or chart would look like after this so all so these 3.5 curriculum coordinators would all be your direct reports um and then
so the the remaining senior director of teaching and learning would their job description change from what it currently is it would change um they would all those wonderful programs that Helen just mentioned um steps to success
um Scholars um I'm forgetting the list now the calculus project they would manage that plus our grant um operations and they would also um be responsible for some of the data functions as well um that happen in the
office we're trying to figure out how to parse out that data work because it's so important thanks Caroline um thanks Jody so where the World Language curriculum coordinator is now
6 she's currently 08 okay I thought but it says point 6 on the org chart is the other point to the course she teaches yes okay and so and I'm I'm saying she I I'd rather use just the term so it's not a specific person so
that person I'm guessing that means they would Now teach two courses okay correct and so in terms of individual humans we're talking about one correct I guess that the question that that brings to me is is that enough
savings for that much disruption it seems like if I can it seems like I worry about our curriculum without having people that new teachers can go to and get information get
support one person K through five it's not a lot of people you know and there's how many teachers K through five probably 600 huh 27 sections of each okay I can't do the math that quick
sorry do that's where we count on you or or Andy I just I don't know I don't see that um sorry um if anybody else wants to speak go ahead I don't want to over okay I'll make a comment um as we've been
considering all this I've been trying to reach out to as many people as I can including teachers friends who are veteran teachers um and and really just being like if you had to choose and um and the message
that I get is is the high value and need of the curriculum coordinator so I would not I I would have been um not prepared yet to vote on the previous um and I'm I'd say I'm I'm I'm
not prepared um to vote on this at this point either based on that understanding yeah Mariah Jody if if you knew that this was
going to be your final proposal would you have proposed what you proposed in the middle like if this had been the proposal would you have brought it forward to begin with no no this was really after Capal reflection on the whole Gestalt of what was happening in
the world of um teaching and learning and all the other cuts that we're absorbing um and the disproportionality for the K to8 that the cuts we have so far are thank
you um is the committee ready to move on to discussing math Specialists unless somebody wants to make a motion and I don't see one so um perhaps we should move on for now so as you know we're proposing a cut
of three FTE Mass specialist it is important to note that this proposal does not diminish the extraordinary contributions of our MTH Specialists we can point to their impact in the data they are essential to both our students
and our teachers however as with many of the decisions we face this change will have an impact on our students in this difficult moment we are focused on minimizing harm making responsible fiscal decisions and navigating these challenges thoughtfully our math
Specialists provide direct student support and staff coaching and their work has been critical in restoring our math achievement to prepandemic levels we are proud to be one of the few districts who have reached this Milestone these decisions are not easy but they are made with great care and
with the best interest of our students in mind so what this cut would allow would have happen is it would remove um most buildings have a full Mass specialist and a fractional FTE of a mass
specialist it would remove that fractional FTE in all buildings so they'd have one Mass specialist and our two larger schools Baker and ARR would have two Mass Specialists um just based on their
size yeah in the original slide deck this was presented as a 3.5 FTE and now it says 3.0 can you just confirm which is the case we erroneously had included a grant funded position um that is actually not a mass specialist position
on the first um Slide the 3.0 number is the correct number we have the dollar amount is the same the dollar amount is the same question yeah Jesse thank you Jody um I want to sort
of take a a look back at what um Dr schmuckler presented in terms of capacity and how to handle the need so where do we see what the impact would be I mean it's it's straightforward to say maintain one math specialist in each
school but if I look at Hayes at 400 students and I determine that I don't know um um a quarter of them a hundred students need help in becoming more numerate then if we reduce a m you know
and in the bigger schools the ratio of two to 900 at F frr for example would make it nearly impossible I'm thinking from a capacity decision point to accommodate the need which will just
either Drive outcomes downwards or uh or parents that have the resources to go outside to get the num Mercy help that their kids need so is this really the right direction to go I mean based on what the negative side of this could be
and I guess my other question is this is like I I understand the discussion we had about curriculum coordinators and that they're sort of they could teach for a portion of it but really they're one step they're like management and it there's there's an important need but
math Specialists are not teaching the teachers necessarily like they're joining they're twinned with teachers teaching at the same time they're push in push out pull out so so these are truly like one of the first cases we've seen of truly student facing cut
proposals right and I would just yes you are correct and I would just like to add that our Mass specialist are actually really wonderful coaches too and they do offer professional development and coaching for teachers as well in addition to everything else they
do right so I guess my I going to ask a question again what is the impact in terms of what we know about the percentage of students quantitatively the percentage of students in the district in let's just say KDAY that need math support on a daily basis they
may not have IEPs but they need math I mean as we know um so what happens to our capacity maybe I don't know maybe Dr gillery can help me here what happens to our capacity how much bandwidth do we have to provide math to to the students who need it if
we have less math Specialists how do we accommodate the downside if we were to do this well I mean the you've clearly articulated the real challenge with that um so we began this year with actually
looking at kids on the bubble um we did that with each of our principles and so that notion was where are your focal points so this would definitely be a dramatic shift um when you look at a um a 1 to 400 or in the case of a um uh a
Driscoll of 1 to 525 or Lawrence 16 yeah so um so it would be a dramatic shift um as such so I guess dramatic shift is a is a um a good turn of speech for it but it sounds
to me like too much meaning meaning it's one thing to say it would be dramatic but we're talking about direct math support math teaching to our students so I mean Dr he math scores would go down and
students would be seeking outside resources thank you yeah actually because it glams on to what jod just said I'm going to cut in line so I was to say well okay I haven't talked as much as you tonight so um yeah I mean in thinking about this one I I'm always
coming back to uh the sentence that we inserted in our core values um not too long ago we said we recognize the existence of great disparities in private means among PSB students and we'll do everything possible to ensure that private resources do not determine
student outcomes and in voting for that sentence what I had in mind was Russian math right nothing against Russian math but um this you know these math Specialists are sort of what we can do to make sure that those who don't have access to Russian math can still succeed
so this isn't one that I can ever support okay now um Mariah yes to all of that and and I just want to say that many things in PSB are not measurable and this is something that we have it's measurable and we have
great data showing the importance of this additional math support for students so I'm going to make the motion that we remove this from the list second it well Stephen be seconding it but yeah is there any discussion on this further
discussion all right um we'll start again at that end just a yes vote means we're taking it off the yes so this is this is to make it red for good um all right Carolyn yes Val yes Helen yes Suzanne yes
Mariah yes stevenh yes Sarah yes Jesse yes and I vote Yes as well um all right uh so that concludes our scheduled business for the night so let's go back to our public comment yes I'd like to also move to take the
curriculum coordinator cut off the table okay is there a second for that okay um so I guess let me be clear uh what would a no vote on this mean it just means that we're not taking it off the table but it could still it would be like the Comm specialist um do the Comm
specialist we that was a cut we voted to accept no it's not yes we did oh yes we did oops I thought that vote lost I'm sorry no no no no she Mariah moved the number over last
week green it it passed four to two to three three people abstained and two people voted against yeah my mistake okay so a yes vote on this means that uh we're taking it off the table meaning that it's it's read for good and we'll never come back um unless you know
unless somebody brings it back and the bar for that is high a no vote just means that there's no change in the status of this proposal that we're not accepting or rejecting it at this time that's my understanding of what a no vote would mean for this
motion meaning it's still on the table at that it's still on the table okay yeah I I I personally am going to vote no just because I'm not ready to vote it yet I will do the same so okay but it's not it's it doesn't mean but it doesn't mean that we're taking it off the that
that we're definitely accepting it or exactly it's just that I'm not ready to take it off the it's going to stay white for now on on this that's if we vote now yeah yeah can we vote at the other way around or something maybe we just hold this been a second okay withdraw withd
get some time to yeah okay thank you all right um okay so let's move back to our public comment um I mean one of the things I'm getting more and more worried about is I do the numbers here we're at like 4.2 something
like that 4.43 4286 4.3 okay 4.3 rounding up um I just I'm concerned about how we're going to get further
down and I I'm hoping that our Administration will will help us with this um maybe we'll get a big Grant from some somebody to cover a lot of this but um I just want to put that out there that you know we still have a lot of
work to do I we did a great deal of work tonight and it was painful and hard and it always is painful and hard whenever you have to do this so just to think about that and to have our staff I know you've been creative and
trying to figure out things but um we still have a ways to go yeah I mean we've known since a week ago that there were remaining proposals on the table don't actually cover the remaining Gap so we've known that now for a week and yeah we're more in that situation after
tonight Stephen is it possible Dr Giller that that your staff can take a look at technology subscriptions and and present it's been a yeah yeah it's part of is that the the um coming up yeah of the
last item of the next meeting I thought it was in the FAQ I thought we wrote the that one was coming in oh was it okay well let's clarify that before well as soon as possible maybe not well I just want to make sure I understand then what that what that docketed item is I'm I'd
be interested in knowing um getting some some visibility into uh what the subscriptions are what the what the a more line item visibility into our technology costs yeah um yes we had talked about
doing stiens um online book subscriptions online books and subscriptions and professional and Technical Services um and the link in ETS as an FAQ but I think you're right that actually my
notes had my notes had it computer and software but I don't think it translated properly over into it's on the left side of the board when we were marking it up and it's not on the right side of the board accurately so I think we do need to place software either with computers or in the
FAQ okay so we'll come we'll fix that somewh somehow somewhere yes okay I guess I may be filled in the Gap in my mind in a way that I did and then we didn't okay got it yeah um all right so uh let's move back to our public comment so our next
speaker is Daniel Lipton good evening um my name is Daniel Lipton I'm a second grade teacher at f frr a parent of uh children at BHS and Driscoll and a Brookline resident and tonight I come to Advocate about the
budget in a different way I'm going to be sharing a poem to the tune of One Moment In Time by the incomparable Whitney Houston each day I teach I want to give the best of me to Ruff and Ridley I'm
only one but not alone together with the be support has grown we're taking a stand and hear us say we want to do right by the kids each day give us the resources
and Staffing we need to help every student succeed then in the next fiscal year we will shine we will shine we will shine for all of
Brooklyn we need small class sizes no grade to section reductions we need a robust music and drama program with great Productions it shouldn't even be need to be said but we also need the rich
programs of Brooklyn adult ed we need our social workers and psychologists too and we need the custodians and cafeteria true we need to add and not subtract but without math Specialists we won't be
able to and that's a fact give us give us all the schools our children deserve help us succeed with rigor and Verve all cuts are bad please don't make the kids sad let's Unite with our talent and will
and give brickline the 8 mil give us the resources and Staffing we need to help every student succeed then in the next fiscal year we will shine we will shine we will shine
for all of Brooklyn thank you thank you very much Mr Lipton um all right our next speaker is David kn hi there um my name is Dave not I'm a teacher at the high school um before I start just solidarity to all the workers
that are fighting against layoffs and cuts in all the public comments today um but I wanted to talk about something different uh so during the March 3rd school policy subcommittee meeting School Committee Member Jesse after
proposed a policy requiring that teachers seek explicit school committee approval for hanging any posters signs or Flags associated with social themes in their classrooms um Mr hefer believes that
teachers cannot be trusted to choose our own posters that we cannot be trusted to select messages that are inclusive and appropriate and that all such messaging should be to use his word managed by the school
committee over what signage and messaging does Mr hefter seek to exercise such personal editorial control what messages are teachers expressing that weren't such scrutiny I don't think there's much doubt the two examples he
gave of social themes and his presentation were one black lives matter and two an lgbtq Banner I'm going to read the transcript of the conversation between Mr hefter and fellow School
Committee Member and Andy Lou uh Mr Lou said quote if an educator wanted to put up a pride flag in their room would they then would they have to do that go to the school committee for explicit
approval Mr hefer responded after a long pause possibly yeah possibly yeah I guess my question would be why not and quote I can say why not here's why not when you argue that affirmations of
solidarity with queer people should be subjected to political oversight and scrutiny you are saying that the dignity and rights of queer people are controversial contestable and Up For Debate that's why not I'll end with a
small anecdote eight years ago when I came in for my job interview at Brookline High School I went to the main office to sign in and as I walked in I saw a small pile of Flyers that said black lives matter on them um I don't know if they were student made or what
but I was thrilled that I could be working at a school which valued Racial equality and I wonder if Mr hefer would have approved those flyers thanks thank you Mr not um our next
speaker is Sid trasta right all right here all right so thank you so much um my name is let me actually Mo this here thank you so much um actually would would you mind just holding this up great thank you so much so my name is
Sasa I'm the proud parent of three children in Brookline um I know we've all focused a lot here about budget cuts but the point I'm trying to make today is how important it is to look at the actual outcomes and the actual data and quantify the impact of our decisions so
that um we can take a step back and point out some big picture issues that are going on so with that said what I wanted to do today um is to tell a story in four pictures so what I did is I looked at the data from public sources about our school district in comparison
to two neighboring districts which is Newton and Lexington so picture number one if you could point out picture number one so over the past couple of years the number of full-time uh teachers has dropped sure you can show it please do the number of full-time
teachers has dropped for both Brooklyn and Newton but not for Lexington um picture number two if one of you wants to point out picture number two so what about student enrollment turns out it's been minimally changed for these school districts um so now picture number three if one of you wants to point out picture
number three so here's the kicker so this shows how much money we're spending per pupil for administration cost so the red is Brook line over here this is this is basically double from 2022 to 2023 that is an enormous increase in
administration spending per pupil in bookline in comparison to Lexington Newton and Massachusetts as a state um and so picture number four the last point I want to make is that this is a graph of of mcast scores again I acknowledge the limitations of mcast
data but you can see basically here is that precipitous drop even after um accounting for the realignment of scores in 2017 2018 2019 here so what I'm want to the point I'm trying to make is that um what do we need to do about it I
think we need to preserve these student facing roles um whether that's teachers or whether that's smaller classroom sizes or Direct Services or tutoring and then speaking of tutoring we've heard about the calculus prod and I think tutoring is such a key way of optimizing each and every individual's uh long-term
learning potential um it provides the scaffolding for success in higher coursework the calculus project works and I encourage all of you who haven't um read about uh drct Adrien Mims to to read his thesis um that's truly inspirational work it's titled um
improving African-American achievement and geometry honors and truly inspirational motivation for the uh calculus project and I think these type of bottomup approaches uh that push each individual to maximize their potential are truly effective and they service individuals of all learning capacities
and abilities and then why stop at the calculus project why not an advanced literature project why not an applied chemistry project why not all sorts of these Advanced learning opportunities and why start in high school why not in middle school why not in elementary
school um I think we need to refocus on the things that are truly helpful in terms of improving out comes in education in Brookline thank you Sid can you send us a PDF of your poster oh sure with pleasure thank you including sources yes
please all right thank you Mr rosta our next speaker is Maggie Kenneth Hi everybody um my name is Maggie if I teach Lincoln at the Lincoln teach kindergarten at the Lincoln School sorry it's late and it's a school night
um usually a bet in bad asleep by now um and I also have a son who goes to Hay School and uh he's in the fifth grade there so what I'd like to say tonight is um that you've had You' you've had a chance to hear from many Educators and
community members already and I'm sure you'll hear from more um and we're letting you know how each of the proposed Cuts will affect our schools and our students I've heard some speakers urge you to avoid cutting quote
student facing positions and I do appreciate the sentiment but respectfully there are no Cuts being proposed that will not affect students you heard Greg Porter speak very eloquently tonight on behalf of the curriculum coordinators and I want to
tell you I'm a kindergarten teacher and I couldn't do my job without my curriculum coordinators I don't know how I could and just so that you know they don't just um they don't just help teachers regular Ed teachers I happened to walk by a
Learning Center the other day and Greg was in there you know head-to-head with a Learning Center teacher figuring out how best to um accommodate the curriculum that we have for her students um and that's just one example but all of our curriculum coordinators are
integral I don't know how we can possibly roll out a new literacy curriculum next year without um a literacy coordinator um I'm glad that you voted tonight to keep our Mass Specialists um
we've already had cuts to our math Specialists and we had all of our literacy coaches cut and that has really had some dire effects already so more math Cuts would be disastrous with the national war on equity and
inclusion right now when those very words are being criminalized and our secretary of education doesn't even know what the acronym idea stands for it is incredibly disheartening and almost
unbelievable that we would consider cuts to special education and the dismantling of our Office of Education Equity once you've discussed all of these proposals and done your due
diligence which I understand is a Monumental task and I do appreciate that I hope at the end of the day you will have a greater understanding and realization about what those of us in the schools have known and felt for
years we are already stretched to our limits and if any of these cuts are allowed our students will suffer it is not hyperbole to say that this is a dire
emergency and that any multi-million doll Cuts will totally decimate our schools in conclusion I'm urging you to partner with the hundreds of Brookline Public Schools Educators staff and community members who are standing up
and saying no cuts and tell the select board to release the funds in in totality thank you thank you Miss Kenneth our next speaker is Amanda Plaza all right hi everyone my name is Amanda
Plaza and I am a school psychologist at Baker I here today to respectfully urge you to reject the proposal to cut School psychologists guidance counselors and adjustment counselors from our schools as we Face ongoing challenges in student well-being and mental health these positions are more crucial than ever in
supporting the academic and social emotional development of our students the proposed cut would have a detrimental impact on both the students and the broader Brookline School Community School psychologists play a vital role in the early identification and intervention of students with learning disabilities emotional
challenges and other developmental concerns these are Services we are uniquely qualified to provide as we are the only professionals trained in the specialized tools we use to assess students the loss of even one school psychologist could have a ripple effect throughout the entire District our case
loads would increase reducing both the quality of services we can offer and the number of students we are able to support if we are unable to provide students with their legally mandated Services due to staffing issues we risk being cited by the Department of Education for non-compliance this would likely result
in in the need to hire additional contracted staff who do not know our students and would lead to even higher cost so far this year 656 evaluations have been conducted across the district our districtwide school psychologists will typically complete 50 to 75
evaluations on her own each year many of which are out of district and involve additional travel time sometimes out of state as we heard her say a typical evaluation takes 8 to 12 hours to complete while they can take much longer depending on the complexities of the students profile often requiring report
writing outside of regular work hours like it was just said we are already stretched thin if the districtwide position is eliminated building based School psychologists would be responsible for completing the outof district evaluations which is simply not feasible alongside our other duties together with the school adjustment
counselor at Baker we currently see 36 students weekly for mandated IEP counseling potentially potentially doubling school psychologist CA case load and workload while already dedicating all of our time to thorough psychological evaluations mandated counseling consultations crisis response
risk assessments IEP meetings and so many other responsibilities that are truly impossible to conceptualize in 3 minutes would severely limit our ability to support students effectively most neighboring districts such as Cambridge and Newton fully staff each school with school psychologists social workers or
guidance counselors and some even have additional seal coaches and interventionists I ask you to prioritize the well-being and future success of our students by rejecting the proposal to cut the school psychologist position and all other clinical staff these services are vital to maintaining the safe
supportive and effective School community and removing them would be a disservice to the children we claim we are here to support overall the number and the breath of cuts that are on the table are a crisis for the schools and will have profoundly negative impact on
our Educators students and schools I and the beu are calling on Town leaders to use certified free cash to meet this emergency with a onetime move of money into the school budget we say no to all Cuts thank you thank you Miss Plaza next up we have
Paul Epstein good evening everyone thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm Paul lein I'm a longtime social worker at Brooklyn High School um I'll keep my remarks brief um even though uh my own social work department at Brooklyn High School is facing a 20% reduction in staff I'm actually here to talk to you
about uh another equally shortsighted and painful potential cut I'm here to talk about our beloved custodial staff and to emphasize just how big a blow it would be to each school's culture if we did indeed privatize and contract out these roles 3 minutes is not enough time to list and describe the countless times
and instances when a school custodian has helped this social worker help a student in need 3 hours probably wouldn't suffice I can think of times whether it was finding a basement space to safely store a recently evicted family's possessions or busting out a grinder to unlock a kid's bike when he
lost his key and had no way to get home Jimmy melet and his staff at BHS have always gone above and beyond to take care of our staff and student needs need 10 extra tables the night of a charity event call Jimmy need access to the building after hours because a kid left his backpack in your office and is
freaking out about homework call Jimmy I'm one person but I doubt I could name a single one of my hundreds of colleagues who doesn't require custodial help at least once every few weeks think about all of those tasks large and small that they graciously take care of on top of all of their other regular duties and
they always do it with a smile and make time for a moment of connection and collegiality anyone who would put forward or support this proposed budget cut can't possibly understand the value add to a school that a top-notch custodial staff brings to the table you simply won't find a cleaner or better
cared for physical plant in any comparable District anywhere this is not the way to balance our budget custodians are known for cleaning up messes is not of their own making but this situation is one mess that they shouldn't be involved in cleaning thank you thank you Mr Epstein next up we have
Julie boss okay okay I understood that Tara wurn and Julie had switched places but both of them I guess left the room oh here's Tara okay hello this the last minute change I am Tara wasburn I am a math specialist
at Pier school I want to thank you for your time thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you especially for considering the work that math Specialists do on behalf of Brooklyn students and teachers we are very grateful to maintain the ftes that we
have currently um so I'm just going to use a moment to say that it really hurts to hear the office of educational Equity being cut it hurts hard this isn't who we are in Brookline it does not make me proud as a resident of Brookline and a
teacher in Brookline for many years so I urge you to reconsider the cuts that you've approved to this office of educational equity and I urge you to go back to the town to fully fund our schools we need this money I know your job is incredibly
hard and these cuts are hard but we also believe Brooklyn has the money so thank you thank you Miss wasburn um our next speaker is Ashley Hayes hello um good evening everyone members of the school committee parents and
colleagues my name is Ashley Hayes and I have been um teaching kindergarten at rle for the last 12 years and I'm speaking tonight to express my deep concern about the school committee's recent decision to eliminate the office of educational Equity as an educator of
our youngest educator or our youngest students I see first hand how essential it is to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for every child who walks through our doors the office of educational Equity has played a crucial role in helping us
make that Vision a reality from professional development that addresses biases to curriculum to support and to curriculum that supports um ensuring that there is diverse representation their work directly impacts how we teach and how our
students feel seen and valued one of the most important initiatives from this office is the Brooklyn Educators the Brooklyn educ Educators for educational diversity bead whose mission is to recruit onboard and retain
Educators from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds research consistently shows that having that students benefit from having teachers who look like them teachers who understand their experiences and can serve and can serve as mentors and role models yet many
students go through their entire academic careers without ever having even one teacher who shares their racial and and or cultural background at the very least every student deserves that opportunity just once bead makes that possible by
intentionally creating Pathways to recruit and support diverse Educators helping to bridge that Gap and provide students with the representation they need and deserve the elimination of the office of educational Equity means we will lose crucial infrastructure that makes
programs like be possible it sends a message to students and families especially those from historically historically marginalized communities that their experiences and needs are no longer prioritized our staff will lose vital
resources that help us create safe and nurturing environments where every child can thrive in a district that Prides itself on diversity and inclusion dismantling this office is a step backward undermining progress that took years to
build we must restore the office of educational Equity to ensure our students continue to receive the education they deserve one that reflects fairness inclusion and respect we have found over that over the last several years that Brooklyn's spending on schools as a percentage of
its overall budget has declined and is now lower than many of its Community peers the number and bread of cuts on the table is a crisis for our schools and will have profoundly negative impact on our Educators students and schools we
are calling on Town leaders to use certified free cash to meet this emergency with a one-time move of money into the school budget thank you for your time and consideration thank you Miss Hayes um our next speaker is Jamie Rondo
good evening my name is Jamie Rondo and I am a 3 to five Learning Center teacher at Hayes I recognize the difficult decisions you're facing and I truly appreciate how serious you're taking your role um however I'm here today to make one thing clear all Cuts or bad
cuts but cutting Learning Center teachers will only make this crisis worse I'm a Survivor fan and the next couple of months you're going to be at one big final Tribal Council so I'm making my case outwit out PL Outlast special ed is how our schools survive
Outlet Learning Center teachers serve as the Strategic backbone of our school during my busiest school year I navigated a case load of eight students that seemed like a really small load but my strategy stretched across five classrooms while supervising three pair
professionals across two programs I was essentially running life skills and Grade B instruction where I shifted from teaching students how to type a phone number to then guiding some students 20 doing 29 time 36 if my
case load were to increase to 12 students we would have been out of compliance risking students missing essential services and exposing the district to potential legal consequences from Justified families if Survivor if
in Survivor bad strategy gets you voted out in education it fails our students and just like in any strategic game eliminating key players our Learning Center teachers doesn't just weaken the tribe it's a losing move outplay sped teachers are the essential glue that
binds General Ed with various service providers including occupational therapists speech language Pathologists counselors and administrators moreover we Bridge the vital connection between schools and families currently many families are dissatisfied due to the
turmoil within our district just like in Survivor a messy Alliance leads to being voted off the island and it leads to the frustrated parents who feel their concerns are not being addressed families will vote us off their child's Island Outlast the demands
on special ed teachers are unsustainable but we continue to show up because our students need us cutting Learning Center teachers won't solve the budget crisis it will make it worse the district's Financial strain is driven by out of District placements cutting sped
teachers will destroy the education that are most vulnerable students students need and deserve if we have one fewer special ed teacher my case load in my building would have gone to 12 students and there's no way to provide that level of support just like my proposed case
load cutting Learning Center teachers will easily make our 8 million crisis go to 12 Survivor teaches us as to when you must adapt think ahead and make the right alliances special ed is how schools outw outplay and Outlast the challenges we face don't vote special at
off the island because with us without us the whole tribe falls apart thank you thank you Miss Rondo our next speaker is Katie McGraw hi everyone thank you for letting me speak um I want to thank you all so
very much for um your commitment to this process for how difficult it is and for really asking such thoughtful questions um I'm speaking today as a child of Brooklyn I've been invested in the public schools of Brooklyn for the last
50 years and I thank you all deeply for your commitment to taking on this leadership role in our schools I must say that personally I am exhausted as you must be at trying to continually fight to keep up the quality value and respect of the Brooklyn schools that I
grew up in and that I've been honored to teach in I truly believe that we are at a Tipping Point in supporting the schools in Brooklyn we have disturbing trends that need to be addressed headon and not just passed along until the next time they become a
crisis this horrific budget Gap is one of many we've experienced throughout the years as a mentor facilitator tasked with meeting all the new teachers in my building I continually have to explain to the bright competent and eager new teachers that we have that we've been
able to hire which is hard that they should expect to get pink slipped because of the uncertainty of cut cutting teaching positions keep in mind they believe that there is very little chance of cutting classroom positions or special ed positions those are essential
student facing jobs however I then have to explain that any positions that are cut cause teachers in those positions to be given other opportunities within the district thereby bumping out the last teachers to be hired this kind of uncertainty does not help us to retain
the talented and loyal teachers that we hire who would want to stay on with the possibility of losing one's job year after year the need for an override and the lack of accurate estimations of the financial needs to be covered by those overrides has arisen too many times for
most taxpayers to understand we cannot continue to skimp and cut and ask for more money to support one of the most important resources in the town of Brooklyn we must work together to make a plan plan to reliably and adequately fund the school system we want the
school system that makes us the community we want to be the school system that taxpayers will want to send their children to instead of choosing private options due to the uncertainty and underfunding of the public option I encourage you all to stand your ground
to advocate for the schools you want and to continue to ask the important questions about how Brookline is prioritizing its financial allocations and you have been doing just that I really really appreciate that ask them what the difference in interest rates
will be between a triaa bond rating and a doublea bond rating is that little difference worth the cost of losing our reputation as a town with excellent schools is the uncertainty caused by going through this deficit process of
proposed cuts and pitting one program against another worth the damage it causes to the trust of the residents of Brookline and all of its employees we the educators of Brookline are with you in this advocacy and are ready and willing to collaborate please stand
strong and ask for the money we need thank you thank you Miss mcra and our last speaker of the night is Julie boss uh good evening thank you members of the school Community for this opportunity to speak everyone who's still here in the
Brookline Community um appreciate you all and your work wow I'm the last speaker and I'm following Katie McGraw and that was awesome Katie um I feel like all I really want to say is ditto um yeah and Maggie thank you I'm also saying ditto to what Maggie said I'm
going to be a little bit inarticulate here because I'm not speaking on what I thought I was going to be speaking on um um so my name is Julie boss if I didn't already say that I'm a math specialist at the florid Ruff and Ridley School um I have been hesitant up to now
to talk about individual proposed Cuts because I also believe that no cuts are okay cuts the budget proposed by the superintendent doesn't contain any fluff it's a budget that accurately ref reflects the cost of providing the education that the public schools of
Brookline is known for that past students have received and that current and future students deserve we can't be on a continuous seesaw moving things around to fit the current crisis every year we need stable funding and consistent programming we need fully
funded schools we have done the research in the beu and um we believe that the town has the ability to fix this with a one-time movement of money from the certified cash funds and if I'm using the wrong language there I apologize but um we
believe there's the ability and now we need the will and we urge you to go back to the town to ask them to fully fund our schools um the other thing that I wanted to so I was here I also yes I was here to speak to math Specialists I want to really just from the bottom of my
heart from speaking for all the students that I serve all my co wonderful colleagues thank you for recognizing that value and I also want to say I know that the things that you're cutting it's not that You' think that they're not valuable and I understand that this is a
really hard position that you're put in um I do feel like I need to say though that I it it also breaks my heart that the office of educational Equity was um determined to be one of the cuts that you were keeping I think that's a huge
mistake I think it presents um it sends a message to our our um all of our staff everybody who works in Brookline all of our students that there are some people who belong and some who don't don't and that it's lip service to say what you
say in your mission statement what we say in our mission statement because we're not really going to back it up um that's about as much as I think that I can add lib about that but um thank you for everything that you do I know this
is really difficult and we got more asks thank you very much Miss boss and that concludes our public comment for tonight um is there any new business I don't see any so uh we're adjourned thank you everyone who came to speak with us thanks to those who
presented thanks to those who stayed till the end we'll see you next week recording stopped