Miss Yang. Good afternoon. Welcome to the April 10th, 2025 business meeting. I'm going to ask my colleagues to introduce themselves to establish a
quorum. So first of all, welcome, everyone. The room becomes silent I like this. All right. Thank you. I'm going to start from my left hand side. Good afternoon. Perennial student, member of the board. Excited to be here. Good afternoon. Always exciting to
see so many seats filled. Natalie Zimmerman, representing district two. Good afternoon. Buenas tardes. Carla Silvestre, school board member at large. Good afternoon. We want to start this. Bienvenidos. Grace Rivera oven representing district one.
Good afternoon, Brenda Wolff. District five. Good afternoon, Rita montoya, board member at large. Good afternoon, Laura Stewart. District four. Good afternoon, Julia Yang. District three. And now let's all. Oh,
approve the meeting minutes. All stand for Pledge of Allegiance. I'm still trying to get with the program. All right. Okay. I pledge allegiance to the flag.
For which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. We're going to move to item 1.2 and. Asked I
know why. Okay, I know why because I'm reading a separate document. That's it. That's it right there. All right. Okay. So I don't understand. Me neither.
Me neither. We are together. We are together on that one. All right. All right. So now we will begin with the approval of our today's meeting agenda. Move! Approval. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Thank
you. Everyone. It's unanimous. And next is. I know why it's so exciting. Because it's the appointments that's getting us all excited. Doctor Taylor, take it away. Thank you, Madam President. Members of the board. It is an exciting time of year.
We are kind of in our appointment season, and we have several fantastic folks that I'm delighted to introduce when I introduce you. If you could please stand while I say wonderful things about you and offer you for consideration to the board. First up for appointment this evening is Mr.
Alan C Francois, Deputy Chief of Financial Oversight in the Division of Financial Management. Joining him today is his wife Sarita, and his sons Holbrook and Oliver. Mr. Francois brings more than 12 years of financial and
consulting experience to Montgomery County Public Schools. He looks forward to joining the financial management team and to help advance the tremendous work happening in M.c.p.s. And service to students, families and staff. Shout outs to his daughter Tatum, a freshman at Spelman
College. His supportive parents, and to his village of family and friends in Maryland, Michigan and Washington State who are watching online. Very excited to move this approval forward.
Second, all in favor raise your hand. That's unanimous. Congratulations. The next person who I'm offering for consideration to the board is
actually not with us in person, but she is watching online, and it's Miss Catherine Morales, the associate superintendent for the position of associate superintendent of Emergent Multilingual learners in the Division of Multilingual Education, in the Division of
Teaching and Learning. Miss Morales brings 12 years of dual language experience to M.c.p.s. She looks forward to joining the Division of Multilingual Education. Shout outs to Karabell Witter and Cameron Vasquez, who are also watching
online in support. Move approval second, all in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Congratulations. And that was
Catherine, all the way from New York State, where she was looking on next for consideration. Is Miss Angelina Filipova for the position of director of the Department of Management and Budget in the office of the Chief Financial
Officer. Miss Filipova brings more than ten years of financial and budget experience to M.c.p.s. She looks forward to serving the students, schools and community and leadership. Move. Approval. Second. All in
favor? Raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you. Congratulations. And I am absolutely thrilled to offer the next three folks to lead our
schools as school principals. We have exceptional school principals and M.c.p.s. And to have fantastic new people to join our ranks is just an absolute delight. And for a very important position and a very important school. I'm delighted
to present Mrs. Carla El Lopez Arias to be the principal of John F Kennedy High School. Joining Mrs. Lopez Arias is today is James Arias, her husband Emma Arias, and Liliana
Lopez. Mrs. Lopez Arias has been employed with M.C.P.S. For the last 18 years as a teacher, assistant school administrator, assistant principal and most recently as a supervisor in behavioral health and the behavioral health arm of the Student Engagement and
Behavioral Health and Academics Division. She looks forward to joining the John F Kennedy High School community to support all students academic, social, and emotional growth while fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment for all staff, families, and the greater school
community. Shout outs to her mentors who have guided her to become the leader that she is today, and she actually has two former principals that she's worked with as an assistant principal who are here today, Damon Monteleone and Christine Handy are also in the audience,
so thank you to them. Very excited to move this forward for approval. Second, all in favor, raise your hand. That's
unanimous. Congratulations. Next for consideration is Mrs. Catherine R Ginther for the position of principal at Wingate Elementary School. Joining her today is her mother, her sister
in law, father in law, and sons, Jason and Ben. Mrs. Ginther has been employed with M.C.P.S. For 14 years as a teacher, special education teacher, assistant principal and most recently as the acting principal at Wingate Elementary School. She looks
forward to continuing her work with the Wingate Elementary School community to support all stakeholders and in enhancing opportunities for differentiated instruction that meets the needs of all students. Shout outs to her husband, who is watching online, and to her principal
developers Courtney Jones, Amy Bryan and Kim Henriquez, who are also watching. Thank you so much. Still need to do a vote. Yeah, move. Approval. Second,
all in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Congratulations. Our last recommended appointment for this afternoon is Mrs. Brooke L Simon
for the position of principal at Lois P Rockwell Elementary School. Joining Mrs. Simon today is her husband, Adam, daughter Olivia, and son Logan. Mrs. Simon has been employed with M.C.P.S. For 17 years as a teacher, reading specialist,
assistant principal, principal, intern and most recently as the current principal at Watkins Mill Elementary School. She looks forward to joining the Rockwell community, where diversity and inclusivity are celebrated and academic excellence is fostered. Move
approval. Second, all in favor? Raise your hand. That's unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you, Madam President. This
concludes the administrative appointments for this afternoon. Once again, congratulations to all the appointees today. We are excited to see your work moving
forward. As we give you a minute to transition. I would like to note tthe next session will be. Next item is recognition recognitions. I think this month we make a new record. There will
be ten recognitions this month, so the April and May surely is a busy month. Go ahead, Doctor Taylor. Thank you, Madam President. I'm going to give just a brief moment for our auditorium to clear out. We've
got a lot of excited people here to celebrate today. All right. Thank you, Madam President. And members of the board. Since we
have a significant number of recognitions, I'm going to read the first declaration and the resolution for each. And we are thrilled that we get to recognize so many things. And but but I am going to try and
keep it short in the interest of time for the board. And the first one is recognition of April as being the month of the military child, whereas the month of the military child was established to recognize and celebrate the important role of military children and what they
play in the United States Armed Forces community. 2025 marks the 39th year that we celebrate April as the month of the military child and therefore, be it resolved, that the members of the Board of Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools hereby
proclaim April as the month of the Military Child to recognize the significant contributions and sacrifices of our military children as we honor them throughout the month of April. Can I have approval? Move for
approval. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Unanimous. Thank you, Madam President. And at this time, if there are any military connected folks in the audience, if you would be willing to stand to be
recognized, we'd like to celebrate you today. Thank you. Our next resolution for consideration by the board is recognizing and celebrating
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Whereas Americans celebrate the diversity within the contributions to American history and society of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. And Whereas Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders have a long history in America that includes the migration of Pacific Islanders to North America more than 15,000 years ago by crossing the Bering land Bridge and later establishing Saint Malo, a small fishing village in
Louisiana, around 1763, after fleeing forced labor on Spanish ships. And therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools hereby declare the month of May to be Asian American and Pacific
Islander Heritage Month, and encourage staff, students, parents and guardians, and the community to actively honor the courage and contributions and history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Montgomery County, the State of Maryland, and the nation. Move approval. I
second. All in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. And we are delighted that our board president shares this heritage. And so we would like to recognize you today. Thank you.
Very honor. The next resolution for the board's consideration is in recognition of Jewish Heritage Month. Whereas the National Jewish American Heritage Month is a time for all Americans to recognize and celebrate the contribution of Jewish Americans. And whereas
Jewish Americans are diverse and identify as white, Hispanic, black and Asian, including those who are religious and non-religious. Therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools
hereby declare the month of May 2025 to be Jewish American Heritage Month and encourage staff, students, parents, guardians and the community to actively honor the courage, contributions and history of Jews in Montgomery County, the State of Maryland, and the
nation. Move. Approval. And I second. All in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. And please join us in celebrating Jewish citizens in Montgomery County.
The next resolution for the board's consideration is for National Bike to School Day on May 7th, 2025. Whereas National Bike to School Day has been celebrated in communities across the country for more than 22
years and is committed to improving safety for youth. Therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools declare May 7th, 2025 as Bike to School Day, and may it further be resolved that the school system notify the public
and the school community of Bike to School Day, publicize this resolution and the school system's participation through internal and external communications, and encourage everyone to consider the safety of pedestrians and in particular, student, bicyclists
and walkers every day. Move approval. Second, all in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. All right. Join us in celebrating National Bike to School Day. Our next resolution
is recognizing National Student Leadership Week. Whereas the National Student Leadership Week serves as an annual recognition of the commitment student leaders make to affect change in their schools, learning communities, and the world.
Therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education hereby join with the Superintendent of Schools in recognizing the week of April 24th through the 30th, 2025, as National School Leadership Week in Montgomery County Public Schools. And may it further be
resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools commend student leaders for their hard work and positive contributions on behalf of Montgomery County Public Schools and urge citizens to recognize student leaders and support their accomplishments as they
develop the skills needed for future local, state, and national leaders. Move for approval. I second. All in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you. And we'd love to celebrate that. But is
there some bias in you recognizing yourself, Mr. Suvarna? I don't know, I think that's up for a higher authority to determine. But we celebrate you anyway, so thank you. I do want to shout out our student leadership office here in
M.c.p.s. As well. And congratulate them on the hard work that they do. Phenomenal. Thank you sir. Our next resolution for the board's consideration is in recognition of National Volunteer Week. Whereas National Volunteer Week is an opportunity to recognize and thank the volunteers who
lend their time, talent, voice and support to our students and schools. Therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools celebrate and recognize our volunteer parent, parents, guardians, community members and
business partners, and students helping other students for their dedicated service to education and to the students in our schools. And may it further be resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education will honor and thank those volunteers who share their time, energy, knowledge and abilities in our
school communities by proclaiming April 20th through the 26th, 2025 as National Volunteer Week in Montgomery County Public Schools. Move approval. Second, all in favor, raise your hand. Unanimous. We
simply can't do it without our volunteers. So we praise you. Thank you so much, everybody. We've got a couple of big ones coming up. This one is certainly a big one. And we are delighted
to bring forward this recommendation for the board's consideration to recognize Teacher Appreciation Week and Teacher Appreciation Day. Whereas education is the process by which one generation imparts knowledge and fosters critical thinking skills so that the next
generation may develop a command of its learning, as well as a passion for expressing ideas, solving problems, and understanding new viewpoints. And whereas teachers open students minds to the magic of ideas, knowledge, and dreams.
Therefore, be it resolved that Teacher Appreciation Appreciation Week be observed by Montgomery County Public Schools during the week of May 5th through the ninth, 2025, and may it further be resolved that Tuesday, May 6th, 2025, be
designated as Teacher Appreciation Day in Montgomery County Public Schools. Very gracious to have the opportunity to move this forward for approval and proudly to second. All in favor, raise your hand.
Unanimous. Thank you. And we got to do one more applause. And please gratefully ask your indulgence. If you are a teacher and you're in the audience, if you could please stand to be
recognized. Yes. Our second to last recommended resolution for recognition is in recognition of School Nutrition, Employee Appreciation Week, and School
Lunch Hero Day 2025. Whereas the School Nutrition Association has announced April 28th through May 2nd, 2025 as the as the annual School Nutrition Appreciation Week and May 2nd, 2025 as School
Lunch Hero Day. And Whereas, the school nutrition programs and service provided by its personnel to students, faculty and staff are integral to the operations of Montgomery County Public Schools. Therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education and the Superintendent
of Schools recognize food and Nutrition service personnel in honor of school nutrition. Employee Appreciation Week April 28th through the through May 2nd, 2025 and School Lunch Hero Day, May 2nd, 2025, in Montgomery County Public
Schools. Move approval. Second. All in favor, raise your hand. Okay. Unanimous. Thank you everyone. Thank you. To our school lunch personnel for sure. Next up, the. We would like to
recognize and propose recognition, approval of a resolution and recognition of pupil Personnel Worker week. Whereas the week of April 28th through May 2nd, 2025 is a very popular week, clearly in M.c.p.s. Has been designated as
Pupil Personnel Worker Week to recognize pupil personnel workers for demonstrating unique, complex problem solving skills to address the challenges faced by all students and families, and therefore deliver targeted outreach and support so
that all students can experience positive physical, social and psychological well-being to be successful. To be successful in college, career and in the community. Therefore, be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education and
the Superintendent of Schools hereby proclaim April 28th through May 2nd, 2025 as Pupil Personnel Worker Week in Montgomery County Public Schools. Move approval. I second. All in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank
you everyone. Thank you, Madam President. Yes. Applause and I was off by one, so I apologize. I have one more resolution, and it's an important one. Where will we be without our administrative professionals?
And it is a pleasure to bring forward our recognition of Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day. Whereas Administrative Professionals Week will be celebrated nationally during the week of April 21st through the 25th, 2025. And Whereas, the Board of
Education and the Superintendent of Schools wish to publicly recognize the high level of dedication and ability of administrative professional employees and to express appreciation for their efforts and their productive, courteous, and efficient operation of Montgomery County Public
schools. Therefore, be it resolved that Administrative Professionals Week be observed in the school system during the week of April 21st, 2025, and may it further be resolved that on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025, be designated as Administrative
Professionals Day in Montgomery County Public Schools. Move approval. I second. All in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Administrative professionals. Madam president
and members of the board. That concludes our recognition marathon. Yes. This is a new record. It's a lot to celebrate in our school system. The next item on the agenda is public comments. There is some verbiage
I have to go through and so please bear with me. Public comments is one of our opportunities to hear the views and receive the advice of community members. Board members will take your comments into consideration, but it is not our
practice to take action at this time on issues that are raised. We encourage public input on policy, program and practices. This is not the proper venue to address specific student or employee matters, so we
encourage everyone to utilize existing avenues of redress for complaints. This is a public meeting, and we expect the conduct of all speakers and members of the audience to be within the bounds of proper etiquette. Inappropriate
personal personal remarks, rude retorts, and other such behavior is out of order and will not be tolerated. Those who demonstrate disruptive or disrespectful behavior during public comments may be asked to leave the room.
Please check our website for information about upcoming board meetings, hearings and work sessions, including any changes to our meeting start times. Now. Today we have 14 people signed up to provide in person testimony. Each speaker will
receive two minutes for comments. When your name is called, please approach the table and I would like to fill the table from this side to that side and speak clearly and directly into the microphone. 30s. Prior to the expiration of
the speaker's time, a yellow light will go on accompanied by a beat. A red light and a buzzer signals that your time has expired. Please push the flat button below the microphone to turn it on and begin speaking. Okay. In addition to our
in-person speakers today, we have two people signed up to provide audio and video testimony. We will play these submissions once the in-person testimonies have concluded. Copies of testimony can be found on board docs now. So right now
I'm going to call the first six speakers to come to the front. It will be. Laura, violent from Albert Einstein High School, London. Briscoe from Whitman
High School. Joyce. Abiola. Zara. Singh, Paul David Stein.
Kaleem. But. Pruitt. Sara, you may push the button and begin. Good evening. Members of the M.C.P.S. Board of Education. My name is Zora Violand and I'm a freshman class
president at Einstein High School. I also play volleyball, girls in the fall and coed in the spring. But today I stand before you, not just as a student or an athlete, but as someone who is terrified of losing the sport. That means everything to them. I'm here to express my heartfelt opposition to the proposed cut of the coed
volleyball team in favor of a JV boys volleyball team. This decision is not just a change in sports, it's a potential loss of something incredibly special to many of us. You see, coed volleyball isn't just a game. It's a community of family and a safe space for all of us, regardless of gender. My heart dropped when I heard that the
coed volleyball team might be taken away. The thought of not being able to share the court with my teammates, of losing those late night practices where we laugh and push each other to be better, is devastating. Coed volleyball has taught me the value of teamwork and respect. I've shared countless memories, from the thrill of winning games to comforting each other after
tough losses. It's about growing together, learning from each other, and breaking down barriers. This decision raises significant concerns, particularly regarding equity and inclusion, and I believe it misinterprets title nine Spirit and Intent. Title nine was established to ensure equal opportunities in education and sports for all genders. It was never intended to create a situation where one group has to lose opportunities simply to
achieve balance. Coed volleyball promotes understanding and respect among all athletes, and taking it away sends a message that we, the board and students alike, do not value that kind of inclusivity at M.C.P.S. This isn't about volleyball for me. It's about my best friends, my favorite part of the day, my community. And it's the only
place in school where I feel I truly belong. In fact, after this, I'm actually going to a game. I urge you to consider the impact of this decision not just on the sport, but on all of us who love it. We don't have to choose between teams by allowing coed to coexist with the boys. We can foster growth and inclusivity, ensuring that every
student can thrive on the court. Thank you for hearing my concerns and thank you for your support. I truly appreciate it, and I hope that the voices of students like myself will be considered in this important decision. Thank you to everyone here supporting me, my teammates and my coaches watching. But more importantly, thank you Miss Yang Ms. Rivera-Oven, Miss Silvestre, Miss Montoya, Miss
Wolff, Miss Stewart, Miss Zimmerman and Mr. Cervantes. Thank you. London. You can go on. Good evening. Members of the Montgomery County Board of Education. My name is London Briscoe. I attend Wheaton High School as a freshman, and I'm here today to testify against the cutting of the coed volleyball team. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak today regarding the
proposal for the team. While I understand the intentions behind this idea, I must express my strong concerns about its possibility in fairness. The coed volleyball team allows students of all genders to compete together, creating a unique environment that fosters teamwork, respect and inclusivity. Many students who
may not have the chance to participate in boys or girls volleyball teams may find a place in coed cutting. This program would limit athletic opportunities for these students, especially those who may not have another team to join. Coed volleyball has been a positive force in Montgomery County schools, bringing
together students across different backgrounds and skill levels. The mixed gender of the nature allows team that allows the team for more collaborative and diverse experience fostering friendships and school spirit. Eliminating it would not only hurt current players, but also future students who may miss out
on this experience. Coed volleyball has grown significantly if the reason for cutting the team is funding or resource allocation. I greatly urge the board to explore alternative solutions such as fundraising or sponsorships, rather than removing the program that is clearly valued by
students. The possible decision to cut the coed volleyball team in Montgomery County would be a growth would be a disservice to students who rely on it for athletic, social and personal growth. Rather than eliminating the program that fosters students well-being, I greatly urge the board to reconsider and
work toward keeping this valuable opportunity available for current and future students. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Thank you. Joy. Go ahead. Hello, my name is Joy viola and I'm an eighth grader at Argyle. I'm here today because of our school, the place
where we spend most of our days. The place that should be setting us up for success isn't living up to its full potential. And that needs to change. Let's start with something basic. The air we breathe at Argyle. The air quality isn't just bad, it's unhealthy. There are times when classes feel stuffy, feel hot and stuffy, making it hard to
focus, and the students with asthma and allergies struggle even more. On top of that, temperatures in the building swing from cold to unbearably hot, making it difficult to concentrate and learn. We shouldn't have to bring jackets for one class and feel like we're in a sauna the next. We shouldn't have to fight for clean air. It should be a given.
Then there's the chaos of getting from class to class or narrow hallways in narrow stairwells are so crowded that it feels like a daily battle to make it on time. People bump into each other and trip on stairs. There is also one bathroom on the main floor, so when there's an issue where there's maintenance, plumbing, or overcrowding, it leaves hundreds of students forced to
either hold it in or rush to another floor, often making them late to class. This isn't just an inconvenience, it's a basic necessity. Safety should never be an afterthought, but right now it feels like one. Some classrooms doors don't even lock properly, leaving students and teachers vulnerable in a situation where every second
matters. We've been trained in code red drills, told that securing classrooms is critical. But how can we do that when the doors don't even lock? This is a serious security risk that needs immediate attention. School should be a place where students feel safe. The parking lot is also overcrowded and unsafe, with parents trying to drop off
their kids while busses struggle to maneuver. On top of that, potholes create hazards for both drivers and pedestrians. It's a mess that could lead to real accidents. We deserve better. A school environment shapes the student, and right now we're being asked to learn, focus and thrive in conditions that make it ten times harder. That's not
right. We need real solutions, not just temporary fixes. We need to see action. I'm not just speaking for myself. I'm speaking for every student at Argyle who has had to deal with these issues in silence. We're here, we're paying attention, and we're asking you to do the same. What if it was your kid?
Thank you. Thank you. Zahra. Go ahead. Good afternoon to the Board of Education. My name is Zahra Saint Paul, a student at Seneca Valley High. And I am advocating for more modern and safe school facilities throughout M.c.p.s. As a student in the architecture program at
Seneca Valley, I have seen firsthand how important safe and modern facilities are for learning. Recently, our school underwent a significant renovation that transformed our classrooms and common areas. The design not only enhances our learning environment, but also fosters collaboration among
students. I truly believe that investing in modern and safe spaces can lead to greater creativity and improve educational outcomes for everyone. According to a world Bank report, the impact of school infrastructure on learning well-designed, safe and
comfortable environments significantly improve academic performance, attendance, and student well-being. The report highlights that factors such as natural light, proper temperature control, and modern technology directly contribute to better cognitive function and
engagement. Investing in modern facilities across M.c.p.s will ensure that every student has the opportunity to thrive in a supportive environment. Just as just as I've seen with the recent renovations in Seneca Valley High School, we urge M.c.p.s. To prioritize equitable
funding for modern school facilities across the district, ensuring that every student has access to environments that support their learning and well-being. Thank you, Mr. Stein. Hello, president Yang, Superintendent Taylor and the Board of Education. I'm David
Stein, president of NACA. I want to talk today about the revisions to the grading and reporting policy that you'll be hearing about later in this session. Quite frankly, our grading and reporting system has been broken and M.C.P.S. For quite some time. Ideally, grades should be a reflection of learning, and under our system
they often are not. Both teachers and students understand this to be true. My students at Blair use m.c.p.s. As a verb means to get a grade that they didn't really earn or deserve. As in I got an A in that class, but I really M.C.P.S. It. This situation needs to change, and
for the most part, I think the revisions proposed by M.c.p.s. Are steps in the right direction. Changing a grading matrix to one that prevents students from basically opting out of work in the second or fourth quarter, yet still passing the class is imperative. Clarifying and standardizing the implementation of the 50% rule.
Due dates and deadlines are also important, so that teachers and students are clear about expectation. Returning to summative assessments at the end of the semester is a good idea to necessitate longer retention of knowledge. Any policy changes that reflect those concerns we are certainly supportive of.
There are, however, some areas that I believe need further thought. One I want to focus on here is how to roll out the changes. As I understand it, the suggestion being made is to only apply the new policy to incoming freshmen and all future classes. I do understand the motivation behind this, that changing
policies midstream can be confusing, but doing this will create a lot of unintended consequences. Many of our high school classes, for example, virtually all math classes, have students at various grade levels. You'll be creating a system for the next three years where you have students in the same class section doing the
same work, but receiving different grades. This is untenable. Sometimes you need to rip off the band aid and change what is obviously a flawed system. Now may be one of those times, but overall we are pleased that the district is moving to improve our grading system. We look forward to a day
when M.C.P.S. A grade will mean receiving that grade. That accurately reflects the learning achieved in the course. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Prewitt. Go ahead. Good afternoon. Honorable members of the Board of Education and Superintendent
Taylor. My name is Carlene Butt Prewitt, and I'm the vice president of SEIU local 500, representing over 10,000 support professionals here in M.c.p.s. I come before you today to discuss professional development gaps that support staff are currently experiencing. The disparity
between support professionals and other staff receiving professional development and M.c.p.s. Is clear this lack of professional development for support professionals puts our staff at a disadvantage and leads to safety issues affecting our students. Many support staff professionals do not receive
behavior intervention training. For example, recently I had the pleasure of speaking with two bus drivers with over 38 years experience transporting students who receive special education services here in M.c.p.s. Neither the bus operators nor the bus attendants on those routes received any behavior intervention. Training. As a
number of students who receive special education services increases, lack of proper training creates uncertainty and leads to support professionals being placed on administrative leave for extended periods. These support professionals also are on leave due to injuries occurring from incidents with
students. Support staff in M.c.p.s. Are required to and often placed in positions to protect students during physical incidents, and are forced to protect themselves from being hurt. These incidences create difficult, no win situations that no staff member should be placed in. With zero training on
how to navigate, often they must intervene with no training or support from M.c.p.s. On how to best engage students during these challenging scenarios. Students and staff and M.C.P.S. Deserve a safe, healthy work environment free from violence. Proper training support. Treat support professionals as just
that professionals giving them the tools and resources they need to be successful and for students to be successful. M.c.p.s. Has the finest support staff in the state. I know this working firsthand with them for the last 26 years. They deserve tools and resources needed to support students further. M.c.p.s. Must address aging
buildings that are creating unhealthy work and learning environments for staff and students. Upgrading older buildings to ensure students have proper and safe areas essential. Thank you so much. I'm going to call the next six speakers to come to the front.
You'll be Brittany Davis, Jocelyn Stewart, Anita Prince, Kyra Mickelson, Jacqueline McCluskey, Amrit Tessler, please
feel it from this way forward. Yes. Okay. All right. Miss
Davis, go ahead. Good afternoon. Board of Education Committee. Everyone sitting here. My name is Brittany Davis. I am a Montgomery County resident, a parent to a high school senior at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School and a special education
advocate. I am speaking from experience, not theory. I spent countless hours and thousands of dollars from my savings and 90% of my 401 K to secure my son's free and appropriate public education IEP. I'm sorry. Public
education IEP service gaps and placement issues forced him to repeat 12th grade with little support, although there was back data from the medical experts. This is a systemic crisis disproportionately impacting African American students with
disabilities. According to the statistics, African American students are 26% of M.C.P.S. Special education, yet only 22% of enrollment. The 2023 to 2024 MCAT data shows stark gaps. Just
45.6% of black students in grades three through eight scored proficient in reading and reading and comprehension, versus 78.5% of other students and math. Only 18% of black
students middle schoolers, and 13.8% of African American high schoolers in algebra one hit proficiency. None. Majority levels. Districtwide. These gaps are structural. Programs exist, but access and coordination and
program follow up fail families. I urge the board to adopt the bridge approach, establish special education family Resource centers for IEP navigation, expand career transition planning from grade ten audit placements and discipline for equity, and fill
the Ombudsman role. As I have been directed from the Ombudsman back to the director. Families at BCC are redirected to the director, leaving us without districtwide accountability. Parents shouldn't have to litigate or liquidate savings for what's legally owed. Thank
you for listening. Thank you. Miss Stewart. Go ahead. Good afternoon. My name is Jocelyn Stewart, and I've been a special education teacher in M.c.p.s. For 32 years. We are here today to make you aware of the significant problems in the CLA curriculum, and to ask for your
support to design and implement solutions when M.c.p.s. Recognized that the benchmark Ela curriculum lacked foundational literacy skill development, they promised to find something better that would help close the literacy gap for 40,000 black and brown students, 18,000 emergent multilingual
learners, and 10,000 students with disabilities. After two years of waiting, MCPs promised that the amplify CLA curriculum was chosen because it was designed to meet the needs of all learners with resources and supports for differentiated instruction and explicit
materials for students receiving special education services. But six months later, 80% of teachers surveyed said that CLA does not provide differentiation in its instruction, content or activities. The only differentiation CLA provides is
for students to follow along, while long texts written above their reading level are read aloud, even though the words are not highlighted and there are very few quality visuals to support their understanding. By continuing to use this curriculum as it is now, we have failed to provide equal learning
opportunities for our weakest readers, and no matter how consistently we teach it, our scores will not improve if the content is not accessible. As a result, we propose that MCPs require members of the Ela, Eld and Special Education offices to establish agreed upon guidelines
for differentiation that put the students needs first. Allow teachers to edit the CLA slides to make the lessons accessible, and allow a group of teachers to earn summer pay or credit hours to create differentiated text lessons and activities. Right now, 10,000 of our students do not have access to the reading
and writing curriculum they were promised. They are still waiting and they deserve better. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Prince. Hello, my name is Anita Prince. I've been a teacher in in of
English language learners and M.c.p.s. For 21 years. The newly purchased curriculum amplifies CLA falls far short of what M.c.p.s. Teachers requested and what all our students deserve.
CLA fails to even provide the fundamentals of an elementary school curriculum, instruction in reading and in the writing process. CLA is based mostly on boring history and science, and not on enjoyable and character
building literature to spark children's love of learning. For our 18,000 English language learners, CLA has been a disaster. CLA materials for language learners are unusable
and sitting on shelves in most classrooms. In most schools, they were not designed properly to be used alongside teachers and teachers in the classroom. Moreover, language studio materials lack a clear scope and sequence for teaching the
English language. This year, all our young students have suffered. We see difficulty reading and accessing the CLA content much of the way. Much of it is way above students grade level. It is often inappropriate with text, including violent,
racist, sexist and classist content. 90% of the children we serve teachers we surveyed say they spend large amounts of time searching, creating materials to make up for the failings of the CLA curriculum we approach. We
propose that CLA be replaced with good quality curriculum from a reputable educational publisher and a group of experienced English language teachers be contracted to provide expert parallel curriculum so we can do our job.
Thank you, Miss Mikkelsen. Good afternoon. My name is Kira Mickelson, and I am a second grade teacher at Cold Spring Elementary School. Our group gathered data from 100 M.c.p.s. Teachers using an informal survey. 78% of the respondents
said that CLA does not teach students how to read. It does not use a systematic way of providing phonics instruction or review. It is predominantly teacher directed and depends upon too much text being read aloud, which limits students opportunities to develop
fluency, comprehension skills and practice independent reading to increase stamina. In K-2, students are asked to spend up to 60 minutes at a time listening to high level informative texts which do not include sufficient picture and or student text support. It requires teachers to use daily
and unit pacing guides that are unrealistic and developmentally inappropriate. In fact, CLA lessons have more instruction about science and social studies content. Instead of instruction about reading skills. As a result, 93% of teachers said that they do not have time to provide the most impor part
of reading structured small group instruction, which is when students learn specific reading skills that are reinforced with independent practice. Despite being an Ela curriculum, 72% of teachers agree that CLA does not have enough children's literature, and 74% said that
the CLA texts are written at a level that is higher than most students can access. As a result, we propose that m.c.p.s. Resubscribe to the complete, really great reading program for phonics instruction and review in all grade levels in place of the CLA skills text. Allow
groups of teachers to earn summer pay or credit hours to redesign the CLA unit pacing guides and the daily instructional outlines to bring back required daily small group instruction. Develop a library of approved texts, including read alouds that teachers can use when the primary CLA texts
are too difficult or contain objectionable content. Create K to two consumable texts which allow students to interact with the knowledge domain text in meaningful ways, with more picture supports and developmentally appropriate language, and align the CLA units with the Elementary Science and Social Studies instruction to prevent content
overload and student confusion. Thank you. Thank you. Next is miss McCluskey. Good afternoon. My name is Jackie McCluskey, and I'm a second grade teacher at Matsunaga Elementary School. Of the 100 teachers who responded
to our informal survey, 84% said KLA does not teach students how to write because it does not have lessons that explicitly teach students to produce clear and accurate writing, use the writing process, or create different types of writing. Most
CLA writing lessons use whole group modeling without enough time for guided or independent practice. 68% said that CLA writing lessons focus on the product, not on the process of writing. 48% said the CLA writing assignments were not
appropriate for the grade level. Even the workbooks are not designed for the size of a young child's handwriting. Most of the dedicated writing time in CLA is spent responding to the text. As a result, we propose that number one M.C.P.S. Allow groups of
teachers to earn summer pay or credit hours to create for writing projects for each grade level. One per quarter also. We also propose that M.c.p.s collects teacher input and initiates a search for a research based writing curriculum with developmentally
appropriate ♪expectations and materials that match the Maryland State standards. This writing curriculum should include lessons and assignments that teach writing skills and include different types of writing narrative, informative opinion, lessons that teach, and
projects that use the writing process. Writing lessons and practice assignments that systematically teach grammar and build on previously learned material. Daily guided or independent writing practice well-designed writing projects that engage students and provide
rigor, differentiated lessons, practice, and assignments for ESL students and students with disabilities. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next is Miss Tessler. Good afternoon. My name is Emma
Tessler. My pronouns are he, they. I'm a first grade teacher at Roscoe Nicks Elementary School. Last year, we were told that KLA was the best choice in the curriculum because it uses integrated, formative and summative assessments to inform and improve instruction. After six months of implementation.
M.c.p.s. Teachers strongly disagree. We serve. We did an informal survey. 70% said that KLA assessments do not provide any usable data to inform instruction or determine student's reading progress, particularly thumbs up, thumbs
down quizzes. In primary grades, 66% of the assessments, 66% said the assessments are too long and too difficult for their for their students at their grade level, requiring multiple days for students to complete the tests, they noted. Specifically, the texts needed to do the tests
are above grade level oftentimes, and they assess skills that are only introduced in the lessons. They also noted that the assessments have questions that are phrased so poorly that they confuse students who otherwise understand the material. Many teachers are also frustrated by
the complexity of the scoring guides and rubrics, and the amount of time required to both grade and enter in those scores. As a result, we propose that M.c.p.s. Make some KLA assessments required and some optional. Reduce the number of
KLA assessments required, starting with the elimination of those thumbs up, thumbs down quizzes require KLA to provide formative assessment tools to measure reading comprehension progress as advertised to us. Allow groups of teachers to earn summer pay or credit hours to redesign the rubrics and create
new and more appropriate summative assessments, and to set up scale units to be scored and recorded in performance matters similar to how it is done with Eureka. Thank you for your time. Thank you and I apologize for the wrong pronoun. Okay, I'm going to call the next
two in-person speakers to come to the front. Is. Alicia, Jane and Matthew Wilson.
You may go ahead. Hello, my name is Alicia Drane. I'm an elementary Eld teacher from Wheaton Woods Elementary School. I'm also the elementary Eld representative on the Council for Teaching and Learning. I'm here today on behalf of 200 over
200 Eld teachers who responded to a survey that I did on behalf of the Council for Teaching and Learning in regards to amplify CLA. While CLA is intended to build content, knowledge and literacy, it's not meeting the
needs of multilingual learners. Of the 215 teachers that I surveyed, 69% of educators report that CLA is not effective for multilingual learners, 80% reported spending a considerable amount of time adapting making
scaffolds to make the curriculum accessible, and 82% expressed concerns that our students are assessed on skills not explicitly taught in CLA. CLA moves very quickly, assumes a high level of English proficiency that some of our
students don't have. It offers limited built in support for vocabulary or language development, which are both critical for multilingual learners. Teachers are left to fill in those gaps on their own without the sufficient time, the training and the materials we
needed. We did. The language studio was purchased, but it's often disconnected from what the kids are studying at the time. The deeper issue is Carla was not built for multilingual learners in mind. I do want to say we're looking forward to new
leadership within Delmy, one that is supportive of teachers response to them when they express concerns and builds trust with educators. Our multilingual bring brilliance to our classrooms, and we're looking forward to having instruction that they can access
and give them the tools and support that they truly need. Thank you. Thank you so much. And next, Mr. Wilson. Good afternoon. My name is Matthew Wilson and I am the instrumental music teacher at Argyle Magnet Middle School. I've been here
for six of my 13 years of teaching. I'm here to represent the teachers and students of Argyle Middle School. I wanted to begin by thanking the district and the board for starting a sound remediate remediation of my music classroom. This is a major upgrade that will drastically improve the learning of the students in my classes. While
this upgrade will help with sound, my room has terrible environmental conditions. This year we had to evacuate my classroom because it became full of smoke. I have no windows to open and air the room out. The HVAC is manual, manually controlled, with a dial that
lasts 30 minutes. Climate is another issue. I have to have a dehumidifier running 24 over seven in my room to deal with moisture and prevent mold growth. The classroom also has issues with extreme heat, to which the AC cannot keep up with. Our school has ongoing
issues with ridiculously high VOC levels due to poor ventilation. My room has one of the highest levels. This brings me to our school as a tech magnet. Our electrical needs are beyond the capacity of the school. We have repair techs in our school almost on a daily basis, and that is a waste of
county resources. Electricity regularly goes out in various walls in the classroom and affects lights, box lights, Chromebook charging, and learning. Our teachers regularly short our electrical system. As a tech magnet, we should have state of the art chargers and electrical capacity. The school itself is a hodgepodge of add
ons. The school was originally an open floor plan school that has been enclosed. Classrooms do not have locking doors, and parts are not readily available. We have classrooms that are full of fumes like gasoline and sewage with no ventilation. Our hallways and stairwells are
narrow, hazardous, and need updating. We are now a community school and have to have staff create offices out of storage closets. The students at Argyle deserve more than just incredible teachers. They also deserve to have the same quality institutions that their peers
have. Thank you. Thank you. We have one audio and one video testimony. And before we play that, I want to let everyone know that Miss Wolff have to leave because she's not feeling very well. Okay, so M.C.P.S. TV,
can you play the audio and the video testimony just to let everyone know, sometimes our with different format people might use creative, creative methods to express their ideas.
So please play the audio and video. Hello. My name. Hello. My name. Hello, my name is Amara
and I'm part of the M.C.P.S. M.C.P.S. MCR Equitable Education Task Force. I attend Montgomery Blair High School. I'm going to talk to you today about the lack of linguistic resources for students who don't speak English, but don't speak Spanish. My mother is an immigrant who moved here from the Ivory Coast when she was just six years old. She's
Haitian, so her native language is French Creole, which was her primary language when she until she language, she spoke until high school when she had to switch to English and high school. In college, my mother struggled with writing in English and would take the dictionary and translate word for word from French to English. She recalls the insane amount of
time it took her to complete her assignment, and how much of a challenge it was for her to transition with few supports. According to M.C.P.S. 2023 to 2024 Annual Report, 167 languages are spoken by students across the county. An article by Local news reflects on data from 2015 to 2021, and states that the top five languages are Spanish, 71%, French and Chinese
and Portuguese. This data shows that while a significant portion of non-English speaking students and residents speak Spanish, not all of them do. If 70% of M.C.P.S. Non-English speakers speak Spanish, that means that around 30% of non-English speaking speakers speak some other language, and those students should not be
dismissed. Non-English speakers who don't speak Spanish deserve resources, too, and I have three solutions that could reduce this problem and better promote equity. Number one is hiring more counselors who are multilingual, hiring more counselors who are fluent in languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, Amharic, etc. Will allow students who don't speak English to be able to learn and
communicate with the crucial figure in school. Most schools lack enough counselors anyway, so why not hire more who know more languages and can reach a wider range of students? Number two have important documents available and not in more languages, not just Spanish. Newsletters, emails, content on student view, etc. Should be printed or designed for students, and parents can request the content of the
document to be translated in their language. Number three starting what I like to call a multilingual mentor program. In these programs, exemplary multilingual students are fluent in English and other languages. Would be guides to freshmen and sophomores who don't speak English very well. To make their experience less overwhelming and communicate the steps needed to have a smooth schooling experience. The diversity in
this program will be a great resource to our wide pool of non-English students. Helping these students not only catch up, but excel in school is not just a priority, but is our
duty. Thank you everyone. I'm going to
turn to my colleagues for questions and comments. Let's start with one question. One comment. I'm going to start from my left hand side, Mr. Silvana. Yes, well, there's so many things I wish I could get to. I'm going to start by thanking all the students for coming out
and, you know, sharing their voices. It's always important when we hear from students. So I'm so grateful that we got the chance. And just to have, you know, administration follow up with some of the concerns. And for my first thing around the coed volleyball teams and the distribution, maybe providing an
update to the board on that. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. It was wonderful to hear from so many students and from so many educators, especially at the elementary level. I know that you had to take time away from your students to be here, which
results in things like sub plans, and that takes a lot of time and requesting time off. So thank you for taking that time to come. Speak before us. I would also like to follow up on some data. I'd like to see a comparison of K12 doubles data
for school years 2324 compared to 2425. I'd also like to see the data at the end with Kayla. I'd like to see which of our students are meeting proficiency or other benchmarks on the CLA curricular assessments, which, to be clear, is separate from
Dibels across K to five. And relatedly, how much of that instructional time as a percentage is being spent on these assessments? Based on the M.C.P.S. Produced pacing guides? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Rivera-Oven. I'd like to echo my
colleagues saying thank you to the students, to the parents, and specifically to you, the teachers. We are celebrating teachers this month, so your diligence and your commitment to our students is admirable. Thank you for being here from all different schools. I just just
want to say that when Kayla was presented to us, I did did ask our folks about especially with our I'm a former ESL student, as many of you know. So the Eld and I think some of you remember that I specifically asked how
this curriculum was going to make it even better for our ESL students. Not harder, not more difficult. So I'm just interested to and I will be following up with staff about some of the statistics and how, you know, just to compare the
data with how they're doing now with this new system in a way, versus the one before, because this is what we don't want to do. We don't want to make it harder for you, but we don't want to make it harder for the young people that this is meant
to be and to actually help. You already have a great job to do with don't make it make it harder for you. But we want these young learners not to be turned off because they cannot, you know, keep up with the learning or they feel left out and then they tune out. That
doesn't benefit anyone. So I know that. I know that Doctor Taylor heard you loud and clear. And I know that this is something that we're going to I would personally, I think those of my colleagues will make sure that we look into this. And I just want to say thank you for
elevating elevating it and for doing the advocacy that you did today. Thank you, Miss Montoya. Thank you. And of course, I want to echo my colleagues and thank everyone for being here today. I especially would like to thank Mr. Stein for teaching us about what M.C.P.S. Seeing it means to
help better inform our discussion and hopefully our decision making. I definitely don't want my own children M.C.P.S. ING it, so I don't want any of our children to do that either. I would like to echo the follow up from Mr. Sivana to figure out what's going on with coed volleyball. Miss Zimmerman
about Dibels, but I wanted to note about the Dibels. And please correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor Taylor. I believe some of our schools piloted this curriculum prior to this year. I believe one of my own son's schools piloted it, so I would like to have that marked in some
way so that we can see what those schools have done. Because, for example, I believe at least one of the schools that I know of had it for at least 2 or 3 years or two years prior to the introduction this year. So we might I know sometimes when we change things, it takes a little while to acclimate. And I'm just wondering if maybe
after the first year we saw some growth in Dibels perhaps. And so maybe this is part of the acclimation. I'm just not sure. So I would like to see that. And if you could also send us the survey results, that would be amazing. Thank you. Mr. I also look forward to those
evaluations on the reading curriculum. And I know we have heard from Argyl. I believe a couple months ago in February, and I noticed that they mentioned the door locks,
electrical problems. So I'm hoping that we are continuing to work with that school knowing that we have unfortunately, a lot of older schools out there and our budget, we try to keep
up, but we really need to know how can we make things better today. So I'd love to follow up. By the way, I visited Argyle. Amazing experience, amazing school and I hope we can make things a little better for you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Savona. Yes. Thank you. So coming back for round two again, echoing the sentiments of my colleagues, especially around sort of the infrastructure sort of concerns that we've heard. And, you know, I'm definitely looking forward to some of the future follow ups that we get at the board table. And then I did
want to reference back to grading and reporting. I'm really excited for the presentation today. I know students from across the county also have their concerns with the grading system. I was very grateful to have had the opportunity to review it with members of M.C.P.S. Staff at a
small advisory council meeting where all students could come and attend, and having the opportunity for students to give direct input. There was great, and I think I can see a lot of those changes reflected in the grading policy too. So excited to see it later today. Thank you. Silvestre. Yes, about the
curriculum, Doctor Taylor, I know this is not the first time that we have heard some concerns from various areas of our educator force, and I know that there is work underway. If there's anything that you want to add in terms of what we have heard in the past, what we're
hearing today and what we're doing about it. Miss Montoya, thank you. I just have one more quick thing I wanted to thank Miss Davis, I believe, as she's still here. Miss Davis is a parent who has worked very hard to get services. I appreciate
you coming in here to give your perspective and your viewpoint, including how much money you had to spend as a parent to secure what is supposed to be a free public education for your child. We are making changes in our special education department. I'm sure you've heard we are lucky to have a phenomenal new leader in that space who is here
with us today, Doctor Cage. So we welcome her and want to give her time to get acclimated. But she was here to hear you and I'm happy for that. So thank you for coming, Miss Davis. Miss Rivera-Oven. Yeah, I don't know. Doctor Taylor, would you like to answer? Board member I just
wanted to know if you had any any comments based on what we heard today about the curriculum. Pull. Pull together some thoughts and we'll share back out. I think it's a big enough topic that that that really the board and the public deserve a lot more information. So we're we're thrilled to bring
it back up. So thank you for elevating it. Thanks. I would like to just also because this is this is a topic that we have touched in the past from the testimony from Mrs. Bapu, from
the SEIU about. And I think, you know, we have had such an increase of special education, medical, fragile students, more ESL students coming into into our system. And we're such a, as somebody said, such a diverse
communities. As you know, I represent the Up county, which is a quadrant which we have we speak 160 languages. I mean, Montgomery County is an amazing melting pot. We're like the little United Nations of the country. But I think we brought this issue up about training for
our support staff when it comes to kids with special education, medical, fragile, m l and, and all that. And I think last year we were looking into implementing some of those trainings for our folks because many of them do want to be
trained, do want to learn, do want to know how to relate, how to handle situations, any conflict resolution situations with the children. They are the first people they see when they get, you know, when they get up in the morning. The first contact that they have with an adult is usually at the bus stop
with the bus driver. I know that I used to look forward to seeing Mr. Garfield every morning when I went to Washington Grove. He always gave us lollipops, you know, on Fridays, and it was just such a wonderful, tender memories that I have of that age. And I just want every child
to kind of experience what I had that experience as well. But that's food for thought and looking forward to having that conversation with with you guys. Thank you, Doctor Taylor. In terms of today's testimony, I
want to share two comments. Number one is it is my expectation that our onboarding and training to be year round for both professional and supporting professional staff. We have noticed that as staff
come on ♪board at different tims of the year, that that is an area that we can strengthen and improve. Second one is, I believe CLA is has implemented implementation evaluation coming
up in part of the Office of Accountability work in their yearly plan. If it does not include the evaluation about the special education, it's in implementation in the special
education area or the Eld area M-l area. We would like to see that included. Kudos to the staff who have taken initiative to do your own survey, but it will be very helpful to for a
system wide evaluation. So thank you everyone for coming in and I associate myself with the comments of my colleagues. Now, this concludes public comment. The board's next business meeting is Thursday, May 8th. Online sign up for public
comment will open on Thursday, May 1st at 6 p.m. In addition to online sign ups, same day in-person sign ups are permitted when space allows, with unallocated 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 open session. In person. Sign ups will close 15 minutes before public comment begins or when all slots unfilled. Now, additional information regarding
upcoming meeting can be found on the board's website. So thank you everyone. We are going to proceed to our next business item which is consent items. Are there any consent items board members would like to pull?
Seeing no lights, double checking. And then may I have a motion to approve item 6.1 to 6.9 in block. Move to approve 6.1 through 6.9 in block. And if I may, can I ask a question to
administration in general about contracts at this point, if that's not, this is the after you make the motion, you are not having conversation. If you would like to have a conversation, you should pull an item to have a conversation.
Understood. Not pulling any items. Okay. May I have a second? I second all in favor, please raise your hand. That's unanimous. With those present. All right, then we are going to proceed to our next business
items, which is 7.1, a very important discussion on the secondary program analysis, overview and boundary study. Community engagement plan update. Doctor Taylor, thank you, Madam President, and
members of the board, for your next installment in our massive boundary and program study evaluation. We're thrilled to offer this next presentation, which will provide updates on parallel studies that are
happening, our secondary program analysis, and our boundary study. To give a regular update. You will receive more updates on this topic as the months continue on, and we'll provide some timelines with that. These studies will align timelines,
principles, goals, and the designed to. And they're designed to improve experiences and opportunities for our students. The purpose of the district wide secondary program study is to reimagine academic program distribution, to ensure equitable access to high quality
programs that meet the needs of our community and industry demands. To maximize our resources, we will share an overview today of where we are in that process. We will also share an update with the community on our engagement plan
for the boundary studies. The plan is intended to emphasize transparency, accessibility, and clear communication with our stakeholders throughout the entire process, and that is a process that is ongoing. We will discuss the initial information
sessions that were held for the two boundary studies, as well as the next steps that we are taking for our next round of community engagement, which will include some initial options. So very exciting. I'll now turn it over to Mrs. Niki Hazel, our Chief Academic officer, and Mr.
Adnan Moon, our Chief Operations officer, and Mrs. Angela McLean, the assistant to the Associate Superintendent, to begin our presentation today. And Kat Malchiodi is also at the table. Please go ahead. Okay. Thank you
very much, Doctor Taylor. Good afternoon, President Yang and members of the board, if you can go to the next slide. We are here to talk about the two parallel bodies of work taking place. One being our program
analysis and also the boundary study. And I know that there are still a lot of questions about what is happening in each area. So again, we just want to reiterate that our boundary studies are really focused on
where our students will be assigned forir home school. And our program analysis is really looking at where the programs are in our schools, where there is need for more programing across the district. So our programs are focused on
the entire district and where we will need to place programs so that there is more equitable access to those programs. So the two bodies of work are happening at with parallel timelines, and
we want to ensure that we're answering the questions for our families about their home school designation, and also the programs that are available in their school and in their surrounding areas, other schools in their surrounding areas. So we're going to talk today about
the work that we're doing with our communities. Both bodies of work are engaging the communities, and in some cases, some of those community members are working with both groups, which is really nice because they are really able to
understand how the two intersect. And so if you go to the next slide, we are going to focus on the goals. First we're going to talk about the programs and then we'll talk about boundaries. But we're going to
just talk about the goals of our program analysis. As we shared at our last meeting, we're going to focus on secondary to begin this work. And we're really starting with the end in mind. And we'll think about all of the secondary programs that we want
to have in our school district and where we want to place those programs, and then we'll begin to do that vertical vertical articulation down to really think about how the programs in middle school and elementary school can align to what's happening at the high schools. So that is our our thinking as
we move forward. So as we think about secondary programs, we're talking about programs such as our regional and county wide criteria based programs. Some people know them as our magnet programs. We're thinking about our middle and high school,
regional and county wide lottery based programs. We're thinking about our career and technical education programs, or CTE, and also programs that access with access to accelerated instruction or advanced courses
like AP or dual enrollment. So that just gives you an understanding of the range of programs that we're thinking about as we look across our district to get more specifically into our goals. If
you can, go to the next slide. We aren't starting from scratch as we think about our program analysis. We have been working with over the last several years, not only hearing from our community members, but we have also worked with external
partners from the Metis group, from ESG, who have given us a lot of recommendations about where we what we should be thinking about as it relates to programs. And we have heard a lot from our communities every year as they go through this
choice process and lottery process. We have a lot of questions from community, so we are very clear about what the needs are. Equitable access is one area that is very clear from our families. Families want to
have high quality programs in their local schools and also within a reasonable distance. They don't want to be traveling all across the district to get to programs. We also hear from our families that many of our families want to stay in their
local home school, and in order to do that, they want to make sure that they have programs available in their schools. So that is something that we know most of our families actually want to stay in their local home school. The other area that we are considering is the community
needs and the industry needs. When we think about all of our data that we have collected over the years, we see what our community, what our students value, what is in high demand, where we have waitlists of students for programs. So we
want to keep that in mind as we are growing programs across the district. And we also want to think about what the industry is saying in terms of industry demand. As we look towards the future, we also want to think about what businesses and
industry have in our in our county and where we may want to put programs that are near those, those businesses. So that is something else that we are considering. And then the other piece that we're considering are is the resource efficiency. We
want to make sure that we are thinking about our what our buildings offer. We're thinking about transportation. We're thinking about our budget and our resources. We have programs that may be underutilized, and
maybe there is not as much, much interest, but we're spending a lot of money, or we are transporting students to those programs, and it may be time that we sunset those programs when we have other programs that are really in high demand, and we really need to be thinking
about how we grow or expand those programs. So those are all of the things that we are thinking through with our community. So at this time, I'm going to hand it over to miss McClain to get into our timeline and talk about the work we're doing with our community. Thank
you. Next slide please. So this is a high level overview of the work of the next 7 to 8 months. We have started a secondary program analysis. We're looking at where programs are who's enrolled in them this year. And we're starting to look at some of the student outcomes. We have
convened another community project team parallel to the boundary study project team. We like to call this one the opportunity to design team because the kind of work they're doing. And so their job is to recommend a framework, you know, the set of programs that all students should have access to
wrapping around that is our broader community engagement. We've begun our planning. We're doing a survey across the community. We're planning some community meetings, and that will inform the work of the opportunity design team. They'll hand their framework over to an
M.c.p.s project team, who will start planning how to make this happen, what our communication plans, and they'll stay involved. They will be providing feedback along the way and our hope is to. While we will have our plan by the end of this calendar year. Next slide
please. So a little bit about our community team. It's made up of our families, our community members, including industry members and school based staff. And they are pretty fantastic. They're engaged. They're accomplished. They're excited.
They are very interested in the charge that they have, that they will recommend a set of programs available to all secondary students while addressing reasonable cost, distance, all the limited resources, and.
Sorry, I just lost my thought for a second. So we're looking we're looking at the work in two different ways. One would be what programs would be offered in a reasonable distance, but also what programs should be offered to all schools because of our commitment to strong local schools. So we have met we
had our introductory meeting three times because we were still building the group membership as far as ensuring that there was a broad range of representation. And tonight is our next meeting, meeting number two. And one of the things that they'll do is look at the survey that's been drafted and provide
us feedback, and then we'll start digging into some of our regional and county wide programs. So we're excited to work with them. And so we hope to launch the broader engagement a little bit with the survey over the break. But with some meetings as soon as we return. And we'll get that information
to our project team as soon as we have it, we'll turn it back over. So next slide please. So good afternoon. Wanted to start
out by you know just going over the guiding principles for the boundary study. Before we discuss a little bit about our community engagement that has taken place and community engagement that we plan on, you
know, arranging in the future. So the our the factors in policy, FAA, are the demographic characteristics of the student population, geographic proximity to schools, stability of school assignment over time, and
facility utilization. So these are the factors that guide all of our boundary studies. So one of the things that we have done please next slide, one of the things we have wanted to do as Doctor Taylor mentioned, we have already started engaging the community. The first set of
meetings, the goal was to inform the community, not just why we're doing this. Obviously, we're opening two new schools while reopening Woodward and opening Crown in 2027. So we wanted to explain the why, but also the how, which is
definitely explaining to them the factors that are involved in, you know, considerations for creating the maps that we will be taking back to the community. So we just want to make sure that the community members are informed and educated. And then,
you know, we also asked through the survey if they needed more information about any of these factors. What we want to do is, you know, establish a clear line of communication with the community, making sure we're providing enough information to educate them. So with that, what
we have done, we have had four meetings so far, two of them virtual, one for Crown and one for Woodward. And then we had one meeting for Woodward and Walter Johnson in person. And then one. We had a meeting yesterday at Gaithersburg High School for the Crown and
Damascus expansion. So and we have provided information to the public about, you know, the timeline, what they can expect, at what time and how they can, more importantly, how they can provide us feedback. So with that, we do have surveys out
there currently that we're collecting data on some of the things that we have asked the, the, the community members to fill out during the surveys is also information about the zip codes that are filling it out from, which allows us to understand where we're getting the data from and if there are
any areas that we're not getting the data from that allows us to then design our future engagement in a proper way so that we can reach out to all the community members. We have also explained the process so they understand what you know, what's happening now, who's working on
on the creation of the boundary maps? When can they expect to see the initial boundary maps, and more importantly, how they can give us feedback through not only just the survey, but also they can, you know, go to our websites to, you know, get more information. And miss is going to talk about a little bit more
about the website design and what people can expect going forward. And then we have also provided them access to comments form that they can find on our website, where they can put in their questions. And during these initial meetings, we have
collected questions via either index cards or via the online meeting where they could type in their questions. Obviously try to answer some of those questions during the meeting, but obviously the volume of questions in an answer allow us to answer all the questions during the meetings. But but it
does allow us to do is collect those questions and, and, you know, kind of understand the themes of questions we're getting. We need, you know, then it allows us to update the Frequently Asked Questions page on our website so people can visit frequently and get more
information. So in the and we have also shared the timeline that in May and June, we're going to go back to the community with the initial options. And then in July and August will be collecting more survey data, refining the options. In September, we're
going to go back with refined options to the community. And then in October and November, we're going to be working towards, you know, working with Doctor Taylor in creating the superintendent's recommendation. And then do we do plan to go back to the community in December to give them an update
on on the overall process and how it turned out. Next slide please. So I would like to provide you with an update on the boundary study engagement and outreach plan. We're making some significant changes to enhance our community engagement
and communications. First, we're shifting our leadership of the engagement and communication efforts for the boundary study to our in-house experts in the divisions of communications and family and community engagement. This decision is aimed at ensuring a more comprehensive
and meaningful engagement experience for everyone involved in this process. To do this, our staff will follow a series of goals voiced by our community and importantly, by the Board of Education. We will ensure that engagement is accessible to all regardless of language, ability
or schedule. And then we aim to promote culturally responsive engagement across all the regions of our community. Additional engagement will be realized by the work of not only of the M.C.P.S. Project team, but we also have a community
project team that is on board with us, helping us through this process, which includes the local leaders who represent a diverse population of the county. Also, the Board of Education's own Communications Advisory group is focused on the Boundary Study Project. This year, these teams will serve as
the trusted voices in all aspects of the project. Our Community Engagement strategy is focused on making a strong effort to include everyone, particularly those communities that have previously been left out. We'll talk about a little bit more about what we're doing currently. There will be multiple opportunities for
community members to get involved, whether it's in person or virtually or other hybrid formats. We'll also offer interpretation services and ensure that all of our venues and platforms are accessible to everyone. So we know that trust starts with clear communication.
We will make sure that our messages are clearly outlined, and then how the community's feedback will be used and how the community can provide us, and in what points and what methods they can give us the feedback. We'll plan to use plain and jargon free language
and tailor our communications to specific audiences such as families, staff, and others. Transparency is going to be key throughout this process, and we'll continue to share with the public timeline of key events, including the meetings, surveys, and board discussions so people know how and when they can
engage with us. This engagement strategy is grounded in our four core values of representation, accessibility, quality, and transparency. We do plan to come back in May to update the board about our community engagement plan, and a more detailed information about the strategies
we plan to put in place to ensure culturally responsive and inclusive engagement. I'm going to pass it over to miss now to talk about some of the initiatives that we have already taken place and what we're planning to do in the near future. And this is my favorite part. So one of the things
that's really important about this work is to listen to our community and to the feedback that we get as we go through the process as well as before. And so one of the things that we heard during this first round is that, well, one, people were
frustrated because they just want to get to the options they were. They were hoping that we would get there faster. And what we really wanted to do was make sure that people who haven't been a part of this process before understand what it looks like. People were able to attend zoom sessions. They were able to
attend in-person sessions. And upon reflection, we've had four of them. Now we need to do something else as well. So one of the things that we're doing is taking the slides and chunking them into pieces. So if you want to learn a little more about the policy and you don't
carry it around like I do, there's a smaller section that will give you that information. There's also going to be a smaller section that gives you information about the scope and about the data, because one of the things that's really neat is to listen to the questions that
are asked. And a lot of them are very similar. And so people clearly have this idea of what they want to know. And it's our job to make sure that they get that information. We've been working feverishly on the FAQ as well. So not just answering individual questions, but
chunking them into topics as well so that someone can go and say, I just want to know a little bit more about this. I don't want to read 13 pages of an FAQ to find the answers to the question that I asked. And so that's something that we're working on, and we're excited about putting out. One of the
other things that we're going to do as well is when we think about round two, which is where people actually get to see options. What does that look like, sound like, feel like for community members, staff, students so that they can
interact with the information in the best way possible. And what we've determined is that can't just be one way. You can't just have an open session and expect everyone to be able to participate in the same way, whether that's time constraints, language barriers, just sort of
apathy for the process. We need to do better. And so one of the things that we've been really excited about for the second round is to do all of those things. So yes, we're still going to have our big community meetings because that's something that we do. And you can be efficient in that way
where you can open it to a lot of people. We are also being very intentional about the locations. The first two were chosen because they're very accessible via public transportation. They have big parking lots. And so thinking at each level where we want to go next and working with our teams
to make sure those spaces work, one of the things we also recognize was that some people need a little bit of help to look at options and get some understanding. So we're going to set up some ways in which you can get all the help you need in a full blown session in person,
you can get a little bit of help where you just may need a computer to access the options, and maybe someone to ask a question to if you want to. But you don't need a two hour presentation, and then also an online version where you can actually go in. I can have the
same language, the same recording of a video that tells me about this option. I can play with it, I can interact with it, I can see all the extra data that goes into it if I want to, and then I can give feedback all in one place. And so we're building that right now. We're super excited for it, because
what you just have to recognize is everyone is different. I said to the group last night I couldn't go. I was a working parent. My husband was doing pickup duty and dinner duty because we were both busy, so we wouldn't have been able to attend an in person session. And so even just thinking about how
to put the information in places where someone could sit at the carpool, pick up and do it on their phone while they're waiting those 20 minutes to get their children is a really impactful way for people to be able to give feedback. That's different than our sort of old
fashioned mindset of, oh, if you don't come in person, can't participate. And so that's something we're really excited about. We are excited to share it with everyone, and we are thankful for the support we have gotten from our family, engagement, communications, friends and other groups who
we've called on as well. So that's a lot. But thank you. So I mean, basically we've heard about the secondary program analysis that that miss Hazel
shared. And we talked about our engagement plan, which we do plan on coming back to the board and next month again to share the details and additional engagement. As miss talked about. So we'll now open up for board member comments and
questions. Thank you everyone for your presentation. Now, board colleagues, that presentation actually covered two topics. One is secondary program analysis. Another one is boundary study. So when I open it for questions and comments, I
want to actually focus one at a time. So the first one, if you have comments or questions one at a time for secondary program analysis, that's miss Hazel and Miss Mclain's presentation. Turn
your light on and I'm going to start from my right hand side. Miss Montoya. Go ahead. Thank you. And thank you, Miss Yang. I do have to leave momentarily for my own as a working parent to go get my own children, but I appreciate I just wanted to thank all of you. I appreciate
the slide presentation. It's clear I can see what's going on. I love the format. It's helped me meet a better focus on the content that will go for the next folks who present on grading and reporting. Same thing about the slides. Appreciate it. And I wanted to also echo something that one of yo said that I think is
something we might say more often around here. We have these certain things. And then upon reflection, we realized we needed to do something more. So I just appreciate the thought that is going into all of this. I know it's a lot to manage. We're doing these studies across each other. And your willingness
to say, okay, we did this thing. And then when it was actualized, it was good, but it didn't cover all the bases. So we know we need to do something else and we're going to regroup and do that. So thank you so much. Mr. I just wanted to highlight
something. I was really happy to hear that we were going to look at the programs at all schools that should be in all of our high schools and middle schools, and then in geographic areas. And the reason I think that's so
important is because through the years, I've seen great variation, even on basic offerings like band. So I think this would be a great opportunity to say, hey, what?
You know, as long as we're properly budgeted, what's the minimum that should be available for all kids to access? And it's not by chance, right? And I'm not talking about a super specialized program, but, you
know, a beginning band program, sometimes it's offered in high school, sometimes it's not. Those are the type of areas I would love for us to really drill down. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Rivera. Evans programs analysis.
Thank you. I too, want to echo Miss Stewart's point, because I think for the longest time we have had an equity issue in this county when it comes to access of programs. And now we're looking at it with a different lens. And I really appreciate
that. Just a few questions I have about the group that is working on those recommendations. If we could have a list of who those folks are, if you could send that to us, that would be greatly appreciated. And I would like just to see the representation.
Not so much. So much the diversity, but also geographic representation as well. And I you know, I'm this is a big undertaking. So thank you for thinking of the different ways
to make sure that the community has access to us, because I think as big systems, right, we expect everybody to come to us and to kind of and we forget that we have, you know, almost 160,000 students. And this is going to affect almost every
student in our, in, in, in, in our county. And like Miss Montoya said, we have a lot of working parents, a lot of single parents, a lot of parents who work two jobs. And this is, you know, traditionally, this is not not a not something that many of our black and brown communities
usually participate in. But guess what? They are very much affected by those decisions and those results at the end of the day. So I appreciate that. And I also would like to, you know, if you can give us a report about the participation of folks who
use the interpreting, translation and all that good stuff. I know we had a little cliques or issues on our first zoom, and that's okay, right? We learn and have backups. But even that, I appreciate the fact that we're making those efforts to be
as inclusive as we can, to hear the broad voices of this county, which geographically, it is very, very big. So thank you so much, folks. Miss Silvestre. Yeah. Again, just echoing, I
think we've had some testimony about why we're doing this program analysis. I hope that's clear on our website. I think it's been stated that we are all committed to ensuring that our children go to great, comprehensive high schools where they have great programs in
their schools. But we do need to take a step back and look at what options they do or don't have, and maybe some regions of the county that need some more bolstering. So that's why we are doing it. And thank you for this work. And my question is actually how do you envision
that the program analysis will intersect with the boundary study? If we're ready to answer that question. Go ahead. Okay.
Yes. So. So the intersection is going to be from the from the boundary study perspective, it's going to be about the assumptions we need to reserve a certain number of spaces for the
programs. So initially, you know, for us to start moving you know, moving the options, you know, forward, we will need to work with Miss Hazel's team to understand the proposed sizes,
more or less. And then we can, you know, make those assumptions. But as, as the work for the program study, you know, gets into more detail than we can use it, more detailed information. But right now we can use some placeholders. So that's the intersection would be
in the initial phases. But as we you know, as the study takes, you know, more shape we can use the more specific data for certain schools, you know, at that time when that information becomes available. Thank you. All right. So my questions will
be we all know we all know kids that stay on the bus for a whole hour to assess a program. We all know during application time that they are confused parents. Of all the options out there for our program. So this is long
overdue. Now, my question is one of your blocks. Talk about community provides input through survey and meetings. Can you elaborate a little bit about these surveys and meetings? Who
will be survey and in the meetings. That would be helpful. Certainly we are putting together a survey to get feedback from our community about the types of programs that
they feel are important. Again, we get a lot of questions. Why don't we have more of this? There's not enough seats. So we want to hear from from our community. There are lots of businesses and industry out there that we think the
community can share with us. To say this is something that we really need to consider. So that would be a part we want to know how far do families want to go to be able to travel to a school? What do they think is a reasonable distance? And we'll
also be talking with students as well. So we have focus groups, and we'll be surveying students to find out what their interests are as well. Okay. So it's about location type of programing that you will be surveying the whole
M.C.P.S. Community. Correct? Okay. All right, colleagues, just one quick follow up to what you asked. Thank you, Miss Yang, for that question and the information. I just want to note, when we do survey students, I know I feel like and maybe this is not true, but my perception is that a lot of
times we just focus on our high school students, especially when we're looking at something like a program study. I just want to make sure that we're looking at the students that will actually be in those spaces at that time versus like the current students. So that would be maybe your middle school or maybe some of your upper elementary right
now, just making sure that we're reaching those students and families as well. Thank you. Mr. Are are we moving on from program is still program analysis? Sorry. Okay. So just
to clarify, when you say the M.C.P.S. Community is both students and parents, that's what you meant. That's that is correct. Thank you. All right. We are moving on to the boundary study. Questions and comments I'm going to start from this
side, miss. Yes. I wanted to say thank you. First of all for you know, this is this is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. And, you know, the board has asked a lot when, when we, you know, when we come to you, you know, time after time with, you know, some pretty,
like, stringent sort of requests. And so thank you for, for coming back with, with, you know, analyzes and these plans that I think really closely align to, to what I was looking for in terms of, you know, sort
of some, some more, some more information in terms of geographic diversity and how we're really getting into making sure that every part of our community is represented and accessible. I know within the conversations that I've had around student representation, we've had some great conversations there about making
sure that, you know, student representation is there across the county. How are we just, you know, making sure that we're reaching out to as many different, diverse groups of people as possible to make sure that, you know, certain sets of voices aren't overpowering others within the boundary process. And, you know, I don't really have many comments to say
because you guys have really just done a very wonderful job. And up until this point in gathering feedback and listening to us. And so I just wanted to say that in terms of like, thank you for, for what you've put together so far, Miss Silvestri. Yeah. This is a super important
work. I think I like your the way you're thinking about all the different ways that people can get informed, not just assuming that they're going to come to a meeting in Rockville. I appreciate that. As I told Doctor Taylor, I want this to be to saturate the community. I
want to be able to be at the grocery store and turn to my neighbor and say, have you heard about the boundary study? And said, yes, I've heard about it. I know all about it. I've I've given my opinion so that the board can be well informed in terms of what people are looking for, but it is ultimately the
board's decision. So we want to hear from families because we want to make sure that our decision is informed by all sectors of our community. So thank you for this work. Looking forward to it. Miss Rivera. Thank you. We're talking about the boundary now right? Yes. So
I just want some clarification about the survey. There's currently a survey on our on our web. Correct. And do we know how many do we have an idea so far. How many folks have responded to
that survey. Or like at least a ballpark? I don't think we have that data, but we can definitely get. Yeah. I'm just I just, you know, I just kind of just give us, you know, I know you're coming back in May. Maybe you can bring. But one of the things that I have heard, the feedback
is that you can take the survey multiple times, which concerns me. And I'm just, look, I'm not a survey guru. I believe in all the ways of engaging the community. But apparently you can take the survey. Maybe if you're out of even if you're not even a county resident, you might be able to take. So all
those things concern me, because we do want to make a decision for what is best for the residents of Montgomery County and the kids of those residents that are going to be directly affected. And, and I, I just
want to make sure that we have the I don't know how to say it safeguards to ensure that we are getting right a very true representation of the folks who are answering this. You know,
the survey, because you could have somebody at home who can have all the time in the world, not me, I can tell you that. But others. Right. And I just want to make sure how do we how do we go about maybe making sure that that is not happening or preventing from happening? I
don't know, you know, again, I'm not an IT person, but those things do concern me a little bit. I'm not going to lie. And. Surveys can be very tricky with communities that are not used to
survey. I'm going to tell you right now, personally, I'm not a fan of long surveys. Sometimes I want to do them because I had a really you know, I had a really, you know, good experience somewhere. And then I look at it and it's 30 questions. I was like, there goes that
experience. So I just, you know, want to make sure that we're being, you know, that we're just being as creative as possible to be able to get those voices and, and to also, like Miss Sylvester said, I want to I want to be
sick of people saying to me, stop sending me stuff about the boundary study. Grace, you know enough already because we just want to make sure that, you know, we don't miss any miss opportunities with communities that traditionally, you know, it's not a sexy topic for a lot of people, let's be honest. So I
just want to make sure, you know, I know our student population wants to be involved. You know, there's other people that want to be involved. There's different ages. You know, there's a lot of grandparents who are raising their children in our community, you know, who are going to be impacted by, you know, by some of these changes of these
boundaries. So I just want us to be mindful of all that. So if you could answer. Sorry, that was a long running thing. But if you could answer some of it, that'd be great. Challenge accepted. So a couple things. So this first survey was designed to get a sense of whether or not
people have any idea about the factors in the policy and what we still need to provide more clarity on, like it's a pretty dense document. And so this is just the first survey. We also wanted to get a sense of who was
answering it in terms of geographic and demographic information. I have learned from my calendar work that you cannot rely on a survey where someone could go in and answer 25 times if they wanted to. We do collect IP addresses so we can see if
they've all been done from the same thing. However, we also know that some people are very mistrustful of technology and they want someone else to figure out a way to answer it for them so they don't have to. So our intent was to not create
barriers with this first survey, because it was really for us getting a sense of what people know. There are going to be more surveys throughout the process. And as you said, when we go into those smaller spaces and collect data, that's part of what we are responsible for sharing with
you. So while a survey does satisfy a certain audience, it is quantitative data. Each one will change. As we talk about what we're looking at, we're going to look at options next. So that's a very different survey than do you know anything
about policy. Do you know anything about the four factors. And so as we go through this you'll see an evolution and hopefully an upgrade based on what we've heard from people too about what that looks like and feels like. Because that does
matter. We want participation in providing feedback because that's part of the policy that that you all expect of us. It's written in there very clearly. And so we have heard some of those concerns. But honestly, for us, we didn't want it to be a barrier. We're trying to be
very mindful of that. I joke around that. My first calendar survey, I had 7000 students fill it out, and when I filtered, they all wanted to start after Labor Day and before June 10th and have a two week winter break. Me too friends. But it
was, it was. I was able to take that data and sort of narrow in on all this is, you know, great and sort of filter it in a way that allows them to give their voice, but also allows us to say from a priorities perspective
and a policy perspective, how does that fit in? So you have our promise that that is something that we are well aware of and mindful of, and trying to make intentional decisions, and also look for feedback and suggestions along the way with that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr.
Go ahead. Okay. Thank you so much. I was able to attend the meeting at Woodward. I thought it went very well. I wanted to follow up on one of the questions that was sent in at
that meeting by our community project team, and that was to get a show of hands from people based on their cluster, to give us an idea as to who are we reaching and what kind of venue.
And also, along with that kind of information, of course, demographic information, the very information you're getting in the survey, but not we don't know if those people actually filled out the survey. So we don't know if we're capturing all the touch points. And so I
wanted to know going forward in meetings, are we planning on capturing that information? I can just let you know way back when during the boundary analysis, we had clickers to do this, but I don't foresee us
having clickers. But I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. And then I have a follow up. Yes, we have talked a lot. As a former math major. We have talked a lot about this. How do you capture all of that data? One of the most interesting ones
we've been collecting is with our ask a question. We have that information in there as well. So I can tell you where the questions are coming from geographically, demographically and role. So age as well as did you attend a session. And so all
of that matters. And so I think our goal is to get that information in sort of all of those venues, as you notice, a lot of people who were local to that community came to that venue, and we saw something similar the next night, which is why we don't plan to duplicate
venues on purpose, because we do want to go out into places where it is more convenient for people to join. But yes. No, that is definitely something that's on our mind too. And how do we do it in a way that's appropriate, as well as giving us a sense of, well, what do we do next? What's
my next task based on what I se, such a great way to go about it and learn as we go, and which is something we all try to do. I also just wanted to know how you are using the community project
team, who I know had a lot of interest in surveys in general. We have subject matter experts that are volunteering in different capacities. That's one of them. Also, our Community
Engagement Advisory committee, and it's nice to have those resources. And we actually didn't have to pay for them. So what what's your plan on going back to, you know, as we go on
to get those inputs? So yeah, that's a great question. But the community project team members, we wanted to make sure they understood what they were signing up for. So they we are going to be meeting with them throughout this process. So it's not just the initial talking
about the engagement, talking about, you know, helping us plan the engagement, but they will be, you know, coming with us along the way, which means we're currently working with the M.C.P.S. Project team, which is the in experts, our transportation, our curriculum, special education for nutrition.
We're all sitting in a room as we're discussing the data. And so the so the you know, to help the consultant, you know, work up the initial options. We do have follow up meetings in April with the community project team as well. So we're going to be, you know, we're going to be, you
know, talking to them about getting their input as well throughout this process. So there are meetings, you know, I we should have brought that, you know, calendar and we can, you know, provide that, you know, dates that, you know, when we're meeting with the different groups. But yes, this is going to be an iterative, iterative process where the both the
M.C.P.S. Team as well as the community project team are kind of meeting with us on a regular basis and just one little bit of input on communication. As I heard my friend said, they want to be able to go to their grocery store and be able to talk about this. So we should probably think about reaching
out to our civic associations, our HOA and other community organizations, even though no one's going to agree on right on this, but it would be nice to be able to get the inputs, all the
inputs. So then we can. Say, hey, yes, we got that input before we made a decision. Thank you. This is a tremendous big project and that's why we have several conversations and we are having more conversation in
upcoming board meetings. We have been talking about the community engagement part for a bit now. And I have here a summary of all the feedback that that board member has provided, and I want
to share them with you. You can take notes or I can share this paper with you in a bit, but I want to have the clear expectation what we are looking for during this process in five area. The first one is outreach
and community representation. What we are looking for is you have said it culturally responsive. Way of doing this and also that a plan that
clearly cover all impacted regions of our community. And the second part is about accessibility. Okay. You have heard us talk about the format in person or virtual language interpretation. And we also have
make it very clear that language specific, not just interpretation, but language specific sessions for our communities. The third area is we are looking for quality. What does that mean that your goals
are very clear. Right? So for each engagement session that for whether it's your any form of engagement session or the communication you send out that
clearly indicate why they are receiving this communication. So what is the purpose for this piece of communication or this session of engagement? Right. The purpose is okay. And the number four area we are talking
about timeline and milestones. I know that we have done this before. Right? When can we what is the sequence of events? When will it be rolled out? When it will be done? So this is clear.
Every phase of this is clearly communicated. And also will communicate. Communicate what's next coming up. Right. So people can have it at a glance. And the last one is visibility. We understand how huge an endeavor
this boundary study is and is also have the secondary program analysis combined with it so that the plan is doable. And we do have set realistic expectations. And I think we talk about it. Not everyone will
be happy, but everyone should know about it and have an opportunity to participate in it. So I hope that this is clear. So in May I look forward to update about what we have done in April and more of the
strategy coming forward. All right. With that, we're going to move to the next item, which is very exciting. Long awaited item about grading and reporting. And
we actually have public comment today about this. Doctor Taylor and I learn a new term, M.C.P.S. Singh too. We're going to change that term. I think that's the that's the goal of today's presentation and something that our community can measure us on
is whether or not we change the definition of that term. So, Madam President, members ofhe board, it is my pleasure to offer up this presentation today. One of the very first things that was brought to my
attention as your new superintendent this year was our expectations for grading and reporting how they've changed in recent years, and areas in which we could make improvements. So much so that this got a little bit of publicity at the start of
this school year, not the kind of publicity that we welcome all the time, but it did give us an opportunity for reflection and revision. And if and if anything, this kind of seems to be the theme for today of reflecting on our practice, making revisions and learning
and modeling for our students and for our community that we can get better just a little bit every single day. And we hope that this is an indication to our community, of our raised expectations about our
commitment to better practices in terms of instruction and how we might communicate that our student performance in a in a more meaningful way. So with that, I'm delighted to introduce a couple of folks with today's presentation. They'll provide an
update to changes to our grading and reporting and M.C.P.S. These changes will address concerns raised by multiple stakeholders and are designed to bring greater clarity and higher expectations for student achievement. While we have revised the grading and
reporting regulation in recent years, concerns about grade inflation and inconsistency have remained. With today's proposed revisions, we aim to take further steps to ensure that our grading system accurately, or I should say more accurately,
reflects student learning. These grading and report and reporting changes will ensure student performance is measured more accurately and clearly communicated to our parents and to our students. Increased student accountability. Decrease
variance in grading practices across schools and across the county and center. Educators in meaningful and measure. Excuse me in measuring and responding to student performance. At this time, I'll pass things over to our Chief Academic Officer, Niki
Hazel and to our Chief of Schools, Doctor Peter Moran. Thank you, Doctor Taylor. If we can go to the next slide, I wanted to start by just talking about the purpose of grades, and we grades are really intended to be a communication tool to our
students and our and their families around how students are mastering the content they're learning. And grades should hold our students and our teachers and the district accountable for meeting certain learning standards. I know we have a lot
of people who are actually very interested in this topic, and may be watching, and I just want to clarify, for those who may be watching, that, the board
directs a policy for grading and reporting, and the policy is really the big goal or the or the plan for the district. And in our M.C.P.S. Grading and reporting policy, the board outlines an expectation for
meaningful feedback, for student achievement, consistency within schools and among schools, so that we reduce variability, that grades accurately reflect student achievement with compared to the course expectations, and that grades
are communicated in a timely manner. So that's the big goal of the policy. What we're talking about today are, is the regulation and the regulations really the rules for getting to those goals. And so as has been
stated today, we have some significant issues that we have to address around our grading and reporting regulation. There are inconsistencies that we have heard about, and we see about how grades are assigned and
inconsistencies around how grades are communicated. We also know that there is a lack of alignment between the grade students receive and them actually mastering the content. So we know that that is a huge concern. So we're going to talk
about some of the changes that we've already made, how that's going, and then additional changes that we believe are necessary for the regulation to restore the clarity, to ensure that we have high expectations for our students and to make sure that we are communicating
clarity, consistency, communicating grades with clarity, consistency and frequency for our students. So if you go to the next slide, just to give you a little bit of history, as we go back into a looking at the changes of
grading and reporting over time, in 2008, we implemented the 50% rule, and that still exists today, which states that the lowest grade a student can receive on an assignment is a 50%, as long as they make an attempt. And the purpose of that
rule was to keep students motivated to continue learning. Oftentimes, if students know they get a zero or are failing, then they put forth no more effort because they don't see the point. And so it was intended to encourage students
to keep trying within their courses. In 2017, we replaced final exams in high schools with district quarterly assessments, and it was actually changed at the policy level that we would implement more district
assessments. The change came because stakeholders at that time gave a lot of feedback that we should reduce the testing burden on students, that we should increase the instructional time in the classroom and eliminate half day
schedules. It was a two week, two week period of time where students were taking final examinations, two hour assessments for each course. And so there was a desire at that time to stop that practice and develop shorter assessments,
given more often at the marking period level. Then in 2020, there was a pandemic. And during the pandemic, we softened our expectations and we actually
created we kind of put aside the regulation and created a guidance document for schools and for families that really softened the language and aired on the side of students, so that there was a lot of flexibility around when students could turn in assignments. We really were not trying to fail students at
that time, and it was a temporary guidance document. We when students returned back to school, we continued to use that document, particularly in the first year, as we were really focused on meeting social and emotional needs of students post
pandemic. We have removed that guidance document, but there's now a lot of inconsistency around how grades are given and communicated in schools, and we've done some work to clarify those expectations through our
regulation. And if you go to the next slide. You can see, as Doctor Taylor mentioned, that there still has been a lot of concern that we are not doing enough. And there's been a lot
of articles really questioning whether or not M.C.P.S. Is losing its edge and in maintaining those, those high standards. I'm just going to read a few quotes from students and community members in in these articles. Grades keep going up and up, but the
standardized tests are way off, another student said, because the two quarter grades are calculated with a generous rounding policy, I absolutely find myself trying hard for good grades the first quarter and taking it easier second quarter
a lot of my friends do the same thing. They just don't care. Second, in fourth quarter if they already have a good grade. Another student said students can get high grades without mastering materials. Another said teachers who teach the exact same class give completely different assignments and the
numbers of assignments. It just doesn't seem fair. And then some schools only offer honors courses, yet they are not taught at the honors level. So you can see there's just a lot, a lot of frustration from students, from
our teachers and from our community. And the variance does exist. If you go to the next slide, please. So we want to share some of the changes that we have put in place, either at the district or the state level.
And then we'll we will then share with you how that's going. We added the Msde Maryland State Department of Education implemented an end of course exam for our incoming ninth grade students last year in
biology and government. It counts for 20% of their final semester grade. So that is been added to our regulation. We took advantage since we were updating the regulation of providing some clarity around the minimum number of assignments so that
there was some consistency, and that minimum number is nine, so that students are getting some feedback in their classes. We did not set a maximum, but we did set a minimum. We also clarified some grading symbols so that when students and
families go to look up grades, they are clear about what those symbols mean. We have a Z for missing assignments that simply indicates to a family that it's missing, but they can still turn it in, and then they indicate
how much time they have to turn it in. The challenge at this time is it's inconsistent from school to school and class to class, around how much time that is for turning in an assignment. An R indicates that something is retake eligible. We also
initiated the quarterly district assessments in math and in literacy that count for 10% of a student's grade. And these are marking period assessments. And so again we were trying to increase that accountability for our students. Next slide please.
So we really were interested in understanding how those changes were going. And we went to four different high schools and also had an opportunity to meet with our student board member and his leadership group, student
leaders. So I do want to thank doctor Keisha Logan and Sam Ross, the student member who is a student at Blair High School, and one of our interns who went out to Richard Montgomery High School, Blair High School, Blake High School in Seneca Valley
High School to get feedback from a variety of students in those schools about how things are going. Overall, I think there was a very consistent theme that students are stressed about grades, and they felt that
grades were really more of an exercise and really did not get at whether or not they were mastering content, and they felt that it was more of a compliance matter for teachers had to
follow, and then they had to, you know, turn in those assignments. They wanted to see more consistency from class to class when it came to due dates and deadlines. So there was a lot of confusion from them. One teacher might have one due date deadline, it might be immediate,
or another teacher may say, you have until the end of the marking period to turn something in. They wanted to see those expectations clearly outlined in their syllabi, and they wanted to know early what was eligible for reassessment. They also
indicated that it often takes a lot of time for them to get feedback from their teachers around assignments. Sometimes things aren't graded in a timely manner, and therefore they don't always know how they're doing in those classes. And finally, one
consistent theme that I don't know why it surprised me, but it did, was that they said they had so many assignments that they were overwhelmed and that they had to prioritize which assignments they were going to do based on the grades they have
in their class. So if they're doing well, they may decide not to do the assignment at all, because it's not going to impact their grade and they are going to prioritize, make decisions about where they put their energy for that evening or that week. So that was a very consistent theme. The other piece that I think is really
important for us as we're collecting data, is to look at how are grading patterns impact attendance. So I'm going to hand it over to Doctor Moran to talk about the next slide, please.
Okay. All right. Thank you, miss Hazel. So as we know, schools, families and central services together have been working strategically to address chronic absenteeism. It's important that we recognize the correlation between grading practices and student attendance. This table
demonstrates this connection, showing all high school students who received a C in marking period one and an E in marking period two and a C in marking period three, and an E in marking period four. The first column shows the number of
students for the 20 2223 school year, the next the 2324 school year, and then the current 2425 school year. As you can see, the average number of absences in quarter one and quarter three has been between 6 and 7.
Absences in quarter two and quarter four. These absences increased to a range of between 13 and 17 absences. While it's important to note that this year they have decreased to its lowest 13.53%, the question is
why do we see this trend? The trend is the result of a grading practice where a C and an E equal a d. This means that based on our current grading average, a student could receive a 69.2
in quarter one, thus receiving a C, and then have the ability to elect to attend classes at their discretion during quarter two. This is the definition of having low expectations for students. As a result, our charge has been
to take this data with the feedback from students and staff and make changes to the regulation for next school year to ensure that grade averages represent higher expectations for both students and staff, miss Hazel will now walk you through those proposed changes.
Thank you. Next slide please. So we're going to talk about these next few slides. Some additional changes that we are making. First this issue of variance between grades and test scores. So we want to make sure that we
are addressing that variance occurs when what a student is learning is not fully aligned to grade level course or expectations. And so we really want to make sure that there is that strong alignment. Our
curriculum is aligned to standards, but we need to do a better job of improving how we communicate that in our schools. So we have pacing guides for all of our subjects in our school, and we are aligning those pacing
guides to more clearly show what standards are being taught and then what's being assessed in our in our classes, so that when teachers are using that information for planning, they can have those pacing guides and
they can clearly see the standards and the assessment and how they align. We'll also be using those documents to support our professional learning as we move forward. We also know that as we move to working with
cross-functional teams, they will be using that information to support the schools as well. Do you want to add? So while our curriculum is aligned to standards, we recognize the need to improve communication and transparency around that alignment like miss Hazel
shared. To address this, we are enhancing our curriculum assessments and pacing guides to more clearly define what standards are taught when they are taught and when they are assessed. This clarity will empower our educators to engage in more precise, standards aligned, aligned planning and support leaders in monitoring
student progress effectively, especially in relation to targeted focus areas within their schools. This will be through the support of our directors, both in the Division of School Leadership and Improvement and the Division of Teaching and Learning. How will we provide this support and thus accountability for changes to
the grading regulation? We will do this through a clear process for both principals and teacher leaders. Schools will use Summer Leadership Week to unpack the changes to the regulation and ensure that they are aligning their instructional priorities with our approach to assessment and grading and reporting. We
will monitor the implementation with principals and support of the cross-functional teams to analyze the distribution of grades and ensure that they reflect the implementation of the policy through analysis of grade books. Another example would be through the observation
and planning and the delivery of instruction, a powerful best practice that will be utilized in secondary schools is the use of state of department meetings to analyze student achievement through the distribution of grades. Administrators and department leaders collaborate
with resource teachers and content specialists to review grade books to identify areas of needed support for our students and of course, the celebrations of achievement and growth this summer is going to be key for our Resource Teacher meeting and the professional learning of all
administrators to the level setting, their understanding of the changes in the regulation and how we ensure the regulation is implemented with equity and fidelity across all schools. The cross-functional team model brings together experts from curriculum, instruction and assessment, student services and
equity professional learning to collaborate in real time to support our schools. These teams will break down silos, ensuring decisions are cohesive and responsive, and creating shared ownership of student success across M.C.P.S. I know I shared
this before at the board table, but M.C.P.S. Student data is all of our data and we are responsible for their outcomes. Next slide please. The next area that we are going to recommend
changing is what we call the mark pattern. This is what was referred to as M.C.P.S. Think we have an example of our current mark pattern, so that you can see how students figure out how
they can get the grade that they so desire. So you can see that for an example, in marking period one, you can get an A in marking period two you can get a B and you can end up with an A.
So we have this rounding up of the grade A. What we are proposing is that we move to a averaging, which is what most
school districts do, where we would average the first marking period and second marking period to get your semester grade. And we are recommending that we begin this with our incoming ninth grade students. I will
just share that typically when we make changes to anything related to grades, graduation requirements, things of that nature, we typically begin with an incoming class, which is the rationale for why we are
recommending grade nine. We also are want to recommend that we have return of graded work to students with with in a timely manner. Ten days is our recommendation that we would
like to see for the return of graded work to students. So no more returning at the end of a marking period. Do you want to talk? A strong culture of
accountability starts with ensuring that students are attending school and understand how our high expectations for their success is directly aligned with how they will receive feedback and be graded. We have been closely monitoring absenteeism, and schools have identified patterns early to provide targeted interventions to increase student engagement
in school. This helps them track their progress, take ownership of their learning and stay motivated. All key components of a rigorous and supportive learning environment. We are also examining how our grading and reporting practices can serve as a lever to reduce chronic absenteeism. When
students see a clear, consistent connection between attendance, engagement and their academic progress, it reinforces theimpoy in learning and achievement. If we go to the next slide, please.
So the next area we want to address is defining minimal effort for 50% rule. So at this time, we really want to make sure that we are very clear and providing very clear examples of
what constitutes work towards a 50% students who turn in just a blank sheet with their name on it, they are writing off topic. They have random answers not related to the assignment, would
not earn a 50%, which is what's happening at this time. We want to make sure that we are providing examples for our staff to understand that when students submit work that demonstrates a genuine attempt to engage with
the content, they are showing their work, for example, with a math problem, their writing supporting evidence they are attempting to answer based on the materials that they received in class that would, at a minimum, get them a 50% or higher depending on the work. So
our goal is really for our students to demonstrate effort, and that they are showing an understanding of the content standards that they were instructed on. Do you want to go to the next slide? Okay. The
other thing I want to share if you can I'm sorry. Go back. One slide is that we also want to address the assessments. We did get rid of final examinations for a reason. However we have
heard a lot of feedback. And I believe you heard Mr. Stein talk about it as well, that a summative assessment would really help capture what students understand for an entire semester, and the summative assessment would also
help keep students engaged for the entire semester and not kind of check out during that second or fourth marking period. So we are looking at summative assessments at this time. And to really determine and determine
exactly like how much weight it should have and things of that nature. So more to come on that summative assessments. But that is something that we are looking to do to increase accountability for our students. Miss Hazel, can I just add one thing relative to incentivizing attendance? I think it's important to note that the an
example around the 50% rule, that it wouldn't apply when a student is supposed to complete or turn in an assignment and has been has an unexcused absence on that particular day. That's another way that we incentivize attendance within the grading policy. So again, so if a
student is has an unexcused absence when a, when an assignment is administered that they would not be eligible to receive the 50%, it would be a zero because they're not in school and it's unexcused. So if we go to the next slide. Again,
here are some ways that we are looking to decrease the variance that we heard about from many of our students. We want to ensure that we are defining reassessment windows, and we are clearly defining that. And
students ask that they are that they receive that information upfront about what should be reassessed and when that would occur. So we're going to clearly define that due dates and deadlines is another area that
we believe we need to tighten up again. Ten days we believe, is appropriate for due dates and deadlines. So no more assigning an assignment and then allowing students to turn it in. We often hear from teachers who will say, kids will turn in 20 assignments
at the end of the marking period. That is not appropriate. And so and it doesn't help provide any understanding around what students have learned. So ten days is an appropriate amount of time for a due date deadline. We also believe that
it is very important for us to be able to communicate the changes widely. Our students asked us, how are you going to ensure that our teachers know about these changes? So training is going to be really important. We want to make sure that we have videos for our families.
We're going to be working with our administrators. We're working with our our partners, with the cross-functional teams to really make sure that people are very clear and that we can reduce the variance. The other thing that I think is important to mention, and I did mention it
in one of those quotes, was around our courses and this designation of honors, we are going to be doing an audit of our courses so that we can better understand how many of our schools are are giving only
honors courses to our students, because we just need to better understand what that is and then reiterate our expectations around grade level courses, honors courses, and make sure that our students are appropriately placed. So that is
something else we'll be doing. So, as you heard from Miss Hazelwood, restoring clarity and rigor to grading and reporting practices, our focus is on five key drivers accurate performance measurement, clear communication, increased student accountability, reduced variance
in grading and strengthening the leader and educators role. As we work with our principals, we will continue to support the instructional leaders who will embed revising grading practices into school culture and operations. If we could go to
the next slide, please. So at this time, we will take any comments or questions. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And this is a long awaited topic of discussion. And
I'm going to go for my colleagues for questions and comments and colleagues. I know everyone has a lot to share, but limit your question. First round, one comment, one question and be brief. Be additive, not repetitive. Thank you. I'm going
to start from Miss Stewart. Okay. Start with one. Okay. I want to go back to averaging. You know, I had looked at different ways of reporting GPAs, different systems. How
would this look if so I'm just going to give an example. I'm going to go the other way. You got a B first quarter. You got an A second quarter. What would that look like when you average those a number. So we are we're
actually looking at percentages. So if 75.6 and you got an A you know what a 92 you would average those two together to get your grade okay. So each quarter will
be defined by a percentage not by a one, two, 3 or 4 or by a. That is that is our thinking at this time as, as we're working with our our friends in other offices who are helping us think this through, that is our thinking at this time. Yes.
Okay, great. I have seen some districts, not many do this weighting where they actually weight the second and fourth quarter more than the first and third, which is interesting because that means, oh yeah, you're really going to show up because it's weighted. Not
saying that's the way that we have to go. It's just another way I've seen that be worked out. And also with those summative assignments, maybe having a slice of that. So I look forward to that discussion, because I think there's a lot of
good ways to do it and not the way we've been doing it. I agree it has caused grade inflation, and I see kids make rational choices, actually based on the system. So they're pretty smart.
They'll figure it out. So thank you Miss Rivera. Always. I just want to clap and just almost jump out of my chair because do it. This has been long overdue.
Long overdue. First thing when I came in and I said with a group, I think it was with you, Julie, we went to Wheaton and I had a I sat on the floor with these kids, and the first thing they told me, first thing, we are not being challenged by this great policy. This is not really
helping anymore. Like, we can see it makes sense during Covid, but what is going on? So I have to tell you, this is a happy day for me. I'm going to do the happy dance because we're not we're we're not helping our
kids. We were not helping them. We were not getting them ready for college. And so I'm incredibly happy I do. I'm going to ask my first question, then we'll we'll come around again. Right? I do have concerns about schools who only offer honor.
English only government. And again, this is an equity issue for me. Not every kid, I mean even just I'm going to be honest, if I would have been told you're going to do honors English, I would have been I would have had heart
palpitations because, you know, I was learning English. I was like, it's a new system, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes we ourselves disqualify ourselves, which is not a good thing. But but if you have the skills, that is great. But if you don't, are we putting kids at a disadvantage where you know
where? Then how does that affect, you know, our absenteeism, our truancy. Right. Because then kids are like, I'm not going to go. I don't want to be embarrassed. I, you know, I don't have the basic to be able then to do the rest. So I'm glad you're going to be looking at that because I think it was done
by school. There was a lot of independence for each school to kind of implement it. And in the back of my mind I'm like, is that a good thing? Should we not have other hands and ears and so on to ensure that, you know, when you have schools that have
a very diverse populations with a high IEP, kids special education, right. So thank you. It is way overdue. And I'm looking forward to how you're going to do that, how you're going to implement that. And is
a training going to be mandatory? I think that's my main question. We're going to have to make it work together to work with our administrators and teacher leaders, to make it
mandatory to understand the changes that are taking place. Okay, miss. Miss Silvestre. Yes. Thank you. Very excited about this work. I think there were all these decisions were made with the best intentions in mind for our children. And we're in a different place. We know what's
working, what's not working. So it's a good time to reset and again have high expectations and rigor for our students in every corner of this district. One thing that we've seen, I've seen sitting on this board is the grades. When we do our evidence
of learning, we have our grades are in green and yellow. Our assessments and external measures are in red. So I hear you talk about standards aligned planning so that our teachers are teaching to the standard in
a better way, so that our grades are more reflective of our external measures, which we want them to be close at least. Can you help me understand what what needs to happen for that to take place so that our, our teachers
have the planning to be able to do that better and that they are teaching to the standards so that we can ensure that our our students are learning what they're supposed to be learning. Not so much variance from teacher to teacher. Yes, I think a few things are really critical. The planning is really
critical in understanding what the standards are, asking our students to know and be able to do. And, you know, we hear and I think even today you might have heard sometimes teachers will say it's too complicated, it's too hard, but it actually might
be at the grade level standard. And so then we have to work with our teachers to understand how we get students who may not be performing at the grade level standard to access that grade level content. And that is the work that we do with
cross-functional teams and other teacher leaders to get teachers to understand what the standard is asking and how we get students to access that information. And then with this pacing guide, to be able to really align and understand
these are this is what the assessment is going to assess in terms of standards. This is what needs to be taught. These are the critical standards that need to be taught during this time, so that students can demonstrate mastery. And so it's really
focusing in a little bit more on those those standards that will be assessed. I don't know if you want to add to that. I mean, I would just add that one thing that we've we've noticed in terms of our even just our performance, when even if you look at the grading practices at
the middle school level and or at the high school level, the sequence in which we teach things also makes a big difference. And looking at grading and assessing students on specific standards that are going to be on the assessment
prior to it being taken. So ensuring that that sequence is aligned in that manner as well, so that those standards, because there are times where we haven't been as focused and we've actually taught things that are on the assessment. After the
assessment is administered. So that map and ensuring that we have it and that we're grading students on that specific standard and providing them with timely feedback, we believe we'll also see significant increases in performance. Yeah, I just think that this is the
work of the system to get our students to really, truly have rigor, right. We heard testimony today about some challenges with implementing the curriculum. So we have to provide the support so our teachers can do what they need to do in a classroom full
of children with very different learning styles and levels. So this is the work that needs to be done. Thank you, Miss Zimmerman. Thank you. And thank you for a really great presentation. I really appreciated that in it. On
certain slides that you put the key takeaways. I think that's really helpful when looking at data, all of that. I have many questions, but I know only one. My first I'm wondering is the minimum of nine assignments. Is that applied just to our core
courses or all of our courses? I can imagine that's about one assignment a week and that throughout, you know, space throughout the quarter, I, I can imagine that some courses that would work very well and other courses that wouldn't be
conducive to that model. So this is for secondary. Correct. So we are expecting that to be for all of our courses elementary. That would be more challenging for like specials and things of that nature. But at high school we
are expecting that there be some consistent. And it doesn't have to be a major assignment, but even just some checking in with students periodically checking for understanding, we do expect there to be a minimum of nine. So not just core courses across
every course at the secondary level. Correct? Mr. Silverman? Yes, I want to start off by saying thank you guys so much for the hard work that you guys do here. I know, you know, for a lot of students, this can be very, you know, anxiety inducing, right. To talk about
changing grades. I think, you know, the changing changing grading policy by I think coming out and, you know, speaking to some students and hearing the concerns really did make a big impact. And I'm glad that we got to walk away from that conversation. I have a lot of
notes, a lot of things, a lot of questions to say, a lot of things to ask. But I'll start with one. I really appreciated the inclusion of on slide six, when we talked about prioritization of the most impactful assignments, because I think this gets to a point that, you know, you know, we actually
have some sort of conflicting sort of sentiments within our own grading policy, right? We're talking about the standardized, the standardization of nine assignments per class per quarter. And then we're also seeing students who are saying, well, like we have to prioritize, right. If I'm
talking about nine assignments a quarter times seven classes and many classes, you know, I've had classes where I'm given, you know, more than that. Well, above that, upwards of 15 assignments in a class, you know, what does that mean about the prioritization of the assignments. And so now we now
we get a better insight into why students are, you know, utilizing the systems that we've created in certain ways. Right, in terms of, you know, when we talk about like the 50% rule, I on, I'm completely on board with the 50% rule. Students should not get 50% for work that they didn't turn in. Genuine try
makes complete sense to me. But again, I think that the biggest thing to me is prioritizing the actual teaching of the standard, the mastery of the standard as a way to really tell the what the grade is. Right. So if I think there the, the big thing for me
would be looking, reevaluating that nine assignment minimum. Because what does an assignment minimum really do for us if it's if it's supposed to give us more feedback on our work? I'll tell you as a student and I think any other student will tell you it does not do that, and I don't. I
also don't believe that, you know, the return period will do the same thing, because it really matters what the content of the assignment is. How am I getting that reteaching relearning aspect? And so I'll leave it there for now, because I want to give time to my fellow board members. But I do have more to say. And so I'll come back around on the second time.
All right. I already jump out of my chair. So thank you for the presentation. I'm excited. However, there are certain areas we're making a lot of improvement with this tightening a lot of areas like the feedback time ten days. That is fabulous
now. But one area I want to push us a little bit further. One area we talk about changing this grade for ninth grade only moving forward. Now, as I recalled in 2017 when we changed
this grading, we did it whole system every grade all at once. And today you have stated very clearly how this is impacting our students, lowering the rigor, not helping our students
make good choices. Yet we want to continue have the students who are currently ninth graders to continue this pattern for another three years. I have a difficult time understanding that because what I'm looking at
is creating good work ethics to help students make good choices, provide permanent parameters for them to do so, students take new courses each year and every year in every class, their teacher
tell them the expectation in that class. Don't underestimate our students ability to meet expectations and adjust to changes. And one of those things
is that in terms of in a practical sense, today we heard testimony. Oftentimes we have multiple grade level of students in one class. I'm taking environmental science that's
open to ninth to 12th graders. Are you going to grade each student differently calculated grades differently. So I think these are the things to consider. And I, I will ask you
to further discuss. We're going to do the second round, Miss Stewart. So I wanted to talk about going on with our student member of the board on that
subject of. Kids that need to prioritize assignments because they just have so much to do, especially I noticed I don't know if this is everyone but my kid in 11th grade, an IB
student. A lot of those higher level classes now, seven very difficult classes. And there were times as a mom that I had to try to encourage him to
prioritize because he wasn't getting sleep. And I understand the more sleep deprived you are, the lower your output is, right. And so you get into this cycle of no sleep. And then now, you know, this is a kid that wanted
to do every single one of his assignments perfectly. And I had to say, okay, let's sit down and think and prioritize so you can get some sleep. So these are the kinds of choices I know some
kids make. And maybe it's more prevalent than I thought. You know, maybe I thought that was oh, that's just my kid. But according to you, it might not be just my kid. Right. So let's maybe talk about right sizing.
And I'm not saying to have a maximum, but I am saying that we need to have some of these conversations. It's also a mental health issue. And so talking about the anxiety of this all changing, that's also
going to add pressure to kids. So yeah, I think that needs to be part of the conversation, which it was today. And I appreciate that. And then I also had the experience of another child that was the one that figured out during Covid that
you could turn in all your assignments the last week. Not good for learning, right? So I'm so happy that we have these parameters with the ten day rule. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I think that will
actually help our teachers as well as well as our students. So, you know, we just need to strike that balance. And I appreciate that. Thank you. Miss Rivera. Evans thank you. And following on, my colleague Miss
Stewart, talking about having had all my kids gone through in my last child graduated 2020. What is wrong with with that about talking about maximum? I mean, we talk about a minimum
assignment because, you know, because we really don't have for and you guys are the experts. So you can maybe look at English and history and so on and, and be like, this should be the average. Because there were times when I know my kids had to
do triage. And I was like, you know, if you have a grade that, you know, you're going to have to. And I know that's part of learning and that's part of growing and so on. But sometimes, you know, what I don't want to do is go the other way, right? There has to be kind
of a medium where you want kids to, to enjoy learning, not just to be memorization or not just right, but you want them to at one point to enjoy learning and to go on on learning. So and
then to Miss Yang's question, I, I'm too I'm a little bit. Confused about how how do teachers, when you have so many different levels of students in one classroom, how do they do it? Like you can have, you know,
like you have an honors English and then you can have an ML one level and ML three level, an ML two level. A kid with an IEP, how do they, you know, how do we expect them to be able, you
know, to teach every child with those different needs? Or do we also need to kind of look at that structure and see what is in the best interest of certain students to be able then to have an environment where they can
also feel like they're achieving and not kind of feeling left behind, and also the burden that that is put on the teacher. Right, because you don't want to as a teacher, you don't want to leave anybody behind either. So
can you help me out with that? I think so the first thing I would say, because everyone's utilized the word assignment, and Mr. Taverna and I had a had the opportunity to have a conversation around just the, the definition and understanding of the word assignment. And I
say that to say you can you can find out if a student has mastered a standard not on this excessive assignment, but on something very simplistic that could qualify as an assignment. It essentially could be a checking for understanding, as
miss Hazel said. So the idea that you have to put students through a very like extensive assignment, written assessment to get to if they understand or are at the mastery level of a standard, is something that I think we need to break
culturally and redefine what, what, what an assignment means, because I think a lot of times if there are any students listening, they hear nine assignments and they're thinking, good Lord, that could be nine, you know, written, you know, essays, research and that that doesn't that doesn't define what an assignment is. So I
think we need to do work around ensuring that we have a common understanding of the word assignment so that it's getting to the to the point of being able to assess the student, and then also just provide them with the feedback that you're that you're intending to provide them
with. And with that, different levels of students in one classroom. That is that is the work of the planning. It is really looking at the instructional cycle. It's using
that informal data to make decisions about what we do for students and how we take an assignment, take a lesson, and adapt it to meet all of the different needs that are in the classroom. So yeah, that's the work. And I'll add to that,
there are some things that are structural and some things that are inherent to just the American education system. When we choose to have a general level course and an honors course in the same classroom, that's a choice. We're making a conscious choice for there to be
differentiated instruction, to meet one group of learners here and another group of learners over here, and balancing those needs. Another feature is we teach every child who comes through the front door. This is actually an American, uniquely
American thing. Not every country does this, and they do not do it in the manner that we do it. Where we do have the expectation that that students who are are scheduled and zoned
to attend a certain school, that we when they arrive, we try to meet their needs in classrooms in the least restrictive environment possible. And that often means that students with disabilities or students with language needs are in the same
classroom with with students who don't have those, those similar needs for different support structures. That being said, it really enriches our learning environment. It makes our our experience unique and special, and it is difficult. And this is
why not everybody can teach. It is hard work to be a teacher. They have so much that they have to balance. And you'll hear a term that we use an awful lot. And this is a great opportunity to share this with our public, especially during budget season,
how hard it is to be an educator, the amount of scaffolding that our teachers have to do to meet different learner needs at different spaces, they they often are creating multiple lesson plans for the same lesson so that they
meet student needs. And that is part of the expectation. Ms. Silvestre and inviting them to come before school or after school to recover things that may not be getting during the class day. I wanted to ask about
the summative assessment versus the final e Is the summative assessment just for the semester or is it for the whole year? It's my first part. It would be for the semester. It's it similar to the final exam
concept that you are assessing for the learning for the whole semester. But what we want to make sure we don't fall in the trap of is maybe two hour long assessment. Shutting down the school for two weeks or having
half days for two weeks. So that is what we're trying to avoid. So we have to figure out how we can assess what students have learned for a whole semester without going back to some of those old practices. And that's what we're trying to work through the logistics. We're the old final semester long also, or
the year long semester. Okay, just to add to that, Miss Silvestre, I think one of the other things to connect this to attendance, too, is that if it's an incentive for me, then to also be present all the time quarter two, quarter four. Right. Because if there's a summative assessment that's
semester based, I can't miss, you know, a significant number of days in any quarter because I'll miss the content and won't be prepared for that for that assessment. Okay. Thank you. I have more questions. Yeah. Miss Zimmerman, thank you. I also
want to echo Miss Yang's concerns about our students that are already in high school, and that these practices won't be applied to them. You showed us data that these are the
structure is failing a lot of our students, and I would hate to think we would continue with a failing structure. I'm also I want to elevate that, you know, grades are communication. It's a great way that we communicate how our students are doing, and we all hear feedback that that
communication isn't always clear. So I would encourage us to also look at the actual like visual representation of our grades. If we could break it down further into what standards and what parts that our students
are successful and where they still have room to grow, I think that would really help communicate to our students what specific skills that they still need to work on, and it would also help communicate that to our families. It's a lot easier to understand that a student
might need some assistance in technical or research writing, versus responding to a text that then we can help our students better, and they they know where they still need to grow. Thank you. Mrs. Sugano. Thank you. I'm going to echo the sentiments of
my colleagues, especially with regards to communication. Communication is so important to making sure students understand this process, understand what's changing, who it's changing for. I mean, I've had a ton of questions, right? Even as soon as this this meeting started with, with with regards to
grading and reporting about, you know, who is going to be affected by this grading and reporting change. So I just want to, you know, elevate that. And then I wanted to go back to, again the idea of consistency and standardization one more time. You know, we have a policy in place and we say it's not
working. But like as students will tell you, the policy right now isn't even implemented consistently. Right? I know when I was at Richard Montgomery, I had finals, right? Not for my the entire year, but I had summative assessments in which I had an assignment that was worth 20% of my grade in one quarter.
Right. And that was that was it was a two day assessment, and they called it a summative assessment. So what are we doing to make sure and what are the terms of like the courses of recourse for students, right. Even in terms of accountability to making sure that the that the
grading policy that we set into motion will actually be followed. Right. I'll give you one more example. I've had teachers who have, you know, so there's a rule within our grading policy that no assignment can be more worth more than 24% of your grade, right? I've had teachers who
have, you know, or classes where it has been, where I've had assignments that are worth more than 24% of my grade, or I've had times in which, you know, extra credit was offered on, on different assignments, or there's all these different things that in relation to the policy that what what is the
sort of recourse for students to making sure that the policy that we set into place is actually being followed? Because if it's supposed to be in the best interest of the students, like, how do we make how do we make sure that it's actually being followed on that side? So I would I would first go back to
Miss Rivera Evans question around first training sessions. And the answer is and we don't we haven't used this word as much as we need to. And it's mandatory. So first off, mandatory training ensures that every single person receives the same message at the same time
and has a clear understanding of what the expectations are. I don't think that we've been strong on that in terms of the having the level of expectations that we need to have for our staff, our principals, the people that are responsible for ensuring that a grading regulation is done with
fidelity. So that that I think is the first step. The other component I think that is key is that and I know we've talked a little bit about cross-functional teams, but by cross-functional teams, you've essentially shrunk a extremely large school system into a team
of people working with a set of between, you know, ten and 18 schools every day, same people. And so those people working with resource teachers, content specialists, principals and messaging that and examining their practices in planning,
examining their practices in school improvement reviews, looking at, you know, I could I could print out a grade distribution report and look at a department and look at the variance and grading. And it gives you a it tells a story. When you look at a department
like that, you look at who's adhering to the grading policy. You look you can see the number of assessments, and it's a window into having a much larger conversation that that is an accountability conversation. So I think that those two things are are key. And then the other component is that working side
by side with miss Hazel and her team, I, the two of us will be working more closely together than I would say. You know, curriculum and schools have ever worked together. So ensuring that our directors have a clear understanding of not only like
the, the, the number of assessments, but the quality of assessment. So I think that the accountability measures to ensure that there isn't variance will be as, as intensive as they they have been in many, many years. I think you see the variance, right, because the
accountability has not been as strong as it needs to be. And there's been a lot of things left up to interpretation. And I would use, you know, Doctor Taylor came in and talked about a connected autonomy. And I think this is a perfect example of connected autonomy. We we've allowed people to interpret
things on paper and make decisions in different places. And there hasn't been a clear standard with clear communication. And now there will be and there won't be this misinterpretation of one place, one class, one department versus
another. Okay, I have a follow up to that, but I'll make sure I'm making sure that my fellow board members get their get their fair share of time. I appreciate that very much. I have a question. Over the years, we have heard students and
teachers and parents say there's inconsistency in the retake or make up windows of different subjects or among different schools. Is that being addressed this time? And if it is, can you
remind me how we are addressing that? Yes. So we are addressing it. That is one of the changes that or upgrades that we want to make is that we are going to set clear expectations around what can be reassessed and what the
window is. So that will be stated clearly. And as our students ask that it even be included in their syllabus, they want to know what the expectations are very early on. So that is something we will set. So would that also, do we also have an expectation. Because if I look at other
school districts, some school districts, they can only be worth up to 75%, up to 85 or 80% or whatever. So are we also going to consider those measures or that is not in consideration?
Certainly can consider it. I don't have an answer for you about the percentage, but certainly that can be up for discussion. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I'm going to go to Miss Stuart. I wanted to talk about the long the thing I hear
about a lot from parents. And they still reach out to me about grades not being updated. And but I think I've also heard about some technology issues
from teachers too. And so if we're going to have this ten day requirement, we need to make sure, you know, is everyone trained? Is everything working the way it should be working? We need a lot of feedback on that.
It's I can't tell you how much stress it has caused parents, especially parents with kids with ADHD and other regulatory issues because they said no, I
know I turned this in, I turned this in and eventually you just have to believe your kid and then you find out, well, maybe it didn't get turned in or yes, it did, but it didn't hit the grade book. It didn't hit the
where the parent sees it. Right. So how are we making sure as we implement this, that, that requirement is met in a way that everyone's prepared for. So
that's a great question. So we are also working very closely with folks who operate synergy. And all of those systems for communicating grades. So they are working right alongside us as we are figuring this out. And
they so they're very clear about, you know, any changes that we're going to be making to mark pattern. And if there are issues with teachers implementing or inputting grades and it not showing up, that's something that we can elevate to
them. But we are all it's multiple offices working on on this greater reporting policy so we can work on improving that as well. That's great because if that actually gets fixed, I can't tell you how much it will
relieve stress and also improve performance, because knowing where you are is it's just that information coming back so important. Thanks, Miss Silvestre. What would be the harm of changing the grading
policy to the average for everyone, all at one time versus starting with the ninth grade cohort? What's the harm? I think just so if I take incoming
senior for next year, and we have students who are in the process of applying for lots of things, colleges and, and different programs, there could be potentially a dip and it would require an explanation
from really the district to be able to explain potentially why there is a dip with with grades and why we are making a sudden shift. Typically when we make changes to any type of
structure, whether it be a state mandating an assessment, anything related to changing graduation requirements, anything of that nature, we usually just start with an incoming class of ninth graders, and we are essentially handing
them their kind of playbook to say that this is what are the expectations for you throughout your your high school career. So we would be changing the rules mid midway for students, and it could have a significant impact on students and their grade
point average. And that could, you know, really trying to figure out what the impact would be as we're we're doing it would would be very could potentially be very challenging for students. When we went to the current system, did we roll it out starting with the incoming
ninth graders? I don't know, I don't think we did I think I don't know, but the current system also favors the student. And typically even when states make changes, that's why they
typically say if they do make a change for a grade level that's beyond ninth grade, they will say, you're just going to sit for it. So it doesn't negatively impact the student. So I just think we need to be thoughtful about what are the consequences
of doing that for students, it was universally adopted when we when we rolled it out. Thank you, Mr. Sivana. Yes. Thank you. So I just wanted to again speak
really quickly to sort of the idea behind reteach reassessment and all the work that's being done there. I know within, within our own policy. Right that so I mean, you know, we're talking about grading policy, but you know, it's policy with small P, right? We're talking
about really talking about the grading, reporting regulation that that is governed by our board policy. I know within our board policy, when we're when we're referring to our grading reporting and our standards on reteach and reassessment, the idea is a grade should be a reflection of the mastery of the
standards. Correct. And so if we're if we're talking about the reteach and reassessment, if a student is being able to show that they've mastered that standard through a reteach or reassessment, I think I personally. Right. I believe that, you know, you should have the grade that reflects that,
that reflects that mastery of that standard and any I mean, going back to sort of this idea of reteach and reassessment, again, speaking as a student within schools who's had opportunities to reteach and reassess, oftentimes I'll maybe have one reassessment opportunity a quarter, maybe
two, right. And that's that's like, that's it. And if we're talking about assignments, right. And kind of going back to more a more like looser definition where assignments are really just like the hard, sort of grueling work. I might have like 13 assignments that
quarter. Right? So where is the opportunity as a student to show that you have you have gone beyond and you have mastered this concept past the first initial teaching? I think that is a really big thing for me. That's something I would want to see reflected in this policy. If we are talking about grading as
a as a reflection of the mastery of standards, I think reteach and reassessment really has to be something that we put a large emphasis and a large focus on to show that, you know, students, this is not meant to punish you, right? It's not meant to say, you know, we're just trying to get stricter with grades. It is
meant to say thatour grades should reflect what your what your mastery of the standard is. And if you are able to show that mastery of the standard through a reteach or reassessment, we should we should be able to reflect that. So, you know, an arbitrary designation of, you know, just how many assignments that we're allowing to be
reteach or reassessed, like what what services that are really doing to our students. Right? Are we just are we really just saying, you know, you can only reteach or reassess this many assignments. So that's the amount that you can relearn or that's the amount that you can show mastery standards for. So that's kind of the question I have or I guess that's more of a
comment, but that's something I would want to see a little bit more on. And I have more comments. Again, I'm going to pass it back to my board to make sure that we're we're letting everyone get a fair shot, Mr. Rivera, all of us. So I've been listening, and I just I'm trying
to understand. Why we cannot roll this with all the kids next year, I'm going to tell you, if I was a parent, if I had kids right now in school, and I had. There was a time I had, you
know, I would have had a ninth grader, 11th grader like and trying to be like, oh, no, you don't have to do your homework. But guess what? You do. Like I'm just what is the message that we're giving our kids, I guess,
as a system. Right. So here's here's my take. Either we do it, we do it all. But this little by little, it's just not sitting well with me. I'm just going to be honest with you. We can
certainly go back and revisit that. We okay. We received the feedback. Absolutely. Yeah. Can we it might be a little bit more work for the system. It might be a little bit you know but but I'm not an expert I don't think it is I, I just, I just, I just
want to I just, you know, I want the message to be clear for every high schooler that starts next year, this is our grading policy. This is what we expect from day one and this is how we're going to do it. This is
how we're going to roll it. Here it is. I want to know also the engagement of parents. How are we going to let parents know so they they have plenty of time to prepare to ask the questions. Right. That's that's what I'm looking for. If we can if we can do that, that would be greatly
appreciated. Thank you. And I see Miss Montoya online. Miss Montoya, go ahead. Thank you. And thank you so much for understanding, everyone. Sorry for the background. I just walked through the door. I've been watching online the whole time, so I appreciate the
presentation. And again, the slides are great. I just I had to jump on because I'm really concerned about the unfairness of this policy that we've been employing in our schools, and I'm concerned about the unfairness that I feel like will occur if we allow basically
certain grades of students currently there to be basically grandfathered in to this old policy. So to be quite frank, it sounds like basically we were allowing students to earn while they weren't earning them. That's the point, right? They were getting marks that they didn't necessarily earn. Now,
that's not for all of our students, but some certainly were based on the way that grades were calculated. Like if you got the B and then the D right in terms of what you could get now, my concern then is that in an attempt, it sounds to me like, well, we don't want to be
unfair to these maybe 10th, 11th and 12th graders. Now by having them adopt this more accurate grading policy. But there was an unfairness to begin with. So we're allowing those same students to basically still
potentially get grades they didn't earn. And then in the name of fairness, we're not going to correct the unfairness. So I just get really concerned about that, not to mention just the logistical challenges mentioned by Mr. Stein and several of my colleagues about having classes where the students are receiving different
grading policies and basically algorithms, and the complications that I believe would occur for our staff. Right. If there's a staff member with 30 students in a math class, for example, and the students must some might be ninth graders because they've been taking accelerated math in middle school and elementary,
some might be in 12th grade, etc. Then that's also one additional thing we're asking our teachers to do is to keep track of that and then implement different grading policies depending on the student. There's so many students, so many staff, there's bound to be errors also, which then we're
going to have to go back and correct. So I'm just really concerned about this idea that we would allow some students to continue unfairly, perhaps earning grades that are not a true reflection of what they've mastered. Thanks. Thank you colleagues, we have gone three
rounds or four rounds. I'm going to go for the last round. So and if you have further questions, feel free to follow up through emails. Miss Stewart, last question. Okay, this was going to be my last question anyway.
But I will also follow instructions. So summative requirements I by the way, big fan of the semester test because that gets you ready if you're
going to go on to college to have the practice because it's, you know, it can be a big, you know, splash of cold water to all of a sudden have to study over a couple months worth of
learning. So and it also shows that they've learned because a lot of these classes build right. Especially math. So important to have those check ins. And it's great to have it I think at the end of the semester. But that also brings
us back to the theme here of how can you have that for only part of your math class, right? So everyone's going to take that test. And then how does that get calculated in for some of the students and not others? So I
think this, in my opinion, strengthens the argument that maybe we should just rip the band aid off. Anyway. Thank you. Mrs. Zimmerman. Thank you. I
don't have a question. I just have a comment and it's a tip of my hat or a congrats or great job, miss Hazel. You've been up here presenting and fielding questions for like two hours. You've done great. Shout you out. Declare miss Hazel day
today, Nikki. Thank you. Mr. Silva. Yes. Thank you. And I'm going to hit my final points. I just want to say, in terms of the implementation of this policy for, for like all at
once, I want to push back on that as a student. Right. If you had told me as, as a junior, as a junior, going into my senior year, that you were going to be changing the entire regulation on which my grades are sitting, right in my junior into senior year, it's like you're changing the rules in the middle of the
game, right? I'm applying to colleges, I'm applying to internships, and the idea that I have to now explain what is likely to be perceived as a drop in grades because of something that M.C.P.S. Has mismanaged, seems supremely unfair to me, and that's something I will, I
will say from the beginning to the end. It's just you can. You don't get to correct unfairness by by changing the game, but by changing the regulation in the middle of the game. Okay. And then going back to, to some of my other points, going again,
back to the idea of consistency and standardization. I think this idea of rubrics and standards and syllabuses is something that's really, really important to me. And I know it's important to a lot of other students. If I go into a class right, I should I should really
have the same syllabus. If it's the same course code, no matter what school I'm at, no matter which teacher I have. Right, I should know what assignments I will have to do in that class. What is the what is the standards on which I'm being graded, the standards that I'm being expected to master, right. To get the grade that I, I want
to receive in that class. Right. I think that is really, really important. And so I think it's also the idea of how the implementation of this policy is going to be key. And I think this is another reason why it is supremely unfair to try and change the rules in the middle
of the game by by changing the regulation for all students all at once, right, to, to try and have this implementation in an untested manner with really untested policies all at once for students who, you know, honestly, it will affect their the rest of their lives, right?
I mean, we don't want to think of grades as affecting the rest of your lives, but it will affect the college you go to. It will affect the internships you get, it will affect the scholarships you get. And so to do all of that without really saying, you know, these are these are the changes and the standardizations we're going to
make, I think is extremely unfair, right? I mean, I just have to say it as a student. And then again, the idea that that we are going to practice perfect implementation on the first run is something, you know, I don't know, like what what we can expect out of that if we're if
we're saying, you know, we're going to be perfect with this the first time around. And but, you know, if we're not too bad. So sad for our, for our students who are going into college now. Right. Or who have to apply with these grades, I think that is I think that's a massive, massive oversight. And then finally, in
regards to, you know, the different calculations of grades, I think you can like that with regards to, like the scaling of the grades in terms of A's and B's and all those things. It really is just as simple as what number, what algorithm do you plug into the back of the computer? It does
not have to affect the in classroom teaching as far as I know, right? If I'm wrong, please correct me on that. But no, you're you are correct and working with our folks in synergy, it will not be up to the teacher to determine what who what student gets, what type
of grade. The algorithm will determine that. So they they will work all of that behind the scenes. So that is correct. And we so we hear both arguments and it is something that we'll, we'll go back and determine. But
we do want to be cautious about over correcting to the point where we see a dramatic change. So we, we, we have to think about what it means when we have now these summatives what it
means if we start assigning percentages to grades, what it means when we start changing the mark pattern all at once for, for students. And so those are all the considerations that we have to take in place at this time. Thank you. I just want to
say again, thank you so much for the work. I appreciate your outreach to students through this entire process. I know it has been very, very informative to everyone in the community just to understand what are the changes that are being thought about, what are the changes that are being potentially going to be made. And again, like, I
can't stress this enough, the implementation is the most important aspect of the regulation, the policy, whatever it is. Right. Policy small P right. But it really it really will have the dramatic impact. We had a regulation that that should have done right by our
students, but the implementation was really poor to the point at which it was no longer doing right by our students. Right. So having that standardization is so important to me. Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Evans. Then I will go to Miss Montoya. Miss Rivera-Oven, thank you. I, I
appreciate the sentiments of our student board member. However, I would like to remind him that these were during during a pandemic. These were very, you know, unseen circumstances, right? That we did a lot. We did
the best we could under the circumstances because honestly, none of us in our lifetime had lived through a pandemic before. But that being said, I feel a great responsibility to our
students if we do not change it for everyone now, I think it would be irresponsible on our part not to do it. I think it would be neglectful and as you know, Mr. Purnell said, you
know, it's based on what you know, what you learn, your hard work and so on. So to continue on a path where we're not going to recognize that, to say for some students, you know, okay, so we'll give you, you know,
that is not the way life works. That is not how, you know, that's not the kind of teaching I think, you know, we reflect in M.C.P.S. We want to challenge our students. We wanted to make sure, you know, that you know, that we have those expectations.
So for me to continue in that, in that trajectory of, okay, let's, you know, let's let's just start in a couple of years, okay? And then let's give everybody a pass that that to me feels like I am not doing my job as a board member and as
somebody who took an oath to do what's in the best interest of all the students in this county. So for me, I'm going to push back respectfully and with much love, as he knows. But to say that, you know, I have been on
this earth a little bit longer. And, you know, life doesn't always handle gives you fairness or equity in everywhere you go. And sometimes we have to we have to rise a little bit higher and work a little bit harder. And that is okay folks. That is
okay. So that's that's where that's where I stand with this. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you Nikki. Thank you Peter for being here. This is like a congressional hearing went on forever. I just. All
right. Let me just, you know, but I just want to say thank you for your hard work. And I really look forward, you know, I really look forward to moving in a new era where we truly, you know, truly challenge our kids to do
their best, but we also support them to make sure that, you know, we give them the tools and the teachers so that our kids, all of our kids from the different levels of learning can actually achieve their best potential. Miss Montoya, thank
you so much. So I do want to acknowledge Mr. Sereno's perspective as a current student. And I do think it's really important to hear I think I have to agree with my colleague, Mr. Rivera, even though both as a board member, as someone who has gone through high school and college and
various graduate schools, the grading policy that I see being proposed is what I think most of us are probably used to. Right? A lot of us grew up with you. Basically, you get the points, they average them together and that's your grade. And I think, I mean, I haven't really ever I was surprised when I learned
about M.C.P.S. Grading policy with the big rubric of various letters and how you could still somehow get below a 70, but it's still a C and all of these various things. And I think that I don't view this as changing the game in the middle of it. For some of our students, if we
were saying, okay, this is November, and everybody, when you come back in January after winter break, this is the new grading policy. I would absolutely agree that is not okay. But what we're asking our students to do is say at the beginning of the new school year, right where you have ample notice, we're actually just
asking you to earn the gradestht of our students, it might not be a problem. They're not missing school in the second and fourth quarters because they know they can still get the whatever, right. So we're just saying now you have to earn the actual grade that you get. There's no more leeway here, right? You can't game the system anymore
because the reality is that we do our students a disservice. We send them into college unprepared. And I know because I hear from parents of students who have recently graduated saying, these kids are not prepared, my kids are not prepared. I hear from college professors saying, these kids are not prepared. We see it in
the news. Harvard's offering remedial math classes because the kids are not prepared. So it might seem like we're doing kind of a mean thing to these students by saying, hey, you actually have to show up now and do the work. But what we were doing a mean thing by telling
them that they didn't have to and they could still earn the grade, and then devaluing the earned marks of those students who did show up, who did do the work, who did put in the effort. So I have to respectfully disagree that we're somehow changing the game for these students. If there's a dip in their grades, it's because
they've chosen not to actually do the work right. They think they're on the old grading system where they can just kind of wing it in the second and fourth quarters. So I would really like to see this rolled out for everyone to get everyone back to where they are, so we can have true reflections of their mastery and send them to
the next grade level, whatever that may be ally prepared. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you everyone for this very lively discussion. And now, Board member Yang, may I ask for right of reply? You know we are not doing a debate. Right of reply exists within our board handbook
for. If I'm addressed directly within the comments to have a final final, you know we I really appreciate our students advocating on their behalf. So make an exception that you may
reply, but this is an exception. Thank you. I just want to say I completely understand the points about fairness and unfairness and all of these things. All I have to say is that as a student, right? If you told me I'm applying to colleges right now and you're going to change
the entire metric on which I am being graded within my school, because you think, oh, we have been giving you guys a break for far too long. I fail to see the merit in that as to how that will actually prepare our students. Right? If we've been
doing them a disservice for four years. Right. And we're saying, you know, we're going to change all of that with one year worth of grading, but also in the in the in that sort of one year, we're also going to like ruin your chances at college, ruin your chances at an internship,
ruin ruin your chances at scholarships because of the grading that you're getting out of this. I again, still fail to see the merit in how we're actually preparing our students. Right? You can like like I said before, you cannot correct unfairness with with a change in
the middle. And it really is a change in the middle of the game. You will have you will put the burden on counselors, teachers, parents and administrators to try and explain this out now to colleges and why this entire grading system has changed. And so with that, I'll leave it there. But
again, I just wanted to thank you all for your time and the work that you've done here today. Thank you so much. Are we expecting these new things will go into implementation next school year? Yes. Okay. Thank you. With that, we're going to move on to the next item which
is item oh. Nine, item of information. Oh okay. These are the legal fees report. And there's no action for the board to take at this time. All right. So I'm going to go to the item
number ten is Board of Education item. May I have a motion to approve item 10.1 and 10.2 in block. So moved second. All in favor please raise your hand. That's unanimous. With all
present, virtually and in person. Now I'm going to turn to 10.3. We do have a previously business meeting. However that is a resolution introduced by Miss Wolff. And Miss Wolff is
not here today. Procedure wise. I'm going to ask the staff procedure wise, do we need to amend the agenda and, and take a vote on that or we are are okay to just have a motion to ask it
to be held until May 8th? Okay. So move to table the resolution that's currently on the dais until May until until the May 8th board meeting. Okay, second, May 8th or the first meeting. First board meeting in May okay,
I second that. Okay. All in favor, please raise your hand. And that's unanimous with those present in virtually and in person. All right. So then any new business to introduce to be introduced seeing none. And then
we are going to go to a portion of our meeting, the Board of Education. Recently I want to talk about recently received an opinion from the Open Meetings Compliance Board dated April
1st, 2025. The Compliance Board found that a violation of the Open Meetings Act occurred during a closed session held on September 26th, 2024. Specifically, although the Compliance Board found that a specific contract was not
discussed in closed session, it found that a briefing by the superintendent regarding the need to purchase more diesel busses fell outside of the administrative function exception to the Open Meetings Act. The Compliance Board
determined that the general need to purchase additional diesel busses fell outside of the scope of the superintendent's delegated duties under the Student Transportation Policy, and therefore did not involve an update on the matter that the
Board of Education have delegated to the superintendent. A copy of the Compliance Board's opinion is currently being circulated. Board members is going to come down to you to sign in accordance with section
3-21182. So we will need to sign
this paper right now okay.
Yeah. Okay. Miss Wolff and Miss Montoya just signed just prior to they leaving the meeting. All right. So that concludes item 10.1 to 10.4. Now we're going to
item 11.1. It's an information summary. No action is required at this time. Then the last item of the day is adjournment. May I have a motion? I will happily move for adjournment. I will happily second that. Okay. All
in favor, please happily raise your hand. That's unanimous.
Thank you everyone.