d welcome to the May 7th, 2026 Board work session. I welcome my colleagues. Our board members, M.C.P.S. staff, and members of our community who are joining us here today. And to those who are watching this meeting, especially my mom,
Graciela. Hola, mami. So let us stand up and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag is in the back. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to Republic, of which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. I will now ask my colleagues to please introduce themselves to establish a quorum. I will start on my left. Good afternoon and student
member. Good afternoon, Natalie Zimmerman. I represent district two. Good afternoon. Rita Montoya, board member at large. Good afternoon, Julie Yang, district three. Good afternoon. Buenas tardes. Carla Silvestre. School board member at large.
Good afternoon, Laura Stewart, district four. Thank you very much. Is there a motion to approve the revised agenda? Motion. Second. There is a motion in a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Thank you. And that
is unanimous. Moving on. Next. Is there a motion to approve items 3.2 through 3.4 and 3.5 in block motion to approve. Second. There is a motion, a second. All those in favor,
please raise your right hand. And that is unanimous. Sorry, I almost said flavor. I keep thinking about ice cream. Really could use some today. The next item on the agenda is a really great one. This is item 4.1 and these are
recommended appointments and I will pass it to Doctor Taylor. Thank you, Madam President. We have a few administrative appointments for your consideration today. When I call your name, if you could please stand while I say some nice things about you before the board considers your appointment. First for
consideration is Renee R Hussain for the position of supervisor for Enterprise Network and Cybersecurity Operations in the Department of Cybersecurity in the Division of Technology Services. Joining him today is his wife, Flavia
Santos Hussain, his son Noah, his mother Linda. And his father, Faisal Hussain. Mr. Hussain has been employed with M.C.P.S. for 12 years as an IT system specialist, an IT
systems engineer and most recently as the acting supervisor of Telecommunications Services. He looks forward to continuing to serve as part of the leadership team supporting the district's mission through secure, resilient and reliable technology services for all
students and staff. Shout outs to his family and friends who are watching online. Thank you so much, Doctor Taylor. Is there a motion motion to approve? Second. There is a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your
hand. And that is unanimous. Congratulations Mr. Hussain. Next for consideration. She's watching online is Mrs. Lisa N Schwartz. The for the position
of principal at Benjamin Banneker Middle School. She's probably watching online because she's busy leading Eastern Middle School. Mrs. Schwartz has been with M.C.P.S. for 18 years as a teacher, assistant principal, acting principal, and most recently as
the current principal at Eastern Middle School. She looks forward to joining the Bobcat Pride with Benjamin Banneker in their community. Mrs. Schwartz will be watching from Atlanta, Georgia, with her son Stefan, as they move him out of his dorm, shout outs to
her family members in Texas and Southern California, and to her grandparents, Ferris and Mildred Harper, who instilled in her the legacy of service. Motion. Motion. Motion to approve. Second, there is a motion and a second. All those
in favor, please raise your hand. And that is unanimous. Congratulations to Mrs. Schwartz. Fantastic. The last appointment for consideration for the board today is Doctor Jeffrey D. Mayer for the
position of principal at Cresthaven Elementary School. Joining him today is his wife, Cara, his son and his parents, Alfred and Alberta Mayer. Doctor Mayer has been employed with M.C.P.S. for 20 years as a
teacher, content specialist, instructional specialist, learning and achievement specialist, assistant principal and most recently as the assistant principal at Cresthaven Elementary School. He is excited and full of gratitude to lead Cresthaven learning community in ensuring
an an an an all inclusive and academically rigorous environment in which all students feel welcomed, connected, seen, valued, heard, and challenged. Is there a motion? Motion to approve? Second. There is a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And
that is unanimous. Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam President. This concludes administrative appointment considerations for today. Thank you very much,
Doctor Taylor. The next item on the agenda, item number five is association comments. I will ask any designated representative here to provide association comments to please come forward at this time and introduce yourself. For the
record, prior to the beginning of your comments. So seeing none, I will move on to item number six. The next item on the agenda is public comment. While the board encourages public input on policy, program
and practices and will consider the comments received, it is not the board's practice during this public meetings to respond to questions, to provide comments, or take any action on the issues raised. This is a public meeting and the board expects the conduct of all speakers and members of the
audience to be within the bounds of proper etiquette. Inappropriate personal remarks, rude retorts, or other such behavior is out of order and will not be tolerated. Those who demonstrate disruptive or disrespectful behavior during public comment may be asked to leave the room. In addition,
public comment is not the proper avenue to address specific student or employee matters. Such matters should be directed through the complaint or appeal process. Each speaker has two minutes to deliver comments. When your name is
called, press the button and speak clearly into the microphone. A yellow light and signal beep indicates you have 30s left a red light and repeating beep signals. The time has expired. Once you have finished speaking, press the same button to turn off the
microphone. Following live testimony, audio and video testimony will be played. Copies of testimonies provided to the board prior to today's meetings are posted with other materials for this meeting. On board docs, I will read the
first six names. If your name is called, please come forward. Erin, or I'm going to really not do well on this last name. I'm so sorry, Erin. Okay. Thank you. Jordan. Keanu. Amelia.
Barrett, Kevin. Ray. Jessica. Lee, Megan Sandbulte, and Erin Hoffman. Okay. Welcome,
everyone, if you may begin. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Aaron Horodniceanu. I'm the father of a seventh grader at Cabin John Middle School and a fourth grader at Stone Mill Elementary. My family is excited about the relocation of
Wooton High School to the new building in Crown. I know this board had to make some difficult choices. I wanted to talk today about a small change I hope you'll consider. Prior to the beginning of the 2728 school year, Stone Mill and Travilah Elementary School are not just close geographically,
they are closely connected communities. Our families live in overlapping neighborhoods, share parks, sports leagues, libraries, places of worship, and community activities. As a result, many students of Stone Mill and Travilah already know one another well before entering middle school. A signing both Stone Mill and
Travilah students to cabin. John reflects and preserves these long standing community connections. Keeping students together helps maintain peer networks, ease the transition to middle school, and foster a stronger sense of belonging during a critical developmental stage. Students who begin
middle school with familiar classmates are more likely to feel confident, engaged and supported both socially and academically. One of the reasons for the change was proximity between the elementary and middle schools. However, there's more to this than distance. While Hoover is marginally closer to Stone mill
by only a mile on a map, actual travel times to Cabin John are comparable in many cases based on local traffic patterns, road access and routing realities. Therefore, maintaining the current stone mill to cabin John alignment would not create additional transportation burden for families or M.C.P.S.
and may represent the more practical and efficient option overall. In summary, aligning Stone Mill and Travilah with Cabin John Middle School strengthens natural community connections, maintains reasonable transportation times, and supports long term continuity into high school, while also allowing Potomac
Elementary to preserve a specialized program through Hoover that has existed since 1996. This proposed change seeks to reduce the number of middle schools with split articulation. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Barrett. Hi,
I'm Amelia Barrett and M.C.P.S. graduate and now at M.c.p.s. Parent. I recognize how complex and nuanced these boundary studies are, and I appreciate your commitment to stay focused on the balance, to task, to on the task to balance all system wide needs. I'm here to respectfully request a targeted
review of the solo middle school articulations for Stone mill and Travilah before implementation in 2027, or to review this in the upcoming study. You will hear from my fifth grader later. But all. But like all current fifth graders who began school on Zoom kindergarten, the key
words for their early education years are instability and challenges. Policy. FAA identifies stability as a key factor here, and here is an opportunity to offer stability to this cohort during an already challenging transition period of middle school. As you
discussed in the March 12th work session, the reality is that cabin, John and Hoover are within walking distance inside the Churchill boundary, and Stone mill has always been the furthest school assigned there, and an ideal map scenario. All the Wooton feeders could go to middle school much closer than these two, but in this case,
the map just does not map. After reviewing all the data and effects tables and articulation charts on the websites, it's clear that keeping Stone mill and Travilah together cabin John could address the four FAA factors improving stability in articulation alignment without
impacting utilization. The adjacent schools or demographics. Also, potential cost savings with combining our bus routes to cabin John. After the recent council meetings, we know that any cost savings over time is vital. I respectfully ask for focus data driven
review of the specific middle school assignments before implementing implementation in 2027, especially if the pending study will change any of these boundaries and island assignments. Thank you for your consideration for our communities and kids. Thank you so much, Miss Barrett. Mr. Ray,
good afternoon. My name is Kevin Ray, and I'm a parent of a first and third grader at Travilah Elementary School. I'm here to respectfully ask the board to consider a new resolution that would keep Stone Mill Elementary School at Cabin John. So Stone Mill and Travilah can articulate
together to high school as a soccer. I mean, football coach for my children's first and third grade teams, I see the value of these cluster connections every week. My teams include students from the Wooton Show and Gaithersburg cluster. At these ages, it's
much less about skills and much more about building relationships that kids might one day rely on. When life inevitably gets difficult. At a recent high school town hall, Doctor Taylor emphasized that school safety starts with a positive culture where students
feel known and where meaningful investment is made in relationships. Research consistently shows that strong peer connections are one of the most effective ways to reduce incidents of conflict and disconnection in schools. As students get older, we know
they stop listening to their parents and increasingly turn to their peers for support, making these connections even more critical. Today, we ask for your advice and support in helping Stone, Mill and Travilah cultivate these connections in middle school, so that they may enter high
school with a stronger sense of being known, supported, and connected. We understand that changes of this nature require careful consideration within the full context of policy. FAA and broader system wide impacts.
We appreciate your attention to this issue and your continued commitment to student well-being. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Ray, miss Lee. Are we able to pull up the
the slides for miss Lee? Mr. Lockman, do we have them? I'm sorry. That's okay. She said she submitted some slides with her testimony. Was it by email, miss Lee? Yeah, they confirmed that they received them. But maybe you can just distribute
them afterwards. If you submitted them. I promise you that we will look at them. How about that? Okay, okay. Sure, sure. No. Happy to do that. All right. Oh, yeah. Let me. Yes. Thank you. Jessica Lee, Stone Mill Elementary parent. I'm back. First, I want to say
thank you because I know a lot went into the boundary studies. My family and I are thrilled about Wootten at Crown, but others, I want to flag what feels like a lingering issue. And I think within the Wooton cluster in particular, it's an opportunity to help families feel heard and
understood. I know this is not going to get resolved here and now, but we just want to help identify a path forward. So a little bit more context about me. I have been a troop leader for Girl Scout Troop 33171 for the past six years. I have
girls from Stone mill, Travilah, Dufief and Cold Spring in my troop. We got started during the pandemic because our girls were Zoom kindergartners, and we felt it was important that they needed to build bonds with one another. For girls especially, bonds are the
scaffolding for self-esteem, for resilience, for bravery. It supports real confidence that's needed to beat year over year cookie sales, which is something that I strive for. We've worked really hard, though, to build momentum with these girls so that they have
that confidence that they need in life, and I'd really hate for a feeder pattern to be something that disrupts it. So what's the disruption? Well, with what was approved, five elementary schools go on to Frost and then on to Wooton. That's about over 400 students
that arrive each year. To Wooton. With years of shared history, stone mill and Travilah. They each go at it alone, one to cabin, John, one to Hoover. The cohorts are, you know, 60, 80 kids that would go from their elementary school to middle school and then on to
high school. And that frost cohort is about five times the size of Stone Mill and Travilah, respectively. I know that none of us think that solo articulation is good for our students. I know that we all believe that. But in the spirit
of not letting perfect get in the way of good, what we're looking for is a pretty straightforward fix. Swap Stone Mill in DeKalb and John alongside Travilah as they go on to Wooton, potentially as a bonus for Potomac Elementary. They can stay with Hoover. And this again is consistent with
the alternative that Doctor Taylor and his team previously introduced to the board for consideration. I really believe where we can make things right sooner, we should go after it. And so we're really looking forward to continued discussion on this. Thank you. Thank you.
Miss. Can we go now to miss? Hi, everyone. My name is Megan Sami and I'm the parent of two Travilah elementary school students. And I'm also an education researcher. And I'm here today, along with myeers, to ask you to reconsider the
piece of the boundary study so that Stone mill can continue to articulate to Cabin John Middle School alongside Travilah. In 2020, I joined many parents as well as M.c.p.s and the difficult decision to keep my kids at home. My son was due to
start pre-K, but he struggled with asthma, and in the face of so much uncertainty surrounding safety and public health, he spent his pre-K year at home completely disconnected from his peers. Between virtual learning and temporary home schooling, he was obviously far
from alone. It's unsurprising that early research shows that students who are 4 to 5 years old during the pandemic lag behind other youth, particularly in terms of social skills. Kids who spent these core formative years at home struggle more to work in teams,
to communicate respectfully with others, to recognize each other's emotions and show empathy. Because of those missed in-person experiences, these kids are socially lagging behind. This is why it's so crucial for the BOE to consider
this amendment. Now, before the boundary study changes go into effect. We have heard M.c.p.s share that the isolation created by the solo articulation could be addressed by the elementary school study, and that is a really hopeful prospect. But that will come too late to address the needs
of the current fourth and fifth graders who were once those preschool and kindergarten students who were struggling to connect through screens. I know throughout the boundary study, the FAA principle of stability has been thrown at you all as a cudgel by parents who simply don't want changes. But the
trajectory of these fourth and fifth graders is exactly what that principle was designed to address. Stability first and foremost, for those who have already faced major disruption, thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much, Miss Hoffman. Hello. I'm
the parent of two M.c.p.s. Students here to comment on policy. I guess this policy reads like a love letter to technology. It champions emerging tech as the next frontier of education. But in reality, technology use at M.C.P.S. is the Wild West, and this technology does nothing to
wrangle it. Nor does it address how M.c.p.s will gatekeep tech in classrooms to prioritize learning. I've been complacent, frustrated by screens and classrooms, but ignorant to both the extent kids use them and the lack of oversight. Then my nine year old school
suspended his Chrome use because he shared YouTube links with friends. Do I condone my kid looking at videos on World War Two tank battle strategy during literacy blocks? No, I wanted to understand more, but I was told there are no use logs for parents. So I asked my
principal teachers anyone who could explain the system's digital policies. Everyone assured me that Chromebooks are used intentionally, but stories from my children and other parents say differently this is a moral hazard. M.c.p.s. Has built a system where adults choose the tools. Teachers are
left to police misuse and children absorb the consequences and parents are denied visibility. How can we manage what we aren't measuring? M.C.P.S. chose light speed to monitor student activity, but didn't purchase the parent portal feature that would give families insight into their
child's internet usage. Please revisit this contract and fund this important feature for the upcoming school year. I'm not alone. In the past two weeks, more than 750 people have joined a growing coalition concerned about these issues.
In our county, families are vigilantly following efforts in school districts across the country to reverse course on tech driven education. We are eager to work with M.c.p.s to set clear guidelines for use that promote learning and protect our students. Please make the regulations behind IG
s student centered and pro learning. Increase transparency. Grant parents access to activity data. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. I am going to call our next speakers, Marisa Walker,
Rosalyn Hanson, and Betsy Tao. Okay. Hello, miss Walker, if you can start with you, please. Hi, I'm Marissa Walker. I'm a mom to three lifelong M.c.p.s
students. I'm also here to talk about policy, I guess, which I feel needs greater emphasis on safety. There is a huge gap between what policy makers think about how Chromebooks are being used in schools and how they're actually used. This past fall, I read a shocking
statistic that 41% 41% of teens have seen pornography during the school day, and of those, 44% viewed that pornography on school owned devices. I wondered if that statistic held true for M.C.P.S. So with the
MCC help, I put out a survey and I got over 1000 responses. We found not only that had some students at M.C.P.S. had indeed seen pornography on school devices, but that students regularly use their school devices to find endless distractions from school work.
The content ranges from the merely distracting to the outright obscene, and here are some quotes. Quote in fourth grade, my child was exposed to pornography on the school laptop. Quote. My son has regularly, for years spent a lot of time playing online
games in school. Quote. They share cat and anime videos in Google drives. Quote they were putting porn into a Google Doc with their Chromebooks. Quote, elementary school age kids were able to watch graphic violence videos on YouTube at the high
school level, quote videos of a cartel executions, a man committing suicide, a man being beaten to death with hammers. Let's consider an analogy. 100 years ago, the emerging technology was automobiles. The injury and death rate was 20 times as high as it is today,
and cars did not have rear view mirrors. Ford invented the model T, but government invented the driver's license, the minimum driving age and car seat laws. Government sometimes has to say things aren't good for kids. Anytime a Chromebook is open, the internet is right
there. The good but also the bad. The filters do not work. They haven't worked for years. To ignore this is akin to neglect. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hanson. Good afternoon. My name is Rosalind Hanson. As you
might recall or know, recently, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or Splc, was federally indicted based on evidence that they funneled nearly $3 million of donor money to pay actual KKK and neo-Nazi operatives the same groups they claim to fight. Now, you're probably wondering
what this has to do with curriculum. Well, t Splc is learning for justice. Social justice standards are baked into our own social studies curriculum. M.C.P.S. is proudly championed IT and Splc even features us online bragging about how we are using their
curriculum to reeducate white students so they could have the right historical knowledge, educating kids a certain way based on their skin color seems pretty racist to me, but that makes sense now that we know the Splc has literally been paying Klansmen. If an organization is willing to pay
millions to manufacture the hate it supposedly against, what's its curriculum designed to do? The truth is, we've been catfished. Our classrooms have been by a nonprofit that lists Aryan Nation members as extremists while secretly funding them. Adding insult to injury, our taxpayers have
funded this scam. In 2024, M.C.P.S. budgeted $1 million for a K through two social studies curriculum required to meet the Splc standards. 1 million bucks to hand kids who can barely read. We gave them history lessons aligned with
standards by people who fund neo-Nazis. The Splc does not build community, it sows division and I've personally lived the damage of this hate racket. Here's a co-leader now on our board, smearing me on social media. If that's what's going to happen to adults minds,
what are we doing to our five year olds? So now that you know that we're in bed with the people who orchestrated the Charlottesville riots, what are we going to do about it? Here are two ideas. One, please cut all ties to the Splc and that curriculum. Two, I've brought some copies of this book from
my friend Tyler O'Neill about the Splc. I fully intend to keep my family away from the KKK or anything associated with it. I pray our school district does too. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hansen. Miss Tao. Good
afternoon. I am the chair of the MCPs PTA Technology Committee. I am here today to address board policy. I guess the language in this policy is outdated. It fails to acknowledge that excessive screen use is harmful to kids attention, mental and physical health, and emotional
regulation. Equity used to be about giving access to technology. Today, it means giving all kids a space to learn that's free from the tech that's taken over their lives. Also, this policy calls generative AI transformative, even though there's no research to support its use and plenty
to show it shouldn't be used for learning. Other school districts are taking concrete action. Just last month, several, including LAS, one of the largest in the country, adopted strong resolutions to reduce screen time. States are also passing laws, and I'm working to ensure Maryland will
soon follow. But M.c.p.s shouldn't wait for the state to act. Almost 800 parents have joined us so far because they've had enough. These are five steps that you can take now. One. Conduct a comprehensive tech audit. We need to know how technology is used in every school, and
whether the money we're spending can be better spent elsewhere. I guarantee you the reality looks nothing like the words in this policy. Two. Because the risk of harm to younger kids is too great, immediately pause Chromebook use for grades K through two and consider doing the same for
grades three through five. Three. Eliminate the 1 to 1 policy for all students. Put devices on carts or in a lab so kids will carry around books again instead of a laptop that they play games on for. Immediately turn off generative
AI features on student devices. They aren't safe for learning, and they've already harmed too many kids. Five. Give parents access to information about their child screen use in school, and give them the right to opt out so they can better manage their child's health at home. Business as usual means
we are failing our kids. We need a top down, system wide reckoning with the failure of technology in our schools. Thank you. Thank you. If staff we're going to do to our video. Thank you for for coming. If we can go to our video testimonies now with. We're going to start
with Mr. Harper, I believe is Barnett. Hi, my name is Harper and I'm a fifth grader at Stonewall Elementary School. I am speaking to you today because I want to ask you to consider keeping Stonewall with our neighbors from Villa at
Cabin John Middle School together. Like all current fifth graders, I started kindergarten in 2020 on Zoom at home. I was at another elementary school in the county. Have you ever tried to learn how to do number bonds or learn how to write sentences on Zoom?
I did not meet any of my classmates face to face until March of 2021, when schools reopened for in-person learning in first grade in my class had to do virtual learning for one week because too many kids had Covid. Lots of regular school
activities couldn't happen during those first two years. No talent shows, dances, international nights, or even field trips. You know, you know the school things that seem normal now. It was definitely hard to make new friends when everything was different. And
also and it also affected how we learn and act today. Some of our teachers might say that we're a lot to handle though. I am a bit nervous and excited for middle school. I hope I can make it to the bus on time and make new friends at Cabin John, but I'm a little worried about
going to Hoover in seventh grade and having to meet all new people and teachers, and then go to wooden with around 400 kids who all went to Frost together. I want to ask you to consider keeping Stonewall and Travilla together at Cabin John, since we already are neighbors
with Travilla, then we can focus on building lasting friendships and learning as much as possible to prepare us for high school, which I'm very excited about. The new. The brand new wooden at Crown. Please consider everything we've been through since kindergarten. Thank you so much
by. Thank you to Harper. That was adorable. Can we see testimony from you, John? Hi. I'm back as Yuna again and I'm a fifth grader at Stonewall Elementary. I'm actually really excited about Wooten at Crown.
My mom has told me a lot about the vote and honestly, it sounds great, I can't wait. Everyone says that middle school is a big deal. New school, new teachers, harder classes. It's going to be a lot of change at once. Going in with friends you already trust. That matters more than I think adults sometimes remember right
now. The plan would split me and my friends from Travilla in different middle schools. Even though we've grown up together and we're all heading to the same high school in the end. And high school is even bigger. Transition. Women at Crown will
be brand new for everyone. Wouldn't it be better if at least we already knew each other by then? Meanwhile, five other elementary schools get to go all together. We'd be doing it alone. It just seems like a really easy thing to fix. Keep Stonewall and Travilla together, put us both at Cabin John and
let us arrive at one at Crown as a community, not as strangers who went separate ways and tried to find each other again. So I hope this can get fixed. Over to my friend Sasha. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sasha and I'm a fifth grader at Stone Mill Elementary. This
fall I'm headed to middle school. I'm excited. Honestly, a little scared too. What makes it feel less scary is knowing I won't be doing it alone. Over the past few years, I've played soccer, run five KS, and hung out at Club Friday with the kids from a neighborhood. Some
go to Stone mill, some go to Travilla. We play together. We study hard. We grew up together. We are so excited that finally, finally, we get to walk in the same middle school together. We already built something real. We want to keep building it inside a classroom. This time
we are lifting our voices today because we believe that you are the kind of adults who really listen. Keep Stonemill and Travilah students together at Cabin John Middle School. We trust you to do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you to Yuna and her friends and brother, I
believe. Right. If we can play Susanna Montezemolo, please. I'm Susanna Montezemolo, chair of MCC, PTA Gifted Education Committee, discussing math, acceleration and enrichment. A reminder that Maryland Law
Board policy and M.c.p.s regulations all require access to enrichment and acceleration for gifted students in elementary school. Compacted math is critical for gifted students who remain in their home school. It is often their only challenge if M.c.p.s.
Tightens placement criteria for compacted math, fewer students will qualify, potentially far fewer. Some schools may no longer offer an in-person class and pivot to virtual. Yet the effectiveness of virtual compacted math has never been evaluated, and it places heavy
demands on attention, organization, and independence for elementary school students. Students should have access to in-person, compacted math. If their school doesn't offer it, they should be bussed to a nearby school that does, or at least offered automatic
approval to such a school as compacted math standards. Tighten M.c.p.s. Must also carefully plan for how to serve advanced math students who remain in grade level classes. Meaningful enrichment requires guidance on the deeper mathematical work that will
replace grade level content. The core curriculum alone is not enough. Advanced students need more than amplifies enrichment options. Meaningful enrichment will require clear guidance, training, coaching, and oversight. However, the
parents of gifted children are skeptical. We have been here before. Last year, when the enriched literacy curriculum was eliminated, M.c.p.s promised that teachers would provide enrichment in all levels classes. Yet our members report that this is not happening. Their children are
bored and unchallenged in Ela class. We cannot allow this to happen in math as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. We had some openings, and I'm going to call the folks who came and signed up. If you hear your name, please come up. That
would be Diana. Avram, Alex, Matt and Steven Sarnak. If you heard your name, please come
forward. Hello, members of the board and Doctor Taylor. My name is Diana Avram and I am MCPs, PTA Vice chair of Gifted Education Committee. I am
speaking on my behalf today. Our PTA committee has been advocating and mean to maintain cohort advanced math and English classes, including access to compacted math. I am appreciative of all the moving parts of the new math curriculum. However, despite a
year of meetings and communications with M.c.p.s. This is the first time I am seeing the plan for English and Math. Enrichment and acceleration to be implemented in three months, per the presentation. M.c.p.s. Will eliminate compacted math and
model one Ela classes for fourth and fifth grade. Instead, M.c.p.s proposes delivering enrichment and acceleration through cluster grouping within heterogeneous classrooms. I have some questions. M.c.p.s. Has struggled for decades to implement effective
differentiation. How will cluster grouping be effective and ensure daily access to enrichment and acceleration for gifted learners? How will acceleration happen in regular classrooms? Will students be regrouped in different classes
for math and Ela? Will cluster groups include students with very different achievement levels. For example, the presentation combines group one with groups four and five. What training, coaching, and ongoing support will teachers receive? How will M.c.p.s ensure this is
offered year round in every school? What oversight will M.c.p.s provide to monitor whether appropriate clusters are formed and whether the promised enrichment and acceleration is being implemented with fidelity on a daily basis? While the new math
curriculum has some enrichment built in, to our knowledge, it does not offer acceleration within grade level classes. Who is developing this acceleration material? Is it being left to the teachers and principals? Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hi, my name is Alex Mazzara. I am actually May is Mental Health month and I'm actually a patient at Cornerstone Montgomery. And I came here because believe it or not, I
was working out a Bauer Drive rec center and I was there was an incident and I, I laughed at a couple of students, what they said or what they did, and they were on their cell phones. And I came back the following day.
I was reprimanded on the fifth and I stayed away. But I'm sorry. Are you an employee of M.C.P.S. A former employee? M.C.P.S. former employee? Yes. Okay. So I'm sorry. But anyway, I'll I'll cut to the point. I'm
sorry, but I know you want to say your piece, but we can't hear any allegations of employment here because we have to follow a process. So just like I said, am, I am I, am I at the beginning that any personal issues I have a
disability. I'm sorry. No, no. And that's that's that's okay. I just wanted to explain because if there's an appeal process and if you appeal, then there's a whole process that we need to follow. And I need to
ensure that you are aware. No, no, it's nothing like that. I just I was doing my own research and I had a eureka moment and I noticed that, okay, as we're pushing, as we're pushing AI and students to use
the internet, there's an indirect correlation with emotional intelligence. And basically the question that popped into my head when I did my research, you know, they didn't address me directly. It says, if you see on the street
a stranger on the street, how would you react? So I'm encouraging as a preliminary baseline, everybody here to go home and use online resources to test their kids, test
themselves and, and, and even reach out to family members and other states and jurisdictions and see if we can come to the same conclusion to get rid of school violence. You know, the shootings that happened at Wooton and, and B-cc. So they
don't happen again. And I yield my time. Thank you, Alex, I appreciate it. I thought you had some kind of grievance of a personal matter, and I wanted to make sure that you were not you were not putting yourself in a position of disadvantage by coming and talking to us.
Okay. So I just wanted to clarify, but just an incident and I had a eureka moment and I thought I would bring it here. I didn't know where to bring it because everybody's been using me like a racquetball. We understand and appreciate that
you took the time. I can wait in the back. I appreciate you can just stay right there. Mr. Steven Sarnak. Yes, hi. I'm here. I'm a parent of a kindergartner at Barnsley
Elementary School. I'm here because child safety is my primary concern. My kindergartner experienced severe distress while on school grounds and was admitted to the emergency room with an evaluation that became necessary. That matter has been
referred to CPS. Prior concerns already existed and were communicated to the administrative staff at Barnsley. Mr. Sarnak, I'm so sorry. I don't want multiple Mr. I'm so sorry, but this sounds. Again, I apologize for
interrupting so. But I can leave my personal bit out and I would invite all of you to close sessions. Hear my testimony that said, please can you turn. I would invite all of you to speak either with me or with the Ombudswoman to
understand my specifics. What I will say is that I've been turned away multiple times from the school, seeking counsel or resources to make sure that my son is doing the best that he can. I'm doing the best I can for my son. I will say that one
of the ways I got turned away was due to a no walk ins policy. Mr. Sarnak, I'm going to stop you again. Just like I told Mr. Matt. I think any of these can come back to us, and it is important that we have no bias
in this situation for us to make any decisions. And I just wanted you to know if if our if our staff working with Mr. Sarnak over there. So you have one of the best working with you. That is true. I talked to Mr. Turk, who advocated for me
to come here and speak with you all, and miss. Well, I. I would suggest that that would not be the the the right way to, to come and do this. It would be, it would be I do you are you not working with Miss Farber
from our staff? I can walk out. Okay. Can you do me a favor and speak with our staff about the situation? What I want to say, what I want to say, though, outside of my situation, is that to me it is wholly
inadequate. County public schools, and that administrators feel that they cannot do anything or tell me that they cannot do anything. They are guests in the school. I think that everybody that is in the school system has a gift to deal with children,
something that I don't have, and I respect every single one of you for what you do. But the children deserve better. And you know, I'm only here for safety. I shouldn't be turned aside for doing what I believe everybody in this room should
be doing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I appreciate it. Miss Farber is going to speak to you. With that, I believe we have a couple more video testimonies that I didn't have on my list. Okay. If we can, please go to the video
testimony so we can finish public comment. Is it ethical for the athletics office to cancel gymnastics for over 100 gymnasts in order to give one of their children, who is a cheerleader, a third season of cheer with stunt? It is inappropriate for the athletics office to make decisions that
benefit their child and harm. Over 76,000 other female M.c.p.s students with nepotism. It is inappropriate for the athletics office to lie to the media. Nepotism is not okay. Lying to the media is not okay.
This is not okay. Is it ethical for the Athletics office to lie to the media about the number of gymnasts, when they have the correct statistics? The Athletics Office has claimed a several media outlets that
there were allegedly under 100 gymnasts in 2025. M.C.P.S. is the only county in Maryland offering stunt, but that's not a problem for the athletics office when it benefits their agenda. The other 18 high schools are in flagrant violation of title nine, a federal law by refusing to
offer gymnastics. Breaking the law is not an option. The truth is there were 127 gymnasts last season. That is a lie of over 28%. That is not an accident. M.c.p.s. Teaches kids math is a professional margin of error of
28% acceptable? How would you feel if your salary was suddenly 28% less? Or if your straight A student was given a D? Is it ethical for the athletic directors and principals at 18 M.c.p.s. High schools to violate title nine by refusing to offer gymnastics
to their female students? No. It is a violation of federal law. Has the Athletics Office upheld the res values of integrity, equity and access? We have documentation for all this evidence, and so does the Maryland Attorney General. You can choose to stand with
nepotism and liars, or you can choose to stand up for the female students of M.c.p.s. We are serious about ethics. Are you? Can we now see Danny Johnson, please? My name is Danny Johnson and I'm the Blake
High School gymnastics coach. I'm also a class of 2008 graduate of Blake and a member of the gymnastics team. I'm here to plead with the board to assist the gymnastics community to overturn the decision to end the sport. Girls and women's sports are undervalued. M.c.p.s. Athletics raised core values has a major flaw regarding
equity and access. Women make up 20%, possibly less of the high school athletic directors in the county. The spring season already seems shorter. Our first day of practice is a few days to almost a full week behind the rest of spring sports. There's AP exams, the M.C.P.S. All County Dance
Ensemble for the Superintendents Performing Arts Awards ceremony has only one dress rehearsal, so students are forced to miss the championship meet. There are two Instagram accounts connected to the athletics department. As of March 2026, there were a total of three gymnastics posts between 2021
and 2025. As of April 2026, a total of 19 posts were made on the initiation of stunt cheerleading and only 11 posts in 2024 on the initiation of girls flag football. May 5th, 2026 was our County championship meet, and four posts with mistakes and incorrect gymnastics
terminology were made. Families who can't afford to participate in club sports heavily rely on school PE and extracurricular activities. Gymnastics similar to wrestling as an individualized sport, there's a known decline in girls sports participation. A strong option to positively work on those
numbers would be gymnastics and all m.c.p.s. High schools students might not like the physicality of basketball, flag football or cheerleading and can benefit from the artistic aspect of gymnastics. The athletics department held meetings and made decisions without the affected stakeholders. I'm lucky to have
an aide who supports keeping gymnastics. However, the decision to get rid of it is a chronically lazy decision most males make regarding girls and women's sports. How is offering gymnastics at seven schools equitable? While it seems the timing of the final decision to cancel was deliberate and
saving the sport is next to impossible. Can we please play Eleanor Lerner's testimony? Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Alana Lerner, and I'm a Montgomery County mom of three young kids. My oldest will attend Rosemary Hills this
upcoming school year, and I'm a proud third generation public school educator. I taught high school biology as a TFA corps member, and for the last decade, I've led career readiness workshops for young adults. I have a confession to make. Last month, the night before my
daughter's kindergarten school tour event, I had a slight panic attack. Even though I'm a diehard public school advocate, and even though my husband is an M.C.P.S. alum, I was scared about what I was going to see on the tour. What if I saw screen use everywhere? What if
I learned that my daughter would be on Chromebooks daily? What if all the hard work my family's put into screen limits for our young kids would be for naught? For the first time, I sat down with my husband to consider potential private school options. Thankfully, that night at the school event,
my concerns were assuaged by school leadership, and they reassured me that their instruction did not incorporate tech use during kindergarten. But the fact that this is a possibility is concerning. I'm still worried about future years beyond kindergarten, and I am not alone in my dilemma.
Just the other day, my neighbor shared that one of the reasons she selected a private school for her child was that the school prioritized traditional pen and paper. There's a lot at stake in this policy. The ripple effects will impact future enrollment of M.C.P.S.
students and risk, prompting an exodus of children who have the means to attend private school. That would be a very sad outcome for our society as a whole. And so I urge you to revise the policy to, one, implement clear screen limits for elementary and middle school students. Two conduct a
screen time and edtech audit before further tech integration, and three prevent the adoption of student facing AI tools. I thank you for your time and consideration and can we please play the last video? That would
be Melissa Raggi. Hi, my name is Melissa Raggi. I'm a parent of two children at Wayside Elementary, and I am the gifted and talented liaison for the PTA. My questions are on behalf of all parents. What is
happening to compacted math? Will it be offered next year for fourth graders in elementary school as it has been offered in the past years? What criteria is used to determine placement in compacted math? Is the criteria
changing from the last few years? Is it the same? What is it? We are not getting answers from our schools. And if fewer children will be in compacted math, how will M.c.p.s provide meaningful enrichment for above
grade level students who remain in grade level math? And how will M.c.p.s make sure that that enriched enrichment is actually provided? Thank you so much. Thank you. This will conclude public comments. The next business meeting of the
Board of Education for public comment is Thursday, May 21st of this year. Sign up for public comment will open on Thursday, May 14th, 2026, starting at 6 p.m. In addition to the online sign ups for public comment, we allow for in person, same day sign ups when
space allows an allocated slots, maybe filled on a first come, first serve basis on the day of the meeting. With that, I will open it up to see if any of my colleagues have any comments. Miss Yang oh thank you. I do not see a thank you first for
everyone who came in for to testify to give you public comment, I actually really glad I'm here today. I was going to fly out to a graduation tomorrow for my son. I don't
see Miss Hansen's testimony in Bulldogs. Do you have one? Did you share that with the staff? Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. I have all of the evidence that I cited highlighted throughout. Thank you. And then I'm going to save
all the math questions for later. We have math presentation. And then I want to ask it was mentioned about ly speed had a parent portal for parents. Can we take a look
at that feature of the light speed? And then I want to thank all the parents from Travilla and Stonemill and the kids. They're darn cute on the video. When we get a chance, can we
understand? Because a resolution was mentioned, say, can the board do a new resolution on boundaries? I want to understand that we talk about addressing this in elementary school boundary study, but what are some other
what is the process outside of boundary studies to adjust articulation? Okay. Noted. Anybody else have any comments? Okay. Just thank you all for
coming. We appreciate your comments. And we're going to be moving on to the next item, which is 7.1. That will be the policy, I guess, educational technology. So some of you folks might want to say for this. The next item is a review of public comments for policy.
I guess educational technology. I will now turn it over to my colleague, Vice President, Miss Wolff. As chair of the Policy Management Committee. Thank you, President Rivera. Evans. This afternoon, the board will receive a presentation on proposed revisions to policy I
G. S educational technology, including a summary of public feedback received as well as recommendations for policy and regulation updates, professional learning and guideline development regarding
emerging technologies and education. On October the 16th, 2025, the board took tentative action on this policy so that it could be distributed for public comment. Public comments were received and reviewed by the Policy Management Committee
at its meeting on February 26th. Today. Those comments will be presented to the full board with the intention of taking final action on revisions to this policy at the May 21st Business Meeting. With that, I'll turn it over to the staff
to walk us through the public feedback and recommended revisions. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Miss Wolff. Good afternoon, members of the board and Doctor Taylor, could you introduce yourself to. Yes, thanks. Lesley Turner Percival, legal director in the
Division of Legal Services. With me at the table are Kimberly Fields, chief technology officer. Nicki Porter, chief academic officer, and Nicole Little Cook, coordinator in the Department of Instructional Programs. Next
slide please. So today we're on step four of five. In the development process of this policy, the review of public comments. The final step in the process will be for the full board to take final action on the policy. At the May 21st
board meeting. As a recap, work on this policy began over a year ago with in depth meetings with stakeholder engagement groups, where discussions provided the opportunity for stakeholders to raise issues that concern them with artificial intelligence. And
when staff reported back to the Policy Management Committee in May of 2025, staff advised the committee to strengthen the existing bones of policy. I guess rather than drafting a new policy solely on AI, and the committee decided that IG s
already provides the foundation for technology integration and that by refining these principles, we can ensure that M.c.p.s. Is prepared not just for artificial intelligence, but for any other emerging technology that follows. Next
slide. So there were several key themes raised by responders. And we want to note here three policies that address these themes and topics raised in stakeholder meetings policy, AC nondiscrimination, equity and
cultural proficiency, addresses, equity and nondiscrimination concerns, and is also echoed in IG s as a guiding principle policy. IKA addresses grading and reporting standards, which Mrs. Porter will speak more to shortly. And there's also
policy G A, which is the behavior intervention policy. There were additional themes that the team will address today, including ethical use and oversight, data privacy, security of data, academic integrity, equitable access,
and staff support. Now I'll turn it over to Miss Fields. Good afternoon. Thank you, Miss Turner. Turner. Percival, to better understand the next slide, please. Thank you. To better understand the needs of our schools and community, we
did gather meaningful stakeholder input from spring 2025 that is contributing to the foundation of our process. We did develop an inclusive approach to collect feedback from teachers, school administrators, community members, parents, guardians, students, and others, and this
broad engagement allowed us to identify the concerns, challenges, needs, opportunities related to emerging technologies. The feedback is directly shaping the language and direction of our policy, and the initial data provided the information of how this could be done with
a variety of considerations with attention to data policy, privacy, ethics and responsible use has been the focus of most of the feedback. Next slide please. As Miss Turner shared the public comment, feedback was solicited this past fall
for an extended period of timefy 2026, we had 591 respondents. When we see our graph one. Our respondents consisted of students, parents, guardians, community members and staff. 42.8% of the feedback were from students and 38% were from a
parent guardian of an MCPs student. Graph two it is clear that the policy applies to integrating emerging innovations and technology into M.C.P.S. instruction and operation, and is not specifically addressing any one tool. Respondents 30% strongly
agreed, 40% agreed, 17.6 were neutral, 11% agreed and 4% strongly disagreed. When we take a look at graph three, the graph. The draft helps me understand that the board directs the superintendent to establish the procedures necessary to implement the
board's principles. Respondents 18% strongly agreed, 42% agreed, 26% were neutral, 11% disagreed and 4% strongly disagreed. Next slide please. We ask the following two questions of concerns from survey
participants. Please indicate if there's an implementation issue in the list below that concerns you the most. The top three areas of concerns from respondents were authentic learning, with 31% acceptable ethical and responsible use, 31% and academic dishonesty
17.5%. Our next item. Please indicate if there is a principal in the list below that concerns you the most. The top three areas of concerns were supervision of student use, limiting or detecting academic dishonesty at 39%, procedures
for selecting and approving new technologies at 26%, and staff support and training at 13%. Next slide please. The public comment feedback form gave respondents the opportunity to provide in three areas. For
each recommendation section, common themes were identified. The themes further substantiated the need to be strategic and being responsible in an AI adoption, meaning that this is truly a cross-divisional collaboration that not only impacts the
division of technology services and the teaching and the division of teaching and learning, as well as others. So one recommendation for issues to be addressed and applicable policies and regulations. Two recommendation for professional learning and three recommendations for guideline
for professional Development. Next slide please. We have added additional language in the policy as it relates to technology use in the reference sections for awareness. So instructional practices shall appropriately balance the use of educational technologies
with a variety of instructional methods and modalities in support of active, engaged, meaningful and socially interactive learning. In so doing, M.C.P.S. shall consider the age and developmental level of students and recognize the importance of human oversight and monitoring of the amount of
time spent with digital content, and provide a variety of learning methods and environments. Another aspect technology will be strategically employed as a research resource to advance curricular goals, and three technology textbooks, digital devices and print and digital
learning resources shall be strategically selected, acquired, distributed in a way that makes them usable across the widest range of individual variability. The AI tools should not have bias, discrimination or harassment from the use of the tool. The sections have added language
based upon this feedback. It was the board's intention that students and staff recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world and act in ways that are safe, legal and ethical. Students and staff shall engage in learning
around academic literacy and digital citizenship so that they may cultivate and manage their digital footprint and identities, and be informed of the short and long term implications of the personal information they may actively or passively make available when creating, obtaining, and
distributing personal information in digital communication. Engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions. Next slide please. We have adjusted language as it impacts academic dishonesty and
learning. We have a section for artificial intelligence that discusses the intended use of the tools as a form to support and not replace authentic learning teaching, but to optimize the workflow and areas appropriate artificial intelligence, generative. Predictive Agentic different
forms. The board recognized the transformation potential of artificial intelligence, including systems that classify, predict, or process data, as well as generative AI technologies capable of producing original content such as text, images, audio, or video to enhance instruction
and operations. These tools are intended to support rather than replace, active teacher led instruction and authentic learning and workflow optimization as it relates to the environmental concerns and alignment with the board policy. ECA sustainability The board is
committed to mitigating the environmental impact of deploying emerging technologies consistent with the MSD Environmental Literacy standards. M.C.P.S. will provide opportunities for students to understand the environmental impact of human activity, so M.C.P.S. shall
consider longevity of hardware to reduce the accumulation of electronic waste, as well as M.C.P.S. shall encourage staff and students to consider reducing unnecessary resource use and the resource consumption associated with the use of artificial intelligence. Next slide please. We recognize
that data privacy is essential when evaluating digital tools and developing related policies. To effectively support students, we must ensure educators receive professional development that builds the necessary digital literacy foundation for curricular shifts. We are also enhancing our internal vetting processes
for online tools to include AI specific reviews, such as conducting an algorithmic impact assessment to better understand how these tools are trained. Additionally, we are working to ensure that all digital tools and use are properly identified and remain relevant. Language has been
included in the appropriate sections. Miss Little Kuk will continue on the next slide please. To teach and model digital literacy to students, staff must be informed and knowledgeable. Plans for
professional learning are underway. This professional learning may potentially consist of a general level learning for all employees and then subsequent learning opportunities, which could be tailored to specific roles in M.C.P.S. This approach will help M.C.P.S. level set a
common understanding of terms and broad uses associated with emerging technologies, as well as provide more tailored trainings to address specific uses of emerging technologies in different roles. In addition to the trainings provided at a
central level, M.c.p.s. Employs a certified school library media specialist in 206 of the 211 M.C.P.S. school sites. Media specialists are uniquely equipped to teach both students and staff about emerging technologies. As it is part of
Comar 13, a 0504 programs for school library media services and also msde state standards for school librarians. As a county, we are well positioned to roll out trainings both centrally through our talented technology office team, as well
as at the school level. By leveraging the position of the media specialist in each of our 206 school sites. Next slide please. Lesson planning, differentiated learning, and
personalized learning are a few of the strengths that emerging technologies bring to the field of education. By using these tools effectively, staff can save time and boost productivity, but they must be trained on how to use tools that are safe and effective.
This will be. This will be a very important piece of the professional learning experience. Miss fields and thinking about data privacy. Thinking about data privacy will be a key element of the M.C.P.S. district wide professional learning plan and guideline development. Safe,
legal and ethical use of digital information has long been a part of our staff development and has been included in annual compliance training for all M.c.p.s. Staff users need to know which tools have been vetted and are approved for use. A cross-functional team has been working to improve and update
the vetting process, including criteria for evaluating AI tools or digital tools that have been added containing AI functionality, such as chatbots. The Division of Technology Services will continue to work alongside teaching and learning, as well as others, and procurement to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of all
of our digital tools. Miss local age appropriateness is an important consideration for each decision made in the classroom. However, it is. Students are never too young to begin learning about the basics of safe and ethical use of
devices, so we provide lessons around these topics in our digital literacy and well-being curriculum for K through five students, students receive at minimum three lessons per year in elementary school, and all lessons have foundational skills for AI literacy woven
throughout, such as questioning and critical thinking, promoting digital health, of which digital balance is a part, is also a key factor in being responsible users of technology, and this is also being taught through the Digital Literacy and Wellbeing curriculum. Next
slide please. There are two pieces to the topic of academic dishonesty, proactively defining what acceptable use looks like for assignments, and giving students the tools to avoid academic dishonesty when
completing an assignment. To address these pieces. To address these pieces, we are researching what other districts and states have done to explicitly and proactively address how emerging technologies such as AI can be used in assignments, while acceptable use will differ
depending on the grade, the assignment, and the content, we aim to build the capacity of all teachers across all disciplines to explicitly state when AI is allowed, how it must be credited, and which assignments or parts of assignments it is prohibited.
The outcomes of these actions will be understanding academic integrity. Expectations will be that students understand expectations for academic integrity. Transparency prevents misconduct and helps students see AI as learning as a learning tool, rather than a
shortcut. For the second part. As a district, we provide the tools necessary for students to be successful and honest in their assignments, such as a citation generator tool, which actually includes an AI citation component and a plethora of age appropriate online databases to encourage
safe inquiry and research. The job of the media specialist is to teach information literacy, digital literacy, media literacy and digital citizenship as defined by Comar 13, a 0504 programs for library media services. Media
specialists are uniquely positioned to teach both staff and students about these topics to promote a digitally safe and digital, digitally healthy learning environment. Digital balance is an important part of digital wellbeing. The digital
literacy and wellbeing curriculum that is taught at each school includes lessons on the impact of technology on mental health. Parents can access this information through the M.c.p.s. Website entitled Your Character Counts and on this page there are links for
parents, students and staff to educate themselves and find resources about these topics, including current research. We'll now turn it back over to Miss Turner, Percival, and Miss Fields to wrap up the presentation. So the final step
in the process will be for the full board to take final action on the policy at the May 21st board meeting. Next slide. And we'll turn it over for discussion. Thank you. The board members have any
additional questions at this time? If so, please turn on your light. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation and all of the information. Just in the spirit of transparency, I did contact Miss Seabrook, who is the
general counsel for M.c.p.s. To let her know that. I just think that we could be a little more thorough in our legal drafting, which I know is not necessarily the purview of any of you per se. So I'm not going to go
through those here. But just again, in the spirit of transparency, I guess just some general overall like sentiments and questions that I have is, and I say this based on my reading of the policy, all of the information we get, lots of
emails and comments and things. I have my own children in M.c.p.s. As you know, one elementary, one in middle, and I'm trying to figure out where and here does it talk about us actually teaching the kids to use these tools. Because I will
say, and I know you hate when I was little stories, but I had a computer class and that's how I learned how to type really fast. And that was really helpful when I went into law school or when I had to write papers, because I wasn't getting stuck on that piece. And we're asking our students to use these tools,
even if all we're talking about is a basic Chromebook at the upper levels right here. Write this essay on a Chromebook. Well, have we taught the kids how to type well so that they can do it and have it not take 10 million years, or they can navigate the tools properly,
right? If we're assigning an assignment where we're asking them to create something with some sort of a tool, but we're not teaching the kids how to use the tool. That just seems like a huge oversight to me. I know that we do do some digital literacy in the sense of like, because my own kids, oh yeah,
we learned about this and we do it at home too. What's, what are solid sources or things that you can trust, etc. Right. And that's fantastic. And I'm happy about that. But that's only one that that's the information receiving and searching piece. It's not
literally, how do I type this? Or how do I use, you know, Microsoft Word or things like that. So I just get concerned about that piece. And maybe this is not the policy that it lives in. Maybe there's another policy or some other section, but I just don't see that piece.
And that gets really concerning when we talk about think about some of the comments we heard from some of the folks who testified today, right, about what the kids are using or not. Now, I will say there are also some kids who seem to manage to follow all the rules just fine. My own child takes his Chromebook home and like it
barely gets open. They also don't use them very heavily at the school he goes to. But we should have consistent practices, right? So can you just help me understand how we have a policy like this? But then where are we actually teaching the kids how to use
this stuff? So thank you. I can start with that question. And it may not be reflected in the policy, but I certainly think that as we continue to work with schools around guidance with AI, we know we have a lot of work to do with training our
staff on the use of technology and AI. And so as we work with them, we agree with you that there will be a level where we would expect them to be doing some work with students on how to use certain technology
appropriately, and that would be included at the beginning of the school year, or maybe even at the beginning of certain assignments, how you might use something appropriately. So that is work that we have to do as we move forward. And we recognize it may be elevated
more in a regulation than than the policy. Okay. And then I'd just like to call attention to and it's I'm looking at the policy. It's page seven of 12 and it is under numeral seven, which is ethical and responsible use. And I'm
focusing in on subsection lowercase c. And when I was reading through this, the question that I actually wrote down is, is it fair to ask kindergarten through fifth graders to do this and maybe even sixth through eighth
graders? Right. And for the benefit of the community, who is not looking at the paper I'm looking at, it's a section that talks about students and staff using these things responsibly, safe, legally, ethically, which of course, I want our students to use. But that itself, the
standard is not the issue, but again, we're putting something in front of at least some cohorts and ages of children who I have to and having being a parent of some of those ages of children. Right. Do they have the maturity and the
impulse control and various things like that to do that? Right. And so I think just those are the some of the things I want us to be mindful of when we talk about who gets access to what right are we setting kids up to fail? I mean,
we could even talk about that with sending Chromebooks home with some of our secondary students every day. Right? I just got a charge for for wear and tear, which I didn't even know we did. Do we charge for wear and tear for desks or school books or school busses or anything else? So I just it
gets really murky on the parent end, and I just have to wonder if we are always using these when we need them versus when sometimes it might be more convenient. And I say that as a parent of a child whose English language arts class does not use Chromebooks at all. So I
know it is possible. So I'd just like to address that. Just to be clear, when I talk about digital citizenship and digital literacy and digital wellbeing lessons in students for K through five, those lessons don't necessarily mean that students are on a device and,
you know, learning, you know, interacting with the technology rather that there may be other activities like a book that they're reading about a topic. And so, so not all of the, the digital literacy lessons that we do are exclusively on Chromebooks. We just want to
make sure that those foundational skills that we start training students at an early age to critically think about their use and how they're using the technology. And I'm sorry, I'm very aware. Again, I have a fourth grader and a sixth grader. We have an amazing media person. They love media special, right? And they
learned all of those things. And you're right, it didn't always involve that. Sometimes they're talking about research methods or various things, right? That's fine. But there are times when they are on them. And my question is just if we have a second grader or a fourth grader even. Like,
should we be holding all of these different ages of students to the same standard, right? Like I'm, I would expect a younger child to just maybe grab the knife not knowing it's a knife versus a teenager, which is why I don't put the knives down by the little kids.
I just going to interrupt because we have a couple more questions and I'm going to go to Miss Stewart, but answering which she can answer. But I think Miss Stewart had a follow up question to to that. Or is it totally different? Oh. Oh sorry. Go ahead. So I was also
just going to add to that, going back to policy, I guess it is a board policy. And once it is adopted, assuming that it's adopted, then there's 120 days after that that the regulations related to the policy will be developed. And that is where you may see more
detailed and concrete expectations in terms of what what communication and messaging is being sent to the schools and what the expectations are for use. And I do want to just add, certainly we have been asked by the
MCCPTA tech committee to look at our use of technology, particularly with our primary students and and early elementary. And so we are going to take a look. We need a better sense of how schools are using the technology. We'll be
doing some surveying of schools to understand exactly is it being used for homework or certain assignments, particular assignments and curriculum so that we better understand. So when we're working with schools, we're training schools. We can help them if they are heavily
using technology to, to scale that back. So we, we will be doing some work to see as much as possible how we can have less technology at our primary levels. Thank you, Miss Stewart.
This is was a lot of work I can see. And I just want to go to the whole policy itself. It's being changed from educational
technology to emerging technologies in education. But all of the technologies aren't necessarily emerging. And emerging has its own definition. So to be more accurate, I think maybe we should just go back to
calling it educational technology, because there were there's old technology, there's new technology. But we keep revisiting how we use technology. And I know you do have a whole section, new section on artificial intelligence. And there might
be a time in the future there will be another technology we might have to revisit and add another section. We don't know what we don't know, but I think we need to just talk about how we use technology technology, period. And this is really what this does. And it might mean we
need to go back and look where we are adding emerging technologies versus technology, because a lot of times it would incorporate that anyway. Is there any way maybe we could revisit just the the naming? So
we are clear that we have a educational technology policy. And it's not just about emerging technology. I would join that request. Thank you, Miss Yang. Yes. So I think I
mentioned this and I want to get in the policy committee meeting, and I want to get your answer in this draft. There are a lot of great things. Everyone worked really hard on this. The
section, you know, policy is the big umbrella. When we come into more of how how to operationalize day to day, that we tend to have regulations, right? And then, of course,
under regulation, it's the day to day how we what we actually do. And that comes with training, accountability and, and all that wonderful stuff. So this is a policy, but it acknowledges concerns about
academic honesty, knowledge, concerns about data privacy. Okay. So big framework, I want to understand how are we going to roll out regulations in terms of these areas? And if we
are, what what's the timeline we're looking at? Okay, so we are looking to add information in our code of conduct and possibly our grading and reporting policy, as we are
looking to make changes there to add statements around. We already have statements around academic dishonesty, but maybe having a larger umbrella that incorporates some of this work. And we are looking at other school districts and what they
are doing around AI, academic dishonesty. Our goal over the next few, actually, I don't know. I think it's the next few months we'll be looking to bring back some adjustments to
some of the other policies and regulations that we have that align with this work around dishonesty. So a few months. Okay. So about so yeah, because really people, you know,
teachers don't go to a policy, correct. Oftentimes, but they, they want to know what, what's the requirement for student disclosure, right? What tools they can use, how it's being
done consistently, you know, whether it's dishonesty, privacy protection or, or usage, you know, how is consistent across the board. I think that is the regulations work. So that so I would like to see we
further the work. So to make it can happen. We can we can it can happen in our schools. Thank you. I'm sorry. Can I send my comments before we we go on. So this is a really big
topic for me because it affects indirectly our kids, how they learn, how they interact, the information they received. But this is also concerning in a sense, when I see how many people took advantage of the survey, right. Being such a big
topic for a system as large as M.C.P.S. with 155,000 students and the amount of staff who took who participated, I would have hoped it would have been a larger number. Not that I'm
saying that it's not. It's not valuable the people who did it. But for a topic of this magnitude, my hope would have been that we had a bigger interaction from the public. So hopefully now that this is going to sit to the 21st, we
can have some feedback. I don't know if would you like to comment? I know, go ahead. Yes. In the fall. Yes. In the fall, we actually had 10,000 respondents. Thank you. That was not that was not shared with us. Yes. You were holding back. I was holding back. I'm
sorry. Yeah. We actually had 10,000 plus respondents in spring 2025. Then we asked for additional feedback this past fall to make sure we were covering everything, especially,
as I will say, artificial intelligence has evolved to make sure we weren't missing anything and putting that out for a second round, because we even extended it this past fall to go into January. So we were giving the feedback from the
most recent October to January. But in 2025, we did have about 10,000 plus respondents. Okay, thank thank you. I really, I really appreciate that that that makes it makes me feel a lot better. And I'm sure the public does too. I think at the
end of the day, we want our kids to, to be very savvy with technology. I know that I'm so behind because I always look at my kids to even put on, you know, my credit card on my phone or my ATM card on my phone. Like they are so innately just knowledgeable
about it. But with that comes great responsibility. And I think also the school system cannot do this by themselves. It comes responsibility also on the parents. And just like we look at Chromebooks and so on, I would really suggest that
parents also look at the phones that they give their children. I have seen so many kids so engaged with this phone at dinner time and other places. And you know, they're like three, four years old. And to me, it's so concerning that we
live in a world that, you know, is part of, of, of educating our children through a device rather than talking to them. I would rather see our kindergartens, our first graders, second graders to have paper and pencil and be able to learn that way because it is
more creative, you know, it's, you know, and then you have a lot of mental health issues with solitude and interactions and so on that come from these devices. So there's a lot more that we need to learn of the consequences of what these devices will have long term. I
am not from that generation, but I see the consequences with my nieces and nephews and so on, how they're not as interactive as some of us were at that age. But my biggest issue sometimes
is the firewalls that we have to ensure some of the parents who testify today or are brought to our attention, is the access to inappropriate online chats and so on that can filter through, you know, those
instruments that we use for learning. We want them to learn positive things. We don't want them to learn other things that they should not. And it's not for their age and it's not appropriate. So for me, it's that kind of firewalls and that kind of oversight, but that we
also need to teach our kids and give the tools to the parents to talk to their kids at home about those consequences of doing that. But for me, it's a two way street. You know, school system can do so much. We spend time with your kids, you know, so much. But it's also the responsibility of the
adults who are taking care of the children at home that also need to be very vigilant of what their children, you know, are, are taking in, not just from our Chromebooks, from when they're online and when they're on their phones as well. So
with that, Miss Stewart, do you have something additional to say? Go ahead. Yes. Sorry. In the purpose. I would like to see somewhere where we talk about reducing possible harm. I
think that would help us move forward. And then as research comes in, etc. and it's brought to our attention, then we can have that in the purpose. So we have the good and the bad, and we know that we need to strike
that balance. Also, speaking of the good and the bad, I don't think I saw anywhere here where we might have an opportunity to, as we get more information, to actually educate our parents,
because let's just face it, parents today are busy and they're going to be busier than ever because people are going to have to get maybe second or third jobs just to be able to afford to live. And the screens could actually come out even
more. And sometimes parents don't have some of the education about what all that extra screen time could do to your. I mean, I can just say even when I was, you know, a parent, a young parent, I, I think that would have been
helpful for me to have as well. It's like, okay, here, here's what could happen. And this is how kids can get, you know, on their home computer and get into places where maybe they shouldn't be going. So I just
kind of wanted to see if there could be maybe some kind of like education piece being that that's what we do is educate. It's just a thought. I'm not tied to it, but it's a thought. Thank you, Miss Stewart. And I'm just going to and I'm going
to let superintendent speak. I don't want to. But again, we're looking at some major cuts in our system coming up. So anything that and we really are this is probably going to be
one of the toughest years that Montgomery County Public Schools have seen in the last, I would say, 30 years. Doctor Taylor, do you want to say some comments? Yeah, I I'm certainly sympathetic to to that plea in particular, because, of course, the more information our community has, I think the
better we're able to manage a lot of situations. I think that there are some real practical limitations, and I want to adjust everybody's expectations to those practical limitations of what our capacity really is, and how that capacity is likely to be constrained significantly
in the near future. Okay. Well, if there are no additional comments or questions, this concludes the presentation. The Policy Management Committee will recommend that the board proceed with final approval of this policy at its May 21st
meeting. With that, I'll turn it back over to you. President Rivera-Oven. Thank you very much. Vice President Wolff, we are now moving on to item 7.2. That will be policy BFA policy setting. I will turn it back to
just going back and forth. Just a little little ping pong going here. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. The board will now receive a presentation on proposed revisions to policy BFA policy setting, including a summary of public feedback received, as
well as recommendations for responding to public comments regarding policy development. On January the 8th, the board took tentative action on this policy so that it could be distributed for public comment. Public comments were received
and reviewed at the February 26th meeting of the Policy Management Committee today. Those comments will be presented to the full board with the intention of taking final action on revisions to this policy at the May 21st Business Meeting. With that,
I'll turn it over to staff to walk us through the public feedback and recommended revisions. Thank you again, Miss Wolff. Next slide please. So we are on step four in the
development development process for this policy, the review of public comments and the final step in the process will be for the full board to take final action on the policy. At the May 21st board meeting. Next slide. We received 225
responses from the community, of which the majority were from parents guardians of current students. Next slide. While we discussed this at the Policy Management Committee meeting in February, we want to remind folks that among the policy
setting issues that interested respondents the most were around who is on the board, Policy Management Committee, and how the board decides which policies to review each year. Additionally, respondents raised concerns about transparency and community
voice. We are recommending updates to the draft policy in response to public comments, particularly in the areas of community engagement and implementing monitoring. You'll notice in your draft that we have highlighted in gray those updates we are recommending on
pages three through six under sections C2 and C3. Looking on page four, beginning at line 139, you will see that we have substantially reworked this section on public comment.
These clarify what the existing policy meant by lie on the table for 21 days. When the board recommends the minimum public comment period. Staff published the draft policy and a feedback survey and notify the public through a variety of
means, such as the Thursday Things to Know, emails, texts, canvas and principal memoranda. Beginning on the next page, line 154, The board has the discretion to extend the minimum 21 day public comment
period for Other engagement methods that are more time and resource intensive. Policy a. B A community engagement describes a number of these techniques that involve more in depth outreach and engagement.
The next update is at line 172. The existing text had specifically referenced students and comments recommended including staff in that section. We also revised the language after receiving feedback from board members at the Policy Management Committee
meeting. To make the language clearer. This section now reads student and staff shall be involved in developing or revising board policies that affect them. This involvement may include participation in meetings or soliciting input
throughout the policy making process. And the last updates I'll highlight are at lines 200 and lines 204 to 206. We clarify our standing practice of publishing the name of the respondent with their comment.
This is parallel to public testimony at a board meeting. Neither of these processes are anonymous. We also clarify our standing practice of redacting those comments that identify issues specific to individual students or staff. Public
comments are not the proper channel for raising personnel concerns or seeking redress for specific student concerns. Next slide. And with that, we are ready for discussion. Next
slide please. Okay. Thank you. The board members have any additional questions on this policy draft. Rita Montoya thank you. I'm just once again, in the spirit of transparency, I want to be clear that I did contact Miss Seabrook, who is
the M.C.P.S. general counsel, about just some kind of legislative drafting points of consideration. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no additional comments or questions, this concludes the presentation. The Policy Management Committee will
recommend that the board proceed with final approval of this policy at its May 21st business meeting. With that, I turn it back to President Rivera-Oven. Thank you very much, Miss Wolff. Now we're going to be moving to the
discussion of item 8.1, which is Acylated Enriched Learning and Literacy and mathematics. All right. Thank you, Madam President. Today's presentation builds on the board's April 30th discussion regarding the adoption of the new pre K
through 12 through Integrated Algebra two mathematics curriculum, and focuses on acceleration and enrichment, not just in mathematics, but also in literacy. We are at an important crossroads for M.c.p.s. And we are responding
to updated Maryland state requirements focused on increasing student success and expanding access to acceleration, while also introducing high quality curriculum that provides stronger resources for enrichment and advanced learning. Today, we are sharing
an updated approach to acceleration and enrichment for both mathematics and literacy that are aligned to the Maryland guidance and informed by national research and expert recommendations. Let me be very clear acceleration will and
must continue to be available for students who demonstrate readiness for advanced learning. It's in your policy, and it's our best practice. Ultimately, this work is about ensuring strong outcomes for students while increasing access to
advanced learning opportunities and providing support for students who need to thrive at high levels. I'll turn it over to our Chief Academic Officer, Nicki Porter, to introduce her team and begin our brief presentation today. Thank you
very much, Doctor Taylor. Miss Rivera-Oven and members of the board. So I have here with me my team, Sheila Berlinger, who is supervisor of elementary mathematics doctor Stephanie Brandt, who is the director of curriculum implementation and support, and Miss Christy Clark,
who is the supervisor of Accelerated Enriched Instruction. And so, as was stated last week, you all approved the math curriculum. And we have obviously received a lot of questions about how we
will implement acceleration and what is the status of compacted math as we move forward. And so we are going to talk about math acceleration today. We are going to share our updates
around acceleration and guidance from the state. Also guidance from external experts and also data. And then we will provide you an update around literacy. And last year we shared with you that we were implementing two different
models of literacy enrichment. And so even though we have not had yet a full year, we are sharing with you updates about what we are seeing so far and our recommendations. Okay. This
aligns with our strategic plan, goal one, and making sure that all of our students demonstrate high levels of academic academic achievement. And I just want to reiterate what Doctor Taylor said that acceleration will and must
continue. And we want to make sure that message is loud and clear. We are talking today primarily about elementary school acceleration, and we are going to only touch upon secondary very slightly. But
this is mostly an elementary presentation. I also want to make clear that we are not forgetting students who aren't accelerated. It's just that that's not what this presentation is about today. So just want to keep that in mind, particularly for those who are listening. That's we're not
forgetting that population who who may not be in this category. Again, acceleration must and will continue at the elementary level. I was asked to share information about our current math, acceleration and
compacted math and to be clear about what it is. As we move forward. And so I do want to just begin with a very brief explanation about how we ended up with compacted math from
from kind of a historical perspective. We've been doing compacted math for 17 years about. So it's been quite a whilt was a part of an initiative, actually, prior to compacted math, about 20 years
maybe ago, we had an initiative in M.c.p.s. Where we were focused on keys to college readiness. That might ring a bell to some of you. Remember that ring? Yes. So and one of the keys to college readiness
at that time was algebra by grade eight, because algebra was seen as a gateway to entering college and being successful. And so we moved as
a district to have all, if not all, most of our students in algebra by grade eight, around the same time, we had the implementation of the Common Core State standards, and we also had a very large push in
our community to have a more accelerated path for some students. And remember, algebra is a ninth grade course according to the state of Maryland and across the the country. It's a ninth grade course. We were offering it in
eighth grade, and now we were beginning to move algebra to seventh grade for some of our students. And in order to achieve algebra in seventh grade, we needed to have a more accelerated plan starting in
elementary school. And so that is how compacted math came to be, a more aggressive acceleration plan. And we offered acceleration in grade four and five for students who
needed that additional acceleration. And so acceleration and compacted math in grades four and five included math for math five and math six, three years of
mathematics in two years for students. And it also those students then would take accelerated math in grade six and algebra in grade seven. So that was how students were able to get to algebra in grade seven. In order for students to
be in this course, it required that there was the curriculum required either skipping content or removing certain content, or it also required just briefly touching upon
certain concepts very quickly. And so that is the compacted course that we have today. Students are identified for compacted math at the end of grade three, and then they begin the track on on the path
of acceleration. And this group of students take high school math for six years, two years in middle school. And then the four years of, of high school, because compacted math accelerates so quickly, it can be very difficult for there to
be on ramps. It's difficult to get in to that course after. If you weren't initially identified. And additionally, the identification of students for compacted math does vary from school to school. We in
Central Office take the first step in identifying students using data that we have, and we send that information to schools. And then from there, schools will add more students for a variety of reasons. Either they know their students
better. We're just looking at numbers. They know their students. They may add students they believe are ready. It may be because they want to make a full class of students, or it could also be at a parent request. So there are a variety of reasons why the student
identification varies from school to school. So one of the things that we have had over the number of years. Again, we're probably at about 17 years of compacted math, is
feedback from external experts. We had our curriculum audited in 2017, Johns Hopkins University shared with us a concern about how much compacting we were doing and removing of content, and warned
us that students risked not having a depth of understanding of the mathematics because we were skipping so much content. Additionally, shortly after Education Resource Strategies Group ERS also did a study of our curriculum, and they shared
with us that while many districts have algebra in grade eight, our approach in grade seven with such a large number was something that they had not seen, and they shared with us the data that you see on the chart with the percentages of
students who are participating in compacted math as a cohort. So what you are looking at is a cohort of students who were taking compacted math grade four, and you can see the blue line at the top represent the
Non-pharms students who are white and Asian at about 60%, and the other colored lines represent students in grade four who represent other racial and demographic groups. And the
decline over time of enrollment in the most accelerated pathway once they got to grade eight. So they did express concern that students were not able to stay in that pathway. Additionally, ERS shared with
us their that they when they observe other school districts and their participation in accelerated math courses, those students tend to perform at the highest levels in their state assessments. But in M.c.p.s.
That was not the case. And so when we look at our data of students who are in the compacted course, again, that is the goal is to get them to algebra by grade two. I'm sorry,
by grade seven, not by grade two. Two years of acceleration. Let me restate that, please. Algebra by grade seven, which is the two years of acceleration. This is what we
see. We would expect these students to score a four or be in the blue for state assessments in terms of having the highest level of proficiency. And what we see
instead is that this cohort of students, these are fourth graders in 2021. They are now eighth graders today. And this cohort of students, 23% of them demonstrated the highest level of proficiency, and 11% of them
were not proficient in the yellow. Once these students moved to grade five, they are now 12% at the highest level of proficiency, still around 10% in the yellow. And then grade
six, you can see the level of proficiency goes down to 11%, and 20% are now not demonstrating proficiency. If we skip all the way over to the algebra slide, you can see
these students took algebra on in either sixth grade or seventh grade. And now we have only 5% of the students in our compacted course, demonstrating
the highest level of proficiency. And we have 26% of the students not demonstrating proficiency in algebra. There's that gray bar. That just means that those students have not
yet taken the algebra course yet. So they're eighth graders. They'll likely take it this year. So if you go back to the seventh grade pie chart, that pie chart represents students in in this cohort of
accelerated students, with all of the different assessments that all of the seventh graders in this cohort took. So it could be algebra, or it could be the grade seven assessment, or it could be geometry. Is that true? So this is where our
most accelerated students are landing in seventh grade with a variety of sets of assessments. So we can see that 32% of them are not demonstrating proficiency. And we even have some that are in red. So we
really want to be very clear that acceleration is important, that there are students who need it. But we also recognize that right now we have many students who do not yet have
the firm foundation that we need. And so we believe that acceleration needs a different approach. And so what we are coming to you today is to share how we want to move students
through the system with acceleration, but a different approach that will allow them to demonstrate a greater proficiency as they move forward. So I'm going to hand it over to Miss Berlinger. Good afternoon. Good afternoon everyone. It's a pleasure to be
back. Thank you for having me. Thank you. You know, I just want to reiterate that the data you were just looking at really plays out what both Johns Hopkins and ERS had meant had
brought up and surfaced for us ten or more years ago, that this is where we were headed, that with the numbers, we were not likely going to see the continuing success rate. It's just it's not the natural trend.
And as many of you know, we are also rolling out a new Maryland State Department of Education mathematics policy that also speaks explicitly to acceleration and its policy and the revisions and recommendations we're making
for instruction are outgrowths from the National Association for Gifted Children from Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, and from the Maryland Model of Gifted and Talented Education that works very closely with the Maryland State Department of Education. And
that takes the approach that acceleration is important, and there are students who need it. But acceleration, like many other student needs, is not all or nothing. There are times in instruction where many students
need acceleration, and there may be times when they need a deeper understanding or an enriched, rigorous understanding of the grade level instruction. And we need to be more nuanced in how we're going to bring that work to our students. When the Maryland State Department of Education
talks about acceleration in their policy, they are talking about the likelihood of at most 5% of our students really in that threshold. And if you look at that series of graphs again, and you look at who's I'm going to say left standing in the
blue with that score of four in algebra, the percentages of the kids that are two or more years accelerated is really only about 5% of our students. And if they are on that math pathway and they are learning at that level, we shouldn't be worrying that they're not going
to be proficient on the state assessment. This needs to be an appropriate match for students. And so we need an acceleration approach that is going to be more nuanced to make sure we continue for that 5% and match everybody else where they need it. Okay, we can go. So when
you take a look at the slide on the screen, the column on the left is the one that Nikki just shared at the very beginning that defined what our current state of compacted math does. And on the right are the recommendations we're going to make for how we're going to
adjust our approach. We need to make sure we're not skipping content and that we preserve studying math with the depth of understanding that students really need it. But the two things that I want to there's three things I'm going to elevate the first two together flexible access to acceleration,
along with ongoing identification. While Nikki described how students were identified to be to find an on ramp for accelerated math. The other side of that equation is an opportunity for an off ramp
when students need it as well. And in our current configuration, there's a considerable amount of social stigma when an off ramp needs to be engaged, and that's something we need to remove in order to make sure we're preserving student math identities. So with flexible
access to acceleration and ongoing identification, you're going to see how students can move in and out of acceleration as they're experiencing their instruction during the day. And your next question might be, because this was mine, how do we hold ourselves and our teachers accountable for ensuring that the acceleration
will happen? Beginning in the 2728 school year, the state of Maryland is requiring individualized acceleration plans for every student receiving acceleration. There are reporting requirements related to student performance on the standards also coming
with the policy, and there's an acceleration individualized acceleration plan also required for students that's coming. So there is both the opportunities for making sure that we instruct with greater nuance, and also hold ourselves accountable to make sure that the students get what they need.
Next slide please. Oh, you're doing it. Sorry. So what I just shared with you was the why we need to change. Now, let me tell you how we do that. And
there is a model that is endorsed by both the Maryland model for gifted education, as well as the National Association for Gifted Children. In fact, Maryland just updated their policy and recommendations as recently as
January 2026, and they've been working with districts across the state using the cluster grouping model in order to ensure that we're creating cohorts of peers in every classroom. So students with similar needs are addressed by teachers who are in that room with them. Okay. In this model,
a group of identified gifted students is cohorted together. You don't spread them all out. You make sure you have a group of about 3 to 6 or 3 to 8 in every room. So they have ongoing opportunities for enrichment and acceleration. There's a photo of a of a book on the right. It is one that
many of our, our, our collegial districts across the state have been using. So I encourage you to take a look if you have a chance. Next slide. So let me tell you how we do it. What you see on the screen right now is a snippet of what's called the
Numeracy Development Framework. It is a component of the Maryland State Department of Education's approach to the math standards. And the the image on the screen is related to number, sense, number and operations and number sense. And if you notice going across
at the top, it says by the end of grade three, I can. By the end of grade four, I can. By the end of grade five, I can. A current third grader will be expected to decompose and compare numbers through 10,000. But if I have a precocious child who is ready and
understands that 10,000, and I want to stretch them, accelerate their learning or telescope their learning, you may hear any one of those three words. I will move to the right hand column, and I'll look at the grade for where I'm moving into comparing numbers up to a
million. And then if they continue to need more, we go to grade five, where they get through the millions, but also into the decimals and the thousandths. So the linear progression is there and amplify Desmos starts with stretch built into their
curriculum and is partnering with us to help us identify where we would be integrating the extended grade level content into each of the classrooms. As teachers are preparing to address acceleration needs in a current classroom. Next slide please.
So what does it look like in terms of who's in the room? I'd like you to take a moment and look at the group of kids sitting at the tables on the left. They are wearing five different colored t shirts. Pretend that's school. Blueberry Elementary's grade
four. There are five broad levels of mathematical needs across the grade for that blueberry elementary, clustered, and that was done using a variety of data points. We're going to speak to that in a few
minutes. But what happens is in order for the teachers to be able to effectively provide instructions for the students, we have to limit the range of the children sitting in front of them. You can't have all the way from one end to all the way to the other, all in the same room. It's it's too many needs.
So at most you'll see that these two fourth grade teachers will have kids in three of the five groups, but they won't have kids at the opposite ends that are going to need too much from each of them. So the numbers help drive. The other thing that's really important
to remember is that there are going to be times where some students need intermittent enrichment and acceleration. There's going to be some students who need it more frequently, and there may be some who need it consistently. And those are the strategies and structures that amplify.
Desmos will be partnering with us, along with our CFT and our entire pre-K 12 math team, in order to support schools and train teachers. I am going to hand it off to Doctor Brandt. Thank you Sheila. This slide
shows our current students who are enrolled in math 4 or 5. And so for those students, they will continue in the existing compacted sequence that we described earlier in the presentation. We're not disrupting their pathway. These students will continue to
progress. And you'll notice they progress through accelerated coursework in middle school and then in high school have access to precalculus ending with calculus and additional course options for students. Here's a
future model. You'll notice that this future model creates multiple flexible entry points into accelerated math beginning in grade three. So what you'll notice is that there are grade three math students who have a little bit of a different experience, but you'll notice
that they, instead of identifying them at that one point, they're able to move in and out of acceleration and have the opportunities to really demonstrate their readiness for acceleration. You can see that many of these pathways still lead to
accelerated coursework in middle school, as well as in high school, when you'll notice that they are still taking pre-calculus calculus AB, BC and might have opportunities for additional coursework. This approach really expands access
while maintaining really the rigor that we expect for all students. Next slide please. So you might wonder how we will identify students and m.c.p.s. Will use multiple data points including target map, m m cap
and curriculum assessments. We are currently already starting conversations with amplify Desmos Math to really better understand their unit assessments and what they will tell us about students. This really creates a more comprehensive picture of
student readiness and growth. Importantly, this identification can happen continuously throughout the school year. Students who demonstrate readiness later, you know, will still have opportunities to access enrichment and acceleration. We're also strengthening how we
communicate with parents. So parents will receive quarterly progress updates aligned to standards, so they clearly understand how students are progressing. The acceleration will also be indicated on a student's report card. So when a parent receives that report
card, they'll understand that acceleration pattern for their students. This approach really, you know, commits our work to transparency, responsiveness and equitable access. Next slide. So I know that you're
thinking, you know, there's a lot of professional learning. This is a new approach to the way that we've done this work. And so of course, implementing this successfully really requires significant support for all educators. We will be incredibly thoughtful in our
implementation because there is, you know, there's really strong instructional support that's needed. You know, professional learning will not be a one time training. Teachers will receive ongoing support from math leaders, from cross-functional team instructional specialists,
and from amplify Desmos math coaches. You know, we'll really we'll start with that cluster group instruction for current fourth grade teachers. And we'll, you know, all teachers will be studying the standards and how to use our curricular
resources to plan for enrichment and acceleration. The focus is really on authentic practical implementation. You know, we're intentionally building educators capacity so that acceleration is embedded in all high quality classrooms in
Montgomery County. Next slide please. So when we consider the timeline for implementation, this is the current school year. So during the 2025 2026 school year, you know we will have professional learning to create these clusters. You know, we
are really focused on preparation and capacity building already. We're doing this, this right now. We'll have office hours and trainings for principals and math leaders. We had an A meeting with principals following the board meeting last Friday, and we plan to do that tomorrow
morning as well. We'll also have our math CFT instructional specialists really supporting the transition for our teachers and really helping them through this shift. Instructionally both in the curriculum materials, but more importantly,
the implementation for the 2026 2027 school year will, you know, have summer professional learning for all of our classroom teachers, ELD teachers, and our special educators will also begin that cluster grouping for the rising
grade four students. And like I mentioned, those accelerated grade five, our current 4 or 5 compacted mass students will complete that course next school year in the 2027 2028 school year. That cluster grouping will start for rising
third grade students. So that, you know, goes back to that visual of where we have the multiple access and, you know, on points for students, you know, in third grade, we'll start that cluster grouping for them during the 2728 school year. And we'll also transition
to the new integrated algebra one curriculum. And then lastly, in the 2028 2029 school year, we will roll out our new integrated algebra two curriculum. You know, t multi-year rollout really allows M.c.p.s. To learn, to
adjust and to support schools throughout implementation and aligns with the MSD math policy. Next slide please. So strong implementation also depends on strong communication and partnership with families.
Family engagement is really an essential component to the success you know of this transition. So our office will coordinate with the Division of Family and Community Engagement, will host community meetings and other outreach opportunities. Where we'll
implement will introduce amplify Desmos math will, you know, make sure that families understand this new approach to acceleration will also make sure that I know that last week we mentioned the caregiver hub, but that really is a unique feature within this curriculum
that we'll make sure that families have access to just so they better understand the tools and the guidance, you know, really to support their children at home. You know, our goal is for families to feel informed, supported and connect,
you know, connected throughout this transition. We all know that when our schools and families work together, great things happen for students. I will now turn things over to Christy Clark, the supervisor in our office of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction.
Before she speaks. Miss Rivera-Oven, would you prefer to have questions for math or continue through the presentation? I know I have some colleagues who have to leave. Miss, you want to ask
you a question now? Sure, yes I do, thank you, I appreciate that I have a plane to catch, so I first thank you. I know the state has changed the standards. So we are trying to, you know, to see how the math
pathway work out and, and focus on. Enrichment and acceleration. So my question is first is on page 13. You have a chart and you have two different line
lines. The slide 132 different lines and use this is what will happen to my fourth grade taking four and five. This is showing two different tracks. Is it just because what they choose to take in middle school
that's impacting the tracks? Or what does this mean? Thank you for that question. So there are two different options for students in grade six. And you'll notice that there's one student in that pathway that goes into accelerated math six.
And there's another student who goes into our grade six pre-algebra. And really it'll be data that that will make that decision. It won't be a student's choice. Will this be the same for the students coming up? Not the students.
This year in the fourth grade compact in math. So this is what for the future students. So this is for the future students. But you'll notice that fifth grade student who is receiving that math five with acceleration will still
continue to move into that accelerated math six class or the grade six pre-algebra class. So there will be no change for students. Okay, so then then you go down to my questions about enrichment and acceleration. I'm a little bit
confused. A few months ago, we talked about tier one instruction and we talked about how the system is emphasizing the tier one instruction. The whole class is, is, you know, like, this is so important to
do. Okay, tier one instruction. Now we're talking about math. Then we'll say, okay, we have to do differentiation. How we visualize that and how we say,
if at the beginning, I, I, I guess we will still have whole group instruction, then what we understand is these students, you know, maybe need a little bit different pacing. That's
why they in 4 or 5 and 5 or 6, but you are still going to do whole class instruction. How how does that work? So thank you for that question, Miss Yang. And I think what's really exciting about this happening right now as we're moving to
amplify Desmos, is how their math block is structured every day. It always opens with a warm up. It has either 2 or 3 mathematics. I'm going to call them activities, but learning opportunities. And then
typically some sort of exit ticket, informal assessment. And within those activities and even within the warm up, the teachers will have the opportunity to use the stretch materials for some kids or the
strengthening the grade level materials for some kids, they don't all have to be taught the same way at the same time. They can be using different materials or actually doing two different activities simultaneously, because that's the way amplify is structured and what they have available,
and they're helping us integrate the next grade level as well, knowing that our state policy is requiring acceleration. They're actually doing similar work with middle school teams in Saint Mary's County. So this is not foreign to them. They know what we're
asking for. So okay, so what we are saying is we are asking the teachers to differentiate at every step of the instruction, whether, you know, we call all these tier one instruction. So
not whole class, even, even when we instruct, this is differentiated in these small groups. Okay. So. My question is this is this sounds good.
Have we talked to our teachers in this process of designing this new model? What is their feedback and. And what is the accountability measure that
this actually happened in classrooms? So the teachers have the autonomy to use their data to decide when they need to bring everybody together and when they're going to split them up. So it's not every component, every day somebody is doing something different.
It's not two different classes in the same room. And those are some of the strategies and practice that our coaches and the amplify Desmos coaches are going to need to help teachers with as they're taking on this new approach. That's number one. Number two, we have not had the
conversation with teachers about feedback yet, because these changes have been driven by the state policy more top down than they have bottom up. I think it's going to be critically important as we begin to provide supports for them and introduce these ideas
that they weigh in on what's working and what's not working so that we can make adjustments going forward, but also at the same time, make sure we stay within the bounds of the of the policy, stay beside the standard. The state hasn't the
state is not dictating how we doing. I think we your presentation is saying the systems way of how you want to deliver it. I would join that comment. There are a couple of.
So so so what what I can she answer that though? Yeah, there are a number of components in the state policy that are required. Number one, we have to dismantle exclusionary tracking that's in the policy. And so if we have to dismantle exclusionary tracking and still
provide acceleration in differentiated ways, we have to find a way to do it. And so what you saw is how we are honoring what the policy is telling us we need to do, so that we can do it more effectively. This is what the state is dictating us to do.
Specifically. I would disagree with that interpretation. Could you hold on a second? I'm just I just want to follow up on on clarification from Miss Yang, is this is this is specific to the state's regulations that we do this. I would ask if it's their understanding that that's
or their interpretation of the policy. Because again, I think what Miss Yang is saying and what I'm going to say when it's my turn, is that I don't agree with that interpretation. And we have a bunch of state laws and policies and all kinds of things. You can you hold on to your turn. So the state in 2728
is expecting districts to implement acceleration in starting in grade three, with the expectation that we are not having exclusionary, exclusionary tracking, that we are not skipping content, and
that we do have flexibility within our enrichment and acceleration, and that cluster grouping. And that model is actually what they helped train many school districts on as a
model for meeting the needs of students. So that is something that they introduced to us. But we also saw through our external research and, and yes, Christie is actually in AEI has been doing some work with training some of our teacher
leaders on, on that model. I guess what Miss Yang and myself, and I think miss some, some of us are a little bit not clear on is expectations are not the same as requirements. I mean, I'm looking at I'm looking at
the outcomes of kids who were accelerated math. Our expectations would be if kids are in accelerated math, that they will be able to pass the Mcat, but they're not. So. So and then I'm looking at the chart of the kids, you know, black and brown children who
start in math and then they decline, you know. So, so I guess what my, my, my question is expectations or requirements to me are not the same thing. And I think this is where some of us are a little bit stuck.
But then there is this, this lead of the teacher to decide when they're going to have a track for the gifted, for the kids who are who have more rigorous math in their classroom. But that is a, that
is a decision that the teacher is going to make. Is that is that what I'm hearing? And on top of that is our one day training in the summer. And then three level of math levels
in the class. I want to see how we operationalize that. You know, that that is where and also when you provide data, because I really need to go. If you can have a comparative
group, right? This group of students going this way. Heartbreaking. But what are other group of students doing? Other group of students going this way or other students also going this way? So that will be
a more comprehensive presentation of data than I will appreciate that. You can certainly provide that. So I just want to clarify, Miss Rivera-Oven, around the state's expectation for providing acceleration for the students
whose data demonstrate they need acceleration. So it's not expected that it's for everyone. But but that their data says, for example, if they earned a four on the state assessment that they require acceleration.
So that is when I speak about what's required, it's based on data. And when we talk about students who need the next grade level of instruction, that is because they have demonstrated proficiency or mastery of the grade level, and
they are ready to move to that next level of instruction. I think we understand that. I think we're we're having a hard time visualizing that, how that is going to be implemented and
happen when you have 30 kids or 28 kids in a classroom who some of them might be at different levels. And I guess if I may, my my concern is, are we going
to be losing up the rigor of the expectations on certain kids? Because I think traditionally, especially with Latino kids, or I could even say my gender, we're we're not
expected to accelerate in math as others are. So I'm just a little bit leery and concerned that we're going to, you know, because we have some teachers that are incredibly experts and they have been in the classroom with expertise for years. But
we also have some very new teachers who this might be their first year of teaching, and they might be thinking they're doing something great by lowering expectations and saying, oh, you know, you'll catch up. But there's very little window, as we all know,
to catch up when. So I'm very concerned about the message of rigor and expectations, because by looking at the data that we have here with our with the kids, you know, especially black, black, black and brown
kids who started higher, right? I'm trying to understand how did that happen? And they started here and now they're here. And that's why it's time to do something different. The selection of the cluster
grouping model, there's a there's an extensive white paper behind it written by the National Association for Gifted Children. And we can forward that if that would be of interest. And they are in alignment with the Maryland model for gifted and talented education. And this this is the
approach that is most highly recommended in order to actually narrow the ranges, even when you're speaking to the idea of a particular class, a general algebra one class, or an honors geometry class, or
math four or math four five has ranges in it. Not every child sitting in the room is all at the same level. So teachers are used to having children of different levels. Now we're going to teach them effectively how to manage it and how to provide appropriately and limit
the range. And as you know, we have a large group of ML learners in our classrooms. We have not even discussed that group in this in this presentation. And that is an area, as you know, that is of concern because I don't see them at all reflected on the
data, but there probably are. Just because you're ML doesn't mean you're not gifted and talented, as we have said many times. So how are you going then to be able to also achieve. That sweet spot of balance, to
be able to also be able to meet their needs, right? So you have all these components that a teacher has, and I just want to make sure that we do right by, by, you know, by supporting our
teachers with, you know, with this implementation. So if you can answer that, that I would appreciate it. It's about yeah. So specifically to our ML student population, you are
absolutely right. They, many of them are gifted and highly able students as well. And the same level of planning that goes into language objectives for mathematics and for our ML s we
would expect to occur for, for this these students as well, who might be in a more accelerated cohort of students in a group. So, so that same level of planning and expectation would be there. Miss Stewart, Miss Montoya,
okay, since we're on the slide, I'll ask my question about this slide first. Class A has group one. And then it skips all the way up to four and five. But class B, they're all close together. So if the Group one
kids are ready to be in group two, can you explain how that would work in that classroom? If if they can move between groups, they can move between groups. There are a number of informal assessment tools and things that are going to be
used through instruction. Also, you want to create the clusters as you're forming your classes, just so that you get peers in a room together who will work together and can cross groups and hear from each other, but also that you don't leave a
student on their own. You don't leave one over here and one over here. So you create the groups in order to create the classes. Once instruction begins, you're going to have students for whom you're going to provide acceleration based on what they're demonstrating, their understanding of the math to be. And you can pull them in
and move them around. And, and you should be. Now back to the, the language question. We should be developing language every day for every student because students are developing math language, whether or not they're also developing English. So that is an integrated part.
That was another reason. One of the major reasons we took amplify Desmos had to do with their depth of materials related to that as well. But these groups are really just to show you how you take it in a higher grade level and create two classrooms. And then from there, the flexibility that in
and out the on the off or the have it today, have it for this subunit. And then I'm back to some grade level learning to solidify my understanding of multiplication before I move back into it. With the next fraction component, kids can move back and forth. The
accountability feature is really going to come in, because the state is expecting us to report out at least twice a year starting next school year, how students are progressing towards their standards, and then the following year, any acceleration a student is receiving needs to be needs to
have an individualized acceleration plan. So there's two. Accountability measures built in. Built into this. I guess what was confusing me is that this groups at the opposite end of the spectrum,
without some of the in between, I will. I will tell you when I, when I have typically seen it, and I'm going to let Mrs. Clark jump in on this one if she would like. When I've typically seen it, I would have seen possibly one, two, four and then two, three, five. You could do that also because then
you don't get the one five. Yes. So it might just be the way we put the numbers on the screen. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Then on slide seven, this is the trajectory. I would like to see
what happened because we've had this happening, you know, for a long time, long before Covid, we've been looking to see what happened before Covid. I like to see more graphs. I would like to see what happened before because we made changes in the curriculum through time.
And it might not be it could be a function, I don't know because I don't see the numbers here. So we do have information we can forward to you. Before Covid, when the state of Maryland was requiring bridge projects in lieu, some of you may remember bridge projects in
lieu of passing the state exam, we were seeing a ballooning number of students in algebra one who weren't passing that state exam, that were going to need bridge projects, and we were having some heavy duty conversation about reducing the acceleration because of the percentage of both seventh and eighth graders that were going
to need those bridge projects and what it was doing to their high school schedules. So this was happening even before then. And we I'm sure we have. I'm sorry, I still have those reports we can send over. Okay. I'm so sorry. It's it's a lot
here. Page 14. I see the third row. Column row says math three with acceleration. And that's the only one that also includes
starting integrated algebra one in grade seven. Is this insinuating that you have to start acceleration in math three? I'm just want to clear that up. I don't think it's necessary. I think these are samples of what could happen and what's nice, what I think
is nice are having had students move through our old versions of this is that the questions are asked multiple times a year about the level of instruction children are getting. When are we adjusting it? What are they receiving and what do they need next? Student by student in a much better way. As opposed to
you're in this course, which automatically puts you in this course, which automatically puts you in that course. It it is going to create a lot more fluidity. And also the, the later grades. I know a lot of kids that do algebra in grade seven, not a lot, but there's
some as they move up, they don't take calculus a, B, they go from pre-calculus calculus BC and they're very successful. Very. Is that still going to be available? Okay. And then lastly, you well, almost last
you, you have showed this plan to state partners and they have been supporting. Or is this would this be new to them? Or was there conversations going back and forth? We have quarterly briefings with all the supervisors across the
district, as well as we've had stakeholder meetings where every district has had to have stakeholders cross stakeholders join monthly. As this policy is rolling out and these conversations around the acceleration policy and the acceleration support documents have been discussed at
infinitum in multiple in multiple environments. And you will see as you go across the districts that these are the directions most folks are moving in. Okay, so we will not be an outlier in the state. Okay. We are actually the outlier for how early we accelerate right now. Okay. They're trying to pull us back
there. There is a. Integrated algebra. One is intended to be a grade nine course. If students need acceleration, then the goal is integrated algebra one in grade eight. They're not heavily in favor of integrated algebra one at all in grade seven, because of how deeply you have to understand
the mathematics and how how developmentally along you need to be so that when you hit those pre-calculus and calculus courses, you're able to stay with it, stay in it, and be successful with it. And the earlier we're doing this acceleration, and you can see that in that first set of graphs, kids are falling off.
Either they don't like it anymore, it's been too hard or it's not solid enough for them to make the leap. So I just want to let you know there are some kids. There's a spectrum, right? Absolutely. Some of our very highly gifted kids are actually more like two kids.
They're just not labeled to E, but they are because of just the way they're developing and their minds are developing. And sometimes academically or with math, they can handle a lot more in other ways not. And so
that's just something to take into consideration that we should meet all kids where they're at, right? We do. And so there will be a, it won't be a huge cohort, but there will be a cohort. And so and so, Miss Stewart, I do think it's really important for us to stress that algebra in grade
seven is still an option. We are not taking that away. Right. And so seven grade eight, grade nine, and even there might be some that do it earlier, but that is based on individual student and their data. We are not taking that away. And we do
course advance children all through elementary school as they're surfacing throughout the school year. Kids are moved along 100%. So the state of Maryland acknowledges that that's generally in the ballpark, where it maxes out at about 5% of your student body.
Yeah. So we're we're well aware and that is staying on the radar. Thank you. And my, my very last comment is this is what we're going to tell me if I'm wrong, what we're going to expect teachers to do, teach grade level standards, remediate unfinished learning,
provide enrichment and advance highly ready students. Is that would you say that's a fair assessment? Okay, so this this is going to thank you. Mr. Sorry to cut you off, but I'm moving to Miss Montoya because
we need to move on, Miss Montoya. Thank you. I have some concerns with a lot of the things that you mentioned here today, because I've read the math policy. I'm looking at the math guidance that was issued in January 2026. I've read the
section relevant to Gifted and Talented Education, the board policy, the board charge for Special Populations Committee, the regulation, and even in just looking at the math acceleration guidance from the Maryland State Department of Education. And I'm specifically looking for the benefit of the
community at pages ten, 11, 12, and 13, right, where they talk about the various approaches to acceleration. And one of them is the cluster grouping, right, where you would have these groups and kids could kind of maybe there's a particular concept someone's particularly
strong in. Awesome. We're going to give them that stretch that you're talking about or that enrichment, right? But then they also talk about targeted acceleration supports and they include things like, and it says, and I'm just going to read verbatim curriculum
compacting parents continued use close friends curriculum telescoping, right. And these are things that and they define those in the, in the initial part of the guidance and they talk about how you would. That's basically what we call compacted math these days, right? A year of fourth grade
plus half of fifth grade. Now, it may be good. And well, that the pacing that we are currently using for compacted math is not working and is skipping spaces. It shouldn't. ET cetera. That that may be true. I'm not going to disagree with that, but I don't
understand why we don't just fix that, especially because we just raised our hand to buy new, new materials. And so it would seem we're going to have to replace anyway, right. And so and again, it's supported, right? It says if a student in the cluster grouping needs more than the cluster grouping model
can provide, then the next step is these targeted acceleration supports. And it actually says it talks about the student who for example is in the fourth, fifth grade math kind of thing. Right. Then from there, if even that is, I'm just going to say
like, not enough, right? Challenge, rigor, whatever words we want to use in there then and it's subsection C, it talks about grade level, subject acceleration, moving ahead a grade level in math, and it talks about how you would do that, basically how
you would get there. And so it talks about, for example, and it says, as an example, a student engaged in a math 4 or 5 telescoped course who demonstrates mastery, etc. might go into five, six or grade six, right? And then it talks about once they're in there, you might then again
have the right. So because each time we're working there as the base, and I understand that, but this idea that all we need is this group cluster model. I just don't see how you can point to this document and support that. And when you look at Comar, which requires that
we provide each school system shall provide different services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program. And when you go down a few more, it says during the regular school day, right? So this after school summertime
thing that I know is referenced in some of the documents. I, you know, I just have to wonder whether they need to take a look at that, but I'm not on the MSD board. I, we also have our own board policies that require us to provide certain things for particular students. And we even have our own
identification method that includes those, you know, the cog at the end cap, all those good things. But it also includes, for example, teacher recommendations or teacher input. Because we know and I know firsthand, I'm a bad test taker doesn't mean I'm not
smart enough to be in your accelerated course. And a lot of our students are the same way, especially our black and Latino students. So I just really take issue with the interpretation that M.c.p.s is now based on. The new policy, which I'm holding in my hand,
is required to only provide this cluster grouping unless a particular test identifies a student as testing into a particular level, because I just don't see that supported here. And it's definitely not supported necessarily by state law. Right. And so I think what
I what I hear as I'm going to say, and I'm a parent of a child in compacted math right now, does it leave some things to be desired? Sure. But that doesn't mean we just don't do it right. We don't like I don't want a ceiling on my kids head. And I know you're going to tell me, but Miss Montoya, we're
going to differentiate, with all due respect to all of our staff and M.C.P.S. and all of our teachers, we're not able to pull that off. And I see it because I'm living it in elementary Carla this year, right? My kid has not read a whole book and he has an
amazing teacher. Adore her. Fantastic. But there are no real books being read, right? Because we moved to another model where we're putting everyone together and we're just enriching the students. So this idea that, well, it will be fine because we're putting 3 to 6 here and they're great, and maybe there's three kids
gone that day, and now my kid is the only one, or they're waiting around and they can't. They're only going to get through one lesson when maybe that group of kids could get through 2 or 3 on that particular topic, but they can't, because now the teacher has to come over here with group what have you because it's basically becomes a
rotation, right? So I'm just feeling a little confused as to this interpretation that this is what has to happen, because I don't agree with that. And I don't believe that that's true, that you only can have the cluster grouping model right?
From my read from looking at these things, it sounds like you need cluster grouping. You then also may need targeted acceleration where you're doing what's effectively what we call compacted math. But of course we're going to have different materials, right? Because we have a new vendor. And then you may also even have this,
whether what they're calling move grades, grade level subject acceleration, where you're just completely going into, right. And I actually have a child that did that as well, because he wasn't caught in the elementary and that's fine, but we made it work and then we got him into it. Right?
So I agree that we need to have different on ramps and off ramps, but I just really take issue with this idea that all we have to provide in elementary is this cluster grouping model, and it is going to do a disservice to children. And there are going to be a lot of families, because I'm going to tell you, just anecdotally,
a lot of families don't send their kids to our elementaries. We want to wonder about declining enrollment, because they're not going to get the challenges that they feel their kids need in our elementary school settings. And I think that is unfortunate because it's absolutely going to impact our school system. Now, as your
test scores. Look, if you're in fourth, fifth grade math and we're taking Mcat today, well, guess what? We started fifth grade math like a month or two ago. We haven't touched fourth grade math in a couple months unless we're doing reviews or providing prep for our kids for those tests and testing them at
an appropriate time in the window so that they can do that, which we have not done in the past. I'm not surprised to see that. I'm sorry. Do you have a do you have a question? Yes. My question is, can you show me how you believe? I don't believe this is following the policies. And in doing so, then
it's forcing us to then violate our own and potentially to violate the law, because Comber is the law. Right on gifted and talented education. So I just in some of the language you're using, right. I don't believe this is required to only do this. And so I want you to tell
me why you think it is. That's my question. If you want me to have a question. Thank you. So we are required to provide acceleration for students who demonstrate the need through data. And we are going to do that at the elementary level. And we are going to do that by
2027, starting in grade three. How are you going to do that? Are you going to put them in a group with other kids and they're in a little five person pullout group? Okay. So see, but that's what we're not being explicit about so that the community can understand what they need to advocate for, right? Because when you say it that way without me asking that
follow up question, it's easy for the community to to think, okay, great. We might call it, it might not be called compacted math anymore, right? Maybe we're going to call it accelerated math, but we're still going to have that cohorted group of kids that need that. But we're not doing that anymore. That's the
proposal on the table is not correct. Can we let her answer the question first? So one of the things that we tried to demonstrate in the visual with the students is that we recognize there is a large range of students in terms of
their academic strengths, and we want to reduce that for teachers. So that's why we were trying to show you that you might have five levels. You may have six levels of students, and we want to reduce that for teachers so that as schools are
developing their classes, they are putting groups of students together with like needs. And there's a smaller range for the teachers to have to instruct and plan for. Within that
smaller range will be groups of students. Some groups of those students will likely receive ongoing acceleration in their classroom. Sometimes they may get some grade level instruction, but they will also
be getting the next level advancement, because our goal is to make sure that students have a solid foundation. And so many of our students, based on data, are going to demonstrate a regular need to be accelerated. And that visual that we showed you of the grade
three standards next to the grade four, are what teachers are going to use to plan for and, and instruct students on. So yes, the standards are going to look very similar, but one student may need a grade level
standard or one group, while another group is going to require the next grade level up. And as teachers are planning in their collaborative groups, their teacher planning time, they are going to be planning to meet the needs of students who require acceleration, and
they are going to be expected to document how those students are performing and to the state and to us, and also on the report card, so that we have a sense of how students are articulating through that
accelerated path so that they have the opportunity to be in these more accelerated math classes as they get to middle school. So that is our our goal. All right. Thank you, miss. Thank you. Can you go back to slide 13, please? I'm sorry.
You let Miss Stewart ask multiple questions with references to slides and everything. So on slide 13, I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly because it looks like for our students who are currently in fourth grade that are taking what we call compacted math, that next
year they will all be in this new model that you're proposing. But that was not my understanding that students who are currently because, well, it says, what will happen to my fourth grade student taking it now. And so in your left hand column for 26, 27, those both
those blocks look the same. The model for the students who are currently in fourth five is that they will remain as a Cohorted class together to take an accelerated math five
acceleration, and they will be moving along the accelerated track and able to take algebra one integrated algebra one in grade seven. If the data supports that, or accelerated math seven. So they will stay
as a Cohorted class, which is slightly different than what we were describing for other students. Right. And so you could see my confusion because on slide four, you have the same term, right? Math four, math three with, I mean, it looks exactly the same, just a different number. But your explanations right now are two
completely different things, right? Because the math on the next slide on slide 14, when you say math three with Excel, math four with Excel, you mean the cluster group model, correct. But on slide 13 you have it labeled as math five with Excel. And I'm supposed to understand that that means. So
that is can we. That is our confusion. We can clarify that. Okay. And I have one last question. Did you confer at all with the legal team and M.C.P.S. about the understanding of these policies?
And did you confer with our twice exceptional staff member about any of these implementations or how it's going to work the proposal? So the twice exceptional individual is a part of our our planning team that we work with.
And in terms of legal. No, because we believe that we are meeting the needs of the students who require acceleration through the cluster grouping model, which is also a model that the state has worked with us in training. So okay, so let me see. Now
you're saying something a little different, right? That you believe you're complying with that component through the grouping, the cluster grouping model, which is different than saying we could have both of these, but we're right because it's making me what I'm, what I'm actually kind of hearing is,
yeah, maybe we could have both of these, but we're choosing to try to meet the accelerated needs and compliance through this cluster grouping model, which is very different than saying the state says we can only have the cluster grouping model. I did not say the state said we can only have the
cluster grouping model. The state says we cannot track. We cannot have exclusionary tracking, we cannot skip content. That's what we've been doing, right? So we could develop a cohort at Accelerated Math Elementary course that
doesn't do those things. And. Right. So I just I'm not confident that we are complying with the policy or that we interpret it properly. Right. But what is the avenue for that? Or we're just supposed to sit here and let this happen? No, Mrs. Montoya, you are not happy
with this, this, this recommendation. It's not that I'm unhappy. There's a legal compliance issue here, and I'm just told that legal hasn't even looked at this. You the. And the answer was that they are. And they are following what the state is requiring. No, she just told me they did not look at it legal. Did not look
at it. I'm sorry, but this is not a courtroom, so I don't know how to. Else it is if they're not interpreting the policy, which then is violating the law. So it is an issue. We still have to follow the rules and policies and laws. It doesn't matter whether this is a courtroom or not. We're going to agree to disagree. And
that's an issue that you have. And it's been noted. And I'm going to go to Miss Wolff. Okay. I want to thank you for your your presentation. I want to say a couple of things. In the seven and a half years I have been here, when we have the student leadership meeting,
this is the most contentious issue. The students have consistently said it doesn't work. So I'm glad to hear that they're going to be some changes made to it. A lot of it is that they believe just what you said when they got to upper
level math, they weren't ready because they hadn't learned the level that they they started at when they were in the compacted math class. I also want to say I agree, it does not violate policy. At least it doesn't
violate M.C.P.S. policy in any way, shape or form that I can see. So I thank you for that. I have a couple of questions. So I guess you've determined that implementation can be
successful. How have you determined that? That's my first question. And my second is, can you talk about what your plan is for evaluation of this? I'll take the first part. Thank you, Miss Wolff. I
appreciate your comments. The implementation of cluster grouping, as it's been studied by the National Association for Gifted Children, shows in in multiple places around the country how it has been effective for students so that
it increases access it, it creates a peer cohort, it increases confidence, but it's also supportive of social emotional aspects of children because it feels normal to be in one group one day doing one
kind of math, being in another group, another day doing another kind of math. But it's about teaching the teachers to help them feel confident with creating those groups and letting them and letting them flow. When they get to that point where they're going to let go enough to let the kids do that. We'ree're going to
ultimately build confidence in that math identity of the student, because there won't be a stigma for moving either direction. And so following the guidance and the research and the data they're bringing back has helped us lean in to say, this is a model that many, many of our students are going to
benefit from. Okay, but have you actually talked to any of the districts where this has been successful, or it's just been reported on to your knowledge? Christie. I know we've been talking about it across the state, across the state, across the state, but
nobody across the state has implemented this yet, have they? They have. I was just going to share. The research I've done around the state is around literacy. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So
what's your plan for evaluation? And let me just say one thing. I want to preface this. This has been a long discussion, but you know, I the board's direct the board is to set the policy. We set the policy. We've already set the policy. There
are no real changes to the policy other than that the state has now layered on something different. But it's the superintendents job to implement that policy. And that's what I'm holding you accountable for. And that's what I want to know, how you
plan to evaluate it, because I'm not a teacher. So this has been a great discussion. I'll go look at a classroom. I still won't understand it, but at the end of next year, tell me how you're going to evaluate success. And maybe you haven't thought of that yet. And I do
believe, like Miss Yang said, there needs to be a little bit of teacher input into how that evaluation is going to look. But if you have begun that discussion, please share that with me. Yeah, thank you for that question. And I really do appreciate you acknowledging that the teacher input input
piece is something that we do have missing, right? You know, we decided on this curriculum last week. And so we've been working really closely with amplify does since. However, when it comes to evaluation, we really are planning on doing observations. So we're going to be in classrooms really looking
at the data. But we're also going to develop guidelines. There will be guidelines around when students, you know, will have access to that acceleration and what that looks like. We're working really closely with amplify Desmos to determine, you know, within the standard, teachers will be studying the standard, but then what curricular
resource and material is used to ensure that the that it's matched to the standard at the grade level and then also extended into the next grade level. So we will develop guidelines when it comes to evaluation at the end of and you had mentioned school year, I would say quarterly. I think
that we agreed last week when we were here, we would come back each quarter just to let you know how things were going. And I think that's really important. It holds the work that we do, you know, we're accountable for that work. But then also there's a layer of school accountability as well. And so when we look at the
evaluation piece, it will be data. It will be how often students have access to acceleration and then what their data is showing, you know, in addition to those ongoing observations. And I know that I'm speaking, you know, very briefly about this, but we will
have, you know, specific guidelines. We'll have specific ways in which we evaluate, and we'll make sure that we come back and report those to you each quarter. All right. So real quick that that sounds great. I'm just going to be crystal clear. We're evaluating this based on results. And math proficiency is demonstrated by
the Mcat assessment. That's how we're demonstrating results. That is our key performance indicator. That is how we are looking at this from year over year. Whether or not this is a success or it's not a success. I appreciate the the the extra pieces. And I think that that
context is critically important because I think you not only want to see the results, like I want to see the results and like our community wants to see the results. But you also want to make sure that our, our educators who are delivering the, the new curriculum, that they're not miserable either,
and that they're, they are fulfilled in their experience. But I got to tell you from a measurement standpoint, whether or not this is a success or not is whether or not our children have math proficiency at a much higher level than they previously did. That is the bottom line. And that's my
bottom line, too. And that's what I said. We're holding you accountable for because it's your job to implement this. So this has been a great discussion. Thank you. And we're not done. No, we're not done. However, it is much
shorter. Okay, okay, let's keep going. Can I just end my part on a positive note? Just really fast? I'm sorry, I don't have a question. I just want to say I'm actually very excited about this. I want to join the statement that some of our kids were over accelerated. And I've actually heard from parents and
kids that they ended up hating math. We don't want kids to hate math because they felt like they were pushed too far, too fast. I love that there's on ramps and off ramps. I think that's so important because kids develop at different stages. And I just want to thank you for the work on this.
And I really do have hopes that this is going to work, but I do see it is going to be a tall order and hopefully we're all up for it. Thank you. Appreciate that, Miss Miss Stewart. Ditto. Now, Lindsay. Enrichment, please. Yes, yes.
Let's talk literacy. Enrichment. So during the 2425 school year, the Accelerated Enriched Instruction team met with teams from Anne Arundel County Public Schools, as well as Washington County Public Schools, to learn how they provide literacy enrichment while implementing
the curriculum. Both school districts developed enrichment overlays that were implemented in heterogeneous classrooms. From this work, we developed the concept of enrichment overlays that could be used with highly able learners, as well as any student that is
ready for more. We included best practices in gifted education, such as depth and complexity, and William and Mary models. We collaborated with the M.C.P.S. Elementary English Language Arts team and created two models. Model one
implements the adjusted pacing schedule, which allows for an additional unit at the end. And since this model removes some of the Pausing Point days, it was designed for highly able learners within a homogeneous
setting. Model two is a heterogeneous class and is most effective with the use of cluster grouping. Both models have access to enrichment overlays. When we look at the implementation number numbers
of model one versus model two, we see that only 41 classes currently use model one, and that's throughout the district in grades four and five. And we
have 171 model two classes. The data shown in this chart includes students that receive enrichment in model one. Our homogeneous model, and model
two, our heterogeneous model. We looked at three administrations of the map assessment map reading assessment from spring 2025 through winter 2026. As you can see on the screen, this data
shows that there is not a significant difference in student performance between model one and model two. When we look deeper into the disaggregated data, you will notice that model two shows
positive impacts for our special education students, our African American students, our Hispanic students, two or more races, and our emergent multilingual learners. So for
this upcoming school year in 2026 2027, literacy enrichment. Since we did notice that there was not a significant difference in model one and model two, and the research does support model two with cluster grouping, we are
selecting model two as the model for next school year. We do recognize that there are some grade four classes that are currently using model one, and schools may continue to use model one for those students. I'm excited to also share that
our grade three students will have enrichment overlays next year that will be able to be used within the English Language Arts block. And another excitement I have is that our grades six through eight students will have enrichment resources available
for every K Ela units. I'm turning it back to you, Nicki. Okay, so we said it would be short. So that was the update for literacy. We'll stop to see if you have any questions. Miss
Stewart, can you explicitly tell me what model one and model two actually look like? Because in the description it might not be clear to everyone? Yes. So model one is a homogeneous setting. It's a
class with mostly highly able learners, and they have an adjusted pacing model where they go through, or I should say they don't use all of their pausing point days so that they
have an additional unit of C, k l, a additional CKLA unit at the end. Model two is the heterogeneous model. Cluster grouping is used for that model, and they don't use the adjusted
pacing in that model. However, both models have access to the enrichment overlays. Okay, so on page 22 you said there wasn't much difference. But
then page 22 shows a difference. So especially for our MLS. Yeah. So I'm a little confused about not no difference, but yes, difference. Can you explain? Yes. So when we look at the overall data, if you can go back to slide 21, if you look at the overall data, there's
not a significant difference between model one and model two. And so we wanted to look a little bit deeper at our subgroups to see how the students were doing in each subgroup and what stood out. If you go back to 22, what stood
out were these subgroups that in model one, we see that all of these subgroups actually fell a few points, particularly the emergent multilingual learners. However, in model two, we see some small increments,
some small incremental changes of growth. But this was also I didn't say this, although it's on the the screen. This was from the fall administration to the Winter administration, which is really only about three months. Right. And so when you see those small
incremental growths, that's positive. And we're expecting the growth to be more once we look at the spring data when it comes out. We do want to note, though, that the majority of
our schools are using model two. And we don't see much difference in terms of student performance from model one and two. And our school leaders are asking us to pick a model so
that there is consistency across the district. And so we believe that model two is also in alignment with the research and in alignment with what we're doing for mathematics. And so we want to be consistent. I do agree with consistent
consistency. For sure. I do think well, anyway, I'm done for now. Thank you. I like the disaggregated data. I appreciate that because it gives us a better sense. If
there was no significant difference, I don't understand why we were we were using two models. It was our first time. Okay. So we were trying we were trying it okay. And we needed time to look at the data. We still haven't had a full year of implementation, but we need,
you know, schools need some guidance around what to do for next school year. So we took the data that we had, and we feel that model two will provide school. And most of the schools are already doing model two. Anyway, we feel that was my next question. Yeah. So I
think if we can just go back to this slide, you can see the implementation numbers. Most schools are already implementing model two. But we did hear from principals who said be consistent because parents hear from school to school. Correct. People are
doing different things. And that's I would like us to do that across the system, not just with this, but with most of the teaching that we do. I think consistency is really important. As Miss Stewart said, okay, nobody else has any questions. Thank you so much
for your presentation. Appreciate it. That will take us to item number number nine. And this is information items. There was it was a very busy legislative year. So hello Miss
Zimmerman. Welcome back. And if people want to know about the session this will be on our board packet. So no action is required of the board at this time. Just perfect timing. Miss
Zimmerman. I move to adjourn. I guess I'll second that. Thank you. And with that we we we wish Miss Yang safe travels and everyone else. And blessings to all. And thank you so much.
We're adjourned. We don't, we don't. Oh, we don't have a quorum. I can't adjourn. We need we need five people. Oh, wait. What is miss. I tried. No, she she has her stuff here. Oh. Well, she's in her room. Okay,
to hit your mic first. We still going?
Can we take two? I move to adjourn. Second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Okay. Have a blessed
weekend.