e them. Buenos dias. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the board. Second work session on the superintendent's recommended fiscal year for 2027 operating budget. I'll be begin by asking my board members to please introduce themselves. For the record, I
will start my left. Good morning. Rita montoya, board member at large. Good morning, Brenda Wolff. District five. Good morning, Julie Yang. District three. Good morning. Buenos dias. Carla Silvestre,
school board member at large. Good morning, Laura Stewart. District four. Miss Zimmerman. Good morning, Natalie Zimmerman representing district two. Thank you so much. Today's work
session is the second opportunity for the superintendent to present detailed information on the recommended FY 27 operating budget and for the board to ask questions and provide feedback. The board held its first public hearing on the FY 27 operating
budget on January 15th. The second and final public hearing for the superintendent's recommended FY 27 operating budget will be held on Tuesday, January 27th at 6 p.m. in this board room. Sign up for the second public hearing are now
closed. On January 29th, the board will hold its third and final work session to receive additional information from administration and to consider the feedback from public hearings and responses to the board member information
requests. At its February 19th business meeting, the board will take action to approve the superintendent's recommended FY 27 operating budget. The board's final adoption of the FY 27 operating budget will take place at the June 25th
board Business meeting. With that, I'd like to welcome Doctor Taylor and his team, and I will turn it over. Thank you, Madam President. If our first work session had a theme, it was keeping the lights on and operating our school system. If
today has a theme, it's about how we can stretch and innovate and build on some of the things that we've done in the past. The third work session that you have coming will focus primarily on school based staffing and staffing for the
district. As we dive into today's presentation, we will cover two big topics one blueprint. And I see that we've got our blueprint coordinator Janine Beckie is here. We just actually got off the call talking to our friends at the
state about our blueprint status and hope to illuminate some of the work that we're doing in each of those pillars. And then we'll talk about some of the discretionary items and ways that we continue to innovate in M.C.P.S. and grow
our school system to be a great place for students to learn. We will conclude today's presentation with some answers to questions that the board has asked already in your previous work session and your previous
budget work session, as well as your other work session that was held recently. So hopefully this will give us a foundation to bring things to conclusion during your third work session and give some final direction to staff. So without further ado, I'll introduce our Chief
Financial Officer, Yvonne Alfonso Windsor, and our Director of Budget, Shannon Padfoot. Good morning, Board of Education. Members of the Board of Education like Doctor Taylor said, I'm Yvonne Alfonso
Windsor, I'm the chief financial officer, and today we are going to continue our deep dive into the budget. We're going to focus on the blueprint, the discretionary expenses. We're going to also do a technology overview because technology is a little bit
different. And then follow up information from prior budget sessions. The first order will be the blueprint for Maryland's future, and I'm going to turn it over to Miss Bradford for to go over the details. So as a
reminder, the blueprint consists of five components early childhood education, high quality teachers and leaders, college and career readiness, and more resources for students to be successful. And finally,
governance. Each of those pillars has. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Pillar one is early childhood education. For FY 27. We are increasing by 8.1 FTE.
Can you go back a slide. And for pillar two we're increasing by 5.0 FTE for pillars three, four and five. As you can see on the slide, we are not increasing in FY 27 for FTE. And you can see the dollar amount that we are increasing
on this slide. Go to the next one. For pre-kindergarten expansion. There are 8.1 FTE that totals $936,370. That is for the conversion of five half
day pre-K classes to full day classes. It is also for the adjustment of staffing resources at our early childhood centers to align with our regulations. There's also a local match funding required for our duty centers. So those are the Judith Hoyer Early
Childhood Centers. We have an increased funding of $330,000 for the new duty center at Galway. We are still doing modification work at the old Burtonsville Elementary School campus, which is going to be our future early childhood site.
We also have increased in the budget by $25,000 for the Children's Opportunity Alliance. While that is not blueprint, it is related because that is for early childhood care and
education. Pillar two is there is a direct response to the nbct lead teachers or the teacher career ladder in order to support and coach teachers through their nbct process, we are adding additional funds for
5.0 FTE or $627,000. Those funds are budgeted to support the lead teacher salaries and anticipated class coverage during the required planning time for each lead. Teachers, lead teachers. Serve as both a
highly effective classroom instructor and school based instructional leaders. It requires direct instruction of at least one course or subject for all marking periods, at a maximum of 50% of the time, and a minimum of 20% of their time
to be reserved for planning. Pillar three is kind of self-explanatory. Those are direct costs for dual enrollment, tuition, and support. That is an increase based on the increase in participation for dual
enrollment AP and IB courses. Pillar four is regarding the early literacy assessment. That is a rate increase for the doubles assessment to assess students acquisition of early literacy skills in grades K through three that was
previously costing the district $558,000. Due to a rate increase, we have increased the budget by $100,000. And I'm going to now pass it back to Yvonne Alfonso Windsor to walk you through discretionary
expenditures. Thank you. So this is another part of the budget. As you know, we divide the budget in since this is a lot already. I'm so sorry to interrupt you. So we're going to sorry I was actually writing some questions myself. So we're going to ask questions now.
Miss Wolff, I just want to understand on on the National Board certified teacher, one that you're adding, are these five new people that you're going to bring into the system, or are these five people who are already in in BCT teachers
here that you're going to turn into lead teachers? I'm trying to figure out if this $627,789 already includes five salaries that we pay. So these are new positions. There are five new
positions as part of the career ladder, as required by the blueprint, where we have to have different leadership opportunities at the teacher level. So it's five positions people currently in M.C.P.S. can apply for the positions, but is is in addition to the
positions we currently have. Related question. Okay, it seems to me if five could apply, we should give it to those five that we're already paying. But but then we have to remember. Then we have to backfill the positions that those people are leaving. So so we're creating
we have a number of people who are not in the classroom. That's true. That is correct. That is correct. But this this required them to teach at least one class and then coach other teachers in those schools. So it's going to be a five different schools that they
will be at. And it's a requirement by the blueprint. And it's an MOU with both AIB and our teacher association. I understand the requirement part. I knew that I'm just trying to figure out, is there a way that we can benefit from people that are already board certified? So
yes, is the short answer. No matter what, it's still going to end up becoming a cost because you're going to have to backfill the position somewhere. So even if it is an existing person who's within the system, which is likely to be candid,
that you're still going to have to go back and backfill, I will say this. This is an indicator of a potentially very significant expense in the near future across the board, depending on where this goes with the AIB and the blueprint
in terms of how widespread this mandate is in terms of growing the career ladder, there have been a number of models that have met with a tremendous amount of success. Probably our nearest counterpart would
probably be Charlotte Mecklenburg in in North Carolina, which is a little bit bigger than us, than Montgomery County, where they have a career ladder system where it's actually multiple teachers per school that that meet this criteria with a lot of release
time. And so that that adds to the potential expense down the road. This is, if anything, I hate to use the word pilot, but in a sense, a first effort to test the waters of what this looks like in Montgomery County. But this could be something
that grows very rapidly and both in cost, size and scope. Can we get a listing of not names, but by position of people who are board certified that are not classroom based? Sure. Thanks. Thank you. And just as a related question, I
just want to make sure I understand what this job is. So these are folks who already have their certification, and then they help other teachers to get this certification and kind of guide them through that process. But nbct is not required. There's just a
financial incentive, because the idea from this national board entity is that it's better for educators to have this certification from that entity. Is that correct? It's it's predicated on the assumption that nationally board certified teachers are more effective, or at least
that's the hypothesis that the AIB is going with. This position is a is designed to do a couple of things. One, to help coach teachers through the nationally board certified process, as you noted, but also
to have one foot in the classroom and also one foot in the instructional coaching space right now. And the board has already made a really substantial investment in terms of staff development, teachers that more or less kind of fulfill a lot of the same.
That's why I was asking. It sounds similar to what I know of our staff development is very, very similar, but the expectation is to provide some instructional coaching in addition to some of the National Board certified teacher coaching, to to help elevate instruction in general,
while also still performing the duties of a classroom teacher. One of the things that that the industry struggles with mightily is how do we promote really successful teachers without taking them out of the classroom? And in a lot of ways,
the traditional route would have been you were a classroom teacher, you were very successful. You became an assistant principal, or you came to Central Office as an instructional specialist or a coordinator, and then eventually a director or a principal. And what has ended
up happening is we've lost really well qualified, great classroom instructors in the process of promoting them. And so having pathways in which we can advance someone's career in the profession without taking them out of the classroom, is part of the motivation behind
also trying to enhance the instructional landscape. And and some people don't want to come out of the classroom. I know folks who love being in the classroom, right? You couldn't pay them. No offense to anyone in central office to be in central office, right? And just so that I understand and for the community, M.C.P.S. pays for teachers to go through
the process as well. So I think someone told me the other day, it's like about $10,000 for the whole process. And so that's something that we help pay for our teachers because we want them to get these skill sets and things. Okay. Thank you so much, Miss Yang. Yes. With this
question, can you give me a total number of people that are already lead teachers? We don't have any at the moment. No. This is the first this is the first batch. We were required to start this initiative next
year. So this is the first. So because we have always talk about multi-year budgeting knowing what's coming down the pipeline. So according to blueprint how fast how many more lead teachers we need to get in in future years? That's
a great question. We would love to know the answer to that as well. Okay, good. Okay. So then just give me an idea for dual enrollment tuition and support, which is 1.7 for that. What is
the FY 26 budget and and how much we actually spend for this year? It is about $4 million this year, and we're always our participation keeps increasing. So we always have to find ways to fund, you know, as the
enrollment increases during that year to make sure that we're able to support the students that enroll for dual enrollment, because at this point, we don't try we don't want to discourage anyone from following this pathway. So this is really to true up the budget. Every year, as more and more students choose to enroll in
dual enrollment. Okay, so one of the data point that will be helpful for all of us is try to understand for the $4 million we invest in 26, what are we getting out of? For example,
other students finishing the associate degree, how many we are looking at, or how many is just students taking? Like not just students taking a level of class instead of an AP class for, you know, enrichment and
acceleration. I think that will be very helpful for us to know, somewhat like a profile of our dual enrollment. Right? Right. Okay. We can do that because this is a big investment for the for the system, Mr. Stewart.
I'm back to the nbct positions. So they would still be teaching a one, at least one class or just one class. And doing the it requires them to teach 20% of the time. It's usually one
class okay. And again these are this will be a school based teacher positions. So they're new positions. They'll they'll be teaching 20% of the time. So.
But this isn't reflected in the true costs. So I'm I'm just I'm trying to understand what's the true cost because it's not like you, you know, someone has to teach these classes right at
some point. So they're still be teaching a class or maybe two. So I'm that's why I'm kind of not understanding the true cost. So budget wise we have to add for the five on the other side, when you look at the school, you know total classroom
allocation, we would have decreased that by one teacher. Let's say, you know, to make up for that 20%. So under the nondiscretionary cost, when we see, you know, the FTE allocations for school, you would have decreased by approximately an FTE, which is about $130,000 saving on that
other side, considering salaries and benefits and more realistically a .2.2, this is a lot easier to do at the secondary level, where our our courses are carved out in fifths. So it's a little bit
more complicated at the elementary level. And so there's some shared responsibilities and some models that we've looked at and worked with our association partners to come up with the MOU. This is actually something that we worked on last year, and it took a while for for us
to find a clear pathway that that made sense to both us as an organization, our associations and the AIB. And one of those sticking points is how this looks at the elementary level. So even though that the net impact may
may look like AA0 point eight, in terms of total net impact, we have to account for it as debits and credits. So that makes a lot of sense. I know you mentioned right now we have staff development teachers which fulfill a lot of this
role. So I assume going forward we'll have to see if this expands. If we can have some of those teachers write this position and does this supplement or supplant and how well does that fit into the model? And like I mentioned
earlier, that in other places it is not one per school or even two per school, but it may be one per grade level or one per per grouping or or team. So at you could see how this
could amplify pretty quickly and be a huge asset, but also a huge cost. So this is just definitely one of those those things that we we're going to need to watch in future years and see where the expectations line up versus what we're actually doing. Okay. Thank you.
Semester. Thank you. Yes. Lots of concerns here in terms of cost. National board certifies what the blueprint decided that the systems needed to implement. It's not something that M.c.p.s decided that we wanted for our
teachers and schools, and now we are required to fund it along with other things. So I guess my question is the discretionary items on the blueprint are do those have to be funded this year? Can we
delay them because these are required and now they're competing with other positions such as the special ed for example, which we know we need. But if we're required to fund these then those are going to get bumped. And those are very real to the school house. So
just wanted to see if there's any flexibility to delay to to fund these in future years because we require to. So yes and no. So the the nationally board certified lead teachers, we are required to fund them
because it's part of an MOU that we have agreed to with the AIB. So we are locked in to to that expenditure as part of that agreement. In terms of our early childhood expenditure in
pillar one, we do have some flexibility. I will say that it is a substantially smaller investment than the investment that we made last year. It does help to meet some of our demand by converting some of our half
day to to full day classrooms. One thing that we were looking at in pillar one, and we went quickly through the slide, was we were looking at how do we expand another early childhood center and utilize the the
older campus of Burtonsville Elementary School, because they're going to a new, new school next year. But that facility does need a lot of work and it won't be ready. So in addition to saving the overhead and the additional classroom seats that we would
add there, that might be a future year deferred pillar one expenditure doesn't really save us any money this year, but it is. It is something that we scaled back relative to to what we are allowed to do in terms
of dual enrollment, which is really your other big pot of money. This is really a reflection of actuals and not really a reflection of new expenditure beyond what our students have expressed that they're interested in. I think that there is a tremendous
interest, both with Montgomery College and with us, to continue to find ways to make this more affordable for the school district, the college and the students, both from a logistics standpoint and from.
A financial standpoint. You know, there's a there's a movement across the country to do more dual enrollment on high school campuses and not have students always have to go to the college campus. They do lose out on some of that
experience when they do that. But at the same time, there's a way to capture both the benefit and save on some costs by doing that. So I think that all of that is on the table. It it would be hard for us to scale back these blueprint expenditures right now, because they do align with where we
think actuals are lining up. And if we find a savings either through an arrangement with with Montgomery College or through some other change of circumstance, you know, it's definitely to our benefit. But for right now, we we see this as pretty locked in. And the
state gives us funding for these positions. Very minimal, minimal. So usually for Montgomery County, again, we're one of the counties that gets the least amount of money for blueprints. So we get about 25 to 30%. I do want to add one more thing. In answer to your
question. The governor's budget is coming out this Wednesday. After that, we will find out a state aid. And remember, community schools is a big part of the blueprint. If any additional community schools, MSD signs any more community schools to MSD to M.C.P.S.
there's going to be a local match that will be required as well. And that will, you know, that will have to come out. That will be an addition to our budget. So that is something that we're waiting for, that we're hoping that we'll know by Friday and will bring that back at the next work session. And
since you mentioned Burtonsville and pre-K centers, just I know that Children's Opportunity is interested in having some conversations about integrating private providers into our planning because they, you know, they need to be part
of the equation. Otherwise they might go they might be negatively impacted by us taking all the pre-K seats in the area and affecting their bottom line. Thank you, Miss Zimmermann. Thank you. My
question is actually fairly similar to one that Miss Stewart just asked, and I'm just looking for additional context on why we chose these five positions to begin. And that might look like in terms of the nbct. Sorry. Sure. So as
we said, since last year, the AIB has been, you know, reminding us that part of the career ladder is to assign some, you know, lead teachers and start with a number this year. And we work with our associations to determine, you know, a small subset, something that we can start with, you
know, to see how it plays out. This, you know, next year, as those positions are funded and hired for. So it's really, you know, a very minimal as minimal as I could make it investment in this specific area that is going to require, if the blueprint keeps moving as it's
moving that it will require, like Doctor Taylor said, a much higher investment. We'll just have to figure out strategically how we implement that in the future as we keep spending. So then just follow up with that. This is like the
very minimum entry that we can make and still be in compliance with what the blueprint is asking us. That is correct. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Miss Zimmermann. I do have a few. I do have a couple questions myself that I would like some
clarification just for the folks at home when we're looking at pillar one, could you just and and it will be helpful when you do the presentation if you can say if that is blueprint required. So that way it could be even more
clear. Like if there's something that. Like the Nbct is blueprint requirement. If we can kind of do that throughout the presentation, just to be clear to the public that there's no flexibility in it, I
think that would be helpful. When you're looking at pillar one, can you just tell me where geographically is Galloway in the county? That is not my forte. Would it be East County?
Yes. It's close to like the Calvert area. It's like right on the line of PG. I was there a couple months ago. Okay. I just wanted for for folks at home. I just wanted to make sure because that's an area that we don't have a lot of.
Access to programs. So that is good to know. And if I may. So M.c.p.s. Has been expanding their duty centers as required by the blueprint. But we also get. So there is a local match, but we get a $330,000 grant
every year for each of our pre-K duty centers. Okay. And the last thing on that on page on line 43, I get it. This is not blueprint related. Increased support for Children's Opportunity Alliance
25,000. What is that for? So this we normally contribute. We have been contributing for the last few years for the Children's Opportunity Alliance for the support through early childhood. We we contribute 125,000. This is an increase of 100 of another 25,000, because
our expansion of the early childhood this year is minimal compared to what we would do in a regular year. That is just to continue that support and building upon, you know, our early childhood investments. Thank you. And I'd like to echo my colleague, Mrs. Sylvester's
point about looking into with the daycare centers are competing. I know for a fact that that has been that has been an issue, even for some of the low income daycares, that there's this and I can tell you,
there's plenty of kids who can do pre-K. We're just not getting to them. So I'd like to see that. But on pillar three, with the dual enrollment, I that is that is quite a significant increase. So we're
going up to $5.7 million, as Mr. Yang asked. Right. Because right now they're they're they're getting 4 million and we're increasing by 1.7. Right? Okay. It's a 50 almost 50. So it is it is quite the increase
to Mr. Young's point, I really would like to see some concrete disaggregated data because how long have we had this program. Now can somebody help me out. Well we've had it for years before the blueprint started. But really, you know, it kicked
off to this level, you know, in 2020, 2021 when the blueprint made it a requirement. Okay. So so we should have four years of data to see how many kids have actually completed graduated with their AA. What is a follow up? How many have gone on to
actually complete their bachelor's? But I also would like to know the disaggregated data of demographics and geographics in this program. Perfect. Can we please do that? I really appreciate that. May I add a factor to your data
request? I was going to ask for the same thing. I think last year we all got some data that also showed like some students might just be taking one, some students might be taking four, just similar, something like that. So we know who's taking multiples versus who's just taking maybe one class. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Montoya.
Yang. Yeah. Would you like to add. Yeah. To add on that, one of the things then. Okay. Every year. So I support students do dual enrollment classes, AP classes, honor class on grade
level, whatever they want to pursue. However, we have a set amount of students if they are taking more dual enrollment classes. What is the impact on our staffing if this has this
1.7 is almost a 50% jump, then how does it impact our staffing at the secondary level? And I would like to have a clearer understanding. So you're asking the right question. This is an an increase in expenditure for
dual enrollment. And our compliments to our partners at Montgomery College, because they continue to make their programs more attractive to more students. So that's an artifact of this, but it does depending on the program that our students are engaged in,
does reduce some of our enrollment in the traditional high school program. And that does get factored into our cost model for individual schools. For example, if you have a larger number of students participating in, say, the the
middle college program, where they are, they are leaving campus and they are going to Montgomery College for full day experience. They are not attending the comprehensive high school for the full day experience. They are netted out
of our enrollment in terms of accounting for them on a day to day basis. They're still involved in extracurricular activities. They're still going to participate in in sports and clubs and go to prom and do all of those other things that make
a an enriched high school experience. But they're not in a classroom, so they're not taking up a seat. So that factors into our math in terms of how we project for enrollment, and in a lot of ways, may even reduce the number of teaching stations that we have at that
comprehensive high school as a result. So there might be asavis what I'm trying to say. Okay. Thank you, Doctor Thomas. We're going to move on. Oh, Mr. Fletcher, can you can you make it quick? Just this dual enrollment options, just as a reminder, is another program
option for our students as we have this conversation about programs, region, region programs. So this is an investment that will give more students even more options to pursue a dozen or more degrees at Montgomery College. Just as
a follow up to what Miss Yang said, she asked about the impact on staffing. But how does that also impact the traditional high school student programing in terms of classes offered? Because if you have ten kids taking the class there does that, then now make it so that the enrollment at whatever X High school is so low that we
can't even offer the course. Yeah, in all of our high schools, except for for one, the enrollment is so large that we're still able to offer. I just want to make sure that our students are also being shortchanged by an amazing opportunity for their their student colleagues. Thank you.
Thank you. Can I have one quick request? Could we maybe review all of this in another session? Because I think we've asked for a lot of data here. You know, how many go on to get associate's? Bachelor's. I don't even know if we can track
all of that, but I think would be great to dig into this more because whenever this comes up, we seem to have a lot of questions, and it would be great to have a session. Well, I think the staff knows all of our questions, and I think they took notes to to come back to
us with information. I just would like to know exactly what the 1.7 million is going to be spent on. It's it's kind of like a lump sum. And I would like it to see it broken down if we could. All right. Let's
move on. Okay. So in the previous work session, we reviewed the nondiscretionary expenses as we were looking through the blueprint. Like you mentioned, Miss Rivera Owens, they are required per the blueprint. There might be a little bit of flexibility, but they are required expenses. And
now we're going to discuss our discretionary proposals in the budget and the discretionary proposals. I just want to make sure they're they're not required by law, policy or contract. Can we have the PowerPoint please. And let me
just make sure so they're not required by contract. But they do support the strategic priorities of the Board of Education and help us increase student achievement and meet the needs of our staff, which is really our goal, right? Everything that we do is to make sure that our students are
achieving at the highest levels. And then we're also this is going to address and recommend some reductions to programs that are maybe not meeting those strategic priorities. You know that the Board of Education put us, you know, put forth the first discretionary
expenditure, the discretionary expense expenditures, going back for a minute is a request of 212 positions and a total of $28 million, which is not all for the positions. It includes other items as well. And we'll go over those items one by one.
The first item is the equity add on. And this is brought back from last year, if you remember prior to last to this year in FY 26, the materials allocations were not differentiated. Every school got an amount per student,
regardless of whether the student had higher needs than other students. The first change that we made in FY 26 was, was that we added an inflationary adjustment to the base allocation amount, which hadn't happened in years. We also added that differentiated
amount for all students with disabilities, those impacted by poverty and those emergent multilingual learners at that time. For FY 26, we added $20 per student. If it meets any of those criterias as an increase to the school's. So to remind
you, this is what we presented last year. And let's take an example, Burtonsville Elementary School and Wingate Elementary School. The FY 25 allocations was very similar because the number of students was very similar 604 and 621. But when you look at those
three specific areas, students with disability forms and ML, there is a vast difference between Burtonsville and Wingate Elementary School. So as a result, when we apply this equity add on, Burtonsville Elementary School would get an additional $12,000 and Wingate
Elementary School would get an additional $3,600. So and I'm not going to go through middle school and high school, but as you can see, it is you know, it's the similar context. So we have been we met I met in
December with the advisory group, which is a group of principals and administrators, and they provided feedback on how this on how the difference that this equity had on has made for them. And one of the things that they really liked is that this was separate from their materials allocation. It
came separate at the beginning of the school year, and it gave them something to look to see how they could improve in student achievement and specific interventions in their schools. These funds are also allocated in different categories as as we work with the schools to understand what
their needs are. So the regular materials allocation is for materials, textbooks or media center. As we look for this equity add on, we broke it out in program costs and and and transportation funding, which schools have been asking for years that that's where they
need a lot of the support. So the schools have used the funds this year currently to buy online licenses for credit recovery, recovery for the curriculum, additional intervention materials. As you know, the high school students are finishing their first quarter, you know, of of tests
and all of that, special education devices and headphones for testing and field trip cost. You know, this is also aligning some of those schools that don't have a PTA that can provide a lot of supports to the schools. And these funds are really adding
that equity piece of it. And we will continue the evaluation. We'll do the initial evaluation at the end of this fiscal year for FY 27. We are recommending we are continuing the inflationary increases to the base allocation because as we all know, costs are going up.
The cost of materials this year is not the same as last year. We are going into the phase two of five year implementation of this equity add on. So on top of the $20 per student, we're adding an additional ten for a total of $30 per student. For again, that group of students
that are students with disability impacted by poverty and multilingual learners. I don't know if you want to stop at each of them, or you want me to continue and you'll stop me when you're ready for any questions. Okay. That's fine.
Okay, okay. The next item is the menstrual hygiene products allocations for secondary schools. So this is a requirement in a way. So M.C.P.S. made an initial investment on this this fiscal year of 106,000. And it's about
$2 for for students at the secondary level at the high schools. The state mandates that we provide menstrual supplies via dispensers at secondary schools. Obviously, the schools could use their materials allocation to purchase this, but that creates a burden on on the schools,
which they're not able to use their instructional supply for the actual instructional purposes as needed. So although we are compliant, this is discretionary because it's just giving an additional funding to schools. So they're not they don't have to use their funding for other purposes to meet this
requirement. This will make it a total of $210,000 in the budget for FY 27 to be allocated to the schools, 210,000. Yes. The next item is
system wide safety. And again, this is something that we started last year. If you remember, we added additional security positions to the budget. 21 of those security positions were added to elementary school. In this budget we're adding 28 additional security assistance
for elementary schools. And so currently, of our 137 elementary schools, 115 do not have security assistance. This will bring the security assistance will be. More more
elementary schools. 87 elementary school will not have security assistance in FY 27, but this is a 5 to 6 year implementation by 20. By FY 30 and 31, all elementary schools will have a security assistant at their schools. And the
reason that this is important is because it relieves it provides a more trained supervision for for our students. It you know, they can build our security assistance, can build relationships with our students and support them and, and decrease some of the
safety concerns and allow the instructional staff to to concentrate more on instruction. So that is why this is really important. And and I know that it was one of the strategic priorities of the school system, the safety of our students. The
next item is a special education resource. Teachers. You know, there has been a lot of conversations around about around this topic. We are the proposal is to add 153 special education resource teachers for
the cost is a high cost. It's 60 million, $16.3 million. And this would add not only one across all elementary schools, but one to each of our ten learning centers and one to each of our special schools. Currently, only two of our
special schools are resource teachers for special education. So we're adding to the other three schools. Believe it or not, 64% of all elementary schools are Ada over elementary schools. The special education
enrollment is similar to the middle schools, yet they don't have a resource teacher. And every middle school and high school has a resource teacher. So this will allow the schools to have a better coordination of special education needs for IEP meetings. For functional
behavior assessments, it will provide to our teachers more coaching or special education teacher more coaching in terms of special needs and operationally wise, you know, wise, we're hoping that this will mitigate a state complaints, corrective action
plans and the nonpublic placements of students that we know it is. So is is such a high expense for our school system, because 60% of our special education students are identified at while they are at elementary schools. Miss Yvonne,
can you say that again, please? There was a lot you said there. I'm just taking it in. Sure. So, like I said, none in elementary school? None. Elementary school currently. Yes. And this would give each of our elementary schools where we probably need
them the most because that's where they get identified and so on and get vetted. Correct? Correct. So 60% of our students are identified as special education elementary schools. And one of the things that I mentioned was that 88 of our
schools have a special education enrollment as high as middle schools, yet they don't have a resource teacher for special education. Thank you for that. You're welcome. The next item is summer school. So
for the $1.8 million that we're requesting that we're proposing is to expand summer school, we currently invest about $3.6 million in in summer school. And this is only for high school. The current investment for the regional programs is
only a high schools and for some local programs. This investment does not include the program, the title one program, or the special education program, which is a separate budget and is required. So this
is this expansion proposes six sites for high school in-person sites. And it's kind of aligned with our six region program. And I just the the the courses, the in-person courses for summer school have lower
failure rates and higher proportion of students earning passing grades than our virtual. And in the past few years, we have focused mainly on our virtual. So we're hoping to make that transition back to in-person. In addition, we're adding new middle school math and literacy program, which is
brand new for M.c.p.s. And this will include the cost for our instructional staff during the summer. Materials, personnel, transportation and food services at all 12 sites, both high school and elementary and middle school. And we have the
data to support the fact that the online summer school was not at all effective. Yes, we do, and I can bring that data in terms of failures. I don't have it with me, but I know that that it is available. Okay. I don't know if this is a good
place to stop. I think this might be a good place for us to talk because that was a lot. So I'll start with our student board member who joined us. Thank you. I have a few questions. I'm going to start with my first one for the system wide safety. Can we go to that slide? I'm just curious
about how we determine the number of security guards per school or the increase in general. What are the factors that go into that? Well, for security, currently, none of well, as of this is the first year that some of our elementary schools have
security assistance. So currently we have 21 schools, elementary school security assistance. And that is based on the the geographic needs, the size of the school and the incidents reported. You know, at the school. It's a historic,
you know, look at our elementary school. So that's how those are assigned. So they look at multiple factors. If you remember last year we added 45 security assistance, 21 ended elementary school. The rest went on middle and high school. But because they looked at that, they look at square
footage. They also look at the at the building, you know, if he has portables or or learning cottages. So there's multiple factors that they look in determining as part of our staffing standards. That's something that we are going to work to, you know, have a formula set to determine when
the assistant principals are assigned to schools. But again, is is is based on multiple factors. So one of the questions I think Miss Miller is asking is why 28 and why not 137. Yeah, mainly because 137 is a very big dollar figure. As
you could could see, we are trying to make headway in a lot of different spaces simultaneously over time. So we added 21 security assistants to the elementary ranks last year. And you take that off of the
top of our number of elementary schools, and you take the remainder and divide that by four years. It gives you about 28 security systems per year over the next four years. So what we and you'll see a lot of
this next week when we cover staffing as part of your last work session, we know that the staffing needs are so significant that there's just no way that we can do this over a one year period of time, or even a two or a three year period of time. It will likely
take us five, possibly even six years to accomplish a lot of the staffing goals that we would have to fully staff our school system. And so we're trying to to meter this out in bite size pieces. And this
would be bite number two, because last year was a pretty big bite. So bite number two is this year of of a multi-year process to to kind of meter out staffing adds. All right. Thank
you. Thank you. Just to add on to Miss Malu's question and I do understand, right. We can't pay for all these things at once sometimes. But I just want us to consider why safety is something we're willing to do over a multi year process for our youngest learners. But my
question is actually about the equity add on, which I'm a huge supporter of. I wish we had more money to give for the equity add on, because I see this as a really an opportunity to really hone in on some needs that we have. And so that's the context of the question that I have, which is how do we ensure
that the money for the equity add on is going toward the groups for which it's allocated? Right. We don't equity add on to the school as a whole. It's because you have this number of children with IEPs or this number of children who are have emerging multilingual learner
needs or who are qualified for free and reduced meals. But then when I see, well, the school went on a field trip. Well, is that really in my opinion, I question whether that's the purpose of the equity add on, isn't it, to provide support specifically for these groups? So I guess the question overall is how are
we monitoring it? How are we measuring where the money is going, whether it's actually having the intended impact so that we could better maximize our dollars and hopefully our kids can learn? Yes. So this is the first year that we've done this. So we gave a lot of upfront guidance and even had a
summer training for, for principals on how we had some expectations laid out. So we hope to report back to you next fall to tell you how it all went. Our early indications
seem to be very positive in terms of what the principals have anecdotally reported. As we were putting this together and putting this budgetary request together, we asked them and said, how are you using these funds and what makes the most sense? I think you're absolutely right. Just having
extra money for a field trip is not the answer. My question might be is, are we offsetting the expense for some of our target areas, utilizing some of the funds to cover a field trip cost, therefore making a field trip possible? If that's the
intended use, then that that definitely aligns with the guidance. But if it's just adding more funds to a general fund that they use for every. No, that's not the intended purpose whatsoever. And I guess with just using the field trip example, right. How do we if because in some schools where
you have high rates for these and maybe if you're using it generally for the school, it is kind of hitting all the kids. And that's different, right? But in some schools, for example, your farm's rate might be 25%, which is still high. But in the context of our schools, it's not as high as some. How do I know that the
money that was allocated for that rate went to support those students, rather than the school population as a whole, which 75% for which that money was not allocated, does that make? Yeah, and I think we'll get a pretty good picture after auditing this year to see what that looks like. Every year.
School activity funds and central funds are audited. And we we laid out some pretty ambitious expectations for for these funds this year. And and so we're we have just as much of an interest in following up to know how they were used.
Thank you, Miss Wolff. My question is about the equitable school allocations. I just want to get a listing of the schools that are getting additional support. Everyone. Everyone is getting it. Everybody give 10%
farms. You'd get 10% equity add on for farms. Yeah. Well then can I get an amount per school? Yes. We can provide you with that. Yeah. Actually I think we've got it in the budget book, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe. And I just, I think I've seen it before, but I wanted to. Yeah. Just in case. I'm glad you
brought it up, Miss Wolff, because I think that this is one of those things that we can be proud to elevate for the community who's watching and paying attention to see the difference in terms of something that very often gets elevated in our community is that we do have schools that
are that have haves and have nots, and one of the ways that we balance the haves and have nots is by making sure that we're leveling the playing field with materials and supplies. And so I think it will be refreshing for people to take a look at this and for
them to say, oh my, look at this high school compared to that high school, this is kind of challenging some of my assumptions about how I thought that they were funded before. Thank you, Miss Sylvester. I think my question has been
answered. Thank you. Okay. Just just want to say about the hygiene products, I love the fact that we're going to be doing that for the middle schoolers. And I think that's going to be an increase that we're going to be doing every year. It is mandated, but it is
so important to do that kind of support. And just on talking about the equity add ons. And since we brought out field trips, I can tell you that there are schools, especially with very high farm rates. So
some of those kids, at least I know I can think one of my district that had not been to a field trip at all, and the first field trip they were they were on was in fifth grade. Because of the inequities that exist in our county. And this
was a school without a PTA, without an extra fund. So I am looking forward to getting that data because it is a playing field for so many, because imagine you already have other schools who have been to so many. And one of my favorite memories, elementary school was
going to the Space Museum with my fifth grade class. Right. And these are things that sometimes our children, we take things for granted. So anyway, I just wanted to to say that I'm looking forward to to the data. Okay, let's move on. Wait.
Hello? Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Stewart. Oh, come on guys. Okay, quickly, Miss Stewart, because it's quick. The equity add on it was brought to my attention that a school with higher needs
had already run out of paper. And they actually had a donation to them to buy reams of paper. And so does this. This is paper in the list of
materials. So the funding that is allocated to schools for materials can be used for anything. Obviously materials is part of that. But we'll run our report to see what schools have run out of materials. And we'll look into that. That is very rare. We've never. Can I just add to that? I think I
know what school that is, and we have to keep in mind that their schools will. You have more than just one language spoken. So some of the materials have to be printed in other languages, which is an extra burden that some elementary schools have and have to do. So I know this was
the first year, but there's always, you know, there's always there's always room for improvement. So looking at some of those ingredients, my might be helpful for the future. So this is actually precisely the the genesis behind the equity add on is that we acknowledge
and know that different schools have different needs and need to be resourced differently. I will say to your point, Miss Stewart, that we do have the expectations that principal's budget, they are required to submit a school budget
utilizing their centrally allocated funds every year. And that doesn't mean that we don't help them out when they need it. But there is the expectation that they categorize expenditures, and it is one of the roles and responsibilities
of principals to have excellent resource allocation. So I as a quick follow up to that, in the past, there were codes people would put into the copier so they can track, you know, how the paper were being used and
which classes. I don't know if some of that practice has been lost through time. So I think there are probably some ways we could track that. So this might not to avoid this from happening. So we know that we
can use Copy plus and plan like in a way to help make that paper last longer. But also there's again more need. I mean, I ran into a student that was a high need student and he really needed a packet because he didn't have good access to tech
at home as much as some other kids might have. And he was told, no, you can't have that packet because we can't. We're not printing that. So there's needs to. Besides just using your resources as as well as we
can. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're going to move on. But I think your point is well taken. And this has been an issue for years, not just this year. Thank you. I just wanted to have a follow up question about the menstrual hygiene products. I'm obviously very happy to see the increase. And
I know Doctor Taylor has heard a fair share amount about that from me as well. I'm curious, does this product amount include anything regarding the fixing and maintenance of our hygiene dispensers in the schools? I know that some of them are battery operated, so does that include that at all or is it just strictly the
products? So this is a strictly the products because it's an allocation to the schools for them to be able to order the products, the maintenance and repair of that equipment will go through our maintenance budget. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's move on.
Okay. So I think we were at the next item is secondary literacy support. So currently our cross-functional teams have one of the cross-functional teams is elementary literacy. So this adds another layer to our cross-functional teams in terms
of secondary literacy support. It's 12 secondary literacy instructional specialists, one coach for each cross-functional team. And it's a total of $1.8 million. This will ensure adequate support is in place to
implement for the upcoming Msde Adolescent Literacy Policy policy, which is expected to be adopted around January of 2026, which is right now the introduction of a new knowledge building curriculum for grades six through eight, requires
dedicated specialists to ensure successful implementation. New reading interventions have been launched for grades six through 12, and specialists are essential to oversee this critical supports. This positions are vital to addressing the persistent disproportionality in literacy
proficiency currently seen across different student groups. Those more impacted. Adding these roles will address the inequity inequitable access secondary schools face when seeking critical literacy support. So this is moving again, trying to move the
needle forward in terms of our our the achievement in literacy for our students, for our secondary students. The next one is a special education behavioral support. And this is
six positions, $1 million. And this will be part of the cross-functional team. But it's one per region. It's not one per cross-functional team. And this is a systemic this this positions will assess the sign
and supervise individualized behavioral interventions using applied behavioral analysis principles in the schools. They will lead the implementation. The development of evidence based behavior plans, monitor implementation fidelity, and coach staff to support students
with complex behavioral and learning needs. We. This will help to decrease disproportionality in the suspension of impacted groups of students such as our Black and Brown students, our special education students, among others. So this is providing
targeted supports for schools to manage behavior in our students. The next item is our original programs support. So as we move into our our regional programs, this is will
provide for FY 27. Our high schools is a total of ten FTEs, ten positions and at a cost of about $1 million, $922,000. And this will be a 0.4 allocated to each of our high schools to
implement and support the regional program model. As you know this, you know, we have been discussing, you know, the level of planning that it will require and that the schools are going to have to start planning and mapping out in collaboration with central offices, the programs for their
for each of their schools. So that's that's what this this position will do is provide the support that our schools need to make sure that we implement, as you know, we do a successful implementation in the FY 2028
year. The next item is Safe Routes to School. This is our one position. It's it's coordinator. But it's really not a coordinator position. It's a team leader position. But it's going to be in charge of coordinating the county and state agencies in establishing,
reviewing and revising the routes for all our students. And this will you know, this will increase the coordination for student safety between us and Montgomery County. So it is, again a 1.0 FTE for a cost of 172,000. And I just want to
remind everyone that when we look at this amount, it includes benefits. It's not just salary, it's salary and benefits for our staff. The next item is system wide professional training. So there's two system wide
professional learning days for a cost of $3 million, $3.1 million. And these are two different things. One is instructional support for training during the summer for a special education and English language development for our
instructional staff. And the other one is reducing the no work, no pay day for our employees that are ten month and provide during that day professional development that we know we've been discussing, you know, training for our para
educators, training for our security staff. So that will provide that support. And the no work, no pay day. The reduction of that is about 1.6 million. And then the professional staff development during the summer is at a cost
of about $1.5 million. The next item is project management. This was started in the FY 26 budget and it's last year. It had to be reduced because of budget. Unfortunately, you know,
difficult decisions made in the budget. So we're bringing back another $250,000 to support the project management certification for both central office and principals. It would be part of professional development for, you know, for
our leaders, just as we need to invest in the professional development for our teachers and our supporting services staff, we need to keep investing in our leaders so that they can manage, have a strong project management skills and be able to just
manage everything in their schools from and their offices from operational aspects such as fiscal needs to the delivery service to our students. The next item is volunteer coordination. As you know, you know, our schools have a lot of
volunteers, and we welcome everyone that wants to support our students, but there's not really a central coordination of volunteers. And is there is is minimal because we don't have a position specifically allocated for this purpose. So it's 1.0 FTE of an instructional specialist,
$166,000. And it will coordinate and support the volunteers across our schools. And this position will ensure the accountability for training, the background screening requirements that we continue to implement, that we will need to maintain moving forward and also increase our engagement
with our and support for our families. The next item is student extracurricular activities. As you all know, we have a long list of extracurricular activities that our students can participate on and that our schools offer
stipends to our teachers to do after school. This will add extracurricular activities for students at our middle and high schools such as Latin, dance, robotics, and an a portion of money for our student action climate. This is a total of
$460,000. We will have to work with our associations because this is our negotiated item. To build this into what the activity will look like for Latin, dance and robotics. But this will expand the offerings. And as we know, a lot of our schools have been trying to do
this with whatever little money they can find to support this activity. So this will give them an ability to really grow this program and develop the skills necessary. You know, for our students through our strategic priorities. The next
item is the program audit coordinator is a 1.0 FTE $171,000. And this will report directly to the audit unit in the for the Board of Education. And this is to expand the audit activities, you know, not just
to our schools, but expand our footprint to offices, financial audits and instructional programs. And hopefully it will get us ahead of anything that any outside agency, you know, will, will reveal. You know, make sure that we are
implementing, you know, continuous improvements and that we're able to to understand where we might ove in terms of our school system. And I think the why is clear. You know, there's a lemon out there. We know that the difficulty we've had over the last couple of years, and
we want to make sure that we no longer encounter those kind of difficulties, even though as a system, each office is working on their continued improvement as well. I think this is a good place for us to stop, and I'm going to see Miss Yang. Yes.
Thank you so much for the presentation. I, I know that our elementary school staffing is very tight, but I would like to have a better understanding in terms in the area of reading
support. So we have elementary school reading specialists in every school. We have a staff development teacher in every school, and we have a reading coach or coordinator on our
Cross-function no team. So so I would like to have a little bit deeper understanding about how all these layers is working to really move the needle of of
our student achievement. We can bring that back. We can look at. Yeah, we we can either bring that back or we can talk about it very high level. And briefly,
I would say that the the enhancement of a just very briefly, the enhancement of a reading specialist in every building does give somebody who is specialized training, not just in instructional practices, but the science of reading, who is a point person for literacy,
critical to the successful launch of a new literacy curriculum, which has had bumps in the road as all new curricula go, but has gone better than many curriculum launches that we've had in the past. And there is evidence to
suggest, based on this fall's performance data, as well as last year's MCAT data, that we are clearly moving in the right direction with literacy, having an extra layer of support of somebody with a fresh set of eyes on a cluster by cluster
basis to come in through cross-functional team and actually be in a classroom and to do shoulder to shoulder coaching, as well as leading lessons and instruction, I think has been a real strong enhancement that a lot of our schools would report has been
really positive in terms of the staff development position that really focuses on instructional practices and things that are just in general best teaching practices in terms of enhancing the quality of instruction.
Overall, there's a lot of room for improvement in adopting a singular approach to tier one grade instruction. Our approach is a little a little dated and and is probably ripe for some
reinvigoration. That being said, we have the infrastructure in place to mobilize ongoing professional development. And in each building, because we have those positions, I think we're we're better suited from a structural standpoint to
support literacy at the elementary level than we are at the secondary level right now, because we we don't necessarily have that in place at the secondary level like we do at the elementary level. And I think that one of the best
artifacts of us moving in the right direction is the performance has started to turn for now, two consecutive years. So Doctor Taylor, so all these support positions are to
support like like tier one is view as the most important layer right. When you are doing classroom instruction. But we have seen during our last presentation that we are seeing
so many variances through all the walkthroughs that happen in our schools. And although we have made progress in overall as a school district, but certain grade level actually
have regressed in our last MCAT scores in elementary school. So what I'm saying is I support having support for the schools, but we really need to make sure that it's delivering the outcome that we would like to
see and and, and, and tighten the practices on the ground level. So, so that this investment is not not only our input, but the output have to demonstrate it as well. If you just wanted to, I just want to
tack on to what Miss Yang said, which really has nothing to do with the budget discussion, but I, I would like us to identify those schools that are not having as much success with reading and provide extra supports, because all of the
schools have a have a team in them. Reading specialist. Yeah, and a reading specialist. But there are some schools that are still struggling, and what I'd like to see is extra support for those schools. Right. And
and I know it has nothing to do with this budget discussion. It does, it does. Well, I mean, yeah. And so to your point, I think that this is where the cross functional team actually goes and augments some support. So one of the things that school leadership and Doctor Moran's team should be doing,
and I know that they are doing this, is that they are looking to see who is struggling and who does need that extra support, because the cross-functional team member who supports elementary literacy isn't in every building equally. They are in
some buildings a lot more than they are in other buildings because of exactly what you're saying is that not all schools have the same level of support needs. But to your point is like, could we add more? Could we enhance more? Yes, of course
we should. It seems to me we need to add something additional, because we need these students to be reading by the third grade. And while we're making improvements, we're not making them. In my mind, you know, it's like targeted, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thank you. I'm going
to go to next. But I just want to add since we're adding to adding we're adding points, I think it's really important to also ask the current reading specialists if they're being involved in the meetings at their schools in a way that
works for them. Exactly. Because if the answer is no, then we need to ensure that it's across the board, because part of the issue could be that they're not part of that planning. And if they're not part of the planning, then it's
hard to improve, Miss Montoya. And I'm adding on actually to this, and I'll come back for my questions, but. Well, because it's all related. Right? And I see, you know, we have a lot of emphasis on literacy, understandably. Right. You can't read the math word problem if you can't read. So I do understand that. But I never
hear anything about math coaches or math specialists or and I recognize there's a new curriculum or whatnot. But we've all been learning math for decades and decades, and we don't have math specialists in elementary, for example. Or we don't say like, no, everybody's good at math. Don't say it's just because you're not good at
math, right? We don't have that mindset, in my opinion, in this country. And so it's just I'm not negating that. Perhaps there is a need for these additional literacy specialists, but it's challenging for me to continue to add on, especially when elementary school has all
of these different layers. When our math scores, I mean, they're like single digits. It's embarrassing. You're jumping ahead, Miss Montoya. We're excited to bring you math specialists in abundance at our
Staffing works math specialists for everyone. Fantastic. Thank you. Miss Sylvester. Yeah, I think I echo. I like a lot of
the the items in this discretionary list, but more positions. You know, management of these positions is critical so that we're getting the return on investment for them. And so that's where that's
where the work is. We have we have positions. All the budget is 89% people. You know, how are we picking the right people. How are we supporting them so they can be successful. How are we getting them out if they're
not successful? So that's that's where we need to dig in a little more. So. Doctor Taylor, your your project management line item is not very big, but I'd love to hear
how you see that in helping to manage all these positions effectively very quickly. Last year we had this as a line item for $500,000 to start a certification program for
central based and school based leaders to earn an industry certification in project management. We started that this summer. We were we were partially funded. This was one of the items that we reduced in last year's budget. And so I'm coming back this year and asking for the rest of the
amount. This is something that we would we would do over multiple years. And our goal would be to have a principal and director level above industry certified project managers within a five year time frame. That would really be the goal. The benefit that I
see is having everybody effectively speaking the same language when working through a project or a problem at the district or school level, having that common language and that common thread in those common standard operating procedures really help the
organization move efficiently. What I've observed in the last 18 months is that each division in each department kind of does things their own way. Each school definitely does things their own way, and that we would benefit being a little
bit more like a school system and a little less like a system of different departments and schools. So this my hope and aim with this is to bring us more in alignment with a uniform series of practices
that we can rely on as a district and, and have an M.C.P.S. way of doing things that is universally understood. Thank you. And that's the management piece doesn't solve it all, but it's a step in the right shows me that we're working on that, which is
critical. I have more questions, but I'll wait. Thank you. We'll go to Miss Stewart. My question is in relation to the special education resource teachers.
And this actually ties in with some of our scores and some of the issues I think we have, especially in K through three space. And I've seen that there are children that have not been
identified yet for their IEP. There's a 90 day process. And in effect some of these kids really need a one on one in order for that class to run. So there's not necessarily a one
on one available because they haven't been identified yet. So now you have special education teachers or you have paras that are pulled so that class can get by if there isn't that available. That teacher
actually can't teach the rest of the classroom effectively. So will this position help? First of all, I mean, I don't know, is it always 90 days? Could this make this more
effective in identifying teachers? I mean, identifying children for IEPs that this position can I know more about what this position will do? Sure. This is a position that is currently a partial release
position at the secondary level. And I'll cut to the chase and just say that I would envision this being fully released at the secondary level. Once fully staffed at the elementary level as well. And this would not
necessarily speed up any timelines, as you might say, because not all special education timelines can actually be sped up, or nor should they, because there needs to be a certain evaluation period of time. But what this will do is this will
free up teacher and administrator time in terms of making sure that both instructional practices and compliance practices are being echoed with fidelity. It's no secret. And and this is one of
the lemons that we bring to this budget process, is that we have struggled with compliance in the past and M.C.P.S. and that we found ourselves in an adversarial position with some of our parents, and we don't ever want to be in an adversarial situation with our parents. We want to be
collaborative with our parents. And so making sure that we are following those timelines, which has not always been a strength of ours, making sure that we are echoing with fidelity the things that are in
the IEPs, which hasn't always been a strength of ours, needs to be a paramount importance. And that in a lot of ways, this is a position that is that accountability metric and that accountability support to make
sure that we are following through with the letter of the law of Idea, the individuals with Disabilities Education Act. So in terms of solving your issue that you're bringing up, which is a very real issue, especially in our elementary
classrooms where we have very young students who come maybe not successfully transitioning from either a home setting or a pre-K setting into a kindergarten classroom or first grade classroom with with all the tools that they need to be
successful immediately, it can be tremendously frustrating, especially in the early months of the school year, to be able to manage the classroom. 20 some odd other children, and a child who's exhibiting behaviors that need to be
observed and potentially supported differently. And so this would would help in terms of freeing up other educators in the building to provide more direct services, but not necessarily providing those direct services in the
classroom setting, unless it was an emergency type of support. I would request that we check in through the year about how many on how many, if
there are, how many in-process children there are, so that maybe we could use some push in Paris support. And not just once a year, but maybe quarterly, because these children can enter, you know,
partially into the school year as well. So it's not always like they're entering in September so that we can have effective classrooms. I don't know if this is something we could do or at least think about to look at the number of
in-process in schools. Do you mean in terms of making sure that we have adequate staffing throughout the year in case there are more children that get added with that? Need extra tools? Okay, correct. And not every child enters in kindergarten. We have children who enter third grade and third grade or fourth grade or even middle school that are new to
the system. So I echo that. I going to ask my question and I'll go to you guys with the discretionary regional program support with the ten full time positions. Doctor Taylor, or maybe you guys know. So we have
six regions. Why do we need ten? Sure. And then when it comes to the positions that are on site, capacity to manage community engagement. So that sounds a lot like some of our community school. Coordinators of it. So I just want some clarity. Yeah.
Can we put that slide up please. Also so we can see. So we put a pretty big audacious big idea in front of the board. And I want to reiterate that this is something that has not been adopted in full, that this is a
part of the program's analysis. And this is my budget recommendation to the Board of Education. In considering other recommendations that may come forward. I still think that this is a good idea for a couple reasons. Even if there's
elements of a regional program model that you may want to change because we don't currently support the programs that we have right now. And so this could be a huge boon to our schools. The reason that it's ten is because it's actually 0.4 per high school,
and it's two release periods for existing staff to perform a lot of these functions different than some of our community school personnel, these people, any type of community engagement that they would be doing would be about the academic space and would be
about academic programs, recruitment, things of that nature. So very different than, say, some of the wraparound services that we would otherwise provide through another mechanism. You know, one of the things that has come up repeatedly in the conversation surrounding
regional programs is how are you going to support it? Well, this is step one. And I think that as an artifact of our commitment to providing program equity across the county is that we if we're going to launch something, we need to
support it, we need to support it with transportation. We need to support it with materials and supplies, and we need to support it with people, not always a strength of ours in the past. And so creating some mechanisms for us to do that. This is the first step. And I'm
not saying that this is not a good step. I'm going to just tell you what my concern is that I haven't seen yet anything that we're doing to tackle truancy. We have a serious, serious situation of truancy in our system. So I was
hoping that maybe these folks could part of their their scope could be to to actually work in tackling truancy, because I know we have a couple of that would decidedly not be these
people. Okay. Yeah. So and I know that there is a couple other, you know, the volunteer coordinator or the program coordinator, which is very much needed. But I'm still I'm still
a little concerned that we have I haven't seen anything. Tackling truancy and truancy is definitely an issue that I see, at least in my district. I see it in Miss Stewart's district.
I see it and Miss Zimmerman's district, and it's it's something that concerns me. I don't know how my other colleagues feel, but it's a huge concern of mine. And I know it's a huge concern of parents and educators and
principals to see how we can tackle with that. Miss Montoya, thank you. Truancy is is a concern. Actually, we have the truancy court graduation tomorrow, which is a wonderful program through the State's Attorney's office. And you'd be shocked at the list of schools, in my understanding, is more
schools want to participate. So but my question is with has to address line 63, which is the student extracurricular activities. So before I get a flurry of emails from our students, I absolutely support you having extracurricular activities. I have my own
children. I know how essential they are. We have some really amazing programs and things that I have the honor of getting to attend and see through social media. But my question is basically is how did we get to adding stipends for these particular ones?
Because I know that, for example, last year and this year, I asked about elementary school stipends for minority scholars program leadership at the elementary school level, the teachers who volunteer their time once a week at lunch, and there's usually one, maybe
two. They actually, unlike middle school and high school where the students do the bulk of the work, it's the teachers, because the students are in fourth and fifth grade, and they're really priming them and having those beginning foundational conversations that then encourage the children to go on into middle school and
high school. I have had a conversation with the teachers union about this, so I know that they have also brought this issue up. And it's not clear to me that the stipends that are listed in line 63 were actually requested, for example,
from staff. So I'm just a little confused as to why we decide certain curricular activities get funding, but others don't. And I just also say this as someone who is a music parent who had to sell wrapping paper this year to fund the music program, that's not even an extracurricular
activity. So it just helped me to make sense of this because I don't understand, certainly. And we could certainly add more or take away some. I mean, all of this would ultimately have to go back to our associations and be negotiated. So we've
identified a few that have that have some advocacy, have some interest. And this is at the end of the day, just my recommendation. So it's it's my recommendation for the board to consider these areas. But it doesn't mean it's a finite list. As a matter of fact, there's
probably 50 more things that we could add to this. And and it's still not be complete to, to fully capture. I think it would be a good practice for the board to, to tackle a few every year and to find new avenues
every year to, to continue some investment. To the extent that you are building out a very wide and deep portfolio of things to capture student interest is a good idea. I love that you tagged Minority Scholars Program at the elementary, because this
doesn't have a whole lot in terms of elementary focus points. So I think that that even though this is just my recommendation today, there's a lot of wiggle room here for one, there to be negotiation with
our associations and two, for the board to echo, you know, its interest areas of where you want to see investment. And I would say think very deeply about where you want to add some additional investment and some additional stipends, because this is something that
we then get to advocate for when we go to the negotiating table with our, our associations. And I just and I did hear you say, these are the ones that have been advocated for. And I can appreciate that. We obviously want to encourage our students, families and staff to advocate for interests of our students. But I think a
lot of times, from what I've seen so far, both here at the dais and as a parent, our elementary school students are not being, in my opinion, appropriately invested in. But then we have such high expectations for them at the middle and high school level. So which students go on to be in student leadership if they haven't had true opportunities
in elementary? We only have about, I think, ten currently about 1011 elementary school MSP programs with leadership. And they're at least the last I saw all women, predominantly women of color, who are out there giving up their time, their energy, they're paying for snacks, they're paying for
materials to provide these opportunities to students. And we you know, I asked for the same thing last year. So I'm just a little disappointed to see that the proposed stipends are for what you believe were advocated for. Because if we're
only taking the folks that can get in the room right, then we just we need to make sure that we're listening to all of the interests and just not groups that have the loudest voice. Yeah, and it's a long list. And so, you know, it's it's just prioritizing. And if there's more that the board wants to
add, we we certainly welcome that. The more the merrier. I just want to follow up on that and say, I'm very happy to see that this has been added into the proposal. And if students did want to advocate for certain things, what could they possibly do? Doctor Taylor, this has been a great narrative
and conversation with the the Smob advisory, as well as the MC discussion tables that the board has had, where there's been certain interests that have continually popped up year over year. And we would we
would strongly encourage students to use those channels as well as others and give direct testimony on things that that they're interested in, so that the board has some indication of where there could be some opportunities to invest in. And in the past year, the
board has has seen these these pop up at at testimony. And I can appreciate that. Doctor Taylor, I just want to acknowledge that our elementary school students are ages 5 to 11. And so they're not necessarily going to do that, or their parents might not even
realize that. You know, if I would have known, I would have sat at the board table last year and, and advocated for my elementary school groups. Right. So I just want us to also acknowledge the realities, again, of who can get into the room. Miss Sylvester. I wanted
to hear more about the audit position. How would it work? Some examples. Why now? It's a very recently we all attended a
meeting of the county council, and I heard from one council member that he was sick and tired of hearing things from the Inspector general, and that he wished that the school system would have mechanisms to address its own problems. Well,
we have a long list of problems. There's there's no no question about that. There's a long list of things that we could look into and correct. Having some sort of program auditor that operates out of the Board of
Education's audit unit, and that reports directly to the board, might satisfy a lot of that interest and might help to support identifying areas of improvement that not only the school system sees, but that
the board sees, or that an independent investigator and auditor might see. And it may enhance our efforts to continuously improve. And the I imagine that the details of how
that would work are not fleshed out yet. But, you know, anonymous tips is a way that a lot of the investigations begin, so that I think that would be something to be factored in. And and so you actually already have a mechanism to collect
anonymous feedback and anonymous tips through our lighthouse project. And, and, and already receive a good bit of information that way. There there are also things that we've even identified internally that we may want a
fresh set of eyes for people to look at. We certainly make recommendations to our county inspector general, and I could see us making recommendations to our audit unit or the board's audit unit to to review things. And some of them are
not all financial. So I think that the board's audit unit, although it primarily focuses on financial matters, could expand to covering some programmatic areas as well. So it's adding capacity to our
audit unit. Mr. I would also like to give a plus one to miss Montoya's calling out of the Minority Scholars program for
elementary school. I do want to point out that the student, the student Climate Action Council, they also have ambassadors, and that includes elementary school so they can speak out for their
climate action goals at the elementary school level. So I presume that would add cost. It might be, I don't know how many elementary schools we could we
could just see what what it would take to have a stipend, all of our elementary schools, and then we can work from there in our budget priorities. Okay, let's move on. For this next
item, I'm going to ask Doctor Moran to come to the table. But the next item is it's a proposal to consider returning Arcola Elementary School to a traditional school year calendar. And this recommendation is based is a data driven recommendation
based on performance, attendance and other factors. And Doctor Moran will talk to them. Thank you. What do you need? Thank you very much. Good morning, Madam President. Good morning, board members. Good to
be with you this morning. So, like Miss Alfonso Windsor said, we're going to talk a little bit about data driven decision making and the data connected to evaluate the return on investment from the Arcola Innovative School Year program.
If we could actually please go to the next slide. So over the course of five years of implementation of the innovative calendar, there have been not been notable academic achievement gains which can be
correlated to poor attendance during the additional 25 instructional days, while the staff and community is to be commended for being the only school implementing the innovative school year calendar. Arcola has the lowest performance in the Kennedy Cluster for English Language Arts according to the MSD
report card, and is ranked third in math as it slightly outperforms Kemp mill and Georgian Forest. They are also the second lowest performing elementary school in the cluster in science, and that's despite the innovative schools approach. Having a science and Stem focus via Project Lead the
Way, which you heard about last week. Over the last four years, Arcola's progress in achieving English proficiency ranks lowest among schools across the school system with comparable size and demographics. In spite of the 25 additional days on
this slide right here, this represents the progression of students from grade three through grade five over the last three school years. So we are following the same cohort of students as they matriculate through grade levels. For example, 24.6 of students in
grade three at Arcola were proficient, according to the assessment. In the spring of their fifth grade year, 28.8 were proficient in mathematics. Those same students declined from 28.1 proficiency to 15%
proficiency. The last three columns show the 2024 2025 proficiency rate for students in the identified focus groups. Some of the decline may be due to students who are chronically absent or withdrawal, and then
reenroll during or after the summer session, compounded over multiple years, who therefore missed significant portions of instruction annually. If we go to the next slide, please. So this is just kind of just to give you some numbers and we'll
dig deeper into these on the next slide. So right here you, you see that during just this previous summer session, students at Arcola Elementary totaled 1297 absences, 296 of the 542 students who attended the summer session were
chronically absent. This is 54% of the total school population chronically absent during those 25 additional instructional days. It's important to note Roscoe Nix, as you know, was formerly the other Esy school saw attendance and chronic absenteeism improve after
ending the Esy calendar and returning to the traditional calendar. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in the next slide. And actually if we could go to the next slide please. So this is a this is a graph with enrollment information. And essentially during the summer session
Arcola Elementary sees extreme fluctuations in enrollment during the summer. Students who were absent for ten or more consecutive days were withdrawn in alignment with the Maryland State Department of Education regulation. Some of those students were re-enrolled again after the start of the
traditional year. From the end of the 2024 to 2025 school year to the start of the 2025 to 2026 summer session, there was an overall decline in enrollment of 186 students. Enrollment on the first day of
summer session was 542 students, and increased to 613 on the last day of summer session. Enrollment occurred throughout the summer. 85 students, or 12.1% of our total enrollment,
did not participate in the summer session this year, enrolling after August 8th. So I want to just say that one more time. 85 students or 12.1 elected to not participate in the innovative school year calendar and enrolled after
August 8th to be aligned with the traditional calendar. So what this data is essentially showing you is that people are electing to enroll their students in alignment with the traditional school calendar. Not all, but a large portion of them. Between the summer session that were additional
enrollments. And on the first day of theall session, which was transition transition day for all other schools, there were 21 enrollments on that day alone, so 21 students enrolled on Transition Day. Enrollment continued to increase during the opening of the traditional
calendar, and has currently reached 698 students, 156 more than were enrolled at the beginning of the summer session. This may be an indicator that the innovative calendar does not work for large numbers of families. I noted Roscoe Nix on the previous slide when Roscoe
Nix reverted to the traditional calendar, it's all again decreases in both mobility rate and chronic absenteeism after September 30th. The interesting thing to note is that enrollment levels off. This is typical for a high mobility school. Additionally, Arcola
has the second highest number of Cosa requests of all elementary schools that do not include schools, which is part of their process. That's that is integrated into the model.
So they had 33 thus far this school year of of Cosa requests. If we could go to the next slide please. So this is just some of the challenges for families that we've received, you know, anecdotally and also outlined in the in the Cosa
requests. So families expressed challenges when siblings are in other schools on the traditional calendar. Again, Arcola is the only school that is on the innovative school year calendar. So any peers that are either in a maybe a different elementary school or in a middle or high school are
on different, different calendars, making it an inconvenience for many families. The request for causes are above average for elementary schools. Again, I said 33 cases were requested to leave Arcola for just this past school year. And again, I just want to throw
this data point out again. 85 students enrolled in Arcola after the start of the summer session. Again, that data point shows you that parents are electing to participate in the traditional school year calendar, as opposed to the innovative school year calendar. If we could go to the next
slide. I know this is is a very important one. When we talk about if this decision were to pass about the continuity of services. So the first was around the summer programing. So as a title one school, Arcola will have an extended learning opportunity program
for students during the summer with targeted but non compulsory attendance. So similar to when you look at the chronic absenteeism data. Many of those students that are embedded in those, which is, you know, 54% of the total school population, which is chronically absent during that
time, that other 46% may elect to attend and not be penalized for being chronically absent, because those others that are just not attending. So that that that is how the extended learning opportunity would look. Project lead the way, which I know was another topic that was brought up our energy
engineering science modules for each grade level, based on project based learning. That program programing can continue and can be funded with with title one funding. As you know, there are many title one schools that also utilize Project Lead the way in
conjunction with funding a Stem teacher position so that can continue through the title one funding. Mindfulness was also something that was brought up, which I know is an interest of the board. Those lessons for staff and students integrated into classroom learning environment. That's a district
wide focus for all of our schools and can continue regardless if they're an innovative school year or if they are traditional school year. If we could go to the next slide, please. So another just key thing to understand is that they are a community
school. And President Rivera-Oven just brought up the community school liaison and some of the things that come along with that. Those wraparound services are still intact over the summer, as that's a 12 month position, making sure that that community school liaison is present at the school and able to provide those services in conjunction
with our external partners that our community schools work with. The wraparound services would continue. Food pantry field trip supports and expanded expanded health care services as well. If we could go to the
next slide, please, and we'll pause there, actually, and turn it back over to you for because I'm not going to talk about technology. Ms. Montoya, thank you so much. Obviously, we get a lot of emails and questions
and concerns both ways about Arcola and and the proposal here. So just one quick request for information because we do have this program at other schools. And you kind of mentioned the way the science scores haven't quite gone up the way we had hoped by injecting this project Lead the
Way program. I'm just curious as to how much the program costs. So just separate from this. I'm just curious to how much it costs if I can just get that number at some point. Specific though, to Arcola, I guess I just have a really practical question, and I'm thinking about the families that are already in the school.
The staff I know, like I probably already missed my shot to get my kids in summer camps, because that's the way it goes around here in Montgomery County. And so just as a practical matter, I'm just wondering about the disruption to planning, because everything has to be done so far in advance here for families and
staff for this summer. Like if we were to just stop it for the next school year. Right? Just as a practical matter, as someone who has young kids and I know we have ELO and I assume that will continue. We have the amazing Mrs. Hunter for the community school liaison, who just does so many wonderful things for them. And I know all
of that will continue, but it's not the same as having that school year, so there certainly needs to be a level of empathy, you know, provided to the staff, the students, the community around this, several years ago, we went through a similar
situation with Roscoe Nix. One of the things that we did was prioritize employment for that staff to ensure that they have, because even with Ell, it is enrollment based. And so if you have half of the student population attending, you don't
you don't need half of the teachers. So ensuring that we're working with our human resources department to ensure that we are prioritizing the staff there to to gain employment, whether it's at Arcola or in neighboring elementary school. In terms of
the the student component, I think there are a lot of it is is ensuring that you have targeted outreach to the students and families that need that support, and you utilize the ELO structure to ensure that it's provided. And also
when you are, if half of a school is chronically absent from a program, I think we really need to work. And this was also just brought up in the previous discussion with our RP, with our, you know, our family engagement specialists to
ensure that those students are getting to school. Right. And I know that has been a and I want to commend the Arcola community because they've really tried hard to increase their or decrease their chronic absenteeism, particularly during these two months. But I
think it just has something it has not been been successfully done. We've actually seen it increase as opposed to decrease. Okay. So should the board end up voting for this or supporting this idea, then there's already kind of a transition plan that is being
worked on to make sure that we're targeting these specific needs. And you've already done this with Nix before. So this isn't something completely new. It is not something completely new. And I do think it would again, I just want to say, I mean, it is something that people are are clearly passionate about. And we would
need to spend a lot of time partnering with the community and even around partnering with, you know, recreation departments and things like that, so that they understand the problem that we're trying to support the community to solve. Okay. Thank you so much, Miss Doctor Wolff. I think what I was going to say is very
similar to what Miss Montoya was getting at, and that is that the calendar posed a problem for some of the the parents and teachers, because the calendar was actually approved before the budget. So I just wanted people out there
to know that the calendar is is approved on a schedule. And we do hear and understand your concern about what to do now. Thank you. Yeah, I associate myself with the comments that have been made by my colleagues. My question to Doctor Moran is
it is very alarming that there is the 50%, 55% of the summer school participants are chronically absent, right? During the summer months. Do you have data that what is the
absentee rate during the regular school year? I say regular is like one. The traditional school years happening so it fluctuates between 25% and 30%. So it's like 25 to 5530. It's almost
double the absentee. I would I would say less than doubled. And you got you got to keep in mind too, that when we're talking chronically absent for a month, you're looking at 10%. So for 25, 25 school days you're talking 2.5 days of school absent. So when you look at it over the course of the
year, obviously it's a more significant number, but we really try to look at it month by month so that we can provide interventions to address whatever may happen, you know, in one specific month. Thank you, Miss Sylvester. Yeah, I
appreciate how difficult this decision is. Communities just support their schools. They love their schools. And change is always hard. I also appreciate data informed decision making, especially under these difficult budget times. Could you expand a
little bit further in terms of what the what the additional costs are in the innovative school year calendar to a regular title one elementary school? I understand that there's some stipends that teachers receive that in the
end end up costing more, which are part of the contract. And that's something to be taken into consideration because these are people's paychecks. Right. And and so we want to be sensitive to that because they are expecting to get that additional income over the
summer. And if it's not going to happen, then we need to help them, as you have said, to find other positions to offset that eventual reduction in income. Correct. So the the funding, you know, the reduction and I believe it's $1.4 million
accounts for an additional 25 days during the summer for all staff members that are ten months. And that is not just teachers, you know, we're talking food services. We're talking, you know, security. If they were to have some the ten month secretary. So that is
part of it. In addition, the contracts that negotiate additional stipends for individuals that work in the innovative school calendar, schools to support that transition. The difference is that the program is funded through title one funds through
the federal program. So that would pick up, you know, the cost of the program. So that is really what the we're talking probably 100 to 120 staff members that get an additional 25 days of, of summer or of
work. I do want to add something to what Doctor Moran said. You know, we only listed a few of the wraparound services community schools do support some of the registrations, you know, for students over the summer that are not able to to pay for them.
So just to make sure I'm understanding. So the cost differential is that people are being paid out of the base budget. Why couldn't you use title one funds to pay for the summer staffing at Arcola? You can because that is not an allowable expense under title
one. Title one supports a summer programing, not an extended school year programing. Okay, so it's two ways. It's the to to run the program. That can't be you can't use title one funds and the additional stipend that everybody gets in
the building for working that. So the title one funds do not provide an Ell program and do not pay for the 25 days. That is why that Arcola is in. You know, it's the programing for those 25 days over the summer because title one funds do not
allow for that. So that funding goes through other through other investments, obviously under title one and then everything else, anything associated with the 25 days during the summer and the stipend and the salaries are part of our base budget. Okay. So two things the cost of
running the program and the additional stipend that staff get correct. And we give them also additional instruction materials, a small portion but a small portion, instructional materials, because obviously it's an additional 25 days. Thank you, Miss Stewart. Thank
you for the additional data. So you have 23 2425 all, but then we have the 2025 ML Black and Hispanic breakdown. Is there any way we could also get the
23 and 24 so we can see those breakdown. Yep. Absolutely. But help me understand about. The benefits or lack of benefits through the program. Because 25
that those kids had this calendar. For how many years can you remind me? Five years? Five years. I just want to say that my heart sank when I saw the math. The MCAT reports for
fifth grade. I hope we have extra resources for these kids as they enter middle school, because to see 5%, 19.2 and 10.7% reaching target is. It
shows me that we need extra resources for these kids as they enter middle school. Thank you. So I'll say my $0.02. Thank you for that. When I first came on the board, Miss Yang and I, we actually did look, but it was too soon I
think, at that time. But we were still not seeing any academic improvement at that time. Now it's been five years. So my biggest issue is we're
putting extra funding, significantly extra funding, $1.4 million for one school, and we have yet to see results. But the fact that there were 1297 absences in one calendar
year is very troubling. So the education not only has to happen, it has to happen with the parents as well. The support to understand, even if we move to a regular calendar year. The impact that this kind
of truancy has on their children's education. And it's very difficult to build. On math or science or reading when your child is absent over 50% of the time. And as Miss
Stewart said, by the time they get into middle school, we're not even playing catch up. I mean, we're totally behind. So I'm hoping that we do an approach. All hands on deck
approach with the school where it's not only just, but it's engagement of the parents understanding of the impact that this has long term. And obviously this is not working. It's very obvious. It breaks my
heart. It breaks my heart because we saw the passion that a lot of these teachers have, a lot of the kids and the parents. It's unfortunate, but here we are today and there's just as Ms. Silvestre said, the data speaks volumes, but at the end
of the day, I still want to know, what are we going to do as a system to ensure that these numbers change? So, so to respond to that and just go
back to the previous conversation and just looking at the amount of time from the cross-functional team perspective and specifically the math specialist, they spend on average three days a week present at that school,
supporting with either math planning or with actual instruction in the classroom. So that cross-functional team is providing intensive tier three support on the ground consistently in the school. Now,
again, we're we're not we're not even three quarters of of of a school year of of implementing cross-functional teams. But I think that that ongoing service, you know, needs to not only continue, but be intensified. As we just looked back at some of the the
enhancements that we'd be adding to cross-functional teams. But a coordinated approach with, again, you have your your pupil personnel worker, your family engagement specialist, your community school liaison, and a coordinated approach where you
don't have people stepping all over each other to support families and that you're having a one singular message going to families about, you know, the strategies and things that they need to ensure that their child gets to school. Yeah. And thank
you. And I guess I would like to see that plan once it's developed. So it is very deliberate and targeted to really truancy and ensuring that the children are coming to school. But it has to be across the board and the message has
to be constant and really repetitive to be able to to get to parents. And the nice thing for, you know, consistency and coherence, it, it it the cross-functional teams action plan correlates with the
school's school improvement plan. So it's not an additional they're aligned with what work they're trying to do. And in evaluating that progress together. But I'd be happy to ensure that you have a copy of that okay. Thank you so much.
Appreciate it. We're going to move on to I guess now we're looking at technology overview. Thank you, Doctor Moran. So now we're going to look at technology overview. Technology is a little bit different from
some of our other areas in the budget, because it combines both the operating budget and the CIP. For some of the things that are normally funded through the operating budget. So we're going to look at the technology in terms of the positions and contracts and the CIP. Just give an overview of
the tech Mod project and the FY 27 request. So the division of technology is integral in ensuring that modern tools, security systems and reliable infrastructure support every aspect of teaching and learning. The work expands the protection
of cyber security, the upkeep of essential technology infrastructure, and the management of accurate and secure student and employee data systems. So to that, to that, to that purpose, you know, there is a few changes or
positions and requests to our technology budget. First, we're going to talk about the grant funded positions. Shift to local. Over the last three years, we had a three year grant, the Stronger Connections grant, and this is the last year of that grant. But there were some very key positions in
that grant that we cannot afford to have to to eliminate. One of them is a supervisor position, which manages part of our platforms and our systems and any emergency that we have. And another one is two
technology implementation specialists. And like I said, the support, cybersecurity, emerging technology, as well as look at our tools and audits. The $526,000 is not just for those positions. For those three positions is for those
professional development tools, the online digital tool assessment on the audits, that's part of that budget. Then we have the new newly funded operating positions that were that we are proposing, and three of them are IT project managers and an IT systems
engineer. And this are key positions that are going to maintain our supports to the hub, payroll, human resources and other systems as we move away from the implementation. So we finalized we're almost at the end of the implementation of the Hub Plus and our
financial systems, but maintaining positions and staff that that know how to troubleshoot and manage the systems forward is key. There is an addition of a technology architect to design and maximize interoperability, data
privacy, technology, technology assessments and audits. And then last but not least, we need an IT systems engineer, a technology architect and IT systems administrator for the compliance and security design and implement a scalable technology infrastructure
solutions. We had an Office of Legislative Oversight overview oversight audit about three years ago, and one of the recommendations was to make sure that we had a technology architect to make sure that that we're managing our systems. So that is part that is our
recommendation from that audit. And then so technology is probably has a significant budget towards a contractual services, because obviously their work is very specific and need very specific skills that
sometimes are not found within the our educational system. So the first one that we want to talk about is employee enterprise systems. You you've heard about it. We just finished implementing the Hub Plus or the big portion of the hub plus the substitute management system and ADP. And
this as you see, is a reduction of $4.175 million. And this is a net reduction, if you remember, 22, 23, 24, we added about $7 million to the technology budget for the contractors for the implementation of the hub system. Now we're ending that
implementation. So we are reducing $4.25 million, but we need to keep a portion of that because we still need to pay for the licenses of the new system, and we still need to pay for some of the supports. But at this point, we can reduce $4.25 million. But
there's also some additions to the budget. That is a net reduction where we there's costs are increasing for the substitute management system for ADP. So there are some inflationary costs that are offsetting some of that reduction. The cybersecurity
and infrastructure. So we need additional these are all inflationary costs for telecommunication network security disaster recovery and cyber security trainings. The $1 million is our inflationary cost associated with all those
contracts. Instructional collaboration cost again is a $22,000 increase is for parents for zoom, Naviance and so many others. Inflationary costs, the cost keep increasing and we're trying to keep up with them. And then students and learning and management system. This is
synergy canvas professional development online. Again these are inflationary costs for a lot of the systems. Our total cost is $6.4 million. And all those systems keeps increasing every year. The last part of
the technology budget is the what is budgeted under the capital improvement. Under the capital Improvement project software, we have about $6.15 million in software. This is Microsoft, Google, the visitor management system, the hardware
$16.6 million. This is our student and staff devices, our Chromebooks, our laptops, our peripherals, our printers, our hotspots, their student labs, firewall and so on. We finance no, that's not what is financed. But those are, you know, our
everything that we have to purchase and that we have in a refreshing cycle every year. Again, we have 153,000 students, over 30,000 staff members. That's a lot of hardware that is needed. And then we have other commitments, $11.1
million staffing. We have about 24 positions that are funded through the capital improvement project. And then a lot of the things that we purchased through, not a lot, but some of the things that we purchased through the CIP, we financed, you know, year over year. So we have to carry those costs.
That's about $11.1 million. If you look at the very end in FY 27, our budget is $33.8 million. That's what's been requested, FY 28, $30 million, FY 29, $26
million, and FY $3,027 million. This is something that we're looking towards reducing the CIP and increasing the operating budget, where those this items really should be budgeted under. This was a decision that was made many years ago in terms of having
technology modernization as part of our capital improvement budget, and we have been carrying for years. And I don't know if you want to stop there. Yeah. And if you can have your team from technology join us at the table, please. That would be helpful. She's ready. Yes,
miss. Miss. So while Kim is coming up, Miss Fields is coming up. Our chief technology officer. This is a a really a significant issue where we have had technology modernization in the capital improvements
program. It really doesn't belong there. When it was initially added as part of the CIP, technology was really thought of as an extra or an an
addition to versus a part of. And there are very few things that we do in the school system that don't require technology as an ongoing operating expense. And, and we've kind of just put additional things into the CIP
over the years that don't really belong there, like personnel and software. There could be a justification for hardware in some regards, but but really, this is an operating expense. It is something that should be moved over to operating expense and be a part of your operating
budget and something that you deal with as part of the operating budget cycle. So there are a handful of things in the discussion that we've just brought forward that are really two bigger issues that the tech mod piece and then changes to the ongoing
operating structure. But this ao probably pay a little bit more attention to of cyber attacks and the need for us to have protected student information and data, as well as to have an
infrastructure that prevents us from having some structural failures. This past summer, we experienced some deep irregularities, both human and structural errors with our pay system. Completely inexcusable
and really were issues of our own making because we didn't have the infrastructure and architecture in place. So this this is really in response to not just that, but other issues within the school system that we know that we need to shore
up and actually true up in terms of dollars that are actually expended versus what we plan to expend in this space. So I know you all have a lot of questions for for Miss Fields. I'll start with Miss Stewart. I just want to clarify, it says
new funded operating positions. Are any of these a transfer from the capital budget and which ones? No, these are not a transfer from the capital
budget okay. So these are actually new positions. So the notes tell us some of what these positions are. But I think we would need I would like more detail because I see IT systems engineers and the
there's I guess two of those and the three and the first row. And then there's also IT systems engineer and the last row. And then there's a couple
technology architects. And it would be helpful just to have a more clear vision of what each of these positions are actually going to do, because I do. I'm just predicting that whatever we approve will be coming back
to us, and so we might need to be a little bit more precision in having making these decisions. Thank you, Miss Stewart. Yes, definitely. One of the things we looked at was really trying to identify where some of our gaps were, where some of our skill set, where we
needed to have improvements. And so when we look at the overarching infrastructure, our cybersecurity, one of the things we definitely want to make sure that we're doing is everything is scalable, maintainable, that we can support it. And also taking into consideration our data
privacy right and being in compliance, which is just so critical with how things are moving and shaping up. So for instance, the technology architect, that is a brand new job position that currently now exists, that did not exist before, and being able to have
someone really take a look at our different technology and look at the assessments and then how things are structured right from a software and hardware standpoint. Then when we look at our systems engineers, really being able to solution that based upon what it is that we are bringing into
the district, makes sense that we can sustain it. And also making sure that it meets the solutions and the needs of the district. Right. And that's where we really had to take that hard look as to what is it that we need? What is it that
we are going to be able to support, especially from our security standpoint? We definitely have we are doing, I would say to the team, a phenomenal job at being able to protect the district and various cyber incidents and things such as that. But again,
as technology is becoming more complex and more involved, we want to make sure we're doing our due diligence to be able to fill, fulfill those different gaps that we have. And also the grant funded positions shift to local. That was already in our
operating budget, still is in our operating budget, correct? No. The those shifted. So this was an the original the grant funded positions was in an Unbudgeted grant, meaning it wasn't part of our operating budget. So that's why it's shifting to the local budget. I
also do want to talk, just say a little bit that these are newly added positions. You know, miss field also looked at her budget and realigned some positions, you know, to create, you know, positions that better aligned, you know, with the structure and the needs of our
department. So although this this adds there were several realignments, you know, like any other office where it's budget neutral, but it's better aligned to her needs moving forward. Understood. I just want to point out, from what I heard from you, it sounds like
some of these positions could actually make us more efficient and in effect, maybe even save us money. So I just wanted to bring that up if I heard that correctly. Yes. Okay. Thank you,
Miss Yang. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I think Doctor Taylor stated very well that technology now is a part of our daily life. It shouldn't be viewed as a separate, completely separate item. And
my question is related to slide 39 is very well done. It showing us the reduction in future years in CIP in the area of technology. I would like to
get some information from you in terms of operating budget, how much do we spend in FY 2526 on technology, and what is the total expense that you are proposing for FY 27? I don't
know whether you have that. We can definitely get that for you. Yeah. And and that will be that will be helpful. And. I understand there's always increased fees for all these
license. Nowadays everything is licensed. You cannot just buy it and own it. It's it's yearly annual fee. Right. And then my question is I might ask is have
we done an audit of all the ad tech apps that we employ that we use in the school system? Because during the pandemic, time to pivot to online learning, we have expanded
tremendously during that time. And now we are multiple years out. Have we done an audit? Have we looked at the necessity of every app that we purchase before? Thank you so much for that question. That is
something we are currently investigating because as you said, these are things that were approved postprandial during pre pandemic and where we are now, this is the other reason why understanding what we have, collaborating with the Division of Teaching and
Learning, as well as some of our other stakeholder groups, is going to be so critical for this because we also want to make sure and take into consideration that we are in alignment for data privacy. Yeah. And the different things that are occurring within
certain applications and things such as that, to be on notice and to make sure that we are being notified of any of those changes. Also, we are taking a look at technical requirements. What is it that is needed that will work within our environment is not just an
approval. So yes, we've actually begun that process. As I said, thank you so much for that question. We are currently investigating and we are going to be working with our our colleagues across the different divisions for this because it just doesn't it's not something
that solely resides with technology, because this also impacts different tools and things that are being used in curriculum areas as well. When do you when is the end date for this study or investigation? I will get back to you on the actual the plan that we have.
Okay. I will appreciate that you start a project. Great. When does it end? When can we expect? Yes. Thank you, Miss Montoya. Thank you. I just want to echo Miss Yang's comment about the app audit. You know, maybe there are things that we're not that aren't working
as well or whatnot. And this is, I guess, maybe somewhat related in the name of efficiency and effectiveness. We have a lot of different systems. I'm just as a parent, right. I got a check parent view. Sometimes I get on parent view for some other Montgomery County school because there's like ten different Montgomery counties.
Then there's synergy. I don't really understand what the difference is. Then there's canvas. I get emails to go to canvas, I click on it. I can't get into canvas because it turns out it's not for parents. Right? Then we have Parent Square remind, I mean, you name it, our teachers. They also have to get on a bunch of different things. And then plus
if they have kids, so do we have something that can just do all of that. It just feels like that would be honestly easier as a parent and a student, but also for the system. All these things cost money, right? We have here how much this costs and that we could say the same thing for Microsoft and Google
or right, this overlapping of systems and these monies that we spend, not just to mention like the headache. How did we ever survive and how did our parents ever know anything. Right. And sometimes I still
feel like I don't know what I need to know, almost to our own detriment. I think that there's a lot of interest in the education marketplace to have that singular solution. But from what we've examined, there isn't there hasn't been
something that we've seen on the marketplace other than the potential for us to build at our our own. And given the, I hear, a fundraising opportunity, the level of frustration that I think we share, I mean, we may be there too, but I think that
as as we continue to get more advanced as a society and as an organization, we're trying to to capture different segments of the community. And oftentimes we just miss. And so I think that this is just a great opportunity for feedback.
I'd settle for just fewer passwords and fewer login opportunities. I just want to see all the stuff. I just need something where I can see all the stuff. Yeah. And so I think, I think we share that interest in trying to have a singular solution, but we haven't found it yet. Okay. Thank you, Doctor
Taylor. Just to be clear, so are you then asking for ten positions? Because the the three positions they were originally was a grant. So now that's being transferred that we have to pick up the load on
that. Right. Yes. And then so, so there are a total of ten positions. Yes. Okay. I would just clarify. That's not a net increase of ten. That is ten new positions. But there were also reductions in realignments to help create those. So just to be clear that it's not a net
increase of ten to the to the technology area okay. So it's not budget neutral, but we're pretty close. Correct okay. Thank you. And I just want to say that one of the concerns that I hear and we have heard
in testimony from parents, is the guarding of the private information of our students and even our teachers. And with a system this big, we know that has a cost. But also we know that if we do not do what is
right, it has even higher costs and other implications that we don't want to find ourselves in. So thank you so much for that. Thank you. And I believe I. Hello. Hi. Just one more quick thing. I also want to say to Miss Montoya's point, when we
are looking at future websites and future apps to look at extracurriculars and what they're using for that. I know that some coaches use bands, some coaches use GroupMe, some coaches use remind. So just looking at finding an overall
app for that to okay, if I may just one clarification in terms of the technology budget, although you see this increases by the reduction of the $4.25 million, the overall technology budget is decreased this year. Correct. And it will decrease
every year going forward. Right. According to know for the CIP. For the CIP. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, with that, if there are no no additional questions, this will conclude
today's work session. No no no. Oh no we have more. There's more. We have a few more. We have a few follow ups to come back to where I don't see it on my packet. It's only 1230. Yeah. It's at the end okay. Okay. Do we want to continue with the
follow ups. Yes. Go go go go. So I think I believe the last work session, one of the questions was the FTE funded with federal dollars in FY 20, in 23. And the total of our funding of our funding through
federal estate and and other grants. So I think you received this in a in a packet earlier, but the table three in the budget book outlines all the gran funds that are part of the budget. The table is broken down by federal, state and
local aid in FY 27 as a result of reductions to title two. And I think I believe we went we went over this with the nondiscretionary expenses as a result of the decrease to title two, where we moved five consulting teachers from the grant to the local budget, as
well as the data and management position, and also reductions to the stronger connections grant. We're asking for $1.7 million in local funds. So this includes the local, the title two and the ones that we just
went over in technology, the Stronger Connections grant. That's a total of $1.7 million. As you all know. You know, the federal landscape is really interesting as well as as well as the state landscape. So this is what we're seeing for FY 27.
Doesn't mean that there might not be any other changes, because usually we don't get our grant funding. Final numbers for FY 27 until until probably July or August. But that is what we're seeing right now. Title one decreased as well, but that does not have an
impact on the local budget. As we go through the presentations like we did just now, we will be identifying specific areas where we shifted from grants to the budget. Table three where table three in the budget book is the revenue resources. We
will which area which it's. So there's a beginning set of tables that outline expenditures, revenues and some of the big block pieces of the board's request. And it's the it literally starts with table one, two and then three. So it's in the front portion of
the book. Thank you. So the next follow up that we have is around. It was a question around the budget in a student conducts and appeals. And I want to provide an overall sort
of outline. You know, what the process is when we're budgeting I want to make sure that there's an understanding that the budget book does not reflect a specific salaries of anyone, really. It is a budgeting tool. It's a projection. The the budget book.
The budget reflects salaries at a very early point in time, and it changes throughout the year. So when we pull the salaries for the budget, we pull those in October, the day after we pull those salaries to be really project moving forward.
It's already old information in a way, because people have moved positions and so on. So when you look at the student conducts, our salaries are really based on our salary schedule. And when we budget, we try to project based on the following, you know, on on
what's going to happen the following year, account for salary increases. Make sure that we drew up the budget for the people that have been hired between that point in time and the next budget cycle. When you add new positions to the budget, you add positions based on a
new hire rate. It could be a step five. If you hire a person into that position later on, that is a more senior individual, let's say, much higher in the salary scale. That's what that budget is going to have to be trued up
for, you know, the next following year. So our human the hiring process and the budgetary process are separated in a way where our human resources doesn't look at exactly how much money you put in that specific organization for a budget line item. They
look at our entire system, they look at the skills of that individual, where the individual is coming from, and they hire that person based on that, not on what is budgeted in the in the budget system, in terms of the student appeals and conduct. Three of the
positions in that budget were new hire rates when people were hired into those positions than this year, we had to true up the budget to to the people that were hired into the positions. But again, it's not exactly accurate because it could change the next day if
there's a vacancy in the position. So let me summarize this really quick, because I know we got a couple more things to to touch on. Your budget is a spending plan. There isn't a single line in the 10,000 lines that are in
your budget that will be spent exactly how the dollars line up. You will have some that are higher and very few that are lower. But it is your plan as you have it mapped out for how the system should spend its
money. And we have an audit that goes back and looks to make sure that that's followed through with fidelity. This question in particular comes from several comments that we had received even by by email
and through testimony. That was a misconception of is one office receiving a disproportionate raise based on numbers that were in the budget versus what was budgeted and what was actuals. And so what Miss Alphonso Windsor is trying
to explain is that this is the reconciliation from a previous budgeted year to actuals to the following budget year. So it is not reflective of massive raises. We don't do that because everything is
negotiated and we follow a salary schedule. But but it does help hopefully clarify that that you are trying to true up budget lines by by making sure the following budget year is reflective of
the previous budget year's actuals. Before we move on, I do have some questions, if that's okay. Mr. Rivera. Yeah, actually, before we do that, I'm just taking your mic. I'm just taking it in with Doctor Taylor said. And I'm sorry,
could you say that again that this is from the previous year? Can you repeat that again just so it all sinks in? Yeah, this this was actually a comment. And we get this comment every year in different departments in, in different lines every
year. Because this is kind of like catch up in a way where you budget for a certain department or certain personnel at one level, and then the actuals come in either higher or lower the following year,
and then the following budget year. You are trying to true up that budget line to align with what the actuals are when you're projecting for the following year. Okay. So and and you may see a wider variance in some departments
versus others and say wait a second. But we we all have the same set salary increases or the same set improvements in each department. But the reality is, is that not all of the same staff stay in the same departments every year. And so
when there are changes in penel, there sometimes accounts for a lot of that variance. And you can have movement of staff who have been more senior, who step into certain positions that could be more costly than somebody who's just starting out. Precisely.
Okay. Yeah, that is exactly it. Okay. Thank you. I it took me a while. I'm sorry. I, I had to like. So do you have a quick question? I do because I do understand all that. And I do appreciate providing the
further clarification, but it's still challenging for me because when I look through that entire department, which is chapter five, in the operating budget for folks who are listening in, I see a decrease of two administrative staff, including a department
where we had three support staff cut from the prior budget. I see adding of coordinators. And so when I see specific to this department, which is the sorry conduct and appeals, I guess it's challenging for me to hear that human resources
hires without looking for the salaries that were budgeted by the Board of Education, because what it sounds like and again, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to misrepresent, but it sounds like what we're saying is, okay, the board passed a budget saying, you know, more or less I understand
things have to change because we don't know exact costs and whatnot, but more or less, this is what we budgeted here at these amounts for these positions, for this many x, y positions. And then at some point during the year, M.C.P.S. decides to or needs to hire to
fill positions, and that we're hiring folks whose salaries would need to be calibrated basically at these higher levels than what was approved in the budget. Right. Because then it makes me feel like,
well, if I'm saying okay to X position at X salary, then M.C.P.S. a month later can hire someone at 60,000 over, and then I'm going to be hampered and tied to that amount the next year because it's already happened. Right. And so just
give me one second, especially when we're looking at other staff that is being reduced, like our administrative specialists and support staff positions, or we're looking at and not, you know, just in general, right. All of our divisions and departments, we all deal with them in some ways
or another. And sometimes we see challenges in those spaces. So it gets hard for me to say, yeah, let's throw 78,000 more dollars at this. I think that's a director position, for example. Right. So when when we're budgeting and I
understand so when we're budgeting we're looking we're not looking at individual positions. We're looking at 25,000 positions. So we go through this process which is called salary simulation where we take every single employee in this school system. And we simulate whether salary might
be for the following year. Let's say we have economies of scale and M.C.P.S. So although you know, this position in this particular department might require a more senior staff, you're going to have people in senior positions that have been in the system for 30 years that
are going to leave at a much higher position, and the person is going to be hired in. If it's a brand new teacher or somebody from another department is going to be hiring at a much lower salary. So you have this ups and downs throughout the year. And that's what we look really at. The
25,000 employees that we that we hire. We when I'm when I'm doing the budget, when we're doing the budget, we're looking to make sure that we're budgeting the correct amount at each of the categories. That's what we do, our financial monitoring, and that's what we come back to the board and we
say this is where we are, you know, during this specific month, because when you're looking at 25,000 positions in a budget, we're not looking at the individuals, we're looking at the entire system as a whole. And those ups and downs. And if I can, if I can just add one
piece to that. I think I'm hearing in your question, Miss Montoya is in terms of the authority, these positions are budgeted for a level, right. It's a supervisor at oh, or it's a director at P. And what what governs then the hiring is
that salary scale. So but but folks can be at a range within that level. And so for example, if you're a brand new hire at a p level or perhaps haven't been in the system as long, you'll have one salary. But as as has been said, if you are a person
with a lot more seniority, even though you're still in that P, there is a range. And so I just wanted to clarify that we can't decide to hire somebody for some arbitrary amount of money. What does govern is the salary level and the salary scale. So so while there may be differences there, there are
careful calibrations of how folks are placed on those steps and how they have progressed through their time in M.C.P.S. So there there may be a range as governed by the salary scale. And again, that range may be a little different than what had
been had been shown in a budget level previously. And I can appreciate all of that. I guess it's just still not clear to me, and I don't know if it's clear to the community how we get a $78,000 increase. I mean, a
6.25% increase on that particular salary would have been about $7,500. So this is I mean, 60 something percent increase. And it's just I'm not following your logic is not helping me to get there. So if I can give you an example, I don't know if it helps, but
when I'm looking at your at the equity unit itself, I'm sorry. Give me one minute in. That's in chapter five for my colleagues in the community. Yes. When you're looking at FY
26 you had 11, sorry, seven positions in the budget. For FY 27, you have eight positions to the budget. But I'm trying to make sure that I'm looking at the right area. Oh no. We're looking at a student conduct.
Sorry. That's okay. It's 515 I believe it's 15. Student
conduct and compliance. Student welfare I think that I guess that's what I'm saying. So if you look at that page right, we've had a and I think it's couched under business and operations admin I think that's the director position typically. Right. So we've had one since fiscal year 2025. And I just
don't understand how we get from last year to this year an additional almost $80,000. So I mean that's like almost two of our administrative specialists that we've cut. Right. So we had in FY 25, let's take the director one, we had a director one position, which the
position was eliminated and converted to a director two position in FY 26. So we just hired for that position this year. The person would have, might have, might have been in a much higher level or a much higher salary, more years in
the system that the person that was there as a director, one had been. But isn't it the same person? No, no, it's not the same person. It's not the same person. And also it was a promotional opportunity. So the position itself is a higher level position and it is not the same individual. And then
another example, if you look at coordinators in FY 25 we had two. We went up to five. Three of those positions would have been hired at a new higher rate, which would have been a step five. When we hired the three new coordinators that might have increased. It increased
about $20,000 per person based on the level of experience that the person had in the school system. In addition to that, then we have to add the almost 6% 6.25% increase. And I can, you know, and I'd be more than
happy to provide you, you know, the specifics on each of that. I'm sorry, I just what I meant by the same, but it's the same type of position is what I meant. Like the person in terms of the well, it's that the it's the head of the so unit, for lack of a better phrase is higher. It's a higher level. So
it's a higher level. It's on a different it's on a higher salary scale. No I recognize that okay. Thank you. But the person that might have left the director, one might have been on a step six in the system. And the director to hire might have had 20 years in their system and might have been higher at step 13. And I guess
my overall point, whether it's this department, another another year even, is in times where we're literally trying to find pennies to fund some of these things, that maybe it's time we start taking those things into consideration. If we're going to be hiring, and it's going to cost us an extra
$80,000 this year. You know, is there times where we have to say, like, that person might be fantastic, but that's not what we can do this year, right? Again, that's potentially to support positions just in the increase. Thank you. You're welcome. The other piece of this question that I just want to follow up with was the
stipends that there seem to be an increase in stipends of 200,000. That was not an increase to the budget. The the stipends were originally budgeted in the labor of, in the Department of Labor Relations. And that has been that was and you and you have to follow the equal opportunity
employment to correct. So it's just move them from one department to another as part of a realignment. The next question is about special education. There have been a lot of questions I know at the hearing. What is the impact of
the reductions of the supervisors in special education? We have a reduction in special education from 11 supervisors to fourupervisors, based on the new structure in the Department of Special Education. I want to make sure that we all understand that
there's no reduction to any special education service providers that was recommended in the in the FY 27 budget. This is strictly the restructuring of a supervisory supervisory positions to make sure that we balance and focus the responsibilities of both the directors and supervisors.
There are other positions as well within the supervisory skill, but really the restructuring was between directors and supervisors. We added two director positions and reduced the supervisors positions so that they can focus on more areas of special education that are related and
provide that additional support. Again, service providers were not impacted. And just to bring that into context, this is the new structure in a way, of the Department of Special Education supervisory structure. And I
know that it's probably a small print. I don't know if you guys can see it a little bit bigger. It's smaller next time, okay. But it's color coded. So at the very bottom. Okay. At the very
bottom you're going to have the current units. How it's currently how the department currently works. And if you can see there's now six directors right now column two and column three which is now falling under one director is being
separated to more to a streamlined the programs and supervision as well as column four and five. So the the four of the departments are going to have a supervisor. The other
form for the other two does not require a supervisor. But there's some coordinators in there. But this is the new structure of the department. And I think the way that Doctor Cage has aligned, it is going to support, you know, better structure, special education
moving forward. I also want to mention that this year this the department has been working in a similar structure because they had vacancies and staff supervisors in long term leave. So for the last 3 or 4 months
they've really had about 5 or 6 supervisors, as opposed the supervisors that are budgeted. So the structure has sort of, you know, there has to have been a new support to those departments in order to be able to function moving forward and align the supports to the
structure and the supports needed by the office, by the schools and the office. And I know if there's any further questions on that. What I get from that is it was very top heavy, right. When you look at the purple, I thought I was looking at it's very top heavy.
So so that was the restructuring of it too. Okay. And I appreciate the color coding. It helps my brain to organize things. Thank you Doctor Cage okay I think we're we're good on that okay. It's
going to take me a while to digest this. So I might have follow up questions later. Sure, sure. I'm the same because is is this the section that change
the supervisor role for our speech. Speech speech pathologist. Yes. Yes, that is correct. So again it's just changing. The supervisory structure is not changing the service providers or decreasing them in any way. Correct. Okay.
That was a lot. Thanks for the color coordinated. That helps my brain too. And to Doctor Moran who had to leave. But the cohort color coordination appreciate it okay. Can I now okay we're done I know do you
have do you have a motion. Oh I don't I don't think we need a motion. Do we need a motion. Yeah I don't think we need a motion. But. But anyway. Thank you. She was ready to go. Can we just quickly review what we're what we will be covering at our next work session for
the public? It's right here on the on the, on the, on the screen. So for those folks state revenue update, staffing standards, multi-year budget sketch, discussion and presentation and board of direction, the superintendent. With that, if there are no further questions, this will conclude today's work session.
Thank you so much to the staff for your work for being here. If board members have additional questions or feedback, you should follow them to the board's Chief of Staff. And with that, you know what? Let's just do a motion to
adjourn just for the heck of it. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Second, all those in favor? Okay.
Meeting adjourned.