Great. Thank you very much. Um, you may also notice we have two new members, uh, who are joining us, uh, this evening, um, uh, for ij Hannah Jones. Welcome to the Panel for Education Policy and Bernita Parsons, welcome to the Panel for Education Policy. And I can see that you all come with your cheering sections, uh, at the meeting. So let's see if they're cheering for you at the end of the evening also. So, uh, you know, I'm sure they will. So, um, thank you. So, um, but I, I do wanna offer each, any, would you like to make your co um, make comments at this time?
I wanna offer the floor to you if you'd like to give greetings. Good evening. I'm the Bronx rep and I'm so happy to greet y'all. Hope we, we'll do some great work this evening and throughout the whole term. Um, thank you for all my Bronx supporters and everyone in New York City public schools. Let's make some noise. Good evening. Okay, great. Ms. Hannah Jones, panel member Raji Hannah Jones. I represent Brooklyn. Brooklyn is definitely in the house. Uh, shout out to the Bronx, of course. Um, uh, just really happy to be here.
Um, I think, uh, now is not a, now couldn't have been a better time for us to get together and talk about, uh, what we plan to do in terms of, uh, how we can transform our schools. Um, that is the capacity that I will be working in. Um, and I am very happy to be working with this extraordinary panel. So thank you very much. Great. Thank you. We're happy to have you both, um, and, and welcome your participation. And, uh, and we really wanna take advantage of your new perspectives coming in new you'll see things that we may not notice.
So I hopefully invite you to please, uh, comment and, and fully participate in everything that we're doing here at the panel. Um, so again, congratulations on your appointment at this time. Um, I'm pleased to welcome our chancellor, who is here with us, uh, for comments. I'll turn the, uh, chair, uh, uh, program over to our chancellor, chancellor Ramos. Would you like to offer remarks? Sure. Good evening everyone, and welcome to our newest panel members. And of course, it's a pleasure to see, um, our familiar faces on, on the panel. And thank you all for coming out this evening. Uh, happy belated July 4th and Disability Pride month.
It's an important time here at New York City Public Schools. We are taking stock of last school year and looking to the year ahead. And summarizing is currently in full swing, so of course, I always wanna acknowledge and thank Chair Faulkner, vice Chair Dr. Green, um, our host in this building. So MS. 1 31, Emma Lazarus High School and Pace High Schools to the wonderful principals support staff, our school safety agents, everyone who, um, hosts us and accommodates us. I wanna thank you so much for everything that you do. And of course, our superintendents, uh, superintendents,
McGuire, Sullivan, and Vileman. Um, so tonight we have a very important vote, one we've been collaborating closely on with the panel. And this is the vote to revise Chancellor's Regulation, A four 13, our cell phone internet enabled device policy to be in compliance with state law. So over the past two months, we've worked hand in hand with partners across the city to develop and draft a community-driven policy that supports our schools with the input and feedback from this group, along with teachers, principals, superintendents, parent leaders,
advisory councils, unions, and importantly our students. We have developed a district-wide policy to guide all our schools consistent with state law. And as your chancellor, a lifelong educator, a mother and a former school leader who implemented a cell phone policy at her school. I believe in this path forward and your input, I've seen how cell phones and social media impact our students' mental health and attention span. And as the adults in the room, it's our responsibility to protect our children and safeguard their right to learn and their right to a healthy positive school climate.
So what does the regulation say? For starters? It provides clarity that devices must be turned off and stored away in our school buildings during school hours. It allows flexibility and adaptability for schools to develop individualized and tailored policy for collection and storage, which best align with their school community's needs. And it also outlines the different possible exceptions that schools must consider. It ensures that students will not be suspended for accessing their devices and authorizes alternative progressive models for working with students and school staff.
And it also requires schools to have a direct phone number parents can use to contact the school to reach their child in the events of an emergency. So I wanna thank you for your partnership in this process. And following this vote, we will continue to engage individual schools and help them design and implement their policies tonight. We also have a very important vote on emergency extensions of our bus contracts. These extensions will cover, will cover 30 days of bus service with the option to renew for another 30 days. These extensions are critical to maintain busing
for students this summer while we continue to work with our vendors, PEP and other stakeholders on a non-emergency extension. So we look forward to the, the continued conversations with you all on this topic in the coming months. And I wanna end with a general note about contracts and vendor accountability for our students. We've heard the pep loudly and clearly about the need for accountability. And so my team will be reaching out to all of you pep members to schedule time for us to discuss this topic further, to work together on how we can hold vendors accountable
and assess contract impact for our school communities. So I look forward to having that conversation with you in, in the very near future. And as always, I wanna thank you for your Partnership. Thank, and also, thank you very much, chancellor. And, um, I think I, I I hope you understand and appreciate how much we appreciate your being with us on stage and listening to our comments and engaging with us that, um, the attention that you paid to the panel and the work that we're doing has not gone unnoticed. And it is very much appreciated. And I wanted you to know that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, we, we, before we move into the formal business section
or voting section of the, uh, of the meeting tonight, there are a few business items that we need to address, uh, immediately. One of them is the approval of the minutes of our June 18th meeting. Is there a motion for unanimous consent to adopt the minutes of June 18th? Is there a second to unanimous consent? Is there objection to unanimous consent on approval of the June 18 minutes hearing? No objection. The minutes for June 18th are adopted. Thank you very much. Um, the next item on the agenda is the annual election of our vice chair. Uh, the panel vice chair will serve, um, in the absence of the chair, will serve as the chair
and also, um, undertakes a number of important roles for the panel. Um, are there any nominations for the office of panel vice chair? Again, are there any nominations for the office of the Yes. Okay. A second is, is Dr. Green, do you accept? Yes, I accept, yes. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations for the office of panel Vice Chair? Yeah, she's already been nominated, so Time, So, so that, that expresses your enthusiasm for the election of Dr. Green. That is noted for the record. Are there any additional nominations
for the office of Vice Chair? Seeing no additional nominations? The chair declares the nominations for the office of Vice Chair are closed. And if you would, the panel's permission I'D to ask the secretary to cast one ballot for the election of, uh, Dr. Green, unanimous election of Dr. Green as a panel vice chair. Are there any objections? Any objections? Just cast the Vote. Okay. I cast the vote of the panel for the vice chair. Dr. Green. Dr. Green, Dr. Angela Green. Great. Congratulations. You wouldn't warn me, but I'm, do I I sprung that on. I'm sorry. Was I I I you're duly noted and point correct.
Sorry about that. Uh, we'll, we're now gonna move into the, um, um, well actually, we'll do the student panel. Yeah, we'll do student, uh, we've sort of moved the agenda to allow students to have, be involved in, um, open discussion before the end of the meeting. So are there any students who've signed up to speak, um, tonight? Yes. There are some students, students who have signed up to speak. I will call. Call exactly. Um, the three students who have signed up, Lila Torres, um, can't see Dalia Diaz Chan, and Oh yeah.
Wait, D right. And, um, Nathan Mu mud, she's right, Dalia, isn't she still on the path? Dalia, why are you down, Dalia, why are you down there? Um, are we Sorry. I know I'm supposed to be on break. Um, but I thought that it was important that I spoke on chancellor's regulation a 14, I mean, sorry, 8 4 13. Um, and I wanted to say hello to the esteems representatives of this panel and politely ask that throughout the real life steps
to implement this policy in schools, you take into account student viewpoint in your processes. Now, more than ever, it is not a secret that this policy is unpopular among student communities. And while some of these feelings may stem from the widespread confiscation of personal property being seen as an affront or insult to students fears about this policy also stem from concerns regarding implementation concern that countless dollars will be meaninglessly wasted on replenishing yonder pouches that have been shown time and time again to be susceptible to being hoarded thrown away, broken with a mere pencil
or deactivated through other means. I ask of this panel that when the time comes to look at contract items, you think instead about phone lockers, collection methods that are not fickle to student misbehavior and collection methods that keep some of the most valuable items students have safe from theft and misplacement without creating a continuous cost for the DOE the way yonder pouches do. I also wish to denounce withholding of student electronics by any educational authority beyond the end of the school day. And I'm aware that this practice exists
and currently at some DOE schools, such as the Francis Lewis High School to name one. And I want to urge pep members to use your judgment on whether this is a safe and equitable practice for the students affected as practices like these might become more prevalent within the upcoming school year. And I wish to wish, um, Dr. Angela Green, um, congratulations on her reappointment. Great. And, and the ne the next time we see you coming to pound, we want you to sit up here with us, you know, soon. Um, good evening. Good evening, everyone.
I hope you all are having a great day so far. I would like to start off by saying a thank you to Chancellor Ramos for coming to my, to coming to my school and coming to every meeting every month. Um, Thank you. Um, I don't know what some kids' fixation with the root retard it is, but I'm, I'm pretty sure all of you know what it means. But for those who don't, it's a derogatory slur for mentally disabled. And most kids don't know that. They just use it as a joke or they use it, and they don't know how disrespectful they're being. On the first day of summer school, I was talking to this girl and I asked her where she wanted to sit.
She said, it doesn't matter. So I was about as sit next to this girl, 'cause she was sitting by herself and she said in her exact words, Ew, no, we're not sitting next to Special girl. I was trying to explain to her how disrespectful that was. But she kept on saying about how loud she was being during class and how she could just control herself. I was trying to explain how she really couldn't, and she still wouldn't listen. Another day I was talking to the same girl and I complimented the other girl's shoes. And then she said, do you mean retarded girl? I was still trying to help her stop saying that word,
and she didn't. But my point is, what does, why do kids have a fixation with that word? And how curse words are banned? Why shouldn't that word be? Why don't kids get in trouble for using it? Um, and there should be some sort of way, like an assembly or having one-on-one talks with kids that has like some effect on them of how that, how disrespectful that word is. Um, and for school lunch, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's actually pretty good enough. Either my school lunch sucks or it's getting better.
Um, we get breakfast, um, we get breakfast every day and it's actually hot, not like microwave hot, and they throw it in a microwave after it's been in a plastic bag for a few days. It actually looks like they cooked it on a grill. Um, and for lunch, it's pretty good. Um, we get hot food. Sometimes the fruit's moldy, but that's probably because it's been wet. Other than that, the food's pretty good. So I would like to say thank you to everybody who played a part in that. And it's actually getting better. I, I believe the chancellor wanted to, uh, comment Chancellor,
You know, Lila, I gotta tell you, you made my summer. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what happens. You made my summer. Um, so thank you for all of your input for never backing down. Um, of course, I have to thank Chris Charco, who leads that amazing office and who went with me and has gone to countless schools to make sure that Lila, who represents a large majority of our student population, um, we didn't stop until we get it right. And again, there's always work to improvement to be done.
Um, but Lila, you're an example of, of why it's important to make sure that our students, um, know how to advocate for themselves. And I wanna thank both of you for commenting, um, for coming out tonight. Um, the cell phone, the cell phone policy, which is now state law. We know how unpopular to use your exact words, Alia, it is with students. Um, but we also wanna make sure that we're protecting instructional time. And I think the reason why we're proud of this policy is that it does take into account your opinions
and flexibility for school communities. Um, nothing is perfect, but we know that we do need to protect instructional time. So I wanna thank you for that. And Lila, one last thing. You just got yourself another job, Lila. 'cause you'd love to give yourself jobs. Um, you know, as we continue to roll out our student led anti-bullying campaign, I think you and Uncle Mark rampant are gonna have to spend a lot of time together, and you're gonna have to be one of our ambassadors. So we'll talk a little bit more offline. Lila, thanks everyone. Great. Thank you very much, chancellor. Um,
It was another, um, student I, in all of that commotion, let me just make sure that, um, Nathan Mudar, I don't know, I'm sure I got the name wrong. Okay. Were there any other students that signed up? Is there Nathan, anyone? No. Okay. And we also have been joined by another panel member who I know said hello, um, member Tony Giardano. I thought I saw someone else show up. Did Naveed show up? No. No. Okay. He's Excused. Okay. Is excused. Okay. Back to you. Okay, great. So as we getting ready to move into the actual voting
and business portion of the meeting, I just wanted to take a moment to, uh, read the procedure that we'll follow during the next portion of the meeting. Um, during this portion of the meeting, speakers will be called forward based on, uh, the signup sheet during public comment. Everyone who has signed up to speak will be allotted up to two and a half, uh, uh, two and a half minutes for public comment and two minutes for open public comments, which will come at the end of the evening. The clock will indicate the amount of time remaining for each speaker, and a light will flash when there's one minute remaining, so that the speaker will know that their time is about to expire.
Additional time will always be provided, uh, to help facilitate comments that may require public translation. At the end of each speaker's time, we will move on to the next speaker. If a speaker is not present when their, uh, name is called, we will move on to the next, uh, speaker in on the list speakers, once we, we've done so. You, if you've miss your time to speak, you won't be able to reclaim your time in the queue. We'll move on to the next speaker. This portion of the meeting is for com comment only related to agenda items being discussed at that particular time.
If you accidentally signed up and wish to speak on another item, um, you just notify us and we'll move you to the appropriate part of the agenda for discussion of that. Um, item comments during these sections should only again, relate to the proposals that are currently being voted on, uh, or being considered for adoption. Um, the first, uh, resolutions for business portion in the meeting of consideration of contracts. And I'll ask Secretary Nathan to please introduce the resolution. The resolution up for approval is entitled Resolution to Enter into Contract Agreements. Back to You. Great.
Is there a, is there a motion to adopt the resolution? So moved. Is there a second? It's been moved and seconded to adopt a resolution. Uh, we'll now move to public comment. I will call the speakers, um, Sarah Kado, Randy Levine, Effie Zachary, and Dr. Calis Salas, Lupe Hernandez, and Tamara Farrell. You can make your way down to the microphone and you can start speaking. Please introduce yourself. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. My name is Randy Levine.
I'm policy director of Advocates for Children of New York. While there are many important contracts on the agenda tonight, I wanna talk about contract item number 33, the emergency contracts for Summer Bus Service. Every year, advocates for Children helps thousands of individual families navigate the New York City Public School system. We want to focus on what happens during the school day on making sure students have the support they need to thrive in school. However, we find ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time simply making sure students can get
to school in the first place year after year. We hear from families struggling to get bus service in place. There's no bus service is inconsistent. The bus is getting their child to school late or requiring their child to leave class early. There's no bus paraprofessional. The bus ride is excessively long. There's no bus service home from after school or for the full day of summer. Rising. These issues disproportionately impact students with disabilities, students who are homeless, and students in foster care who are more likely to live far away from, to go to school far away from
where they live and rely on bus service as just one example. We heard from a parent this week whose child is supposed to be attending a summer special education class and getting services in school. Last Monday, the bus did not show up. The parent did not receive a call. The Child Missed School last Tuesday. No bus, no call, no school last Wednesday, no bus, no call, no school. Last Thursday, the bus showed up, but it was late and the parent could not track it because GPS was not activated. Yesterday when the parent called the bus company,
she was told the driver was running late. But once again, the bus never showed up. Once again, no school. We appreciate that, that the DOE has now identified a new bus route for this student. But we hear these stories again and again. We understand that the emergency contracts for bus service on tonight's agenda are must pass. A widespread disruption to bus service would be devastating for the students and families we serve. And the pet must ensure that bus service continues this summer and beyond without interruption. At the same time, we must change the status quo. While there are steps the city can and should take now to improve bus service,
addressing other challenges requires updates to the 45-year-old bus contracts. While tonight's contracts are needed going forward, the PEP should insist on a one year bus contract extension, allowing for state level change to rebid the bus contracts as quickly as possible and should not allow a long-term bus extension. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Go to the left side, my left Effie Panel member, uh, I've almost said panel member. Mrs. Ery, welcome back. Thank you for, for former panel member. It's, it's, it's
Great reach to compete for titles. Okay, well, we got your two opposing panel, former panel members. All right. Oh, I see my time started already. No. Oh, I'm not charging you that against your time, Joe, so please continue. Um, so, um, it's good to see, um, all, uh, my fellow panel members, former panel members, um, and, uh, congratulations and welcome to the new members. Um, also, congratulations Dr. Green on your election. Uh, well deserved. Um, I, I'm here to talk mostly about the bus contract, not the emergency. So much one, but the one that should come after it. Um, I've had personally as a parent, a lot of problems,
um, with busing. Um, the software is making things a little bit better. Things are, I would say, overall improving over the years. However, uh, the contract is very old and requires some very common sense. Things that are lacking in it, and I wanna mention some of them. Um, so it's kept in mind when it's renewed later. Um, the contract, um, as much as drivers deserve protection, it should never come at the expense of students. And a lot of times those things do come at the expense of students. Um, for example, uh, one of the things that's done is usually around January, February, a lot
of the routes gets changed because so far the contract allows bus drivers with seniority to decide that they wanted to have a different route. And what it does is for about one month, it completely disturbs the system. It takes about a almost a month for the bus drivers to learn how the, the, the optimal path, how to collect all the students from their houses and, and, and, uh, drive to school. And that gets very disturbed for almost a month when there's a change. And that's been done almost all the time, that there's a change in their route and there's no need to do it. They, the drivers should be able to choose their path
over the summer, and then it should be consistent over the year. Also, another thing that amazes me is that there's not even one dry run. It should be in the contract that the drivers should be getting paid to do one dry run. So they know what the path is to be familiar with the neighborhood, where you can turn, where the bus doesn't fit, things like that. Uh, at least one dry run makes a lot of sense. It should be in the next contract. Um, also, I, I think it's in being developed, but we should have software that reroute the path. If, if, if they know that certain students are not gonna be picked up today, the route should be different. It should be dynamic, not the same thing,
no matter who's getting on or off the bus. Um, and, um, and wow. One more thing. Uh, also the bus, uh, contract should extend it. My understanding is that it stops kind the middle of the day. It should be in the evening, because a lot of times you have students that need to be picked up in the evening, four o'clock, five o'clock in the evening, it should be extended for whenever is needed. Again, the students should always come first. Thank you very much. Good to see you all. Thank You very much. I might as well say panel member again, I'm a former panel member. Welcome back. It's good to Hear from you. Thank you. Um, I'm currently here also as the president of the Community Education Council for District four.
Um, we shift and change, um, the way that we serve our communities. Um, so a couple of things came up for us as a council, um, as we were looking at these contracts. Um, I don't think the statements are gonna be new compared to some of the things that I've said before. Um, having contracts and continuing to invest in outside coaches, um, for both literacy and math, our continued concerns is we are not investing in our teachers and our workforce. Um, there was a moment in time that there was intention around developing teachers, having teachers actually develop curriculum,
and less about having these outside forces that don't know our children and don't understand our communities. I wanna continue to advocate and support, um, the extensions for community schools. I do understand that our mayor is finally baselining, uh, the budget for community schools, but they're absolutely imperative, um, to support our students, particularly our most vulnerable students as community schools are proven, uh, to support better outcomes within our student communities. I wanna echo the concerns on the busing contracts.
I think you all passed a resolution last month. Um, thank you for all of the panel members that really spent months developing, um, that resolution to be very concrete and have very specific asks. But I think there's been an up, they've uplifted the concerns about having fi an extension of five-year contracts. Um, I think that concern about five-year contracts has been elevated to multiple contracts that, um, the Department of Education engages in, because as you've mentioned, there's little accountability in terms of the vendors. Um, and that has yet been transparency or public information in terms of what are the metrics
of success and how do we continue to engage in particular vendors. Uh, and it is a, it is a critical time as we know in terms of transportation for our children, as we have more children that are living in temporary housing, uh, and are commuting to schools. I also wanna uplift the fact that we need buses for our early learners. So the busing contract for pre-K pupils is, um, $13 million. Uh, and it's an emergency contract. But one of the things that students are experiencing, particularly our early learners, is they, they don't have access to buses with seat belts,
with car seats, so that they can also engage in enrichment experiences as they're in three K and pre-K. One of our, um, in my school where my son attends pre-K students, actually gave Deputy Chancellor Emma Vara a whole petition to help support them. And CEC four also passed a resolution for there to be an extension of the contracts for pre-K and three K pupils. Thank you. Thank You very much. Just going to repeat the other names of the speakers just to make sure we got it. Oh, okay. Someone is there. Great. Sarah Kado on summer busing. Last month, pep resolved to address the school bus crisis,
to work towards a state seniority law rather than triggering strikes or layoffs, and then to rebid contracts rather than recycling outdated terms. Five years at a time. We know items 31 and 33 will pass, but we want it noted that summer busing is a crisis within the crisis at parents to improve school transportation. Many members face convoluted routes, if any, with fewer riders in the summer. There should not be such a literal hot mess out of 9,000 buses. Why aren't there 3000 with dual climate control?
One vendor told a pre-K mom, they hadn't turned on AC in any bus in the heatwave till she complained. Tonight they get another million bucks. Can OPT stop throwing money at contractors who failed to show respect and at bad products like the via tracking app? Why would GBCs school age routes given to pride and not nice bus kids with 12 months service mandates are more likely to also have complications from overheating and to regress. If they miss days, they are missing days.
We've heard from eight autism program sites that lacked enough routes, week one and two, at least. If you're sending kids to one central site, then don't block summer staff from reading the right screens. Analyze the impact of bus problems on attendance in all summer programs. Even in general Ed Summer Rising, we know two parents of one child who take turns being late to work because the bus stop is at the June school, a mile from the home. Across the world, we see children forced to work in minds
to starve and lose limbs. Of course, we're doubling down on safety for the children. We can reach out and touch. We see parents kidnapped by uniform thugs. Of course, we want to see your plan to protect our school bus workers from racial profiling. TPS or no, join the Fight for the Ride of Civil Rights will be checking on your progress all year long. And anybody who wants to join us at the disability march on Saturday in Washington Square, 11:00 AM yellow banner. Goodnight. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Lupe Hernandez
and I am here speaking in my own personal capacity as a parent of a New York City public student that has been riding the bus since he was two. I'm going to share with the panel this evening a story that brought me into this advocacy education space. My son was on a bus with a expired car seat as a preschool, um, early intervention student. That car seat was literally, um, tied in a knot with broken seat belts on a New York City public school bus. Um, I was able to ride as with my son for that first year,
but had I, many parents were not, they did not have that privilege. Um, had I not been on that bus, I would not been able to see and advocate and eventually get that bus driver after six months of dealing with OPTA new bus. This shouldn't be the issue. I do. We know that these contracts need to be passed, these emergency contracts, um, are needed. And I thank you for that. But I would like for you guys to remember the resolution you passed last month, um, in regards to not considering five year contracts. Because that bus company that was providing service
to my son, along with many other preschool students on that bus with expired car seats and broken seat belts with zero oversight of these companies will be awarded part of the the contract money. I also wanna state the fact that, um, our preschool students, um, contracts are much less when violations of climate are, are not met on our school buses. So there's a $400 fine for school aged children, but it drops down to $85 for our youngest vulnerable students.
We have students passing out on these buses because there's no ac and as p**s has said, and that's parents to improve school transportation. 9,000 routes during the summer should be the least time that we're having a lack of school buses and routes. So please consider in the fall only one year contracts. We really need to revamp these 45-year-old contracts. It's not right. There's zero oversight, there's zero transparency. And how are we going to award bus companies
that have had egregious complaints, especially even with abuse. So just take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you very much. There was one other person who signed up. Tamara Farrell. Hey. Hey y'all. Hey, um, I'm going to speak for Tamara. Um, if that's okay. Chair Faulkner. I'll be quick. My name is Rashida Brown Harris. My pronouns are she her, hers. I'm gonna speak for Tamara and just tell a quick story for y'all. Um, we don't have all of the specifics and all the details, and we don't like to just come up here telling a bunch
of different stories, but we do like to share. So there's one particular, um, family who put their child on, um, the bus, going to a special education, um, going to the summer school program, um, nonverbal, 10-year-old, nonverbal non-speaking, um, autistic child. And, um, first day of the program, um, we couldn't find him and mom freaked out called 9 1 1 and everything, but, um, they said the bus was late. Um, but then we were looking and trying to figure out where's the communication,
the accountability or just the support for the family to, um, understand what was happening and what wasn't happening. Um, and so we're still all working on that. We got a go, a couple of good folks, um, that support and trying to figure out what happened. Um, the next day they took the child to the wrong site. Um, overall the child is now being picked up, going to the summer school in the morning and then being picked up in the afternoon to go to the Summer Rising program, which is amazing to have that. But it takes two and a half hours to go from the summer school to the summer rising. And we hear these stories all the time.
So, like I said, going to get more information, going to get more specifics and, and, you know, to, to really be able to follow up. But just something that I wanted to share that I'm sure this is one of so many different stories of our parents going through this and our babies going through this and really looking forward to trying to figure out a better way for them. Um, because by the time baby gets to summarize, it's only about an hour before the program is done and over with. So they didn't even get a chance to enjoy the summer rising. That's one of the many stories that we wanted to share
with y'all, just to hear it as the panel. So thank y'all for listening. Um, congratulations, um, by Share Green to coming back and welcome to all of our new, um, panel members and hey, Renita bx in the house. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your comments. That's the end of the speakers who have signed up on Contracts. Okay. Uh, great. Before I turn it over to panel member comments, I did wanna make a comment myself regarding the bus contracts. Um, it, it's true that this is one of the areas that I hear regularly. I think from my first day on the panel, um, the concerns I heard from parents were the bus service.
I have a neighbor who has a child with an IEP that indicates the very, the amount of time that he should be on a bus. And, uh, at one point came and knocked on my door and didn't know where his child was because he'd been on the bus released two hours. And, uh, and what I'm hearing is that's not an uncommon story. And I, and I think that we all, you know, the panelists paid attention. I I think that, you know, I, I actually yesterday tried to reach out to the, uh, gentleman at pitch to try to really engage a conversation with the community that's been advocating with the folks who are advocating on this issue to really be very clear that, that those, those those messages
that we're getting from parents have not gone unheard. And so I will go on the record publicly now and say, any contract that goes beyond two years is something that I would not look favorably on, that the contract needs. We need to have that accountability. When we award a five-year contract, a five-year contract says that we are confident, we're happy, we think that you're doing great service, and that just doesn't appear to be the case. And so, um, my hope is as the negotiations move forward, that we would see a contract that would reflect the need for
dramatic improvement in the service. And I think for the parents who've had a concern about this, that I, I want those parents to know that you've been heard, that we've been listening, we've been getting correspondence, and we're paying attention to those concerns. And that, um, it's unusual for me. I don't normally do this, but I felt it was important to address the concerns of the parents in, in this regard. So, um, you are heard and we're gonna be holding some accountability. The bus, you know, there's some work to, and by the way, the department is hearing you also, and we're really working hard to make sure that that, um, happens. So feel confident, work with us in fact, so
that we can come back with a great proposal and come back with something that's gonna work to improve the service for our children. Okay. Are there any Pam members who wished? Is she worse? There was a student who wanted to speak on this. Sorry. So Lila Torres, we're going to have come back and speak about the contracts. Okay. Um, as a student, I think that cell phones shouldn't be been in school. I personally think that they can be used for learning. Hold, Hold it. Hold on for one second. Okay. So we're going to wait. If you wanna speak about the cell phone regulation, we'll call you back when we're doing that one. Do you have, did you also wanna speak about
the bus contract? Uh, yeah. Okay. Do that one. Okay. Um, I would like to point out how, right now the busing service sucks. Um, um, I was, I was at a training with my mom today and I was talking to this girl. She said that she was on a bus and on her bus that boys sat on one side and girls sat on the other and her bus driver told her to sit on the side with the boys. She kept on telling him that she was a girl, but he responded to her, um, uh, supposedly
by saying, but you have short hair, so you're a boy that, um, yeah. And on and on my bus every day there seems to be a different problem with either getting to school late or getting picked up late, or it being the bus driver yelling at stu at younger students. One time, um, on the bus, this kid was repeated, I'm on a special ed route. Um, this kid was repeatedly saying something over and over again, um, kind of loud and the bus driver yelled at him and said, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna call your dad.
Which does not seem okay to say to a young kid. And he looked like four and he started crying and no one did anything about it. And they're, they always seem to be disrespectful to, um, the kids on the bus. People who are working with children should be more patient. And it seems like this, this has happened a lot of times before and there's so many problems on my bus. There's 30 kids on my bus and I feel like that's a problem 'cause there's no AC on the bus. Another thing, it's the summer. So should, you should, ah, I encourage
to vote yes because for summer kids need buses, but to extend the contract for five more years doesn't seem very reasonable. And I agree, that's all. Um, but can I just, just the first comment, the comment where the gentleman made certain observations or the driver made, um, did you pass those on? 'cause I think we would need to follow up on that kind of language. Yeah, we already, um, can you hear me? Yeah, we, uh, we just, um, are contacting, uh, mark, he's Lila. I'm gonna need you to speak to Mark, um, so we can get some additional information. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that forward. Thank you. Yes.
Panel member a little bit closer. Thank you so much. Uh, Camille Kareti, Brooklyn Borough President Appointee. Um, I just want to thank everyone for coming out and telling your stories. They're so important. Um, specifically related to children fainting and children missing, this is highly traumatic for parents. For the children themselves. I was actually a child who fainted, um, because of the heat. And I can tell you that as an elementary school student,
you start wondering, what's wrong with me? Why is this happening? And it's really like these external conditions that, of course the child has nothing that they can do about it. And so you're causing all of this trauma for the children. And when parents cannot find out where their child child is and they're on a bus for hours and hours and hours and nobody is able to offer the information, we're really eroding the trust
that we have with our families. And so I think that we have to be very, very careful which vendors we choose to work with and ensure that we are really providing the proper services. Thank you. Thank you panel member. Any other panel members? Wish to comment? Panel member. Did you say Hi Mar? We sag. I have a child who's been taking the school bus since he was, uh, I don't even remember at this point, but like school bus system is just like the weather. Everybody complains about it. Nothing is being done about it, but we should have other choices. Three years ago I gave up on the school, uh,
the school bus system. What I do, I drop my son in person, I go back home, I return and pick him up and go back home. That is pretty costly. But then again, this is not as costly as what we are spending per child for each bus. I think it's a time that we cannot look at other alternative, such as providing parents with a metro card with four, at least four rides. I know they have a training system. Now I was asked to join. However, not everybody can join that system. I'm looking at it. My son is traveling back and forth.
I watch him. You need constant supervision no matter what. He does know how to look at those street to cross. However, it took me 19 years to realize why he's still crossing without looking. The problem is he has vision problem. He cannot look at yellow lights. Headlights are yellow. So he looks away, then he looks at the red light, which is the back of the car. So that's not gonna be solved. So the only answer is to always have somebody with him. And fortunately I can do it. A lot of parents call me all the time as an advocate,
ask me, Margie, how do I do that? I cannot help them. But I think what of it should look into this by giving a monthly card that costs, I dunno, 130 something dollars to a parent who's willing to do a, I'm not talking about those, a child who needs a wheelchair, but those who can walk, parents who can walk their kids or take a train or bus, whatever it is, drop that child at school and willingly pick them up. I think that would solve the lateness. Not knowing where your child is at times, sometimes I have a friend who had a child going
to school in Brooklyn, she's following to the watch. The child went from Brooklyn to Queens and the Bronx, two and a half hours and they had no idea why. So a lot of parents are hesitant about putting their child on the school bus and not knowing we are very, we're nervous wreck when our child is not with us. I would ask if we can consider giving parents a monthly card or four round trip, uh, two round trips so they can drop back and forth. Don't ask them to wait around to pick up the child at 3:00 PM This is totally unfair.
Thank you. Yeah, pen member Alban. I wasn't gonna say anything, but I think, um, when Camille talk about the vendors and we talking about the bus, if you look at that list, more than half belongs to one owner. So we have to pay attention to those, uh, bus companies as well. They have conglomerates and it's the same person or the main person that owns these different bus companies. So we have to do our more, our due diligence when it comes to that as well. Thank you. That point. It's an important, uh, consideration panel. I appreciate that. Thank you chair. Um,
the comptroller agrees of course, that we are in a situation where we need these emergency contracts to provide ongoing bus service. But as the comptroller and the public advocate outlined in their letter to Mayor Adams earlier this week, the goal with the Emergen emergency extensions should not be rolling out five year extensions in the fall. The goal should be each to negotiate with these companies now to get a shorter contract so we can rebid these contracts sooner rather than later. The bus companies may be fine continuing to get paid millions in taxpayer dollars for poor service
in overheated buses with more than 80,000 delays a year, and no afterschool or summarizing service. But the taxpayers of New York City should not be satisfied with that at all. Here's just a sampling of some of the data on these bus companies. Pride Transportation, which tonight is going to get a $10.7 million extension is responsible for 17,000 or 84% of all reported delays greater than 60 minutes this past school year. Those 17,000 delays were for the 5,600 students
with disabilities that were transported by pride at least, um, as of 2024. Or how about Pioneer Transportation with their $6.1 million extension 2,433 average curb to school students, 38,000 stop to school students in 2024 and 15% of all the delays over 15 minutes this past school year, or even Allied, which is getting a relatively small contract extension tonight, $1.1 million, more than 9,000 stop
to school students reported delays over 15 minutes this past year increased by 22%. Giving these bad players five year contracts, locks students and families into more of the trauma that you've heard people talk about tonight caused by poor service and punts us into the next decade before something can be done about it. Let's keep these emergency contracts in place until a deal that benefits students and families can be met
and not a deal that just benefits the bus companies. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Are any additional comments? I'm, you know, happy to have the, uh, public avenue control agree with the panel that these contracts should not go beyond the five year period. I think that's important, um, that we have that support and agreement. I think the panel has consistently, uh, felt in discussion and in negotiation and in that, that this is something that was important to us and that we've been listening very carefully to the parents and the concerns that have been expressed regarding bus service. I think the number of panel members have been very
outspoken in this regard. So, um, we're happy to have that support. Um, the panel when this matter comes for us for a vote, um, I think the message is going out very clearly, what we're looking for and, but we're also looking for the support of the parents. We're looking for community groups. I had a letter from a parent, uh, just before coming to the meeting. Uh, the parent wasn't able to be here, but really wanted to have his voice heard in terms of what was happening with his child in terms of bus service. So I emailed that out to members of the panel earlier today because, um, I think these are concerns.
Parents should not have to worry for two hours. Where's my child? You know? Um, and in this case, his, his feeling was that the g uh, they think they have GPS service and the GPS was turned off. Um, and so there was no understanding as to what was going on. That is unacceptable. And what we're saying clearly as a panel, what we will be saying, what we'd be saying forcefully as we move into this process is that, that that's not acceptable and that we're not going to allow. And I think we have the support of DOE, you know, department is supporting us in this. I think we're all in agreement on this.
I think everybody understands the importance of this. And now the go, the goal is that we're gonna work together to make sure that there's some real meaningful improvements. I think one of our panel members said that we keep talking about this and we talk about it year after year, but it seems to get recycled as the same thing. Um, I think this has gotta be the point that we say, finally we're gonna actually do something about this and make sure that there's real improvement. So, um, I appreciate the comments. Um, are there any additional comments, uh, Ms. Carroll? Yeah, I Go, oh, well I called during her and then let me cut back To you. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, well Go ahead, go ahead. This is, um, this is more of a nuance of the
interior, of, of the school buses. Um, I don't know, like many of you may, may or may not know, but I'm a spinal cord tumor survivor. And, um, I would appreciate within the school buses adequate shock absorbers for people who have spinal cord injuries and, um, and core who have weak core strength when you're talking about the interior of a bus. And, uh, people who have healthy and normal spines can withstand the jolting
and the neck going back. And we don't think about these things until we're in the shoes of a, in a, of a person, um, a body that cannot support their neck. So when we're talking about the bumps and the different types of roads and pavements for people who do have injuries, we need to factor that in to the structure of the bus. However, that may look, I don't know if it's shock absorbers, but that can, you know, exasperate a really bad day before you even get
to your de your destination if you're not, if you're physically, um, being harmed just by bumps in the road and not being able to support your body during your journey. So I just wanted to share that. Um, sure. As well. Thank you. Good evening. So I wanna a start with, thank you for the support from A little bit loud. I feel like it's low. How are we doing now? Okay. Yeah. Much better. Much better. You hear me in the back? Yeah. All right. My name is Rema from the Bronx BPA. Um, I wanna thank first the panel on the support
around the busing contracts because this is a 45 year super complex issue that is very difficult to explain and everybody has been very gracious trying to meet us where we are and learn about it and understand it and asking questions and, and trying to be involved in something that affects this many people. But is this big of a problem? And it is our most vulnerable people that that, that it touches. So I just wanna thank everybody for the support. I wanna thank the public for the support. 'cause we knew y'all were coming to talk about busing. Um, I would like to ask for a committee on transportation
so that over the next year while we're doing these emergency contracts, we can investigate like, right, there's data missing from busing that would be helpful for us, like in the decision making process and advocating for better contracts. So I'd love a committee for us to officially do the work that we have all clearly committed to. And we're actually like in agreement, I'm already in negotiating with somebody to chair that committee who I just Gotta pay It committee. I was feeling that, yeah, I'm already in negotiation. I mean, I'm waiting for a response. I'm looking at the person I'm waiting for. I'm not gonna put any pressure, but I'm waiting for the response. 'cause I think you're absolutely right. Pressure, Pressure, pressure, right? That this needs
to, this needs to be addressed, um, in a committee and beyond the committee. Um, we'd also like to, um, um, have a task force that would really do some work. One of the reasons I reached out to representative, I think Mr. Stevens from Pitt, from Pitts, um, to, to have them join the committee. And I think there was another bus advocate group that came to our meeting last month. Um, wanna reach out to them and ask them to be part of the committee. So this committee, and I see some of you sitting in the audience that spoke earlier. Before you leave, I'd like you to sign up for the committee also, because I think this needs to be a very wide ranging conversation.
Not just exclusive to the panel, but we need to hear from parents. We need to hear from community, um, as we formulate this committee moving forward on what we, what our expectations are regarding bus service. 'cause if we don't do that, what's gonna happen is we'll be sitting here next year or a year from now saying, well, you know, we didn't really take the opportunity to make real change. So we are gonna do a committee waiting for the person I've asked to serve as chair to say yes. And then we'll put that together. Great. One other comment. Yes. Um, also wanted to speak about the milk contract. Um, we can do a much better job with milk.
Um, and I know that there are standards and state, and it's a little bit out of our reach, but we spend a whole lot of money on milk that goes in the garbage. And I happen to know someone that wanted to speak today, probably didn't get here on time to sign up, wanted to ask why milk keeps getting sent home with their child. Um, we all know, I hope that after an hour it starts to grow bacteria and we cannot touch it. Um, but I just wanna elevate that like $60 million in milk crunch. Like it's just a little bit concerning. So I just, can we look at what we do with milk and maybe reduce that?
And like, some kids want water. I, I, I don't know how to replace like that dairy item with something they want or with the nutrition it's supposed to provide, but they're throwing it in the garbage. It's just money in the garbage everywhere. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other comments from panel members? Um, I'm getting a sense that we are, uh, ready to vote on these item. Oh, I'm sorry. Chancellor wanted to, uh, comment, Uh, actually, so I know we, that we were talking earlier about, um, the omni cards. Um, and so I, I just really wanna uplift the work
that our dial, uh, team is doing and ask deputy Chancellor Fody if she would talk a little bit about it. And, and, uh, uh, Chris, if you wouldn't mind after Christina, if you would talk a little bit about the, the milk, uh, issue. No, no. Let me come up there. Sorry. No, you're good. Just Go closer whenever you did work. Okay, Jim. Okay. Thank you. Hi. Good evening everyone. Margie, you know, as always, you're on our page. So I wanted to share with you something, uh, that very exciting that we've been doing. We are just starting with families, uh,
of students with disabilities. We're offering a travel training program where we are travel training, both family and the child together, or the student together. And then we're offering fa families the omni car to, to get to do that. So amazing. So it's For my son. So Where it's, I think other kids can't go, uh, can't profit from it. Yeah. If they adjust a little, I mean, I watch this videos over and over. Yeah. And, and beyond that. So I just wanted to say we're at step one of this. And so I think once we have proof of concept
that it's working generally and we have a solid program, we'll be able to then individualize it for other students. And, and like your son, Go on the mic, Margie. We Have all kids 24 7. When we do take them out, we don't need to have a training program to teach us how to take them out. Yeah. So I understand the goal is to eventually let them go to school alone. Yep. Some of them will never be there, like I just mentioned. Yeah. However, we can alleviate the school bus problem by allowing parents, uh, in my case, I have a sit also who does half Yep. Uh, to help us getting him to and from. Yep.
Because that may explain beside the school bus Yeah. Fees that you guys are paying. He requires a one-on-one if you do find one. Yes. So I would say it's pennies compared to what Yeah. And a lot of parents are reaching out to me, they're like, Margie, how do you, how do I get a school bus path or something. Yeah. I think this is definitely something we can consider and, um, that we should definitely talk more about. There's actually a, a group that Deputy Chancellor Varo put together to talk about policy issues just like this, Margie. So this is something we will absolutely bring back and,
and feels like a promising, uh, option too, Right? Because we have a lot of parents are waiting. Okay. Thank you, Margie. Thank you. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for that question. Of course. Um, it's always important for us to be able to explain the process of how we serve food in schools. Um, everyone does understand the national program, and when we understand the program, we understand the fact that we must offer milk with every meal, not serve milk, with every meal. And every single school does have water available inside of the cafeteria, whether it's through a bottle filler, through a water fountain,
or what we call our water jets or spa water. Our staff, the OFNS staff in every single school, has been trained to make sure children understand that milk is offered. They do not have to take it, but they always must take a reimbursable meal. Sometimes we have been trained over the years to understand that children are taking milk because they're told to take it. When we recognize that a reimbursable meal is not being served, that's one of the options for our children to take to make sure it's served. We did send a usage report to the divisions of contracts and purchasing, which I know was requested by the panel.
Um, to date, I know for the past three years, we're serving almost 7 million cartons less than we have been over the past three years. So the trend is that we are trending down. We're training our staff, we're talking more to our children about what they should or should not take when they're taking meals. And there are signs in every lunchroom that talk about milk being offered and not being served with each meal. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Yeah. Yeah. Panel member Hannah Jones. Hi, Everyone. Hi everyone. Uh, Raji Hannah Jones. Um, I, I heard about the water bottles.
Uh, I mean, the water being, um, available, um, to some of our students. Um, not all of our water fountains are deployed equally. And, um, just a fun fact, just a, a fact that the vast majority of black and people of color are very lactose intolerant, me included. Um, so I don't know why we're not even talking about the very natural resource that should be, um, given to our children. Um, the fact that I'm hearing about, um, students that are on buses that are dehydrated, um, I, I,
I remember a time when my daughter basically was playing after school, basically I was called because she had a headache. And I was like, she's dehydrated. Where's the water? And the water was nowhere to be found. In fact, I'm sure if you did a tour of a lot of our Title one schools right now, there are water fountains that are in classrooms that literally are spitting out orange and brown water. So we have a natural resource issue. We have a, not only do we have food deserts, but we also have a issue in terms of where our water, uh, should come from.
I mean, you can look at our public housing. They're also having issues with their supply of water as well. Um, I really think that the food, uh, administration, especially, that should be a high priority in terms of making water, the, uh, the number one priority for children to make a choice, um, and not bring milk. And I'm gonna tell you, if I, if I had a milk carton in on my tray, I'll throw it out too. Um, because, you know, we, we really have to look in terms of, I, I heard the young sister say that our lunch is much better. And I'm very thankful for that. Um, we, we, on my side of, of Brooklyn,
we have fought very much so about the quality of food. Um, but this milk situation, in terms of dairy, needs to be reevaluated. Um, I do think that, not think, but I do know that milk and dairy products are mandated in New York City. So what about the panel? Looking at certain contracts that require us to, uh, sign on for dairy products. And so, uh, I think it should be a priority of this board to eliminate, uh, milk and provide us with water. Uh, also alternatives for, uh, uh, drinks with electrolytes,
uh, especially during the summer afterschool programs. Uh, and make that the first choice rather than making it the second and third. And we need, we, we really need to look at our water fountains. Our water fountain should be, uh, available in every classroom. If you have water fountains in your classroom and you turn on that fountain, it's brown water. That's unacceptable. I don't care how many bottle, uh, sprinklers you have in, uh, in, in on one floor. Um, many of our students, especially in, uh, in our middle schools, that share buildings, uh, don't have access to water.
They literally have to walk down two flights of stairs just to get, uh, water to fill into their bottles. That's unacceptable. Uh, so we really need to start thinking morally at this process and, uh, make it happen. Okay. Um, yeah, I was just talking to our, our, our team back here, um, Panama, Hannah Jones. I think that what you're suggesting is we may need to have a briefing on this, specifically on this topic, um, and, uh, really dig into it. 'cause I think you raised a lot of important questions here that we ought to be, uh, looking at. So, um, I've just spoken, and we're gonna try to schedule a briefing on this specific,
uh, item that you just, uh, outlined for us. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other panel member comments? That, that Thank you, Farage. Okay. To, to start to wait. You're actually outta water. I didn't recognize you, but Go ahead. Sorry. Thank you, chair. Yeah, go ahead. Did, did you wanna finish a comment? I did. Okay. And, and just the fact that, um, being a part of this panel, we no longer need to accept the fact that something is happening just because that's how it has always been. We have to begin to examine those things that have always been, that have not served, at least
examine why this is still happening. And it's, it's just not acceptable that it's always been that way. So that's our job as panel members to continue to examine and unpack the things that have always been that way, that have not, um, uh, that no longer served to the capacity that it in initially did. Great. Thank you. Panama. Ho I just wanna remind you, if given the opportunity, the reason I always carry this is back when Flint, Michigan happened, the DOE took it very seriously.
And they issued out, I think it was freshman or sophomores, each, I think swell. We did it. Uh, a partnership with Swell were issued water bottles because we understood that this was a reality. And to thank you for reminding us. But again, it's been an existing issue. It's always germane to bring it back up again. But this is why I continue to have my water bottle. Great. Thank you. One quick, just Yeah, go ahead. Just one quick comment. I will say that the, the, the bottle dispensers that are in, uh, the buildings are not distributed equitably.
They're not, and a lot of students do not have access to these expensive bottle fillers. They don't. Um, but there's a water fountain in every classroom, especially in some of our older buildings, where they cannot get up and walk three flights downstairs to fill up their water bottle, especially in the, uh, the warmer months of our school year. So, I, I'm saying that this should particularly be an alarm, uh, to make sure that we have access, and we're talking about access here. We don't even have access to the more number one resource.
Our body is made of what, 80% water and we don't even have access to it. Um, and then we're signing contracts with these, these guys, uh, just to get access to it. No, we need to make sure that our, our our, um, water fountains and our bottle dispensers are, uh, deployed equally. And we need to make sure that we make a investment on that, Scott. Great. Okay. We're gonna, I think we've talked, you know, we're gonna, we've heard this item. We're gonna have a briefing on this. We're gonna get into a discussion we don't need. You should necessarily have that here. So, um, I think we're ready to proceed to a vote. Um, because I think there's some items here.
Is there, let me just ask, is there an objection to unanimous consent on this? Or do we want to proceed to a roll call? Yes. Object. Object. Okay. So we'll proceed to a roll call on this item I will call, um, when I call your name, please indicate how you wish to vote. If you wish to vote differently on a particular item, please, um, indicate as much, um, member Ali Abstaining on number contract. Item number 29. Yes. To the rest. Um, member Ali Also abstaining from contract item number 29, and yes to the rest. Um, um, member ban
Stating form contract number 29. Yes. Um, member ca From eight and 29. Member Deans Yes. To all Member fair? Yes to all, Um, member Garcia. Uh, member Ano All Vice chair Green? Yes. To all, Uh, member Hannah Jones. Uh, yes to all. Um, member Ho, Yes. To all Member Isci Abstain To eight and 29?
Yes. To the rest. Uh, absent. Member Ong? Yes. Uh, member Parsons? Yes. And member Sap? Yes. To all. And Chair Faulkner? Yes to all. One second. Did anybody else show up and not indicate that they were here? Nobody else snuck in. Okay. Um, so all items are passed, um, except item 29. Um, the, so item 29 had, um, 11 yeses and five abstentions no, no votes.
So does not have a majority of the whole item. Eight passes with 14 yes votes and two abstentions. And the remainder of the items had 16 Yes. Votes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you panel members, and thank you public. Uh, the discussion. We'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is consideration of Chancellor Regulations. Um, secretary Nathan, would you please present the resolution to the panel? Uh, the next item is resolution. Up for approval is entitled Resolution for Amendment to Chancellor's Regulation. A four 13 Chair Walker.
So, sat there. Okay. Is there a motion to adopt the resolution from the panel? Is there a second to the motion to adopt the resolution? Second, we'll, we'll proceed to public con to public discussion. Um, secretary Nathan, please call the, uh, public. Sure. I will call the first group of speakers, uh, Lila Torres. Whoops. Let's give them a second to walk out. Im really going blind here. Now, NAFA Lewis, um, I don't know if Dalia is still here. Dalia Diaz Chan, Sarah
Lento, and Patrick Burns as the first group of speakers. As a student, I think cell phone shouldn't be banned. I personally think that they can be used for learning purposes. And if cell phones are banned, it won't just stop kids from using them. It would simply push the usage undergrad. It wouldn't help it to like tell students that they're banned. Kids are using them anyways. It's not gonna make much of a difference. It would be, it would be better to encourage them not to be banned. And instead of not of telling kids they're banned.
Another thing on that is that kids don't know where this policy is online. They don't look up the website one, no, they don't look up the website or where the rules are or any of the punishments. Um, where is this? According to ce.ed.gov, about half of public school leaders that's 35% feel that their student's academic performance has been negatively impacted by cell phone usage. But what about the other half? And what about how students feel about that?
What about how they're affected in a say of whether they, whether or whether or not that there should be abandoned cell phones? The cell phone band fault, the cell phone ban punishments are outrageous. For any of you who don't know them, I'll read them. Potential consequences may include phone confiscation with parent slash guardian pickup required detention, exclusion from extracurricular activities, exclusion from trips, master classes, preview performances, loss of open lunch privileges, and exclusion from non-instructional activities. Does that not seem a little bit much?
Some kids need their phone for medical purposes. What if they, what if they bring out their phones to maybe check the time or something? 'cause there isn't a clock in their classroom when they get excluded from any of the above, that seems a bit excessive. Um, please vote no for the cell phone ban policy. And I feel as if that student members should be able to vote because they're getting affected more than the, they're getting affected, affected by this more than the adults are. The adults aren't the ones in school who are getting their phones confiscated. And they're the ones who are still constantly in school. The the members are older
and they only have so many years left of school. Thank you. That's all. Have a great rest of your day. Good evening. Um, regarding the cell phone ban, I would just say first as a tech, um, professional, I believe in empowerment versus censorship. That said, I wanna say thank you for incorporating the feedback from the various groups, the ccs, et cetera, um, in this Red Line version. But I also want us to remember that although we are implementing a po we are trying to implement a policy that has been sent down from the state. New York City is not only the largest school district,
but it's, the complexities are very different to a lot of the other, um, areas in the state when it comes to things such as transit failures, failures, um, how we deal with lunch. Um, we just had a lot of discussion on busing and a lot of other areas that impact how we deal with things like technology. Um, in addition to that, just for this school year pass, many schools have had school sys school phones down for multiple times. Schools with multiple, um, buildings, with multiple schools in them. Many of them do not have it.
You get en routed to the wrong place. So even though the policy is, um, allowing, is indicating that you must have a part that only that works on paper. But if it's not actually implemented, there are certain, um, issues. Um, it's also very frustrating that this vote is happening in July when everyone is on vacation. Um, it asks us to consult with s SLTs. S SLTs stopped meeting in June. There was no policy that was there as a member of my school's SLTI forced it to be on the agenda
for either May or June. So we came up, but we couldn't really come up with an actual policy because we did not know what this red line version is going to be. And it says that it needs to be in place for September for the start of school. So are we put in the card before the horse? Um, you know, as, as I said, it could not be in there. Um, in addition to some of the other issues, I'm just also looking at my time. Uh, some concerns that have been coming out from families lunch. Um, it says Bell to bell. New York City, again, is unique in the fact that especially in places like Manhattan, lots
of students go out to lunch or so forth. You need to, um, accommodate for that. Um, free periods. Students have commutes that are over an hour. Sometimes this is a time that they can do some of the work that will make sense to have, um, those things. We're pushing CT again as a tech professional. We've put the car before the horse we've made for multiple years that people follow these policies. Now we're pulling it back. Um, I think the vote should be no, not because we are disobeying the state. I understand that. We're almost there there, but because of the timing, we need
to push this till later in the year. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of CSA President Henry Rubio and our city school leaders. And thank you for the essential work you do. CSA supports New York State's vision for a distraction free learning environment enacted into law. This may our school leaders witness daily how unchecked excessive cell phone use can disrupt instruction, escalate social tension, and undermine student wellbeing. We agree that a bell to bell restriction if implemented thoughtfully, can help restore focus
and foster deeper real world relationships. So we appreciate Governor Ho's leadership on this issue, and we thank her and Chancellor Avili Ramos for seeking feedback from stakeholders on the city's approach. We're pleased that many of our recommendations we're pleased that many of our recommendations were incorporated into the regulations that you'll vote on tonight. Particularly the inclusion of language around progressive discipline. However, policy is only as effective as its rollout. Implementation depends on real world tools and support.
Our greatest concern is that the burden of policy design and enforcement is being shifted heavily onto principles. CSA has been clear from the out outset that our members need more than broad guidance. We have called for uniform citywide templates, including model policies, disciplinary ladders, and family communication materials. To date, we have not seen these resources delivered. As a result, a citywide policy risk becoming 1,600 different versions of policy with wide disparities in clarity enforcement and implementation.
We urge the DOE to follow through with detailed, accessible plug and play tools for schools. At the same time, of course, we believe that some principal discretion remains necessary. What works in a small neighborhood elementary school may not translate to large high schools. Our system need clear centralized expectations combined with local flexibility to make the policy work. We urge you to please vote for, uh, the, the revised chances regulation A 4 1 3, and to commit to true partnership with school leaders with what comes next. Thank you. Thank you.
Um, the next group of speakers, um, Dr. Salas and, um, Lupe Hernandez and Tom Shepherd has signed up. We're all making a comeback today. Um, Would you say Shepherd guy? Yeah, That guy. Um, so I, I mean I've come to speak about this before. There was a resolution presented by former Panel member Shepherd, um, on the cell phone policy. Uh, and we've seen across the state that predominantly black and Latina families are not in support of a cell phone ban.
Uh, because we have critical concerns. While we continue to say that cell phones are a distraction to instruction, we provide all of our students with devices. We provide all of our students with iPads. We pay for software for kindergartners to spend 20 minutes doing, you know, whatever. I forgot the platform's names at this point. Um, they do Acadians on iPads, screeners. So what kind of message are we really sending to children when we're telling them that a particular device can be used versus another device that cannot be used here?
We talk about career pathways. Many times at this table, many of you have encouraged the advancement to a new technological society. But here we're telling children that one of the instruments that helps them feel safe, they can no longer use or have in their hands. I part my coun my council, um, did look at the regulations. Some of the members do feel like, and I would be remiss if I don't say it, that the exceptions are clear. However, we do still have concerns about children that have, um, that are undocumented
and need to maintain communication with their families. We are also concerned about children with IEPs. Um, whether we're gonna go ahead and start thinking about the use of cell phones in a way that we're policing children and ex as Lila mentioned, implementing punitive policies. Um, I think it has to be crystal clear for school leaders and for SLTs to really think about how these policies are gonna be implemented. I will add that I have a rising ninth grader that has had an IEP since he was in kindergarten who has had a cell phone since he was in fifth grade,
because I'm a single mom that had a baby at the time. And I needed to find a way to make sure that I was always in contact with my son, who felt confident going to school alone. He commutes to school alone 30 minutes. But if it's not for that cell phone and that security that he has, it would be really difficult for him as a child that suffers from generalized and social anxiety to manage his day. So I want those things to be crystal clear in this policy. And there's still a lot of wiggle room here for our communities. Thank You. Good evening panel. We do. You'd be back.
It is a little odd to be on this side of the Yeah. Yeah. Welcome back. Right. Um, so when I was a member of the panel, I did, um, express some serious concerns, um, about this regulation. And, um, many of those concerns still exist. Um, I've been reading over the red line version and, um, I would like for the DOE to consider this, um, in section two B one says,
in the event of an individual student emergency, where the parent has notified the principal designee of the specific nature of the emergency, right? I would ask that we consider the issue of ICE in our neighborhoods and what that means for undocumented students and families as a, a specific emergency that would like, qualify or allow for that particular student to be able to hang on to their phones.
Um, the other thing I do want us to be clear about is this is not a cell phone ban. This is an ELE internet electro, an internet enabled device ban, which literally means cell phones, iPads, computers, anything that the DLE does not provide. And for my family, like I bought my daughter's iPads, I put notability on them because they were sick of carrying wired notebooks and pencils. And to now have my daughter's, well they graduated. But now to have my son not be able to bring his iPad
to school and take notes on it, using a, like an apple pencil to me just doesn't make a lot of sense. And the last thing, um, that I would love to see in this regulation is what it means for like, have it in the regulation somewhere. Like what happens if the school misplaces or damages a device? Um, you know, we spend a lot of money on devices for our young people, and if they get damaged, it's kind of like, oh, well that's on you.
And that's unacceptable. Thank you. You Thank you. Um, just wanna uplift a couple points 'cause I do want to, um, thank the DOE for conducting as much feedback and sessions that you did, um, in the past two years. Um, however, I think it came a bit short in this red line amendment not being able to be, um, observe and really taken in consideration on the SLT and local school levels.
Um, with that being said, I remember the event that then Chancellor Banks announced or asked the question to parents, um, how we felt about cell phones in our schools. And, um, unlike what the way that he described it was, it was overwhelming that students and parents were for this. Um, and that was opposite of the feedback we were getting, especially from our students with disabilities, um, community advocates and family members. I had a student at a school
that the school was already implementing the yonder pouches. And this student described to the principal, um, the need for that cell phone as a accessibility tool. It provides access. Um, this is beyond just a cell phone. It provides access for me, um, as a person with this disability. And so when this student did ask for that exemption or waiver, it was, um, offered. However, it created a stigma for that student within the classroom and within their peers
and being looked at differently. And that student didn't want to use their cell phone, that accessibility, what helped them throughout their day, um, because they felt, um, stigmatized and they also felt that they had the ability to use something that their peers couldn't. So it created an us versus them. I do wanna uplift, um, the fact that Tom brought this resolution to the panel, and it seems like it was punted to the state as if, I think it was quite clear that New York City public schools were not in favor of,
first of all, a ban. The word ban should have never been used. It should have been always just a cell phone policy. Uh, the word band I think created a a, a really bad, um, juju around the whole thing, but it did get punted to the state. And now we're forced to mandate something that is not gonna work for our communities. So please take into consideration the two amendments. Um, that would include emergencies being waived for, um, those that are maybe, um, scared of ice, as well
as liability of the schools being responsible for devices if they're lost or damaged. Chancellor Ramos. So I wanna, I wanna thank everyone for, um, not only your feedback tonight, but the ongoing feedback. Um, a couple things before I pass it over to to Judy. Um, one is we heard you and by we, um, mayor Adams. And I heard that it wasn't overwhelmingly in support and that is why we decided to hold on, um, implementing this last year when it was still an option.
Um, and that is because of your voice. That is because we know that an idea and the implementation of are often two very different things, especially in a school system this size. Um, so that's one. The second thing is that this is very much going to be a dynamic regulation. We cannot have a regulation that just sits on a shelf and then we dust it off in five years to see how it works five years before. Um, and so because this is so different for us, and
because cell phone restrictions is not new to the system, but is definitely going to be new in many spaces and places, and we do want to take into account our most challenged communities, our minoritized children, the over-policing, um, those are all things that have to be taken into account. And so here's what I will promise that we will have periodic check-ins on how the implementation is going. We will continue to uphold working groups. And if we need to adjust the policy, that is not something
that has to happen once every five years. As a matter of fact, it mustn't happen once every five years. And so noted on, on recommendations. And again, I wanna pass it over to Judy to speak a little bit about that. Um, but I also more broadly want to make that commitment that we will continue to look at the regulation as we implement this across the system to comply with state law. And the last thing I'll saying is we were working on a very tight timeline. Um, you know, we would've loved to have more
of an opportunity to red line this, but when we need to submit our plan by August 1st, um, and the news hits at the end of the school year, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's quite the, it's quite the timeline. So appreciate you all understanding that we put forth our best effort, um, to do that. But this is why I say this regulation cannot be static. It must be dynamic. And we must continue to take a look at it with your support. Thank you, Judy. I hate following the chancellor. It's so good. You know, so I do wanna respond to the,
the concern about ICE or coming in detention. Um, so the regulation talks about in emergency, certainly if this were to happen, please know that we, we, there will be a way for a parent to contact the school if this is immediately happening. But if it, after the fact someone says, you know, my, this child's parent was detained, the child needs to have a phone because they may call. That's the kind of thing that this thing is built for the emergency. We use the word parent, but we always use parent really broadly. So if this child is now with a relative or a friend
and we are now informed that horribly this parent, this child's parent has been detained, child needs the phone because we just don't know if the parent is going to call. That's a prime example of where we would wanna use that emergency. So I appreciate the comment and you know, we don't, we don't want our kids holding phones just in case they're living in horrible times anyway. But that would be a perfect example. So we appreciate that and we can make sure that's messaged, messaged out. So thank you for that comment. Okay. I think, uh, the other public comment, The only other thi I guess liability. So we do have a,
there is city policy about phones get lost and damaged. Now, there is a claim process for people to seek reimbursement for lost or damaged phones. I, I don't know if it's in the reg, but it's definitely in a lot there have been a lot of materials. There are a lot of materials that are being developed and will be going out to schools and on our website, um, to give more information. And if, if a phone is damaged, which hopefully won't happen or lost, there is a PA po a practice and a process to seek reimbursement. I I, I promise I'll shut up after this,
but that's also, as we gear up for the new school year and really thinking about what a family toolkit should look like, um, I certainly am aware of that process because, uh, a a cell phone or two got damaged, uh, during my time. Um, and, and parents rightfully came to collect. So we will make sure that that is circulated. Um, and that parents truly understand what that process looks like. I just wanna make sure I didn't know other public I see. Well, one if they're public comment. Oh, public. No, there's no more Public comments. There's no more, that's what I was trying to call public comment.
Public. Okay. So I didn't see panel member CA's hand first. Then Pemba Alban, Thank you so much. Uh, So we talked about a lot in, in our cell phone briefing. Um, but something came up like just in the last day or so, and I'm sorry I didn't bring this to your attention chair. Um, I received an email from my child's school actually, and in it it said that they needed to report the school's cell phone policy to the DOE August 8th. I don't know if that is how things are going,
like behind the scenes. Could, could Repeat that again. I didn't, Um, what are the school friends that, that the, the school has to submit the school's cell phone policy to the DOE by August 8th? I Thought it was a, did I misunderstand that? No, I don't why That's so, so basically the schools are supposed to submit their cell phone policy. The District was supposed to by August. I know that at August 1st, I, I didn't Right. Understand why this. And, um, so then the other thing is,
and I just, um, wanted to acknowledge the CSA rep and what he shared. Um, in this email it says potential consequences may include phone confiscation with parent guardian pickup required detention, exclusions from extracurricular activities, exclusion from trips, master classes, and preview performances, loss of open lunch privileges, exclusion from other non-instructional activities. So I'm just wondering if that is something
that came out of the DOE to the schools, or is that something that the school made up on their own? So we didn't really talk about the specific discipline that, I mean, we did, but I don't remember any of that in that conversation. Yeah, I, I would really love to talk to you offline and get, uh, the name of the school and we'll have a conversation with the school. I think that we have some well-intentioned folks who are trying to get ready for the upcoming school year. Obviously there are a lot of things in there
that we will address. So if you could, if we could connect, that'd be great. Yeah, I, I know it came up during the briefing, the, the, uh, repercussions, uh, during our briefing. And I was pretty comfortable that they responded with what would be the district, the, the, the doe's policy regarding, you know, violations of the policy. And they seem pretty fair. Um, but, you know, they were, they were very clear that they weren't gonna be draconian consequences for violation of the policies Chair information. Do we have a clarification of when the school policies are due? Do we know that August 1st, August 1st District wide policy is due August 1st.
Schools have to have a policy in place and be ready to implement on the first day of school. And we know that the s SLTs and parent associations won't meet until after. So you, they may need to do some tinkering with it. We, you know, we were put in a very tight, you know, place with the, you know, governor the law passing in mid-May. And the fact, you know, we brought this to you within, it's being voted on within two months. Um, who the heck, we never do that. So we did this. So they'll probably be a little bit of tinkering if necessary when school opens,
but the policies have to be ready to go, you know, with whatever storage mechanism is in place, um, for the start of the school year. Okay. And they'll be included in the consolidated plans ultimately. Great kind involvement. So you touch on my comment. My comment is not either for or against the policy. I just want to clarify some of the timelines because a a 4 1 13, a four 13 is not a, a new regulations. Matter of fact, three years ago we actually removed cell phone was banned from the building. We were all violating a four 13.
So they updated the reg and it was on each school to develop their own policy. The New York City public schools gave them autonomy for the SLTs to come up with cell po cell phone policies in each school. So when the state finally passed it, yeah, half of our schools had cell phone policies in place. So that, we've gotta keep that in mind. So that's on the school. If there's not on the existing cell phone policy, now this reg is being tweaked to go along with the state law, right? So we won't be violent. Our regs cannot go against state, the state law.
Um, and we are voting on tonight on this policy be, and it was mentioned already, we have a deadline of August 1st and that's why this vote is being put on here, um, tonight. And I just wanted to make sure those were very clear about why it's being voted on, um, to tonight. Councilman Parsons? Yes. Um, I just wanted to comment on the fact that, um, the cell phone policy, I know it's scary and we do not like change. I have a D 75 son.
He has a phone, but he can't use his phone in school. It's cool. Um, he's a New Yorker and I think we all need to agree that we all New Yorkers and we need to have a contingency plan in place for our students just in case our phones don't work inside the school or outside the school. He is in work. He was at work at seven o'clock ba I have a meeting. I did not have to pick up my phone and ask him, are you home? There is a plan in place for me to know that he is home.
We are not codependent on our telephones, even though I love electronics. But, um, to that degree, um, I think there needs to be a understanding of the withdrawal process with the cell phones with our children, and also understand that parents are really, are afraid of our kids not having the phone and not really the children, not them having their phones. And let's also understand that when our kids are on they phone, they are about
to participate in something. And I know earlier this year we were so concerned about this subway surfing, but where did that happen? Where was the preparation? It probably was inside the classrooms. And then we had to have a whole meeting about subway surfing and all these things. So if we kind of could tweak that or, um, put a handle harness what our children are doing, I think they will have a better performance in school. And that's just Me speaking on that. Thank you panel member. Um, are there any other panel member comments?
Do panel, uh, vice chair green? Uh, good, good evening everyone. And, uh, I have to say thank you, uh, panel member Parson for that. Uh, you know, we all grew up, some of us, some of us grew up without cell phones. We survived, correct? We went to school, we came home and we dealt with it. And you know, I know it sounds scary to a lot of parents, and I think it is, like she said, the parents who might be a little more frightened. But one thing we must, must remember as an educator,
I've been in the schools for over 36 years, and when I was an assistant principal, cell phones first came out and it became a dangerous situation because children who could afford them were using them to call others to the school to hurt others. I've always worked in tough areas, always worked in schools where, you know, we had to, you know, maintain, uh, consequences, behavior and things like that. And the cell phones were not our friend back then as things became, uh, a little more sophisticated,
cell phones became an educational tool, which was great. Uh, so teachers, well, you know, administrators or school staff knew how to utilize them, but I, as a, as an administrator have always had a cell phone policy, which was, they were not to be used to distract children in classrooms because that's what they could be. If your child is texting you while in class, then they're not paying attention to the lesson. They are distracting themselves from learning. So it is important that children, young people understand
that a policy is there for their protection. I tell parents that if your child has a cell phone, and even if they go home with the cell phone, sometimes there, there are children, young people outside who are up to no good to look for them to steal their cell phone. I have dealt with many of those types of situations. So they have to be careful when they pull their cell phones out. Sometimes they're sitting out in front of the school waiting for a parent, pull out their cell phone to call their parent, and they
get, you know, they can get hurt. They have gotten hurt by others. So it's very important that parents teach their children how to use that cell phone and, and not all situations, because there's this, I'm sure there are schools where this does not happen. So I know, and I I have a lot of confidence in our chancellor that the cell phone policies for each school, individual schools will be differentiated just like instruction. Where if some schools might need a stricter policy, then they will have that. The principles I see, I know Principal Ber Berman is,
uh, in the audience. He spoke, uh, they might have a stricter policy than schools where things might not happen so drastically. So parents, please understand, it's not to be an enemy toward a cell phone. It is to protect our young people in every aspect of their school life and, and life in general. It's important that we understand that they can be a positive thing, but they can be negative as well. I remember I told my young people in my school, uh, I said, I wrote a letter to the parents.
I said, my policy, young people cannot use Facebook. I, I wrote it in a letter to, to the parents. And one of the young students came to me and he said, oh, we got your letter that you said we can't have Facebook. And I said, right. He said, you can't do that. And I said, but I did because he felt like I could not, and I couldn't really, I can't tell you, you cannot use Facebook. But Facebook was causing so many distractions in the school. Every single day parents would come because children would post things and they shouldn't have been on there. They weren't mature enough to be on there.
And they, and they would fight or send pictures through the cell phones. If, if I told you parents and, and, and, and everyone in this audience, if I told you all the incidents that cell phones have caused, uh, in the school building with taking pictures and recordings and, and calling others outside of the school building your ideas might change. And maybe not because maybe your school doesn't deal with that issue. So I'm sure that we need to really think about how we think about our technology and,
and what it means in our particular schools. Thank you. Thank, thank you. Uh, vice Chair Green for those comments. I thought you were gonna say MySpace at first. I got nervous that be my guy. So I don't know if you, those of you who may not remember or know about MySpace, you know, that that date you, but, um, thank you for that. I think that also we've been assured that this is gonna be a policy that can be revisited. Um, and I think we can be confident in that, that if there are things that need to be tweaked or improved, that that is something that would definitely be available to happen, um, if that needs to happen. Ch Chancellor, did you wanna,
So, sorry. I certainly don't wanna take away from the, the panel's comments. And so I, I will try to make this as quick as possible and I am going to ask, uh, chief Rampers sand, um, to come up to the mic. So you wanna start shimming your way down ramp. You should do that. Um, differentiation of policy again is super important because we wanna make sure that schools are empowered to design an implementation plan that suits the community. That being said, there are some non-negotiables when it
comes to discipline, because we believe in progressive discipline. And what we do not want is for principals and teachers to have to make those decisions without strong guidance from central because the law is clear on that part. But there's a lot of room in between and we do not wanna leave that up. That's not what our principals and our teachers should be charged with. And we wanna make sure that there is equity at the center of this. And so, mark, I just wanna ask you if you can talk a little
bit about the discipline piece. Yeah. Uh, can you hear me? Yeah. I was kind of figuring out, guess what I saw in the other room over there? I saw a payphone. I figured out the answer to all of our cell phone problems. I'm about to start timing. You, You called me up here. So listen, we're being intentional, right? So we recognize that, um, not all schools are gonna respond the same way, but we put some guardrails in place so we don't have young people suspended for merely using the phone
or just refusing to surrender the phone for the first time. So we were intentional about those guardrails, right? So not surrendering your phone when, when asked by someone of authority is considered insubordination. And for those of you who have been around for a number of years, you know that insubordination was the catchall for all disciplinary actions. Well, guess what? Schools don't get to use disc, uh, disciplinary action in the form of a suspension for a young person who just doesn't surrender that phone. It has to be egregious. It has to happen multiple times. We're being really, really clear that we are not trying
to throw kids outta the building for not surrendering the phones. We created a step process that already exists in our respective discipline code. We are going to be super intentional. We've already met with our suspension directors, of which, by the way, schools are gonna have to ask for approval for a suspension for failure to surrender their cell phone. Right? There is going to be a process. We've already trained folks for them to ask for all of the interventions that existed before you request disciplinary action for a young person. And some of those things you heard here today,
other things are outlined in, in the discipline code. We want schools to ask the why. Why won't you surrender the phone? Is there an extenuating circumstance? We want them to understand what young people are feeling. And I, it's my property and I just don't wanna give it up. It's not a viable answer, right? We are trying to adhere to state law here. We are not trying to keep kids away from their phone. We are trying to get young people to, to communicate with each other, interact with each other, and focus on academics. We can all agree that when you look outside of a random high school, when kids are walking outta the building,
when their phones are turned back over to them, everybody's got their head down. When you're driving down the street, they're walking right in front of your car. And all of the different things that we've experienced. And we know that there are mental health issues associated to all of the things that are happening in cell phones. We get it. We are adhering to state law. We are making sure that our, our educators are intentional or not trying to use a heavy handed approach to address young people who are doing the very thing that they've grown, they grew up doing. And that's depending on this technology. And here we are pulling it away from them, right?
It's like pulling the bandaid off. But we get it. We are not trying to ensure, we are ensuring that we are being intentional about the way by which we address young people who are non-compliant, right? For lack of a better word, non-compliant. There are a number of steps you have to take before you can discipline a young person on, on for not surrendering the device, alright? Or using the device in appropriately. So we get asked all these questions about what if the kid is bullying with their cell phone? That's something different than not simply giving up the
phone or pouching the phone as many of the schools are going to do. The good thing is, a number of our schools are gonna simply ask the kids to pouch the phone and put it in your book bag. We don't touch the phone. We will have no access to your phone right in the pouch and in your bag. That's what most of our schools are going to choose to do. But for those who are choosing the other, the other methods, we are here to support them. And we are also here to remind them that the discipline code will not be weaponized. Thank you. Yes. Um, panel mcg, can you hear me?
Garcia? Yes. Can you hear Me? Yes. I just have to say something to, you know, I don't speak off. Can We have, can we have water in, in the room Please to chief that before cell phones when there were payphones example before I became a, when I was a dean, there was a girl who quit down, I guess asked to go to the bathroom, went to the payphone to call her sister and friends to come up for a fight. So it happened the long before cell phones.
It happened even on the payphone. So it's always been an issue, right? I said, I come up with a solution, she creates a problem. Sorry, I On information chair, point of information. Yeah. So I mean, this issue is very complicated and I understand both sides of it. But in terms of as the p as the, as the panel we're dealing with state mandate and, and trying to be compliant, not non-compliant with state law. But I think for the, there, there are valid points
regarding the timing of this and the school community not being available and the SLTs not being available. Is there something that we could perhaps, you know, from the chancellor's office or even from the pep give instruction to how the SLTs might be able to handle this, right? And have on the first agenda meeting on the September 15th or October 1st, if there's a review across the board to nullify or kind of, um, you know, mitigate the potential lack of communication with the rest of the, uh, communities. Just give, give a second. So, so we can certainly message out to deal with your SLT early in the year.
I know the regulation says the plan has to, would say the plan must be in place for the first day of school. But I agree we can, I think we can encourage our SLTs to deal with this and look at the plan right at the beginning of the year. Um, so that if if there's some adjustments that need to be made, we, those can be made. And I think the, One of the concerns is if, if a school has an SLT, right? Uh, that's, that's, that's, that's one concern, right? And so this is why, um, I have, I have asked for support from, uh, the chancellor's parent advisory council
and from other parent leaders to please, um, inform us of a school community that does not have a functioning SLT. So that way Dr. Melendez and I can work proactively, not just for the cell phone policy, but because you need an SLT. Those are very important. Um, we are visiting them. Um, so where, you know, of s lts that, um, exist but don't really exist or actually don't exist at all. We, we need to know that immediately. Please. That needs to go to Dr. Melendez, your superintendent,
myself, um, as soon as, as soon as you're made aware. So that's number one. Number two is, again, we want a plan ready to get your children on the fir prepared for this on the first day of school. But we also understand that between the SLT communicating this, um, there are a number of of of things that have to happen. And so we are working with schools to make sure that they are ready for day one, but that does not mean that adjustments cannot be made to a school's policy.
What we don't want is for students to walk in on day one, use their phones, and then in the middle of the semester say, okay, now it's time for you to stop using your phones in class. We want to make the expectation very clear that cell phones cannot be used during the school day if we have to make adjustments on a school by school basis. That's exactly why I said, not only is the district-wide policy something that we have to continue to look at, but we need to make sure that we are looking at every case, um, that has,
that has an escalation. Right? And so just to give you an example, I have, uh, a data dashboard. It's probably my favorite thing as chancellor. I check it every single day. Karis is laughing at me 'cause she knows that's true. Um, and I asked my team to put the cell phone implementation data into that dashboard so that way Mark Kanita and I can actually look at what's going on on a daily basis, having those conversations with superintendents and principals because we know that we're, there's,
there's going to be some challenges. Like we're not going to sit here and tell you that there won't be. But what's not okay is to wait for the middle of the semester to say, okay, now it's time to put the cell phones away. So that messaging, that expectation, that communication, this is what we're asking parents as partners to support us. It's a state mandate. Please have those conversations with your children as well. So they know that we can't see the cell phones during class time. We cannot see them during school. This is, this is why partnership is so important.
Would we have liked a different timeline? Sure. But we, we don't have one. And so we are going to do the best that we can. And when you communicate expectations and you work with parents, I truly believe that we are going to be as ready as we can be for day one with a process in place to deal with these escalations. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Chancellor. Um, are there any other panel members who wish to comment on this item? You okay? I don't see any hands. I'm therefore gonna, um, proceed to a vote and ask our secretary to please call the role. Um, I will call names. Um, member Ali? Yes.
Member Ali. Say yes. Um, um, member ban. Yes. Um, member Retti. Yes. Member Dean Stag? Yes. Member Fair. Member Garcia. Member Giardano? Yes. Vice Chair Green? Yes. Um, okay, we'll come back to him. Um, member Ho. Yes. Uh, member Quiero. Yes. She stepped away. Sorry, I was looking down. Um, member Ong?
Yes. Uh, member Parsons. Yes. Member S Yes. And a member. Hannah Jones. How do you vote? No. And, um, member Isto, how do you vote? Question. I did have a question, but best team. We're in the vote. We're in the middle of a vote now, right? How do you vote? And Chair Faulkner? Yes. The resolution passes. 14. Yes. Votes one No, and one abstention. Okay, great. Um, that brings us to the portion
of the program that is for, uh, general public comment. Yes. Okay. Hi, wait a minute. Sorry. NAFA Lewis, um, Gavin Healy, Sarah Kado, Patrick Burns and Nathan have signed up. And please introduce yourself and the first person at the microphone can start speaking. Thank you. Good evening again, NAFA Lewis. Um, thank you Chancellor Banks for, um, providing more clarity. Oh, sorry. Oh my God, I'm sorry I'm mixing you in.
Um, so much alike. No, no, no. Um, thank you for, thank you for, um, basically providing a little bit more clarity on, um, the ability to continue amending. 'cause as I said, I, I don't think most people are, are against, um, having abandoned schools. It's, um, mainly related to that. Um, I also just wanted to, um, piggyback a little bit off of the, um, the amount of issues that came up with the buses. And I, you know, we did pass all the contracts, but it's important, I think
that there's a little bit more oversight on who are having some of these contracts. Um, because I don't think the vet in all is, is as great with some of the drivers in terms of their responsibility or so forth. Um, and you know, hopefully even though those contracts are in place, that with a little bit more, um, communication that there is improvement. Um, this year congratulations to all the new members on the PEP and all the returning ones and have a great school year. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Hello, my Name is, name is Gavin Healy.
I am a member of the District two Community Education Council. We're in district two, uh, right now. Um, but I'm speaking here on my personal capacity. Um, first of all, I wanna say it's very cold in this room. And, and, and I just wish that the air conditioning and our kids' school buses worked as well as the air conditioning in this room right now. Um, but it doesn't. Um, but really what I wanna talk about tonight is I wanna mention the name of Dylan Lopez Contreras. It's a name. I'm kind of surprised that I had not heard his name come up tonight. Um, from this stage, from this auditorium,
because he is a student at Ellis Prep, a DUE student who's was detained by ICE on abducted by Ice on May 21st, has been, um, kidnapped, has been in detention in several states, I think Texas, Louisiana, now Pennsylvania for over two months. There was another student from Grover Cleveland High School in Richard Queens, who was also abducted by ICE and detained and was released on a $20,000 bond, um, I think about a week ago. Um, but Dylan still has not. So, um, as far as I know,
there's only one person in this city who was a direct line to, to Tom Holman, and that's our mayor, Eric Adams. Um, and I think, but, but I think some of the people in this room maybe have a direct line to Mayor Adams. And so I'd like that people in this room, particularly people on this stage, could take this chance to use that, use that power, use that leverage, and ask when is this student coming home? Because as long as this student Dylan is not, um, at home, is not able to return to his school, um,
then I think there's something, something is, something is, is remiss. And I think we all need to be doing more for him. And particularly those people who have a direct line to the mayor, um, should be speaking up, should be speaking up until that student comes home, comes back to his school. Thanks. So, thank you, Pen. You know, I, I want to thank you for that comment. You know, we did, the panel did speak out, um, in our last meeting, uh, about this. And we specifically mentioned about the kidnapping. But I, but I think you bring an important point that we speak out once and we can't forget
and we have to be vigilant. So I want to thank you for holding us accountable to that vigilance that we need for the kidnapping of these children out of the New York City, off New York City streets. So I think that we need to figure out a way that we keep those names in the forefront, because it could be very, there's so much happening in the world. You hate to wake up and turn on the news and see what else. That just seems not to be normal, that's happening. Um, and so I think that's an important message that you're giving to us, that we have to be vigilant and continue to speak out and not forget those names and say those names on a regular basis until they receive their, uh, you know, freedom cycle.
And thank you for coming and bringing that comment to us. Appreciate it. Uh, thank you Sheriff Homan. Sure. Um, I have also as signed up, Effie Zachary, Dr. Salas, Lupe Hernandez, Tamara Farrell, Tom Shepherd, and Rashida Brown Harris go, we'll go to the left this time. Uh, hello. Um, if Zachary, I think most of you know me, um, here as a parent, um, I wanted to, um, I think from time to time I'll just give a suggestion not to have too many things all at once. Not to overwhelm. My suggestion for tonight is, uh,
for the DOEI don't know if there's anybody from DIIT here, uh, but, um, I've heard that before and I'm experiencing with my kids. Also, I suggest, um, usually once a student graduates from high school, their accounts over the summer get deleted. And a lot of kids go on a gap year, um, and they need it, and there's no way to access it, access it. So I suggest my, the, my student, um, website and also the N yc students.net account, the email, if we can preserve it for another year and not delete it upon graduation, but maybe a, the summer
after the student graduates, I think that would be very helpful to the students. Um, there's a lot of emails, a lot of contacts that they just disappear and usually like, um, they, they do need it usually for longer than just the summer's duration. So I strongly recommend to consider preserving those, those accounts, especially the my students website and the email for at least another year after graduation to give a chance to, to, to transition. Um, other than that, I just wanna say it is a delight to see the chancellor on the stage
with the fellow panel members. The chancellor is, uh, one of the panel members non-voting, but still a panel member. So it's very refreshing to me to see the Chancellor on the stage. And I love that you're actually responding to a lot of comments, not just listening and no comment, but that you're interacting with the people who are coming here, the audience. So thank you very much for that. And I do wanna highlight, there's a lot of complaints, a lot of, you know, con which is the right thing to do. How would, how would you know if nobody complains? But there's also been a lot of progress, um, that I've seen over the years. Busing has gotten a little bit better.
Special ed, from what I've seen, has done amazing strides. So there's a lot of good work being done and I just want to acknowledge that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good evening. Again, I wanna echo Effie, um, that many times we don't uplift the great work that's being done. Um, and that is important. However, we always have to provide a feedback for the things that we can improve. 'cause we're always looking for growth. So I'll say that, um, even in this last month, um, on the CEC, uh, there is some concern about summer rising
and the programming and summer rising. Um, in District four, we only have 50% of our students that enrolled in attendance going to summarizing and lots of reports of parents choosing other options. Um, instead of attending the programming, and I know this is something that we wanna preserve, and I know that it's something that's super important for a lot of our families to have some form of support during the summer for their children. But we go back to those conversations about the partners that we have in our school schools reporting back that they would like to know their partners or CBOs in January so that families can actually plan
accordingly so that we know exactly how many children it is that we're going to serve, and particularly our children with disabilities, um, that need extra support during that time, ensuring that they have their paras, et cetera. Um, wanna mention Lupe left, but Lupe was part of a transportation task force that Mayor Eric Adams convened, and several recommendations were made. So Chair Folkner, you might wanna check in with Mayor Adams and ask him about that report. I think, um, panel members, G***o also has information on that. Um, so I think that work has been done during this time.
Unfortunately, those recommendations have not been implemented, which is something that we've seen happen, um, in these last couple of years. Uh, the last thing I wanna mention, I Just ask, did you have a copy of those recommendations since you I personally don't, but I do know that, that you can ask for that. Okay. Um, and the last thing I wanna mention is that, um, the Citywide Council for High Schools passed a resolution to defund restorative justice. And we know time and time again that to restorative justice is actually key for our schools. Unfortunately, mark Rampant left, but he's been leading a lot of that work. And so it would be really lovely to see panel members,
just like panel member JI Jones did today listen to parents and listening to students to support evidence driven practices that actually supports our students fingers time. So thank you to the panel members that are principled and listen to parent voice. Thank you. So I want to start my comments tonight. Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Tom Shepherd. I am a parent in the Bronx and a member of the Healing Centered Schools Working Group Group. And, um, can I, I just wanna elevate a couple of things. So for the last couple of days, um, parents in the Bronx have been
attending a restorative justice training. And, you know, I won't speak for everyone, but I will say my petition, my participation in that has been both enlightening and transformative. And, um, CCHS passed a resolution, uh, basically, you know, telling the DOE to like suspend restorative justice. And what I would do is, one, thank like the member of CCHS that showed up for the last couple of days to that training to see the value in it
and to see how it actually works for us. And, you know, and thank the DOE and particular, uh, mark rampant for leaning into restorative justice instead of abandoning it. Um, the next thing I want to highlight very quickly is I want to make sure that everyone understands that when we talk about suspensions as like the discipline action that we can't take, I also want us to be clear that detention
is a disciplinary action that, you know, denying children or students, you know, access to trips and those things are disciplinary actions. So I really want us to think about like that in the implementation of this cell phone policy. And then the very last thing I want to say is I wanna say welcome to Panel member Parson and welcome to panel member Hannah Jones. Thank you. Sorry. All right. Okay, peace again, everyone, I got a couple of things to say. Once again, my name is Rashida Brown Harris.
My pronouns are she, her, hers. Um, I think I wanna say first and foremost, um, just to elevate the fact that, um, schools are not supporting parents, um, when folks are being taken by ice. Um, the principals in particular don't really have the resources. They don't know where to go or how to support the families. So we probably need to look into that and figuring out ways of how to support them better to support their community members. Um, and that's a fact. So we can get back to you with actual schools as well, um, because it is very sad.
Um, yeah. And just off the heels of the restorative practice work, just knowing that, um, is something that's going to take time is slow work, is hard work. Um, and we are working on restoring and building, um, community and working with each other that you cannot put a price tag to it, per se. When folks say, oh, how, how much money you spending on restorative practice? Oh, well then where's the data and how's it working?
Well, it's not working, so let's not spend the funds on it, right? It is work that's gonna be done in time and we'll see the results in years when we keep talking about violence that's happening in harm that's happening in our communities. Um, it didn't happen overnight, right? We didn't get to where we were or where we are overnight. So it's gonna take time for us to work together to support each other in remedying it. And restorative practices is a great step towards really getting our school staff members trained, really getting our parents
and community members trained, working together and feeling it's together and what it looks like and what it's gonna be like in our communities. So really hoping that we all learn more about it and support each other. We're advocating and fighting for more restorative practices in our schools. Thank you. Yes. That is the end of the public comment signups. Okay. Um, chancellor, do you wanna comment? Thank you. Um, so I, I wanna address the restorative justice piece, um, with a very fine point. Restorative justice has every bit
of place in New York City public schools today, and it will continue tomorrow and the day after that. And there is this idea that there's an either or consequences are a real thing. And we know that as adults, we know that consequences, meaningful consequences, need to be in place for young people to learn from their mistakes. And for the adults to understand the things that trigger trigger young people to make poor choices. If we merely treat the symptom and we don't actually treat the root cause of this,
then we are going to see the same behaviors persist. And that is the real work that has to happen with restorative practices. So that's one. The second thing is when we talk about restorative practices, we need to understand as one system what that looks like, what it feels like, what it means in real, tangible, concrete ways. And in, in doing that, then we can have the expectation that every single principle will create a community
that is rooted in restorative practices. And so, when a young person is suspended for something egregious, because those things happen, unfortunately, what it also means is that a young person is coming back to a loving and warm environment that says, your action doesn't define you as a person. We still love you and we need to understand why you committed this act so we can treat that unhealed part of you
and make sure it doesn't happen again. But this community welcomes you back. That's the piece that we don't talk enough about when it comes to restorative justice. And when adults truly understand that, then they are more bought into the idea of restorative justice. And so I'm gonna be very frank with you when we talk about metrics. I disagree. I think we need to track this work better. I think we need to celebrate those wins. And where we don't see impact, it is not because restorative practices don't work, it is
because we need to look at the implementation, much like we talk about everything else. So actually our restorative justice team is something that has been on mine and Mark's radar since I became chancellor, met with the group, gave them a number of next steps, and we are actually amping up to make that work wider, better, stronger, because the implementation has not worked only if the school leader is brought in. So we hear you loudly and clearly this work is far from done,
but it's not leaving New York City public schools. In fact, it will be redefined because it is incredibly important that young people know if I make a mistake, I am welcomed back into this community and hurt people, hurt people. And we need to identify why these behaviors are persisting and not punish young people so they feel they don't have a community waiting for them. So I hope everyone leaves here tonight, understanding our investment in our young people and this critical work that needs
to happen in a much better and stronger way. And the last thing I will say is we need to start training more broadly, our parents and our students on this work. Because what happens in a school building must be supported in the home because that is truly when we partner. Thank you. Thank you very much. The comments? Okay, we'll now move to panel member comments. I'll remind panel members this is an opportunity for panel members if you wanna give them any summary, summary comments.
Uh, before we close the meeting. Um, those comments should be limited to two and a half minutes. Yeah. Yes. Panel member. Um, would you like to go first? Thank you, chancellor. Thank you. Uh, the, From, From a parent's perspective, I appreciate the restorative justice piece because it is a expression of growth in a way that, um, that, that, that makes sense. And the other side of that is being in the schools,
watching a teacher make an error and being able to correct it immediately. Having a restorative justice circle to be able to grow and know that you're going to make a, a mistake and then being able to have a place where you can discuss that mistake is, is a, is it just takes communication to the next level. And I really, really appreciate that because these are the conversations when we, that we have that when we talk about the wellbeing of a child
or are we creating the space where we can have these conversations without the fear of saying something wrong. Well, guess what, when you do say something wrong, check it out. You have a moment to correct yourself. What is it called? Restorative justice space. And, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to add that. So thank you. Thank you very much. Panel member sap, do you any other panel members wish to offer comments? Penman Belay. Thank you Chair. I didn't mention this previously, but I just very briefly wanna go back to, um,
contracts agenda item number 29, um, which was up for a vote again tonight. Um, you may remember back in December the comptroller and advocates called on DOE to pull this contract to allow more time, um, to evaluate this AI student facing technology. Um, while we are disappointed that DOE did not pause new AI investments, um, because they actually have a new AI working group that has just had their first meeting and will be issuing recommendations around this, um,
I think we hope perhaps at least DOE follows the chancellor's words earlier about really following up on effectiveness, um, and metrics, um, to really look at the impact that a tool like this has in the classroom and that hopefully this might be the last student facing AI contract this panel sees before that working group puts for, helps to put forth some guidelines around the use of AI in the classroom. I just wanna end by, um, reiterating the comptroller's
at a rally yesterday on the federal education funding freeze. Um, we are grateful to the attorney general for joining other attorney generals ensuing to reverse, um, this freeze that's been put in place. The reality is that Trump is trying to cut billions of dollars from our schools in the name of some sort of misguided ideological purge. Um, and that if we don't stop it will have a devastating impact on students. About $5.5 billion in public education funds across the
country, um, has been frozen. Um, our office's estimate of the impact to New York City schools is about 170 million. That's in addition to cuts to Medicaid and snap that. Also, I know your times Expiring. Please wrap Up children. Um, we would hope that everyone here reaches out to their congressional representatives and urge them to fight back against this phrase. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Yes. Mad member Casre. Member Alvin. I guess she ising Jan. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, I just wanna follow up on what, um,
Laura La Laris had said. My thought was, well first of all, I wanna thank for everybody who in attendance, uh, for coming and speak. 'cause it, it is the summer month, but the work never ends. So I appreciate even those who are listening, um, virtually as well because we are doing very important work. And we as parents, we are 24 7 doing the work, right? So partnerships need to be built. But I wanna ask for a briefing again, is about the AI with DIT and, and security and safety.
Um, 'cause I feel like there's conflicting information because it's like, uh, I think we can use other than ai, but you can also use AI to, um, increase language access. But then to say it's a safety thing, right? Because they store data, but yet we're contracting AI stuff and isn't, they have to store data for AI to be effective. So I feel like this is a conflicting, um, issue because tech, the advanced technology that we have, um, we can narrow the gap in language access.
So I really want to understand better what is the difference? Like if we contracting and allowing our schools to use contracted stuff that involves ai, but we cannot use it or other methods of increasing language access. 'cause it's a security, you know, breach. I think we need to have a conversation with AI and DIIT to better understand, um, what is the security risk and why can't we do certain things with AI versus others. Ai and again, language access. We don't have to use AI to do language access,
but that it will be very helpful with the technology that we all we already have in place. That's, uh, I would like to have a more of a conversation on that. Sure. Thank you. Okay. Um, Pam mcas, ready? You yielded. And then I'll come. Pam Hannah Jones. Thank you so much. Um, so first of all, I wanna thank everyone who came out today, especially our CEC leaders. Thank you so much. Appreciate you showing up and supporting and speaking for your communities. Um, but right now I wanna address the unfinished work
around air conditioning installations in our public schools. This initiative began before the pandemic targeting schools that require both AC and significant electrical upgrades. Yet today, many of those projects remain incomplete in several buildings. The issue isn't just the units, it's the infrastructure. These AC systems need dedicated two 20 volt outlets on isolated breakers. That kind of upgrade takes real investment and in too many cases, it simply doesn't happen.
Now we're hearing concerns about power capacity that adding AC could strain the grid or contribute to blackouts. But I wanna be clear, we cannot continue to let our students and educators swelter in overheated classrooms while we wait for perfect conditions. If our grid can't support basic comfort in our public schools, that's a larger systems issue. We need to solve not a reason to delay. We call our schools community hubs. That's the language that we use. But how can they serve that role
during summer programs like Summer Rising if they're too hot to safely operate too often action only happens when parents with influence start raising their voices. Equity should not depend on who's the loudest or best connected. We need a firm plan and a timeline to finish this work. Our kids deserve better. And so do the people who show up to teach and care for them every day. Thank you. Thank you. Panel member. Panel member Parsons? Yeah, please. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Yeah, I meant go ahead. Say panel member Hannah Jones. I'm sorry. Oh, Thank you. Thank you. Um, I, I, I have my own comments about AI 'cause I'm in technology and, uh, but I'll say that for another time. Um, I really wanted to talk about, um, well first off, I, I really appreciate everyone being here. I have all the respect for all of our parent leaders. You have superpowers beyond, uh, the scope of what we really need in for our entire country. But we are just glad you're here in New York City. Um, and, and I also respect our chancellor.
Um, I know your job is very hard, um, and you're under a lot of different elements and things of that nature. And I also want to say that I appreciate our teachers and our educators and our school leaders. And I just say that to say this, according to the UCLA Civil Rights Project, New York City schools are the most segregated in the country. Alright? That should be where we should start our foundation. And when we talk about restorative justice in terms of what is happening with our children, um, mind you, I chose
to put my daughter in a low performing title one school. My wife and I made that decision that was a moral decision based on the values that we are fighting for right now. Now, we chose not to, uh, navigate around these obstacles because we believe that a, a from a moral standpoint, that it is important to, uh, take these obstacles down. Now I can tell you horror stories that make your head spin in terms of how our parents are vilified, how SLTs are dismantled, how PTAs are abused.
Uh, and I'm gonna tell you right now, even though I'm the new kid on the block on this panel, I have gone against Tweed. I've even had, uh, conversations with our chancellor that somewhat got heated at some points in times I've had issues. I have conversations with principals as well as educators, and I have the battle scars to prove it. Um, I, I say that because I think it's important that we understand that no student should be without instruction. I don't believe in suspension. And when you suspend a child and you remove them from the classroom, there is no instruction that is happening.
So when you bring them back, there is no nurturing. They have been, they have been completely isolated from that environment. So when we talk about instruction, that should be the basis of how we should go about in terms of restorative practices. And I think we're missing some other s in there too. But I won't get into that. Yeah. Panel member. Unfortunately though, your time is expired. Okay, thank you. Yeah. But, but we are gonna continue those conversations. Okay. Let me also point out that I believe that, I've been told we're gonna have a briefing on the air conditioning, um, situation. So thank you for bringing that, uh, uh, discussion up as well. Yep. Well, yeah, we're good.
Yes, we're gonna, does anyone else bin? No, she spoke around. Spoke Mar Mar, uh, the dueling hands. I go kind pen. Remember Ali? Um, thank you Chair Faulkner. Um, I think I've shared with some of you, um, today's my daughter's third birthday and I'm here. Um, so it's, you know, it's been a little, little challenging. Um, I've been getting pictures I evening.
Um, but I guess, you know, just would like to share a few reflections on this evening's meeting. Uh, firstly on contracts. Really welcome the upcoming meeting, uh, with panel members to discuss vendor accountability and responsibility. And really as many others have, have already shared a shift away from these five year contracts. So looking forward to engaging in that process on cell phones. Um, we've certainly heard a variety of and very important concerns, um, particularly around, you know, how do we translate this
regulation into a reality? What does that implementation look like? So again, uh, just want to echo and just kind of thank and appreciate the commitment, uh, from you Chancellor Ramos, to really ensuring that this regulation remains both iterative as you mentioned, uh, but also responsive to the concerns that were raised here this evening. But that may continue to, uh, be raised throughout, you know, you know, as this kind of rollout happens, um, not just from our students, our parents, but obviously also the school staff. And, and lastly on restorative justice.
Um, thank you for doubling down on the commitment for it. It is incredibly important. Um, as someone who has done some training in it, it is needed now more than ever. And I don't think anyone here, at least across this table would disagree with that. So thank you for that commitment and again, looking forward to engaging in that process. Thank you. Thank you. Panel member. I'm looking for additional Oh, okay. Panel member. It's very hard to say what I'm gonna say. I don't blame you for taking me last. As all of you know, I'm an advocate
and also a parent leader. Two weeks ago we lost one of our most beloved parent leader Marie Pier. I think everybody at DOE knows of her, heard of her. She was kind, she was sweet and she also did a lot of work. If you are a part of the CEC, you knew of her. This is a woman who never held grudges against anybody. She left a beautiful 23-year-old daughter Diane. And I want everybody to know the work that she did for us without really taking twice. Her health was not the greatest for the longest time,
but she held it together. And I would also, I am sure that you don't have a, she's from my country. She's Haitian. You don't have a translator today. I'm gonna speak Creole because there's a whole population out there. We have a community called Autism 5 0 9 Global. It's for Haitian or all over the place. Madam, thank you. Overall, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much panel member for sharing those, uh, those thoughts. And please communicate to the family our sincere, you know, condolences on, on her loss. Thank you so much for, uh, um, bringing
that information to the panel. Thank you. Yes, panel member Escaro, I'm gonna second that. Marie did so much for so many people and Marie did a lot for a lot of people. And Diana shared all of her time. Not 50%, not 60%, all of her time with us. Her whole life. Her whole life. She was CPAC's parliamentarian, she was Cch S'S parliamentarian. She was on CC 11, she was on Deepak for District 11. I probably wouldn't be on this panel if it wasn't for Marie and everything. She taught me about rules and regulations and how they keep you safe
and how to advocate to change the policies because that's what needs to change to change, to make it equitable for everyone. And even after her kid graduated, she stayed with us till she was gone like two weeks before, like was in a meeting. So like, I just wanna reflect, like, thank you for saying that because she gave all of her life after she had a child to DOE to everybody here to have language access to she, she, she, she stuck up for district 75 when that wasn't cool back then,
before everybody jumped on, we care. She was there helping people care and not even directly affected. So I wanna elevate, um, Marie Plasser, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm looking around. Any other hands? Any other panel members wish to comment? Seeing, seeing none. Um, August 27th. Uh, guess what, we get to do this all over again, but this time we're coming to Brooklyn and uh, so we're looking forward to that. We'll be at Clara Barton High School on August 27th for our, uh, panel for education policy meeting.
Um, wish everybody happy remainder of the summers in sizzling hot New York. And, uh, with that, this meeting is adjourned.