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Now. I. Good afternoon. Welcome to the
February 20th, 2025 board business meeting. Welcome to my colleagues, M.c.p.s. Staff and community members who are joining us here today. And those who are watching this meeting via live stream. Now, let us
first stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Okay. Please be seated. Seated. Okay. Now, I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves and to establish a quorum. I know Miss Rivera-Oven is online. We'll start from those in the building first.
Good afternoon. Perennial student, member of the board. Good afternoon, Natalie Zimmerman representing district two. Good afternoon. Carla Silvestre, school board member at large. Good afternoon, Brenda Wolff. School district five. Good afternoon. Rita montoya,
board member at large. Good afternoon, Laura Stewart. District four. Good afternoon, Julie Yang. District three and online. Good afternoon, Grace Rivera. Oven. District one. Wonderful. Thank you everyone.
Now, can we begin the meeting with the approval of the revised agenda? Move! Approval. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Mr. Thank you so much.
That's unanimous. All right. Thank you. Now, before we proceed with a very exciting meeting, I have an announcement. The board would like to announce that we are now accepting nominations for the prestigious
award for distinguished Service to Public Education. This award recognizes individuals, groups and businesses that have had a lasting impact on our public school system. Now, this year, the category include business
partner, community partner, school service, volunteer and Student Service Award, which honors current MCPs students. If you are interested in nominating an individual or business who
has made a difference in our community, please visit our board's website to submit the nominations. The deadline is March 3rd. All right. So with that now, let's move on to our next item. Doctor Taylor, any
recognition? Thank you, Madam President. I have two recognitions. And for our very first one, we actually have some special guests in our audience. And at this time, I'd like our social workers, if you are present, to please stand to be recognized at this time. And if
you're in the audience, please encourage our social workers by giving them a hearty round of applause. It is an absolute pleasure to bring this to the board's attention, and a recommendation to the Board of
Education to approve and designate the week of March 2nd through eighth, 2025, as National School Social Worker Week in Montgomery County Public Schools. And I'm going to read a truncated resolution for the board's consideration. Whereas
the importance of school social work, through the inclusion of school social work programs and services, has been recognized in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the individuals with Disabilities Act. And Whereas, school social
workers exceptionally are skilled in providing services to students who face serious challenges to school success, including disability, poverty, discrimination, abuse, neglect, mental illness, homelessness, bullying, familial stressors,
and other barriers to learning. And whereas it is appropriate that Montgomery County Public Schools recognize the critical role of school social workers. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools hereby
proclaim March 2nd through the eighth, 2025 as National School Social Worker Week in Montgomery County Public Schools. And we recommend the observance of all of our school communities. May I have a motion? Move. Approval.
Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Yes. That's unanimous. There's a lot of special occasions that we recognize in MCPs, and this one
is particularly special because of our elected board. The adult board members are all female. And so it gives me great joy to recognize the leadership of this female board and other female contributors to our absolutely
fantastic community by recommending to the Board of Education that we a three month, a truncated resolution for the board's consideration. Whereas women around the world have celebrated the economic, political and social
accomplishments of women since March 9th, 1911 with the birth of International Women's Day. And Whereas Women's History Week was first celebrated in California in 1978, which eventually led the United States
of America to formally establish March as Women's History Month in 1987. And Whereas women have overcome barriers that are that aim to block their full participation in society, such as access to higher education, political participation,
political offices, professions in science, employment, leadership and sports. And Whereas, women continue to fight for equal rights, equal pay and self-determination. And Whereas the work of women, whether it is
focused inside or outside the home, fundamentally contribute to the development of the United States of America. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Montgomery County, that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools hereby declare the month of March 2025 to be
Women's History Month. And may it further be resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools requests staff, schools, and the community to observe the month of March 2025 as Women's History Month and to acknowledge the accomplishments and
contributions of women to our country, our state, and Montgomery County. Thank you, Doctor Taylor. And I know that March 8th is International Women's Day, too. May I have a motion? Motion, please. Move. Approval. Second. All in favor?
That's unanimous. Thank you everyone. We are going to move to our agenda item four. And I want to once again thank the social workers who are here today to represent your group. Thank you. Thank you for your work for the system. Yeah. Next
is public comment. While the board encourages public input on policy programs and practices and will consider the comments received today, it is not our practice during its business meetings to respond to
questions, provide comments, or take action on the issues raised. This is a public meeting and the board expects the conduct of all speakers and members of the audience to be within the bounds of proper etiquette in appropriate
personal remarks, rude retorts or other such behavior is out of order and will not be tolerated. Those who demonstrate disruptive or disrespectful behavior during public comment may be asked to leave the room. In addition,
public comment is not the proper avenue to address the specific student or employee matters. Such matters should be directed through the complaint or appeal process. Each speaker has two minutes to deliver comments.
When your name is called, press the button and speak clearly into the microphone. A yellow light and a single B indicate you have 30s remaining. A red light and a repeating beep signals that time has expired.
Once you have finished speaking, press the same button to turn off the microphone, and following the live testimony, we will play audio and video testimony. A copy of the testimony are posted with other
materials for the meeting on board docs. Today we have 15 people signed up to testify. I'm going to call the first six to proceed to come to the front table. First one Doctor Handy.
Christine. Handy. Charlene. Pruitt from SEIU. Bestie. Tao. Glenn Miller. Ronnie Peel and Annabella Almeida. Please come
to the front. Doctor handy. You may begin. I come before you with deep concern regarding the current budget situation and the processes, or lack thereof, that
have shaped this development. We recognize the financial challenges facing our school system and the tough decisions that must be made. But we must also acknowledge the reality of those impacted by these choices. While we know that the budget is tight, we see the elevation of some positions to higher levels.
The creation of new executive leadership roles and the elimination of positions that provide critical support to our schools, students, and families. These are difficult times in our country, and many of our members never imagined that their jobs or their jobs would be in jeopardy. Today, they feel just
as uncertain as many government workers unsure of where they will work next year or what their future holds. Let me be clear no one has been laid off, terminated, or offered a buyout. However, the anxiety amongst our members due to the lack of clarity is undeniable. Our
primary concern remains the process. Positions have been changed without thorough study or transparent justification. We have yet to see finalized job descriptions for many of these newly created positions. How are these positions classified before their job descriptions
were even created? How can we make informed decisions about organizational restructuring without fully understanding the scope and responsibility of these new roles? Furthermore, financial strain is inevitable. Salaries will be frozen amid rising inflation, creating
hardship for our employees with families, children in college, mortgages and many other financial responsibilities. These are real people, not just numbers on a spreadsheet. As we move forward, we ask for transparent, data informed and equitable processes. We ask that
decisions about job classifications and reorganization be made with consistent transparency, fairness, and follow our negotiated agreement. Above all, we ask that we do right by those who have dedicated their lives and careers to serving the students, families, and community of Montgomery County
Public Schools. Thank you. Thank you. Next, Colleen. Colleen. Colleen. Colleen I'm saying is that how do you say your last name? But. Pruitt. But. Pruitt. Yes, ma'am. Please proceed. Thank you. Good afternoon. Members of the board and Doctor
Taylor. My name is Carlene Pruitt, and I'm here today to speak about the impact of recent budget decisions, specifically the cuts to four important support professional positions as executive vice president of local 500, representing support professionals who make up 40% of
your workforce in MCPs. One highlight how cuts will affect both staff and the quality of the services we provide. First, the support professional staffing specialists who have intimate knowledge of the work completed by more than 400, support professional job classifications. They screen over 100,000 candidates last
year, ensuring that only the most qualified applicants were moved to hiring managers. The proposed budget cut replaces them with staffing coordinators, who are required to have advanced professional teaching certification and administrative one endorsement. I ask, how does having an advanced professional
teaching certification enable you to hire a glazier or an IT systems engineer, or a central production food mechanic? Secondly, the security specialist position created in 2022 to address the safety needs of elementary schools and locations with limited security
staff. The budget replacement strategy is to align the elementary schools under the Cluster Security Coordinators, who will be responsible for up to 40 schools. These specialists underwent a reclassification study in 2023. Last summer, they received notification that they were expected to continue
working at a higher level this entire year without the two grade increase that was promised beginning July 1st, 2025. Instead of paying them for their positions, their positions have been eliminated. This shift refocuses support for students and undermines the security of
our elementary school students. Third, the equity training specialist created in 2012 to foster inclusive workforce, which is being eliminated. These positions work alongside instructional specialists to directly impact staff, students and community. Replacing them with instructional specialists removes unique perspectives of
support professionals and signals a lack of respect. Finally, the parent Community Coordinator position being reduced, impacting the support available to families speaking seven different languages. Last year, they supported 1000 employee or 1000 families. Thank
you so much. Okay. Next. Bessie. Tao. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, President Yang, members of the Board of Education and Staff, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify at this meeting regarding the away all day cell phone pilot. My name is Betsy
Tao, and I am the parent of two girls attending MCPs schools, Bell Elementary and Julius West Middle. I am strongly in favor of MCPs moving to a consistently enforced away all day policy, so that our children from K through 12 will have a distraction free
learning environment that is so critical during these key years of mental, emotional, and social development. To be clear, this should be a bell to bell ban on personal mobile devices. Unlike the more lax policy currently in place at most middle and high schools in our county. I became
aware of the smartphone problem through a good friend who was a college professor. He regularly complained about how the current generation of students could barely finish 40 pages of reading a week, and how much they struggled to write well and think critically. I was fascinated by these complaints because I wanted my own children
to grow up to be avid readers. I strongly believe that a love of reading is the foundation of academic success, measured by the ability to engage in deep learning, understand and grasp abstract concepts, and to think critically. Even more importantly, I feel strongly that reading helps us to develop
a rich inner life and compassion for others. The development of these critical abilities is being severely undermined by excessive smartphone use, especially by students who are given smartphones at a young age. The author, Jonathan Hite, describes this as the great rewiring of childhood, referring
to the generation that came of age with smartphones in their hands. This rewiring literally taking place inside the developing brains of children, especially between the ages of 9 to 15, has led to an alarming rise in mental health problems and detrimental academic outcomes. The negative effects
of a screen based childhood are well documented, and I don't have time to describe them in detail here, but I urge each of you to read Hite's book, The Anxious Generation, if you haven't already. I am empathetic to concerns that some parents have about not being able to reach their children during the school day, especially those who
have special needs, and I believe waivers should be available and skipping ahead to the end. I hope that MCPs will follow behind other jurisdictions in moving towards this, and our children's futures depend on it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Glenn Miller. Good
afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Glenn Miller, and I'm the lead teacher of the curriculum for Agricultural Science education, or K at Sherwood High School. I appreciate the board's recognition of Casey's value, but I must challenge the idea that MCPs made a genuine effort
to support its success over the past four years, despite my repeated advocacy. MCPs has failed to develop a vision for growing case. I challenge any MCPs official to provide concrete evidence of steps taken to remove barriers and increase
enrollment. Sustainable programs don't grow on their own. They require investment outreach and long term commitment. Only this year did MCPs expand access beyond the Sherwood cluster, leading to the highest enrollment yet. If that small change made a difference,
imagine what real investment promotion, transportation assistance, and better marketing could achieve. At a time when the ag industry faces a workforce shortages, eliminating cases shortsighted, the USDA projects nearly 60,000 ag
related jobs go unfilled each year due to lack of qualified graduates. Programs like CHS expose students to careers in sustainable farming, food production and environmental science fields critical to our economy and ecology. Furthermore, students who have
already committed 1 or 2 years to case now have no option to continue unless they switch schools, something they have no desire to do. MCPs is abandoning these students mid pathway, disrupting their educational and career goals rather than cutting
case. I urge MCPs to sit down with me and explore real solutions to strengthening enrollment. If MCPs truly values career and technical education, it must foster it, not abandon it. Thank you. Thank you. Ronnie
Peel. Thank you. Board. Thank you. Board members. Doctor Taylor. Colleagues. I'm Rodney Peel, vice president for advocacy for MCPs, PTA, the MCPs advocacy priorities are attached to my written testimony, and I wanted to highlight several of
them today. You'll see the one of our priorities is improved enforcement of the mobile phone policy. We're excited to learn the early results of the pilot today, and we look forward to additional advocacy engagement in the months ahead. I used to
say that everything bad at school happened at recess or in the bathrooms. Now, I think many of the bad things happen on mobile phones or in front of mobile phone cameras, and to reduce mobile phone use at school and better enforce mobile phone policies. We also prioritize the need to help
families and students to have better understanding of the specific harms of their device use, and be better equipped with tools and techniques to reduce those digital distractions at school and home, including the widespread harm of inadequate sleep. Another, another topic of
considerable controversy is school boundaries. Here we prioritized information and process for the new boundary studies, including the need for stakeholder input in programing decisions. And we need the data, including transportation time
and costs, to help evaluate potential solutions so that families affected by boundary or program changes have time and opportunity to provide feedback. And for programs. We prioritized clear selection policies and resource allocations, including
Healthy Bell Times for equitable and accountable access to school and county wide programs, extracurricular activities, and enriched and accelerated courses. We also prioritized smaller class sizes. You heard a lot about that last month. We know there are budget challenges, so we appreciate the
attention to long term budget planning. And we prioritized a multiyear budget roadmap for curricula, as well as timely evaluations of the programs and pilots. There's more in my written testimony. We look forward to talking with you more about those next time. Thank
you. Anabella Almeida. Yes. Good afternoon, Doctor Taylor and members of the board. My name is Anabel Almeida, and I have been working for MCPs for 21 years. For the past eight years, I have worked as a parent community coordinator, providing language specific services. Our group
consists of 53 professionals. We are the most diverse group in terms of culture and language, serving all students. Most critically, the most diverse, multicultural and vulnerable segment of our school population. Our special education and English language learners. We are in schools
daily, supporting families and staff with attendance issues, academic concerns, the social emotional well-being of students and a myriad of obstacles families may be facing. We also create meaningful workshops and support organizing events to promote opportunities for learning and family engagement. As central office, we are the
bridge between the families and the school community. PCCs are the facilitators of communication and understanding in recognition of the needs and diversity of our school population. MCPs wisely recognized the need to provide information and service in Chinese, Vietnamese, Amharic,
French, Korean, Spanish, and in Portuguese language. Specific services are provided by our system wide as the Portuguese speaking system wide PCC. I serve all 211 schools as needed. Requests for services come from schools, but also by word of
mouth using the language line or Google Translate does not replace human contact and outreach. System wide language specific work by PCC is critical in promoting equity communication and family engagement. Decisions have been made to remove PCCs from central office and to no longer provide
systemwide services. There is no foundation for this decision considering that they are not part of the role, they are part of the role of current PCC. In other words, they are not justifiable as affecting the budget. Currently, our most vulnerable families face a myriad of obstacles. Taking away the support they rely on is
unconscionable. Over the last few weeks, we have heard repeatedly about sacrifice. These decisions are a significant and impactful sacrifice to our families. Thank you so much. Thank you to all of you. I'm going to call the next
six. To come to the front. Megan stone. Justin fong. Samir. Hussein. Rachel. Bonus. Sterling
high. And Ariana. Ali. Pratham. Thank you, miss Stone. You may begin. Good afternoon. My name is Megan Stone, and I'm the proud parent of a Whitman High
School student enrolled in its Leadership Academy for Social Justice lottery program. I previously served as the president of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai Foundation, the Malala Fund. So after that very demanding global work, I'm so happy to come before you to testify about a very solvable problem. Just 1 or
2 busses. I'm here because my own son takes an MCPs school bus to school every day, but there's over 30 working families in the same program that don't have any school transportation of any kind. The impacted families and students were here today to ask for your help, because this lack of bus service for
Out-of-boundary lottery students across the county is now really just a practical barrier to making this program accessible as a school choice. Working families in the program are being forced to spend over $600 a month on gas, and some students spend more than two hours a day getting to and from school each direction. They're
having really serious public transportation safety issues. As minors, we're talking about sexual harassment, physical threats, intoxicated passengers. They have to wake up hours earlier than other students. They miss sports and extracurricular activities. There's real harm happening here to these students. Look, we know
that Whitman is one of the top schools in the county and even in the state, something to be really proud of. But the reality is, the median home value in the Whitman cluster right now is over $1.1 million, and the average income is over $191,000 a year. Right? So is that accessible as a disabled person, I know how programs me earnestly
really intend to be accessible. But then when you try to access them, they practically aren't. There's real barriers like transportation. So historically, MCPs has funded this kind of transportation for lottery programs. We'd like to ask the board to ask the CFO to look into FY 25 funding, to find
funding to run just 1 or 2 busses on dedicated routes, or even just pick up at a couple schools across the county to bring these students to school every day. It really won't be inclusive or equitable until every student has a chance to get a bus to school. Thanks so much for your attention today. We really appreciate it. Thank
you. Justin Fauntroy. Good afternoon. My name is Justin Fauntroy. I am a proud computer science teacher at Argyle Magnet Middle School, having worked there for all 12 years of my teaching career. I'm here representing the staff at our school and the students we serve to share our thoughts on the
urgent need for a new school building for our students to prioritize the safety, high quality air, and ample space for effective learning. Air quality is a significant concern. The school was built with an open floor plan, but as walls were added over time, the HVAC system was left unchanged, rendering it ineffective. We witnessed
excessively high room temperatures and CO2 levels, frequently over the 1200 parts per million threshold, negatively impacting the health and attendance of students and staff. As a community school, our goal should be the flagship campus in the community. Instead, it's a building plagued
with issues, including a gym situated above six active classrooms. Loud noise distracting during learning, a health room that is not Ada compliant, and health responders struggling to navigate its narrow entrance. Electrical systems under strain causing frequent power outages in classrooms due to overloaded
circuits. Door locks that don't function properly for weeks, and all the safety issues that go along with that. And narrow hallways and stairwells that are crowded and unsafe. Not to list many more things. Argyle is one of the oldest buildings in the M.C.P.S. System. Originally
created in 1971. The school was designed for a capacity of 600. Yet we are currently accommodating 860. The last major renovation took place in 1993, and while some bathrooms were updated to meet Ada standards in the summer of 2021,
we actually lost bathroom capacity in that process. Had Argyle remained on the original list for reconstruction, our improvements would be happening this year. Instead, we received a roof repair completed in 2022, which is actually more expensive than the cost of a new building,
yet it continues to leak and cause other problems. And to conclude, I'd like to highlight the equity of issue. Although MCPs strives for equitable solutions, our Argyle serves one of the lowest socio economic areas within the district. With such student learning conditions, be acceptable in other more affluent areas of the
district. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Samir Hussein. Doctor Taylor Ms. Yang. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Assalamu alaikum. My name is Samir Hussein. I'm a member. I am a member of the Arab
Americans of Montgomery County. Thanks to the board members, teachers and staff who attended last night's educational event at the Islamic Center of Maryland. We missed the rest of you. Congratulations to Miss Brenda Wolff on her
well-deserved acknowledgment during the Black History Month. We're very proud of your accomplishments and wish you the best and more success. All students lives are sacred and should be protected in schools, at home, and in public spaces.
We are under. We are unsure what the future holds because we are receiving different news every day, but locally we should be able to control somehow. We all heard about the Miami shooting of the two men because the
perpetrator, thinking they were Palestinians. Well, the fact is, both men were Jewish Israelis, and the criminal himself was Jewish as well. So this is very terrifying. Such, such people just take matters into their
hands based on their assumption. Another very terrifying story that I read this morning that really changed my whole topic for today. The story of Jocelyn Rojo Carranza, a sixth grader from Texas who took her own life due to bullying and harassment
from her peers, threatening to call Ice to deport her parents. And she will be left all alone. We know Jocelyn is not going to be the last one to receive the threat. With the holy month of Ramadan starting on March 1st, many Muslim students will be observing this month.
Accommodations may be necessary for those who are fasting. A full explanation is attached to make it easier for everyone, for teachers and everyone else, how to identify and how to support the students and for teachers. If they want anything, they can
always ask and thank you for your services and for all you do for our children. Thank you. Rachel. Bonus. Yes. Okay. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Rachel Bonus,
and I am a member of the Montgomery County Community Action Board, serving as a representative to the Head Start Parent Policy Council. I am here on behalf of both groups to share our testimony pertaining to early care and education. I want to start by thanking the Board of Education for your
ongoing commitment to early childhood education. We have truly appreciated the 60 year partnership between the Community Action Agency, the grantee for Head Start, and Montgomery County Public Schools, the delegate for the program. We want to speak to you today. During this time of great
uncertainty, when so many of our neighbors are fearful and concerned about the future. Parents are expressing anxiety and are fearful about being separated from their children, resulting in low attendance at at certain schools. We know that in the coming months and years,
the board will need to make many difficult decisions during all. During all of this, we ask that you not lose sight of the incredible significance of early childhood education. Early childhood education contributes to brain development, strengthened bonds with parents,
and establishes a solid foundation and relationship with MCPs for years to come. It also helps children learn foundational concepts and become familiar with school routines as they so that they are ready for kindergarten. We ask that you
maintain your commitment, serving three and four year olds in full day classes, which is for working parents need, and wraparound services that address many boundaries. And I will skip forward just to hit the important points. Also, for the
next year and years to come, both the Community Action Board and the Head Start Parent Community Parent Policy Council remain committed to implementing a mixed, mixed, mixed delivery system in the county in order for private child care providers to fully participate in the
pre-K services in pre-K services in the county. Throughout, you must ensure that there is a clear and realistic path to this certification for private childcare teachers. Please see our written testimony for your viewing. Thank you. Thank you.
Sterling. Hi. Good afternoon. Public education is meant to be the great equalizer, ensuring every student has the opportunity to learn and succeed. For a few years, Montgomery County made real progress in fulfilling that promise by offering a comprehensive virtual school for students long marginalized by
traditional education. But today, that opportunity is gone, leaving those who need virtual access with limited isolating options. MCPs has reopened a gap it once worked to close, but it has the power to fix it again. Students needing a virtual school are accounted for in the
blueprint, the state budget and county funding. Yet in the MCPs budget, they are a discretionary line item or missing entirely when they were forced out of the system. They are only given access to programs that further isolate them and limit their educational opportunities. Does this reflect the values of a school system committed to
serving all students? Students who need a virtual school are just as much a part of Montgomery County as those who attend in person? This should not be a question of one group versus another, because our system exists to educate all students, and our budget must reflect that guiding principle.
The adage show me your budget and I'll show you your values is ever true. But for the kids that thrive or need a virtual environment, this budget shows them that they and their education is either less valuable than in-person students, or not even worth a line item at all. I want to end by showing the last year book
that the Virtual Academy had. It provides insight into the rich educational experience and community that these children were given by this system. Many for the first time. This yearbook was a tangible example to these kids that their system valued them, that their needs were seen and met, that they were an integral part of this
community. But this year, hundreds of these students, even those within the system, still won't exist in any yearbook because their education, their memories, their futures have been devalued by this system. These students deserve to fully participate in our school system
once again, by having access to a virtual school with a local community that they are a part of. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ariana, you can go ahead. Good evening members. My name is Ariana Pradhan and I am a freshman at Walt Whitman High
School. And I'm also part of the LA straight program, and I came in as a lottery student. Today, I'm here to talk to you about getting transportation services for these students at Whitman. We understand that you've been busy with other district wide issues, but this is equally important in terms of the safety and well-being of our students. We're here tonight because
despite our petitions, emails, and direct conversations with the board, no action has been taken to address a critical barrier to equitable access. Students commute hours each day using public transportation, often facing unsafe conditions. Many have reported being harassed, stranded due to
unreliable busses, or stuck in overcrowded metro cars. Some have even feared for their safety after encounters with intoxicated or aggressive individuals. These are not hypothetical concerns. They are real experiences that our students have faced beyond safety. The financial burden is also very significant. Some
families pay over $1,000 a year just to get just to use the Metro car, while others struggle to coordinate carpools, often impacting their own work schedules. The long commute also limits students ability to participate in extracurricular activities, complete homework, and maintain their wellbeing. If
you're trying to take an AP or honors level class, you're going to have hours of homework. But if you're taking hours to get home, how are you going to have time to complete those hours of homework? MCPs has made a commitment to equity, safety and student well-being, but without transportation, it cannot truly be an accessible program. Other
countywide programs like Blair's Magnet received transportation support. Why not lsj? Tonight we ask for your action. We propose MCPs establish bus stops at a few key locations and ensure that transportation is safe, efficient, and accessible to all students. We believe in the
board's commitment to equity, and now we urge you to uphold it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I'm going to call the next three to come forward. It is Anita K Fu.
Alexis, Bette and Olivia Kushida. Please come forward. Anita, you can begin. Good
evening. My name is Anita Kafu and I am a freshman currently attending Walt Whitman High School. I am one of the many lottery students who attend the Leadership and Social Justice Academy. I like my other peers and one who struggles with transportation due to my major distance from Whitman. I am
currently doing a carpool with two other students who live near the same area as me. Recently, there has been an all time low in temperatures hitting the area as well as inclement weather. Standing for extended periods of time. Waiting outside for a bus
is not safe or sustainable. This issue is going to be relevant for students, for the students coming for the coming years, as many students enter the program, and could ultimately be a factor that stops students from taking advantage of this opportunity. This is a topic Walt Whitman has been discussing discussing for a
very long time. When Lsj was first being opened to the whole county, the first topic of discussion was transportation. Many students, such as myself, almost cannot attend the program due to the lack of transportation offered. Overall, this is an issue that affects many, many families. Thank you
for your time. Thank you. Alexis. Good afternoon. My name is Alexis Bette, and I'm also a ninth grader at Walt Whitman High School. I'm also an active member of the Leadership and Social Justice Academy at Shea. I was fortunate to attend the school as resourceful and as diverse as Walt Whitman. Walt
Whitman through the lottery program. However, while this opportunity has been invaluable, the challenge of getting to school remains a significant obstacle for many students like me. Several students endure long commutes and spend hundreds of dollars on gas just to access the education we were promised. I'm one of those students. My
daily commute from Damascus takes around 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and weather conditions. Damascus, which is one of the highest elevation points in Montgomery County, experiences harsher weather than areas like Bethesda, making the journey even more difficult. Beyond the transportation challenges
attending, Whitman has opened my eyes to a new community, one enriched in diversity, resources and representation. I've witnessed greater students participation and engage students in a sense of belonging that I did not experience in my previous school. However, this opportunity should not be limited to those who can afford
the commute or can endure the drive. I am calling for busses for the students to ensure that this program is accessible to everyone, not just to those who means to get here. Equal opportunity should come with equal access. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Olivia. Go ahead. Good evening. Members of
the Board of Education. My name is Olivia Kushida, and I am one of the lottery chosen students in the program. I live in Damascus, and it is a very far drive to Bethesda, as we're coming from the north of the county. My parents personally fear way too much to allow me to take the metro, considering the fact that it would take over two
hours. My mother uses her own lunch break in order to pick me up from school. This issue is not only negatively impacting the students, but also the parents and guardians that do their part as well. Not only that, but the cost of gas and daily transportation overall impacts my parents very much. Although my personal experience
may not seem very relevant to you, I am speaking in representing for all students, especially the students that live outside of Bethesda. We believe that there is funding that can be found in the FY 25 budget. As the superintendent asked at the last board meeting for a $4.7 million supplemental
appropriation for this school year to make existing busses green. This, of course, is a good cause, but we feel that we as a community should be focusing on making sure all students have busses to get to school before we upgrade existing ones. Transportation is a critical barrier now, so we
would appreciate it if we had funding in FY 25 and FY 26 for long term program success. Please approve our request. Thank you. Thank you. We have one video testimony. Can the TV play the video testimony? My
name is Jeremy Joseph, and I'm the proud parent of two MCPs students, including a freshman at Walt Whitman High School. I support in the strongest possible terms, a robust, district wide phone, free education and away all day policy that covers phones, personal laptops, tablets, earbuds and other personal
electronic devices from bell to bell, including lunch and recess. Very narrow exceptions make sense. Enforcement is absolutely imperative. Teachers and administrators should not be individually liable for phones that they confiscate in violation. When students violate
the policy, and schools should improve communication to eliminate the perceived need for phones and the need to contact students during the day. Quality education at MCPs reflects smart, future focused choices that prior leaders have made to promote long term benefits. You
have a generational opportunity to make similar smart, future focused choices to create phone free schools. Continued success in Montgomery County is not a given. Other districts have done this. The Los Angeles County Unified School District went phone free officially on Tuesday, a district with three
times the number of students and double the number of economically disadvantaged students as Montgomery County. No phones for those 450,000 students all day, including lunch. Let me tell you firsthand what I have seen at Walt Whitman High School. Phones are supposed
to be put in pouches each class. Kids spend five minutes at the start and five minutes at the end of each period putting their phones away. That's 22% of the instructional time spent dealing with phones that could be solved when the kids walk in and when the kids leave school. Not
classroom. Having the phones be available during passing periods does not make sense and is a waste of time. Teachers don't bother policing known offenders. Kids wear earbuds during instructional time and there's fights. Oh, so many fights because of the phones. Please make the right choice and make
our schools phone free all day, including lunch. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes that the last public comment we have. I'm going to turn to my colleagues to see if anyone has comments or questions. I'm going
to start from my left hand side. I'll come back on the second round. Okay. All right. Miss Montoya. Thank you. I just want to thank everyone for being here today. It is really, really cold outside. I'm sure there's a lot of other places you could be. We have a lot of staff here who
came after school, teachers who finished teaching for the day, and then they headed over here to make sure that their voice was heard for their schools. And I appreciate that. Also to our students. You guys had a long day at school. We have students here who just testified about traveling for a very long time to get to their programs at their schools, and then they
came over here after school to again use their voice to help advocate for themselves and their fellow students. And I really appreciate all of you for being here today. Thank you. Miss Stewart. Sure. I just wanted to follow up on Argyll's testimony of, especially about
the electrical problems and the door locks, because I feel like maybe that's something we could help with sooner than later. Some of the other issues are more long term problems, and we can have that discussion during
CIP. But thank you also for coming out here. And I appreciated hearing about the students. There actual experience in the program and that helps us make better decisions. So thank you, Miss Suvarna, Mr. Savona. Yes. Thank
you. I want to say again, thank you to the students for coming out. We appreciate your testimony. And if we can just have board staff, maybe follow up to kind of explain what the policies are around transportation and then again, continue to work on that. Thank
you. Okay. I have a data request. We hear a testimony from Miss Bonas about early childhood programs and attendance issues. I know that I
have requested data for our other grade level elementary, middle and high. So far, we don't see a great attendance change in those level of schools. So I would like to request data for our early
childhood programs. Thank you. Okay. And seeing no other lights, this concludes our public comment section for today. The board's next business meeting is Tuesday, March 18th. Online sign up for public
comment will open on Tuesday, March 11th at 6 p.m. In addition to online sign up same day, in-person sign ups are permitted when space allows, with an allocated slots filled on a first come, first served basis.
To sign up in person, please check in at least 20 minutes before the start of the open session. In person. Sign ups will close 15 minutes before public comment begins or when all slots, and feel additional information regarding upcoming
meeting can be found on the board's website. All right. We are going to move to our next item. Item is Consent item 5.1 and 5.7. Are there any consent items? Board member will request
to be pulled for clarification at the moment. Yes, Mr. Silva. I think it was just 5.1 and 5.7 to be approved, correct? 5.1 to be approved, to be discussed, to be pulled for discussion. So 5.1 and is there another number to
be pulled? Mr. Mr. I also had 5.1. Thank you. 5.1 any other number to be pulled? Okay. So may I have a motion to move the rest 5.2 to 5.7 in block. So moved. Second. All in favor?
Please raise your hand. That's unanimous. Okay. About 5.1, miss Stewart, what's your question? I just sorry. Hello. I just think it would be good to go over what
this contract actually does. And I know it's something that we've talked about for the last year. So if we could just get a little clarity on what the money is for. Thank you. Please introduce yourself first. Sure. Hi. Good afternoon. Adnan Mahmud, deputy
chief of facilities. So for the assessment contract, this is going to be a contract that allows the vendor to assess the all the physical conditions of every single one of our schools. We wanted to start with the 50,
which is what the resolution talks about. And then, you know, so that would allow us to get those data back in time for our next CIP submission. And then obviously we would like to continue with the vendor for the remainder of the other facilities for the next over
between this summer and next summer. And those 50 will be chosen. How? Yeah, so that's a good question. We're actually we have have a draft list. We are look we're checking multiple
data points to select the first 50. So there are certain things that we already have. The Maryland state also does the assessment. So they have their their data. So we're kind of looking at it against their numbers as well as we also have
the study that was done six years ago. So we're comparing those two data as well as also reviewing our history of maintenance and other issues for those facilities. So we're finalizing that list and we're happy to share that with the
with the board. Once we have that 50 chosen in the next over the next week or so. And my last question is will the vendor provide the any software or any
reporting mechanisms for you as part of this? Yes, that is part of the part of their contract. Correct. Does that answer your questions? If yes, thank you. May I have a motion to move? Oh, you have one more question. All
right. So just just for like for the students who are watching, right, who maybe say, well, my school has this issue or my school has that issue, and they're saying, well, m.c.p.s. Isn't doing anything about it. So what this contract would do in certain cases for certain for schools like through, throughout time, would be to kind of take a
list of what the things that we need to improve and on that school are and to kind of give us that sort of detailed sort of breakdown so we know which schools we need to start moving maintenance forward on immediately and how to start sort of get that maintenance effort move forward. Correct. That is correct. So yes, the we
looked at the sample reports that was provided by the vendor. And one of the reasons we actually are recommending this vendor is their report is extremely detailed. They talk about the immediate needs as well as it lays out a, you know, short term, mid-term and long
term plan, which really is going to help us create that that plan of things that we need to address, you know, over a certain period of time. So yes, thank you. I appreciate that, Miss Silvestre. Yes. How often
does this assessment need to be done? I mean, I know in my board tenure, six years ago, we went through an assessment and now we're doing another one. So what what what can we expect another one or what is the regularity of them. Yeah. So the industry
standard is to assess every facility somewhere between every 4 to 6 years. So typically how most organizations with large number of facilities would do is they would select a certain percentage. So if it's 20%. So every five years the facilities
get reassessed. So right now we're trying to get the baseline for all of our all of our facilities first over the next. You know, between now and summer of 2026. And then we also have an extension, you know, that we have to talk to the vendor about in getting them, you know,
future contracts to come back and start reassessing over an interval. Okay. So we haven't done that ongoing assessment over the last couple of years, but we're restarting that process now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes please. Thank you. Madam President. One more thing that I think is
particularly important, and even though we're a little off topic, is planning for your next capital improvement plan adjustment. And so this study also, in addition to identifying short term needs in each of our buildings, will also help us rank priorities to make a
recommendation to the board for some of the bigger projects that need to come along in the next decade and planning ahead for that. One of the dangers of not having that ongoing cycle and not tackling this one piece at a time over, over the last several
years is that, you know, we really don't have a good, clear picture of where our facilities are. And to have an ongoing cycle of when we can expect that is really one of the challenges for facilities planning. So even though we saw one school present
today and their their needs may be very real and, and I have no doubt that they are putting that into context with other schools is really the next part of this process. And where they are in relation to some of the other schools, so that we can plan accordingly. Thank you, Mr.
Savona. So to be clear one more time, this would be this first like 50 that we're kind of looking at. We would want to do this every year like maybe another set of 50 schools which are different than the first. And on a five year cycle the same. The 50 year schools that we start with come back. So I
think maybe I explained that like kind of roundabout. Yeah. So let let me try to explain. So our goal with this contract is to reassess all of our buildings. We're starting with the 50 because we wanted to kind of get the read on some of the
worst facilities that we have in our portfolio in a timely manner. So we could use that. As Doctor Taylor already mentioned in the capital plan that we're going to be coming up at the later stage of this year. However, this contractor will be assessing all 211 schools
between now and next summer. So that would be the baseline. And then after that is complete, the baseline is complete. Then we will decide on that cycle. What time frame is that. They're going to come back and reassess every facility. So it would be a
certain percentage of facilities every year after next summer. Okay. So all 211 assessments are included in this contract. We're just doing 50 right now. And then the rest are kind of going to be done until next summer. So that is 5050. Our immediate priorities. And then correct, because we just did not have
enough time to do the all 211 between now and this summer, where we when we need the data for our next capital plan. That makes sense. Thank you. Seeing no other lights, may I have a motion to approve? Item 5.1 move
approval. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you. That's unanimous. All right, moving right along. We are going to go to our item 6.1 Legislative positions. Now board
of a yes. 5.7. No. No 5.7 was simple. Thank you for checking. Now the Board of Education is the legislative branch of our school system. This year we
establish a legislative platform. And I encourage you to see that two of our key priorities, the GED accessibility and the. AP. IB exam fees have been taken up by
legislators that affect our budget, operation and school community. I will turn the discussion to our board's Legislative Affairs Coordinator, miss Armstrong, please go ahead. Thank you, Miss Yang. Good
evening, president Yang. Doctor Taylor, members of the board. Miss Yang did a pretty good preamble for me, so I don't think I have much to say other than let's get to the bills. The first bill on today's report is
House Bill 232 on the cross file of Senate Bill 346, the Maryland Beverage Container Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Program. This program sets up a deposit and refund system for glass, plastic and metal
beverage containers. The stated purpose of the bill is to reduce litter and pollution, which is a laudable goal. Unfortunately, the program would present significant upfront purchasing costs estimated by our administrative team to be approximately $1.8 million, plus additional staff and overhead
costs to implement the program. There's little hope that we would recuperate the expense via the available refund once the containers are returned, because not all the containers will be placed in appropriate receptacles, so they won't all get returned, so we won't get the refund on all of them. And in many instances, we can't pass
along the ten cent increase to the consumer who would be the student because we're not charging per item for everything that's that's purchased in our cafeterias. And otherwise because of the significant upfront costs, the recommended
position is to oppose this bill. Any questions? Comments from my colleagues? Yes. Mr. Silvana. Just just one thing. I mean, if the bill were to exclude schools and maybe sort of this thing, which I think is very difficult
for it to do, I feel like personally I would support it. But again, I don't think it's very easy to, to legislate it, which is why I think we're taking the opposition stance. Correct. Well, for us it's the cost. If it were written in a way that excluded schools, quite
frankly, we wouldn't be discussing it, period, because it wouldn't have an impact on us. Absolutely. Thank you. So this. Oh, yes, miss. Thank you. Yeah. I just I wanted to kind of mention that as well. Obviously we all want to be climate forward. We want to make sure that we're doing everything that
we can to preserve, you know, our environment and our earth for our children. But I think that in these years where we have very tight fiscal constraints, where we're looking at budgets and trying to make sure that every penny goes as much as it can towards our students and what they need. And we have so many needs that even
with those very laudable goals, which I support generally, it's challenging to support this type of bill because those costs that come with it. So thank you so much for preparing this for us. Seeing no other lights, may I have a motion? Move approval. Move to oppose the bill. Move,
move to oppose the bill. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. That's unanimous. Great. So the next bill is HB 543. This is county boards of education,
substance abuse treatment, student information disclosure policy. So this bill would require us to share student information with either detox center or hospital in connection with substance abuse treatment. If a student is experiencing a health emergency and the
disclosure is necessary to protect the health and safety of the student, student records currently are typically protected from disclosure by FERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act already contains an exception, which would allow the disclosure of student information. Quote, if the
educational agency determines that there is a significant threat to the health or safety of a student. So because the proposed legislation is basically duplicative of what FERPA already contains, we are recommending to oppose this bill. Any questions or comments
from colleagues? Yes, Mr. Savona. Okay, so seeing no lights, may I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. So the motion is to oppose the bill. All right. All in favor, please
raise your hand. That's unanimous. Let's go to the next one. Great. So the next one is House Bill 689. This is the Maryland Medical Assistance Program. Use of reimbursement funds by schools. So this bill
places restrictions on the use of funds the system receives from the Maryland Medical Assistance Program or the Maryland Children's Health Insurance Program, although I think that's less common. Currently, medical assistance revenue is used to fund permanent special education staff members who directly
support special education students. Central office staff to support monitoring, collecting, and insurance. Ensuring compliance with medical assistance billing regulations which would make sure that we're getting the most refund that we can. Ensuring compliance.
Payment of recertification fees for special for speech pathologists and funding for university partnerships. To create a pipeline for new speech pathologists to be employed by M.C.P.S. Right now, M.C.P.S. Generates approximately 5.2 million in medical assistance
revenue annually, and based on the use restrictions in this bill, only about 2.2 million in services that are currently funded through the Medical Assistance Fund would be allowable. So this was caused about a $3 million shortage in our special education budget. It would have a direct negative
impact on our special education students, which is the student population. The reimbursement funds are currently used to support and benefit. The bill also narrowly defines who a provider is to include only medical providers, so it excludes special education teachers from the group of employees who would be eligible
for recruitment and retention stipends that were available in the bill. Special education teachers have the same authority and ability to bill medical assistants for services they provide and in fact, in our school system, services provided by special education teachers makes up approximately 75% of
our reimbursement funds, whereas only 25% come from medical billers. Medical providers. So not allowing the teachers to receive the stipend creates an inequity that is unjustified. So in short and kind of long, the bill places various restrictions
on how school systems can use medical assistance reimbursement funds. Schools are in the best position to determine how the funds can be used to best support some of their most vulnerable and at need students. Because the bill removes that ability, the proposed position is to oppose this bill. Thank you for that explanation. Any
other questions or comments? Yes, Miss Montoya. Thank you so much. Just so that I'm clear and so that the community understands. So currently, the revenue that we receive, the school system uses it for the
various allocations that you mentioned. Right. Predominantly in special education. With the reimbursements, the way you talked about with the 75% for teachers and that type of billing versus medical providers. Correct. This bill would would tell us, no, we're
going to tell the state is going to tell you that what you can use that money for, and you can only use it for A, B, C, and D, which is mostly not what we are currently using to provide the services for our kids. Correct. Okay. Thank you so much. Seeing no other lights. May I have a
motion? Move to oppose. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. So the next bill is HB 811. The cross file is SB 526. This
is construction of sidewalks and crosswalks. Safe alternative routes to public schools. So what this bill would require us to prepare an annual report providing safe pathways a student can use to walk from their residence to their assigned school. This applies
only to students who live near enough to a school that transportation is not provided. The county would then have to use this report to construct sidewalks and crosswalks within the designated paths. Our staff estimates that it would cost us approximately $5 million annually annually to prepare
this report and make sure it's up to date. The cost to the county would be substantial. The fiscal note says it's as much as $96 million in the first year, and then annual maintenance costs of approximately $1 million. There's also a potential that it opens our
school system up to liability for injuries that may be occur on these routes that we designate as safe, but then we do not have any obligation or legal authority to maintain. For these reasons, we recommend that the board oppose this bill. Thank you. Any comments or
questions? Seeing none. May I have a motion? Move to oppose. Second. All in favor? Raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you. Next one please. So the next bill is SB 355. This is the
family and medical leave insurance program. Delay of implementation. This bill delays the implementation date of the Family and Medical Leave insurance program for two years. The proposed delay will provide fiscal relief as employees and employer contributions will be
delayed, and additional time for the Department of Labor to finalize regulations and other aspects of the program that remain outstanding. The Department of Labor has recognized a need for a delay in light of changes at the federal level, and the uncertainty that those changes have created for Maryland employers and workers.
The Department of Labor is requesting an 18 month delay, whereas the bill, as proposed, is a two year delay. This extension would provide M.C.P.S. With additional time to plan for implementation and mitigate the financial impact on employees and the school system, and
ensure a more structured and effective transition as the program takes off. As a result, we recommend that the board support this bill. Any questions or comments? So just to be clear, we're we're in favor of the family and medical leave
insurance program is just there's not current regulations in the Department of Labor is also saying, well, we need some more time to get it all figured out before we go forward. Yeah. I mean, there are there are financial concerns with the program. Taking off currently. And yes, the Department of Labor
has acknowledged that they need more time to get it right. Thank you. Seeing no other lights. May I have a motion? Move to support this bill. Second. All in favor? Raise your hand. That's
unanimous. Okay, so now we have HB 608 across file is SB 821. This is the primary and secondary education student immunization temporary admission period. So this bill would allow school systems to temporarily admit students who do not meet
the current requirements regarding immunizations for a period of not more than 60 days. Currently, we must exclude a student without the required immunizations after 20 days in order to be temporarily, temporarily admitted under the bill. A family would have to provide an evidence of an appointment within that 60 day
period, and then provide proof of the immunizations after the appointment occurs. This extension benefits our families, especially our newly arrived families who sometimes experience difficulties either obtaining proof of immunizations that they've already obtained or getting an appointment to receive the required
immunizations that they don't already have. The extended time allows the children to remain in school, reducing the harm and learning loss that can result from exclusion. Due to the benefit this bill provides to our families and students, we recommend that the board support this legislation. Thank you. And
I understand that a lot of family. It takes a long time to find a primary care doctor and set up an appointment. So I see it as a very positive move. May I have a motion? Oh, I see light. Mr. Miss Montoya. Thank
you. I have a question, and I'm looking at the Maryland Statutes here, and I'm not sure if that would apply here, but in terms of the 60 days, are these calendar days, business days? I know sometimes, depending on the jurisdiction, if it's above this many days, we count weekends. If it's not, we don't. With a
number like 60, I'm inclined to think we're talking calendar days, not business days. But that would just be something interesting to note if it is in fact business days, because then we're talking about a more extensive period than just two months, basically. So that's
kind of one question I have. One concern I have with this bill. As a mom of two little kids, I know it is challenging to get doctor's appointments. Sometimes people aren't available. You can't necessarily just go anywhere. Sometimes, depending on if you have insurance or don't. That being said, I get
concerned that instead of solving the problem and not necessarily by the board or the school system, but as a society, instead of solving the challenge of families having access to health care and to timely immunizations, especially for our children, that instead we're just providing for an extended
period of time for which we're going to allow them to not have them, which puts potentially those children, their families, other families, school staff at risk because people might have suppressed immune systems. They may live with someone who does, or elderly parents. We have
multi family, multi-generational families living in one home. So I find it challenging. To think that this is the best solution. So for your first question, the bill specifically says 60
calendar days. So it would be a straight 60 count. You know, for the concern there are two sides. So yes, you are allowing students to remain enrolled for potentially a longer period of time while they're attempting to
get those immunizations. Which presents a potential health concern. We also find that excluding the students and not allowing them to access education is harmful to them in other ways. So it is just a
balance of what the school system, you know, finds more pressing. And I know that there are a lot of school systems that have a lot of students who end up getting excluded after 20 days because they have they are actively trying to get immunizations that they just
cannot get in that in that short time frame. And are you aware of whether whether it's Delegate Taylor or Senator Watson or any other of our state level legislators, have they raised this issue about, you know, sometimes we talk about, like putting Band-Aids over problems
versus getting to the roots of the problem. Is that even a conversation that's being had, or are you aware or is it just this is what we think should be the solution? I don't know what kind of conversations are being had about trying to fix the underlying problem. I know that
this bill was one that was proposed and spearheaded by Prince George's. Prince George's? Yeah, I think they're both Prince George's County. Yeah. Prince George's school system, because they are seeing this issue of having to exclude
students after 20 days and they have asked for a legislative fix to allow for a longer period of time. Thank you so much. Miss Rivera Evans. I just wanted to
put in my $0.02 and that this also, I believe, goes into the boosters that kids get for immunization. So the second round that they need to and as somebody who serves a lot of these families in the county, I can tell you that I, I think my
colleague LaToya is right. We're not really addressing the issue, which is the fact that some of these families, they make appointments in May to be able to be seen in August or September, and it becomes an
equity issue when you have kids who are starting, you know, the first day of school and then then you have kids who have to start weeks later. So the best solution would be, you know, for us to be able to have funding, to be able to do immunization
clinics during the summer, to get a lot of these kids ready. But as many of you know, we also have children who start school in the middle of the year or instances. So as somebody who has seen children stayed home because they're waiting for their booster shots. It is just
not possible to many of them. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other lights, may I have a motion? Move to support this bill. Second, the motion is to support the bill. All in favor,
please raise your hand. That's miss Mr. Miss Montoya. Miss Wolff. And all of us. And. Okay, so it's unanimous. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to the next one. So, the last bill on
which we're going to ask the board to take a position is HB 504 and SB 429, which is the Governor's Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act. This is a very large bill that covers many items. So what I'm
going to do is give a high level overview of the bill. I'm going to identify the main initiatives and propose a stance on those items. The recommended bill position is support with amendments. And the requested amendments, although they're not
yet known, will be determined based on the board's stance on each of the initiatives that are contained within the bill. As I go through this bill, I definitely invite Doctor Taylor and Miss Maguire when she returns to add any information or insights they have based on
discussions the administration have had about this bill, I'm sure they have been extensive. So this bill addresses three main areas collaborative time and teacher recruitment, teacher retention and development, and
community schools as it concerns collaborative time. The bill proposes to delay the implementation of the increased collaborative time for educators that is contained in the blueprint. The delay is for four years. The requirement for the 6040 split for teachers was
scheduled to go into effect starting in FY 26, and it goes in. It goes into effect over an eight year period. The proposed bill delays the implementation until FY 30, and along with the proposed delay, there are changes and reductions in the
foundation formulas. So in FY 26, the per pupil foundation formula was scheduled to increase by $163 per student in order to begin implementing the collaborative time requirement. There's an inflationary factor that also applies because of the
proposed pause on the collaborative time requirement, the school system is no longer eligible for that additional $163 per pupil. So this means that under the current law, the foundation under the current law, the foundation funding was scheduled to grow from $8,789
per student in FY 25 to $9226 per student in FY 26. Because of the reduction in this bill, the increase would only be to $9,063. So there is still an
increase from year to year. It's just smaller than what we were anticipating. The decrease in the foundation funding also impacts funding for our multilingual learners and compensatory education students, because that funding is based on a percentage of the foundation
funding. That's also the case for special education students. But special education funds were held harmless, so there would be no impact on special education funds. Because of the funding,
the reduced funding that this proposal presents, there would be the suggestion would be that we wouldn't support that portion of the bill. There are also teacher recruitment initiatives that have been proposed in the
bill. There's a national teacher recruitment campaign and Maryland Teacher Relocation Incentive grant. Some changes to the Grow Your Own Educators grant program. Pathway to Teacher License Licensure Collaborative, which would change licensing requirements,
and the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact. These are all. Plans for MSD to try to increase teacher recruitment and retention in our state. The teacher. Interstate Teacher
Mobility Compact is also including Maryland. In that compact is also the subject of a freestanding bill that we supported last time under our platform. So we've already expressed support for that provision. The other items are
all things that aren't really fleshed out very well. They cost money and we don't know what the programs look like. So until or unless more information can be received on those. The.
Suggestion for this, this section is to support the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact, but not support those other items at this time. In terms in terms of teacher retention and development, there's currently a school system leadership training
program, which was put into effect last legislative session, and that requires the state Superintendent of Schools and local superintendents, board chairs or presidents and vice chairs and vice presidents to do a training program. This bill
would develop an additional training program for Maryland School, a Maryland school leadership academy that would be for school based staff. Again run by Msde. It would be pretty onerous. There's also an
Academic Excellence program, excellence program, and fund. This has a pretty substantial fiscal note, and it would basically be Msde would hire a coordinator of professional learning and instructional
coaches. And the stated position is to ensure that Maryland students have equitable access to high quality instruction and targeted academic support. These are both items that we feel that we can do at a local level. That we don't need additional
oversight and input from Msde. So these are things that we would recommend. That we do not support, because this is something that we can do. And then finally is the community schools. This bill proposes a
funding freeze for both the personnel and per pupil grant funding for community schools in FY 27 and 28. So what would happen is the community schools that are already identified and receiving funding in FY 26 would continue to be identified. Community schools for FY 27 and
28. They would receive the same amount of funding that they were getting in FY 26. No additional community schools would be identified. No additional community schools would be brought into the program. In FY 29, the. Plan would resume. So
increased funding would would continue. At that point, new community schools could be brought into the program, but everything would resume at the FY 27 level. So it is just a freeze. Everything would just remain the same for two, two fiscal years. And then we would pick up the program where we
paused in FY 29. This there is a funding impact here. A. A fiscal impact. So I know many school systems are not supporting this
this initiative. Along with the community schools program, there is an it alters a statutory statutory provision regarding the use of community school funds. Right now you need 40 community schools to be able to
have a little more flexibility on how you spend your funds. This drops it to two community schools, so the flexibility would be beneficial. And then it does have additional funding so that Msde could increase their
community schools. The Office of Community Schools. And there likely is benefit to increasing their staff. They currently have two staff members that oversee and try to provide support for
700 community schools, and we have had difficulty getting guidance and answers and insight because of the number of schools that they are trying to oversee. So there is some benefit to having Msde increase that staff.
So we would support that. And then finally there is a special education funding study that's requesting that there just be a study to determine what an appropriate level of funding for special education would be. I
think that that is something that could be beneficial. So that would be something else we would support. Thank you for that. Excellent summary. It's a large bill with 60 pages. I'm going to turn to my colleagues to see if there's any questions or comments. Miss Wolff. I want
to thank you for that. It's a little bit of uncertainty and lack of clarity around quite a bit of this, so I was curious as to whether or not you felt we had to actually take a position at this time. So the benefit of,
of taking a position is that then we know what portions of the bill the board likes and what portions of the b of the bill the board doesn't like, so that we can have conversations with our elected officials. As this bill is, is
going to get amended so that Montgomery County's thoughts and needs and desires are part of that conversation. If we don't have a position on the bill, then it's harder to engage in those conversations. Okay, I would just be curious as to whether or not my fellow board
members know which part we're supporting and which part we're not, because it was so much that you went through. So, to be perfectly honest, I'm a little hesitant to say support with amendments because I need all those amendments listed out that we agree with. Yeah. And I mean,
the difficulty with providing actual amendments on a 63 page bill is that the amendments would be kind of line item changing what's there, which just hasn't occurred. Kind of
the, the, the position and the plan that that most of our colleagues are across the state have taken is, is this that there's a kind of a high, high level overview and idea of generally what we like and generally what we don't like,
and then using that information to move forward, to amend the bill through the, the, the legislative process. Miss Montoya, it's okay if Miss Wolff had something else. I go ahead. I'll. I'll come back. Thank you.
Thank you again. I know this is a very voluminous bill amongst many bills, so I appreciate you providing as best a synopsis as you could for us. And I know it's ever changing. I want to express the same hesitancy. I think it makes me uncomfortable to raise my hand one way or the
other, when I don't feel certain about what exactly it is that we are taking a position on. But I do recognize that part of this is the evolving nature of this bill, because it is so voluminous and there are so many individuals involved in trying to shape what this can look like going forward. I do have
concerns, maybe even more than I'm going to state in a minute. Once I read through the bill a couple more times because it is so lengthy. But I'm concerned and please educate me if I've overlooked this. If it is in here, please let me know that I don't see anything. Addressing
the payment of AP, IB and dual enrollment fees for non farm students, which I know is a rather large chunk of those fees that at least in our school system, I'm not sure about other school systems. So I'm concerned that that is not being addressed
by our state level legislators. I'm also concerned that the collaborative time grants cannot be used for any existing programing, because I know my understanding at least, is that MCPs has put some efforts in place in anticipation of these requirements. And that's one of
the big challenges that we're having, is we've done, or at least started to do what we need to do to comply. And now we're being told, never mind, but we can't really then go back and tell our staff, never mind. Right. And so I have a hard time with feeling like Montgomery County is really kind of left
out of some of these opportunities that have a big, huge impact on our ability to run our school system and our ability to fund our school system, and not to have to go to our community over and over again to say we need more fiscal support. I also have a concern
about the year long Leadership Academy. I'm all about training us and making sure that leaders have the tools they need, and the education and the connections and the community and collaboration. I have concerns, though, that this is a
required year long academy. It's not just for school principals. It seems that the our wonderful superintendent would be required. Our school board, any future school board, presidents and vice presidents. This is an additional requirement for a year on top of our regular job
requirements. I don't see any mechanisms for additional pay or stipends or anything like that. It says that these this training is to be in-person and hybrid. I assume that in-person training would likely be in Annapolis, which means we have to drive there. For some of us, that
could be over an hour, including parking and gas. And even if as school systems, we say, well, we're going to support that by doing reimbursements. Again, that's an additional cost to our school system, where we then maybe have to go back to the community to say, hey, we have this unfunded mandate, but we
have to do it. So we might need some more support. And I am always hesitant to do that. I also each school system is so different. And especially in Montgomery County where we have such a huge system, so many different parts, multicultural, different geographic locations,
different neighborhoods and cultures. It's challenging for me to see how a statewide leadership training and academies would always resonate with the challenges that we have here in Montgomery County. So I think that some of those things
may be best left to our local authorities and decisions. So I appreciate all of your work. That's just a few areas that I'm concerned about. I will take another peruse through and then update any other areas of concern. Thank you, Miss Stewart. Thank you for the
synopsis. I appreciate the thoroughness. How I know that the hearing on this was yesterday. Correct? Correct. And so we haven't actually submitted anything from Montgomery County Board. So I feel like being that
we've already passed the hearing, we have some time. Because we don't have like a hard deadline. And I actually think maybe it would be a good exercise, possibly to go line by line, because this is a really
important bill. We could lose millions of dollars. Again, that would help fund things. Some of it that we already do. And so it's a chunk of money. And we
are the largest school system in Maryland. And I think it might be worth it for us to go into a little more detail than we usually do. And also work with our partners through Maeve. So
that's my little input, and I associate myself with a lot of what my colleagues have said already. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Zimmerman. Thank you. I want to echo some of the same sentiments as my colleagues. I understand that there are some
unknown elements here, and that there might be things that we support, like attracting high quality educators to Maryland. But in general, it seems like most of the other parts we oppose. I just find it very difficult to say that to put the
word support. Even support with amendments. I just find it difficult to say that we support a bill that will reduce or freeze our funding in M.C.P.S. I just find that very difficult to say. Miss Rivera-Oven, thank you. Just not I'm not going to
be repetitive, but I just think we're rushing a little bit on this because this was just heard yesterday. Remember, we also have our senators and delegates that are also working on these bills and are up to date on these bills. I would like time
for us to see what their take is on on it. I just, you know, if I knew some of the amendments and some of the amendments were, you know, to reimburse us for the IB or so on, we are the largest system in the state, and I just
don't want us to rush into something that is going to be long term. Not the best decision at this time. I think I you know, I agree with my colleagues. We have some time to digest this. This is the big thing to digest and to have a
lot of unknowns for us to say that we will support the unknown. I rather support the known that the unknown. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Armstrong. I have a clarifying questions to ask. So if we put out a position
such as support with amendment one, we actually have an amendment. Is that another opportunity for us to say whether we support the amendment or we will oppose the amendment?
Yeah. So I'm going to kind of backtrack and address a couple of the things I heard as well. So as of now, to my knowledge, no actual amendments have been brought forward. Anyone, even the people who who participated
in the hearing yesterday. Who's our superintendents association? Maybe the board's association. Both took support with amendment positions and did not bring forth specific amendments. They brought forth ideas. This is what we don't like. This is what
we like. This is where we think we should see some change. For the purpose of being involved in the conversation going forward. I think my concern about not taking any position right now is that our next meeting isn't until March 18th, and a lot of work is going to happen on this
bill in a month. If we don't have if we take no position right now, then like I said, we're just we don't have a voice. We're not part of the conversation. So the amendments happen without us being an
active participant. To your question, Miss Yang. Yes. Once the bill is in subcommittees and starts to get amended and amendments and changes are known, I will absolutely come back to the board and update you on what the bill looks like. And
if we take a position now and it gets amended in such a way that we don't agree with, we can change the position. We're not locked into a position for the entirety of the legislative session just because we took one now. So, you know, I will bring
updates to the board as this bill develops and changes. So from what I'm hearing, the staff recommendation is allowing is based on it will allow us to be engaged in the process of this
bill's development as it goes forward. Correct. Okay. I don't have any further questions. I'm looking at my colleagues. Yes, Miss Wolff. Okay. If you could just summarize again what we're supporting and what we're opposing, that would be helpful
to me because it sounded like the majority of it, we would actually be opposing. And so support, you know, raising my hand for support with amendments is a little bit questionable to me at this time. I hear what you're saying, but what stops
our participation through Maeve on this? Because they're down there every week. So just because we would say no position right now doesn't mean that we lose our benefit in being able to contribute to any substantive
conversation on it. Correct. I mean, Mab is still going to be involved. Pizam is still going to be involved. They do speak on behalf of all of the school systems. So it's not as if schools don't have a voice. It's just that Montgomery County's
specific perspective wouldn't be necessarily presented. And there are times that we disagree with the position or the direction that Mab or Pizam take. So, I mean, I think in, in broad buckets, we would we don't
support the collaborative time, the recommendations or the proposed stances would be not to support the collaborative time. Because it results in a significant funding reduction for us. To not not support the
teacher recruitment efforts outside of the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact just because one there, it's kind of unclear what they do. There is a fiscal impact there, and some of these funds are being diverted
from from the blueprint fund. And we would like for any of these initiatives that go forward to be funded through the general fund. The both the Maryland School Leadership Academy and the Academic Excellence Program and Fund
would be things that we do not support in the current. Okay. But I still am not hearing when you say that we would not be offering support or it would be known what our position is known
to whom. So one, we could submit late testimony so that we would be part of the bill file. And then two, it would allow me to have discussions with our elected officials to express where M.c.p.s stands. And I also
have weekly meetings with Mab and representation from Am, and it would allow me to be able to speak authoritatively about what M.c.p.s. Position is on these various items. Can you tell me
what our position, what it is we are supporting if we support with amendments? Just just a list. I mean, so the two main provisions or I guess three would be the, the flexibility
for the spending. The community schools funds. The increasing the msde staffing for community schools for the oversight and then the special education funding study. I don't know if
Doctor Taylor has anything that he would add to what the school system generally would be supportive of, and what are we opposing? Everything else. Okay. But, you know, that's I mean, it is it is largely a bill that in
its current form, schools are not happy with. Well, exactly. And that's what I'm thinking, that everything that you said was in the discussion actually yesterday for the most part. Correct. So I'm wondering where you get the idea that our
position would not be solidified down there because it would be unknown, because that's part of the discussion that we had when we created the May testimony for yesterday. Correct. It's just that that Montgomery County Public Schools is not present,
but not that our general position or stance is not covered by those other organizations. It's just that MCPs is absent. Thank you. I think we are going around. Around. I want my colleagues to
ask their questions and give their comment. Remember to be additive and not repetitive. Miss Mr. O'Neill. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So I mean, from what what I'm gathering is we
oppose a large part of the bill. So would it be possible to, to change our stance to maybe be to support in part oppose in part with amendments to very clearly define, you know, what we oppose versus what we support to say, you know, there's it's broad swaths of the bill that we do
oppose. And then these are the sections that we do support. Is that is that a possibility of a motion that can enter the table? Looking to board staff or, I mean, I guess in in theory, you could take that position in practice in Annapolis if you're
going to, to provide testimony. Your options are support, oppose or support with amendment. So there's just not a mechanism for support and oppose. And but if that makes the board more
comfortable, to be clear that there are large portions of the bill that are opposed, then I mean, you you could do that. Okay. And I, I know, thank you. I know there are several other colleagues has comments. I'm going to go with Miss Montoya.
Thank you. I just want to make sure that I understand and that the community understands correctly. So when you say if we don't take a position now, then we don't get to be a part of the conversation. I feel a little bit confused because in my
experience with legislative bills, well, one, you can show up and just testify. Well, you can't just show up and testify, right? There's a process, but you can engage in that process as an organization, as an individual. However, you know, elected officials and so is it
that if we don't support this bill, we think that our state level legislators are not going to engage with us about the challenges that we see in the bill? Or is it that we're being told, well, if you don't support we're not inviting you to the meeting where we're talking about the bill. I just want to better understand what you mean
by that, that like, we won't be part of the conversation. I feel confused. So I am there to profess and advocate for the position of the board. So if the board does not have a position, it it makes it more difficult
for me to advocate. It does not prevent any of you from reaching out to elected officials to provide your input. But I work at the direction of the board. So with no board position there is. It makes it more difficult for me to express what the board's position is. Right. But
when you say you're there, do you mean like there's a bill hearing tomorrow? And if you don't have a position from us, you're not able to, then, you know, because I understand when you when you submit testimony for state bills, you have to say you oppose, you support or you support with amendments. ET cetera. Absolutely. So is that what you're talking about? Or
are you saying in the conversations that happen, whether it's with mayb, for example, or the Montgomery County delegation or a particular committee, because maybe it's going to go in front of a committee. So maybe some committee members, is that what you're talking about? And are we
saying that if we don't decide this one way or the other, now that we can't decide this, you know, not, I'll say, in the future, but I don't mean like months in the future, right? Obviously, working within the time we have for when session ends and cross over and all of
those things. I'm just feeling confused as to what you mean when you're saying, well, then I can't advocate for a position. I don't I don't necessarily think that I hear my colleagues saying, we don't ever want to take a position. Just that there are so many unknowns. And so
even in, quote unquote, taking a position, I'm not fully confident we know what we're taking a position on, and it seems that we may need more time to understand that. Again, given the voluminous nature of the bill, this is in a two page bill or just one section that's being
changed. So what I'm hearing is at this is an extensive bill with many different parts. And we as board members, colleagues would like to get more comfortable with each section and actually flesh out our thinking for each section. So to
be better able to put in a position for this very large bill. So what I would suggest is that we might need to table this one, and then have a more understanding a study over the bill before we take any
positions. Miss Stewart, do you have anything additional to add in the meantime? If we go that direction, we could work with maybe, which Brenda already works with them on the
committee. Yes, yes. That's all. May working with May is always ongoing. Working with May is always ongoing. So it's not that we're just going to abandon this for a couple of weeks. But when we do come in, I mean, I don't
see a problem with us offering amendments as well and being a really, you know, active in that way, being that, again, we are the largest school system. So I just want us not to be afraid to
be very active. Yeah. As a Montgomery County entity. Yeah. In the interest of time, I'm going to take two more comments or questions. Miss Sylvester. So are you suggesting that we're going to table it today? But then rally and give Miss
Armstrong some direction so that we don't have to wait a month for her to have a clear marching orders from the board? Yes. And that will we will work out the logistics of how to. Thank you. Just want to clarify that conduct that again. I'm just
going to follow up on that real quickly again. So if we if we move to table today, we're still going to be able to communicate with legislators on what this is as a as a board priority. Or would we have to make a motion right now to say we oppose in part support and part to have that conversation for you to
have that conversation with legislators? I mean, I can certainly still speak in generalities. I can speak with maybe I can speak with I have meetings with their leadership. The difficulty is that everything is couched with. We haven't taken a position on this
bill. The Montgomery County Board hasn't actually, you know, so it's just couched in a, in a, in a manner of kind of some level of uncertainty and lack of authority. Okay. So in order to
put us in the best bargaining spot, I'm actually going to move for a support in part oppose in part, just so we're able to have some level of authority when we're when we're discussing with legislators. So that's the motion I put on the table. So
can you restate your motion. Move to support in part and oppose in part with amendments. I thought we couldn't do that. Oh, I mean, that's not like an official position that could be taken on the like if you were going to submit testimony through the General Assembly website. I think it would, but
it just I think it does better reflect the feeling of the board that you oppose part of the bill and you support other parts of the bill with amendment and then with the understanding that we can alter our position later as more information with the bill comes to light. Yes. Mr. Sivana,
put forth a motion. Is there a second to that motion? Hearing none. The motion does not carry. Thank you. We will have a motion. Do we need to make a motion to table the bill
officially? Or we can. We just. We don't need a motion to table the bill. All right. So thank you for that portion. And now we're going to go into bills cover under the platform. Board of education had a advocacy
platform or or. So. These are the bills that are covered under our platform. There are 123456 bills. And any any questions or comments with any particular
bills. Yes, Miss Montoya. Thank you. I just like to make a couple of brief comments about the bills. While I recognize that we do have a platform as a board. And perhaps some of these bills may seem to fall within
the platform. And I'm not in any way opposing or rejecting our platform as a board of education. But I do I do have some concerns about. Sorry, I do
have some concerns with. Some of the positions we're taking on particular bills. So for HB 1015, which in the Senate is filed as Senate Bill 468 with the start time for instruction. I absolutely recognize the
fiscal constraints, the realities of what we're working in with our budget and the complexities that it takes to alter things like start times, because we have bus transportation and staffing and things like that. So I do want to recognize that for practical purposes, this bill would be
challenging for us at this time, including other school districts as well. I do also want to recognize that science does support later school start times for our middle school and high school students. Other jurisdictions do this. Other places have this as a law. As a
parent of a rising middle schooler, I can see the sleep schedule change myself just over the course of this year. So it's challenging for me to oppose the bill, because I know that this is what's best for our students. But I also recognize the fiscal
constraints that we're dealing with at this time. I also wanted to comment on HB 688, which is filed as Senate Bill 5052. Education. High school graduation requirements.
Financial aid application. I do support opposing the bill. But I want to state my vigorous opposition to this bill. While I think the intent of the bill may be to just make sure that our kids have, you know, are getting
these forms filled out when they want to go to college so that they can get the funding they need and make that process perhaps streamlined or access easier for them, which I absolutely support. I'm not sure that the intrusion on their privacy is being at the is at the forefront for our
legislators. These financial forms contain a lot of information. Not to not just financial information. It could be information about your family, about where people are living, the dynamics of your family, etcetera. So to require this information to be disclosed
from families and students, even those who may not be seeking financial support post graduation. Seems like a very intense intrusion of privacy for no purpose. And so I just wanted to state for the community that I very much vigorously oppose
that for you. Thank you, Miss Armstrong. Since these are all Miss Silvestre, you have a comment? Yes. I am a big proponent of making sure that all of our students have planned for after graduation, so I did want to comment also on the
Fafsa bill. And I ask ask for some internal information in terms of what we are doing, and I'm happy to share that with the board. Certainly, I wanted to say that we do want every student to fill out a Fafsa or Mfsa because there's money on the table. There is money to go
to college or any post-secondary institution. So we should continue to strive to help our students come up with a plan for after graduation and take advantage of the money that the State of Maryland provides, so that our students can go to the workforce with additional skills that they get through
post-secondary training, college, and ready for to fulfill our mission with to prepare them for college and community. Thank you. I will associate myself with that comment. Thank you so much. Mr. Since we're commenting just real
quick. I also. Have a hard time just outright opposing the start time Bill, because I know this is I feel like this is a goal to move towards. So I don't know. I
know we have a transportation study that we have. I believe an RFP will be going out at some point to look into options about using other transportation means besides our yellow school
busses, etcetera, to try to see if we can make this work fiscally. And I just want to let people know that this is something that we can look into,
and I'm hope we do. And the other is the forms. I hope that we continue to engage our students, to enable them to fill out the forms they need to get financial aid. And I know we do that work, but it I just wanted
to associate myself with Carla's comments. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your comment. I just want to remind our my colleagues, our oppose for the start time for instruction is not based on the merit of the bill, is based on preserving
local autonomy. So I want to make that very clear to everyone watching and participating in this conversation. Thank you everyone. Since there's no action to take, I thank you so much for very detailed conversation report on all these
bills and I look forward to our March 18th meetings and also our conversation on the governor's bill. Thank you so much for your work. Okay, colleagues, we are going to move to the next item
is number 7.1, the very exciting item about regulation, code implementation and cell phone pilot update. As the staff made their way to the front. I'm actually excited, very excited
because recently I had the opportunity to visit Silver Creek Middle School and Rockville High School, where I spoke with students and staff in focus groups about this important topic. Hearing their firsthand experiences provided
very valuable insight into how the pilot is functioning in our schools, and it was also incredibly informative to see its impact in real time. So the board looks forward to continue this important conversation
today. With that, I will turn to you, Doctor Taylor. Thank you, Madam President. As we've all seen in the news, cell phones and cell phone use are front and center in our schools. And it's been a big part of the national. Oh, sorry. Hang on a second.
Hello? Oh, I'm about to talk through a presentation. They're about to talk through how districts have been grappling with the role of cell phones. Do we have a pocket? Do we have a phone pocket? Do we? Thank you so much, Miss Pyles. Yes, very much, thank you. Need to lock
that up. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Right. Okay. It's a part of that. So I apologize for the distraction because it's been fairly significant distraction for today's presentation. Andren grappling with the role of cell
phones. And thank you so much I appreciate that. No, I guess so. I got to got to keep it up there for sure. And in many cases, that role has differed between elementary, middle and high schools. And Montgomery County is no exception. So we bring to
you a brief update about our regulation dealing with personal electronic devices and cell phones, and some findings from our pilot study and some talking opportunities for the board and some of our staff who have been experiencing this. So at this
time, I'm going to turn this over to our Chief of Strategic initiatives, Stephanie Sharon. Oh, good evening everybody. I want to take a moment first to introduce the amazing staff who are here today. I have Doctor Cara Trenkamp, who is the director of Digital Innovation, who has been really leading the
initiative on our away all day. I have Rashonda Pyles here, who is the principal of Rockville High School, our one and only high school in the Away All Day initiative, and the fabulous Chris Nardi, who is the principal of Pile Middle School,
also in our away all day. And they have been both of them have been a pleasure and models for how to implement this policy and have been integral in helping us learn from them. If we can go to the next slide, please. So today we are going to share an update
on both our regulation khagra away all day and a timeline for updates and next steps. And you can see that our headline right here for you today is cell phone Restrictions more than mandates. And that is purposeful. It is. We have seen all over the country various different
mandates of banning cell phones. And what we have learned is that it actually to do this well, it has to be more than the mandate. It has to involve thoughtful collaboration with our student staff and our community around how best to implement
restrictions in a way that is meeting the needs of everybody. So Montgomery County has been revising and tightening up our regulation over the last year, and we took the approach instead of just going to an immediate ban about really learning more about the nuances of cell phone
management to inform our next steps. So today we're going to hear this. We're going to talk about some of the preliminary findings of the shared accountability report that will be released in early March. And then we are going to based on those findings, we're going to over the next few months,
continue our communication and collaboration in order to tighten up our implementation and revisions to the regulation with making any updates to that regulation in May, and also sharing resources and best practices. Because, again, it's more than mandates with our
schools and community. Next slide please. So I wanted to just take a minute to refresh everybody's memory on what our current regulation says. And it was updated in 2022. But the purpose of the regulation is to
establish procedures for possession and use of personal mobile devices. So that's not just cell phones. We call it the cell phone regulation, but it actually is all encompassing to other personal devices laptops, smartwatches, earbuds, tablets,
etc. So our current restrictions are as follows. In elementary school, they cannot have it bell to bell during the day they can have before and after school. They can have devices. Middle school. As you can see, that's where we start adding in our current regulation a little bit more flexibility. They can have
it before and after school. They cannot have it between classes and transition. But there is school and teacher discretion for lunch and instructional class use. High school. They have an even even more flexibility under our current regulation. They can have it
before and after school. They definitely can have it at lunch. And then there is discretion for both instructional class use at the school level and between classes in transition there is school level discretion. Next slide please. So as you all know
across the country we have seen headlines where districts have eliminated this discretion. And they have banned cell phones in all grade levels during the entire school day. However, many of these blanket bans at the policy level haven't done much to actually help the schools implement them. They have made
bans, but there hasn't been a lot of support to the schools to implement these. No cell phone policies, particularly at times like hallways and lunch transitions, particularly at the high school. What we have learned, and you will hear from Miss Pyles in more detail about today. Managing cell phone use
is much more complex and challenging, and often requires more staff effort and time that they want to make sure that they're focusing, focusing on in instruction. There were national guidelines that M.C.P.S. Was actually cited in the national guidelines by the Department of
Education. That suggests that when you implement guidelines, it is essential to have stakeholders involved to better understand the complexity and the implementation of a policy. And MCPs really took this national guidance to heart, and that is why we designed the away all day experience to better
learn about these complexities before moving forward. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Doctor Cara Trenkamp, who's going to give you more details about what the actual. Oh, and before I actually move on, I do want to just point out that little picture in the upper right hand corner. That's actually a real news article
from 1963, where they actually predicted that phones will be in your pocket in the future. So this is actually been a long time coming, that this has been something that has actually been predicted for quite some time. Doctor Trenkamp is now going to talk more about the parameters
and the process for the away all day pilot. And next slide please. And good evening. I'm Kara Trenkamp. I'm the director for digital Innovation and I'm happy to be here today to share a little bit about our away all day initiative and some of the learnings. So last August we had
a voluntary session with our school leaders, particularly at the secondary level, around really building a plan to better understand cell phone management at the middle school level and at the high school level. We had
a lot of interest in that meeting. A lot of our school leaders attended, and we talked around some of the challenges that they were experiencing and some of the plans that they wanted to implement. Based on that meeting, schools were able to go back and talk with their
leadership teams, talk with their staff around whether they wanted to be part of this initiative. And once they agreed and had some energy around that, they then generated their own plan. So each school was able to, within parameters, generate their implementation plan, which
they then submitted to us before school started. In that plan, they outlined their goals. They outlined what they were trying to accomplish. They outlined their communication, their professional training for staff, how they were going to work with
students and families to talk through their implementation, and then how they were actually going to do it, how they were going to manage phones, how they were going to escalate consequences and really monitor their own implementation. We
also outlined some considerations around where phones may be needed. And so you can see the considerations highlighted on the slide before you specifically outlining health issues where there's
monitori of health data, perhaps at the high school level, there were extenuating circumstances around accommodations. We have some circumstances where our students at the high school level are actually parents themselves, and need to make sure that they're
able to be in contact with, with their own families needs and other high school complexities, which you'll hear more about. So schools were able to outline those considerations and implement those as part of their plan. We also talked through
several different implementation models, and schools were able to select different models of imentation to learn. Most of our schools selected a combination of out of site or
classroom caddies. And so and I know our two principals here today are going to speak a little bit about that. We did have Miss Pyles implement the locking pouches, which she's going to talk about as well. We did not implement the two other
models on the slide. The special phone lockers specifically because when we looked into phone lockers, when they are considered equipment. So that's a different procurement process for that type of equipment. They're not instructional materials like the pockets or
the caddies. The other aspect of many of our school leaders and staff shared that they already have locker banks in the schools, so if they could leverage a locker bank that they already have with that management, that that could be helpful. And the other model was
to just have kids leave it at home so that that was one that that we did not actually explore. But I'm sure that there is some interest in that as well. At this time. I'd like to turn it over to Chris Nardi to share a little bit about his implementation at Pugh. And then
we'll hear from Miss Pyles about hers at Rockville. Thank you. We just take the phones away automatically. Can't have it all. Just kidding. My name is Chris Nardi. I'm the principal at Pugh Middle School. I want to thank you for the opportunity to
share tonight what works at our school. We have had a policy in place on cell phones for before I even arrived at Pugh 12 years ago. Away all day. It met with various success. The majority of our students generally followed the expectations around that.
However, consistency of follow through, as with anything, is one of the challenges. Consistency with teacher follow through. In particular, we started to notice an increase about three years ago in cell phone and AirPods in particular, issues with numerous confiscated phones confiscated simply means
that his phone is taken from a student brought down to the main office. Student can pick it up at the end of the day. Repeat events may end up with a phone call home or asking the parent to come pick it up. It's amazing how many parents have told us we can hold on to them. We purchased cell phone caddies
like the ones you have up here two years ago, to give teachers an opportunity to have an access in every classroom where kids can actually store it. If it was becoming a problem in the classroom. The intent was for students, either as a class or individually, to place their phones in there. This past year,
we surveyed our staff about their willingness to support a cell phone policy of away all day. There was some reasoning behind that. 97% of our staff indicated they would support it. There's a collective support. Then we have 100 staff members for the three that didn't. They
may end up supporting it then. So we met with parents, also included the expectations in our communications. As we went home, we explained that the expectation was the cell phone would be outside, out of sight. From the start of the day to the end of the day. We felt that
giving times in between started to create gray areas. We also, though, shared the consequences which I just explained to you, which is the idea of confiscating it, bringing it back to the main office. We have a cell phone jail. By the third instance, parents would be asked
to pick it up and or if it was still repeated, we would ask students to check in their phone at the beginning of the day, either with their counselor, or they can check it in with their administrator. The number that we got to that point was almost zero. Very few. We have shared
with families that students can use their phone. They can come to the main office. There is such thing as a landline still, although we do have a generation of kids who have no idea what a landline is. As a side note, we. I've watched a child pick up the
landline, call mom. And I said, no, you have to dial. Hold on a second. Come here for a second and had his help them. There is a generation out there that doesn't know a landline, right? I mean, for everybody here, I think is younger than me. So I'm really old. So if I had a
landline. But that is something we do give them the opportunity to use the landline in the main office, or if they have a health issue, they can always use it out of the health room. We do have students who do have permission to have access to their phone. Majority of them are medical conditions. In
particular, we've had students with diabetes and needing to check blood sugar levels or their parents to check it because we had one child who was not good at checking it, and their parent was excellent at checking it and would contact us and them that it's time to kind of up our medication. And so
with all these things in place and these new kind of enforcement, so to speak, and information going out, I returned from medical leave in January after being out for four months, and I was amazed at how few phones we had, as we really kind of implemented this in a better way. We've had virtually
none. Nobody was in the cell phone jail in particular. We had no sixth graders that I thought was very impressive, but that's that makes sense. They're coming out of elementary school with that policy already exists. Our seventh and eighth graders, we still had some high fliers, predominantly eighth grade. So
we met also with our sixth grade incoming sixth grade parents. In January, we shared our cell phone expectations with them. I almost got a standing ovation. I think there is a want for this. Understand also that this cell
phone all day away being more concrete for us also coincided with us moving away from a 1 to 1 with Chromebooks. We wanted our kids to engage with each other. Student discourse is a big part of what we're doing in our schools. The structures we put in place for that have been
important. They can use their Chromebook for almost everything that they need for a classroom. They don't need to have a cell phone for a classroom activity. So we've seen a significant increase in student engagement and discourse. These routines, these policies are only as
effective as we, the adults routinely enforcing them. And I've heard from other principals. Doctor Tiffany Awkward over at Silver Creek, she reiterated, basically, consistency is the key as they've implemented theirs. And they also have seen an increase in student engagement and student discourse. We did look
into the Yondr bags at one point. It was a very expensive alternative, which is why I said, why can't we just enforce the policy that we have? That would seem to be the most least cost effective and the best in terms of enforcement, and make sure everybody understands it
and are very clear. We still get the occasional student who will go to the bathroom to text their parent. We have had students get phone calls from their parents. Kind of like your mom just called you in the middle of the meeting in the classroom, we have asked kids to come down to
the main office. I have to contact my parent, come to the main office, come to my office, go ahead and contact your parent and I'll step out. That's not a big deal. So I think we are flexible and understanding. I don't think middle schools as well as elementary schools have the same needs as you're going
to hear from a high school because of work in particular for high schoolers and sports and all the other things that go on at the high school level. So thank you very much. All right. Principal Nardi, you just you just stole my entire presentation. So, you know what?
The only thing we did was implemented. Pouches. Kidding. That's not true. Good evening everyone. Good evening, Madam President. Yang and Board of Education members and Doctor Taylor. I am Rashonda Pyles, the very proud principal of Rockville High School. And I do
have an opportunity to share with you all how we implemented a cell phone policy at Rockville. So, like Principal Nardi shared after Covid, right. For about three years, we've seen an uptick in students
utilizing their cell phones, pulling them out of their pockets easily to either check a text message, check social media. And yes, we do our best to block on the network, correct? But our kids are smart. They find a way around
everything that we put in place, and you'll hear a little bit about how they found a way around these safe pouches that we have. But our goal was, you know, I kept hearing from teachers, cell phones are a problem. Cell phones are a problem. They said students were
disengaged. They said that students are not talking in class. And it was negatively impacting teaching and learning. So my wheels started turning and I said, okay, what can we do? What can we do? What can I do to let my staff know that I want to
support them, but also send a message to our students that, you know, our job is to prepare you for college, career and community readiness. We have to teach you how to be digitally, digitally responsible. There's a time and a place for the use of cell phones. And Doctor Taylor, please tell your mom I'm so
sorry you got pouched. I apologize for that. During her call, the one thing that I knew is that at the high school level, there are more students. Not that there aren't the middle school and elementary, but there are more students to staff ratio with a little bit more, a little
less structure than at the elementary and middle school level. So thinking about an away all day approach just I just couldn't figure out how we could manage that. And I you know, I did, you know, bounce that off of my admin team, my leaders,
student leaders, students who get in trouble sometimes, you know, talk to Principal Pyles, tell me what you think about this. So during the summer of well, excuse me, during the year of 20 2024, I did collect feedback from staff and over 70%
of my staff said cell phones are an issue, so we knew that. So during the summer of 2024, I actually started doing some research prior to reaching out to the Office of Strategic Initiatives. Just like, what could we use? What are these pouches look like? And yes, like Principal Nardi said, yonder
just did not. They were a little pricey. So I thought, and they're also their their vision and their motto for the yonder pouch was a little different than kind of I felt like what we were going for at the high school. So we brought students
together, brought parents in, brought teachers in, and of course, our leadership team. And we had some discussions. You know, we talked about our cell phones and issue at Rockville High School. Now, do I believe that it's an issue across the board? Yes, we heard news. You know, we've heard news stories, we've seen articles, we've read
articles. But we had to focus on Rockville. And so the one thing that my students and parents and teachers and the admin team and the leadership team came to a consensus is that cell phones are a distraction. So we know that cell phones are distractions. So what is it that
we do about that? We needed to put a policy in place. What students and parents shared was that our kids need or we need our cell phones for two reasons. They felt like communication. Communication about extracurricular activities,
communication with parents. And the second piece around that was safety. And it wasn't necessarily safety at school. It was safety beyond the school day prior to the school day. For those who walk to and from school, to those who drive to and from work, they needed to be
able to have access to their cell phones. So they were very clear. And President Yang had an opportunity to talk to one of my AP classes, and they were very clear that having an away all day policy was not going to work
for them at the high school level. And they they wouldn't they wouldn't follow the policy. So we kind of came together and we decided on what we call a bell to bell, no cell policy. And that included all PMD devices. So the Apple Watches, the AirPods and the and the
headphones. So under our policy, students are expected to keep their cell phones out of sight in a backpack or a purse or bag. From the tardy time to the tardy bell rings until the dismissal bell. Not on their person's not turned over on their phones
because we're all human beings. If you put our phones on our on in front of us, we're going to we're going to grab those phones to look at them just and it's going to take us away from whatever instruction is in front of us, or presentation is in front of us. And then so then I also encourage our teachers
like, hey, at the beginning of class, say, at this time all PMDs must be placed in a backpack and a bag or purse, not on your person's and not on your desk. So what would happen if our students did not adhere by the policy? I was so excited
when Stephanie reached out to me and said, hey, let's talk. Let's talk about this cell phone policy and pouches. So I worked with the Office of Strategic Initiatives to, you know, explore some possibilities of a locked pouch, just as an
incentive for students not to utilize them. Follow the policy. We want to treat you like the young adults that you are becoming. So we want you to follow the policy. So we did end up going with the safe pouch. And we have at Rockville, we have a progressive discipline approach. So we start off with
it ranges from a warning to a locked pouch for the period that the teacher has an opportunity to place the phones in the pouches to a locked pouch, a locked phones in the pouches, and the students keep them until the end of the school day, and
then they go down to the attendance window and they get them unlocked at the end of the school day. Sometimes, you know, we have to confiscate the pouches because they are still not adhering to the policy. Parents. We meet with, parents we talk about the expectations. We reiterate them again. And
then sometimes students are given after school detentions. And, you know, just that's that's about it for the for the consequences. Kids have done a really nice job. We've only pouched since October 21st, 168 students out of 1563, and only
39 of them have received office referrals for continued use of PMDs. So I think that's pretty good. It's not too bad for a first year. So what did our communication plan look like? Very easily? Staff, students and parents we communicated started
the communication over the summer of 2024 via newsletters. We did some social media. We had new student orientation during pre-service week with staff. We had back to school night and of
course I always keep that in my community newsletters every month. Just as a reminder. Hey, don't forget bell to bell, no cell. And then we outlined it very clearly during our expectationsembly first semester. And additionally, at the onset of second semester.
Again, my belief is that we are preparing students for college, career and community readiness now, I had an opportunity to reach out to two other high schools. I spoke with Principal Principal Taylor over at Churchill, and they also have a bell to bell, no cell policy, but they use cubes or storage
crates for phones. So when students walk in, they're expected to place their cell phones in a cubby and all of all of the other AirPod earbuds and Apple Watches are expected to remain in their backpacks, they're not allowed during the
instructional period to bring those items out into the hallway, and if they do, they get them confiscated and must be picked up at the end of at the end of the school day by a parent. His policy started on August the 1st. We implemented
our policy at the very beginning of the school year at Rockville, but we didn't implement the pouches until they came in, which was the second quarter. So we kind of gave them a grace period, like, it's coming, it's coming. At the onset of second quarter, we began with the pouches. I also spoke with
Principal Smith at Northwest. They also have a bell to bell, no cell way and out of sight policy, which is basically the same, storing all of their PMDs in an out of sight or in a backpack. And they also have pocket holders. And of course, they allow their teachers a
little flexibility within the classroom to share their expectations of how students should utilize their cell phones. They have the same pretty much the same consequences. They have rnings, parent contact,
conversations with parents, documentation. And for some students, there are support plans that are put in place at northwest. So what are some of the benefits we've seen in improved learning and the environment? Fewer interruptions. I think this is
super awesome that we, the three of us, have all seen a decrease in our hallway traffic and class skipping. That's huge at the high school level. Churchill. They allow the cubbies, allow the administrators to walk around and monitor to ensure that the policy is enforced
properly. Across the school. We've heard a lot of positive feedback from parents and some from students. They'll admit, you know, that having that cell phone away during class time has has allowed them to be more engaged in what's going on in the classroom. Staff enforcing
the policy. It's been working for those who do. And the biggest thing, like Principal Nardi said, is that, you know, the note that we want everyone to walk away with is that policies are only effective when adults routinely enforce them.
So thank you. All right. Thank you. Can we move to the next slide please. And while we do I wanted to share that our colleagues in MCE have also been active partners in looking at
cell phone management and improvement of that. We've had ongoing collaborative conversations with our partners in MCE. I know they also have a series of meetings and work sessions around this topic, and many of the themes that you've
heard and will continue to see in the data. They also echo that that sentiment, those sentiments as well. So I did want to acknowledge our partners in MCE as being very collaborative in this conversation and very interested in the same types of
solutions that we're talking about here today. So with that, we have been our our partners in the Department of Shared Accountability have been conducting some research around our not only our Cora
regulation, just what people know about it and how they feel about it, but how that then compares to the away all day implementation. That research has been ongoing since the fall. It has just recently wrapped up
and a report is being drafted as we speak and will be released in March. So what you're seeing today is very preliminary data about that research and a lot more details around the methodology, around the
findings. Different data views will all be included in that research brief that is coming. So this presentation is a little bit ahead of that, but that will be coming next in the next couple of weeks here. So I just wanted to preface these slides with that, knowing that there's more to come around their
findings. There's a lot of data that they have that they're that they're working through right now. So what we're seeing on this slide, one of the questions that we surveyed, staff and families and students was just
awareness of our of the cell phone rules. You know, do people actually have awareness of our guidelines and our rules. And so this slide looks at their familiarity. And what you'll see
there is that elementary school in particular really had low response low percentage rates around that awareness. And I think that aligns to the other data that we're going to see going forward, because our policy actually already has a no
cell phone regulation in place at the elementary school level. So you'll see that consistent represented across the additional slides. You'll see also that the percentage of respondents reported somewhat or very familiar at our middle school and high school level. So
you'll see that that there is a strong awareness, particularly with our staff and then our families. And when you get into the away all day because of the communication plans that were put in place, it's not surprising that a higher percentage of everyone involved
is aware of this, of the cell phone regulations and policies. If we go to the next slide, please. So another question that we asked is what are students bringing to school? So as you saw in Cogra, it is a personal
mobile device regulation. It is not a cell phone regulation. So it does include other devices. So we were curious to know what our students not surprising the majority of our families and students when surveyed,
acknowledged that it is the mobile phone that is the primary device that's being brought to school. But there are other devices, as you heard from our principals, around earbuds and headphones coming to school and smart watches coming to school. You'll also see again that theme
around elementary that their child doesn't really the majority do not bring a device to school. So when we're talking about this, we really are talking about secondary. I also wanted to make note two things on this slide. The dashes where
you see the e-reader and my child does not take any devices to school. For students there is there is no data in those categories. Students were not asked the question around whether they I mean, they in the
questions where they were asked, what did they take to school. You can see that data. But the other question there was only pertaining to the adults in the house and e-readers. There was no data on e-readers coming in from the students. I think that technology is maybe legacy at
this point. So we've got that. I also wanted to draw draw your attention to the number of respondents. So you see the number of respondents there across families and students and at the different levels. That data is consistent across all data slides. So the prior data slide that data, those numbers
are consistent. And in the next two slides the data is representative of those same numbers as well. Next slide please I know right. Yeah. So one of the other questions that we asked is how do our
stakeholders feel about the rules. And really the question was getting at are we too relaxed? Are we too restrictive? Are we just right and not too surprising? On some of the trends here, we were excited to
see that a lot of sort of crowdsourcing around the just right. But you can see where we where we weren't hitting the mark on the just right. We had some tension points where some staff were sharing, particularly at the high school level, that
we were too relaxed in our current regulation. But you see that that shifts a bit in the away all day schools where the majority of the staff there acknowledged there that, that that's just that, that's just right. So tightening up on that really did make a difference in
that data. Not surprising. Our students at the middle school level in particular and the away all day schools, we're thinking that potentially we were too restrictive with them. And again, our families echoing that
same sentiment around just right. So we felt really good about that. And I think that that gives us some information around where we might want to head as we continue to look at the data again, echoing that,
more data will be coming out in the full report. Next slide please. And you can click one more time. So this slide here really brings out some of the themes that we collected in our
open responses in the survey. Also, through conversations with our ongoing principal conversations and our ongoing collaboration with MCE to really bring out some of the themes across our stakeholder groups around what's working and what are the challenges. The
highlight in yellow shows commonality across our groups. So in the What's Working category, you've heard already improved classroom focus, engagement, and fewer distractions consistent across principals, teachers and students. When asked, you can
see in the challenges section. Again, you've heard these already echoed in the presentation. Students are clever. They find ways around limitations for sure. So staying on top of them, trying to stay one step in front of them is sometimes tricky. There's a
little bit of frustration around the time it takes to manage cell phones. Our principals and our teachers shared that that it is taking time away from other really important things that they can be doing around teaching and learning and being a leader of their of their building. And so that additional
workload is something that came out in, in both the principal and teacher of voices, one of the additional pieces to highlight in the student piece, while a lot of our students did share that, it did allow them
the opportunity to be more collaborative with their colleagues. We did hear from students that shared that it did actually introduce additional stress and anxiety for them. It did. Also, they felt increased alienation and loneliness
because of the lack of ability to connect with whatever they need to do on their cell phone. And so they're a little bit of isolation and also a little bit of increased tension between teachers and students around that notion of a cell phone. So just wanted to elevate that a
little bit. When we think about that student voice. And with that I would like to next slide please. I would like to turn it back over to Miss Sharon, to close us out and open us up for questions. So hopefully again,
you understand our headline that it's more than mandates that we have to think. The best way to summarize this is that restrictions are great, but we need to make sure that our schools are supported in how to and how to implement those restrictions in a way that is
useful and practical for their communities. So again, just as a reminder, we're finalizing and releasing the evaluation report in early March. That's the final report. You just received some of the preliminary data today. We will work on revising our
current regulation, and then we will work with our union staff, students and parents to review that. And then concurrently, we will gain stakeholder feedback and also solidify guidelines and communications to support any new implementation that needs to
happen and communicate that out to schools in May. So at this time, I will turn it over to President Yang. Thank you for the presentation, and I'm going to turn to my colleagues for questions, and I'm going to start from my right hand side. Miss Montoya, thank you so much.
First, thank you to our oh so sorry. Let's first go. One question. The first round okay. So I just wanted to thank you for being here again. Long day. And I appreciate you coming here to share with us how these practices and policies have been implemented in your schools. I.
For my first set of my first question will be about the data because I need some clarification. On the survey. Was it middle school and high school families that the survey was distributed to? And then if they happen to have an
elementary school student, perhaps they marked it and then could answer questions related to that. I'm just a little confused by your data table. Right. So the survey went out to elementary, middle and high school. And that is because there were two parts to the
study. One was to look at our existing code, and the other was to look at the away all day implementation in relation to that. So were these selected schools. Was it the whole system? Oh, it was a sample size. So it was across the district and it was a sampling across the district for those
schools. And how was that determined. Who would g that or not. Or I'm going to ask Doctor Addison to come up if she's here so she can explain it in more detail for you. Okay. And then as she's coming up, if I can just make one point and I make this point because I believe I've heard it made from my colleagues before, when we're
looking at charts and things in these presentations on page six, there's some charts and 25% of what. Right? Anytime we have a chart, we always need to know the end. I can appreciate that. Perhaps it is illustrated on other, you know, subsequent
tables, subsequent slides, but one that doesn't tell me, you know, you have the away all day schools is the high schools, high schools that are not away all day. Right. It's a little confusing. And especially when we're looking at the charts again, we don't know what the
end is. The chart should be able to stand alone on by themselves, right? We have our lovely media folks back there in the back. If they want to print one of these charts, there's incomplete. It's an incomplete picture. It doesn't tell the whole story. So no one's going to be able to know unless they have this whole
presentation. So I would just really appreciate if the end should be on the chart and then. Thank you, Doctor Addison. No, thank you. And I appreciate your feedback in terms of how we can improve on the data slides. Your question in terms of who was
included, it was how was it determined who should be random sampling of non pilot schools as well as and then the way all day was all of the individuals in those schools. So you have some sort of algorithm that creates a random sample throughout all of
the different schools software. We can set it to randomly select schools. And that's what we do. Okay. And I guess the reason part of the reason I'm asking is because if we just combine the away all, you know, and again, the away all day schools are those middle schools or those high schools, it's challenging
to know. So perhaps that would have been good to break down because it's really hard to see the snapshot of how many high school families responded, how many middle school families responded in either category? Yes. And then when you even look at those numbers, even if we're
going to guesstimate, they are much, much higher than our elementary school families who responded. Yes. Right. And so also then, you know, taking into account things like which clusters are they and which geographic location are they in, what is the socioeconomic status? All of these things help us to understand the picture, at
least from my perspective, when I have to determine policy. So I absolutely appreciate the feedback and the data. I think that we could perhaps improve it a bit to help make it a bit more informative for us. Yes, and I will add again, thank you for
that feedback. In terms of the presentation, definitely. And the forthcoming report, that level of detail and clarity will be provided. Thank you. Mr. I just wanted to ask Miss Pyles if I could. Can you? I don't think
you talked about lunch. So I'm curious what happens at lunch is are they away? So the. I didn't say that. Thank you very much, Miss Stewart, I appreciate that. Have missed it. No, you did not. You did not I moved quickly okay. So within the policy
students have access before school, during lunch, after school and during transition at Rockville at. Yes, ma'am. And so
after lunch, was it did you notice any resistance of putting it back away after it came out? I'm just curious if that worked out okay. No, there were I mean, obviously there are students who are going to push the envelope. And when we do, we follow
through with our with the consequence of not putting your cell phone away. But again, at the onset of class. All right, students, it's time for us to put our cell phones in a backpack, a bag or in a purse, not on your person's and not on
your desk. So they have to have they practice? Yes. It's able to connect. Yes. It's the routine. It is the routine. And the more they hear it, the easier it will be right? Next year when we go into doing the same thing, our
students will will be more accustomed to the expectations. And if it goes in the pouch though, yes. Then then you know. So if you can't handle that and it goes in the pouch, does that
come out of the pouch at lunch or does it stay in the pouch? No, ma'am. It stays in the pouch unless it's for the period. Okay. So for the you know, if you're wearing let's let's talk about maybe third period, right? A student has their phone out. The teacher says, okay, you know, Miss Addison, it's time
for you to place your phone away. The student pulls it out again. The teacher provides Miss Addison a pouch. At the end of the period, the student goes to. The teacher gets it unlocked. Now, if the student pulls it out the following day, it remains in
the pouch for the remainder of the day. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Yes, miss Wolff, thank you for the presentation. I just have a question for you. Roshanda. Do you think that you're seeing less conflict in your building
as a result of the students not having access to phones during the day and taunting each other? I do, I feel like there's less conflict with with cell phones, like less social media conflict.
And I know a lot of times that does happen outside of the school day, but. Like we've we've only on our second fight and I just had that two weeks ago for the year. And I do think that it's attributed to students
being in class, having more focus and paying more attention to their instruction. Thank you. The only other question I had was about loneliness. Could you repeat what you said? Because I thought, did you say that some of the students are feeling
lonely because they don't have the cell phone? Or who who are they going to talk to if the other kids don't have the cell phone? I'm not sure on that, but I do know some of the early data coming out from the student voice was not all overwhelmingly
positive. Where they were now connecting with their peers in in better ways. Now again, some of this data was collected November, December. So, you know, maybe with more time they are able to, you know, reestablish some social skills and make some connections with
their colleagues. But some of the student voice did indicate that they felt a little bit more isolated. Mr. Miss Silvestre, I'm sorry, I'm playing with the props. Oh, you're playing with the mouse. Did you manage? I got
it unlocked. I just can't get it locked again. All right, so I wanted to ask again. Put your put your microphone closer. So the report is coming out. When again? Early March. They're finishing it up now. And the superintendent will update the
guidelines before the school year is out. So that everyone knows what the expectations will be for the next school year. Correct. Our target for updating the guidelines is early May. Okay, so is there any board action that needs to happen? There is no board action okay. Thank you. I just wanted to
clarify that for everyone here here the cost of the pouches. How much is a pouch and how did you pay for them for your pilot. So the pouches that you have in front of you are made by teachers. It's a company by
teachers in California, and they were struggling with the same problem that we're talking about here tonight. We found them and staff found them. We were on multiple calls with them. They're $15 a piece, and we paid for a batch of a couple thousand
through our Stronger Connections grant. So our Stronger connections grant focuses on cyber safety. And this project away all day is one component, just a small component of our cyber safety initiative. And so we were able to use the instructional materials money
that's in that grant to purchase a couple thousand pouches to for this very purpose. And then pile doesn't need that because the expectation is your phone is not with you. Yeah. Consequences are we just break the phone. You are correct. No, we don't have we
don't have the honor. We looked into it, but we have the caddies and I think you're looking at as kids mature through. It's interesting when I said the sixth graders are the ones who weren't really having cell phone issues, they're coming out of elementary school. The kids who probably on that survey said
that they thought we were too restrictive. We're probably your eighth graders, predominantly, because you have this transition that always goes on. And as you get older, there's a natural progression of responsibility. And so I think you have that happening on some level. They want to have more freedoms. Open
lunch in high school. We don't have that in middle schools. So that ability to do that. So you're correct. We don't have these. It doesn't we don't need it at our school. I can't speak for all the other schools. Just to add to this, I think the beauty of this pilot that we did
with the schools is that frequently when we do any pilots, whether they're an academic pilot or otherwise, we come and we sell the schools. This is what you have to do, right? This is what you have to do. This was a little bit different. We really said, what do you need? This is the parameters. What do you need to
make this happen. And let us figure out how to be a support and let you lead this work. So that has really allowed us to learn about there's multiple different ways to do this, to implement this and implement it well. And it's really based on the different school communities and what they need. And thank
you. If I a final comment, but I'll wait. Miss Zimmerman, thank you. And thank you everyone for being here and presenting really thoroughly. I just want to say that I also appreciate the student voice that's being brought forward, and that I can empathize with our students,
that, you know, it's difficult to give up those freedoms. And also then, you know, having your phone all the time and then having it virtually not at all. Right. And I also I that student buy in is really important. So thank you principal for bringing that up that that you really
needed that to make it successful. I as we're looking at this and as some of our students are feeling lonely, I just hope that we can get a little bit creative in that way as well. A we're looking at, I don't want to say like specific social skills groups, but
perhaps, you know, different clubs or activities that could be available during lunch time. I'm imagining that child that might usually sit alone but have their phone in that seems socially acceptable. And now they're just alone, that maybe we have some other ways to kind
of help mitigate that with our kids, that they're just not feeling that loneliness. I don't know if anyone's done anything with that. Just a thought. I have a question to the pilot schools, as your school is going
through the pilot, what other needs or supports do you have for the central leadership? What would you like to see that would help you do this better? I don't know that I need anything
specific other than your support of what is a policy in place, and that we support it. So when somebody comes back and says, we're going to go to the board, this is what the policy is. And so when we as a school are adhering to that and following it, and I think there's
flexibility within each school for special needs, whatever they might be, then I think we're doing our due diligence as it is within our schools. I would say consistency across the entire district, and it could be bi
level. I you know, I can't tell you that bi level wouldn't be best. But I know that, you know, at the high school, there are some significant needs that the students bring. They really share their passion. Like the more that you have an
opportunity to talk with them, they share their passion around having their cell phones, and it does extend beyond social media and communicating with with friends. Some students are very you know, some of my some of my
immigrant students, if I tried to take their cell phones at the beginning of the school day, they would be very worried, because what they shared with Principal Pyles was, we need to be able to contact our parents, need to be able to contact us in the event that something happens. And so we have to
really think about the broader picture at the high school level. And I hope that, as you know, we are looking at developing a policy that we are taking into account student voice and hearing our parents, but also supporting our teachers
because they do need those that 47 minutes or however long a class period is to really have students undivided attention. And then we're teaching them like, what do they need to do in college? At three children who attended college and the one called home and said, mommy, a student got kicked out because
they had their cell phone out. And she was at the Ohio State University, where her class sizes were large. And so to me that said, hey, you know, we need to let kids know that there's a reason why we're doing this. It's not just because we're trying to be mean, right? We want them to be successful,
and we want them to engage in their learning. Thank you. I'm going to go for Miss Rivera Evans. Now. I can see you. Thank you very quickly. Just wondering what the policy is when they're
on a field trip. If you can quickly just tell us. And one of the things that you just said that I've been thinking about is. There's definitely some dependency on cell phones that
is very innately psychological. From the time some of these children are born, that there is truly also an addiction component to it as well. And how do we how are we dealing with with that? But there's also
other other ingredients where especially when you were talking about our immigrant student population, where there is right now so much fear that the phone is like a lifeline. Not not not
just for the students, but also for the parents. And I just want to know how we're navigating those issues. Sure, I'll I'll pop in. Thank you for the question about the field trips. We do allow our students to have their cell phones on their trip,
on the field trips, and no one has ever had a concern about that for it. Depending on where they are, if it's at a museum, sometimes it makes it very easy for us to be able to communicate in the event that they don't show back up to the checkpoint on time, because at the high school level, you know, they're
allowed to self-regulate when they go to some of our larger, larger field trips. Thank you. Can I just jump in real quick on field trips? For us, it's been a little different. So for our sixth graders when they go to their outdoor ed, no cell phones, it's the same policy.
Seventh graders just finished their Junior Achievement Finance pa They didn't bring their cell phones. However, if there's an end of the year trip, our eighth graders have gotten to an end of the year thing they would allow to do their cell phones on that. So it's outlined to the kids ahead of time in terms of
what that expectation is. Thank you. You had. You answer one. Go ahead. You go of your previous. All right. We missed your question, Grace. Oh, the question was with with our
children, especially those who are having a really hard time, who have been dependent all their lives on a phone. When you mentioned loneliness and also the addiction factor to it, how is it that you deal with that in the school, and how do you give support to those students? And
with the immigrant students and the times that we are uncertainty that a lot of these families are living in, how is it that, you know, how do you take that into account? Because I would think for a lot of parents, more than for the students, the anxiety of making
sure that they have a lifeline to their students would be really important. And how do you deal with that? So our kids are able, in these field trips in particular, to still carry their phones with them. They're just not expected to take them out. So that still allows them to
have access to their parents if necessary. I know that that's kind of one way for us to allow them to still have that connection to home. As far as the addiction part, we've we only had one extreme case where we had a student who really could not, but he had to check his phone in. And then at the
end of every class, he wanted to come and check on his phone to make sure it was still there. And he worked with his counselor for that. As far as loneliness, we really haven't had students report to us specifically at our level for our school. That concern we have. We offer us about having opportunities for
other things. During lunch, for example, we do board games. How many kids do board games anymore? But to have them learn how to play a board game and do different things, Uno, whatever it might be, those are made available to them during that time. And on a personal note, I think every kid should have a
flip phone and not a cell phone. That's like this. Because one of the biggest things we run into more than anything else is impulsivity. And when you have to think and hit the number seven four times before, you can get to the letter S, to say that your friend is a stinker helps
to slow things down. And I think parents are looking for that as well. But there are no other options. Flip phones are less expensive than a cell phone like this. You got to think about that. And these are not cell phones. They're computing devices. So I can say, Principal Nardi, we actually do do board
games at the high school level. We also do coloring wellness activities during the during lunchtime. We have a variety of groups. We also have clubs. So for those students who are exhibiting some loneliness and I
haven't really had that, we know that like we know our kids, our teachers know our kids. And when we see that, we pull them in, right? And sometimes I'll pull them in and I'll just say, hey, just come over and talk with Principal Pyles. I have one
student who comes and he eats lunch right beside me while I'm monitoring the area. And that's fine, right? I connect him with other students. Sometimes he walks with those friends, other times he does not. And she asked one more question. Yes. So I can
say that during my expectations assembly, while outlining the expectations I did share with students, if you have an emergency and you need to utilize your cell phone, we are flexible. It's called communication. That's what we do
every day as adults. We're teaching them to be young adults. You go up to your teacher and you say, hey, I really need to contact my mom. May I step outside and use my cell phone? And teachers are very, very amenable to that. And you don't see it every day.
Teachers, I mean, students don't abuse that opportunity. Our security team is walking around, so they're also monitoring so that they know what's going on with our students. Thank you, Mr. Savona. I wanted to before I go into any comments, I wanted
to thank you guys for, you know, you guys are very clear advocates for your students. And I think it shows in the way that you speak about them, the way that you speak about these policies and just the care that you that you bring towards them. So I just want to say thank you for that. First, I think one of
the main things that I was kind of hearing from what you guys were saying was it's not necessarily the policy that's directly the issue, it's the implementation. So I wanted to ask and then the consistency with the follow through. Right. So making sure it's consistent across whichever level it is. So elementary middle and high
school. And then just having it be very clear because from what I understand, this pilot in the case of Pio, didn't really do much more than what is listed in in the current regulation. And in the case of Rockville, it was just that graduated discipline in terms of having the pouches.
So I wanted to ask both of you guys directly, do you believe that the policy or the regulation needs to change, or do you think it's just mainly the implementation and give you like maybe the opportunity to sort of speculate on that? Because I just wanted to sort of hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah. I think, I think your your policy, our policy, I make sure I eliminate the why there. So I think it is it is clear when one of the things that becomes a challenge for the middle schools is that when you look at that chart, it was in the middle of the day in between classes and
at lunch was yellow right? For options. I feel everybody, if we're all consistent in what we do, like we say no at lunch. The issues I've had with some students are when they come from another school and come to my school, and all of a sudden they're walking in, they're
like, well, wait, I can, I can do what do you mean? You guys have a cell phone policy? What does that mean? So I think consistency was something we heard across all schools. And that becomes part of the policy then, right, where everybody is expected to follow that. I think consistency within schools to
schools. It's up to us then at our building levels to make sure there's consistency, because then there's less confusion for our kids as to what the expectations are. And if we have a standard, we want to hold you to the standard. I look at it as a standard and an expectation rather than a rule standard. And I can agree with Principal
Nardi. I can see at the high school level our students have an opportunity. Some of our students stay in in one comprehensive high school all day. Others come to one school. They pop over to Addison. Some go to early college. So at every single school that's, you know, under the umbrella of Montgomery
County Public Schools for high school, I believe we should have a just a consistent policy expectations, as Principal Nardi said, but also explaining to students like, what does this look like when you get to MC? What's the difference? How can you? Are you utilizing your cell
phones? Do you have more flexibility there? So I think it's really just it the consistency across across the county. All right. I wanted to thank you both for your responses. They were really well thought out. And again, appreciate all your sort of feedback on this process. And
again what I found, just my final comment. But what I found really interesting was, was the sixth graders not having, you know, as much of an issue. And so what that tells me is like, we need to start building strong foundations for our students. And because, you know, then the issue doesn't have and I, I also really appreciate the idea of
bringing something else in to kind of fill that gap with the board games. I know in in my elementary and middle school, we, we did a lot of deer, so like drop everything and read so, so that that was always something that I enjoyed. But giving opportunities for that connection outside of the phone
I think is really, really important. Okay, Miss Silvestri, yeah, just a final comment. I think that this is super important work for the mental health and well being and educational outcomes of our students. So thank you so much for that. And I think it's an opportunity for us to really
rally our community. This is a community societal issue that we need that we are taking on. But cell phone use doesn't end at the school bell. It goes on at home, late into the night during
meal time. The Surgeon General has recommendations in terms of, you know, no, no cell phones, social media in the schools, recommendations about when kids should have social media after middle school. And so I think we just really have to take this opportunity and really work with
Health and Human Services, rally our parents so that we're all speaking with one voice. This is for the benefit of our students, and we have a great opportunity in our hands here to impact positive change for our community. Thank you, Miss Wolff. Actually, I think my
question is already been asked a couple of times in different ways, but it really was. Is it are you seeing a need to change the policy or just the implementation of the policy, and whether or not we should be distinguishing between grade levels and whatever policy we do
come up with? But I do have one other question, because I think you kind of answered that. Earbuds and headphones. Now, the elementary school kids use those things. So how are we going to
take that into consideration? Because the numbers here, and it may just be the sample size, it looks awfully low for elementary school to me. So I don't have a direct answer to your question.
But we do use them. We use them as part of the instructional program, actually. And some kids do bring their own, you know, headphones for their testing, particularly when there's an auditory part to that testing. And they're allowed to do that for, you know, sanitary purposes, you know, what have
you. So we do have that use going on. But I don't know that the elementary kids are actually bringing them to school at the same rate that our middle and high school kids are, are doing that. Well, I think you're referring to Bluetooth, but I know at the elementary school where my grandchild went, they
were asked to bring headphones for the Chromebooks. So can I just add to your point about the headphones? So MCAT testing allows you to have headphones, but they have to be wired, right? So you cannot have an AirPod. Yes. So it already
eliminates that. So we do have some kids who have if they have to use a Chromebook, they can bring their own headphones for their use in a classroom. But when you're walking the hallways and you got your AirPods in, I don't think you're doing anything instructionally. So they kind of that becomes part
of the issue. But we do have a handful of kids who have noise canceling headphones. They are designated they have passes in our school to at least identify, authorize, use. My final my final question is back to you at
the high school Roshunda, when I asked about conflict, if you were seeing less conflict, have you have you done any analysis as to whether or not you see more conflict after lunch, when they've been allowed to have the
cell phones or during lunch, as opposed to before lunch when it's taken away. Because, you know, I'm a big proponent of away all day. I don't care what level they're at, but I just want to know, are you seeing a difference when you give it back
to them at lunchtime? Okay, can I answer? Can I go back and answer the first the first one about the headphones first. And I'll go to sure that one. We do have a number of students who have IEPs, who also have accommodations to be able to utilize their their headphones
during their work time. Sure. Because it provides them right. It calms down some anxiety. It gives them an opportunity to focus and not hear the distractions of others. But we know who those students are, and that's where it goes back to
that teacher flexibility and understanding the expectations of the IEP. Okay, so that's the one piece. And then as far as the conflict is concerned, it typically happens early in the morning at Rockville. I've not
we have not seen many students with with I will tell you if there's conflict. I don't see a lot of students running to it. So I don't see it popped up on social media. But you will see that, you know, there are times where our students, again, don't
use their cell phones. They are not digitally responsible. So that's a part of our expectation and what we're supposed to do to prepare our students. And we see a lot of that in ninth grade. See the 10th graders, nine and ten, 11th and 12th graders. By the time the students are there,
they're a little more focused on the end game, the end goal. Our ninth graders come in. They are excited because in middle school, they weren't allowed to have those cell phones. They weren't allowed to walk around at lunch. So they run around and they jump on each other's backs and they're running around on
the phones. But it isn't. It hasn't been an a negative and a negative way. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome, Miss Montoya. Thank you. I just wanted to echo first the thoughts of Miss Zimmerman. Not all students are on their phones because they're avoiding their friends. Some
students don't have friends. And I think that's just an unfortunate reality for some of our students at all grade levels. And I just want us to be mindful of that, because it's not like they're going to put their phone down. And now their social world is wonderful and happy. And I know you guys do a
lot of work in your school spaces to try to foster community and those social aspects, and I appreciate that. And I hear some of it here, but it's just something to keep in mind. So I just wanted to echo the thoughts. And I think Mr. Savarin mentioned that as well. And that's how we got into the board games. And then also with
the earbuds and you kind of mentioned some students have IEPs and that's fine. It's really loud in some of these school spaces, unfortunately, and that can be very jarring to some students even if they don't have IEPs. Or maybe they're not identified as needing these support systems. And I know for myself, sometimes I have little kids, sometimes I put the
earbuds in and I'm just doing something else. I'm not even listening to music, but it muffles the sound a little bit. And so I just want us to be mindful of that as well. And then to, you know, you might have students who don't have an IEP, but that could be helpful for them. And so to try to find
a way that people know that that is an option, because again, when you have a few thousand students in your school, every little voice, right, reverberates and kind of in line with things to be mindful of for all of us. And I would be remiss not to mention this, because I do hear from my community about
this. And we just had an incident yesterday. The reality of our school system across the nation, right? All of our schools is that we have violent incidents sometimes, and we have lockdowns, and we have things in the community that cause our schools to have to be locked down or to be on alert. And as a
parent of two MCPs students, that's a terrifying thing. I know parents whose students were in the school yesterday when it got locked down, and that is a very jarring experience for the families, for the students. Sometimes we don't hear about it until we hear about it first on
social media or we see other things, and then you don't know a lot of our students. We talk about the mental health of our students all the time, and the way that we need more support, because our students are not necessarily in the best places mentally, socially, emotionally. And so I do get concerned about
and I could ask for some clarification also, because every school I think might be a little different. So when we're talking about, okay, we don't want the phones on the desk, and I understand that, I don't think students need phones in instruction time, even lunch time. So just so we're clear, I'm very much with you, but I
get concerned about then if we have these issues or unfortunately, sometimes students do get hurt by other students and we unfortunately don't have always the number of adults that we need on campuses. And so there might be an adult that isn't alerted right away.
And so when we talk about phones being away all day or being put in bags or iPhone watches, but there is something called school time, right where you can shut those iPhone watches down and parents get notifications if it is turned on. But if we talk about putting these things away in a backpack and a purse,
whatever kind of bag you have, our students are allowed to carry backpacks because I thought in some schools they can't. Or is every school different? And I would just welcome some clarification from anyone about that. If students have their bags on them at every single school, then I think that's one thing. But I thought
in some schools they're not allowed. Yeah, I think it's going to depend on schools. We don't have backpacks allowed just because of the size of our school, the number of kids that we have. Kids are allowed to carry their cell phones on them so they can put it in a pocket. They can put it in their pencil pouch so they still have access
to it. They're encouraged to keep it in their locker so they don't have backpacks necessarily for us. Other schools. Do we see it as a safety issue? Also, when you get into a classroom, you can't have 35 backpacks in a room. You can't get out of the room. That becomes a different
safety issue, right? Does that make sense? I do, I know that there are some students that might have items, aside from an electronic device that they may need with them. And so that just brings me some other questions, but that's for another day. Thank you. Mr. Plus one on
isolation, especially during lunch. I've had some experience with with that with my own family, and it would have really been helpful if there were lunch bunches. So if you see the same kid isolated every day, and
especially phone or no phone policy like that, just hopefully we reach out to those kids and those families say, hey, maybe is there something we can do to support this kid? And I know that lunch bunches have been pretty successful in the past,
so plus one there and then the by the way, the year before Covid hit, my kid was in middle school and his phone was away in the locker all day. That was the before Covid. In fact, the alarm
went off every day and drove a whole class crazy. And so they had to like, go break into his locker. Well, not break into it, but security had to go take the phone away. So it's not something, you know, there were still especially in middle
school level, I think that there were restrictions earlier on. We just got out of the habit because of Covid. But I think this is worth looking into. So thanks for your for the information. I just wanted to have a little give it some voice
to those kids that might not be connecting in real life. Yeah, we have gone two rounds and my second comment is in Journal of American Medical Association Pediatric. They published an
article in December, and it was the first research that they didn't use self-reporting data. Instead use a third party app to monitor usage. What they found
over four months period of time. The students phone usage is way greater than the transition time or lunch time combined. Students are going on their phone during the seven hour school days, way more than the transition time
and the lunch time, which shows that the students are using it during instructional times and the most for popular apps. Top four won't surprise you. It's text messaging. It is Instagram,
it is video streaming, and it is audio. And when I talk to the Ryvell students, they honest. Tell me if they really say what the communication that they do on their phone, what's really for communication. It's 5% of
the time, the rest of the time are chatting or taunting each other. Right? So I'm wondering why are we strive to have kids develop good habits and self-control? That we know that
when we try to teach kids good eating habits, we don't surround them by junk food, right? And we say, oh, it starts at grocery store. It starts at whatever. We don't surround them with slushie machines and then say, okay, control yourself, you know, and
so we are the adults in the room, okay. And all you have, you all have shared that when we act, students benefit, staff benefit because they can instruct better. So I am I feel
we need to act with common sense and urgency. And that's that's my comment for today. Now safety is brought up as an issue. My question to you is elementary school students don't have cell phones. So when is a safety
incident? What do schools do? How do parents communicate with their child when there's a safety issue at the elementary school level, they call the school or their school
communication. Okay. Thank you. Am I late on okay. Thank you. All right, Miss Foster? Yes. Thank you. So my final second round comment I did again go back and say thank you one more time. But wanting to go back and
highlight some of the things that if we are, you know, adjusting the regulation or the policy that I thought was some big takeaways from, from from this discussion here today. Number one was like the communication and safety, which I actually don't think is necessarily goes into the policy. That's more just the standard operating procedure of
it. I think that's a really big thing. Right. If we go back and we look at the number of families who knew about the policy versus the number of staff who knew about the policy, those were very different numbers. Right? I think like getting those numbers up like principal piles. And Principal
Nardi said, is going to be critical to making sure that we have, you know, a general consensus around the policy. I the other thing that I thought was implementation that's equitable and fair, graduated and progressive discipline. And
then just really, again, making sure that we're we're starting with those strong foundations. And I really I did really appreciate the examples of graduated discipline that that were given out. And then kind of going back to the idea of foam pouches, I just want to say, you
know, let's be very, you know, cautious with how we spend the money on that. I mean, for with, with 1000 pouches. And then I think that the number that we referenced was and I understand it's a pilot, so you never know. Right. But with 1000 pouches and we're talking about 139 students
who were pouched, right, so to speak. So how can we maybe start to spread those out around. And I would I was just going to ask my as my final question, do we have the total number on the cost of the pouches plus the magnets to unlock? And if the
magnets are more expensive because we obviously already have a surplus of the pouches, right. What would that sort of implementation cost look like? Because I think that's a really big concern, especially in a tough budget year. So I can get you the number that we've spent so far, and I can follow up with that number specifically. But
when you buy five pouches, you get a magnet with them. So it's included as part of the bundle. The other strategy, though, that I want to highlight that many of our high schools are using, actually, all of our high schools that are implementing this are using are the caddies,
which for those of us that have been around for a while, they are the old calculator pouches that have 24 or 30 2 or 35 small little plastic holders with numbers on them. Many teachers have or schools have used
funding to purchase some chargers to go. Not not all 30 have them, but some chargers to sort of incentivize this notion that as students come into the classroom, they are to put their phone into their numbered pouch. That means their phone is
visible to them. It's still they can see it, but nobody's touching it because it's at the front of the room or hanging over the door. And I think that goes to the earlier question also around safety and availability, that that phone is available. It's not carried in a backpack that may introduce other issues, but it is there in
case somebody would need it or to leave early or something like that. Those are about $24 per classroom, and those also would fall into the instructional materials moneys. We have not purchased those centrally to provide, but schools have used their instructional materials
monies to purchase those for teacher classrooms. And that's something that we could look at as well. Yeah, I know my psychology teacher uses those uses those caddies. So pretty pretty effective. And then yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for those answers. Thank you
everyone for this conversation. And we are going to move to our next item. So thank you so much. Our next item is. The next item. I wasn't sure if I was the next item. No no no it's discussion
item. Yeah. Thank you okay. It's item number eight is for information only. And item number 9.1 to 9.4 is Board of
Education items. May I have a motion to move? Item number 19.1 and item 9.2 in block. So moved second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Item 9.3 is the
previous new business, and I see we have a audience here. Member here. And this is the resolution that was put on the table to dedicate the board room here at
15 West Goody Drive in honor of Pat Patricia Pat O'Neill, a 23 year member of the Montgomery County Board of Education. Now, I occupied this district three seat that Pat used to serve. She
was a thoughtful, dedicated public official who ensured that school systems, leadership, governance and decision making were guided by Montgomery County values, particularly the commitment to increase access
and opportunity for all students. I want to point out, I want to give a shout out to her husband, Rick, who's sitting right here. Rick, can you stand up to be recognized? Thank you. Thank you for your many years of
being a great support for our county public school system. Thank you all very much, very much. Appreciate it. My family and I know Pat would be very honored. I would just say the one thing I would say, she was
the consummate public servant, as are all of you. This is a job that you don't go into that the idea of making millions or otherwise doing what it does to
affect so many, many, including my daughter, many of our family members. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I'm going to ask a president of the board. I cannot make any motion. So I'm asking board member Wolff
to read the resolve part of the resolution. And I'm honored to be able to do this. And glad to see you here. Rick. I want to tell a little story first about Pat. And I tell this story all the time. You know, I had she
had called me right before she passed, and I returned her call because we used to talk every morning around 730, she talked to Judy Docca first around seven, and then she would call me. But after she passed the
next day, the phone rings and the thing says, Pat O'Neill. And I said, oh my God, she's calling from heaven. And I think about that all the time, because I do think about the mentorship she provided me. So I'm honored to
be able to do this. So whereas Mrs. Patricia O'Neill devoted her life's work to public education, having served on the Montgomery County Board of Education for 23 years, the longest in Montgomery County Public Schools history, she
served as the board's president five times and as vice president six times. And Whereas, Miss Patricia O'Neill represented the students and school system of Montgomery County in many critical positions, including as
past president to the Maryland Association of Boards of Education and past co-chair of the Washington Area Boards of Education, and Whereas, Mrs. Patricia O'Neill led the board's Policy Management Committee for many years, ensuring that the
system's core values were embedded in its policy. She was instrumental in numerous transformative policy decisions, particularly codifying the school system's commitment to increasing access and opportunity for all students.
Whereas Mrs. Patricia O'Neill served on numerous state level advisory committees, including the Maryland Blue Ribbon Panel on Teen Pregnancy, the Maryland Comparable Task Force, and the Task Force for School Safety.
Whereas Mrs. Patricia O'Neill was dedicated to the students and families of Montgomery County standing for the values of equity. Respect, relationship, learning and excellence. And Whereas, Mrs. Patricia O'Neill earned numerous
awards, including being named as the 100 Most Powerful Women by the Washingtonian magazine. And Whereas, Mrs. Patricia O'Neill served as the vice chair for the M.C.P.S. Educational Foundation and was a member of the
Foundation's grant committee. And Whereas, Mrs. Patricia O'Neill believed in the importance of board governance work and the board's vital role in M.C.P.S. Success. And Whereas Mrs. Patricia O'Neill left a
lasting legacy of service with grace leadership with purpose and commitment to community, resolved, that the Board of Education hereby names the Board Room at 15 West Scooty Drive. The Patricia O'Neill Board of
Education Room. And be it further resolved that the Patricia O'Neill Board of Education Room serve as a place for the Board of Education and the Montgomery County community to engage in the work of providing each and every student
in MCPs with the education they need to thrive in their future. May I have a second? I second. All in favor, please raise your hand. That is unanimous with those present. Right. So thank
you everyone. Great grace. Is there grace? She raised her. Yeah, she's raised her hand. Now I can see you. All right. It's unanimous with the whole board. Okay, so we are very honored.
And, you know, she would be thrilled. Well, Mike, we are very honored to undertake to continue to undertake this important work of board governance in now what we will
call the Pat O'Neill Board of Education room. Well, thank you very much. I used to say that the time she spent over at Carver in the auditorium, they should have been charging her rent. I'm sure it's true with all of you also. So thank you
again very much. Our family very honored. And I know Pat would be thrilled. She just loved what she did. Never looked at it as a job. Always looked at it as just as a real opportunity. So again, thank you all very much. Really
appreciate it. And she you know Lori Christina. She loved the staff. Oh my God. She just couldn't survive without the staff. So thank you all very much. Really appreciate it. So we will have more information regarding a formal dedication
event later this spring. We will communicate that out to the community. All right. So with that I'm turning to item 9.4, which is are there any additional new business? No. All
right. Then going to 10.1 to 10.3 is information summaries. And no action is required of the board at the moment. And number 11 item number 11 is a German. May I have a motion over half an
hour later? Move for adjournment. Second. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank
you everyone. Good night.