d afternoon and welcome. I will now call to order the May 13th, 2026, meeting of the Policy Management Committee. Before we begin, I'd like to give my colleagues a moment to introduce themselves, starting with Miss Yang. Good afternoon,
Julie Yang, district three. Good to see everyone. Good afternoon, Natalie Zimmerman. I represent district two. Good afternoon. A student member. Thank you. And I'm Brenda Wolff, district five. As we begin this
meeting, I want to make a couple of remarks. This meeting was originally on the annual work plan. However, we decided to postpone the meeting to allow the staff and some additional time to work on the
the stuff that we wanted to present. But after a decision was made to postpone the meeting, it became apparent that we had an item that we needed to address sooner rather than later. And so we decided to reinstate this meeting for
the purpose of addressing a single item of discussion. I truly appreciate your flexibility and your presence here today for this important conversation. As I mentioned, our agenda today consists of a
single policy JEF open lunch policy. I'm going to invite the staff to begin our discussion. And please introduce yourself. Okay. Good afternoon, Vice Chair Wolf and members of the Policy Committee. My name is
Robin Seabrook. I am the chief legal officer for M.C.P.S. Good afternoon, Vice Chair Wolf, and Policy Management Committee members. I'm Donna Redmond Jones, one of the associate superintendents in the Division of School Leadership and
Improvement. So I'll begin the conversation, and I'm going to kick us off with just an overview of the policy and some considerations. And I promise we will try to make this brief, because this is really about your discussion today of this policy and what you all decide
to do with it, and what direction you want to go in. So let me start by just providing a roadmap in the purpose of today's discussion. So we'll take a brief. We'll do a brief overview of policy JEF and we'll define open lunch. We'll
talk about what open lunch looks like at M.C.P.S. We'll discuss some options that the board has with respect to this policy, including modifications, suspension, rescission, or leaving the policy as is. I'm
so used to saying next slide. I can do it myself. So policy j f was enacted in 1978. So we haven't looked at it for a long time. And the general rule in that policy is that students are required to remain on
campus at lunchtime. So that is the general rule. There are two exceptions in that policy and the policy is very short. One is that high schools that may have already implemented open lunch at that time in 1978 can
continue, but continue in accordance with the regulation, and that high schools who want to adopt an open lunch policy may do so in accordance with the regulation. And here's the regulation. So the regulation
was enacted in 791979. It was revised again in 95. And essentially these are the components. Much more detailed than this. But this is what the regulation boils down to. So student government can petition
their principal. The the principal will review that petition and consult with an advisory committee made up of constituents. And the principal can also. The principal will then either adopt or reject the recommendation from his
advisors or her advisors, and then the principal may suspend or revoke open lunch for good cause. There's also an annual review that occurs of open lunch, and the principal can decide whether or not to do it
all again the following year. And so what is open lunch? What do we mean by that? Because that can take different shapes. And so here is I'm going to turn it over to Miss Donna Redmond Jones, Doctor Donna Redmond Jones to give you just
an overview of what Open Lunch looks like at M.C.P.S. So thank you. So open lunch allows high school students the option of leaving school campus during their lunch period. So out of
25 high schools in M.C.P.S. 11 schools have some form of open lunch. They do look a little bit different depending on the school. So some for some schools, the entire school is able to leave if they would
like to during the lunch period. For about seven of the 11 high schools, there is some type of restriction and it's just restricted either to only juniors and seniors, or maybe it's only considered a privilege for seniors to have open lunch. And even one school
requires a parent permission for for open lunch, as a as another sort of restriction. So this provides, you know, an incentive for students to want to demonstrate responsibility because the open lunch could be
something that they would no longer be able to do if they were chronically absent or tardy to their afternoon classes. And here again, like I said, for many schools, it is like a privilege for juniors or
seniors. Next slide. Okay. And so as we as you all continue your discussion today, we just wanted to touch upon a few considerations that you might want to keep in in mind as far as open lunch is concerned. And
so school districts or schools will take into account these types of things student independence, promoting student independence, promoting incentives to students, student well-being and mental health, and allowing them to move about and leave the building to get
fresh air and to to move around a little bit. Safety is always a concern or a consideration. Attendance, whether or not there's an impact on attendance and tardies when open lunches
is granted inequities. So students who maybe don't have cars or the ability to leave campus or to spend money in commercial food operations, may not be able to take advantage of open lunch. And then the
crowding and congestion in school buildings or outside. Here are just a few guided questions also that we thought might help you as you move forward with your discussion
today. One is whether or not the board wants to legislate in this area. And so typically we say, superintendent, the board sets the what and the superintendent sets the how. In
1978, the Board of Education decided to legislate open lunch. The question is, does this board want to continue that or whether. Question two you want to leave that as an an area of operation for the superintendent. So, for
instance, Prince George's County Public Schools, their board has enacted a policy. And it simply says we prohibit open lunch period. And that's and that's it. So there are other ways to deal with this policy.
And that may be part of your discussion. The other piece, the last question really gets to what the focus of your discussion or your action will be. Are you is the board going to evaluate the merits of open
lunch, or are you evaluating the board's role with respect to open lunch? So meaning. And this will go to your public comment, right? If you take this all the way through a public comment period, it's
probably important for your constituents to know why the board is looking at this policy. Now, are you looking at it because we think that the superintendent, the board, the board's role is not operational,
and we should leave this to the superintendent, and we are not taking a stance one way or the other as to the merits of open lunch. Or are you really evaluating the merits of open lunch? And those are two different questions, and it might be helpful for your
constituents to understand which one of those you are thinking about as you're discussing and taking action. And lastly, these are some options that the board has. Obviously, we're not limited to these options, but we wanted to give you all something to think
about so you can modify this policy, maintain open lunch and amend conditions. You can prohibit open lunch like Prince George's County does in a policy. Option two would be to suspend a temporary suspension
of open lunch for 2627 school year to allow administration to explore some options and alternatives, and to give the board an opportunity to hear from constituents. Rescission is also an option. Your policy
setting policy says that when you rescind, you follow the same process as you do when you develop a new policy. So that means sending it out for public comment with that schedule. This the rescission probably
will not be able to take effect until the 2728 school year, because following that schedule, it will be difficult to operationalize your change mid to late summer for schools. And
then there are other options that the board can, can the committee can consider and discuss. And so with that, I will turn it over to Mrs. Wolff for discussion. Thank you. Robin, you raised the issue
that it was one of the things that I wanted to talk about. So I'm going to take the liberty of doing that first, which I would not normally do. And that is I do believe that this is an operational issue that is within the purview of the superintendent and not the
Board of Education, because, again, as you say, we set the policy, and I believe that we'll set the policy. But he determines how to implement the policy and whether or not lunch
is open is is a factor of what goes on in that school building, basically, and how he could set schedules, how he's going to deal with any attendance problems, all the all the things that go with operating a school. But my question is this.
I have one other minor question. Not minor, because it's data, and I don't know that you have the data today. And if you don't have it today, it's okay, you can come back with it. And that is, what is the attendance
like returning from lunch? We do want to make sure that we're able to take the time to get, you know, additional and very specific data for you. So we want to be able to do that. But certainly that period coming in
in general, the period coming in from lunch, and this could be open or closed when it's coming, when students are coming back in, is a time of hire, you know, as compared to other times during the day. Well, I'd like somebody to, to
come back with that information for us. Thank you. So I'm going to turn to Miss Yang first. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm looking at this policy like you say, it was first developed and implemented
in 1978, a long time ago. And then there is a regulation that goes with it pretty much says that it's not one size fits all. Local principal has has a
decision making tool, decision making process, engaging the students to do this. And I actually know one of the high school. Seneca Valley High School, I think about four years ago. They reverse it from
open lunch to closed lunch. So I'm not saying whether I'm for or not for open lunch, but what I'm trying to understand is why put this policy for discussion all of a sudden? It wasn't at
our work plan. And if you bring it to us like emergency item to discuss, you must have a purpose of something you want to do. And probably that this policy does not allow you to do so. Can you tell me why this is
brought to the committee? So the superintendent has been exploring open lunch with schools and exploring. How what, whether it's working, how and
whether or not what to do with it. Right. And so. And I think that the way the policy is written and the way the regulation is written today, schools can continue, principals could continue to
make those decisions on a school by school basis. I think the superintendent was interested in exploring a standardized way of approaching open lunch, including maybe suspending it and using it a
little bit, revising what it looks like in schools. And when we saw that there was a policy there, he wanted to make sure that he did not get ahead of the board. And in making those
decisions. Right. And so he wanted to yield to the board to give you the opportunity to review the policy first before he made any changes to the regulation. His regulation is tied to your policy. And so he
wanted to yield to what the board would like to do with that first. So right now, the board's policy states that we allow local autonomy. So some, like the superintendent, would like to have more centralized
effort in that regard. I think that that is one possibility. Right. That's one thing that he would like to explore. And if you all if you all feel comfortable with him doing that
as just part of the regulation, he can certainly even now change the regulation, right. The superintendent. And there is still board involvement in that because we have to give you a heads up that that is happening. And we do now with
our new process, post our regulations so that the public can see them so that the public is aware. And so without the way that things stand now, without board involvement, the superintendent can change the
regulation, can work with principals to do something different for the upcoming school year. I think it was important to him not to get ahead of the board. That's all. I appreciate that. I, I do know that lunch is an operational
issue. However, the board has has the responsibility on the budget and the physical health of the school system. So I would like to have some data on
April 30th, 2026, memo to the Board of Education on our Enterprise Fund for meals. It is said that our Department of Defnes, our Department of
Nutrition Services, operated at a loss of $5,000,005.8 million in FY 2025, and it is anticipated to be operating at
a loss for about 2 million in FY 2026. Because every meal we serve right now does not cover the cost, the the charge we we we do does not cover the cost of production or serve service.
So I want to understand if what is the financial impact? If we if we move towards a system of closed, open, closed lunch, we will for sure serve more lunch
meals. What will be the financial impact on our enterprise fund? That's my number one question. Number two question is looking at a school
that have 2000 or between 2000 to 3000. Most of our high school at that size. If you are going to do lunch with more students buying lunch, what is the impact on staffing? It
could be the number of staffing, or it could be the hours the staffs have to work. You know, the total hours. What would be the financial impact on the hours of staffing, both in preparing for and serving full
and my including clean up to? Because now you have different operational models. So that will be my second data I would like and I will join Miss Wolff on the attendance data. Then
another data. I think it is very important to consider is one of your point about our consideration is on blah, blah, blah, blah safety. Okay. Do we
have data to show that open lunch school, doing the open lunch time has a different safety data compared to the rest of their day. I would very much like to know that would be
helpful for for us to under understand. Can we let yeah. So I'll pause here. Apologize colleagues. Thank you. Welcome back, Miss Molu. Thank you. I also want to second Miss Wolf's
data request too. And what really strikes me about this policy is how old it is. I mean, no meaningful amendments have happened since the enactment and 1978. Right. And that year, you know, M.c.p.s had
approximately 100 000 students and I think like 188 schools. And now we have 156,000 and 211 schools. So this policy is nearly 50 years old, and we haven't really seen any change to it since then, which is why I'm very happy to have this
discussion. Now. What I'm really curious about is operationally how this would work. And obviously, I know you don't have the data right now or anything along the lines of that. If we were to close lunches, though, and make that county wide, then how would it
work at schools with a larger population that currently rely on open lunch? To an extent. And I'm also curious about in the regulation, it currently says the Student Government Association may petition the principal no more than once a year for formal consideration
of the adoption of open lunch. I want to know if there's any other instances of where this has happened in the past, and what examples of when that occurred, and if it did work out in the favor for whatever they were requesting. And yeah. Thank you. Miss Zimmerman.
Thank you. And I would also like to align myself with a lot of the questions and comments of my colleagues, especially that I also believe that this is an operations issue kind of related to the operations. And
the question that Miss Malu just asked, I guess, especially when it comes to our like all school schedules that we see, it's, you know, required that
we have input from our ILT but I'm, I'm curious about like what student involvement as part of that too, especially as we look to shift from potentially closing lunch and how our students involved in that all school schedule as we're considering things like
safety and student mental health and clubs and all those different options and things for students during that time, as well as when it comes to input, I think we should also consider some of the input from our community partners and
neighbors. There are a lot of businesses that navigate the lunchtime rush of students, and it's my understanding that a lot of the feedback that the board has received over the past few years is that the community in general is not in favor of open lunches. Some neighboring restaurants get,
you know, that large influx of students and there can at times be disruption. There is often even worse, like stealing goods or engaging in physical altercations. Police are notified and have to spend time and resources addressing these issues. And these issues could
be mitigated or resolved if if students were at school. So as well, it seems like there's additional congestion with students leaving campus or perhaps food delivery during that time. It just seems like the general feedback so far is
that the community disfavors open lunch. So in saying so, I'm sure that there will be additional community feedback, and I'm looking forward to hearing that as well. I guess my concern is safety, which is one of the considerations that
you raised. You know, it's been my concern the whole time I've been on the board that there are legal liability issues here for us. For one thing, parents think their kids are in that school building and under the I
don't want to say control, but that they are being supervised in some way, shape or form. And then to possibly have something happen to them out in the community when they didn't even know, possibly that they could go off the school grounds is a
problem for us. Now, I do understand that some schools may have parental consent forms, but I still think that that leaves us open to problems because, as Miss Zimmerman says,
we've had problems with the community. You know, while I do recognize that some businesses consider this a viable option because they it helps their business. A lot of the businesses don't because they become overwhelmed with
students coming in, students, you hate to say this, but you have theft at times. So I would like to join Miss Miss Yang in getting information on how many incidents, what you know, some
data about incidents we have as a result of open lunch. Because I'm reminded recently about what happened at Blake High School. And I'm also concerned every time I drive through the Woodmont area, it's what it's called Woodmont, where? Across
the street from Blair and all that traffic and the kids running across the street about how dangerous some of those lunch. Miss Wolff. Well, thank you for reminding me of that, because all I could think of, I don't know which 11 schools
right off are closed lunch. Do you know that? Yes, I do have the list. Well, I have it for kids out there. That's why I. I see them out there. Yeah, I have the school. Okay. Closed
line. Yeah. But they're out there. So, so I don't know whether this is. I will let you finish this. Go ahead. Do you want me to read. I have the list of the the schools that have the open lunch. Yes. So Bethesda-chevy Chase High School, Einstein, Walter
Johnson, Damascus paint branch, Poolesville, Quince orchard, Richard Montgomery, Watkins Mill, Whitman, and Winston Churchill. Yeah, I knew about some. I knew about the majority of those. And like I said, seven of those will still have some restrictions. Maybe it's just juniors and seniors or just seniors. Yeah, but I also
joined in Miss Ballou's concern or question, I should say, about how we would implement this operationally, because we have some very large high schools and how you're going to handle one lunch period. Now, I
know it over at the high school closest to me, they're sitting in the hallway sitting on the steps because the cafeteria just can't hold them. I don't think any of our cafeterias were designed to hold all of the kids at once. So that's my biggest concern. Our legal
liability, Miss Yang yes, I am wondering the timeline. If you bring this to the policy committee now. If it moves
today to the whole board, that will give us to tell me about the timeline, what timeline are we working with? So it would depend on what this committee's recommendation is. Right? So if
you were going to recommend a modification to the existing policy, a modification or a rescission of this policy would mean that you would need to take it through the full public
comment period and then back to policy. So you would take it from here to possibly next week, May 21st. You have a meeting you would take. We would take it to the full board on May
21st. We would then go from May 21st to leaving it open for public comment somewhere between 21 and 30 days, depending on what the board decides and how long you want it out for public comment, then
it would come back to Policy Management Committee again. So we would need to add a meeting date for public if if you want it, if you want to do it this summer, we don't have. We need to choose another policy Management Committee meeting date so that we could come back
and review those public comments with you, and then you would take it back to the full board. And so I'm thinking again, if you want to do it this summer, maybe by mid-July, you would do it this, you would do it this summer. If you decide to do something else,
like suspend, it would go to the full board with a recommendation to suspend, and then there would be time to gather data and do these other things. If you would like an immediate, some kind of immediate impact on the upcoming school year. And so
those are the timelines that you're looking for. So can I ask a follow up question? Yes, we do have the ability to waive the timeline, don't we? Meaning what as far as which, which
part of the timeline? I'm I'm talking about the public comment period. You can shorten the public comment period. You could shorten it. So right now you're regular. Your policy says 21 days. The regulation
says 30. If the board wanted to to do something different, I don't know. I'm looking at our our policy and legislative expert over 21 days. I don't policy. Yeah. There's there's,
there's nothing explicitly written in the policy or regulation about waiver. Yeah. That's right. And so, and so it would be a little bit of a departure from what your written practice, your written policy says. So go ahead. So
what I'm thinking, I always believe in policy co-creation with the community. We are at the end of the school year. Our seniors are done on May 22nd or
is it May 20th, May 22nd? May 22nd? That is a quarter of our students that this is going to be impact out of the building. That's a quarter of the families that we are not engaging in getting feedback.
And those are the people. Seven out of the 11 schools. Those are the people who have experience with this current practice under this policy. For me, rushing this, doing this
time is not a good idea. That is not truthful community engagement. That seems like me. We are checking a box, putting it out for 21 days because seven out of 11 that people
that you will be impacted are not going to find this relevant and worth them spending the time on. And you have very little ways to outreach them other than the website they are signing out of your parent view,
they're signing off, they're going to the beach week. So for me, this is a troublesome timeline. I would really it's a worthy discussion. It's a worthy discussion. I also care
to look at how to operationalize it. And which means we need to engage the principals, the teachers, the students, the the supporting professionals, all in the conversation. And summer is not
the time to do it. So I would motion us to postpone it to, to into the fall when everyone is back. I was just going to say that another option that I don't think we talked about was just putting it on your work plan for the next policy
management cycle for the next year. Let me just back up. Did I hear you make a motion? Is there a second to her motion? Comments. Hearing? No. Second, the motion fails. Do any of my
colleagues have any additional comments or questions? Yeah, I was just curious about what is the outreach going to be like over this summer for those 30 days. So again, it depends on what you all want to do, what,
what, what you're recommending typically. And, and it depends on how long we have, right? So if we only have 30 days, typically what we do is we post it and on our website and we collect public comment. That way if there is more time, then
there'll be there would be more community engagement. And it is probably more difficult over the summer to really do that outreach to students and families and, and, and do it and go out to the schools. Definitely principals would have a voice in this and would
be engaged in as well. And so we would need to develop a full community engagement plan and a plan for, for public comment. The standard of public comment is putting it up and allowing people to engage that way. Yeah.
You know, given Miss Yang's concerns, which I completely understand about it being in the summer, I was going to suggest that for students, especially since I think this is very important to them as well. We could look at utilizing our canvas announcements. I find that students check those very often, and I think it could be a very
good way to reach out to them. Aside from, you know, my own publicity, which I can do as well to ensure that their voices are being heard and represented. Thank you. Can I Miss Zimmerman? Thank you. I wanted to express some support
for a shorter timeline, which I usually would not support, to be quite honest. But one of the critiques that we often hear as a board is that sometimes things happen, and it seems like we move at a really slow pace to try to address them. And other instances, we hear
that we're actually moving too quickly. And I think both critiques are valid, but with the safety concerns here, with needing to have opportunity to give operational input for an upcoming year with any liability concerns for this, I
do find a shorter timeline to be favorable. One of the things I understand sometimes we feel
process go on and on and on. We need to make a decision, but this is a decision that impacts mostly the high school students, which I will say again, seven out of 11 is either a juniors
or seniors at this time of the year. That is not meaningful engagement. So if we are not going to do meaningful engagement, then that is, you know, it's it's already it's
already. That is just a way to say that we don't care about your opinion because we put it during the summer months for feedback. So that's what in all
our good intentions, we don't have the data at the moment. We need to have a meaningful community engagement. So I don't find this. I'm ready to make any sort of a decision
today because of those reasons. Okay. Thank you. I listened to all of our our comments and our questions. And I think we've had a pretty thoughtful discussion here. You know,
we've heard concerns around safety, the appropriateness of whether or not we should move forward. Now, the current landscape and just even about how old the policy is. I think
that the best I think the best course of action is for the policy to be rescinded. The committee agrees the full board will be asked to take tentative action on the recommendation to
rescind at the May 21st, 2026 business meeting. So I move that the Policy Management Committee recommend that policy JEF open lunch policy be rescinded. Is there a second?
Second. Can I ask a question? Yes. All of these options, which one would that be? I'm not going by her options. I'm not putting a time frame on it. I'm simply saying I'm making a motion that it be rescinded and send it to the full board for
further discussion. And Ms. Wolff, can I clarify that this will just be a discussion at the next meeting? Like this isn't us officially voting on it on whether or not anything. Yeah, we're not we can't rescind it. It has to go to the full board for rescission. That's right. So it will go to
the your colleagues on the full board will hear much of what you all heard today at the next board meeting with the data that you all asked for. And Miss Yang was asking whether or not I was accepting one of the options that you gave. And I
said no, because you put a year date on it. 2728 I said, no, I'm simply recommending that the policy be rescinded and it be sent to the full board for further discussion. Is there a
second, second. All in favor? Raise your hand. And that is Miss Malu, miss Zimmerman and Miss Wolff all opposed. Miss
Yang, thank you. And I think that concludes our business for
today. Thank you for coming.