This meeting of the Boston School Committee I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person Boston City TV and on Zoom I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptops or other devices so it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting . Thank you for your cooperation. Tonight's meeting document posted on the committee's Web page Boston Public Schools dot org slash school committee under a July 17th meeting link for those joining us in person you can access the meeting document by scanning the QR code that's posted by the Doors . The meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BAPS languages and translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized. The meeting will be rebroadcast Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's Web page and on YouTube. The recording will be available and all of the BAPS languages the committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpret and virtually in Spanish Haitian Creole have Severiano Cantonese, Mandarin Vietnamese and American sign language Zoome interpretation feature has been activated Zoome participants should click the Globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language preference I'd like to remind everyone to speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. We'll begin the meeting with the approval of minutes. I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the June 17th twenty twenty four school committee meeting is there a motion? So thank you. Is there a second is there any discussion or objection to the motion?  Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous account hearing none. The minutes are approved.  We'll now move on to the superintendent's report I present to you are Superintendent Mary Schepper. >> Thank you. Chair.  It's going to be a bit of a lengthy report this evening as we have a number of topics to cover but I wanted to begin by just taking a moment and expressing my deep sadness about the passing of a beloved member of our district's technology team, Andy Horgan. Um, Andy was the backbone of the Office of Instructional and Informational Technology which we know is 080 and worked at BAPS for twenty five years. He began when the Internet was first making its way into our schools through dial up modems and desktops.  >> He continued to guide beeps forward for the next twenty years. I got to know Andy during my early years in BAPS and you know we had we grew together with technology for sure but you couldn't find a more loyal dedicated, caring person and really just just the epitome of professional then Andy he cared deeply about our students and our families and he was committed to supporting them in making sure that they had the tools they needed to succeed. Nothing pleased him more than to know he was helping a child get connected or a family get connected to information during the pandemic he spent a lot of time in the parking lot of the Campbell building in Dorchester talking with students families and caregivers really ensuring that they had laptops, that they had hot spots, that they had access to the resources they needed to keep their learning remotely. Please join me in sending our thoughts and condolences to Andy's family especially his wife Audrey. She's also a second grade teacher at the school in Roslindale as well as to his many friends throughout the district in outside of the district and especially Andy's colleagues in PBS technology chair. With your permission, I'd like to hold a moment of silence for Andy.  Thank you.  >> Tonight is also the last school committee meeting for PBS technology director in chief Information Officer Mark Racine.  He is the person who's been behind the scenes at each school committee meeting who make sure that everything works smoothly for us here in this room and for those of you watching at home managing the technology behind behind this meeting is just one of the many aspects of Mark's job as it's evolved over the years as the leader of our information and instructional technology unit and he's been doing that job for ten years supporting school committee as Mark and I were talking about 14 years he began his career as a fifth grade teacher at the Hornberger School in West Roxbury and he later taught fifth grade at the Blackstone School in 2011 he joined the Central Office's 080 team where he served in several roles, eventually becoming the director and I had the privilege of working with Mark for many of those years. Technology changes fast and under Mark's leadership his district has stayed one step ahead. Always he's in there to help us implement and adapt with patients and always would support Mark always put students first and he's prioritized their privacy, privacy and their safety over those many years during the pandemic he acted quickly to ensure every student had access to a Chromebook so that they could continue to learn remotely. This was a massive unprecedented undertaking. We're grateful for his leadership during this very challenging time and honestly his leadership every day he's respected. He's a well beloved colleague and he will very much be missed especially by me. Please join me thanking Mark for his hard work over his many, many years and know that we wish you mark the best of luck in whatever that next adventure is.  I'd like to begin my superintendence report with an update on the first week of this year's summer programing which we are calling the best summer ever.  Summer programing began on Monday, July 8th and I'm happy to report that it's off to a terrific start.  School may not be in session but the learning continues and the BAPS team is hard at work to give our students and families a wide variety of opportunities and activities this summer that are both enriching and fun early this week I joined Mayor Wu and our partner Boston after school and beyond Chris Smith for an event a courageous ceiling in Charlestown where fifth grade campers showed us what they had learned about sailing. The students have become so good sailing that they did most of the work on the boat and I can attest to that.  The two students that I had in my boat, they kept us safe the entire time. The program also brings in representatives from places like Boston Water and Sewer to teach about environmental safety on top of learning how to sail thanks to the commitment of dozens of partners we are offering more than one hundred and thirty programs at eighty eight sites around the city and at fifty five Boston Public Schools.  An additional thirty two sites like Courageous Ayling in total there are more than fourteen thousand students engaged in a variety of educational programs is part of what we call our fifth quarter programing and that includes our summer learning academies our course in high school credit recovery , our early childhood education programing, our exam school initiative and all kinds of recreational opportunities that are supported by our BAPS partners. We offer a wide range of options so there's something fun for everyone including athletics, entrepreneurship, literacy, development, earn and learn experiential learning, mental health supports and career exploration. Um, Chief Magalie Sanchez Deputy Onna Tavaris have just been amazing in ensuring along with our site directors that it's flawless this summer and you know most important students are at the center in their learning and their experiences. A few examples we had more than one hundred students participated in the Office of Student Support.  You got it girl program at Emmanuel College in the Fenway over the past two weeks. This is now in its second year Chief Cory McCarthys been spearheading this program basketball yoga double are offered daily under the supervision of dedicated coaches this week they added social skill groups from Franciscan Children's Hospital and some mindful resilient sessions with coach Leah, a teacher at in our Friday's campers are thrilled to participate in a theme day last year.  Last week was crazy hair day as you can see from the slides you know there's just so much activity fun smiles, learning companionship between kids in our extended school year this year we had five thousand seven students who were eligible to participate in our extended school year programing to ensure special education students continue to receive services during the summer months and maintain key skills . Last week six hundred and seventy nine students participated in this program and we expect that number to increase this week.  In addition twenty twenty two thousand eight hundred fifty seven students have actually RSVP that they intend to participate in the program this summer and that's one of the largest numbers ever.  I want to share a few photos with you from the Mackay is why site of students 1/##hIQ R4(2%J!:7]xf&$ visit to the school store as part of the school wide rewards program developed by the program's directors school wide rewards is designed to help students improve their academic social communication, self regulation, life skills safety and vocational learning opportunities during the school day.  This is an activity that brings joy to the students while they learn.  One student appears to have decided on the sunglasses which was a very wise choice given the weather within the summer program sponsored by the Office of Multilingual and Multicultural Education or what we call on me. This is also part of the fifth quarter. There are two thousand and eighty multilingual learners registered overall there are five thousand one hundred and sixty three multilingual learners registered across all programs or thirty seven percent of the total number of registered students thanks to Omae teams intentional recruitment, the percentage of participating multilingual learners this summer is actually higher than the district percentage of multilingual learners NPS which is at thirty one percent . Additionally, the thirty seven percent includes only students identified as current English learners. If we also include former English learners that number goes up to nearly forty seven percent. >> I want to take a moment and acknowledge the work of Chief of Office of Multicultural and Multilingual Education Joel Ghimire and her team for their commitment to inclusive in their targeted outreach. They're making sure that multilingual students are well represented and supported in our summer programs.  We also have more than thirty four hundred students registered to take part in our summer learning academies as fifth quarter programing in about three to three thousand students for college completion and high school credit recovery . And that's a number that I'm really happy about because it makes sure that our high school students are making up credit so that they can continue to be promoted and make progress toward graduation this summer because transportation is providing transportation to nearly 3000 students for BAPS and charter school students participating in extended school year students attending the exam school initiative and students attending summer programs at our district special education schools with the start of summer transportation transportation begin our use of Zoome not to be confused Zeon but Zumar which is an integrated transportation platform which includes the introduction of GPS navigation tablets on our school busses in the zoo mobile app for GPS parents and guardians with the Zoom app parents and guardians can view their students bus assignment track bus rides in real time receive automated delay notifications and alerts when the busses are arriving and get notified when the student gets on and off the school bus by the end of the first week of its use nearly 90 percent of bus drivers working this summer were able to successfully utilize the Zoome system while completing a routes in partnership with Transdev. We're working to ensure all bus drivers and transportation staff receive the necessary training and support to successfully utilize the platform prior to the start of the twenty four twenty five school year with this new map we're committed to improving transparency, reliability and convenience for students and families who use the school bus and just a huge shout out to Dan and to the entire transportation team for really being innovative, thinking ahead and really trying new and different ways to be able to support our families. The Exam School initiative or what we call SSI is a baps equity initiative within the Office of Opportunity Gaps to diversify the BAPS exam school Admissions SSI is designed to increase opportunities for students from traditionally underrepresented communities black in black and Latino students, students with IEPs multilingual students, Asian-American and Pacific Islander students, students experiencing low income status. The SSI program is a targeted invitation only four week school summer course for current fourth, fifth and seventh grade students designed to build upon their capacity for the academic rigor required when applying to the city's three exam schools.  And this year we added STEM in arts experiences to the schedule to enhance student analytic and creative thinking this year three hundred fifty one students are registered to participate in IACI initially we had two hundred seventy nine students who are registered but we're able to increase that number to offer the opportunity to more students and so this increased from one hundred ninety seven registered registrations during the summer of twenty twenty three. So as you can see that program is really in demand and we're trying to meet that demand. Last week BP and the city of Boston celebrated the launch of the Boston summer each initiative this is an effort to close the summer food gap by providing free freshly prepared meals at locations such as community centers and schools. A partnership of PBS, the mayor's Office of Food Justice, the YMCA of Greater Boston Boston Centers for Youth and Families and Project Bread these all support the statewide program in partnership with the Department of Elementary and Secondary ED and hundreds of meal providers in Massachusetts.  The free program which provides free meals for all Bostonians 18 and under kicked off at the Mildred AvX Kate eight school at an event that featured a perpetual food tastings and a healthy, nutritious, locally sourced meal going forward BAPS will offer a free breakfast and lunch to all Boston youth ages 18 and under and more than one hundred location across the city including our summer program sites until late August no identification or pre registration is required and for a list of the sites you can go to Project Redgate Summer Eat job applications for summer youth employment are now closed and a lot of programs have started over the past couple of weeks.  According to data from the city of Boston, about six thousand youth have already been successfully hired by over one hundred and fifteen programs in the city of those more than 50 percent are students. The city is finally finalizing the on boarding for all the remaining youth selected in the next couple of weeks is programs continue to ramp up our city partners will share final hired numbers and BP's impact at the end of the summer once all partners have been audited and now something close to Jim Robinson's heart you may begin seeing the iconic BP's yellow t shirts around town which speaks to the annual countdown to kindergarten program. And this is fully underway.  PBS will be hosting kindergarten days throughout the month of August.  People branches across the city as of the week of July 8th, six thousand three hundred and sixty three students have been assigned to the district's early learning programs for the upcoming AZAWI twenty four twenty five year including returning and new students and early childhood and special ed placements. We have 350 students assigned zero twenty four hundred and five students assigned to K one and three thousand six hundred eight students assigned to key to those numbers constantly change in increase but that's what we had as of July 8th incoming students will receive information by mail about their local kindergarten day where Countdown's staff will be leading on activities and will be available to answer questions from families.  Families are encouraged to visit our newly revised website which is a countdown to Kindergarten Dog.  There you'll find more details on our programing playgroups,  kindergarten transition activities and registration information.  All new incoming kindergartners will receive an invitation for the Sea of Yellow Citywide Kindergarten celebration on Friday September 6th from four thirty to seven thirty the Boston Children's Museum the yellow school readiness bags are available now at every Boston Public Library which includes a T-shirt fun activities and surprises for students and their families.  Families also continue to participate in our Family Play Week's Camp which is pictured here at Marguerita Mini Academy. The learn to play camps are designed for children ages birth to five years old and their parents and caretakers are comprehensive. Summer programing keeps our students active, engaged while they are out of school and it gives them the opportunity to strengthen their academic skills while discovering new talents and interests through enrichment activities alongside their peers.  Again, Dr. Ana Tavares, Deputy Superintendent of Equity Community and Family Advancement is also here tonight to answer any follow up questions the committee may have. PBS transportation director Diane Rosengard is also here to provide support. If there's questions around the new Absolom next I want to provide you with a fourth quarter update on transformation schools. The final report for school year twenty twenty three twenty four as you know is part of the requirements that are in the systemic improvement plan or what we call the ship. We're providing quarterly transformation updates to the committee. The second and fourth quarter updates are part of the superintendent's report and the first and third quarter our formal reports go more in-depth. More specifically the Transformation Office an in-depth report at the October 18th twenty twenty three in April 10th twenty twenty four school committee meetings.  I also provided a second quarter update on February 28th as part of my superintendents report Transformation Schools is the term BAPS uses to refer to schools identified by DC as requiring assistance or intervention. These are schools in the bottom 10 percent of the state accountability percentiles while school year twenty three twenty four is complete we do not yet have information on schools that may be exiting or entering status. That information may be shared this fall once DC publishes their updated accountability determinants.  As you know primary support for our transformation schools comes from our transformation office in partnership with our regional teams and the school division in general. Chief of Schools and Accountability to Action is here to answer any questions that may come up specific to the transformation schools.  This quarterly report provides an opportunity to share updates in our three priority improvement areas in the area of instruction and student academic performance we can observe some progress in also significant urgency for accelerated growth data for more than a thousand classroom observations shows high usage of the district curriculum as well as progress toward holding students to high expectations for their work end of the year data from the map assessment shows improved growth this year in seven out of nine grade levels in reading in two out of nine grade levels in math are improvements.  Strategy in the coming year includes intensified instructional coaching and expanded collaboration with partner organization focused on curriculum implementation.  We look forward to analyzing mixed results in updated accountability profiles in the late summer to better understand achievement patterns and to help refine our improvement strategy in the area of school climate and culture. We can see that survey results for staff and students are quite similar in our transformation in non transformation schools we are also trying to improve but these results show more positive feelings from students, educators and families about their school communities in the area of attendance we see both reductions in absenteeism and great urgency for further improvement transformation schools show the same four percentage point reduction in key to a chronic absenteeism as non transformation schools and showed a greater reduction in chronic absenteeism at the high school level than non transformation schools.  However, overall rates of absenteeism remain higher in our transformation schools particularly at the high school level.  We continue to try a range of strategies to address attendance including extensive outreach this summer further addressing the attendance issues a critical part of our improvement strategy and I think as you remember the Win the Day campaign we did in Region eight which is a high school region as a pilot and we intend to expand on that come forth. One for the area to mention is hiring the box office of Human Capital and the Division of Schools continue a close partnership around transformation hiring.  We posted positions early and have focused on a range of supports for schools as of early July we have submitted hiring RECs on 90 percent 90 percent of our transformation teaching vacancies higher than last year in a higher percentage than non transformation schools.  Overall we see progress on several indicators but we will continue to feel the urgency to further accelerate student academic performance. We look forward to the upcoming year and updating the school committee on our progress relative to facilities. You received a memo yesterday updating you on our facilities improvements in our ongoing work to repair our school buildings, the return of students in the fall.  The memo includes updates on ongoing projects MSB accelerated repair program projects, pools the status of eleven major projects under capital planning and on the roof batts in Academy formerly known as Berkeley McCormick the Melvin H. King s and academies in the Blackstone Elementary School deputize Superintendent of Operations Santa Penha an interim chief of operations Brian Ford are also here tonight to provide you with any further answers to your questions. The memo will be posted on the school committee's website Boston Public Schools Thug's School Committee. Finally a few bright spots the Office of Health and Wellness are holding pop up events on Wednesday in July at Walker Playground which is five fifty Norfolk Street and Mattapan from four thirty until five thirty families can participate in games and activities while learning about health and resources. Snacks, water and giveaways are also provided. School may not be in session but the team is working hard to give our students and families a wide variety of opportunities and activities this summer that are both enriching and fun. 18 students from Boston International Newcomers Academy which we call BINKA all recent immigrants in the United States spent two weeks sailing from Boston to Maine with the nonprofit World Ocean School students learn to read nautical charts tie knots in steer the ship and develop team building skills all while living aboard the schooner Dennis Sullivan several of the students kept a ship's log of their experiences which is translated into four languages at World Ocean School. Doug one student wrote My favorite part of the day was driving the boat at the helm and I saw some dolphins that were in the water close to the boat.  The student also added I woke up to do anchor watch at four in the morning and that was hard and I bet it was an incredible immersive learning opportunity for these students . I wanted to also share some good news from Boston Day Evening Academy through a program called BDA 2.0.  The five students pictured here participated in internships related to the construction trades as part of their high school experience.  The BDA 2.0 program initiated with Grant from the Bar Foundation is designed to promote better outcomes for black and Latino students. Twenty nine students participate in partnerships with different organizations including Trem School Construction Products Group. This group that you see here, Reymundo Antwaan Chris Lewis Copan John Herera, Jonathan Montero and Macy Thompson went one step further inside the inaugural cohort of students in the Rising Stars Achieve Green program which supported them to follow the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Apprenticeship Pathway. Having met certain requirements these students are now eligible to complete the final steps toward becoming Apprentice Glaser's and a step closer to careers in the green construction trade. Congratulations and best of luck in late June about fifty students from several of our high schools participated in a peer mediation training at Emmanuel College where they discussed issues related school discipline and ways to de-escalate emotional or difficult situations in the classroom so that all students can be involved with caring for others.  The members of the English High School Baseball team are twenty twenty four Division five state champions were celebrated for their success in hard work last month during visits to the mayor's office in the Boston City Council.  Following a rally, members of the team threw out the first pitch the Red Sox game on Friday the twenty eighth again congratulations for an amazing season and to the entire team and that Jerry Robinson concludes my lengthy superintends report. >> Thank you, Superintendent and I open it up for questions and discussion from the committee.  Thank you my chair and thank you Superintendent for the report.  I say Mike, thank you for your hard your and the school committee meeting. I appreciate all your hard work. Go look and new tieing or new opportunity in your life. >> OK, I'm I have some question being a reporter put it on McLintock the women who know me and throw this to the end of this they Melsa as to the end this comparative cumulonimbus out in the report I could see that we had an increase of one thousand one hundred students in comparison with last year when we went a significant atomos down to the Masters to the end.  And I believe that and I think that this is very good because we're opening more doors for more students.  Joe Carroll, I gather they said at my Stroh's paraprofessional personal Kitazawa How long Albarado? Deputy Tarpeena do you want to but I'm also thinking CEO yeah ,I'm not sure if Brian or interim CEO Brian Ford and I will say Blackstone.  So that was actually where I went my first day for the summer school and so they have a very heavy schedule of summer programing and so the building is very full and alive in so many ways and so this will be one of the things about what we can and can't do relative to repair and so forth. But um if you have specifics real briefly before I turn over to Mr. Ford and we are very cognizant of the requestion needs that the community's been asking for to Blackstone and we're going to continue to work with our partners to explore what's possible and what budget cycle. So we are doing a lot of work to the Blackstone incrementally and we could speak a little bit more about what that is.  Uh, good evening. My name is Brian Ford interim chief of operations and thank you for having me here tonight. Um, there this summer we don't actually have a lot of major projects that are happening within the Blackstone because of what deputy uh Dr. DePinho was just saying in terms of the building being occupied. But what we do to ensure is that we are able to make minor repairs throughout the building . So when that comes to the flooring crew that's being working in the building to make sure that we're replacing some of the tiles that are in that area, repairs to the ramp that's in disrepair out front as well as some of that entry for Sideway we're able to make some of that improvement and then we also have a ceiling crew that goes around and a painting crew that goes around within those spaces. So we can provide as much of a refresh to that building for that community as possible while we still work on figuring out what the long term plan for that space is capable of housing whatever those can technical means.  Elpidio locally Miccarelli and you'll be in about Manhattan near my contacting my daughter. So if I pull that a little farther he left for me to get the fruit so we could see that before the next school year starts we're going to see some improvements that parents and students are going to be able to enjoy.  >> Yeah I I would say that you'll see likely refreshments to the existing infrastructure. I'm not sure if you could call it a level of enjoyment. It might be it's definitely going to be clean. We definitely do a very deep cleaning throughout the entire building you'll see that there is additional lighting that may have been repaired replaced ceiling work that would have been repaired and replaced tiles that are repaired and replaced as well as the exterior ramp that is being refreshed as well as much as we can do while the building is being occupied. >> 11. I'm being Lavanya Allopathy faceoffs like cafeteria and this is the thing so to the bathrooms, cafeteria hallways, floors these are really in need of urgent care and we are making those improvements and such and such that as part of our summer cleaning and refreshing. OK thank in Dr. Dippin. Do you want to just address there is there are dollars for us to look at the Blackstone relative to the overall work that needs to be done to the building in the capital budget? >> Yeah that's right. So we work closely with our city colleagues with the capital budget to make sure that there was some dollars earmarked to study what's possible next. We did do a similar study of many years ago but that study has been outdated. So we're going to take this opportunity to take another fresh look in the current context of what we're trying to do and we'll be able to find more of an update as that work is gone.  Thank you, Banana.  Thank you.  Yeah, yeah. hi. Um, just a very, very ignorant kind of question and you mentioned the uh software that will be helping out in terms of a Merce's uh would you talk a little bit about how how does it help in cutting down on late versus and uh is that a GPS type of software? >> It is. Uh, I think Dan can probably get into the details of it but my my understanding of it is that it gives us a sense of ridership that right now we don't have and it gives parents pieces of information about the bus arrival delays where the bus is in ways that we don't currently have so we're the driver work force is been wonderful in um as the students get on being able to uh both use the software for the summer routes which could help us be more efficient with those routes as we see how many students are using which routes. Um but also as we start to think about the training for parents so the parents know how to use the app. So I think there's a couple of things that we're trying to pilot right now to make the fall that much easier going forward. But as far as the technical specifics in yeah.  >> Thank you, Superintendent and thanks for that question.  I'll try to be brief because I could talk about it all night but I think the some of the primary benefits one is we're replacing paper directions with GPS navigation which is long overdue but especially when there's substitute or standby drivers running a route that makes it much, much easier for them. And in the past we would see probably the the biggest challenges when someone was doing a route for the first 8ime with a paper printout.&$ So that's one big thing. The second main one is the superintendent said is this allows us to track ridership because the the bus drivers can tap the students on and off the bus and so whereas before we've never had accurate data on how many students in which students are riding the bus will now be able to gather that data and use that to improve the efficiency of routes. And then I think the the third big one and I'll try to stop after that is from an operations standpoint we were entirely reactive in the past in that the only way we knew that a bus was running late was if the driver reported it or a parent called in to report it and then we had to pull up the GPS on the map and figure where is the bus? Where is it supposed to be right now? What's going on now? And I would invite anyone to to come join us in the second floor one day during a morning or afternoon busses. But now we have kind of a giant map up on the screen with little green dots for all the busses out on the road and any busses that are running late switch from green to red and instantly somebody in dispatch at any of the bus yards or from our operations team here can say that bus just went red. What's going on? What do I have to do and follow up immediately. And so, you know, we're still learning with the system and figuring out exactly how we'll use all this information to our improve our operations and our hopes and all that.  But it just gives us a lot more real time infomt down on that. >> Thanks a lot. Yeah, and the only other thing I would say is there will be a learning curve and so you know, with the the start of September I think we will still especially as we go from 200 busses on the road to six hundred and forty we will see a learning curve initially but I think it's going to hopefully help us get better quickly.  Thanks a lot.  >> I got the question for transportation too if you finished. Yeah.  Sorry I think transportation is superintendency the transportation benefit three thousand is in right there 3000 is doing how many is the bus exactly. Is it Boston because I have the charter in Boston how how how long is the charter. >> How long is that you have that figure.  Yeah I don't have the exact number but I think it's in the ballpark of about twenty five hundred students for BAPS opted in for why transportation and then for exam school initiative we're estimating that about two hundred and fifty students are riding those busses there.  They're kind of open to anyone participating but we think it's about two hundred to two hundred and fifty students and on the remaining I think it's about two hundred and fifty students are charter school students doing X Y so it's around those numbers.  Dean in a given year with the twenty one thousand students that we transport what what number actually is charter during the school year? >> It's about I want to say it's about six thousand to sixty five hundred charter school students so it's about twenty five percent of the total student population that we transport. Yeah, yeah. Much larger more than I thought. Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Superintendent for your report.  First of all my sympathy to the colleagues in the IT department on the passing of Mr. Horgan who Hogan Hogan Hogan excuse Andy right. Who did so much over the years and and to Mr. Racine, your your leadership in this department has been incredible for a number of years and people know you you know, comment about oh what you do for these meetings is something which is like your part time fun little side job compared to what you really do. And you know, I remember standing in East Boston High School with you with all the work that you did early in the pandemic to get all students Google Chrome books and then standing there as students who are coming in to have it repaired and replaced and figure out how to make them work. And you made that happen for all of our students and most folks don't realize that you're also a national leader.  You are incredibly well respected by your peers in other districts around the country and I know how much you are called on by the council city great city schools to help advise other districts as well. And you do that without thought for time or anything else you just give to help all of our districts improve technology and there has been a scourge of districts across the country that have been hit by hackers and have been shut down and how you sleep at night I have absolutely no idea just just worrying about that happening to Boston. But I know you have been part of task force nationally and looking at that and how to protect and take care of our district from a technology viewpoint and so I thank you for that and the District is sad to see you go. I know the superintendent is as well but fully understand your decision but thank you for what you have done for this district and you are not the only Rosene who has helped Boston Public Schools as well.  So I know it has been a family tradition so thank you Superintendent. And some of the things obviously in your remarks I was really glad to hear about the increase in SSI.  It has been brought to our attention and public comment about how you know, we thought it was open enrollment and then it was blocked and I'm glad we were able to increase that and we should look to continue to increase that. And I know you said and I know it's always been two parts part of it is open to everyone and part of it is targeted initiative and we need to make sure that that continues to be. >> Yeah, and I just I just want to do a shout out because she's in the audience with Dr. Draper like part of this is her her willingness and flexibility to serve all students and so that that part, you know, has enabled us to, you know, be able to get more students in there. >> So great. Well, thank you for that and it's an important initiative. I was also happy to hear the number of 3000 students in credit recovery and how how do we feel that's going to impact specifically graduation?  I know we always hold the graduation from credit recovery students at the end of the year.  So I think I talk for a long time about this so I won't but you and I both I think that one of the bright spots are the glimpses was that our dropout rate and I kind of reported it but in many districts dropout rate increased dramatically in our district it ticked up and I am not under sizing that like it it ticked up an any tick up we want to be on. But post pandemic you've seen dropout rates like really increase multiple digits and hours ticked up our graduation rate slightly ticked down what was extremely hopeful was that in the extended engagement we were up like three percent which is a lot of kids that tells us that our students are staying with us. Our engagement efforts are working our credit recovery and the support that we're giving students to give them the confidence in the support to be able to graduate is their so we have a lot of students in that pipeline and credit recovery over the summer is one of the places where students don't participate. They fall behind and so they then reenter for the school year in the fall where they are behind a grade. So it's very hopeful to me I've gone by a multiple of the credit recovery sites. The students are engaged.  There's multiple ways we're doing it. Some do just purely on the online. Others are in small groups or working with a tutor or working teacher.  So it's really varying to what the student needs and I think that versatility is critical to making sure we're meeting kids where they are. So this is something that to me as I go around three thousand high school students hopeful we're also being flexible knowing that our high school kids want to work and need to work so we are we are able to being able to allow them to use technology flexibly to complete their credits so that they can also have a summer job.  So we're really working closely with Pich in all of our partners at the city side to create as much of a flexible program as possible. >> Excellent.  Thank you. Two more points you talked about transformation schools and particularly you mentioned you've seen some progress and the end of the map data sets seven of nine of nine grades increasing in reading and two of nine in math and I wonder if you could just and I know we're probably waiting for MKR scores in the fall to kind of validated I think MAP is considered a leading indicator ,right? Not a lot and Marcus is more of a lagging indicator.  But I'm wondering what you're thinking is the difference between the two.  Is it because of the equitable literacy work and you know, has been a little bit longer help me out. >> Yeah, and I think schools Echols and you can certainly weigh in on this. I think you know, we started with putting the fork down around literacy early on and I think you know, that always takes when you when you're introducing a new way of looking at curriculum and in our case all of the work we're doing to calibrate instruction in grade level access of that instruction, we're starting to see that fruit I think on the math side we did a bunch of work this past year doing the same thing in terms of beginning to calibrate math and introducing different curriculum. I think we will start to see that as well.  I also think that you know, things like our tutoring, our acceleration academies come up and coming up with different ways for students to be able to practice their skills and rebuild skills that might be missing on the math side that's something that will be kind of in full force this year. So anticipation would be we start to see that. But I think because the gap was so significant to start with math as well, it's going to take that much time a little bit longer to be able to to approach to close that gap. Dr. Wilson, I don't know if there's anything else your insight you want to add.  I think Superintendent you said it well, I would just remind the committee and remind the public that immediately returning from from the pandemic we saw sort of significant and quick increase in math outcomes for students program and map. I think what we're starting to see now is that the sort of investments we've made relative to predicated literacy is starting to potentially show some evidence. Certainly the map data suggesting that it is you are correct it is a leading indicator.  We are hopeful based on the data that we're seeing around map that we'll see some interesting and positive trends around mass literacy rates as a result of that.  So as a follow up question, thank you for that achievement. Whoever wants to answer it, you know, we have a number of transformation schools and you kind of made a generic statement of we're seeing quote unquote some progress or increase in seven of nine. Is it across the board in all transformations schools? Is that 75 percent? Is it and what I'm tying to more is the conversation we had earlier this spring about equitable literacy and when schools get to choose curriculum and when the district says OK, you're moving curriculum and so can you dig in a little bit please on that seven of nine increase seven or nine grades it's that across the board for the transformation schools is that are you seeing some things that are causing you to say we're going to make changes, we're going to make changes to sorry, we're going to make changes. >> But I didn't because we're going to make changes to curriculum in these schools. We're going to say this isn't working. >> We're moving to that. I think I think the blueprint that the district implemented relative to literacy is instructive for the way that we have to approach math. We are more advanced and evolved as a district around AQIM or high quality instructional materials and literacy. We made a big bet on this particularly in terms of our implementation of expeditionary learning and studies. I think these are highly rated high quality materials. >> We are multiple years of implementation.  We are we have been slower to adopt AQIM in mathematics and under Beth McCluskey and Chief Ryan Miller we have made significant progress in making following the patterns that we did in literacy to make sure that we're implementing this in mathematics.  We're just a year or two behind around HQ I am implementation mathematics.  >> We will get to full implementation of that within the next year and I understand that and you don't want to keep changing because it becomes disruptive for teachers which becomes disruptive for students if you're changing curriculum. Right. It's once you've decided on one but I do as we talked about with Dr. Chen earlier this year, you know schools are still often have a choice of curriculum and when you go and talk to school leaders while I chose this for Kadiatou and I chose this for, you know, three to eight etc. and I'm wondering if we're narrowing down where we're seeing you know, doubling down where with curriculum that we're seeing results from. Yeah, we have done that and so we have districts supported curriculum that the district is purchasing for schools and providing all of professional development associated with that. That's the district's commitment to schools.  We allow schools in some cases to make choices different than that. But we have two expectations one, if you're not going to choose the district supported curriculum, you need to complete a racial equity planning tool. And number two, the materials you do select have to be highly rated by ED reports or curate and so you may choose a different curriculum but they have to be highly rated. And so we've gotten to a point now where the vast majority of our schools are adopting the district supported curriculum. The materials that we are paying for as a system and that we are providing the professional development through Chief Ryan Miller's team. >> OK, thank you.  Thank you ma'am. I just want to explore one more area if that's OK.  It's about the thank you Mr. Nicholson. Tucker Carlson Doctor Dr. Jekyll since I felt that and that is in operations I read with interest this memo and I love to see all the different projects going on particularly you know, summer and planning. But many of being done this summer. I did have a couple of questions in particular about air handling if that's OK. >> That's CEO Mr. Ford. Oh, OK. So you know, I can't help but comment on a day that was 97 degrees as I was leaving Charlestown this afternoon and have a broken see myself that you know, I feel for our students and teachers in hot buildings and they're not getting any they're not getting any better. Right. It's it's this is continuing and I look at the list and I see for example, about Chiloe replacement air handling and I know we say we're up to 90 plus percent but in many cases that was putting a unit in a window in a classroom so it doesn't cover the cafeteria, it doesn't cover the auditorium, it doesn't cover the bathrooms, the hallways, that type of thing. So it's a positive step but we've got a long way to go and in particular I think of one school the you know, the Elliott has three buildings, the middle one that we renovated a few years go on Salem Street was designed and built for air conditioning and to save money a little bit of money at the time air conditioning was pulled out, the unit was not put on the roof and it was erroneously stated in a community meeting that it's because the school committee policy that air conditioning can only go in buildings that are used during the summer. It's no one in this room said it don't worry about it but you I can state pretty emphatically that that school committee policy does not exist and and if it if it did for some reason many years ago, Madam Chair, I think we should certainly think as a body in saying any work being done we should be putting in, you know, air conditioning or appropriate cooling in any building that we're working on . But a long way of saying I see two that have Chiloe replacement, one has an air handle unit replacement. Three having cooling tower replacements.  We're looking at any buildings that could handle central air and I would think would be more economical to put one unit in once than one hundred window units so to speak. Sorry, long way to know that. >> That's right. And I need as hot air on a day like today. Right. But you understand what I'm getting at, right? >> Absolutely. So I think I definitely appreciate the question. It definitely makes a lot of sense for us to be looking at total solutions every time that we go into a building especially for the first time that we're going to be there so we don't have to revisit it when it came to the air handlers that are being replaced currently the Chili's being replaced currently those are four buildings that are currently making their way towards end of life and don't have another option for us to make sure cooling is provided throughout those entire spaces. So twenty thirty year old devices and pieces of equipment putting in the window units was our way for us to provide the thermal comfort in a short time period over kind of weather. Is that total ventilation which comes with a large overhaul and oftentimes a large capital project for an entire building ? We are actually moving forward with three buildings that are in between solutions right now. >> They were not able to handle any of the air conditioning and so we are able going to be be able to provide heating,  ventilation and cooling in some of these schools. So we go to and are doing the work once when we get to reviewing buildings that happen to be new builds such as the Elliott School.  A lot of times when we're working with engineers they design for 80 percent of days,  80 percent of use days and that's why you might see in over engineering situation where they pull out something like the cooling but we could always ask for it to be put in place and that's something we'll definitely exercise in the future. Thanks. I bring this up as an example as I suspect we may have some other buildings like this because of decisions made in the past. It was designed forward and then oh you know, let's save a little bit of money. We don't have to put it in but it would be a I think a fairly simple fix and then you've really transformed the building no pun intended. So thank you for that. And while I have you here if you don't mind and if it's you if it's Mr. Depinto, that's fine. I see on the list of the the roof batts academy the work that's being done this summer I do seem to recall specific discussions by the chair and myself asking about the potential for lockers and lights for the very dim hallways is and I didn't see that on the list. >> Yes. So good afternoon Brian for interim chief of operations forgot to mention this last time but I'm definitely mentioning it now.  Yeah, we were working on the lockers so I do have to figure out what the delivery on that is. We didn't explicitly mention it. The work that we have listed for the Ruth Batson Academy is mainly for the work that's happening to outfit the Denver portion of the building so that we can handle the students coming over from the Hyde Park building, right? Absolutely. We didn't forget about the other requests. I do want to make sure that it's clear we do have our electrical team that's going out there and doing troubleshooting and as they work to bring in additional conduit for making sure we can run the systems between both buildings, we communicate effectively. They will be making sure that we can where possible refresh the lighting in there. I think a lot of it has to do with the fixtures so we'll have to continue to work on different solutions in that space.  Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you and thank you both I think for coming back from vacation for tonight to be here for us. Thank you for that.  >> Great. Thank you both. OK and I do want to give my thanks very much to Mr. Racine for all of your work.  It has been tireless. I have watched you I have heard what you've been doing. I've seen you in action and you will be greatly missed but we really want thank you for all that you have done for us for so many years.  Thank you.  >> Thank you, Mr. O'Neill for asking most of my questions.  >> I think I like Madam Chair right. But I still do have a couple one of the things I know maybe we don't have this information yet but I knew that you said that there were approximately 6000 high school students that applied for jobs and over half of those are our kids. I know we have many more than three thousand kids so I'm wondering if we know if there were kids who who applied but did not receive a job through this process.  Thank you, Chair. So right now to the best of our understanding, students were able to get jobs if they applied. It's a like every week the numbers come in differently. So that's the latest and it's I believe over the next two weeks that's when the numbers will jump further because that's when we're making our last placements in addition to the pick jobs and in addition to the youth jobs, there's obviously students have in our fifth quarter also of jobs.  So what we try to do for that end of August report is pull together all of the employment opportunities that are youth had. What I was very pleased about was a couple of things. One was first of all our mayor's commitment that any use of age that wanted a job could have one. Secondly, was the flexibility of the team to do on registration which in my experience with secondary students is huge because we always expect them to go to whatever it is and for us to go do job fairs answer questions. I think that's really what prompted the numbers to be so much higher this year. So that's just huge flexibility for our team. The city team and pick up most of all that really enable that to happen.  So I think each year we get better and better at this and we'll have the final numbers chair toward the end of August. >> I have a similar question about the number of elementary age students participating in the fourth quarter because I had raised a concern before the end of the year about particularly how were we reaching out to families who would have the need but might not make the registration and were there any particular outreach from classroom teachers to families around kids for whom they would love to have seen?  So Dr. Tavaris, it might be interesting for you to give your lens on this, but this was really where it was a joint effort of family liaisons, classroom teachers for sure of being able to identify with school leaders, students and families that we needed to do the initial outreach to and you know, it was a rolling registration which I also think has been incredibly important because as families find out sometimes they get boxed out if there's a hard deadline and instead the team is committed to that flexibility. So I think for all those reasons we've been able to really fill our programs, you know, really in a healthy way. But Dr. did you want to add anything else? I mean, Superintendent, you covered it really well but is there anything in particular that would be helpful to know any details to know whether there was you know OK, so for one group I was concerned about were some of the migrant students you know, were they able I know people are moving around but were there kids that were able that are have been able to participate or in in schools and particularly thinking of our transformation schools and whether or not what you know, I don't know we don't have any data that says the percentage of students in this school that are actually participating in some programing and do we see, you know, schools where there's been a high number of people registering in their schools where there are kids who are great risk but are not participating to begin to see who's taking advantage or is aware of what the resources are as we figure out how well we're going to help close gaps for our kids.  Well, thank you for that clarification. I would say that the team and I are most proud of the outreach that we've done with our migrant families. I would say that that's something that we as a system and as a team which includes all of you as well. We can be very proud of our family liaison to superintendents comment earlier they have been the linchpin to make sure that our families have access to information,  know what programs are available, are able to even navigate the web and even now not the Web. The page where all the information of summer is uploaded. It's been an incredible opportunity for us having been so hands on in receiving families that relationships were built when they first arrived and those relationships we've been able to tap into in order to make sure that students are enrolled.  How do we provide I know we provide transportation for select programs. Do we provided for anyone who needs it or are there other programs for which parents have to get their kids there themselves? I would say this year we really focused on making sure that our students in s why were the ones according to our IEPs had transportation that was our focus for summer programing year and we tried to make sure that families that chose programs also understood where the programs were so it can make it easier for the families to facilitate taking their child. So the concentration of availability of transportation again where for students with IEPs required transportation because we wanted to make sure those students had that support.  Yeah, that helps to understand sort of what the options and choices really, really are. >> Thank OK.  My last question goes back to the issue around the the improvements in both the reading in the math and I was wondering if what if we know the grade levels and I was interested particularly in when when I think was Dr. Eggleston was talking about the choices schools make around their curriculum and my question is as they make those choices, do they look at the handoff and transition from one grade to the next to figure out whether whether the choices are making sure that students are progressing and ways that make sense for students versus a curriculum choice that may be great programing but in the long run isn't giving our kids what they need. Yeah, so I know Dr. Leslie Ryan Miller is in the audience is a correct curriculum question or Dr. Ackles in either one. But what I will say is as they're thinking about who's going to come up, what I will what I will say is that I think that the team has done such an incredible job raising awareness of the importance of the curriculum and the fact that it is high quality that now within the internal conversations that are happening with schools are much more focused about students grade to grade and you know, remember when we get achievement the achievement speaks to last year and so we tend to then zero in on that grade when actually the following grade that we really need to be thinking about addressing. So I think because of that the calibration the regional network and the work that Dr. Ryan Miller's team is doing on the curriculum side its lending itself to think more K-12 or pre-K to 12 than we've ever before.  >> Hi, good evening and Chairperson Robinson, I heard just a portion of your question. Do you mind just repeating it so I make sure I answer it in full so I'm interested in understanding basically what the superintendent did said to what's happening as kids transition from one grade to the next if they know there may be a KADIATOU curriculum and in a three to five or whatever. So my question is is kids transfer from or you know, get promoted from grades to the grades three does the curriculum support and connect that learning so that there isn't a gap in the learning so that whatever the math skills that you got catered to are they picked up and continued without missing a beat in grade three or does that you know so how do we see how do we understand where we are making progress in certain grades but are not in wanting to understand as much about where we're not making progress and why guys where we are? OK, thank you for repeating that.  So I think this really stresses the importance of standards aligned curriculum and that's one of the pivotal pieces of high quality instructional materials is making sure that the standards are addressed in the grade levels where appropriate and so any high quality instructional material that's deemed by Dessy should do that. It should make sure that if in grade two they're looking at I'm just saying this but fractions that it's addressed in the curriculum at a specific point in time and so AQIM ensures of us of that.  But one of the pivotal things that we have to do is make sure that our educators understand that and understand the importance of staying on pace with the curriculum. One of the things that I talked about when I was here in the spring is sometimes in classes seeing that there's some of over scaffolding happening which means that we're taking more time in a particular area which then means students are missing something else because our time is so finite and so it's having those conversations with teachers so they understand here's a skill that a child might have in week five of school and it comes back again in week eight and them understanding that and also understanding that they have to hit all these points so that our students aren't missing particular standards that then either make it so that when they are engaging in assessment they haven't seen the material before or when they get to the next grade they're not prepared because they haven't seen what comes before that with the prerequisite is so that's that's one of the reasons why we put a lot of stock in AQIM because it does that hard work of standards alignment for us but it's the our job is really the professional development that goes along with that.  Right. Thank you. May I have a follow up question to that? Yeah, thank you. Thank you for explaining everything pretty clearly I continue to have I knew it I could have concerns or ambivalence about how do you come up with AQIM definition.  And um when you meet with schools maybe you know the school administration principals director of curriculum and of course there are there are some schools that did not want to use AQIM material and prefer to stay on with their own standard curriculum or whatever. Sure. What what what are the conflicting reasons for not choosing what you decide as a AQIM and and their only decision of staying on their their you know their their curriculum's and how do we reconcile those differences? Sure. So we really lean on Dessy around.  They have a site called Ed Reports that outlines the different there's a rubric in terms of how they evaluate curriculum as being AQIM or not and so we really rely on ED reports and cure rate as those are Ed reports is national. And so we look they do a heavy lift of going the library work of going through the curriculum making sure its standards aligned, vetting it for cultural responsive ness and making sure it is free of bias content.  So that's kind of our starting point in terms of how we deem something is AQIM in terms of district supported curriculum we have pulled from that list of AQIM and then done our own assessment of the curriculum using a racial equity planning tool and really engaging with various constituents in the community. One of the things just to share I'm really proud of I don't know if you remember it was months ago there was a gentleman from BLR.  His name was Andrew Pierre and he came to public comment just talked about the curriculum that they would like to see in classrooms. He is a member of the mayor's youth task force and after that we were in close communication and he and some other students who were on the mayor's task I'm sorry it's the mayor's youth council. They have now formed an advisory group specifically for teaching and learning and so I just say that to say that in terms of student engagement and content that they find engaging, I'm really happy to have their voice at the table going forward. That being said, I think one of the things that is hard will one change is just heart. >> So I want to put that out there and also many times particularly in the secondary space teachers have created the material that they're using and sometimes they get a fabulous response from students in terms of their engagement and sometimes there is the student achievement it follows that we'd like to see. >> Sometimes there's not and it has to be that students are engaged in the curriculum that they see themselves looking good in the curriculum but also that we're enabling them with the information they need to make the academic progress that we expect them to make. And so that's really the push with AQIM. You know, we've had some push back but one of the things that I found really helpful is myself or members of the teaching and learning team. We go out, we meet with the teachers, we talk through their concerns and I'll be honest sometimes they have some valid concerns, right? They'll say this curriculum I want to see more novels that reflect this and we take that back to the vendor and quite frankly the vendors have been very helpful in making those changes because we spend a lot of money with them and so they need to know that having you know, us as customers means that sometimes we need changes in the for the benefit of our students. So I think doing that has brought more schools in and we're really getting to a place where folks who are not using AQIM are fewer and further between.  So that's that's where we want to go. And you know, again, we do try to be understanding that that this is change for folks and it has to happen for students. >> So I think conversations are one of the things that have helped to move the needle and the support of school leaders for sure. >> Another follow up question because curriculum development and teacher training was part of my duty about 40 40 plus years ago. So I understand when you talk about teachers who develop their own curriculum and the students respond to that positively and we are trying to install some changes and of course they're going to be opposition. They will be pushback. I understand because I went through that as well. >> The the question I have is how how sure are you that once they adopted the curriculum they will follow through with rather than you know, reverting back to their own curriculum? >> Sure. So this is where we really rely on our school questions.  This is where we rely on our school leaders and we also rely on the liaison's in the regional model to be in classrooms to see what's happening, to ask questions if something's not being used. I want to you know, I want to be genuine and say yes, there are times we've bought curriculum and I will go into a classroom and that's not the curriculum being used. So then that means that necessitates a conversation with the school leader, with the liaison with the regional soup to first get a better understanding of why it's not happening. Sometimes those reasons can be valid, sometimes they're not. And so we have to have conversations about the why and then what needs to happen. You know, I think I gave an example last time of just a particular school saying hey, we use this text it's this play by an author that's from Dudley that's from Nubian Square that we want to continue to use.  And the reaction is you can still use that you can use that along with the AQIM and that's where the liaison's and coaches are helpful. They can have those coaching conversations to say OK, let's look at the scope and sequence of the material. Let's look at what are trying to use. Let's figure out where these things can be integrated in a way that your students are not going to miss what they are.  They should have they have to receive standards aligned instruction if we don't give that to students and then we assess them, it's just not fair and so those are the conversations that that we're having and I and I will their educators are stepping up. They hear that and they also want to be heard. >> So we we hear them as well. It will reflect the evaluation . Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you.  All right. So OK, so I think we are now ready to now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report.  Is there a motion so move and Q Is there a second second is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none . The Superintendence report is approved will now move on to general public comment.  Thank you Chair. The public comment period is an opportunity for parents, caregivers, students and other concerned parties to make brief presentations to the school committee and pertinence kolaches.  Questions on specific school matters are not answered at this time but I referred to the superintendent for a later response questions on specific policy matters and not answer at this time but may be the subject of later discussion by the committee.  The meeting will feature two public appearance with the first comment period limited to one. Our priority will be given to those testifying in person time permitting the committee will then open it up for virtual testimony after one hour. Anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting we have five speakers this evening. Each person will have three minutes to speak and I would remind you when you have thirty seconds remaining if your remarks are longer than three minutes, please email your comments for distribution to the committee.  The time the interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time. Speakers may not be signed their time to others large group addressing the same topic are encouraged to consolidate their remarks or those or choose a spokesperson to provide testimony. Please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or district staff.  Please state your name affiliation and what neighborhood you're from before you begin. We will begin this evening with our in-person speakers. We will begin with John Mud and remaining John Mud.  >> Good evening. My name is John Mud. I'm a long time education advocate in Boston and a resident of Cambridge.  BP has used the allegation of segregation as a way to justify a signing multilingual students into the general education classes at the ESL. I think many thought and many continue to think that they are following the progressive Boston tradition of desegregation in supporting this plan they are wrong during the discussions of 15th anniversary of the bustling decision, I was surprised to learn that Judge Garrity himself the champion of desegregation wrecking ised and authorized the grouping of English learners so that they could have the benefits of bilingual education programs acknowledging the harm that the dispersal of Valse students could do in the implementation of the initial Lesego Order, he issued a supplemental order on June 5th, 1975 that specifically authorize the clustering of students as necessary for their education just as Judge Garrity recognized the harm at the dispersal of multilingual students under the dishrag order do to these students, BAPS should recognize the harm that the proposed inclusion plan could do for these students.  You should reverse course and stop this simplistic implementation of inclusion for multilingual students in general. Ed and should instead focus on increasing access to native language in the expansion of bilingual education programs that the evidence shows will benefit these students as part of this process.  Look at the data you say you are evidence based and data driven with a focus on student outcomes if you look there is existing data in Boston about the inclusion multilingual learners in general education with the ESL which should inform your decisions about further implementation of the inclusion plan for these students already about forty percent of ILDA one to three multilingual students are assigned to GeneDx with ESL.  This is the exact model of Emelle inclusion that is being planned data given to you for 2023 already shows that only about five percent I repeat five percent of all English. Thirty seconds past my cast only about 30 percent are meeting their English development targets.  School committee should now ask the district to provide outcome data for the twenty twenty four access tests and the twenty twenty four mixed results for these students when they are available in the fall with those results in hand you can then make a data driven evidence based decision about whether to continue further inclusion. Thank you so much in general education. Thank you. Please follow through and get a report next Speaker Stader money.  Good evening. My name is Deirdre Manning. I'm a Dorchester resident parent of two daughters.  I want to be a student the other a charter school student. Please hew to the one hour and two minute mark of my testimony from the June seventeenth meeting for my previous testimony The Tide in the discrimination that my great grandmother faced and the discrimination my mother advocated against in the 1950s when she tried to get the principal of the Hyde Military School in Roxbury to write the required letter of recommendation for Jane Dietrich, her eighth grade student of West Indian heritage Jane Dietrich ended up somehow getting into northeastern University despite being prevented from attending Girls Latin. Unfortunately she only completed one year of college. I suspect that if she had been allowed to ten girls Latin she might have had the support of mentors she needed to earn a college degree children who for the last three years have been denied a seat at an exam school have lost an opportunity that can't be regrind.  What Boston Public Schools is doing may be legal but it is not equitable.  I was encouraged to hear that Vice Chair O'Neill consulted with outside expert recently on the issue of school choice. I hope that school committee members would engage with parents so that they can better understand the inequities of the exam school policy being provided with a two or three minute period to form a school committee members is not an efficient use of anyone's time and does not give parents or stakeholders a platform for effecting change during the pandemic. I help my children with virtual school and worked my paid job late into the night after they went to bed even if I were aware of the virtual meetings of the exam school task force there was no way I could have participated the interests of all exam eligible students in the city were not represented or advocated for as part of this process high achieving students like Jane Dietrich should not have been excluded from educational opportunities in the past. Please don't perpetuate policy change that is excluding different students now.  >> Thank you. Thank you.  We will now transition to virtual testimonies.  Our next speakers are Mohammod Lewis Needed Bazil and my Kaseman. I do not see Muhammad Lewis in the meeting so eat it Bazil.  You can start.  >> Thank you in twenty twenty three beeps Nate fourth grade black white reading gap was twenty three points it almost doubled to forty two points in twenty by twenty twenty to twenty twenty three. Marcus data shows no literacy growth for black students using maps as a summative assessment data as was done here tonight is frankly dishonest focus the early childhood curriculum wide in literacy gaps for over a decade and it is not validated by Ed reports. Children who fail to read become adults who struggle with joblessness, homelessness and mental health issues. This year the chair said quote The whole city thinks we should feed them, clothe them to everything but basically give birth to them and oh by the way, can you teach them to read and write? She added quote Superintended skipper, I've got your back perpetuating anti black stereotypes while ignoring failed literacy policies exacerbate inner generational black wealth gaps in places black families in a constant state of fight or flight for the right to read in BPs fifty years after desegregation,  black students are still segregated into poorly resourced chronically underperforming schools while white and Asian students are clustered into wealthy high performing schools. Skip his first action was to modify exam school admissions for white company and endorse moving the O'Bryant named after a black man to white West Roxbury.  Meanwhile, Skip a renamed chronically failing schools after great black leaders while abandoning racial equity.  Dr. Cottagey Woodson, a nineteen thirties Harvard researcher black Harvard researcher affirm the benefits of black educators long before the John Hopkins study.  Yet Skipper pushed out Dr. Branson chief of equity and strategy then eradicated racial equity initiatives. Black educators fought for since desegregation. She moved the office equity under human capital and in a final blow to racial equity checkpoints just on the vision of the eight task force sending the message of if you're black an advocate for racial equity step back.  When will this school committee hold Skipper accountable for creating an evidence based racial equity infrastructure for contin seconds instead of promoting tokin programs that don't address closing longstanding gaps for black students? >> Thank you. Thank you very.  Our next speaker is my congressman Mike Hirschmann.  Dorchester suing the school committee will valuate the super Chindits.  We will invite the community to participate in this sensu activity or once again will only your voice matter and who will valuate the school committee?  The public does not the IT elections waps unlike every community in our state you are not elected by the community and thus not accountable to the public. You are political appointments accountable to only one person may awo and you only see and hear what will please the boss . A big part of the leadership job is to stay and control the message. An important part of your job is to supervise the superintendent. Did you hear that Black and Brown sent office workers had been fired and replaced by those loyal to the Super tenant . Did you hear that Dr. Childs grandson, the chief equity officer wrote about these concerns them skipper and was fired. Did you hear at the last meeting silence speaks one hundred plus voices beyond the trauma. Did you bother to read the report written by many past and present BP's educational leaders?  The authors believe that the major reason for the Retaliator and the harm done to them is because they adhere to speak out in opposition to the skipper's policies with a super tender.  You bring this up at tonight's meeting. I doubt it.  I was right. This report characterizes BP as a heartless, vindictive, racist and sexist organization that retaliates against employees who question their actions.  This report charges that the superintendent is dismantled.  Policies and practices focus on fancy ratio equity and his silence. Employees who question these actions.  This report charges that BP is a large complex system that cares more about optics using backroom deals making to cover up individual scandals.  This report charges that The Real Story and BP's entrenched dysfunction have set you off is the prevents schools from advancing. This is a story of a cancer that is spread through much of our district over time unless this this disease is acknowledged and dealt with every school and every child will be infected silently. Settings agony and causing you to do your job to investigate these charges. What are you going to do about this report, these serious charges? Will you do your job or will you continue to be complicit in enabling a racist, traumatic and dysfunctional system to continue to haunt many of our children and to BP's employees who have been hired to care and educate them?  >> Thank you. Thank you.  That concludes public speaking . Thank you, Miss Perfect's and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives. Your testimony is very important to us.  Our only action item this evening is the grants for approval totaling three million four hundred seventy thousand six hundred and ninety three dollars.  Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final remarks.  Wonderful. Thank you, Chair. So before you you have six grants that are totaling three million four hundred seventy thousand six hundred ninety three.  Just a few things to call out. I think the adult literacy grant this one really is around. It's an exciting year and it's around providing high school in English language classes to adults in Boston. So this is through our adult ed branch.  It also has a diploma bearing arm in offers English language classes for parents. >> The other one that I wanted to just mention was there's a comprehensive school health grant which obviously is helping us with case management relative to our nurses so fully supportive of this and then there is the intensive assistance grant and this is the large million one million three hundred thirty two thousand dollar grant and this is relative to academic acceleration academies. So I would just these are all grants that will support our students, our staff, the forward movement, the district and I would just appreciate a positive vote on this by our school committee. Thank you. Any questions?  There's no further discussion. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the grant as presented. Is there a motion so thank you is your second second was there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the grant by unanimous consent hearing none of the grants are approved?  OK, so tonight I wanted to have a brief discussion about the superintendent's evaluation process.  The annual evaluation of the superintendent is a core responsibility of the school committee outlined in our bylaws specifically in Article six Section one day this section mandates that quote The school committee will annually evaluate the superintendent's performance periodic it will develop with the superintendent a set of performance goals and objectives based on the needs of the school system.  The superintendent's performance will be reviewed in accordance with these specified goals. The last time we came together as a governing board to establish goals was before Superintendent Schepper joined us during the fall of 2024, the school committee will convene to revisit our current goals and establish new ones aligned with our district's priorities . These goals will be centered on fostering high expectations for student achievement and will be accountability driven this year as I did last year I have requested Dr. Steven Elkins and Vice Chair Michael O'Neill to spearhead the evaluation process. I am pleased to share that they have kindly accepted the responsibility we will evaluate Miss Skipper in accordance with the standards provided by desis Framework, Instructional Leadership Management and operations, family and community engagement and professional culture for this year's evaluation the superintendent scolds aligned to what we as the school committee shared in our summative evaluation last year. I have also asked the superintendent to share the accomplishments and challenges of the district that align to her goals. The superintendent will complete a written self-evaluation that will be shared with the committee each committee member is then asked to complete an individual evaluate Dr. Archons and Vice Chair O'Niel will compile our collective thoughts into a summative evaluation that will be presented at a special virtual meeting on Monday, August 19th.  We will vote on the superintendent evaluation at our August 28 meeting the timeline for the superintendent evaluation can be done here.  I ask that tonight's discussion focus on the evaluation process after members receive the superintendent s evaluation there will be opportunity for follow up conversation and to answer questions regarding the content of the evaluation. Rebecca Granger, senior advisor to the Mayor in schools will help support throughout the evaluation process. OK now I will open it up to the floor for questions and comments from the committee regarding the evaluation process.  So thank you Chair for sharing the timeline. I'm more curious if we have specific dates when we're going to be receiving the individual evaluation forms and when is expected to send to sent to back to the vice chair and Dr. Good to ask Rebecca. I'm sure you're going to send us a follow up email budg for the purpose for the public to have awareness of what those dates are would be helpful as well. >> Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Remember Lima Barbossa um the self-evaluation will come to you on July 24th along with the individual evaluation that you will fill out and then those will be returned on August 1st to be compiled into the summary of evaluation.  So we'll give members a week to complete OK and then just curious if in the in the past when superintendents have been evaluated, has there ever been the public has ever participated, is there something that just just curious because I know a lot of conversations that we have is about community process. I know this is very specific.  We are the ones that are here to supervise but just something that was mentioned and I'm just curious on how um not my tenure, Mr. O'Neill. So great question.  Evaluate the superintendent is one of our four key responsibility.  Right. So as school board members we set policy and this is set by our bylaws and what set up some public schools. So and I know I'm being repetitive but you've said this for the public so I'll state as well we set the policy for the district. We hire a superintendent to implement that policy. We approve a budget that allows the superintendent to implement the policies we set. We evaluate and ultimately approve and we evaluate the superintendent on how they are doing against the policies that we set. So it is a key responsibility of ours and we are expected to be informed throughout the year and how we believe the superintendents we listen to public comment. We talk to school leaders, we talk to teachers, we talk to parents, we talk to community members, advocates etc. and we form our own individual opinions that are clearly informed by feedback we receive including listening to public comment and then we write individual evaluations and then what Dr. Hawkins and I do is put it together in a summary evaluation that is supposed to reflect the tenor.  I mean we look at what the individual votes are right. And make sure we show what the average is, what the highs and lows were. We look at the summary to make sure that it reflects the tenor of the comments.  What were common themes across at what was someone that just one member brought up?  And then we present the summary document along with the superintendents evaluation in a public meeting which will be virtual and discuss it right. So we each we get to see and by the way and this is a reminder your individual evaluation is a public document so your individual evaluations will be well that has surprised some members in the past. So make sure to state that your individual evaluation and a summary evaluation is released publicly and is discussed the public meeting at which time there is also public comment and feedback. We do not vote on it at that meeting we vote on it at a later meeting I think it's scheduled for August 28th next in-person meeting. So is there an opportunity for public feedback? The opportunity for public feedback is throughout the year quite frankly we heard comments tonight from how people feel the superintendent is doing. We also talk to school leaders, teachers etc. and that informs our decision process. I hope that helps. No, no, it does help. Thank you for going a little bit deeper to learn just like the expectations of the overall process and for the friendly reminder that we're constantly hearing feedback not only about the superintendent but just the overall district. And I think that scores will influence our own personal opinions. But I was more asking if there was like a formalized way with the evaluation.  But I think it's totally fair and not only through public testimony but through the way that we are engaging with family members and staff and educators. So thank you for that and I think it's good to remind folks at home as well that their voices are being heard in these different avenues. So I think that is all for me. It is. And I'll just say as a follow up to that like I don't I don't reach my points that I make of the evaluation by myself in a vacuum they are informed by people that I am speaking to in the district throughout the year and observations I've made visiting schools with the superintendent etc. and whether I'm whether or not the feedback that I have heard and so that informs the the evaluation that I do which is a very important part of our responsibility as a member.  So thank you. I also if I may point out one more comment as much as we are evaluating the superintendent on the fourth standard set up by DC and the goals we set last year. I point out the other important piece is at the end when we make recommendation on areas we want to see the superintendent focus in on because those become the goals of the following year.  So what we're evaluating the superintendent on in the context of the DC standards are specific goals that we as a committee last year put in the summary evaluation and voted on that this is what we want the superintendent focus in on in the coming year. So that second piece that you do is equally important to your evaluation of how she has done in the past year what you're saying you believe is important she focus in on the next year one final because I just I just remember that Diego is no longer here with this process even if we have I think we had a student here with a student representative still be able to participate or is it just for the voting student to also be able to participate? OK, just curious. Yeah, no student participated last year.  Well just just a quick comment . I've been involved in this kind of evaluation of the superintendent for the last six years. Uh, criteria's set forth either by the by Dessy or by this board, you know, in terms of evaluating the superintendent I supposed to be uh objective and it and they are objective but in my in my own assessment and in my own reading of past, uh, evaluations from members I do somehow see subjective uh comments in it and I'm just reminding everybody that such subjective comment should not be part of that because they are public documents.  Thanks. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. I think Michaeline the other comment OK well we will look forward to receiving the materials and uh look forward to our conversation on August 19th. Wonderful. Um, and in the interim I just want to say that as people are going through their process there will be opportunity for people to have direct conversations with Superintendent.  Um, yeah, it's part of their thinking. I think it's so yeah. OK, all right. We now return to public comment. We have one public speaker report it Bazil Nikki Giovanni said quote It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend . There's nothing more important than knowing your child will be attending school. The McKinley schools have an overlooked in every phase of build. BP's then along came the Green New Deal a press conference conference promises of a rebuild and visioning meetings that turn out to be nothing more than empty broken promises making a green new deal a hoax when it comes to racial equity . The McKinley schools which serves primarily black students with no gym, no library, no cafeteria, no science lab and a crumbling infrastructure, its structure is broken on the outside as well as the inside. What has this administration done to advocate for these students not being but a performative name change in assigning appointing a new white leader with no experience and no family and community input? The Timilty was close with callous indifference to black families and community.  The Shore community was tortured with threats of breaking configuration that resulted in departure of a beloved principal and trauma for students, staff and family is insulting the majority of black nonwhite populated schools we see no attention from the Green New Deal while majority white Asian population populated schools receive rapid response, full rebuilds or renovations. Meanwhile, the Office of Family and Community Advancement has been busy driving out more black and brown leaders and ignoring the voices of the community. Three point eight million dollars was wasted on outside vendors who come up with nothing more than a rubric and a building condition analysis.  Now the district is starting over with more money on another consult with sounds like a public relations stunt, a political cover to avoid making hard decisions during an election year.  The Green New Deal has been a deep money pit for vendors leaving taxpayers with uncertainty on school closures emerges that has kept families suspended in a torturous state of uncertainty that undoubtedly has driven many families, especially black families out of BP's. This is totally unacceptable and incompetence from this leadership.  Why does BP need to hire an outside consultant instead of listening to families and communities who are cultural insiders using racial equity as a lens to determine the impact of decisions? We've had multiple conversations over the year but yet there is no family and community engagement. >> Where does the school committee stand on thank you.  >> Must pick up your time. Thank you. Thank you.  Thank you.  That concludes our business. Excuse me is there any as is there any new business? >> Well just a very quick request.  We all heard one one of the frequent concerned citizen regarding the implementation of the grouping multilingual learners with I share that concern. >> I strongly share that concern.  As a matter of fact, I came here without having idea without having the benefit of having a bilingual program. So I struggle pretty rigorously for the first ten years of my life.  So in a way I'm requesting that the judge just to just to follow up on that, I'm requesting that the the the office do provide outcome data for the 2024 access and twenty four I am of yeild thirty uh three male students that um before we decide all we can make any kind recommendation or advise you know to the ongoing implementation of the inclusion program. Thank you Chair.  I want a second request you got there first but um and I think Chair and superintendent I don't know if with that report but also just speaking on the work that chief the mayor has been doing with the women team. You know, I've been advocating and the community has been advocating for a while when it comes to the Cape Verdean Creole the language we've been having meetings already.  So I think that could be a good opportunity of sort of providing an update and just looking at a little bit micro of like what the district is already trying to do also considering how it's going to be impacted if and when the inclusion education program is implemented and how is that going to impact that work.  So I just wanted to give a shout out to Chief uh, Gomera for taking that you know, your your request seriously about really looking into the keyboarding community because for years it has been requested we can go back to many superintendents and mayors and for once we're seeing some movement and some realistic action steps not only from the district but like including the community and folks that have been doing a lot of community engagement over the years. But as we know, more community engagement doesn't hurt to make sure that we're actually meeting the needs of the folks that are actually present in the streets.  So I just wanted to echo with committee member Transat if we can have we will. So thank you both will be uh when we do the access in the next report we will report out by all the yield levels but with a particular concentration on the yield threes as well as the transition of students who become former uh or what we call flop students.  Um and then additionally on the programmatic development will make sure that uh that the chief Kamiar talks about all the exciting work we're doing in the creation of new dual language programs transitional bilingual heritage programing really all of it that's happening. We have a bunch into DC already for approval so we'll make sure that um that the OMB presents all of that information. Thank just it's just a very quick uh, question. Maybe this question should be directed to us. >> As a matter of fact, what what is the uh the status of the L l task force I know disbanded how are we going to reopen reorganize that soon? We want to come back together. That's what we're talking about wanting to come together in the fall to talk about goals outcomes. But an unanswered question from last year is whether the task force's EOL Task Force Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Task force what structure can we have so that we make sure we have those voices? Yes, And so we need to figure out what that structure is going to be to bring that group back or to bring those voices back whether it's that same structure or another one. I think that's more the question. But yes, we very much we want to with your permission and I when one is lineis whether I like to be part of it. Yes. Yeah.  >> When I say follow the for the question uh it's important for multilingual. Yeah. Stealings it's important too if you if meeting is the last meeting right that year is start the year probably end of resole what happened in the exit exam for this duling what is the result what happened for the Duling what is the evidence, what is the progress and for the next year I think it's important to know that yeah yeah. One hundred percent will time it um so that when we do it we can also do it with the mass release so I work with schools on that to make sure they both get presented.  Um the other exciting thing that's happening for our overaged multilingual learners is we will be launching in opening Bota E over in East Boston and so we'll make school committee aware of when that happens so that you can be part of that. We're really excited about that for our students. >> Hmm. Yeah. At some point I would really like us to be able to understand comprehensively all the different things that are going on with our work, particularly with the multilingual learners.  One is to really understand what families want because sometimes they feel the voices of families get lost and I know not every family wants the same thing but with love to understand what are the kinds of variety of things that families are asking for and at the same time understanding what actually is moving the needle because sometimes what we want may not be the thing that actually improves outcomes or maybe you know, where is the learning and where is the coming together of all of the parties so that our students in the long run get the best of all worlds.  So that's really the sort of that voice clarity and then to understand the myriad of wonderful things that are happening and understanding again qualitatively which of those things are actually helping our kids and young adults make the mark because it's critical and I think seeing that particularly this summer the number of multilingual learners that have taken advantage of the variety of programing speaks to the excitement and need and the dedication of families wanting their kids to get this so you know that's right. And I think we're having some of those really good deeper conversations with our St. Stephen's community around what parents want.  I mean that was a lot of the input we took that led to how we ended up shaping the inclusive ED work. And I think to your point chair sharing the data of student performance is really important for parents and families to see so they can start making connections around what is moving the needle and what's not moving the needle.  Okay, thank you. That concludes our business for this evening. We will meet virtually for our special school committee meeting on Monday August 19th at five p.m. So there's nothing further I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. Is there a motion to thank you? Is there a second is there any discussion or objection?  Madam Chair, may I may I just point out that the purpose of that special meeting the only agenda item is to receive the superintendent the superintendent self-evaluation publicly and summary evaluation. So I don't want any misconceptions that there will be long superintendents report or other reports or anything like that. It is a special meeting just to talk that issue. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none. The meeting is adjourned. Thank Wall and have a good night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.