uh hi everyone Welcome to the April 7th 2025 meeting of the policy subcommittee of the Brooklyn School Committee We have two items on our docket today One is a review of the student civil rights policy and the second is a review of a possible um camera policy as part of a
security safe schools policy Um is that right not not part of the safe schools policy a school security policy Um but let's start with a um approval of the minutes for um sorry
I'm bringing up the agenda for March 3rd Do I have a motion for that i I move that they be accepted Anybody want to second that second Uh handy your vote Yes Jesse yes And I vote
yes Um okay Hang on one second Okay So the main item for tonight is a discussion of a student civil rights policy which is a proposed
revision to or proposed replacement really for um J6 and J7 This is the second discussion of that policy and we have with us uh Becky Schustster and Dr Dr Karen Schmuckler Is it Dr Becky Schustster it is not Sorry didn't mean
to dress you down there So we have the two of you here to to review the changes made since the last version of that policy draft So I turn it over to you too Thanks Um so I'm just going to uh delight to be here uh and to be able to introduce Becky As many of you know
Becky has worked with the team here for a number of months uh drafting the policy and taking in uh community edits Uh it went you know to a number of people after the January um meeting And so really Becky is here to sort of walk
us through uh where we are in terms of the policy and the final draft And obviously still a process in terms of additional feedback comment and edits as we we move this forward in terms of um having an
established coherent civil rights policy for uh students in the public schools So thank you Becky Thank you And it's been a pleasure to work with Karen since she came to um play the interim role with the district um as well as continuing to
work with Claire and Matt on the development of policy and other related forms and um protocols Um Betsy could I ask you to share the slides please go for it Thank you so much So first I just
I'm going to just make a very brief presentation Mostly I'm here to hear any questions you have any concerns you have any sounds like there are some additional changes Um you can scroll down to the objectives Um so my understanding is I'll be
sharing with you some of the process we've gone through since I last met with you on January 27th answer any questions you have Um I think it's fantastic for us to incorporate additional feedback and live time and I've just shared the Google doc with Steve and my
understanding is that it is possible that we will um get the subcommittee will take a vote today You can go to the next slide Betsy That should be 25 by the way Becky in the first Thanks Apologies for that Yeah I saw it earlier
too No thank you for catching that Appreciate it So since the January 27 2025 meeting um we have created the second draft policy That is the one we'll be looking at today And there have been three main sources of um input into
that second draft Um the first one is your input from the January 27th meeting And I would say the most significant change we made as a result of that was around the annual report um that you have requested So that is now in the text Thank you for making that a
separate section too That was I think that was a nice choice Okay great Good I'm glad you appreciated that Um and second um we also had a period of public comment for parents and caregivers All Brooklyn um public public school of
Brooklyn parents and caregivers received a notification of the opportunity to review um the student civil rights policy as well as the bullying plan and we got some very thoughtful feedback that was incorporated um into the
student civil rights policy How were they Yeah Becky how were they just for in terms of process how were the parents and caregivers notified um uh letters went out from the superintendent to all um parents and caregivers by email Thank you I believe
there was also a notification in the superintendent's newsletter in addition to a direct email to parents Great And we received quite a few very thoughtful comments Um a number of which were incorporated into the draft you're
looking at now Um and lastly after incorporating both sets of um input from you and from parents we then um brought the draft policy to outside council um Jennifer King who I imagine many of you
have worked with before um and she made a few additional comments that were also incorporated Similarly we went through um a feedback process on the community incident reporting form the protocols for both student civil rights and
bullying investigations the investigation documentation form that's for use by school administrators when they have completed their investigation and the bullying prevention plan We're only here today to discuss the student civil rights policy although all of these are related um and
have now been um put into second draft form And I believe the forms the forms aren't part of the packet though No correct My understanding is that the subcommittee and the school committee only review in a formal way the policy
itself That's right Okay I was looking for them I assume So thank you You're very welcome So that's just framing the conversation and now I really am just here to answer your questions your concerns Um and Steve you
let me know if you want me to be making edits live and um we could have you share your screen as we do you know how however you'd like to work this I turn it over to you Thank you I think um I'll make edits as necessary Um but first let
me get some feedback from the committee on the current version of the policy Welcome Caroline Go ahead Carolyn So I do have feedback and thoughts I want to share but I first and I I think I emailed about this earlier I would
like a if you can help me understand again why this how many pages is this 18page policy is being proposed to replace the
existing and I the word compliance has been used but I would like you to point to what is being promulgated here by this i'll do the best I can to respond to that because it's it could be a very lengthy answer to that excellent
question but I'll try to summarize Um the existing policies were lacking some essential features Um for example the list of protected categories was not up to date For example the upto-date
perf what is it about your what law sure So the primary student civil rights laws are title six and title n that are federal laws and they have those laws have evolved over time um both in terms
of um formal revision of the law and also implementation of the law through regulations Um so one goal um of the update was to make sure that it was compliant with the most recent um
versions of the law and the regulations as well as what's been litigated in court through case law Um and then so so this is meant to allow PSB to what in that respect great question So when PSB
investigates an incident we want to make sure that we're applying best practices and that the district is not vulnerable to a lawsuit stating that we were not compliant with expectations um that exist under title six and title 9 depending on the nature of the
incident So there's really two levels Um I always see compliance as the floor We of course we want the district to be following the law and and you know while there may be a parent um or staff member that is not pleased with the
implementation by the district we want to be as protective of the district as possible in ensuring compliance with the law and regulations But ultimately it is always my hope that we go above and beyond the law to um ensure that we are
affirmatively seeking to create a welcoming environment for all students Okay So and sorry just bear with me here No problem These are important beginning of that last part you said "When PSB investigates an incident we want to make sure we are
compliant with the law and regulations regarding student civil rights." So so can I jump in go for it So I would think that sections four five six and
seven are are relevant here because those sections uh relate specifically to reporting and investigating and the and addressing the
in the findings of investigations So so I guess my my followup if you don't mind Caroline my follow-up question is are those the sections that are that are relevant to uh bringing us into greater compliance with those uh with title six
and N or are there sections outside of um investigations that um that also improve our compliance yeah I mean I would say in almost every section of this policy there are um pieces that are relevant to compliance
So I'll give an example The definition of sexual violence is very important to ensure our compliance Um so that every school administrator who responds to an incident of um sexual
misconduct is clear for example whether they are required to report it to the department of children and families um and file a 51A Um so there's I would really say that almost every section of this policy is either partly or wholly
related to compliance with state and uh federal law So are you saying sorry Stephen because I'm going to jump back because I'm still trying to just understand this at baseline Are you saying Becky
that the primary purpose of this is to aid investigations by providing a lot of information about
reporting i I would say there's because what I find in reading this is an o almost overwhelming amount of information that is that reads as
controlling behavior and defining behavior frankly in a nearly oppressive way Um is there is there an example that you want to point to Caroline that can help us there's so many um
students sometimes experience microaggression What page what page oh that's that's on page two I think Right Four Four Mistaking one student for another because they share the same racial
identity Complimenting a student for having a skill that is counter to a stereotype regarding their gender or ethnicity Assuming a student observes a
particular religious holiday Asking a student about their disability without their consent or the consent of their parent caregiver So those are prohibited behaviors They're listed there as examples of
things that don't rise to levels of violations of the policy So I understand that Yeah So those are actually not prohibited When microaggressions are reported there is an intervention
associated with reports of all of those things that I just listed So it's there So to say oh it's meaningless it's but it's there in writing and there's a definition of microaggressions and the intervention
associated with said microaggressions Yeah So the point of this section is is actually to make it clear that these types of behaviors are human mistakes that we all make pretty much every day
with one another um because we are bringing together people from a very wide variety of backgrounds and experiences and preferences I know that something I had to learn for myself for example in interacting with blind people is that some blind people um want in a
meeting for everyone to always state their name when they speak so they can recognize who's speaking Other blind people find that very insulting and say "Hey I've been blind my whole life I can make those distinctions and if I don't recognize a voice I'll tell you So we
all do things every day that one person may find harmful and another person may not But if we do offend someone there's the option available to say "Hey that's actually not the most thoughtful question to ask somebody and here's why
or here's why that particular blind person would prefer us to handle it differently." So coaching you know typically is a short conversation and occasionally there might be something more than that such as a short restorative conversation where there
might be an apology made I'm sorry I didn't realize you prefer me to say my name before I speak So this is really guidance so that we don't have those sort of everyday kind of human errors being escalated as if they would violate
the policy And we're trying to give clear examples of things that aren't ideal but would not result in an investigation or or discipline of any kind except there are three four five
six interventions listed So I would respectfully suggest that by codifying everyday human behavior and interactions among adults and children change it Caroline if you want to
suggest a change to it that this is our power So if if you don't like the if you don't like this that part of the policy please feel free to suggest a change Well we've gotten into the weeds here because I was asked to give an example
of what's concerning me and and perplexing me about the purpose of this entire endeavor and my response to it as um I I find the whole thing to
be just incredibly um heavyhanded and um draconian and perplexing So I'm I'm at baseline just trying to understand what is uh meant to be achieved here
Let's let's go to Jesse and then then come back Fine Go ahead Jesse Hi Um so my question uh Becky is there's a list on the bottom of page two where it states that all PBS publications for
everybody and the general public has to contain a non-discrimination notice That's great And the question I have is the list shown there race color age criminal record disability etc is not the same and in different order than all
the other places in the document where it lists between 14 and 16 categories of of potential areas in which um individuals could violate the policy and my question
is why are we being consistent from paragraph one on page one we aim to eliminate all forms of ice including discriminant based on it's not the same list exactly as it is in the notice and then it's mentioned again in I think at
least two other places I may be wrong it's only one other place but I don't understand yeah it's at the it's it's in the notice on the bottom of two and then it's smack right again the next paragraph on in section two first paragraph it lists it again and adds
homelessness at the end um so my question really is I mean these all are great categories I'm Uh please don't misconstrue that I'm saying any of these categories shouldn't be there What I'm saying is that I mean they all I'm sure they're all the ones covered by the law Um but why are they
different why aren't we just using That's a great question and very good catch and there is a very specific answer Um at the bottom of page two the list also includes categories that our employees um have that protection as
well as the protection students have because this is designed to be an umbrella statement that includes laws protecting employees as well as laws protecting students So a perfect example is criminal records um that is a state
statute that protects um individuals who are applying to work in um Massachusetts workplaces from discrimination based on their criminal record um during early stages of hiring So that is completely
irrelevant to students But we were trying to design a statement that would incorporate so we wouldn't have to have a separate student civil rights non commitment and employee civil rights put them together Um another good example would be military or veteran status
These are protections again that employees have but that are not relevant to students On the other hand homelessness is an example of a protection students have but employees don't So a student is protected from um
and has very specific rights if they are unhoused Um the most important right being if a Brooklyn student were to become unhoused and they are temporarily um crashing on um auntie's couch um the
next town over the town has an obligation to continue to transport them to their Brooklyn school So that is and that would not be the case of course for an employee There would be no obligation to pick them up at their new location to bring them to work Right So this
comprehensive I get that one being for employees Then what about the paragraph uh on page one first paragraph and then it's section two first paragraph that's defining bias-based number two is defining bias-based conduct towards students So it would not affect
employees and that's still not the same list in the way it's presented as the one in first paragraph So the one wait are you seeing so the first paragraph I mean if you if you look at the you're talking about page three now Yeah The
top of page three goes from race through homelessness first and last and the one on page one goes from race through hairstyle Homelessness is left somewhere in the middle I'm just saying can we just be consistent if
there be happy to fix that i'm sure that's something you could do Yeah I would support that So the suggestion here is where possible to standardize uh the the categories of forms of bias and bigotry
in their li in the list actually sequential list Yeah So anyone else reading it doesn't have to go looking for it They can expect it to be you know something will be sex gender will be the fourth position whatever it is I don't want to get get we don't have to like overkill this I'm just thinking that it's it's there's no reason for it
to be not in the same sequence in the two where it's student related That's also I agree Do Andy Carolyn any objections to that okay Jesse did you have a further question uh no Okay Not at this time Um Andy do
you have any questions or concerns about the policy um no But to respond to Carolyn I I guess I would not want that list of microaggressions to go away I think it's important to have it in there as examples of things that we don't want to escalate that don't have to trigger
an investigation that don't have to trigger discipline Um if it seems heavy-handed I wonder whether we might try to fix that by changing the word will to may in the sentence following the bullet points So we're not requiring everybody to engage in those
interventions but the point is that those are things you might want to consider when when microaggressions get recorded Yeah if I can if I can offer my thoughts on that too I just want to say that overall I really am grateful for how
much more robust this revision is than our previous policy Um I think it better represents the the value the our our core values and it also is more needed in our current political climate So I appreciate the
breadth and uh rigor in this policy That said I have a Oh sorry Go ahead That said Caroline um if there are places where you feel that it's over broad or that you think it overreaches I think let's go through it and let's find places where you think we can I'd be happy to do that I have a general
question in that respect too So um maybe I'm just dumb I'm still not seeing the uh whatever of I don't think I'm going to fully understand this Um last year I think
um before I was on school committee there was work done on a proposal for a hate speech prevention policy And that ended up dead on arrival because the ACLU stepped in and said
that it would chill speech I believe And I don't think that's I don't think that's why it died Okay So I don't know why it died but the ACLU stepped in um and said that it would chill
speech This policy is far more prescriptive in terms of speech and behavior So I'm confused about why the same um concerns are not coming up in terms
of being overly prescriptive um when this goes to places above and beyond where the hate speech proposal went So you mean like in anybody behavior like the the do you mean like
for example in in the instant the examples of bias-based behavior being uh being constraining on free speech I mean that the whole thing is extremely detailed extremely
prescriptive Um I guess I feel like I'm I'm just interested in the in the difference in response to this and that particularly considering
the ACLU's um letter to the school committee at that time I mean for the ACL newsletter I I don't think that's what ended the our efforts around the hate speech prevention That's
fine But it was I mean it was certainly acknowledged and discussed at the time as like the ACLU said this is too chilling too prescriptive too much and this goes I well first I think there all new
places to my mind that that we didn't move that forward because there was a lack of consensus around how to define hate speech how to define the problem we were attempting to solve and how to generate a solution that would solve more problems than it would generate So
that that difficulty seemed to me why it didn't advance Secondly I think a lot of policies have examples that and without examples I think that this policy would lack precision So I I guess I I just keep
wanting to go to wanting to make concrete changes I hear you that you feel that there's like an orientation to this policy Caroline that feels wrong to you I I don't feel that way So that's why I guess I want to go to language that feels objectionable to you because
I feel totally willing to work on language to make it more acceptable so it could build a consensus here But I don't I guess I don't know how to address the the difference that we have around the general orientation because I like it I like I like that breath and robustness I also just generally
speaking find as a as a current parent in the school system and I've been in the school system for a while now It's al there's just also a certain irony or or um lack of consistency between the
strenuousness and and prescriptiveness and punitiveness of this policy and actual discipline in the schools Um which has
sort of become less and less I mean I think you even took the word discipline out of PSB policy So there's just a sort of I I I can't reconcile It's difficult for me to
reconcile the um I guess strenuousness or punitiveness Those are the words that of of the the language here And then the reality of you know things that happen
in schools and the lack of response lack of discipline um disciplinary measures is just perplexing And that's so that is part of why
um I I react to this not only the content itself but the content and and looking at and being like and meanwhile you know this happens this happens this happens and nobody will even use the
word discipline we just have happy circles So um I get it That's my that's my observation as somebody who lives the schools Can I
just make a quick response Jesse and then I'll I'll I'll I'll go to you Of course I guess I would just say Caroline that I don't think we should look at this as exclusive of other policies Like we we still do need to review the discipline policy I agree with you that
to look at this and to not also be considering how do we respond to um recent incidents at schools feels tilted but I think we should do both I I just want to take this policy I want to
get this policy right Also I but I totally get what you're saying that but to to to just focus on this policy when there are incidents happening that this policy seems disconnected from I get what you're talking about Like there
have been incidents at schools lately that this policy is pulling in the other direction from But I think we should be addressing both I I just want to make sure that that this policy is strong at the same time Does that make sense that
makes sense Jesse on a different topic in uh Becky section 12 at the bottom of page 16 the uh section on annual reporting was removed from that very long monster paragraph where it used to be in the
last time we went over this if you recall I'm sorry say that again Jesse section 12 which begins at the bottom of page 16 As you said Stephen and I agree wholeheartedly the um placement of this in its own section makes it much easier
to identify and also uh clearer Um however I have the following questions about this Um when I asked for the data after our last meeting it took a long time And
when I got the data it was only a um two um column charts Um and in in looking at the posity of the data and the column charts it was evident to me that there was no way that that could be all the data It didn't There were things I'd ask for
like when what day did it come in and you know who who reported it meaning a teacher or a student or a parent against you know not not identifiable Vicki right and then you know how long did it take from along the timeline from uh the the when the incident was actually
occurred and when the school was notified someone in the school and then after that exactly each of the steps in the timeline are important especially given what you have what we have in this policy earlier in the in the sections here about what the requirements seem to
be like absolute requirements about you must do this within a day same day or or at the worst next day and then 10 days and then 30 days those kinds of things It seems to me that the section 12 is just does not provide enough information to support
quantitative reporting that someone will have to be held accountable to do uh to read that uh we'll prepare an annual report regarding the number of nature of reports means incidents I think the report is actually Stephen there actually number of reports there is a a
ambiguous word giving we'll prepare an annual report in the sentence but in the same sentence we should probably say the the penultimate word on page 16 should probably just say nature of incidents the reason it it shouldn't say incidents is some um reported are not didn't occur right
right but whatever I'm saying the word report annual report of report is is a little confusing Yeah I understand Yeah But my but my bigger issue with this or I'll put a challenge out there to us as a group is to say um right an annual
report regarding the number and nature of reports is really just like a column chart that has frequency at the bottom and um uh uh sorry frequency on the y-axis and some set of categories I mean the 16 categories of that that Becky
that we showed earlier like race age pregnancy homelessness you know some examples right um it won't it would whether the finding was made in each case sorry whether a finding was made we don't that wasn't in the data that we got any trends weren't in the data seems to me like we should be a little more
declarative here about what we're really looking for Almost like um uh like what Carolyn pointed out about examples of microaggressions Why couldn't we add in 12 the basic kinds of data that you anticipate
getting when a when a when a um a declaration by someone I'll stay away from report when a declaration is made by someone of having experienced some thing we there are certain pieces of that that I think we know should be easily available that's
you know when it happened how long it took to do what did it die or not die what was the final end you know what was the category What would what should those categories be i would suggest we do a little more thinking about the quantitative side of the annual
reporting You know if it was religion maybe we break that down Was it you know uh was it um anti-Islam was it anti-semitic you know whatever it might be I mean I think that there are um particular things we would notice
especially if we're going to get trends in the data But it's more it really isn't very helpful if we know it's like I don't know the category that we use in there of religion and then just see 63 We don't usually know which protected group for example might have been most affected by religious persecution or
discrimination in the school You know Becky what are your thoughts on Yeah So I have also um created um a model template for the annual report that I've shared with Karen and and Lisa Matt and Claire and certainly could share with
this committee as well There's a big challenge with this type of reporting and that is students privacy rights The challenge becomes when the number of incidents is relatively small it's quite easy to figure out and match a a report
to an incident we've heard about personally or even sometimes in the press So for example um if we were to hear that um exchool had this many incidents and one
of them was an incident involving um Islamophobia and there was or was not a finding Now we are sharing with the public something that could have been disciplinary in nature and it's perhaps very widely known what student engaged
in that conduct So it gets very very tricky in terms of the legal rights of the students So that's why um we kept this relatively vague because yes of course the school committee um and the public has the right to ask follow-up
questions about the data and to have that data shared to the extent possible But it's very difficult to um require in the policy a certain kind of level of detail when often it's impossible to
communicate with that level of detail without violating um the fura federal what does that stand for is it possible do you think to either um propose um in an appendix a template for
this that um that is sufficiently conservative as to not um reveal that that would that wouldn't run a foul of student privacy um that could still provide a level of
detail to the student to the school committee or or to provide some language that would I I think Jesse's challenge is a good one to pro to commit to a level of detail that would give the school committee and the public some visibility into
um incidents in the district Is there some language it's a tough balance but we it could certainly be tried Yeah Okay Let me frame it a little differently Okay because I I I see this in my continued uh frustration of being able to get data and get it on time which is doesn't
happen It's my experience last 10 months is that it's uh or 11 months now is that it's a very arduous process generally speaking to get to the quantitative information So let's just say to follow your point a little further um and again I'm just picking out of the 16 you know
let's say that there were um 10 high-profile situations of discrimination against homeless children in the Brooklyn public schools and Brooklyn News did it did three articles over a year uh that showed three students three students and four students So there were 10 situations in
which each time it was so egregious that it made it to a newspaper Okay And then the annual report that we get a superintendent in the school committee gets somehow um uh denatures that information so that
it just shows that there were some but it doesn't show that there were 10 Well I mean honestly if the if the public already knows that there's 10 why shouldn't the report say that there are 10 i mean what are we what are we hiding and it was like and if there's only one well the newspaper probably they like
bad news so they probably won't say "Hey you guys got so much better the next year You only had one situation with discrimination against homelessness homeless kids." They probably won't make it to the newspaper And if the superintendent and the school committee get a report that say homelessness was you know there was a discrimination
issue with it That was one What i don't I don't get it I I'm not clear yet on why on where the where the privacy issue starts to be Is it because people know which kids are homeless temporarily is it because we're worried people are going to drill into it to I mean the
extent to which the data gets so simplified that it really the annual report is sort of meaningless Yeah I understand it is there is a a constant tension between the um public's um very legitimate interest in knowing what
those trends are and the privacy of the students So for example if there were 10 incidents districtwide regarding homelessness and we could say that in those 10 incidents um two were eventually deemed microaggressions two there was
insufficient evidence that anything occurred and the remaining six there was a finding of a policy violation That type of data is absolutely legitimate to share But if it were to say at the Drisco school school there was an
incident involving a second grader who's homeless and it resulted in the discipline of an of an a third grader for making inappropriate comments regarding that student's homelessness Now we're getting to a level of detail that a lot of people are going to go
"It's my neighbor." You know whatever they're going to recognize I'm gonna just jump in for a second and we're maybe getting a little off track but again for me there's just a interesting sort of tension here between
um between what's being talked about and what happens in reality because all the time there are reports letter communication goes out from schools to the community sometimes the whole
community sometimes certain grades saying this thing happened and this is a bad thing and everybody knows who it is So if someone here is saying that that's
not a good thing then maybe there needs to be some education about communication that goes out because that seems to be part of the process Um there's doesn't ever seem
to be discipline but there's always an email uh and everybody knows who Yeah I am in total favor and I've certainly advised the district during my um time as a consultant to the district that in general the more impact an incident has the more important those communications
are and that I'm absolutely in favor of that type of communication My concern here is in formal reports of data at the end of each year that a balance be struck between the very important communication of trends and making sure
that we protect our young people Um sorry I'm sorry I'm not sure I I I was that I heard the beginning of what you said You do favor those kinds of communication Absolutely Okay So how is that I how is that consistent with the
very same concern that you are saying you have about protecting the identity or privacy of our young people right so I also asked as a as a at the same time I'm interested to hear like we just had
this mini conversation about microaggressions and then you said like oh there could be an investigation where something is determined to have only been a microaggress aggression So again it's pretty clear that this notion of microaggression is
being is being heavily formalized here Um now the intent is actually the opposite It's just that what tends to let me in terms of the microaggression piece Um I think a good metaphor is the concept of with fires the one alarm fire
versus two alarm versus three alarm Um when something happens to my child I'll be honest my gut is it's like 10 alarm every time because I am her mom and I want to protect her and even a minor thing that hurts her feelings like I
want action Okay But I have to as a professional in this world of civil rights for students I have to step back from that and analyze the seriousness of what occurred So yes the district has an obligation when something is reported
that could be a policy violation We have to find out what happened And if it's a zero alarm fire which is a microaggression then maybe we're going to have a quick conversation and say "By the way that's not the best language to use It turns out that it hurt your friend's feelings your classmates's
feelings and let's not use that word again and we're done." versus a one alarm fire which might require some more action than that up to something very serious that could result in disciplinary action under the code of conduct So um and also could involve
police even depending on the seriousness Um there may be an obligation to report to the department of children families or to the Brooklyn Police Department So there's a big range of seriousness and the policy is aimed to guide school administrators to make those very
important distinctions from something that's a quick educational conversation to something that actually we are obligated to report to law enforcement in terms of Yeah Go ahead Um so I want to actually wrap this conversation up
because we have to move on to the next policy under consideration I um I want to see if we can advance this to the full school committee if there's enough support for that Um given two two suggestions to this policy One is Jesse's suggestion to standardize the
language around the the categories and sequence of um forms of bias and bigotry Um so given that and I think um for the second suggestion you made Jesse I agree
with you that we should make a stronger commitment in this policy to what exactly we would like to see reported but I would like to see that not hold up advancing this policy to the full school committee I think we could still request that language and have that be a part of
a larger discussion with the school committee either in an appendix form or in additional language That that's my position I'm I'm ready to vote to advance this I thought we were going to go through this I I mean I have a lot of comments Oh
Do you all have a lot of comments well before before Carolyn gets to her next comment let me just um you know tell you my final feeling I guess about section 12 I think it's too thin I think that other uh it would be at least helpful before we take it to the full committee
to see some examples of what good standardized annual reporting looks like so that there's no um confusion about what the superintendent and uh the school committee would see each year Just so that we know I mean it just it's
not I mean it's like we don't see the we haven't seen the forms yet either right so I don't know what all those four newer forms look like that were looked at because they weren't in the packet So maybe I'd look at those forms and say "Oh there's like I don't know nine variables you fill in." Uh some one I
can't use in my annual report because it has to do with a school and I don't want to identify school so I'll leave that out But the other eight those should be the variables that I just get in a spreadsheet right or something like that with the additions of the dates of things happening Like for example Becky if the if the district is
chronically chronically delayed in responding by weeks or months or longer um why shouldn't we know about that i mean it'll become public information Okay And if there's certain kind of discrimination in the school district why shouldn't we know about it because
it's not okay So I understand completely I mean 150% with you about the privacy side of it but I'm completely um you know in in opposition to watering it down and and and removing data until
it's not useful Um and so I would love to see the the forms that are going to be there so we can identify what the input data look like and then from you or someone else in you know at at your level who have been through this and know what the other dates and end points
are you know policy was violated policy was not violated restorative justice was used and that was the end of it or something like that That would be very helpful to see so we have some idea what section 12 is going to generate I sort of Steve don't want to see like you know after if this goes through the school
committee you know in a month or something and or one of our next meetings you know what I mean and then comes this August and then we're looking for a report we don't get it and then there's like all this confusion about what's going to be reported um I'd rather that we have this chance to get this policy right that we have the
formatting and the requirements uh either available in in bulleted form or as Becky mentioned maybe a example of a standardized report So I did just share the document um with Steve and you're certainly free to share
it with anyone else um on the policy subcommittee or otherwise that I had created for a template for the reports Thank you Um and and you're you know I think the concerns that are being raised are very legitimate and you get to ask for as detailed information as you would
like and then you know some consideration depending on how many incidents were in a given school or in a given year in a certain category there'll need to be some um opportunity to redact in terms of privacy But asking for the maximum while having that
constraint is a very legitimate and meaningful request Can I ask um so Jesse your main concern is section 12 Do you have other substantive concerns with the policy as is i do not Andy do you
um no I would continue to suggest changing that one word will to may in order to make the intent clear of the bullet of the bulleted list I see I suggest you do that Carolyn do you have substantive changes that you want to recommend throughout the policy
or are they I do to the extent that and I appreciate that we've had the opportunity to have some dialogue about this in a general sense and I recognize that you probably want to move along Mr Mason is patiently waiting and
probably developing his AI for um for scheduling Uh I mean perhaps we can just move this hold this again and and bring it back again for a more
detailed uh go through now that we've had an opportunity for some general discussion you probably want to move on If that's the if that's where we are then that's where we are I it's my preference to see if we can advance it pending
um to advance it with the knowledge that we will continue to work on section 12 and bring that to the full school committee because I think it's in a good place and we're ready to consider it at that level Disagree I know you disagree Carolyn Yeah I'm just stating where where I'm at
I why do you want to move it out of subcommittee prematurely i guess I think because I section 12 to me seems a a technical exercise where we identify the categories that we want to
see reported and I I trust Becky's expertise to deliver that rather than the substantive revision This this is my view I recognize it's not your view Carolyn and I say that respectfully really um that there I don't see substantive changes being necessary to
sections of the policy So I'm eager now to see what the rest of the school committee sees now that I see that three of us don't see that there are substantive changes needed and one of us I also I have questions I have you know I it's I don't even know that it's
substantive revisions but I have questions and we need to move on to the next section of the meeting So why try to move it forward rather than just come back to it at the next meeting i think
it requires more discussion The reason I said but if the votes aren't there then I accept that I'd like to move that this be brought to the school committee for a first reading My understanding of a first reading at school committee is not that the subcommittee is advocating that the policy be adopted in just this form
uh but that there's been enough discussion that it's worth um hearing views from the entire committee before taking it back to subcommittee So I strongly disagree because we haven't even discussed this We said we discussed in email that we were going to go
through this I have redlinined the document I have comments I have questions I'm a member of the subcommittee and we haven't discussed the words on the page So why move it forward i I second the
motion So Steve can I just add just as an addendum we it does need to pending you know section 12 but it also does need to go to the BEu So that it it needs to do that before it can go So I know you were say you it just needs to be added as a pending as well
Does it need to go to the BEu before a first reading at school committee or simply as part of the process leading to eventual adoption or not i think that depends on again sort of the process here in terms of how policies are generally moved which I don't know So
whether it should go there first before or whether it can be parallel I think that's something I don't know how policies what the process here is in terms of policies when it impacts the BEu and and where there potent where there's potential which they would see
in this a potential for impact bargaining can I just add something Stephen or go ahead something you wanted to please I didn't want to interrupt you I was saying no sorry go ahead Okay Um I want I guess I guess my
thought here is that um I I really hear what Carolyn is saying and if I could just say it in my own words Carolyn a little differently is that the purpose of our subcommittees at
least as I understand them um should be to offer us an opportunity to robustly analyze query discuss and resolve questions and concerns we have before they get to the
full school committee And it's frustrating to me to have this beautiful new policy that got written and I read every word of it word to word as soon as it came out um in the email and had some you
know some questions came to came to me as well and I feel frustrated that like we only have one policy subcommittee meeting so far where it was docketed to review but if we don't finish if we only end up with you know we don't meet like
in groups of two off camera to go over all the details If we had and it all was worked out and everyone was happy we'd be past this and onto the cameras already But in the absence of that kind of process I I I I feel where Carolyn's coming from that if there are like
substantive questions that still need to be asked or things that might spark other subcommittees members thinking about elements or objectives of this policy We really we owe it to the full school committee and the more general expanded public who will be there in the
room or watching to resolve these before they get to the full school committee My impression of the full school committee is that um they're not going to take sitting down something that's passed on to them from the policy subcommittee Even if we think we've resolved it it'll get to the full school
committee and get pounded again It'll just have to come back to subcommittee anyway So we might as well we might as well hear from people outside the subcommittee you know before doing further work on this is my view because I I know it would be it would be it
would be nice if we could pound it into shape and then have the school committee pretty much uh accept that But that's never been the way it's worked But we haven't even done the work on the document We've had two I mean Stephen this is so simple Just don't move it
forward I don't know why you're trying to push this So we've had two docketed meetings on this policy so far To me the purpose of this is to review it in the subcommittee for substantive considerations If we have um word
smithing to do we can do it But we can also do it via submitted comments at the full subcommittee where one person inputs those and brings it for a first or second or or third read or back at the policy subcommittee if it's returned
to the policy subcommittee if there serious substant substantive considerations brought by the school committee To me this is taking the temperature of the policy subcommittee on whether this policy is strong enough for the consideration of the full school
committee in its current state That's my view Otherwise it'll be interp We haven't even gone through the policy We talked in email that we were going to go through this Now it's we had two meetings on this policy Carol but we discussed that we were go we there was
an agreement had the opportunity in two meetings to go through this No No you cannot because we have to move on You had two opportunities and you said broad things about the entire policy and you did not bring up specifics You've had two opportunities and we're going to move on now You have a vote on the
table enough No do not speak to me like that Stephen Jesse how do you vote not enough me Are you vote jessie we have not had an opportunity This conversation is over Jesse how do you vote i object to your behavior Stephen It's insult It
is noted Carolyn How do you vote Jesse can we Can we The motion on the table is do we advance this to the full school committee or not do we need to have it seconded it was seconded by me Oh okay Um I would vote
no Okay Andy how do you vote i vote yes Caroline how do you vote no I vote yes It does not carry we move on to the next item in the agenda Al will you please come online so this is now the copy of the camera
draft that's in the agenda Is that it yes Okay great Let me pull it up Thank you Hell thank you for drafting this Sure You're welcome Would you like to review it with us welcome back from Florida You um Yeah You want me to pull it up on
screen or to somebody else pull it up i think you could just talk I could pull it up Oh yeah Why don't you Yeah I'm not I'm just looking at it So as you remember we were at finance sub and uh talked about this and they
before can you see it approving not yet It's showing your startage There it is Thank you Yes And before uh finance said fine we'll submit it But first you have to have a we need a policy in place to do that So um uh I came up with some in
collaboration with Steve and and a few others to draft this policy Much of it uh taken from other districts nearby Uh so ours is different than most of the districts nearby because we're only talking about outdoor cameras We're not talking about any cameras inside of
buildings This only refers to outside cameras Um gives a brief statement of what the purposes of this are um which is self-evident I would think and then comes to some of the specifics about where they can be
uh that they don't record audio that facial recognition is not part of this uh because that specifically is banned by um town meeting uh that only authorized personnel can access the logs can access the footage
that is um police obviously can can get it if they comply with agreements between the town and the and the and the BPD Uh and that it will not be a system that is continuously monitored but only
something that's there for review Monitor would wind up uh in somewhere in my suite Uh we'll keep the video for 30 days uh nothing will be released unless there's a legal process compelling the release of uh a
recording Uh we only review things in response to incidents involving violations of law uh with this other with the one caveat that uh in an active situation with a clear and present danger the system could be monitored to
provide information real time and that there'll be an access log kept for the recordings Jesse did you have your hand up yeah two questions tell um one was why is it that in the um implementation and monitoring
in the first bullet that we have a separate sentence about what'll happen at the high school just because there was some area about exactly what is school property so we want to make clear again this the purpose of this is that we have this expanded campus and you
know it really is the high school campus which walks on a public street back and forth between 22 and 115 you know hundreds if not a thousand kids at at a given time on that street So it becomes the campus for you know seven minutes uh
five times a day when kids are are are walking there And so I guess yeah I understand that My question I mean my question is is there not another case in the 8k to8 schools of the entrance of the school along a sidewalk where it's the same situation with outdoor cameras
Why is it different and that includes the sidewalks surrounding the campus I mean I would imagine that um at um Lauren school you know the outside of it the entrance may be right on a sidewalk on on a regular street and outdoor
cameras would be picking up the sidewalk there Um no reasonable expectation of privacy just like people have cameras outside their houses right so I'm just wondering whether there are or the entrance of Driscoll the main entrance on Washington Street So I'm just saying
it's seems what it pic when I read through it that jumped out at me like why we're putting the height it's okay but I'm just saying it all the schools it'll include sidewalk surrounding it's different within I guess it's really to cover the case of the
definition of that sidewalk on tapen street as opposed to just the ent obviously the entrance sidewalk obviously the sidewalk in front of Lawrence would be covered if you had outdoor cameras That's the that would be the point of having cameras but Greeno also right because the front of the building the front of the Schlim
Gymnasium that's Go Street So if there were cameras out there it's a public sidewalk So I'm just saying that I'm not quite sure if it's required but I mean I get what you were getting at but I didn't know why we were specifying it to that amount because the first sentence get to me catches the whole thing You
know cameras only placed in outdoor areas of school property meaning on a school building not like in the public in terms of the camera installation where there is no reason of privacy I don't know I I'm just it this sort of to me read like almost a little high school centric suddenly that that we have that
sentence in there and this is a camera policy for all nine schools So I mean I imagine we could clarify that sentence to say in in cases where you know the normal travel of students within the day requires them to enter the public way that those areas could also be covered
Yeah I like that Thank you Write that down because I'm usually one take on these things All right Maybe Stephen got it Okay And then the the second thing was you mentioned at one time and the second bullet on storage and access and this is the only other comment I have
This whole thing read great by the way Um the second bullet said video recordings will be stored for up to 30 days unless needed for investigations But then when you spoke about it in oral right now it said you'll store them for 30 days So is it for up to or for 30
days because up to seemed to me to be well I decided this time only stored for a week because I was running out of storage I I have no I think we should scratch that It should say 30 days Okay Thank you Stephen Thanks Andy Thanks
Andy Go ahead Oh thank you Um hi Hal Thanks for joining us and for preparing this Um yeah I wanted to ask about sort of how broadly uh you're planning to interpret sort of where you say that that this will be used to um sorry I'm
missing the actual language but in response to specific incidents involving suspected violations of law or school policy So violations of school policy could be fairly broad like if somebody's skipping class right that would be that could be a violation of say an attendance policy Is the intent to be
sort of possibly reviewing footage in order to catch people skipping class or you know if like sort of relatively low-level violations right nowhere near violating the law not posing a danger to anybody but nonetheless a violation of policy No we we uh if we we need to
clarify that we can but certainly not You know we're talking about uh we're talking about a kid that's on suspension for example and uh comes onto campus and we and we see that he's there on campus or she's there on campus We're
talking about vandalism We're talking about you know a crime that's committed or an assault that's committed uh on the you know on the sidewalks around the school where somebody approaches you know a kid or an adult approaches someone and says something then we'll be
able to to look back and see and get some more details about what has happened I think if that's the intent then we might want to formulate it differently just so that it's not open to an overly broad interpretation of what's a violation of school policy That's just
that just that clause there violations of school policy just to tighten that up a little bit or or to make that less broad That would make me more comfortable I don't know how the other members feel about that How would you how might you phrase that Andy uh I'm not I'm not sure I can come up with the right phrasing right away I I just first
wanted to um make sure I understood the intent here Yeah Um yeah incidents that um threaten the health welfare and safety of the students or members of the BHS campus Yeah Something along those lines I think might be exclude you know
class We have no intention of using it to catch kids cutting glass or who's you know vaping You know we're not going to use that to track That's another great example Like it's I'm sure it's a violation of policy but are we going to be reviewing footage to kids who were
vaping yeah Okay Thank you Yeah that's all I had Um I had one question which was on under implementation and monitoring Hell what are the agreements that we have with the police for their access to um to footage
as the second to last foot the second to last bullet don't know the answer to that question So this just says we've never had cameras at the high school So I don't know I've never had anybody come in and ask to see a camera or subpoena a camera because we don't have them at the high school I guess that's my question
is that are we are we giving police access uh after they subpoena them or do we have separate agreements with police and and you're saying you don't know you're just saying that this is governed by whatever the district and town
agreements are Correct Okay Caroline do you have any questions or thoughts on this one no not at all Okay Al thanks for thanks for this work Yep you're welcome So two suggestions on
this one One was Andy's to I I will just just to get the committee's reaction to this Anyone have any responses to Andy's suggestion i like it a lot to to make sure that there's no overreach enabled by that clause just to make sure it's
it's obvious that it's about uh something more severe than than uh the examples you provided And then the other one was um was Jesse's suggestion which I also agree with There were two One is the 30-day thing and the other one was the
sentence about the high school I was just thinking about the high school I forgot about the 30-day thing So I agree with both of those Okay Yeah So if we can fix those I'm good with this Um that was easy Were you Were you writing down changes Stephen yeah I just
wrote down Great Um but so I can just make those changes or how if you want to make the If you want to make the change to Andy's proposal and I can make those other two changes or if you want to make all three changes what whatever you'd like Sure I'll make them I'll I'll send
them back to you tomorrow Okay To advance What's that do we want to go ahead and propose advancing this to the full school committee yeah I was going to move that we advance it All right Anyone want to second it i'll second Go ahead Andy You can have
it Sorry I didn't I didn't hear or see you Andy how do you vote yes Carolyn yes Desessie yes And I vote yes as well Of course with the three changes right
pending those three changes Thank you Appreciate it You're welcome Thanks everyone Thank you Hal Um let's move on to new business Does anyone have new business [Music] to propose no Stop sharing I just have
one Oh I guess I I do have one Go ahead Jesse Um personal electronic devices That was mine H you wanted to that's funny because we didn't tell in case for you watching at home we did not prepare that in advance So the reason I mentioned
that is because over the over last summer the schools put one together put each theirs together I think I got social Well anyway why don't you talk about it i got socialized There's you know I'm questioning where are we now um in terms of being able to bring something in front of the school
committee uh before the end of this of this school year because it's been sitting with us since last fall Right So um to review it's come before the full school committee uh once Um it was paused because we we learned
that the AG's office is considering um its own peed policy which would would hold all schools to a higher standard than what we had proposed Right Um I I want to propose going forward with our policy because it's not clear to me what
timeline um the AG's policy would go would would move forward with It could be a week it could be two years it could be changed Just to be specific they're they're proposing a bell-to-bell policy which is the strictest of the four
standards that we had seen in the AG's sample standards We're proposing um moving on So so I suggest we have a second read at the full school committee and not take it back to the policy subcommittee I don't know how this goes
though Andy Do we just remind me does a second read involve a vote to pass it or does it have to come back for a third reading i think we could vote to pass it at this point The the only thing that was under consideration is whether we uh kept or removed the consequences section and it
seems like we will keep the consequences section because only one principal had had offered concerns about it and they were very light concerns They weren't they weren't very strong It'll come up in exactly the same form that it came up Okay Yeah I was gonna ask that too
Andy That basically it seems like no changes have been made since the last time you saw it in school in the school Okay So if it can be if you if if then it can happen really fast then maybe we can put it into uh like this week's meeting That would be terrific Okay If we're not anticipating any um any back
and forth on it because it is it is going to be I think a long meeting to start with So okay If we were if the if the AG's office you know has something by the end of the summer or something and this was already in policy we just have to actually modify it through the
future policy subcommittee to align or would the state's requirements sort of just automatically overwhelm what we have If the state I think we would then have to draft a policy to bring us into compliance We'd have to draft Yeah exactly Okay fine Okay I get it Thank you But this at least assures us that
we'll start the next school year with with at least Yeah this guidance right yeah Okay Um so if that's the case then let's plan to docket it this week And um that's great Wrap it up And Carolyn I'm sorry for speaking to you rudely to you
before I apologize for that Thank you Um are there any other any other new business items and then this meeting is adjourned Thank you Good night everybody