##VIDEO ID:Ptlgwy8kn2k## Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee, I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I Pledge of Allegiance to a flag of the United States of America and to the Republic in which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.  >> I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoome. I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptop or other devices so it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting. Thank you for your cooperation . Tonight's meeting documents are posted on the committee's Web page Boston Public Schools Doug School Committee under the September 11th meeting link for those joining us in person you can access the meeting documents by scanning the QR code that's posted by the doors. The meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BAPS languages.  Any 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 on Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's Web page and on YouTube. The recording will be available in all of BAPS languages. The committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Spanish Haitian Creole cap Severiano Cantonese Mandarin,  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. I'm pleased to welcome our new student representative to the school committee Omer Ishmail Omer is a senior at the John D. O'Brien School of Math and Science. He is active in Boston Student Advisory Council and is also enrolled in college classes at Wentworth Institute of Technology and with plans to pursue or pursue engineering.  He looks forward to advocating for changes in BP's policy that is beneficial to his fellow students. Welcome Omar.  We're delighted to have you with us. Would you like to say a few words so you don't need to say there into the microphone? As I mentioned, my name is Omer Ismail. I am a senior at the John Deere School of Math and Science and a first generation immigrant from Sudan.  A little bit about me is that I enjoy riding bikes, tinkering with products especially in robotics and spending time with my family for the last three summers I've spent my time at the Crimson Summer Academy at Harvard University where I engaged with other high school scholars and took pre college and college courses while living on campus.  My love for math and technology is how I have gained my passion for engineering which I plan to pursue in the future. >> I look forward to using my position to ensure that student voices and opinions are heard and valued. I'd also like to speak for one of the projects that we have at Bisek.  So during the summer we let a six week summer leadership program and one of the projects they worked on was a youth led mural and Union Square. We wanted to invite the community committee members in the community to join us for the unveiling of the mural on Tuesday September 4th and for at from four thirty to six p.m. The event will begin here in the school committee room where students will present the mural and then we will go out to view the mural. Please reach out to Denise de Rori at Boston Public Schools. Doug with any questions.  Thank you. Thank you and welcome to Will begin the meeting with the approval of minutes. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the August twenty twenty twenty fourth school committee meeting. Is there a motion some thank you. Is there a second second thank you.  Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none. The minutes are approved. We'll now move on to the Superintendence report I present to you our superintendent Gary Skipper.  Thank you, Chief Robinson. Good evening to the audience both school committee chambers and at home I'd like to begin with Olmer to say hello and welcome.  We're so happy to have Student Voice and I know you're going to do a great job representing Pisek and as a member of Esack you play such a vital role in making sure voice and advocacy is part of the district and that we're hearing both at the committee and in the district what is of concern and interest to students. >> So welcome.  >> So a little bit about our first day on Thursday, September 5th in this past Monday, September 9th we welcomed our brilliant students back to our classrooms both these were filled with joy, hope and excitement.  First I want to acknowledge the many, many staff that helped make our first few days successful. >> Thank you to our school leaders, our educators, parents, custodians, cafeteria staff, social workers guidance counselors, bus drivers and monitors, school nurses, and so many others for making sure that we were ready on day one.  And thank you to our families for sending your children to GPS.  We look forward to partnering with you every day and entirely this year. I kicked off the first day at the Joseph Lee K to eight school in Dorchester with Mayor Wu and Jerry Robinson. We greeted students families and staff as they arrived at school and we participated in the long time Boston tradition of handing out pencils although we wondered if at some point it will be computers. >> I also visited the Marguerita Minnies Academy in Jamaica Plain. The Sumner Elementary School upper campus in Roslindale and the Desire Quinsy Upper School in Chinatown.  On Friday I visited Tech Boston and Excel High Schools and on Monday morning I greeted students at the Hill Elementary School.  Teachers Union President Eric Berg for joining us and the many Boston city councilors and state elected officials who really spread out across the district to celebrate the first days of school in support of our students and families first days when I think my images are just many smiles, many hugs, positive energy and hope throughout our schools and just reaffirmed that we're just going to have an amazing year.  Students from the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and hard of hearing also returned to school this year in a beautiful newly updated space in Charlestown in the former Edwards Middle School building. The renovations are based on intentional design rooted in deaf space principles to best support the Horace Mann school community.  The HMS team provided a warm welcome to the students into their families. The Elwood's building is also the new location for six Kisoro and K1 classrooms for the war in Prescott Keda eight school.  The war in Prescott Lower School Campus also celebrated the opening of the new playground space on Friday September 6th we celebrated the twenty fifth annual citywide kindergarten's celebration at the Boston Children's Museum.  More than three hundred and eighty of our youngest learners and more than 600 thirty of their family members join them at the event participants visited exhibits receive backpacks and had an opportunity to meet district staff and ask questions. Countdown to Kindergarten Director Josette Williams and her team did an amazing job as always welcoming our youngest learners and their families to baps as of late yesterday just a few updates on enrollment and registration.  As of late yesterday enrollment was at fifty thousand one and seventy three which includes twenty eight hundred and thirty seven new registrations or four hundred and eighty six since the last school committee meeting on August 28th during the weeks of August twenty sixth and September 2nd in just nine business days PBS registered seven hundred and thirty students or an average of eighty one students per day . And I will just add that this is really an unprecedented number of students.  This is much greater flow at this time of year than we typically see and so it's very positive reaffirming we're thrilled to be able to invite so many students into our schools and it is is coming at a very fast pace even today the welcome centers were extremely busy throughout the district, especially with lots of address and transfer changes and all of those keep us quite busy and they do have some bearing on transportation. We continue to work through our wait lists and have called more than 1100 students waitlist calls and emails continue to go out twice a week as seats become available and for the public we will continue to call students off the waitlist seats become available until the waitlist expires on November 30th for grades one through 12 and January 30 first for Zerok two terms of attendance looking at our student attendance as of noon today still early in the school year but we're already excited about the first five days in the positive attendance we've seen today. We averaged eighty eight percent of the students attend in present and that's considered good last year but it's about five points higher than we've seen in recent years. So we're holding on to that positive trend we have twelve schools had over ninety five percent attendance in many of our schools experienced higher than normal return rates students again this is just all very positive as students come back in terms of transportation after piloting the Zoome transportation technology this summer we rolled the technology out across our operation for the first day of school last week for the majority of our bus drivers, families and school based staff the first day of school year was their first time using the technology in real world conditions with this new technology rollout along with what we all know is just heavy traffic across the city and families and staff navigating new roads and getting new feet greeting new faces for the first time we did experience significant delays across our operation on the first day Thursday, September 5th, 62 percent of the busses arrived within fifteen minutes in the morning. So that could be one minute or it could be fifteen minutes late and seventy three percent arrived within fifteen minutes in the afternoon on the second day eighty three percent arrived within fifteen minutes in the morning and eighty four percent arrived within 15 minutes in the afternoon.  These two day two numbers they are very closely aligned to the performance we saw on day one of last year and additionally more than ninety five percent of the drivers are utilizing the Zoom Driver app successfully this week which we consider just a very positive thing to have the vast majority the drivers now trained and using it. We also celebrate ten thousand parents and guardians who are representing about thirteen thousand of our students who have downloaded and actually logged into the zoomed parent app.  We recognize that large scale change always comes with growing pains. We've talked about this now since the weeks leading up to the opening of school. Families have been advocating for change to improve transportation for many years here in BAPS and while we've made improvements in recent years we needed to make this investment to create a safer, more transparent and reliable transportation system and to move beyond the 90 percent on time percentage that we finished with last year. Our use of Zoom will create greater reliability for families and greater ridership data which is needed to make our overall transportation system more efficient.  We're already hearing great feedback from our families happy that they can see busses in real time and know when their student has gotten on and off the bus. >> We're encouraged by the day or day improvements that we've seen already each day the drivers become more familiar in using the app.  We anticipate continuing to make steady improvements in the coming days and weeks. We're incredibly grateful to all of our bus drivers operations and school based staff and families who are working to help us build and improved transportation system to provide students with a safe, reliable and on time transportation on a daily basis that our parents are asking for . We'll continue to update you on the progress in meetings to follow.  I also want to take the opportunity to just remind parents who are listening if you haven't already downloaded the zoo map we would ask you to do so.  We would also ask that you download the parent square app because this is the way that you will be receiving in the new district wide communications platform. We're seeing just wonderful engagement across the schools using it Monday we sent our first family newsletter Peeps Beyond the Bell and since the start of school we've had about thirty three thousand members of the community engage with it. So we celebrate that and we know that that will be even more as more and more parents log into it. One big area of focus for us this year and I know four school committee is to create engaging family communications and so that Parents Square is one step in that direction as isoo once cared once the caregivers just as a reminder in downloading the apps once they download the apps you his parents will have more control over how you get information from the schools in the district. Families will get all the important alerts, updates and announcements. Parent Squaresville also give you additional access to our weekly family newsletter Beyond the Bell. And again we're just hearing great feedback from families that they appreciate that level of transparency communication.  >> I also want to share a brief update on our program with the yonder phone poacher's.  We are funding this year to cover the cost of the approaches for schools with grades five through 12. They want to use the pouches and have a system in place to pilot them at this time 31 schools are using yonder or gearing up to implement the approaches at their schools. This includes nine elementary and four high schools who are currently using it and then an additional ten elementary and high schools who are preparing to roll out approaches and we anticipate an additional group of schools electing to use as the year goes on and they get their systems in place.  One thing Mayor Wu and I have talked about is how cell phones impact our students learning and how to strike a balance approach when we also know that cell phones have become an integral part of our lives. We all can agree that they provide any benefits but we also have learned from national trend data and studies as well as our own experiences in schools.  Cell phones in schools can also be a distraction to students learning.  We acknowledge that students sometimes need access to their phones during the school day and so we're working with our schools using Onda on ways to make opportunities possible and available to them while still using the honor system.  >> The day before school started Wednesday September 4th, approximately 50 volunteers joined the Secondary Schools Office in conjunction with Re-engagement Center and other community partners and canvased the Dorchester Roxbury in Jamaica Plain neighborhoods as part of an effort to recover students who may have dropped out of school or who are chronically absent the effort reach 300 students who are identified as chronically absent and the definition of that is that they attended school for less than 90 percent of the time and those who might have left school altogether overall the re-engagement center met with seven hundred and forty eight students who either dropped out or who were currently enrolled but struggling and the mayor and I joined that staff in the volunteers on that day to be able to make some of those home visits.  This is just one strategy in helping us to combat chronic absenteeism. We know we're making progress on our chronic absenteeism. Our projections show that we had anywhere between four and six. It's still being finalized but a four to six percent decrease in chronic absenteeism last year and so cumulatively for the last two years that represents a seven to 10 percent decrease. This is really a testament to the hard work of our teams here in BAPS in student support and Re-engagement Center supervisors of attendance are family liaisons really all working together and on many districts are seeing chronic absenteeism rise.  We are actually seeing it decrease and so we know that many of the strategies we're doing are working. We also know that there are many reasons why students do not come to school. It's complex sometimes they're caring for their family members experiencing homelessness themselves, working jobs outside of school to help out at home. They might be struggling with mental health issues and challenges but we all know students cannot learn and they can't thrive and they certainly can't achieve if they aren't in school. So this year we're focused on resources.  We provided backpacks loaded with school supplies to each student on the list and their siblings. We offered gift cards from Marshall's stop and shop and tropical foods and we thank those companies for their donations to help support students transitions back to school.  We know we still have a lot more work to do this year and to ensure our students are in school every day. We are working hard to make sure that we don't just try to return to our pre covid level of chronic absenteeism but we actually go deeper than that and really connect as many students as possible back to school.  I want to give a special shout out to chief of Students Support Corey McCarthy, director of PBS Re-engagement Center Imani Allen and Brian Marks are senior director for the Department of Opportunity Youth because really it's been their continued working focused students bringing them back into our classrooms few bright spots prior to the first day the homes and Condon's schools students, staff and families celebrated the end of summer vacation and the start of a new school year with lots of games and food and fun special thanks to the Boston Police Operation Hoodie Cup and the Boston Fire Department for joining in on the on the fun on September 3rd we had approximately five educators in Region five who joined together for a day of professional development at the Orenburg High School in West Roxbury and here they focus specifically on inclusive education.  This is the first time this has ever been done in BAPS educators work together across grade levels and content teams. It was a great opportunity for them to connect and plan with each other and I really want to give a shout out to Senior Deputy Superintendent of academics Dr. Linda Chen, Dr. Kristen Weeks who's our Region five school soup and the BAPS academic team for their work to pull this event together.  I'd like to end tonight just by sharing the tomorrow Mayor Wu Cho Robinson, some of the other school committee city and elected officials will be cutting the ribbon on the desire the upper school building. I've now been in the building multiple times and it really is a sight to see. It's just a special place and it's going to be full of learning and opportunity for many generations to come for our students as I mentioned, I visited the school on the first day and you can see that in the picture and there was just a lot of positive energy. Um, the students in the staff were getting used to the building but you could see they kind of filled with joy and awe as they walked around and they saw so many different areas like the auditorium, the gymnasium, the cafeteria, the cafetorium, their food science lab. I mean there's just so many special spots in that school, the new six storey building which views from the rooftop deck are a sight to see will accommodate six hundred and fifty students in grades six through 12 and 84 staff across thirty five educational spaces and twenty nine classrooms. The building has an auditorium with four hundred and thirty five seats a black sporck theater with one hundred twenty five seats, a ten thousand square foot gym, a cafeteria that sits about two hundred fifty students. I stayed for two of the lunches and an occupied roof that's an outdoor classroom with a solar array. I hope that tomorrow the school committee can join in that visit and it really is just a reminder that as we build new buildings and renovate buildings, the high quality student experience needs to stay at our forefront so that all students in BAPS can have what the jizya Quincy students are about to have chair that concludes my report. >> Thank you Superintendent.  I'll open it up to questions and discussion from the committee like remind my colleagues about our agreed upon norm that we each have five minutes.  That's one to two questions. Please make sure your questions are on the topics related to the items on the superintendents report.  And I'd also like to remind your staff to be brief in your responses and please be at a slower pace to assist interpreters.  >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Superintendent for the update and all the work the district has been doing on starting a new school year. A lot of great updates there but just wanted to really, really on the transportation specifically with app where are some challenges that have been identified?  I have a couple but I just want to hear what the district has already gathered as you are trying to figure it out. >> So I'll speak to a few but I'll also ask in Rosengard to come on up of Team Depinto wants to go with Brian forward as well really we're focused a lot on the user end of show for drivers it's a different experience needing to log in and then each student that comes on they're registering that student either by the picture that the parent has uploaded or by the student's name. So that first couple of times is there getting the drivers are getting used to the students. That's really taking time that wasn't needed before and that's part of the learning curve. Right. So we've done a lot of work as Dan we'll talk about retraining drivers and supporting drivers who may be struggling with that usage. I think in the first couple of days we also in general see understandably parents want to see students off. So there is like a handoff that happens where it's not just go on the bus. It's I am the parent.  You are the driver. I want to make sure my students are safe and OK.  So certainly there's some of that piece that's happening and even for parents there usability of the app and then kind of reporting back if they're seeing any kind of a glitch we're working with Zoom on daily basis to correct those darn I know you know like the back of your hand so jump in. >> Yeah, no thank you for the question.  Um, I think in addition to it the superintendent said a couple of things I would add one is this is new hardware that we installed across our entire bus fleet. So that's seven hundred and fifty busses that we installed New uh new GPS tracking and tablet technology on the busses and what we've been finding is as we've been rolling them out over the first week is some of those those connections needed to be replaced or tablets were freezing needed to be replaced and so each day that number has gone down down significantly and I think we're we're getting to the point now where we feel like in the Transdev maintenance team feels like, you know, those those initial hardware challenges are you know, are and have been resolved.  I think secondly with the the drivers you know, just learning to use the app and learning the students one of the things that we've heard, you know, from a number of parents as one of the most frustrating things is oh, my student was marked as a no show when they were actually on the bus or they were marked as dropped off before they were dropped off. And some of that is, you know, the driver's learning learning the students learning their names and faces and you know and making sure that they're able to identify the right students getting on and off the bus.  And then I see you have another question but just the the last thing I'll add is this is this being the GM technology is you know, this is the first time that it's been we we used it over the summer but traffic patterns in the summer are very different than they are in in September with all school busses on the road and post Labor Day traffic and we now have about a week's worth of data traffic pattern data and what we know happened over the summer and will happen over the next week in coming weeks is the routes will will adjust as as that data is fed back into the system and some of the timings that maybe were off right now will be adjusted and that will also help us to see improvements in our on time performance each week.  >> Thank you Dan. I know you're receiving a lot of requests.  I appreciate the effort they are putting in and it seems like it's an added responsibility to the drivers right now.  They have to like go into a device and communicate what's happening. So that's why we're adding another minute or so of the bus being stopped even after having the kids inside. So I totally get that.  Is there was there any communication that was being sent to the family in the event that for example, the bus is late, the bus is not showing up because I'll give you one example just because it's my neighbor for the first week there was a one day that the student made it to school on time either because the bus was late or the bus didn't show up so the father ended up driving . I know we're going to have cases like that because of the many factors that you pointed out. >> But one of the questions that I had for the father was like did you receive any communication? Did you call the call center that you put in a report and as of right now he hasn't received anything. So I'm just wondering like how are we managing the anxiety that we are, you know, in a way inflicting on parents? I think I don't want my kids to like be absent perhaps.  And so just wanted to learn a little bit on how we're following up with families that are not listening right now. For example, Yeah, no. >> Um, so are we we have all of our past and existing systems in place so that's our transportation hotline, our school bus at Boston Public Schools dog email address and our our ticketing system where parents can go to any of those places and then what the another what one of the things that the Zoome app adds is, you know, when it's working correctly and right now as the superintendent said, we have about 95 percent of drivers using it on a daily basis. That's it's actually a little bit ahead of what we've heard from Zoom in terms of where they would see other districts about a weekend. So on that front I think we are doing quite well once we get that to 100 percent on a daily basis, the app experience for parents will provide real time Etta's and there's automated push notifications that go out if the bus is running more than twenty minutes late and what we have heard from quite a few parents is something along the lines of well the bus is running really late which is very frustrating but the app experience is very nice and I actually can actually see it in fact along the way. >> And so I think you know, I'd love to follow up with you after and get the specifics on that on that student and make sure that you know for that bus it's tracking correctly. >> I appreciate it. I know my time is running out another day not for today but would be good as well.  Are learning more about the app maybe come back later with some data of like the routes where the busses Worli There was this didn't show up. I would like to see where in the district that's happening.  Um and then I know charter schools have also been informing that they've been having issues with the busses but it's all under the same umbrella. But now just again we'll get there.  It's a new app. It's a new experience I think really continue to engage with families throughout the school year because you're always going to have new families coming into the district and needs to learn about it if it's with the family liaisons, if it's I don't know when parents are meeting with teachers to learn about what's going on with their kids just finding those spaces already exists to continue to engage. I didn't ask this when it first came out and I was my dad is there is it only in English right now or do you have your options to utilize in other languages? >> Oh that's a great question.  I really appreciate you asked it. It's available in all of the BAPS languages and actually quite a few more than that. So whatever language the parent has their phone in that's the language that in the driver as well. Right. It's the driver has the ability of if they are preference using given grill because maybe it's just easier for them. Is that something that they can do? >> Do you know the driver app is in English is in English.  All right. I just figured if that was an English accent there's also something available to them. But thank you so much again I really appreciate all of that. You let me know how I can be supportive. >> Thank you. In then can you just explain I mentioned in the report we're seeing unprecedented numbers of students enrolling later within BAPS. Can you just explain the impact that that has on the bus routes? >> Yeah, so so what that means as new students are coming in we we need to update the bus routes and I think as of August 9th as of kind of the snapshot of the student population on August 9th that that is when we lock the bus routes for what we call the drivers bid and that's contractually obligated process where they select their work for the year and then we continue routing obviously as new students are coming in and we I think over 2000 students who had some sort of change in their transportation. So that could have been a new school or they moved or a new IEP that was entered after that time. So that's almost 10 percent of the students who ride busses who had some sort of routing change where what the drivers bid on is different than what they did on the first day of school.  >> And we're we're continuing to see that I think with superintend and you cited the stats earlier just on even from today we had over a hundred new students from last night to today come into our routing system and so that's where we're trying to add all those new students to routes as well as you know, address some of the challenges that we see with the you know, the routes that are already there. >> And so it's it's kind of a constant um constant tension there. >> Yeah. And I just want to say we love every student that comes to us. Right. So keep sending your students to us. We love that. It just does add the complexity right of the routing. I think one of the stats that jumped out to me was since August 9th two thirds of the bus drivers on the road have experienced a change which is a lot more than what we normally see.  Yes. Thank you Mentioner you for the airport.  Hello Omar is Omar and Omar Omar bienvenido if being important we tell ourselves Coalminer's represent the people. >> So thank you very much Madam Skippable Superintendent Madam Robinson and it is very welcoming to hear the voice of the student and I would like to say welcome as a new representative of the students here. You're welcome Omer.  Thank you. The opportunity that we see Tarragona Squillari agonizes to the antique. Take a look at me. The hero wow illiterate omeprazole lacco militarism boin I have the opportunity I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of students actually and they were very good reviews and a couple of students mentioned to me actually the food was pretty good. >> It was a pretty good start.  Passed it on to Analise. That's great me that phrase a young muchos and one of my the hidden pomfrey whatever but they eat a lot of risk so the food was pretty fresh and a couple of students mentioned actually have been we've been having cold bread for several years but actually the food is warm and the salad is fresh and it's a sentido unties it's not Escuela Centineo everything else tachometer Fresca Katan Importante Yantis Pantazis Cupolas Carlysle Blang Barack Obama Itinerate Takumi Africa interlanguage us so I do know that the food service are having the possibility of having this fresh food has not been equal to every single school so I just needed to know what schools are, how many schools are being served the fresh food and if we can quantify that because it is my understanding that not every school has that budget so I think our chief operating officer Brian Ford I'm proud to say that can come up and give but I I think at the last count was one hundred and eight.  Good afternoon. So yes we did have one hundred and eight schools that are able to serve fresh food at the opening of the school year we had excuse me nobody that I would trumpet for because the other members you cannot hear the other interpret but seem to enjoy one hundred and eight schools, correct? >> That's one hundred and eight schools have cooking kitchens inside of them at the start of the school year a lot of it due to staffing.  We were only able to start with ninety nine schools cooking as well as other than a little bit of dinner with the nearest and so throughout the rest of the fall we're going to continue to improve our vacancies in the Food and Nutrition Department to make sure we can continue to open more and more schools for cooking availability within each one of those is going to be an important parameter família like what? Like I mean just familias then also Trocaire depending module they meet our Aquilla you it intended it only mental as going to the majority since the thank you very much for the information that you are provided and nutrition is actually critical for all our students.  The better nutrition we have in schools the better performance the students would have in school. So it is something that is critical.  Nutrition is very important, he said. A competition, a goal he said this it allows us see it in Norway taekwando data transmission our catalist to you to papa mama Imbo lucrative Liquidnet Wiehl Italian Concilio the pilot is working obviously one Englis Mirae sustainable Bertoni the three Balaklava liquidy to equal three just wanted to direct my voice to if there is any parents or mothers here into what we are saying right now this meeting please get involved get involved in your schools the fact that you do not speak the language should not be a barrier should not be a limitation. There are different opportunities for you at the school council and many things so please get involved if you're hearing them say language is not a barrier no Sellami try it will come on my my come up opportunity and emotional responsibility they started Liquorland industrial seahorse they pay the information and liquidy aquilla they have a lot of my throat and literacy horse intercessor tumultuously papy my my notarizing my Lucara inl process what wiegel it's not responsibility on mama they started calling me people that'll be the last US gassin Fatah paramedical is underage Katahdin said is very important that the Baron and the fathers of the mothers who understand it is a right that they have it is a responsibility that they have but is getting involved having conversation with your teachers, try to gather some information, ask for information, give information if you do not get involved there will be a deterrent to our children's education. Get involved, get information, ask questions, get involved any possible way you can because it is your children's education.  Right. Thank you once. Thank you.  Estacada Hernandez one welcome on that. We're so happy you're here and excited to work together. So youth voice Just your voice it doesn't matter. Um I'm just happy that you're here so joining us I will also say on the food this is planned but I'm having my own parental mourning because my son loves the school lunch and so we're no longer able to make a lunch which is on the cost benefit side. Lovely every twenty minutes. But you know there's a departure and he comes home rave reviews but he also has got to go to a school with with you know, fresh meals.  I do have just a few questions. First is just on the new registrations. Where are we seeing the uptick if you can sort of walk us through any of that data and then what do you think is I think two pieces like what's the cause where like sort of what has happened, what's changed that's allowed this to happen and then what's any learnings from that as well?  >> So I don't know if we have the breakdown right now of those regulations we can get them for you. I do know that we are seeing, you know, in an awesome way a lot of students coming from the D.R. and coming from Haiti.  Those are two groups that have been identified right now as largely representative. Well, also seeing a lot of students returning to the people who had been in the BAPS. That's great. But we can get a breakdown as to is it the areas of the city, the grade levels? What would you it's interesting to know grade level just as we're thinking of like future planning system I like where are we what are new entry grades? It may be just a big scatterplot but like or is it younger families entering the system and registering so like I guess there's some learning there about sort of peak enrollment when it happens and how we meet people but yeah but then also interesting to think about what new populations are also arriving to the city and then as a resourcing this is you know, my own suspicion for getting folks who are arriving from Haiti or from the Dominican Republic and the need for other services as well.  Great. I do have I guess a quick wondering I have a second piece do we have hiring update which wasn't included today but can you bring that forth so to the hiring update will happen on I think it's the first school committee meeting in October when they process the data copy the transportation conversation.  I just want to I have two more questions in addition to what's been discussed I guess sort of four steps back I do think well maybe I'll ask that question. Second the first question is around the data that will get from them. So I am curious like is this data that then informs routing if we're doing if students are signing into busses, does this then inform information we have around long term no shows like how do we use that data great parent facing tool but then just for the internal mechanics or the operation how does that all yes it is then comes up I'll share my thoughts on it. I think there's a lot of first of all from a safety perspective it's really important to know when students are getting on and off the bus and who's getting on and off the bus then I would also uses an opportunity to ask parents particularly of younger students please Mark belongings so that we actually have ID on the students can't say that enough but I think it's also from Ariyoshi perspective it is to this point how often is the student taking the bus? Are they not using it and we're routing them as a way to be able to make roads more efficient so that we're not waiting at bus stops for students which then delays the route then yeah, I think that's exactly right is you know, we anecdotally know that we route twenty three thousand students every year in some significant portion of those students either rarely or never ride the bus but we've never been able to say who those students are with any level of comprehensive accuracy.  And so this will allow us to gather that data. It doesn't help us immediately but when we look to you know, how are we routing her for next year or even you know, can we make adjustments to improve efficiencies, you know, for the spring we're going to look at that data and that will tell us who actually needs the bus so that we can you.  Part of the challenge here is just where we're trying to create too many routes.  >> Yeah. You know, is there like part of a workflow? Is there a plan to address non ridership like I'm making up a number fifteen days you haven't been on the bus.  I'm remembering my old days as a principal to write like you have a no show for so many days and there's like a course of action that you take. What happens there for sort of routing? It's a fantastic question. It's actually something knowing that that zoom in this data is coming. It's something we talked about extensively in the Transportation Advisory Council this past spring and actually at I think late spring early summer the transportation advisory Council kind of collectively made a unanimous recommendation on a draft ridership policy and step one that was committing to using the fall to gather the data. But essentially what what that group has recommended is something just like what you're saying where if a student doesn't ride the bus for ten days then we reach out to the family and say, you know, let us know are you going to return to the bus? If not, we might remove the bus assignment copy.  >> Yeah I think yeah. Keep going. Yeah I was just going to say that I can't emphasize enough over the last several years how for a system that's enterprise the transportation system was not and I think in in his team and Pradel I think they've had a collective vision to bring us into the 21st century. So which makes for a safer, more efficient, transparent and so while there is this learning curve in the end for parents and for the district, this is going to help us provide a different level of service to folks that we haven't been able to because we just frankly haven't had the systems in the data. >> Yeah, I also just wonder we have conversations around the cost implications of the transportation system and the sort of ballooning cost I think with like more accurate data and a more aggressive approach and handling that data. I suspect there's there has to be savings. We've talked about this here many times right?  The empty busses just like rolling through the streets. There has to be savings for cutting routes faster and moving faster to do that. Yeah, hopefully the last thing here and then I I'm good is just I guess two things. How did we choose Zoome as the option like sort of what was the process that went through and did we get any stakeholder feedback on that and what was that like and then in that same question I think there's a part of me I'm like I've heard all the reasons why the first week has been tough but then all of them seem like things that we could have planned for like we knew there would have been a user we knew we knew someone was taking attendance on the bus and that would have taken a second. We know the history of drop off with a kid and the time it takes but what was missing is not that it was a 100 percent perfect first day of school bus experience. I guess what's missing I'm just thinking about it from like a parent end is just like the preemptive communication around it like anticipate delays to which we could have anticipated to. I'm just keeping it real just like a straight up I'm sorry like every communication we've had about so far has been like and this is the reason why traffic was bad.  I thought I thought like that but like I'm just a parent who doesn't have time to read all the like traffic was bad the the computers is was a struggle. I just want to be like I'm sorry I messed up your first day like I'm sorry you were late to work. I'm sorry you waited 45 minutes and then had to take Uber to bring your kid to school or in the case we heard like a whole week of now and I'm just I'm being real and I think this is about our engagement with communities as as a consumer of the system like that isn't what we've heard.  We've heard all the reasons it would have been complicated but some of them are just like we didn't give people a heads up like we're rolling out this new system and you're it's might be 40 minutes of a delay and then a parent can be like I'm I don't want to miss the opening ceremony at school on the first day I'm going to take my kid just you know, I'm keeping it real. I think like that part's missing in this and then I hope we do that planning and that preemptive communication for day one next year because we're always going to have delay. You're going to lose this kid who's coming what's happening?  I just we got to do better on the up front communication and I do think like just on the apology, you know, but I have a seven year old so we're like we don't do like I'm sorry but and I feel like we've done a lot of like I'm sorry but I appreciate that question. I think you're right. I think we could have done a better job beforehand saying we're doing this new thing we think this is going to be great but there's a learning curve to it and the first couple of weeks might you know, might be rough and I think people hear that like I just just so you know, like I think like the people of Boston and the parents in Boston are like just down four straight up communication and like I think people would hear if someone said to me like dear parent there's a chance your bus is going to be 40 minutes late on the first day of school because of these issues I might have waited or I might have not but like it would have been better than just like I'm waiting. >> Yeah, I think that's right. And just briefly because you asked we ran an RFP uh last June and and awarded a contract last August after review so we got five bids you know we evaluated those bids.  We we did you know, reference checks with with other districts that they've worked with and quite happy to go into more detail on that.  A few follow ups. That's perfect. Now I just wanted the history refresher. Thank you. And thank you for hearing me out on that one.  Mr. Yeah. Thank you.  >> Come back for a second. I have a few questions about and go away that quickly. Um yeah yeah yeah.  I first I want to say thank you and you know and I know this is a tough one trying to get to a school for the first day it took me twenty five minutes to get off of my street to someplace that I should have been able to get in ten minutes in couldn't get there because it was trash day and many parents had chosen to drive their kids to school and any number of things we know that we are a city that has some of the toughest traffic and I know how difficult that makes all of the good efforts and everything that people put in place and 90 percent is great. But if you're part of that 10 percent who didn't get there, it's a tough one and I you know and I hope as time goes on the things that Mr. Fernandes proposed and the kind of work that you know, we can get to the point where we both appreciate all that goes into this understanding that there's a lot you have no ability to control but that all of our goal of getting all of our kids to school on time if possible is great. And I know I mean being at a school watching kids dribble in after the bell or you in sometimes I mean I think some of the concerns I see are kids who are anxious because they got on a bus on time.  They know what time their bell happens and depending on the school arriving late and you know, control of your own is either handled well or not. So I think that's the other piece that we we have to work on. Children don't control the traffic either but we don't want to have their anxiety rising over something that they can't control. So but I know so I I'm hoping that there are ways that we can continue to talk and to talk with parents too about having reasonable expectations and you know, as a city encouraging people that don't have to be on the roads at certain times not to be there so that we can ease, you know, a traffic. I mean I'm sure that doesn't make much sense to people but it's sort of like how can we all be in this together if our ultimate goal is being able to get our kids to school on time as much as possible. But I just want you to know that your efforts are great and we thank you and look forward to seeing Zoome improve over time. I was trying about was going to say as we enroll kids how is that impacting I mean you said you know you know at what point do we how what is the delay between my enrollment and my ability to be on a bus and how do we work that through?  And then my second question is a little different. You know, I know some children get special transportation because they have an IEP if I have three children in my family are going to the same school one on an IEP that gets door to door to that or not does the whole family able to ride with the child with the least with the most restrictive issue or are we putting kids of the same thing only going to the same place in two different locations? How are we making that work for families and how are we flagging special circumstances for families with either you or multiple siblings in different schools and different ages or even on the other side a parent who has a physical disability and is unable to be in three places for three different pick ups you know where within your system does that kind of need gets directed?  >> Yeah, no thank you Jerry Robinson. I think I think I think your highlighting there there are so many different types of situations and you know and we try within within the system to you know, to handle all of those um you know, as as efficiently as possible. >> I think to your to your first question just to to try to use a really specific example. Let's say there were about hundred families I think or one hundred students I think that that either registered at the welcome center yesterday or had an address change or something changed with their transportation yesterday, their transportation eligibility.  So that was changed yesterday by the family. It came through overnight into our routing system, our team now looks to add those students either to an existing route or needs to adjust our route or add a new route for that student. And then on Thursday we will what we call publish routes that will take effect next Wednesday. So students who are coming in their transportation is know like I said it kind of we publish things on Thursday for changes that take effect the following Wednesday and on Fridays we send out notification to families email mail and through zum translated into their home language letting them know you have a new assignment. It takes effect next Wednesday. So that's kind of the process from when you come into the welcome center to when you're transportation starts OK and then in terms of families, we if you have you know, say one student who has door to door transportation and two other students who just receive general transportation all at the same school, we will put them all at the door. That's the most efficient.  But sometimes we know the system does not necessarily capture all of that up front and so sometimes not until the school or family lets us know and we look and we say oh,  these siblings aren't marked as siblings in Aspen, we need to get that fixed and now you know now we know now it'll be corrected and so we're working through correcting some of those right now and I think we need to continue to think how do we better share that data, you know, so that we don't lose it each year going forward.  Again, thank you very much. And we look forward to your next report at the next meeting so we can see what progress has been made. >> Thank you, Superintendent.  A question I know you all went out to do the door knocking chronic absenteeism is that only students at the high school level would you go to children, elementary middle school kids.  So this the Dornoch was specifically high school but we have a very strong system when a student is a minor with attendance tendency to, you know, be underneath the sixteen year old compulsory and so we make sure that the school calls home after a certain amount of absence and if need be a house visit will happen so we use the same process during the school year of students of attendance in our family engagement liaisons and our social workers for the door knocking event that was particularly guided toward the high school students. >> Thank you. And then just one last question I was excited to hear about beeps beyond the bell how can I be made available to all of us? Well, since the chief of communications is here, I'm sure he could take note of that one and add it to everybody. >> OK, OK, thank you. Did you have any questions before we move on? OK ok thank you. Um if that is all I just want to say thank you all and I will now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report so thank you. >> Is it is your emotions are is there emotion is there a second second item both thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none . The superintendent's court is approved will now move on to general public comment.  Mr. Parks. Thank you Chair sorry. Excuse OK.  I think we we had to have a shift that we are going to actually take the aemc try to remember out of order because it's a school night before we move into public and it didn't get changed in my plan but finds excuse me I'm going to find that in a second and I give us some context to this evening. We are joined by Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health, Corea's school leader Dr. Karen Walker Gregory who will present a proposed charter amendment AEMC is a Horace Mann charter school also called an industry charter school because of this that is the proposed change does require the approval of the school committee. The proposal has also received the support of the Boston Teachers Union.  The charter amendment would increase the maximum number of students at the school from its current four hundred forty eight to eight hundred in grades nine through 12 over the next four years beginning in the fall of twenty twenty five and continuing through school year twenty eight to I. You may remember back in January we joined the city of Boston in announcing that Bloomberg Philanthropies awarded the AEMC thirty eight million dollar grant the largest gift in BP's history to expand its college and career health pathways. This funding will allow the school to grow its partnership with Mass General Brigham earlier today when I joined the school community at a back to school town meeting at the Reggie Lewis Center where students attended Mass, General Brigham simulations, signed up for extracurriculars, visited the M.G. the Mass General Brigham Community Care had a fun lunch and did a wonderful cheerleading show.  >> It was a reminder that AEMC is a success story.  This is really about engaged students exciting excited to have the opportunity to engage in Hands-On career and technical education. AEMC is a sought after school with a wait list of more than 300 students. It is high graduation rates and high college acceptance rates. It is a long standing commitment to full inclusion as well as a proven track record of successfully expanding its enrollment.  Dr. Ted Lombardi, who is our secondary superintendent for college and readiness, is also here to support with any follow questions that you may have and at this point Chair if it's fine with you, I will pass it over to Dr. Gregory Walker. >> Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Um, can you hear me OK? Yeah, yes. Good evening Madam Robinson student and skipper and school committee members. Thank you for allowing to present today. Just want to remind folks today I'm feeling this district for over thirty four you I actually want to go to he looks like a little closer to you.  >> I use my cafeteria voice you know that uh I've been in the district for over thirty four years.  I am a graduate of Boston Public Schools and I'm the proud head of School of the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers. So thank you again for taking time to talk a little bit about our request.  As you indicated, Mary Skipper, it's uh mentioned that we are recipient of thirty million dollars which is the largest that I've seen in my lifetime and we really are excited, um, to ask excuse me Doctor people still can't hear you can hear me really? Yeah. Yeah I might have to pull out that cafeteria voice. >> Yeah OK sorry sorry I thought oh that sounds like you can hear me but it doesn't it is not all right um so in order to implement this thirty eight million Bloomberg Philanthropy opportunity we're asking this Boston school Committee approval of an amendment to our charter to expand our enrollment from 448 to 800 students in grades nine through 12 over four years beginning in September twenty twenty five now obviously we are a superexcited is part of the long range plan the city of Boston and BAPS and EMCs seek to offer more Boston students and families a high quality student experience.  We would be increasing access to high quality seats,  differentiate career connected learning with clear pathways into college and career and commitment to full inclusion.  This expansion will allow us to increase our Chapter seven for Health Assistance Program which includes the EMT medical imaging and of course nursing.  It will also add medical laboratory services and surgical technology and central sterile processing.  These are all opportunities for our students around again health assisting biotech and medical systems. So we're really excited about expanding the opportunities for kids.  >> We are trying to deepen and extend the workplace learning at Mass General we're going for our grades nine through 12.  We will expand our partnership with MASCIA program.  They're not new to us but we're just expanding.  We are really looking at early college and acceleration to college for all of our students . This grant also supports full inclusion with Kosenko teaching in interventionists to support ELA math and science especially in grades nine and ten.  We are deepening our S.L and academic supports around guidance social workers and reading specialists. We are also expanding our after school and summer employment at MGP and last we are trying to also create part time employment and scholarships for kids.  It's a wonderful opportunity.  OK expansion at AEMC serves Boston students so as you well you may not know but we've had great success rates in terms of when it comes to college acceptance rates, outstanding graduation rates we always had low dropout rates. We have also had the highest Dessy school accountability percentile of all Boston nine through 12 high schools. We continue to maintain 100 percent competency determination in all three subjects for all students.  We have a growing population of students with disabilities and multilingual learners and we have a long standing and success commitment, successful commitment to full inclusion.  We still are high demand for our Boston families and our successful experience have successful experience in managing enrollment expansion.  This is not our first time expanding. We were asked to expand excellence under the Superintendent Carol Johnson moving our enrollment from 200 to 400.  This just talks a little bit about what it looks like each year. We really are adding about a hundred kids in the ninth grade every year for the next four years starting in September two thousand twenty five MKC Boston School Committee approval to submit to D.C. a charter amendment requests expanding the maximum enrollment at AEMC from forty eight to eight hundred students.  This also has to go to the Board of trustees and we are excited to have received yesterday a commitment and support from the Boston Teachers Union. We got that yesterday so we're really excited and I will stop and take questions.  Thank you for the presentation and I'll open it up to the committee.  Uh, thank you for the presentation.  Learned more about your school. Just one question. What is if any impact in terms of like the physical space that your need with the increase of the expansion? >> I mean yeah. So we're excited to be able to expand next year being September two thousand twenty five and we're going to be at the Lincoln Building temporarily until we along with the superintend in the mayor's office find some permanent space.  So we are hoping that we utilize this year this academic year to identify some permanent space. But in the meantime we have a backup plan of of the Lincoln building which is the Quincy space as a swing space question on this one. >> Thank you so much for the presentation and it's exciting to learn more about your school. I've heard so much about it before but it's good to hear from you.  I do have a question. There is more for the superintendent as we think about that level of growth. You know what my question is as we think about that level of growth, something has to close.  So where we if we're if we're adding a hundred seats and we're already experiencing decline, what's that journey and is there a vision that this is happening simultaneously? Right. Or where we're naming this expansion and identifying where we're reducing seat availability so we are not naming tonight where that offset would be. That will come as we talk about long term facilities plan and we do the routine that we've talked about in the spring.  What I will say is unique about AEMC is that AEMC really does serve a broad spectrum of students that we hope are served in the baps so Karen mentioned special education and inclusion and having those opportunities for high quality seats. Same thing with our multilingual learners as a horse in Kansas. All students that come into the lottery and those are the types of high quality seats we need to expand.  We also talked about the need to expand the seats so that as we optimize the district we do have more opportunities for students who might not be in a seat that's high quality right now to be able to move. I think the other interesting thing about AEMC is that it has the unique ability and always has to draw students back into the baps into one of the things that my team let me know. But your question about registration in our two fastest growing right now in the registration are our youngest students in our high schools. So we're seeing more students coming into the high school level as we increase the quality of our high schools and the opportunities. So AEMC is perfectly positioned to draw back students who either would have gone to private or to charter or perhaps made a different choice . And so Karen and her staff do a great job going out and promoting AEMC to share that communication with parents and it works so for lots of reasons this expansion makes sense and it actually helps us to continue to build that foundation of increasing high quality.  I will say, you know, I said this last time we voted on a different sort of the grade level policy that for me and I I wish the rest of the board was with me on this like there is we have a problem in voting on individual schools outside of a master plan.  So I know we're not voting on this tonight. This is great information.  I'm this is exciting and to your point like we want to be able to expand high quality seats and at the same time we have a history of of carrying financial burden for low quality seats that we are not using and I don't want to further exacerbate the problem by adding another a fresh hundred in September and not having the tough conversation about where the reduction also lives in order to keep the sort of bottom line aligned so just as we're going into it, I'm just that's where I'm coming from going into a vote.  And so if we can clarify some of that great and if not I probably will hold true to what I said previously which is like with in lieu of a master facilities plan or at least directionally where we're going to show reduction it feels tough financially to to you know, keep sort of moving one offs forward. >> But this is exciting and I want young people to have these seats. >> Yeah. The only the only thing I would say is I would just want to remind us when we talk about seats we're actually talking about children and the the beauty of AEMC is it AEMC is serving district population which is if this were only regular education seats and I would say point taken but AEMC has a history of serving a large group of special education multilingual learners. So these are exactly the high quality seats we do want to increase. >> I want both. It's just on the the budget line my fear of the ballooning budget without reduction is that we won't be able to do high quality seats for the most vulnerable kids because we're holding on to seats that we don't need and then therefore staffing them.  Um, I would just say that we will never be in a position where we are overstaffing special education and multilingual learners who are most vulnerable students because those are the seats that we actually have to create in as high quality in locations and we have to do that before we do other optimization. Otherwise students don't have a place to go.  So the beauty of SMK is it's going to be creating one hundred and twenty five twenty six that's students who are special education multilingual learners will have access to to be able to go into their high quality then maybe for further clarification then for the next presentation then what percentage are we saying of that hundred is projected for those populations because I think that would then help. >> I think would be also it's when we do recruitment we're recruiting across the whole city not just in do you get them not I don't know why people hear me sorry. So I just I think it's important to recognize them when we do a recruitment.  We are not recruiting just in Boston public schools but we're recruiting outside private the charters that are closing. We're trying to bring back people into the district.  I understand your question and I hear you but it's also recognizing that the three hundred people that didn't get in I'm able to expand and welcome them received. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that's really important in that I think just so we're operating with the richest information and I guess what is the projected seat like who who is the projected utilization and some that will have from the 300 who are denied and then sort how do we plan to use those seats?  Yeah I mean I I just think it's an exciting time to be a teenager and and if I'm able when we started this school it was only a hundred and fifty kids and I was really, really emotional about the kids that didn't get in and said gee we're going to expand we're going to go to four and I'm still like emotional about the kids.  I had a parent today said please, please.  I said we're over we're over our number right now.  But you know, we have a wait list and don't be discouraged but it's it's a great feeling when parents get what they want . Yeah, I see them.  Yeah. Yeah.  Just a follow up on the questions raised by member Brandon Hernandez.  Could you also please before we vote next time or whatever before we approve or disapprove your your request please submit any kind of information regarding your endeavor in first of all the breakdown and order and the percentage of our students who are currently in your school AP The percentage of those ESL students and the kind of effort that you are going to implement in reaching out to those communities in our communities. >> Okay, yeah. We're blessed to have a wonderful multilingual learner department chair who does a lot of that recoupment around students. Yes they do thank um thank you for the presentation. Um given the award and knowing the struggles that you have had in terms of addressing the need for the a number of students that you've had to turn away each year, I mean I understand what superintendent's been talking about that we can't win the high quality placements to put people in if we're going to go back and shut down programs that are not working. But we do have to build those seats. So I'm excited that you have a temporary location at the Lincoln School but interested in thoughts around where they know that we've had difficulty in the past trying to find space for your existing students. What's going to be the push in the charge as we try to move forward to figure out a school for 400 500 you know, 800 kids and how quickly is the district going to be able to make that happen in a way that it is successful overall to the nature of your program which has students traveling to particular parts of the city to access their learning in addition to wherever they're coming from just to get to so just understanding some of those logistics and the things that you've all been thinking about as part of this proposed expansion, I think I well thanks to this city of Boston and the superintendent's office, we have been on this journey for about a year so we've been exploring several several locations.  We're just trying to make sure because it requires a lot of reconstruction and permits and just the whole process can't happen overnight. I am confident that we will land on a wonderful site and I believe it just takes time. It just wouldn't happen in September.  So I feel very confident that we're going to probably have a decision by the end of this school year on where we're going. I feel we've we've this is not something overnight we've been looking at this for about a year and Jim Robinson, I appreciate the question. >> I think to your point there's a real large scale of priorities that we're trying to balance here, right? That the space itself is really important having a great space for this innovative set of programing for a large amount of students.  But the location really matters too and part of the agreement with General Brigham is that students will have really robust clinical experiences at an MGB hospital be at the Brigham or Mass General or another affiliated hospital.  >> So the location matters but also access to public transit matters if we can't get a location that's as perfect as we want. So it's a complex process but that's why we're being so detailed and how we go about it . And the last thing I would say is we want to do it right. We don't want to rush it and we're and I think people are very thoughtful and we just want to do it right. This is not going to happen twice. So I appreciate people's patience around making a great decision as to where the next home for M.K. will be. >> Mm. I know the maximum each year would be an additional hundred . Would you ever I mean would there be a moment to take or look that maybe it's fifty students and not one hundred I'm not sure you know how I'm thinking about the balance on the rest of the district and thinking on the ability to grow and have the the kinds of resources that you need where is that fine line between not all or nothing but could it be you know could you would it always have to be one hundred students every year? Could it be one hundred and fifty you know and then I don't know I just don't know what the rhythm could be. Besides if there was an option outside of one hundred for each year of four years there's always room for options. Madam.  Uh I think I think when we develop the proposal the idea was to get to at least 800.  What drives the budget is the number of students in sustainability and so there is a rationale behind why it's one hundred and not fifty. Mm hmm. And if we do 50 then we have to figure out how we balance that extra 50. Mm. So easier said than done but there there is a little rationale behind why it's that number. Yeah yeah I'm interested in you know how do we know which students are interested in this kind of programing. What are the wider options and particularly what are we doing at the lower grades six, seven and eight to help young people become aware of the option and if it's not a seven to 12 school, not so much a feeder but where are where are kids being introduced to this potential of families being introduced to this as an option that would enable us to see more people taking advantage of high quality and already proven high quality experience? I think there's a couple of ways to look at it. I think we've always been wanting to expand seven through twelve because that's the way the district is going so that's definitely not off of the table. OK, but when we recruit we go to every kid eight middle school in the city, not just Boston but every private parochial and charter and so we actively recruit yeah.  A recruitment team that goes in visit schools or sometimes they come to us and we share our story and thus the weightless great. Thank you. It'll be great to be able to have some of that data for us for the next meeting so we can understand the what the great potential that you all have and have been doing to make this proposal.  Yeah, I would just I would also just add that this is an example of a proposed vote that actually comes with the largest gift gift to the VPs.  Thirty eight million dollars which is thirty eight million dollars to create four hundred high quality seats that we can then take other dollars to create more high quality seats in other schools.  So this is actually the best of all worlds because Karenin team have done such an amazing job working with the Bloomberg philanthropy as a way to bring resource into our district and our city at a time when we need it so kudos to you. Um, Principal Gregory Walker.  Thank you. No, not yet. Sorry I I first of all I do appreciate the question from Brian from member Brandon Hernandez regarding the financial aspect of the additional funding. What it may also be, you know, to the how do you say it? You know, a double edged sword because it may also affect the current financial budget of the city if the seats are not are not as productive as it should be. Um, I and I see that as well. That is something I would leave to the administration to and your school who take care of our to find ways to deal with that. >> But anyway I would like to amend my request, uh, regarding our students.  I'd like to add another angle to that. The students with disability particularly the kind of project policies and levels that your school are trying to as a school are currently implementing or are thinking of implementing in reaching out and increase the number of students to your school particularly within those who additional groups of students that I that I just raise. >> Happy to share the data around the multilingual learners in our special education program.  Um, we are a full inclusion school.  We don't believe in sub separate. We believe kids should be all in the same classroom that's what we've been practicing for several years. I am blessed to have uh, staff that are dual certified and we are now creating a model where there's a another person in the classroom being an intervention nurse to help support all the kids in the class.  We it's still kind of new but we believe additional support in the classroom is going to be very helpful to make sure all of our kids are learning and have access to opportunities.  It's a really interesting model. The grant covers for math, English and science and we were able to find funds for a history world language in our health assisting so all of our ninth graders are have two staff members in the classroom . Are there any other questions if not again, thank you for your presentation and we look forward to taking action on this. Appreciate you all. >> Thank you. Thank you.  OK, we'll now go back to public comment.  OK, 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 on Pertinent School issues.  Questions on specific school matters are not at this time but are referred to the superintendent for a later response questions on specific policy matter and not answered this time but may be the subject of later discussion by the committee.  The meeting will feature two public comment periods 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 to do so at the end of the meeting we have forty two speakers this evening. Each person will have two minutes to speak and I would remind you when you have thirty seconds remaining if your remarks are longer than two minutes please email your comments for for distribution to the committee the time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time speakers may not be assigned their time to others. Please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or district staff.  Please note the comments of any public speaker do not represent the Boston Public Schools or the Boston School Committee.  Please state your name affiliation and what neighborhood you are from before you begin. We will we will begin this evening with our in-person speakers will begin with a Jean McQuire Thaddeus John and Victoria Garcia MMA Choire good evening. It's nice of you on the side of the table.  I'm going to read the statement because that way I can cover the time. It's about Franklin Park and your role in it. Brangwyn Park is our park citizens of Boston. It is the People's Park.  When City Hall gave up on Franklin Park we spent years cleaning it up. But now that there's money to be made here, our community is being told to accept changes that we didn't ask for and we don't want. The fact is we were never asked if we wanted a professional sports and entertainment complex in our park.  We were never given the real option to fix White Stadium as a public stadium. This would never happen on the Boston Common.  It absolutely shouldn't happen in the Environmental Justice communities around Franklin Park Environmental Justice protections, public land protections and historical protection Servan-Schreiber in our public laws for a reason to protect our public spaces from exactly this type of private ization scheme that might look nice on the short term but is ultimately robbing the public of what is rightfully ours.  Public land is precious and it needs to be protected for future generations.  And if this proposal was really about helping Boston's students, the proponents should donate their money to charity or to partner with the city to invest in a public station to second stadium with no strings attached not about helping kids . It's about making a profit. A public park is not meant for profit. It is meant for the public. We need our state leaders new to step up and protect this public treasure. Franklin Park, thank you. Thank you very much.  Is there any questions?  >> Any comments? Have you been there? Yes, it's public comment.  We can't comment. All right, good. Thank you. That's an improvement.  Next speaker is Melissa Diaz.  Hi, my name is Melissa Diaz and I'm here with my two brothers and I currently attend the Marguerita Mooneys Academy and we were BAPS one point and we live near the White Stadium and we want to share why we need a new athletic center.  Hi, I'm Christian and I have contract I ran track at the Y Stadium and I'm excited to be able to walk over and enjoy new track in a gym center.  Um, we were here to share voices of BP's students that deserve the best faculties to enjoy. We'd love to go on walks around the weight stadium with our family and parents and friends. Um, that's hopefully you know, we hope that you guys could vote to move us forward. We need this as soon as possible and thank you so much for your time.  Any questions? Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.  I just want to let you know we're not ignoring you and we it's not that we don't want to respond to you but the way public comment worked, it's just that it's not a discussion. It's public comment.  You get to speak. We get to listen. We don't get a chance to have a dialog with you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speakers John Mud.  Good evening.  My name is John Mud. I'm a resident of Cambridge and a long time education advocate in Boston. PBS has proposed sending the vast majority of multilingual learners into general education classes with ESL support under his inclusion plan, the school committee and the district say they are evidence based and data driven. Fortunately there is data on the outcomes of students under this approach, said BP has already has assigned forty percent of low English language development students into these Jenette with the SL classes, the school committee should insist that the district report on the outcomes of these students on the twenty twenty four English language access tests and 2024 Mkhize pass fail rates before authorizing BP to proceed with the further implementation of the inclusion plan for multilingual learners . >> The school committee should ask to see specific data on the following items one the twenty twenty four access test results for the percentage of students meeting progress in learning English targets for all students and for each grade level compared to earlier years with one year and three year trends as was included in BBSes October report last year. Secondly, the student outcomes or achievement presented in meeting and exceeding expectations for multilingual learner Yelda one to three students in Genard with the ACEL on the twenty twenty four Mkhize tests by grade level and you should know the passing failing grades last year the report only included the scaled scores and you should insist on the pass fail rate.  I've included specific language that you could request to ensure that this data is available before you proceed, Mr an important decision. >> Thank you very much. Next because Victoria García good evening. >> My name is Victoria Garcia and I am a community advocate representing social Latina and out of school time youth development organization located in Roxbury as their health and wellness manager. I am also a long time Dorchester resident and a parent of a Boston public school student in my role oh sorry in my role I have witnessed the stressors that young people are facing today from living a big part of their life online and whether they made the choice to participate in it or not. Young people have openly shared the difficulty they're having and separating from their phones and social media.  They have also share that the hurts and the harms that they experience online from unhealthy social comparisons as well as racism and cyber bullying attacks as well as a decline in their own or their friends mental health. We also see how the lack of sleep from nighttime cell phone use is hurting young people including decreased academic success and signs of suffering from depression.  And now we support GPS on the no cell phone policy during the school day but must share that this is not enough use survey that Social Ladine share that although they're aware of the school's cell phone policy, there is inconsistency in the policy implementation which is the accountability part.  So how are we holding all stakeholders accountable to adhere to the policy across the board? BP should not solely be responsible for educating youth on how to use tech responsibly . Parents and guardians should also benefit from this could also benefit from this education and as a parent myself I strongly suggest we look at our own tech use and role model what a healthy relationship with tech looks like for our kids. I also encourage families and much possible to hold off on gramophones phones until later in their teenage years.  Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you. Next speakers Maria Jimenez Sean I am Deidre Manning, Tony Holiday and Avery Farmer, my Akermanis will need Spanish support from boy there's no excuse me no is Maria Ines Estoy Keepa bloodless de la Renta was you on the list Taleo Blanco Good evening everyone. >> My name is recommends I am here to talk about the renovation of the White Stadium so Modra those house guests is theorem. I love this square last pawlick the Boston I'm a mother of two kids two children that went to Boston Public Schools Lumin Doublemint Englezos to impose was famous on Earth a seahorse out Russell Square last perkiness at the Empire Nonna's of Russia and not necessarily us unfortunately during that period of time we have to transfer and move those kids to a different schools because resources were not sufficient,  were not provided and sufficient for our kids.  They must be most years minutos the Franklin path said that of us see on the list you we also were living or leave ten minutes away from Parkland from Franklin Park where the renovations of the stadium will take place great most but a fundamental transformation there is the stadium. Are you ready with us familias E.A. Thrasymachus you know Sonoi just see NOTAM being a lack of money that Bauke Nootropic just and I was so beneficiary and being Delu we firmly believe that the renovation of the stadium will significantly help the families and the kids and the small businesses that will provide will get great benefit from that renovation I'm referring to. >> Yeah you know so Loyiso Northwesterners estudiantes you Oistrakh who entered the real oportunidad the practical side yes he did leave Romanticists Estadio in Bizo telesales to December Englebert Ginola said Vidia a study N.S.A. reports yesterday Yalgoo also meant that most of the students on the youth I have to point out that they'll be able to use third time wisely.  Not doing different things are getting in trouble. They'll be able to benefit themselves by using this time by using a space greater freedom and debro fundamental three Proyecto the beneficiary at Dolos.  >> I firmly believe that this particular project will be a benefit for everybody. I believe that especially when a lost because negocios Yanyuwa strawhorn toward particularly small businesses and our youth Istria move at least Seimas because we are antonello allow oportunidad Stour for to see in the order that a Novartis Distasio BRK I mean that m c problemas EDF at least the Kyllo are better. I would be very happy if they would have benefit from this renovation kids that they will be able to walk around there but unfortunately and yes at the end I say Lopera what are the names now oportunidad go transform ileus whether or not is it beneficial unfortunately that particular time they did not have the benefit to use the space but other families would now have the privilege of using the space which I guess is now island Kimpo thank you so much. >> Next speakers Sean I thank you Juan.  Good evening. Uh can you hear me?  My name is Sean Nian. I'm a teacher and I also coached track and cross-country at Boston Latin School.  Uh, I'm also going to read a text from the head coach who is not here today because he is at a meet our first cross-country meet.  I also have three students that are BAPS students grew up in Boston public schools were from Charlestown.  I'll go ahead and read the text. This is about White Stadium and our vital need for our students. Our students deserve a world class facility. All students in Boston public schools.  This will be a great opportunity for them and I'll read the text.  This is from Coach Correspondant the main talking point is how the team lacks facilities and is constantly battling for the very little space we have. We practice often over at a two lane track over a community school Clemente Track which is a college track.  The school needs a dedicated space as all students need so they can safely practice and compete and enjoy track which is a very popular sport in the district we have middle school track. I have kids from the Condon in that I taught at that. What did the middle school track program?  My kids compete in the Olympics. We did races in Franklin Park and I just see that this places the epicenter and it is the right time in the right place though to for this kind opportunity.  Furthermore, being able to get a world class facility will help athletes to be able to compete with suburban schools that seem to have everything and get collegiate recruiting opportunities where the city schools are often overlooked and be able to host meets something else has never done. The oldest school in America updating the the facilities will create an equal playing environment with the suburban schools that the city kids have never had.  Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you very much.  Next speaker stage remaining.  Good evening. My name is Deirdre Manning. I'm a Dorchester resident and mother of two public school students want to refer people to the last meeting recording at the one hour and thirty four minute mark for my concerns about the makeup of the school task force in the sense that there were no representatives for the interest of non Title one schools for charter schools parochial schools etc. I wanted to share with you an anticipated timeline for the admissions process for this coming year absent any substantive changes to these school policy in September BPS students will take map testing giving them extra practice over on students parents listening to resume presentations in October November will be told the teachers will be determined in late fall.  Some parents who live in Tier seven and eight will decide not to apply as their son or daughter has choices for admission are so low or even mathematically impossible.  December 2nd through 13th BPs students will take map testing for the second time they will do L-A on one day and math on another with their peers in their classroom and their own teacher.  On Saturday December 7th non BAPS students will be required to take both map sections back to back without their peers in an unfamiliar location and with an unfamiliar test administrator.  The dynamic nature of the test is challenging for students who can become anxious when the questions become increasingly more difficult until a certain number are answered incorrectly and then the level of difficulty is low. >> December 12th thirty seconds December 12th Five-Year data release of the American Community Survey which unfortunately only surveys 2.5 percent of the population. That means that the responses of five people in the neighborhood of 200 will dictate which tier a neighborhood will be in on January 2nd map testing results will be provided to families on January 7th. Terror maps will be updated using that access survey data families and wonderfully diverse Dorchester neighborhoods may inexplicably find them.  Thank you. Your time is up. Excuse me one. Thank you Miss Heininger. You're telling the majority of Apple thank you. Your time is nice. I hear you will be denied a seat.  >> I will finish this. The next speaker Toni Holyday evening Kajol me OK good. My name is Antonio Loudy. I am the brain head track and field coach. I'm also an assistant coach on the football team. My my track team consists of about four different schools Brian Boston Green Academy Mary Lyon School and for a time Josiah Quincy. But now we're just in the brain. Hi. I'm here to talk about mainly what my athletes from multiple schools would like to see from the White Stadium renovations.  I have one of the only wheelchair athletes in the state use national champion in indoor and outdoor track. He is one of the best athletes I've ever coached but he has insufficient track to compete on is now his senior year and he has been competing on the same track for four years and been dodging potholes every single year and that is a health risk and it's a risk for other student athletes from Boston public schools to be on that track and jump on those pits. This renovation will change that and make it so then we could compete with other teams in Massachusetts and around the nation. One thing that we need to understand is it will be for the community and understand for the community and we as coaches and as people in Boston public schools need to understand that we are here the kids and our thoughts and our opinions are for the betterment of the kids and athletes in thirty seconds. Thank you. One thing that we need to understand altogether is that this is a positive thing for the entire city of Boston, for the entire city and we need to understand that moving on the track and field is going to be a big part of this city and it can be a great thing to put kids in collegiate programs all around the nation. Thank you.  Thank you very much. Next speakers Avery Farmer Yes . Good evening. I'm Avery Farmer. I'm a fellow Citizens for Juvenile Justice. I'm here to speak about the proposed BP's BPD information sharing policy on the agenda tonight we have a letter that goes into this all in more detail than I can in two minutes.  We've got copies of it. If any of you haven't received it, just catch my um so we and the community advocate organizations we work with all believe in the need for safe schools and information sharing policies that are necessary to make those happen at the same time, it's important that those policies protect student information sensitive information from improper sharing and also informed state and local law. Um, our position and our concern is that the policy up for approval tonight is inconsistent in particular with a twenty twenty one Boston ordinance. >> We're concerned that it raises legal issues that could subject BP's and BPD to litigation if I were to be approved tonight and I'll just quickly about that policy.  Um, so first of all it applies to all Boston school safety officers whether or not their PD beeps anyone in schools and the safety officer capacities covered it limits when those officers may create reports to for situations serious bodily harm inflicted by a student serious credible threat to school safety and then a student in possession of a gun or a certain controlled substances outside of that school safety for safety officers may not create reports and it also limits 30 second ad also limits when they share those reports with BPD to specific to situations when an emergency is ongoing or when state or federal law requires it. Outside of that, BP's officers may not share a certain information with BPD through this reporting system.  So we feel that community partners were not included in this conversation and if we're not able to resolve this sort of before the policy is passed and litigation ends up being the only option. >> Thank you very much. Thank you.  Next speaker is the next speakers are Michelle Keron, Carolyn Maloney Braddick Sike Allegre and McGregor Michelle Carole good evening.  >> My name is Michelle Carroll and I'm a middle school science teacher at Charlestown High School dressed as an open enrollment high school where forty five percent of our students are multilingual learners and thirty two percent of our students have learning disabilities. As a science teacher my content ask students to observe the world around them, ask questions and think creatively creatively as I truly believe that all students can think and learn science is naturally accessible space. However, it would be a disservice to students and educators alike to describe learning in such a simplistic or linear manner.  Let me paint a picture of a typical day in my classroom a beautiful image of organized chaos. Students are doing a lab and bodies are moving everywhere to students having accommodation for ascribe to write for them because of a communication challenge.  Another is currently a non reader and is struggling to read the procedure.  Three other students have IEP goals around emotional regulation and need support to work safely and productively with their peers. Several others struggle with processing, need tasks to be chunked and an educator to check in frequently with them to ensure they are on task. And I run around trying to be in multiple places at the same time behind the on ramp to grade level curriculum is a hard working educator going above and beyond to provide support and modify learning materials for each and every learner in their space. Fortunately for my students,  CHF is filled with the most loving, caring and hard working educators and administrators address is like a hug of a school. It's a community that collaborates vulnerably problem solvers and puts it all on the line to show up for kids every day. However, in spite of all of this we still fall short because at the end of the day even the most talented, talented, duly licensed educator is still just one person being asked to do multiple jobs at one time IEP IEPs mandate that our students with disabilities are receiving specialized instruction.  But what constitutes a minute of specialized instruction and if it's specialized how can I do it at the same time as I'm teaching the whole group? How can one person eighth grade algebra and meet an IEP goal of counting to 100 at the same time this one license model is leaving educators to choose who receives specialized instruction. >> Carol, your time is up. Help us and the one license model and BP's next speaker is Karen Money brother.  Hello.  Thank you for taking the time to hear me speak.  My name is Karen Multiproduct. I'm the executive director president of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a nonprofit that works with myriad of public partners, community members and others to support the animal necklace parks including Franklin Park. I'm also a student of the Atlanta Public School System. I have tremendous respect for everything I know you and we all struggle with every day to provide amazing public facilities to everyone that needs them and I really appreciate your commitment to that and that's precisely why we're here.  The Emerald Necklace Conservancy has been working with a group of amazing community members including Dr. Jean McGuire and to support essentially a fully public renovation of White Stadium.  It is clear from what we've heard today and before the stadium needs work and that's why it's so exciting that your capital budget includes fifty million dollars to renovate it. And we did provide a letter I hope many of you got to see it where we showed a whole set of amazing public renovations of other stadiums that were able to be done for well under fifty million dollars.  It's definitely an important stadium that needs a tremendous amount of work.  But this renovation today that is being contemplated which still has a lot of information outstanding does not allow the Boston public school football program to continue on that field during the regular season . It has a lot of limitations, many of which we don't fully know about this because we have not seen a lease and a variety of other things as I think you've heard, there are considerable there's considerable risk to the Boston public schools in approving this proposal because there is an outstanding legal legal case which would be in court in March of next year. This is not the right plan for the public and for the long term sustainability of what we need to do for all of our public school student students. The public was not given options but I think we can work together and make an amazing public stadium with the funds that you have dedicated. >> Thank you.  >> Next speakers see Kalinga.  My name is Kalinga. I am a BAPS parent three grown and two in high schools right now what I want to say is everybody who is against pro soccer team in White Stadium still wants White Stadium renovated.  We can do it as Karen said for a lot less money because we don't need a Jumbotron.  We don't need a beer garden. We don't need luxury boxes and state of the art offices.  We need a new locker room. We need new stands and we need new fields and it's for it's a trust for our baps kids and for community youth. They are going to take green space to do white stadium. They're going to take 70 to 140 old growth trees down. I don't care how many new trees they plant. We are in climate crisis. How can anybody support this insane plan? This is our tax money and we can do better. We can renovate White Stadium for our children and for the community with less money and with the community.  We will still work with you to keep it going to renovate it and keep it going in the future for a lot less money and BP may be saddled if that soccer team pulls the big debt. So people need to think about that.  You do not take greenspace from an urban environment that is where people come to breathe to exercise, to gather with family in Franklin Park, to commune with nature.  This is not the time to be doing this. The generations of our children will suffer long after I'm gone, long after you are all gone even you young people if we do this it's irreparable all the damage that will happen to the jewel of the emerald necklace.  Thank you very much.  Next speakers Matt, thank you for the opportunity to testify. Matt Trager proud BHP's parent happy to have served on task forces and working groups for the school committee. But here in my capacity as a staff attorney at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, a state agency dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights of those with mental health needs, we join Citizens for Juvenile Justice, the Boston Education Justice Alliance and the Committee for Public Counsel Services in voicing our grave concern about this policy for information sharing between BP and BP involving student records.  >> The danger here is that whatever this draft policy has done to address privacy concerns under state and federal law, it has missed the requirements that are present in a Boston city ordinance that limits what BP's safety and security staff can write and can share.  It expands beyond the scope of that ordinance and that same ordinance has a provision that allows those harmed by it to sue the city or to sue those be it BP or BPD who then have the data or information.  I would urge you to take the time to review this more deeply. We saw it because it appeared at the last school committee meeting but there has not been engagement with the public. There's not been engagement with the groups that sat down with the district to work this out, be it to the educators from the BP 36 students in the student immigrant movement or the parents who have been concerned about this. Dr. we urge you to take the time to get this right because getting this wrong has grave consequences particularly for our students.  The reason I'm testifying is because I was part of the legal team that sued the district when a report of an unsuccessful school fight led to the deportation of a student from East Boston High School. We don't need to see this sort of thing happen again and we need to get our paper right. Can we get it right in practice? >> Thank you.  We will now transition to virtual testimonies. Please make sure you're signed into them with the same name you used to sign up for public comment and be prepared.  You mute yourself and turn on your camera when it's your turn to testify. Please raise your virtual hand when I call your name our next speaker Semira Méndez Pete Franjo Steve Toners and Seth Davis Semira Sumi Das and Pete Fernholz are not in the meeting. Steve untuned please amuse yourself and turn on your camera.  We can't hear you.  My name Steve Vytenis the managing director of USA Track and Field New England Association which is headquartered in Brighton. I've also been athletics official at Boston Public Schools Track and Field meets for over twenty years indoors and outdoors and have worked with a number of youth track and field programs through the city in that time line speaking in support of the White Stadium Reconstruction Project, it will provide a new facility which student athletes and youth in general with the high ball site for practice and competition one which hasn't existed in the city for many, many years. >> The proposed plan will offer increased usage time for and the community in general for use practice and for all the sports the it will also provide more opportunities for student athletes to excel at the city state and national level. Thank you.  >> Thank you very much, said Davis friend Harrington said last year Paula Boshier and Cleo Woodcock are not in the meeting John with Team USA.  Oh you're in person. OK and you can go ahead.  Hello my name's Ted Laska and I've been published a public school track coach since the late 80s high school since the mid nineties I've taken kids over to White Stadium.  We're now like forty years old which is kind of weird.  The stadium has been substandard for pretty much ever. We can spend the rest of my life lining out all the things that are wrong but right now you guys are getting ready to talk about negotiating the deal with the people from the professional soccer building the whole thing. What's really important is that you make the negotiations public.  They need to be transparent.  They need to be registered. They need to be something that we can come back and see because the thing is everybody here this is a 30 year lease. They're talking about everybody here will be gone when that lease is over and what happens in Boston is that about ten, fifteen years in all the people that negotiated no longer exist and everybody just kind of ignores what happened and we go back to not such a great situation and if you don't you know, if you want an example to what happened to TD Garden is a great example of negotiating something for the community and then when everybody's gone everybody just forgets it. So it's really important that whatever is negotiated and I like what the people have thirty seconds, OK? I like what they have decided to do. I like the access I like the plan, I like everything but once it's once it's negotiated it has to be something that's enforceable and something that we can see and something 20 years from now if somebody decides to change it they can't. That's what I came to say anyway it's a great project.  >> I want it to happen. Thank you very much.  The next group of speakers sorry Davis. Oh OK. My name is Jeff Davis. I live in Jamaica Plain. I am a BHP's parent of three daughters, two of whom play soccer and I'm a director Buttar directly across the street from White Stadium. I'm very excited about this project and the potential of the proposed partnership to transform Wade Stadium into something that both the BAPS community and the city of Austin can be proud of and excited to visit and use my neighbors and I have concerns about how crowds will be managed for the professional soccer games and the long term operation of the improved stadium for both day to day and other large events that we assume are going to be there. But so far Boston Unity Partners and the city have been incredibly responsive and willing to work with my neighborhood, my neighbors myself across multiple public meetings and living rooms and and at the stadium itself this has been about addressing concerns we have around traffic noise and crowd management because there is going to be an impact to a Mutter's if this project goes forward. I hope that this project is fully approved and moves forward and I urge BAPS to do this in a way that ensures accountability on the part of the professional soccer team to both GPS and to the communities impacted because these games will have an impact on us but we're really excited to see what it brings to us.  >> Thank you. Thank you very much.  We will continue with the next speaker, the next group of speakers are with her team Mike Housemen Cheryl Battement and Jenny Jacobs along with her team.  Good evening.  >> Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Excellent.  >> Excellent. Good evening. My name Tamarama. We I was born in 1978 to Roxbury, Massachusetts since 2015 I served as a citywide head coach of the boys and girls Cross-country program over the years I've had the privilege of knowing headlock in by Sherman Hart Tony de Rocher. >> I have the privilege of taking our wide lead from dead last to top 25 in twenty twenty two I was honored Coach of the Year Division three girls the bottom line academy ironically is twenty eighteen. I've been the voice of Scholastic Gaffield in the Reggie Lewis and as recently I've done the Boston Marathon as well as New Balanced National. I'm behind the door of the vision of a white stadium is I am part of that process.  So I want to say the stadium holds a very, very special place in my heart and the student athletes that I serve this investment will empower our athlete.  It will empower our community. It will bring a world class event to our doorstep because we've done this for writing.  It's called the Boston Marathon. The next step to make Boston a world there is a stadium and I as a student in Stuart is as a coach in the relationship we built with the mayor in the soccer team. I will fulfill that promise. >> Thank you very much. Good evening.  Thank you. Next speakers Mike Hageman,  Mike Hageman, Dorchester Bija the The evaluation of MisShape once again demonstrates that the school committee sees the Boston public schools differently than the public except for the critical evaluation by Mr. Goddard Hernandez every other member judged her with most mostly positives and labeled her performance as proficient and thus the servants of a big pay raise.  Bajour this summer sent out a survey of the superintend and our collective judgment is that Miss Skipper has failed our children, their caregivers and the residents of Boston.  When I was younger I joined a TV program called Hogan's Heroes, a major character with Sergeant Schultz when confronted with unpleasantness is Framestore Frame was I see nothing. I hear nothing and I would add he would do nothing. That's the mantra of our unelected school committee at every regular meeting of the superintendent's report Chair Robertson reminds you to keep your comments and questions the report you loyally comply and limit what you could see here and do your primary job that you have been appointed is not to honestly survey children their character and the community. It is to protect the reputations the mayor and superintendent and protect the toxic corrupt, racist and an ineffective system. Some specious specifics before I run out of time. The skipper has aggressively increased racism and inequities. The Skokomish sees nothing. >> Here's thirty seconds not right from the beginning of her leadership she fired black and brown central office workers and replaced them with those loyal to her.  You see nothing here nothing and do nothing, Dr. Charles Grant said the chief equity officer wrote her a letter expressing concern about the mistreatment of black and brown central office.  She fired him. You see nothing here? Nothing. And do nothing. I have many more examples and then with you Judge the superintendent I thank you have Mr. Heisman next nothing negative space shuttle Buchmann . Good evening.  My name is Sheryl Bachman. I'm a BPs parent to a sixth grader at the Denver and Dorchester member of Jaco's a longtime resident of South Boston. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of our transportation on the first day of school my son's bus never arrived to pick him up for an exciting sixth grade. I had The Boston Globe here to shadow of this new and exciting adventure to see how this app worked.  Soon my son's excitement turned into disappointment as time went on and soon his bus went from sitting to street over for 10 minutes to going by on the main street missing him altogether. I quote in his words I am tired of this and it's OK I'll just go with integrity not acceptable words.  I want to hear from my special needs son on what is supposed to be his first day back at school soon the sadness in his eyes this epic failure wasn't going to darken his day. I got him there with the help of a neighbor.  >> He was twenty five minutes late. I also spoke to Transportation to inform them of this as he was labeled as a no show when in reality the bus never arrived. Any agent that I spoke to offered her a sincere apology that my child never got his bus as quoted in the Boston law on the first two days of the second third of studen got their bus my child I in this category as we know and imagine other families are going through the same thing of ours. This is unacceptable in any means. We all know this is a fixable issue.  I hope that BP does its best to fix this before we end up in a downward spiral something we all know a single it takes a single thank you Miss Bachmann. >> Your time is up next.  Speaker Jenny Jacobs has hello. Hello. Hear me can start.  My name's Jenny Jacobs. I teach English at English High School and I'm a parent of two students and I live in Jamaica Plain and I'll just start my statement now I did ESL one a native Spanish literacy to newcomer immigrant students at English High School and I want to emphasize the importance of inclusion on right for our adolescent multilingual learners inclusion at high school for high school multilingual is really unique and different than it is at the elementary years. Our concern at English High School is that the current inclusion model which has pushed multilingual learners at ELDE level three into general education classes known as the My model is being rushed without time for thoughtful implementation. So I just want to be clear we do not support segregating multilingual learners or preventing their advancement but we do need to provide school level teams more flexibility, clear guidance and support that draws on students ,families, teachers and school leaders to craft the unique course load that allows each student to be successful.  Last winter my colleagues and I conducted a focus group with eight of our third year multilingual learners and they had begun to transition into general education classes.  We were we were able to have the students attend both a mix of BPCI classes and D.C.I duska classes for these students.  Thank you. Strongly opposed the new inclusion model for multilingual learners.  They really emphasized the threat to social emotional well-being, the challenges for academic learning academics while also learning English in a short period of time and the inequities of access to learning opportunities. So we just have three basic suggestions recruit more bilingual content area academic teachers at the high school level provide more bilingual resources like bilingual dictionaries and reduce cost sizes, adopt a core teaching model and hire bilingual Paris. Thank you very much. Thank mixed group of speakers are Reverend Maynard Culpepper, Fred Bettelheim, Brad Mahoney,  Sarah Freeman and Alan Lipkin.  Mr. Colpeper, good evening and thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight. I agree with Jane McGuire.  Franklin Park is our park. I believe that this proposal is also about the future generation.  I was born Boston ten in Boston English High School.  I grew up playing in White Stadium.  I lived across the street. My grandfather and grandmother live on Seymour Street directly across the street from Franklin Park. Every morning I get up I see the camels every morning so I see the beauty of Franklin Park but I also see the significance of this Investa by the bus in the psych apartness into our community.  We would love to have this new soccer stadium not just for the track but for the football and everything else that goes with it. For me one of the biggest components of this that has really attracted me is the community benefits. I believe that the benefits of this investment going into the community will benefit all of the community not just sports wise but also financial . Our community needs financial investment right now and this soccer team is exactly what I think will bring excitement, newness, revival and regeneration to Franklin Park and to the community around the Franklin Park. I am one hundred percent in support of the stadium, the soccer team and the expansion of Franklin Park. Thank you for giving me time to talk tonight, Reverend Vigneron Culpepper. >> Thank you very much.  Next speaker is Fred Bettelheim . >> Hello. Could you please turn on your camera?  All right. Can you hear me now?  Yes, thank you. All right. Thank you. I'd like to follow on Reverend Culpepper's remarks for you. I'd like to talk both about the school, the benefit to the children and to the park itself of the children.  This new plan extends operation is seven days a week from it goes from 8:00 till 10:00 pm except for the days of professional soccer it gives a new track which is world class eight lanes track and field will become enabled in a way it hasn't been in years and and what it does is becomes also the athletes become mentors for children because just having them there and their involvement some some members will certainly become involved with the community and not just in soccer also track because of the improvements there.  And so the people that are against this most of them they don't speak about the children. You don't hear that.  So another thing about I'd like to talk about the design I spent two years cleaning up the entrance to Williams gate with my neighbors. Thirty two meetings that was ten years ago and the park has just improved since they're this new design also creates a growth.  It's a wonderful design fitting homestead's principalists and includes a grove where there can be concessions and there used to be refractory thirty secondary for in and of Mark where were student where people could work and provide refreshments and what is it becomes a destination just the way the zoo is a destination the golf clubs a destination and there's still the wilderness. There's still all that forest for people to enjoy nature.  So I see this is just adding another element to the park to make it wonderful and I'm fully in support of the White Stadium. >> Thank you.  Thank you very much. Brad Mahoney and Sara Freeman are not in the meeting next because Allen Lipke Allen Lipkin please accept the prompt reading and can you hear me OK? Yes, we can hear you if my name is Lapkin I'm an attorney and I represent Gene McGuire, other individuals who live in the area of Franklin Park as well as Emerald Necklace Conservancy in the litigation seeking to oppose the Light Fun Stadium it violates Article ninety seven of the state constitution by privatizing public land as well as the terms of the George Robert White fund trust which is supposed to be for public benefit. The court did in March did I my client's request for a preliminary injunction seeking to halt this project until there could be a trial on the merits summary judgment decision after discovery where a court will hopefully make a decision after receiving all the facts and the law, the court can still make that decision and hold that this project is being pursued in violation of Article 97. In my view, if the city goes forward or the school department goes forward with this lease, you're taking a tremendous risk going down this path that a court is going to rule that this project is in violation of Article 97 or the underlying trust you could end up with a half ton stadium or trying to unwind this deal. The soccer investors can go on to another venue for another entity and pursue whatever they're trying to pursue here in another location. We are now proceeding with discovery where gathering our facts and in my view there's a very strong possibility that we're going to prevail and that this project is going to second in violation of Article ninety seven. You're taking a tremendous risk the city's 2023 to 2020 I'd open space plan shows that this is a protected Article 97 property as of all the open space plants since 2002 for 24 years we urge you not to proceed with this.  You're taking too big a risk. The court could rule in my client's favor and all this project violates Article 97 and the underlying trust.  >> Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Chair. That concludes our first hour of testimony. The remaining speakers will have an opportunity to testify at the end of the meeting. Thank.  We're just going to take a five minute recess before we do come back to do the rest of our business. Thank you.  Stretch.  OK, we don't have the full  OK.  Just wanted to let you all know that we are going to table our first action item tonight. We're going to table the first item tonight which was the policy revision recommends for the student information policy until the next meeting to ensure that we've addressed the concerns that we just heard tonight.  So we're going to hold on the policy so our action item, our first action item this evening is the policy revision recommendations for the school naming process. >> I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments are wonderful. >> Thank you, Chair. Just as a reminder, the school naming policy this was passed by the school committee in 1998 . The naming policy needs to be updated so that it aligns with the Boston's updated building naming policy. I propose revisions also clarify the community engagement process and delineate naming decisions that require a school committee vote decisions that can be approved by the superintendent.  Dr. Dippenaar is also here tonight to answer any questions and with that I'll turn it back to you. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or concerns?  No.  OK, thank you. So if there's nothing further I'll now entertain a motion to approve the policy revision recommendations for the school naming process as presented. Is there a motion?  Thank you. Is there a second second thank you. Was there any discussion objection to the motion. Miss Plavix, will you please call?  Well thank you Dr. Atkins. Mr. Ananda's yes.  Whistling Bosson yes. Spelunkers yes. Mr. Trent. Yes. Mr. Miss Robinson. Yes. The motion.  Thank you. Thank you. A last action item this evening is the White Stadium Renovation and lease authorization.  Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments. Are wonderful Chair. Thank you. So last week the city's chief of operations, John Irish who I see here and BP's senior director of athletics every still providing an update on the proposed renovation of White Stadium and asked the school committee to grant me as the superintendent the authorization to enter into the lease agreement with partner Boston Unity Soccer tonight we ask for you to take your vote. The finalization of the lease agreement will allow the city's public facilities department to move forward with demolition of part of the existing stadium this fall. White Stadium, as we all know, has been in disrepair for far too long. The renovation plans include new community space strength training locker rooms and physical therapy spaces are student athletes deserve to have access to a modern multiservice facility and the resources to support them.  White Stadium is a key part of the city's efforts to improve access to athletics for all PBS students. Mike Firestone, the mayor's chief of policy and strategic planning. He's here as is Area Steel who is our senior director of BAPS Athletics and they're here to answer any follow up questions with that chief chair. >> I'll turn it back to you. Thank you.  I'm all right.  >> I guess it's just we're saying one I think this is incredibly exciting and I'm sort of heart into the what you shared with me just around your experience with with the stadium and then, you know, we don't play a role besides this moment where we're like, you know, the authorization goes forward but it will be exciting to just continue the updates for us around how you are working hard to make sure students have access to the stadium and are able to use it and that the agreement is is good for everyone involved. Yes, you let me know. OK, all right. If there's nothing further, I will now entertain a motion to approve the White Stadium renovation and lease authorization as presented. Is there a motion some thank you. Is there a second? Thank you. Is there any discussion objecting to the motion?  Fiorina Excuse me Miss Pabriks, will you please call the roll doctor?  I'll give Mr. Ananda's yes. Mr. Limbaugh.  Yes. Miss Polanco. Garcia yes. Miss Cetron. Yes.  Miss Robinson. Yes. The motion is approved unanimously. Thank you all. And now we will now we turn to public comment. Mr. thank you. Um, the next group of speakers is our Chingo.  Hey Agnes who? Lynn Q Christine and one Schenn. They all need um support with Cantonese. >> Terry, can you please support us showing how is not in the meeting Agnes Agnes is um please join please accept the um prompt Agnes Oh hi my name is Agnes and I'm a parent and a school counselor Josiah Quincy Elementary School. I wanted to express that um fully support the SDI program is is it because the program is very important to our Chinese families and children, especially for new immigrants. They don't speak any English and really need the support of the SDI program Children is our future and as said we need that Sippel to support our children to learn and grow without the support our children may feel scared,  frustrated and even depressed in school and we try to have a happy childhood memory not a nightmare Jakiel. Yes. Yes, it's located in Chinatown and Chinatown is a Chinese community so I hope we can keep our traditional culture and hope that having this SDI program can benefit our community and other neighborhood.  I hope we can maintain the SDI program and continue to be successful. So please don't take away our valuable resources please. How our children to learn and grow. Thank you.  >> Thank you very much Lynn and Kristina not in the meeting one had Chen could you be watching her Mattawa could you please ask one had Chen to accept the prompt? >> I'm not sure I made CBSA OMYA.  It's not accepting the prompts . >> I think we will continue with our next speaker. What's your name to sell it on my lack of knowledge educate your hog Pignone Hakimullah So our next speaker is Greg Peterson.  He's not in the meeting either. Rodney Singleton he's not in the meeting either.  There's no next speaker is Rodney my Penya, my terpenes.  You can start we can't hear you if they're in here.  Yeah, my Topanga we can't hear you. Let us try with the next speaker, John Matthews.  John Matthews Jr and Matthews not in the meeting Charleen Setu is not in the meeting either. Quen Lee Gwendoline, please accept the prompt and you'll hear me all right. Yeah, we can hear you.  So good evening. I'm quinella.  I'm a parent of two PBS student. I would like for you all to be what I consider to violate up safety and compliance that happen in my child's school today. This can happen to your children so if we don't do anything about it yesterday at night the school both drop my daughter off at school at two p.m. we communicated with her teacher that we would come to pick up our daughter her teacher text back that my daughter need not come to school is mean my three and a half years old when missing from her class for four and a half hour. Ladies and gentlemen each four and a half hour my child went missing without any one in school not the same nobody luckily the school personnel were able to fire her and there was no way we weren't driving to the school in about 20 minutes the unfortunate accident presents an issue of safety and compliance apologize.  We want you all to be aware of this. We want to be sure that the negligent to attendance policy is not acceptable and can not happen again to our PBS system in any school to any kids and the families. BBF can also goal that achievable what is happening Mixin if the fundamental rights of children being safe in school be violated. Thank you.  Thank you very much. Next speaker is Gaieties Societies have in the are you. Thank you.  It's good ok very good ok so my name is Gaieties. The reason for this public comment is for the intention of seeking a proper outlet of aid and do fact at the Boston School Committee is the be district repository to begin . I want to start by stating that according to Mass General Laws Chapter seventy six one the Board of Education is designated to establish the minimum age requirement for school attendance and that with the past one hundred twenty four years since one the Supreme Judicial Court in Albert inhabitants of Town of Chester citation wanted twenty sixty one and sixty three. The September child seven is the minimum age with the above legality explained I am now Clarence stating that in March twenty two minority children ages five and three all under the legal age required to attend school were moved to identified separated foster homes for two kids for thirteen months and one kid for twelve months for full 220 pounds filed for punctuality concern as abuse neglect the fact that these circumstances have been further extended is unfathomable but active. Today marks the eleventh month for a business public position due to a conflict of interest through ongoing vindictive communications. The Department of Children Families Little My three factuality there until without further providing exact details on this matter besides in that I make this next letter to the direct said actions of my three children to have in place again for the past seven weeks in foster homes punctuality concerns communication from the department that summertime during the summertime I am therefore asking people to on the Boston School Committee directly each of the member is going to your time is up. >> Thank you.  Our next we are going out to public comment on reports next speakers Jean McQuire OK Karen Monee Broadneck now Karen are not speaking.  You signed up on public comment. Great. Thank you.  Hi. Karen Montebourg, president of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.  I do want to mention a couple of things that I think are involved in the risk that unfortunately I think that this plan is is before you people are asking I think really important questions about the terms of the lease and the agreement and the the obligations right now the way that we understand the lease and again, no none of us have seen it precise terms the soccer investors was talked about last week could leave after ten years and then there is essentially 100 million dollar or more stadium which is now the maintenance obligation of the Boston public schools. So that is, you know, a significant concern that the people have brought up and the other major outstanding issue is that as I noted in the letter that we sent is that the currently the property on which the stadium sits is owned by the George Robert White Trust according to the city's assessor database and other things owned by the George Robert Wright Trust, it's actually not owned by the city of Boston Legal Department. The city believes that there is another interpretation that is those are the facts the city actually sold to the George Robert White trust for for money twenty thousand dollars a long time go now that area including acres of land around the stadium where 70 trees now sit that may be taken down. That area is not actually owned by the the school department. So it is complex to say the least that that that and this is why this matter is unfortunately in litigation because the the actual right of negotiating a lease when you don't actually own the property is problematic to say the least . And so the challenge is that potentially what would be happening is a stadium would be demolished this fall and not available for your students actually because of some of the legal questions here and what instead I would certainly like to see is a renovation with the existing funds. The next speaker is Miss Kalinga. Is she going to speak? No. OK, thank Alan Lipkin is not in the meeting and Greg Peterson is not in the meeting.  >> Rodney Singleton, please turn on your camera.  Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.  Thank you. My name is Ron Singleton. I've lived in Boston for now 63 years. I was born and raised in Roxbury. I am part of the Franklin Park Defender's lawsuit.  I'm just old enough to remember bussing and find it ironic that I'm addressing the school committee. I remember when bussing was a big deal and the reasons for bussing had to do with separate and equality separate and equality we would never private highs the Boston Common or the public garden yet these are more these are whiter more affluent neighborhoods of Boston. But we do this kind of privatization here in neighborhoods of color this is a seminal bussing moment and you I can only see it's obvious you you didn't listen to all the testimony and you you voted so that means the cake was already baked. You knew what you were going to do and you know, I'll just leave by by saying this MLK once said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and I pray to God justice catches up with you folks because what you're doing is wrong. >> Thank you. Thank you.  And next speakers we're going to try my taping again.  Hello. Hello.  We can hear you. I am sorry you can hear me.  Oh hi everyone. My name is Mike Panya. I am here. Give me I I'm so sorry about that. I also attend the school committee.  Thank you so much for the opportunity of letting me speak tonight. I am here to share my support with Up Academy and appreciate it for the partnership that I have with books and public schools. I am a proud staff member for Up Academy Dorchester. I had two young girls that graduated from up Academy Dorchester. My youngest one just graduated then in high school as a Victorian for the school and she as a freshman year at Tufts University. At the moment my jump my jump at up is an operations team. I leave the family engagement Attendance Team and also the high school choice coordinator I this is a I do this job for the wonderful students that we have it up Academy Dorchester I take my job very seriously as doing this because as myself I didn't get to complete high school as I did and get the support that I had when I was in school but with opportunity and support that I get from up academy staff I was able to complete my high school twenty twenty and I am on my journey now with college and continue to take college classes. I have been working with Up Academy one of the founders since twenty thirteen and I have been in the martial building since it's going to be fifteen years now I prioritize working as a family engagement because I love serving the community and being there for the families.  My role allows me to work closely with family and help the network of up and I know that we also help us succeed this success for our students. Thank you all so much for letting me speak today and I appreciate the work that we do together.  Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes the public testimony. Right. Thank you.  New business.  No OK, that concludes our business for this evening.  Our next hybrid school committee meeting will take place in person on Wednesday, September 25th at six p.m. here at the Boulding Building.  Is there a motion, some thinking is there a second is there any discussion objections to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all and have a good night. Thank you. Thank you. Chair.