##VIDEO ID:hGEySPEMvR0## e e e and on YouTube the recording will be available in all of the BPS languages the committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Span spish Haitian Creole papiano Cantonese Mand Mandarin Vietnamese and American Sign Language the zoom interpretation feature has been activated Zoom 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 Omar ishmail Omar is a senior at the John D oan School of Math and Science he is active in Boston student at Biser Council and is also enrolled in college classes at Wentworth Institute of Technology and with plans to purer P pursue engineering he looks forward to advocating for changes in BPS 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 okay theic as the chair mention my name is Omar Ismail I am a current senior at the John de obrian 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 projects especially in robotics and spending time with my family for the last three summmer I've spent my time at the Crimson Summer Academy at Harvard University where I engaged with other High School Scholars and took pre-ol 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 BAC so during the summer we led a six- week Summer Leadership program and one of the projects they worked on was a youth Le M mural and nurian square we want to invite the Comm committee members and the community to join us for the unveiling of the mural on Tuesday September 4th and for at from 430 to 6 p.m. the event will begin here in the school committee room where students will present on the mural and then we will go out to view the mural please reach out to Denise at Dory bostonpublicschools.org with any questions thank you than you thank you and welcome we'll begin the meeting with the approval of minutes I'll now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the August 28 2024 school committee meeting is there a motion so 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 superintendent report I present to you our superintendent Mary Skipper uh thank you chair Robinson good evening to the audience both in school committee Chambers and at home um I'd like to begin with Omar to say hello and welcome or we're so happy to have student voice and I know you're going to do a great job representing um BAC and as a member of BAC you play such a vital role in making sure student 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 and this past Monday September 9th we welcomed our brilliant students back to our classrooms both days were filled with joy hope and excitement first I want to acknowledge the many many BPS staff that helped make our first few days successful thank you to our school leaders right Educators Paris 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 BPS families for sending your children to BPS we look forward to partnering with you every day and entirely this year I kicked off the first day at the Joseph Lee K to8 School in Dorchester with mayor woo and chair Robinson we greeted students families and staff as they arrived at school and we participated in the longtime Boston tradition of handing out pencils although we wondered if at some point it will be computers I also visited the magarita munise Academy in Jamaica plane the suner Elementary School Upper campus in rosindale and the jiah quinsey upper school in Chinatown on Friday I visited Tech Boston and Excel High Schools and on Monday morning I greeted students at the hail elementary school chair Robinson joined me at the hail where she began her own educational Journey as a kindergartener 70 years before it was very special to be there with her when she visited her classroom and welcomed the newest group of kindergarten students to the BPS I also want to thank Boston 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 few days when I think back my images are just many Smiles many hugs positive energy and hope throughout our schools and it just reaffirmed that we're just going to have an amazing year students from the Horus man School for the Deaf and heart of hearing also returned to school this year in ATI ful newly updated space in Charlestown in the former Edwards Middle School building the renovations are based on intentional design rooted in depth space principles to best support the Horus man School Community the HMS team provided a warm welcome to the students and to their families the Edwards building is also the new location for six k0 and K1 classrooms for the warn press Scot K to8 School the Warren Prescott lower school campus also celebrated the opening of the new playground space on Friday September 6th we celebrated the 25th Annual Citywide Kindergarten Celebration at the Boston Children's Museum more than 380 of our youngest Learners and more than 630 of their family members join them at the event participants visited exhibits received Reed backpacks and had an opportunity to meet District staff and ask questions countdown to kindgarten director Jette Williams and her team did an amazing job as always welcoming our youngest Learners and their families to BPS as of late yesterday just a few updates on enrollment and registrations as of late yesterday enrollment was at ,17 which includes 2837 new registrations or 486 since the last school committee meeting on August 28th during the weeks of August 26th and September 2nd in just Nine business days PPS registered 730 students or an average of 81 students per day and I will just add that this is really uh an unprecedent 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 we're thrilled to be able to invite so many students into our schools uh and it is is coming at a very fast pace uh even today the welcome centers were extremely busy throughout the district uh especially with lots of address and transfer changes and all of those uh 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 weight list 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 wait list as seats become available until the wait list expires on November 30th for grades 1 through 12 and January 31st for k0 K2 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 5 days and the positive attendance we've seen today we averaged 88% of the students attend in present and that's consistent with 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 12 schools had over 95% attendance and many of our schools experienced higher than normal return rates for students again this is just all very positive as students come back terms of trans ation after piloting the zoom 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 BPS school year was their first time using the technology in real world conditions with this new technology roll out along with what we all know is just heavy traffic across the city and families and staff navigating new routes and getting new fa greeting new faces for the first time we did experience significant delays across our operation on the first day Thursday September 5th 62% of the buses arrived within 15 minutes in the morning so that could be 1 minute or it could be 15 minutes late and 73% arrived within 15 minutes in the afternoon on the second day 83% arrived within 15 minutes in the morning and 84% arrived within 15 minutes in the afternoon these two day two numbers they're very closely align to the performance we saw in day one of last year uh in additionally more than 95% of the drivers are utilizing the zoom driver app successfully this week which we consider just a a very positive thing to have the vast majority of the drivers now trained in using it we also celebrate 10,000 parents and Guardians who are representing about 13,000 of our students who have downloaded and actually logged into the zoom 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 BPS 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% ontime 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 buses in real time and know when their student has gotten on and off the bus we're encouraged by the day overday 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 an improved transportation system to provide students with a safe reliable and ontime transportation on a daily basis that our parents are asking for we'll continue to update you on the progress in meetings to follow also want to take the opportunity to just remind parents who are listening if you haven't already downloaded the Zoom app we would ask you to do so uh we would also ask that you download the parents Square app because this is the way that you'll be receiving as in the new districtwide communications platform uh we're seeing just wonderful engagement across the schools using it uh Monday we sent our first family newsletter EPS beyond the bell and since the start of school we've had about 33,000 members of the BPS Community engage with it so we celebrate that and we know that that there will be even more as more and more parents log into it uh one big area of focus for us this year and I know for school committee is to create engaging family Communications and so that parents square is one step in that direction as his Zoom once care uh once the caregiv is just as a reminder in downloading the apps once they download the apps you as 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 Square will also give you additional access to our weekly family newsletter BPS beyond the bell and again we're just hearing great feedback from families that they appreciate uh that level of transparency and communication I also want to share a brief update on uh our program with the Yonder phone pouches uh we have funding this year to cover the cost of the pouches 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 Y or gearing up to implement the poaches at their schools this includes nine elementaries and four high schools who are currently using it and then an additional 10 Elementary and eight high schools who are preparing to roll out the pouches and we anticipate an additional group of schools electing to use as the year goes on and they get their systems in place um one thing mayor woo and I have talked about is how cell phones impact our students learning and how to strike a balanced approach when we also know that cell phones have become an intrical part of our Lives we all can agree that they provide many benefits but we also have learned from National Trend data and studies as well as our own experiences in schools that 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 um on ways to make opportunities possible and available to them while still using the Andre system the day before school started Wednesday September 4th approximately 50 volunteers joined the secondary school's office in conjunction with the re-engagement center and other Community Partners and they canvased the Dorchester Rock and Jamaica plane neighborhoods as part of an effort to recover students who may have dropped out of school or who are chronically absent the effort reached 300 students who are identified as chronically absent and the definition of that is that they attended school for less than 90% of the time and those who might have left school all together overall the re-engagement center met with 748 students either dropped out or who were currently enrolled but struggling uh and the mayor and I joined that staff on in the volunteer on that day to be able to make some of those home visits uh this is just one strategy in helping us to combat chronic absenteeism uh we know we're making progress on our chronic absenteeism our projections show that we had anywhere between a four and six it's still being finalized but a 4 to 6% decrease in chronic absenteeism last year and so cumulatively for the last 2 years that represents a 7 to 10% decrease this is really a testament to the hard work of our teams here in BPS in student support uh in re re-engagement Center supervisors of attendance our family Liaisons really all working together while 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 are caring for other 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 for marshals 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 a preco 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 student support Corey McCarthy director of BPS re-engagement Center Manny Allen and Brian Marx our senior director for the Department of opportunity youth because really it's been their continued work and focus with students bringing them back into our classrooms a few bright spots um prior to the first day the homes and Condon 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 hoody Cup and the Boston fire department for joining in on the on the fun on September 3rd we had approximately 500 Educators in Region 5 who joined together for a day of professional development at the orberger school in West Roxberry and here they focus specifically on inclusive education this is the first time time this has ever been done in BPS 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 a shout out to senior Deputy superintendent of academics Dr Linda Chen Dr Kristen weeks who is our region five School soup and the BPS academic team for their work to pull this event together I'd like to end tonight uh just by sharing that tomorrow mayor chair Robinson some of the other school committee uh City and elected officials will be cutting the ribbon on the jiah quinsey upper school building uh I've now been been in the building multiple times and it really is a sight to see uh it's just a 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 um 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 were kind of filled with joy and awe as they walked around and they saw so many different areas like the auditorium uh the gymnasium the cafeteria uh the cafetorium uh their food science lab I mean there's just so many special spots in that school the new six-story building um which the views from the rooftop deck are a sight to see will accommodate 650 students in grades 6 through 12 and 84 staff across 35 educational spaces and 29 classrooms the building has an auditorium with 435 seats a black Spock theater with 125 seats a 10,000 foot gym a cafeteria that seats about 250 students I stayed for two of the lunches and an occupied roof um that's an outdoor classroom with a solar uh array uh I hope that uh tomorrow the school committee can join in that visit and um it really is just a reminder that as we build new buildings and renovate buildings the highquality student experience needs to stay at our Forefront so that all students in BPS can have what the desireah quiny students are about to have uh chair that concludes my report thank you superintendent I'll now open it up to questions and discussion from the committee like to remind my colleagues about our agreed upon Norm that we each have five minutes that's the one to two questions please make sure your questions are on the topics related to the items in the superintendent's report and I'd also like to remind BPS staff to be brief in your responses and please speak at a slower Pace to assist our interpreters thank you thank you chair thank you superintendent for the update um and all the work that the district's been doing on starting a new school year a lot of great um updates there but just wanted to really real in on the Transportation uh specifically with the app uh what are some challenges um that have been identified I have a couple but just want to hear what what the district is already gathered as you all are trying to figure it sure so I'll speak to a few but I'll also ask Dan Rosengard to come on up I if Sam depino wants to go or Brian Ford as well but um really we focused a lot on the user end of it so 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 is uploaded or by the student's name so that first couple of times as they're getting the drivers are getting used to the students that's really taking time that wasn't needed before uh and that's part of the learning curve right so uh we've done a lot of work as Dan will talk about retraining drivers and supporting drivers uh who may be struggling with that usage uh 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 safe and okay uh so certainly there's some of that piece that's happening and even for parents their usability of the app um and then kind of reporting back if they're seeing any kind of a glitch we're working with zoom on a daily basis to correct those uh Dan I know you know this like the back of your hand so jump in yeah no thank you for the the question mem Barosa um I think in addition to what the superintendent said a couple things I would add one is this is new hardware that we installed across our entire bus fleet so that's 750 buses that we installed new uh uh you know new GPS tracking and tablet technology on the buses and what we've been finding as as we've been rolling them out over the first week is you know some of those those connections needed to be replaced or you know 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 trans maintenance team feels like you know those those initial Hardware um challenges are you know are and have been resolved I think you know 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 um you know from a number of parents as one of the most frustrating things is oh my student was marked as you know 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 drivers learning learning the students learning their names and faces and you know and making sure that you know they're able to identify the right students getting on and off the bus and then I I see you have another question but just the the last thing I'll add is this is you know this being the the zoom technology is um you know this is the first time that it's been we used it over the summer but traffic patterns in the summer are very different than they are in you know in September with all school buses on the road and you know post Labor Day traffic and we now have about a weeks worth of of data you know traffic pattern data and what we know happened over the summer and will you know happen over the you know next week and coming weeks is the routes will will adjust as as that data is you know fed back into the system and some of the timings that maybe we're 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 so I I appreciate the effort they are putting in and it seems like it's an added responsibility to the drivers right uh now they have to like go into a device and communicate what's happening so that's proba we 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 uh for the first week there wasn't 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 uh factors that you already 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 Santa did 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 of like I don't want my kid to like be absent and be report absent so just wanted to learn a little bit on how we're following up with families that y are not listening right now for example yeah no um so our we we have all of our past and existing systems in place so that's our transportation hotline our school bus at bostonu schools.org email address and our our ticketing system where parents can go you know to any of those places and then what the another what one of the things that the Zoom app adds is you know and of when it's working work correctly and right now as as the superintendent said we have about 95% 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 week in um so on that front I think we are doing quite well once we get that to 100% on a daily basis uh the app experience for parents will provide realtime etas and there's automated push notific that go out if the bus is running more than 20 minutes late and what we have heard from you know 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 see it trct along the way and so I think you know i' 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 uh I know my time is probably running out another thing not for today but would be good as you all are learning more about the app uh maybe come back later with some data of like the routes where the buses were late the Wass 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 buses but it's it all it's under the same umbrella but no 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 have new families coming into the district that needs to learn about it if it's with the family Liaisons if it's uh I don't know when parents are meeting with teachers to learn about what's going on with their kids just finding those spaces that already exist to continue to engage I didn't ask this when it first came out and that was my bad is there is it only in English right now or do they have your options to utilize in other languages oh that's a great question I really appreciate you asked it it's available in in all of the BPS languages and actually quite a few more than that so whatever language the um you know parent has their phone in that's the language the app will and a driver as well right like it's the driver has the ability of not if they are preferring to using G and Grill because maybe it's just easier for them is that something that they can do do you know the the driver app is in English is in English okay all right just figured if that was language jaes was also something available to them but thank you so much again I really appreciate all of that y'all been doing and let me know how I can be supported thank you Dan uh Dan can you just explain uh I mentioned in the report we're seeing unprecedented numbers of students enrolling uh later within BPS can you just explain the impact that that has on the bus roads yeah so so what that means is you know as new students are coming in we we need to update the bus routes and um I think as of August 9th as of kind of the snapshot of the student population on August 9th that uh that is when we lock the bus routes for what we call the driver's bid and that's you know a contractually obligated process where they select their work for the year and then we continue routing obviously as new students are coming in and and we saw I think uh over 2,000 students who had some sort of changed 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% of the students who ride buses who had some sort of routing change where you know 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 you know as superintendent you cited the stats earlier just on even from today um we had over a hundred new students from last night to today come into our routing system and so that's where you know we're we're trying to add all those new students to routes as well as I 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 a constant um you know constant tension there yeah and I 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 a change which is a lot more than what we normally see yes thank you Madame chair thank you superintendent for the report um om om om so thank you very much Madame SK M superintendent Madame Robinson CH and it is very U welcoming to hear the voice of a student and I would like to say welcome as a new representative of the students here you're welcome Omar wow I had 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 so it was a pretty good start we'll pass it on to Analise that's great so the food was pretty fresh and a couple of students mentioned actually I've been we've been having cold bread for several years but actually the food is warm and the salad is fresh so I do know that uh the food service or having the possibility of having this fresh food has not been equal to every single school so I just needed to know what school or how many schools are being served to fresh food and if we can quantify that because it is my understanding that not every school has that pleasure I think uh our chief oper Operating Officer Brian Ford I'm proud to say that uh can come up and give but I I think at the last count it was 108 good afternoon so yes we did have 108 schools that are able to serve fresh food at the opening of the school year we had nobody I will interpret for because the other inter she cannot hear the other interpret 108 schools correct that's right 108 schools have cooking kitchens inside of them uh at the start of the school year um a lot of it due to Staffing uh we were only able to start with 99 schools cook 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 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 so just wanted to uh direct my voice to if there's any parents or mothers hearing to what we're saying right now this meeting please uh 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 what I'm saying language is not a barrier it is very important that the parents and the fathers and the mothers understand it is a right that they have it is a responsibility that they have please get involved have a conversation with your teachers try to gather some information ask for information give information if you do not get involved that'll 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 thank you very much Mr herand one welcome oh man 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 than for joining us um I will also say on the food this was not planned but I'm having my own parental morning 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 free 20 minutes but you know there's like a sad departure and he comes home rave reviews but he also has a gets to go to a school with with you know fresh meals um 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 um the breakdown right now of those registrations we can get them for you I do know that we are seeing uh uh in a in an awesome way a lot of uh students coming from the Dr and coming from Haiti those are two groups that have been identified right now as largely representative we're also seeing a lot of students returning to the BPS who had been in the BPS so that's great um 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 wise like where are we see what are new entry grades it may be just a big scatter plot but like or is it younger families entering the system and late 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 we're resourcing I'm I this is you know my own suspicion if we're getting folks who are arriving from Haiti or from the Dominican Republic then the need for other services as well um great I do have I guess a quick wondering I have a second piece do we have a hiring update which wasn't included today but can you bring that forward for the hiring update will happen uh on I think it's the first school committee meeting in October when they process the data Cy the transport uh 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 we'll get from Zoom so I am curious like is this data that then informs routing if we're doing if students are signing in to buses 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 for the operation how does that all yeah Dan comes up I'll share my thoughts on it I think there's a lot of uh 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 I would also use as an opportunity to ask parents particularly of younger students please mark belongings so that we actually have ident ification on the students can't say that enough um but I I think it's also from a rers she perspective it is to this point how often is a student taking the BS are they not using it and we're routing them uh as a way to be able to make routes more efficient so that we're not waiting at bus stops for students which then delays the route Dan yeah I think that's exactly right is you know we anecdotally know that we route 23,000 students every year and 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 you know 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 for 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 and that will tell us who actually needs the bus so that we can you know part of the challenge here is just we're we're trying to create too many routes yeah you know is there like part of the workflow is there a plan to address non-writers ship like I'm making up a number 15 days you haven't been on the bus I'm remembering my old days as a principal too right 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 the sort of routing it's a fantastic question it's actually something knowing that that zoom and this data is coming it's something that we talked about extensively in the transportation advisory Council uh this past spring and uh actually at um 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 of that was committing to using the fall to gather the data but essentially what you know what that group has recommended is something just like what you're saying where if a student doesn't ride the bus for 10 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 gonna say that um I can't uh emphasize enough over the last several years how uh for a system that's Enterprise the transportation system was not and I think Dan and his team and prior to Dell I think they've had a collective Vision to bring us into the 21st century so which makes for safer more efficient transparents and so while there is this learning curve in the end for parents and for the district this is just 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 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 in handling that data I suspect there's there has to be savings we've talked about this here many times right like the empty buses just like rolling through the streets there has to be savings if we're 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 Zoom 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 it 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 this time it takes but what was missing is not that it was a 100% 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 the 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 it so far has been like and this is the reason why traffic was bad da da da da like the you but like I'm just a parent who doesn't have time to read all the like traffic was bad the the computer system is was a struggle I just want to be like I'm sorry I messed up your first day of like I'm sorry you were late to work I'm sorry you waited 45 minutes and then had to take uh Uber to bring your kid to school or in the case we heard like a whole week of no and I'm just I'm being real and I think this is about our engagement with communities as a cons 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 like 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 gonna who's this kid who's coming what's happening I just we got to do better on The Upfront communication and then I do think like just on the apology you but I have a seven-year-old so 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 you know the first couple weeks might you know might 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 for straightup communication and like I think people would heard 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 I think that's right and just briefly because you asked we we ran a an RFP uh last June and and awarded a contract last August uh after review so we we got five bids you know we evaluated those bids we we did uh you know reference checks with with other districts that they've worked with and cool so happy to go into more detail on that if you have followup that's perfect no I just wanted the the history refresher thank you and thank you for hearing me out on that one okay thank you um come back for a second I have a few questions about trans go away that quickly um yeah no yeah at first I want to say thank you and you know and I know this is a tough one um trying to get to a school for the first day um it took me 25 minutes to get off of my street to someplace that I should have been able to get in 10 minutes and couldn't get there because um it was trash day um 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 um I know how difficult that makes all of the good efforts and everything that people put in place and 90% is great but if you're part of that 10% who didn't get there it's it's a tough one and I you know and I hope as time goes on the things that Mr cep Hernandez um proposed and the kind of work that you know we can get to the point where we both appreciate all that goes into this and understanding that there's a lot you have no ability to control but that um all of our goal of getting all of our kids to school on time if possible is great um and I know I mean being at a school watching kids dribble in after the Bell or you know and 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 under no 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 that 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 um 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 um are great and we thank you and look forward to seeing um Zoom improve over time um I was trying to figure out no I was gonna say as um we enroll kids um 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 all going to the same school one on an IEP that gets door too and two that are 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 family going to the same place in two different locations how are we making that work the families and how are we flagging yep special circumstances for families with either you know multiple siblings in different schools in 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 pickups you know where within your system does that kind of need get directed yeah no thank you chair Robinson I think I think I think you're highlighting there there are so many different types of situations um and you know and 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 you know a really specific example let's say there were about a hundred families I think or 100 students I think that that uh either registered at the Welcome Center yesterday or you know had an address change or something changed 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 a route or add a new route you know for that student and then on Thursday we will what we call publish routes that will take effect next Wednesday so student who are you know coming in their transportation is you know it 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 notifications to families and email mail and through Zoom you know translated into their home language letting them know you have a new bus assignment it takes effect next Wednesday so that's kind of the the process from when you come into the Welcome Center to when your transportation starts okay okay and then in terms of families um 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 you know the system does not necessarily capture all of that upfront and so sometimes it's not until the school or family lets us know and we look and we say oh these siblings aren't you know marked as siblings in Aspen okay we need to get that fixed and now you know now we know now it'll be corrected and so we're we're working through correcting some of those right now and I think we need to continue to think how do we better capture 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 um super attendant um a question I know you all went out to do the door knocking for chronic absenteeism is that only students at the high school level or do you go to Children elementary middle school kids so this the the door knock was specifically high school but we have a very strong system when a student is a minor uh with attendance to you know be underneath the 16-year-old compulsory uh and so we um make sure that the school calls home after a certain amount of absence uh and if need be a house visit will happen uh so we use the same process during the school year of students of attendance and our family engagement uh 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 BPS beyond the bell how can that 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 uh and add it to everybody great okay thank you did you have any questions Z before we move on okay sticking in okay 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 much you is there um is there a motion sorry is there a motion is there a second got them both thank you is there discussion or objection to the motion is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none um the superintendent's report is approved we'll now move on to General Public comment Miss prex thank you chair sorry excuse me I think we we had to have a shift that we are going to um actually take the e emk um try to remember out of order Earth because it's a school night before we move into public comment and it didn't get changed in my plan but fine excuse me parent I'm gonna find that in a second and I can give some context um so this evening we are joined uh by Edward M Kennedy Academy for health careers School leader Dr Karen Walker Gregory who will present a proposed Charter amendment emk is a Horus man charter school also called an IND District charter school because of this status 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 448 to 800 in grades 9 through2 over the next four years beginning in the fall of 2025 and continuing through school year 2829 you may remember back in January we joined the city of Boston in announcing that Bloomberg philanthropy peas awarded the emk $38 million Grant the largest gift in BPS 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 mayor woo and I joined the emk 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 uh visited the mg uh the Mass general briam Community Care van uh had a fun lunch and did a wonderful cheerleader show uh it was a reminded that emk is a BPS success story uh this is really about engage students exciting excited to have the opportunity to engage in handson Career and Technical education emk is a sought-after school with a weight list of more than 300 students it has High graduation rates and high College acceptance rates it is a long-standing commitment to full inclusion as well as a proven tracker Rec of successfully expanding its enrollment Dr Ted Lombardi who is our secondary superintendent for college career and Readiness is also here to support with any followup 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 okay y yes good evening Madam Robinson superintendent Skipper and school committee members thank you for allowing me to present today I just want to remind folks that I've been in this district for over 34 yearsing a little closer to should I use my cafeteria voice you know that uh I've been in the district for over 34 years I'm a graduate of Boston public schools and I am the proud head of school of the Edward M Kennedy Academy for health qus so thank you again for taking this time to talk a little bit about our request as you um indicated Mary Skipper had uh mentioned that we are a recipient of $38 million which is the largest that I have seen in my lifetime and we really are excited um to ask excuse me Dr people still can't hear you still can't hear me really yeah yeah might have to pull out that cafeteria voice yeah okay sorry sorry I thought oh no sounds like you can hear me but it doesn't there it is not all right um so in order to implement this 38 million Bloomberg philanthropy um 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 9 through 12 over four years beginning in September 2025 now obviously um we are super excited as part of the long range plan the city of Boston and BPS and emk 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 7 uh4 Health assisting 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 um opportunities for our um students around again Health assisting biotech and medical assisting so we're really excited about expanding the opportunities for kids we are trying to deepen and extend the workplace learning at Mass General brigam for our grades 9 through 12 we will expand our partnership with Mass General Brigham 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 um Grant also supports full inclusion with co- co- teing and interventionists to support Ela Math and Science especially in grades 9 and 10 we are deepening our seal and academic supports around guidance social workers and reading Specialists we are also expanding our after school and summer employment at n GP and last we are trying to uh also create um part-time employment and scholarships for kids it's a wonderful opportunity okay expansion at emk 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 acceptant rates um outstanding graduation rates we always had low Dropout rates we have also had the highest Desi School accountability percentile of all Boston 9 through 12 high schools we continue to maintain 100% competency determination in all three mcast subjects for all students we have a growing population of students with disabilities and multilingual Learners and we have a longstanding and success commitment successful commitment to full inclusion we still are a high demand for our Boston families and our successful experience have successful experience managing enrollment expansion this is not our first time expanding we uh were asked to expand Excellence under the um super 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 100 kids in the ninth grade every year for the next four years starting in September 2025 emk seeks Boston school committee approval to submit to desie a charter Amendment requests expanding the maximum enrollment at emk from 448 to 800 students this also has to go to the Board of Trustees um and we are excited to have received yes yesterday a um commitment and support from the Boston teaches Union we got that yesterday so we're really excited and I will stop and take questions thank you for the presentation I'll now open it up to the committee uh thank you for the presentation learned more about uh your school just one question what is if any impact in terms of a the physical space that you'll need with the increase of of the expansion I mean yeah so we are excited to be able to expand next year being September 2025 and we're going to be at the Lincoln building temporarily until we um along with the superintendent and the mayor's office find some permanent space so we are hoping that uh we're 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 Josiah quinsey um space as a uh swing space question Mr one thank you so much for the presentation um it's exciting to learn more about your school I've heard so much about it before but it's good to hear it from you I do have a question which 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 if we're if we're adding a 100 seats and we're already experiencing decline what's that journey and is there a vision that this is happening simultaneously right where where where naming this expansion and identifying where we're reducing seed availability sure so uh we are not naming tonight where that offset would be um that will come as we talk about long-term facilities plan and we do the routine that we've talked about in the spring uh what I will say is unique about emk is that emk really does serve a a broad spectrum of students that we hope are served in the BPS so uh Karen mentioned special education and inclusion and having those opportunities for high quality seats same thing with our multilingual Learners uh as a horse man care and serves 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 U um emk is that it has the unique ability and always has to draw students back into the BPS uh and so one of the things that my team let me know but uh your question about registration are 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 emk is perfectly positioned to draw back students who either would have gone to private or to Charter uh or perhaps made a different choice and so Karen and her staff do a great job going out and promoting emk 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 seats I will say you know and I I said this last time we voted on a the 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 and 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 lowquality seats that we are not using and I don't want to further exasperate 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 for 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 had said previously which was like without in lie 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 um is I would I just want to remind us when we talk about seats we're actually talking about children and the the beauty of emk is that emk is serving District population which it's if this were only regular education seats and I would say point taken but emk 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 our 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 emk is it's going to be creating 100 seats in 25 26 that students who are special education multilingual learners will have access to to be able to go into that are high quality then may then maybe for further clarification then for the next presentation then what percentage are we saying of that 100 is projected for those populations because I think that would then help I think it would be also so it's when we do recruitment we're recruiting across the whole city not just in Boston can't hear you again don't want to I don't know why people can't hear me sorry so I just want I think it's important to recognize that when we do 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 um I understand your question I and I hear you um but it's also recognizing that the 300 people that didn't get in I'm able to expand and welcome them a seat yeah yeah I I think that's really important and then I think just so we're operating with the richest information then I guess what is the projected seat like who who's the projected utilization and some of that we'll have from the 300 who were denied and then sort of how do we plan to use those seats yeah I mean I I just think um it's an exciting time to be a teenager and if I'm able I when we started this school it was only 150 kids and I was really really emotional about the kids that didn't get in and I said geez we're going to expand we're going to go to 400 and then 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 um don't be discouraged but um it's it's a great feeling when parents get what they want amen yeah I see that thank you um just a followup uh um on questions raised by member Brandon Hernandez um would you also please uh before we vote next time or whatever before we approve or disapproved your your request please submit any kind of information um regarding your Endeavor in first of all the breakdown on and or the and or the percentage of el students who are currently in your school um the percentage of those El students and um the kind of effort that you are going to implement in reaching out [Music] to uh those communities El communities okay I yeah we're blessed to have a um wonderful multilingual learner department chair who does a lot of that uh recruitment around students so happy to thank [Music] you um thank you for the presentation um given the award um and knowing the struggles that you have had in terms of addressing the need for the 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 uh we we need 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 um seats so I'm excited that you have a temporary location at the um Lincoln School but um interested in thoughts around where so I know that we've had difficulty in the past trying to find space for your existing students um what's going to be the push in the charge as we try to move forward to figure out a school for 400 500 6 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 in addition to wherever they're coming from just to get to you so just understanding some of those Logistics and the things that you've all been thinking about as part of this proposed expansion yeah I you I well thanks to the 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 um and permits and just the whole process can't happen overnight um I am confident that we will land on a wonderful site and uh I believe it just takes time it just wouldn't happen in September so I feel very confident that we're going to um probably have a decision by the end of this school year on where we're g I feel we've we've this is not something overnight we've been looking at this for about a year chair Robinson I appreciate the question I think to your point there's a real um large scale of priorities that we're trying to balance here right that the space itself is really important having a space for this Innovative set of programming for a large amount of students but the location really matters e could it be you know could you would it always have to be a 100 students every year could it be 100 and then 50 or 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 100 for each year or four years there's always room for options Madam uh I think I think when we developed the proposal the idea was to get to at least 800 M um what drives the budget is the number of students and sustainability um and so there's a rationale behind why it's 100 and not 50 um and if we do 50 then we have to figure out how we balance that extra 50 so easier said than done but there there is a little rationale behind why it's that number yeah yeah I'm I'm interested in you know H how do we know which students are interested in this kind of programming what are the wider options and particularly what are we doing at the lower grades 678 to help young people become aware of the option and if it's not a 7 to 12 school not so much a feeder but where are we where where are kids being introduced to this potential where families being introduced to this as an option that would enable us to see more people taking advantage of a high quality an already proven high quality experience I think there's a couple ways to look at it I think um we've always been wanting to expand 7 through 12 because that's the way the district is going so that's definitely not off of the table but when we recruit we go to Every K to8 Middle School in the city not just Boston but every private parochial in charart and so we actively recruit we have a recruitment team that goes and visits schools or sometimes they come to us and we share our story and thus the weight list 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 um to make this proposal yeah I would just um I would also just add that this is an example of um uh proposed vote that actually comes with the largest gift gift to the BPS 38 million doll which is $38 million to create 400 highquality 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 uh because Karen and her 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 uh kudos to you um principal Gregory Walker apprciate no not yet um sorry I I I first of all uh I do appreciate the the the question from Brand from Member Brandon Hernandez regarding the financial aspect of the additional funding but it may also be uh you know to uh how do you say it you know to a double edged sort because it may also affect the current uh Financial uh budget of of the city if the seats are not uh are not as productive as it should be um and I see that as well um that is something I would leave to uh the administration to and and and your school to uh take care of or or to find ways to to deal with that but anyway I would like to amend my request uh regarding ell students I'd like to add the angle to that the students with disability particularly the kind of um projects policies Endeavors the uh your school are trying to your school are currently implementing or are thinking of implementing in reaching out and increase the number of students to your school uh particularly within those two additional groups of student that I that I just raised happy to share the data around this the multilingual Learners in our special education program MH 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 um 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 interventionist to help support all the kids in the class we it's still kind of new but um 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 we the grant covers for math English and Science and we were able to find funds for history World Language and our health assisting so all all of our ninth graders are H 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 at our next appreciate you all thank you thank you we'll now go back to public comments thank 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 answered at this time but are referred to the superintendent for a later response questions on specific policy matter are not answered at 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 1 hour priority will be given to those testifying in person time permitting the committee will then open it up for virtual testimony after 1 hour anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do to do so at the end of the meeting we have 42 speakers this evening each person will have two minutes to speak and I will remind you when you have 30 seconds remaining if your remarks are longer than 2 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 speakers alloted time speakers may not reassign 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 neighbor you are from before you begin We Will We Will begin this evening with our in-person speakers we will begin with Gan Maguire Melissa Diaz John mud and Victoria Garcia Miss McGuire good evening it's nice to be on this side of the table I'm going to read the statement because that way I can cover it in time it's about Franklin Park and your role in it Franklin Park is our Park citizens of Boston it is the People's Park when City Hall gave up on Franklin Park we spend years cleaning it up but now that there's money 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 will never ask 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 just jce communities around Franklin Park environmental justice protections public land protections and historical protections are enshrined in our public laws for a reason to protect our public spaces from exactly this type of privatization scheme that might look nice on the short term but is ultimately robbing the public of what is rightfully ours our public land is precious and it needs to be protected for future Generations if this proposal was really about helping Boston students the pro proponents should donate their money to charity or to partner with the city to invest in a public station 30 seconds staum with no strings attached not about helping kids it's about making a product a public part is not meant for profit it is meant for the public we need our state leaders and you to step up and protect this public pressure Franklin Park thank you thank you very much is there any questions any comments have you been there it's yes it's public comment we can't comment all right good thank you that's an improvement next speaker is Melissa Diaz um hi my name is Melissa Diaz and I'm here with my two brothers and I currently attend the margarita mun Academy and we were at BPS one point and we live near the white stadium and we want to share why we um need a new athletic center um hi I'm Christian and I have I have fun track I ran track at the white stadium and I'm excited to be able to walk over and enjoy a new track in a gym Center um we um were here to share voices of BPS students that deserve the best faculties to enjoy we'd love to go on walks around the white stadium with our family and parents and friends um that's hopefully um you know we hope that you guys could vote um to move this 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 and we it's not that we don't want to respond to you but the way public comment works is 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 dialogue with you yeah okay thank you so thank you thank you very much next speaker is John mud good evening my name is John mud I'm a resident of Cambridge and a longtime education advocate in Boston BBS 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's data on the outcomes of students under this approach since BPS already has assigned 40% of low English language development students into these gened withl classes the school committee should insist that the district report on the outcomes of these students students on the 2024 English language access tests and on the 2024 mcast past fail rates before authorizing BPS to proceed with a further implementation of the inclusion plan for multilingual Learners the school committee should ask to see specific data on the following items one the 20124 access test results for the percent 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 bbs's October report last year secondly the student outcomes achievement percentages in meeting and exceeding expectations for multilingual learner El ld1 to3 students in genad withl on the 2024 MC tests by grade level and you should know the pass and failing rates last year the report only included the scaled scores and you should insist on the pass fail rates I've included specific language that you could request to ensure that this data is available before you proceed further in implementation thank you very much next speaker is Victoria Garcia good good evening my name is Victoria Garcia and I am a community advocate representing soci Latina and out of schooltime Youth Development organization located in Roxbury as their health and wellness manager I'm also a longtime 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 uh from living a big part of their life online and whether they've made the choice to participate in it or not young people have openly shared the difficulty they're having separating from their phones and social media um they have also shared the the hurts and the harms that they've experienced online from unhealthy social comparisons as well as racism and cyber bullion attacks as well as the decline in their own or their uh 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 all we support BPS on the no cell phone policy during the school day but must share that this is not enough you survey that soci Latina share that although they're aware of the school's cell phone policy there is inconsistency in the policy's implementation which is the accountability part so how are we holding all stakeholders accountable to adhere to the policy across the board BPS 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 as much as possible to hold off on getting phones until later in their teenage years thank you very much have a good night thank you next speakers are Maria gimenez sha Nyan Dedra Manning Tony holiday and Avery farmer Maria gimenez will need Spanish support good evening everyone my name is Maria gimenez I am here to talk about the renovation of the white stadium so Boston I'm a mother of two kids two children that went to Boston Public Schools 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 as sufficient for our kids so we're living or Le 10 minutes away from frl from Franklin Park where the renovations of the stadium will take place 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 and referring to also the students and the youth I have to point out that they'll be able to use their time wisely not doing different things or getting in trouble they'll be they'll be able to benefit themselves by using this time by us in this space I firmly believe that this particular project will be be a benefit for everybody I believe that particularly small businesses and you I would be very happy if they would have benefit from this renovation my kids that they will be able to walk around there but unfortunately unfortunately at 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 thank you very much next speaker is Shan Nan thank you ju good evening uh can you hear me um my name is Sean Nyan um I'm a BPS teacher and I also coach 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 um I also have three students that our BPS students grew up in Boston Public Schools were from Charlestown um I'll go ahead and read the text uh this is about white stadium and our Vital need for our students our students deserve a world class facility um all students in Boston Public Schools um this will be a great opportunity for them and I'll read the text um this is from coach Chris blondon uh the main talking point is how the team lacks facilities and is constantly battling for the very little space we have we uh practice often over at a two-lane track over Clemente school a Clemente track which is a a college track um the school needs a dedicated space as all students need uh so so they can safely practice and compete and enjoy track which is a very popular sport in the district we have Middle School track uh I have kids from the Condon that I taught at that went did the Middle School track program um my kids compete in Junior Olympics we did races in Franklin Park um and I just see that this place is the epicenter and it is the right time and the right place for this kind of opportunity um furthermore uh being able to get a world class facil will help athletes to be able to compete with Suburban schools that seem to have everything and get collegate recruiting opportunities where the city schools are often overlooked and be able to host meets something BS BLS has never done the oldest school in America updating the uh 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 is steed raning good evening my name is deardra Manning I'm a Dorchester resident and mother of uh two public school students want to refer people to the last meeting recording at the 1 hour and 34 Minute Mark for my concerns about the makeup of the school task force in the sense that there were no Representatives um for the interest of uh 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 the exam school policy in September BPS students will take map testing giving them extra practice over non-bps students parents listening to zoom presentations in October and November will be told that tiers will be determined in late fall some parents who live in tiers seven and eight will decide not to apply as their son and daughter's choices for admission are so low or even mathematically impossible December 2nd through 13th BPS students will take maap testing for the second time they will do Ela on one day and math on another with their peers in their classroom and with their own teacher on Saturday December 7th non-bps students will be required to take both map sections backto back without their peers in a non-familiar location and with an unfamiliar test administrator the dynamic nature of the tests 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 lower December 12th 30 seconds December 12th 5-year data release of the American Community survey which unfortunately only surveys 2.5% of the population that means that the responses of five people in a neighborhood of 200 will dictate which tier a neighborhood will will be in on January 2nd map testing results will be provided to families on January 7th tier Maps will be updated using that ACS survey data families in wonderfully diverse Dorchester neighborhoods may inexplicably find them thank you time this up excuse me one minute thank youer majority of applicants yes I hear you will be denied a seat I will finish this at next speaker is Tony holiday evening could y'all hear me okay good my name is uh Antonio howy I am the brighten High head track and field coach I'm also an assistant coach on the football team uh my my track team consists of about four different schools Brian Boston green Academy Mary line school and for a time just had Quincy but now we're just down to Brighton hind I'm here to talk about mainly what my athletes from multiple schools would like to see from the uh White Stadium Renovations I have one of the only wheelchair athletes in the state um he's a national uh champion in indoor and outdoor track uh he is one of the best athletes I've ever coached but he has a insufficient track to compete on is now is a senior year and he has been competing on the white Stadium track for four years and been dodging potholes every single year and that is a health risk and it's also 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 that for the community and we as coaches and as people in Boston Public Schools need to understand that we are here for the kids and our thoughts and our opinions are for the betterment of the kids and athletes in seconds thank you one thing that we need to understand Al together 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 that track and field is going to be a big part of this city it's going to be a great thing to put kids in Collegiate programs all around the nation thank you thank you very much next speaker is Avery farmer good evening uh I'm Avery farmer I'm a fellow at citizens for Juvenile Justice I'm here to speak about the proposed BPS BPD information sharing policy on the agenda tonight uh we have a letter that goes into this all in more detail than I can in two minutes uh we've got copies of it if any of you haven't received it just catch my ey um so we and the community advocate organizations that we work with all believe in the need for safe schools and the information sharing policies uh that are necessary to make those happen at the same time it's important that those policies protect student information sensitive information uh from improper sharing and also conform to State and local law um our position and our concern is that the policy up for approval tonight is inconsistent in particular with a 2021 Boston ordinance uh were're concerned that it raises legal issues that could subject BPS and BPD to litigation if uh it were to be approved tonight uh and I'll just tell you quickly about that policy um so first of all it applies to all uh Boston school safety officers whether or not they're BPD BPS um anyone who's in schools and the safety officer capacity is covered it limits when those officers May create reports uh to four situations um serious bodily harm inflicted by a student uh serious credible threat to school safety and then a student in possession of a gun or a certain controlled substance outside of that school safety officers safety officers may not create uh reports and it also limits 30 seconds it also limits when they may share those reports with BPD uh to specifically two situations um when an emergency is ongoing or uh when state or federal law requires it outside of that BPS officers may not share student information with BPD through this Reporting System um 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 then litigation ends up being the only option thank you very much thank you next speaker is the next speakers are Michelle Carol Karen mon brck V ciga and Matt Gregor Michelle Carol good evening my name is Michelle Carol and I'm a middle school science teacher at Charlestown High School CHS is an open enrollment High School where 45% of our students are multilingual Learners and 32% of our students have learning disabilities as a science teacher my content ask students to observe the world around them ask questions and think creativ creatively as I truly believe that all students can think and learn science is a 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 two students have an accommodation for a scribe 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 and 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 hardworking educator going above and beyond to provide support and modify learning materials for each and every Learner in their space fortunately for my students CHS is filled with the most loving caring and hardworking Educators and administrators CHS is like a hug of a school it's a community that collaborates vulnerably problem solves and puts it all on the line to show up for kids every day however in spite of all of this we still fall because at the end of the day even the most Talent talented duly licensed educator is still just one person being asked to do multiple jobs at one time IEP man iep's 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 teach e8th grade algebra and meet an IP 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 end the one license model in BPS next speaker is Karen mon bro hello thank you for uh taking the time to hear you speak my name is Karen mon broek um I'm the executive director president of the emerald necklace Conservancy a nonprofit uh that works uh with a myriad of public Partners community members and others to support the Aral necklace Parks including Franklin Park Mar I'm also student of uh the Atlanta Public School System I have tremendous respect for everything I know you uh and we all struggle with every day to provide amazing public facilities to everyone that needs them um and I really appreciate um your commitment to that uh and that's precisely why we're here um the emal necklace Conservancy has been working with a group of amazing community members including Dr G Maguire um 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 $50 million to renovate it and we did provide a letter I hope many of you got to see it where we showed a a whole set of amazing public Renovations of other stadiums that were um able to be done for well under $50 million uh it's definitely an important stadium that needs a tremendous amount of work um but this renovation today uh that is being contemplated uh 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 uh has a lot of limitations many of which we don't fully know of course we have not seen a lease and uh a variety of other things the um 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 um 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 um 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 speaker C ciga my name is kigga I am a BPS parent three grown and two in high schools right now what I want to say is everybody who is against a 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 jumbo trunk 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 BPS kids and for Community use 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 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 BPS may be saddled if that soccer team pulls out the big debt so people need to think about that you do not take green space 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 the damage that will happen to the Jewel of the emerald necklace thank you very much next speaker is Matt thank you for the opportunity to testify Matt craigger I'm proud BPS parent happy to have served on task forces and working groups for this school committee um but here in my capacity as a staff attorney at the mental health legal advisers committee a state agency dedicated to protecting an advant ancing the rights of those with mental health needs We join citizens for Juvenile Justice the Boston education Justice Alliance and the Committee for Public Council services in voicing our grave concern about this policy for information sharing between BPS and BPD 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 has missed the requirements that are present in a Boston city ordinance that limits what BPS 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 BPS 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 had appeared at the last school committee meeting but there's 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 the uh the Educators from the btu the students in the student immigrant movement or the parents who've been concerned about this the whole time 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 BPS student from East Boston high school we don't need to see this sort of thing happen again and we need to get our a rights we get it right in practice thank you we will know now transition to Virtual testimonies please make sure you're signed into Zoom with the same name you used to sign up for public comment and be prepared to unmute yourself and turn on your camera when it's your time turn to testify please raise your virtual hand when I call your name our next speakers are Samir Mendes Pete Fran holds Steve valones and Seth Davis famir Samir Mendes and Pete FR holes are not in the meeting Steve Von please unmute yourself and turn on your camera we can't hear you my name is Steve vitonis I'm a the managing director of USA Track and Field New England Association which is headquartered in Brighton um I've also been a Athletics official at Boston Public Schools track and field meets for over 20 years in indoors and Outdoors and have worked with a number of youth track and field programs through the city in that time I'm speaking in support of the white Stadium reconstruction project it will provide a new facility which student athletes and youth in general with a high quality site for practicing competition one which hasn't existed in the city for many many years the proposed plan will offer increased usage time for BPS and the community in general for use practice and for other sports it'll also provide more opportunities for BPS student athletes to excel at the St city state and National level thank you thank you very much umth Davis Fran Harrington Ted loap Pier Paul laier and Cleo wood are not in the meeting Jean Luis Haim oh you're in person okay um you can go ahead uh hell hello my name's Ted laska and I've been a public Boston Public School track coach since the late 80s uh High School since the mid90s uh I've taken kids over to White Stadium uh we're now like 40 years old which kind of weird uh that the stadium has been substandard for pretty much ever uh 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 uh negotiating the deal with uh the people from the professional soccer and uh building the whole thing what's really important is that you uh make the negotiations public they need to be uh transparent they need to be uh registered they need to be uh 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 here will be gone when that leasee is over and what happens in Boston is that about 10 15 years in all the people that negotiated it 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 at 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 was negotiated and I like what the the people have the 30 seconds okay I like what they've 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 enforcable and and something that we can see and something 20 years from now if somebody decides to change it they can't that's what 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 Sor is Seth Davis oh okay my name is Seth Davis I live in Jamaica plane uh I am a BPS parent of three daughters two of whom play soccer and I'm a direct butter directly across the street from White Stadium um I'm very excited about this project and the potential of the proposed partnership to transform white Stadium into something that both the BPS community and the City of Boston uh can be proud of and excited to visit and use um 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 uh my neighborhood my neighbors myself across multiple public meetings in living rooms and and at the stadium itself um this has been about addressing concerns we have around traffic noise and Crow management because there is going to be an impact to Butters if this project goes forward I hope that this project is fully approved and moves forward and I urge BPS to do this in a way that ensures accountability on the part of the professional soccer team uh to both BPS and to the communities impacted um 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 zoom next speaker the next group of speakers are Jean Lis Haim Mike hman Cheryl Beckman and Jenny Jacobs Jean Lis Haim good evening can you hear me yes we can hear you excellent excellent good evening my name istim Jean Loui I was born in 19 1978 in Roxberry Massachusetts since 2015 I have served as the Citywide head coach of the boys and girls cross country program over the years I've had the privilege of knowing Ted lka and Steve ionis Sherman Hart Tony dooa I have the privilege of taking our Citywide League from dead last to top 25 in 2022 I was honored Coach of the Year division 3 girls for Boston L Academy ironically since 2018 I've been the voice of Scholastic tracker field in the Reggie Lewis and as recently I've done the Boston Marathon as well as New Balance National I'm behind the doors of the vision of what white stadium is I am part of that process so I want to say that the stadium holds a very very special place in my heart in the student athletes that I serve this investment will Empower our athletes it will Empower our community it will bring a world class event to our door step because we've done this already it's called the Boston Marathon the next step to make Boston a world premiere is white stadium and I as a student and a student it is as a coach in the relationship we built with the mayor in the in the soccer team I will fulfill that promise thank you very much good evening thank you next speaker is Mike hman Mike hman dochester beasa the evaluation of Miss Skipper once again demonstrates that the school committee sees the Boston Public Schools differently than the public except for the critical evaluation by Mr cardet Hernandez every other member judged her with most POS mostly positives and labeled her performance as proficient and thus deservant of a big PES beer this summer sent out a survey of the superintendent our Collective judgment is that Miss Skipper has failed our children their caregivers and the residents of Boston when I was younger I enjoyed a TV program called Hogan's Heroes a major character was sain Schultz when confronted with unpleasantness his famous refrain was I see nothing I hear nothing and I would add said he would do nothing that's the Mantra of our unelected school committee at every regular meeting after the superintendent's report chair Robinson reminds you to keep your comments and questions to the report you loyally comply and limit what you could see hear and do your primary job that you have been appointed is not to honestly serve our children their caregivers in the community it is to protect the reputations of the mayor and superintendant and protect the toxic corrupt racist and an ineffective system some spe specifics before I run out of time Miss Skipper has aggressively increased racism and inequities the school committee sees nothing hears nothing and does right from the beginning of her misleadership she fired black and brown central office workers and replace them with those loyal to her you see nothing hear nothing and do nothing Dr Charles granson 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 hear nothing and do nothing I have many more examples on an end with you have judged the superintendent's performance you very much Mr hman nothing nothing is Cheryl Buckman good evening my name is Cheryl Buckman I'm a BPS parent to a sixth grader at the de and doorchester member of fosa 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 day of sixth grade I had the Boston glob here to Shadow 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 two streets over for 10 minutes to go by us on the Main Street missing him Alto together I will quote in his words I am tired of this and it's okay I'll just go in tardy not acceptable words I want to hear from my special need son on what is supposed to be his first day back at school seeing 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 25 minutes late I had also spoke to transportation to inform them of this as he was labeled as a no-show when in reality the bus never arrived and the agent that I had spoke to offered her sincere apology that my child never got his bus as quoted in the Boston Globe on the first two days of school oneir of students got their bus my child fell into this category as we know and imagine other families are going through the same thing or far worse this is unacceptable in any means we all know this is a fixable issue I hope that BPS 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 pakman your time is up next speaker is Jenny Jacobs hello can you hear meell yeah you can start um my name is Jenny Jacobs I teach English um at English high school and I'm a parent of two BPS students um and I live in Jamaica plane and I'll just start my statement now I teach ESL one and Native Spanish literacy to newcomer immigrant students at English high school and I want to emphasize the importance of inclusion done right for our adolescent multilingual Learners inclusion at high school for high school multilingual Learners 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 ELD level three into general education classes known as the desmi 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 Pro 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 um conducted a focus group with eight of our third year multilingual Learners and they had begun to transition into general educ education classes we were we were able to have the students um attend both a mix of BPS SCI classes and deci CL D seii classes 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 but 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 um reduce sizes adopt a co- teing model and hire bilingual Paras thank you very much thank you next group of speakers are Reverend Minard col pepper Fred vline Brad Mahoney Sarah Freeman and Alan Lipkin Mr Co pepper good evening good evening and thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight I agree with Jan Maguire that Franklin Park is our park I believe that this proposal is also about the future generation uh I was born boston attended Boston English High School uh grew up playing in white Stadium uh lived across the street my uh grandfather and grandmother live on SE 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 investment by the Boston Unity pyo Partners into our community we 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 sportswise but also financially 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 surround the Franklin Park I am 100% in support of the stadium of the soccer team and of the expansion of Franklin Park thank you for giving me time to talk tonight Reverend Minard C pepper thank you very much next speaker is Fred Vine hello um you please turn on all right can you hear me now yes thank you all right thank you I'm I'd like to follow on Reverend Co peppers remarks uh for two re I'd like to talk both about the school the benefit to the children and to the park itself um the children um this new plan extends operation seven days a week uh from uh it goes from 8 o'clock till 10 o'clock p.m. except for the days of professional soccer um it gives a new track which is world class eight Lanes uh track and field will become enabled in a way it's 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 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 I spent two years cleaning up the entrance to Williams gate with my neighbors 32 meetings that was 10 years ago and the park has just improved since there this new design also creates a Grove It's a Wonderful design fitting homestead's principles and includes a Grove where there can be concessions and there used to be a refractory a called ref in in uh Franklin Park where where student where people could work and provide refreshments and what this is is it 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 as just adding another element to the park to make it wonderful and I'm fully in support of the white Stadium uh thank you thank you very much rad Mahoney and Sarah Sarah Freeman are not in the meeting next speaker is Alan Lipkin Alan Lipkin please accept the prompt good evening can you hear me okay yes we can hear you my name is alen lipin uh I'm an attorney and I represent Jean Maguire other individuals who live in the area of Franklin Park uh as well as Emerald necklace Conservancy in the litigation seeking to uh oppose the white fund Stadium it violates article 97 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 public benefit uh the court did in March deny my clients's a request for a preliminary injunction seeking to Halt this project until there could be a trial on the merits or a 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-done stadium or trying to unwind this deal the soccer investors can go on to another venue form another entity and pursue whatever they're trying to pursue here in another location uh we are now proceeding with Discovery we're Gathering our facts and in my view there's a very strong possibility that we're going to Prevail and that this de is going to be found violation of article 97 you're taking a tremendous risk the city's 2023 to 2029 open space plan shows that this is protected article 97 property uh as of all the um open space plans 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 clients favor and hold that this project violates article 97 and the underlying trust I 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 great thank you um we're just going to take a five minute recess um before we do come back to do our the rest of our business thank you stretch e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay um just wanted to let you all know that we are going to table um our first action item tonight oops sorry and we're going to table the first action item tonight which was the policy revision recommendation for the student information policy until the next um meeting to ensure that we've addressed the concerns that we just heard tonight so we're going to um hold on the policy so our um 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 All wonderful thank you chair uh just as a reminder the school naming policy this was passed by the school committee in 1998 uh the naming policy needs to be updated so that it aligns with the city of Boston's updated building naming policy our proposed revisions also clarify the committee engagement process and and delineate naming decisions that require a school committee vote and decisions that can be approved by the superintendent uh Dr deener is also here tonight to answer any questions and with that Tre I'll turn it back to you thank you does anyone have any questions or concerns no okay thank you um 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 is there any discussion or objection to the motion Miss provix will you please call the role thank you Dr alkins Mr card Hernandez yes Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss palanco Garcia yes Mr Tran yes Mr Neil Miss Robinson yes the motion is approved un thank you our 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 our wonderful chair thank you um so last week the city's chief of operations Dion Irish who I see here in bpsc director of Athletics Avery esdale provided 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 a 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 facili department to move forward with the Demolition of part of the existing Stadium this fall white Stadium as we all know has been in disrepair for far too long and renovation plans include new community space strength training locker rooms and physical therapy spaces our student athletes deserve to have access to a modern multi-service 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 BPS students Mike Firestone the mayor's chief of policy and strategic planning is here as is Avery asdale who is our senior director of BPS Athletics uh and they're here to answer any followup questions with that Chief uh chair I'll turn it back to you okay any questions concerns all right I guess it's just worth saying one I think this is incredibly exciting and I'm sort of heartened to the what you shared with me just around your experience with with the stadium um 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're working hard to make sure BPS students have access to the stadium and are able to use it and that the agreement is is good for everyone involved yes you no okay 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 so move thank you is there a second thank you is there any discussion or objection to the motion hearing not um Excuse Me Miss parix will you please call the role Dr alkins Mr K hernandz yes Miss Lima Barbosa yes Miss poano Garcia yes Mr Tran yes Mr Miss Robinson yes the motion is approved unanimously great thank you all and now we will now return to public comment Miss parex thank you [Music] um the next group of speakers is are shinga he Agnes who Lyn Q Christine Ma and Wan Shen they all need um support for with cantones Perry can you please support us Shing is not in the meeting Agnes ages is [Music] um please join please accept the prompt anus oh hi um my name is Agnes Hall and I'm a BPS parent and a school side council at Josiah Quincy Elementary School I wanted to express that I'm fully called the SDI program is um is 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 SEI program children is our future and assess we need the SEI program to support our children to learn and grow without the support our children may feel scared frustrated and even depressed in school every trial should have a happy childhood memory not a nightmare JQ yes is located in Chinatown and Chinatown is a Chinese community so I hope we can keep our traditional culture and hope that having this seci program can benefit our community and other neighborhood I hope we can maintain the SEI program and continue to be successful so please don't take away our valuable resources please help our children to learn and grow thank you thank you very much Lynn and Christina not in the meeting one hen would you please ask onean to accept the prompt it's not accepting the prompt so I think we will continue with our next speaker yeah so our next speaker is Greg Peterson he's not in the meeting either Rodney Singleton he's not in the meeting either no next speaker is Rodney m pñ you can start we can't hear you yeah mighta we can't hear you let's try with the next speaker Joanne Matthews Joan Matthews Joan Matthews is not in the meeting Charlene Vu he not in the meeting either quen Lee friendly please accept the prompt can you hear me right yeah we can hear you okay so good evening I'm Queen Le um I'm a parents of to BBS student I would like for you all to be aware of a serious violation of safety and compliance that happened in my child School yesterdays this can happen to your children too if we don't do anything about it yesterday at 9:36 a.m. the school B dropped my daughter off at school at 2: p.m. we communicated with her teacher that we would come to pick up our daughter her teacher text back that my daughter did not come to school it mean my three and a half years old went missing from her class for 4 and a half hour lady and gentlemen each 4 and a half hour my child went missing without anyone in school noticing nobody luckily the school Personnel were able to fire her and let us know when we were driving to the school in about 20 minutes this unfortunate accident presents an urgent issue of safety and compliance at our child school we want you all to be aware of this we want to be assured that the negligent to attendance policy is not acceptable and cannot happen again through our PBS system in any school to any kids any families BBS cannot set go that achievable nor having Mak s if the fundamental right of children being safe in school be violated thank you thank you very much next speaker is Sky Ortiz he me move from the light sorry how are you thank you can I start it's good okay ready okay so um my name is Sky Ortiz um the reason for this public comment um is for the intention of seeking a proper Outlet of Aid in due fact that the Boston school committee is the BPS district repository um to begin I want to start by stating that according to Mass General laws chapter 761 the board of education is designated to establish the minimum age requirement for School attendance and in that for the past 123 years since 1901 be a Supreme Judicial Court in Alber birth the inhabitants of Town of Chester citation 180 Mass 26 1 NE 263 the September child of seven is the minimum age with the above legality explained I am now clear in stating that in May 2022 my three children ages six five and three all under the legal age required to attend school removed to identified separated fossil homes for two um kids for 13 months and one kid for 12 months for false if you pil filings for punctuality concerns as abuse and neglect um the fact that these circumstances have been further extended as unfathomable but active today marks the 11th month for a BPS misuse of public position due to a conflict of interest through ongoing vindictive Communications with the Department of Children and Families about my three children's punctuality there and to without um further providing exact details on this matter besides in that I make this next set Jud at the direct result of such set actions have caused my three children to have been displaced again for the past seven weeks in foster homes although for punctuality concerns through communication from BPS Department that summertime um during the summertime um I am therefore ask in BPS to cly um the Boston school committee directly each of the members your time is up thank you our next uh we are going now to public comments on reports next speaker Gan McGuire okay Karen mon bradic no Karen you're not speaking you signed up on public comments great thank you uh hi Karen mon broek um president of the emerald necklace Conservancy um I do want to uh mention a couple of things that I think are involved in the risk that uh unfortunately I think that this plan um is uh is before you uh people are asking I think really important question questions about um the terms of the lease and the agreement uh and the the obligations uh right now the way that we understand the lease and again no one none of us have seen the precise terms um the uh the soccer investors as was was talked about last week could leave after 10 years and then there is essentially $100 million more Stadium which is now the the maintenance obligation of the Boston Public Schools so that is you know a uh a significant uh concern that that people have brought up and um the other major outstanding issue is that as I noted in the letter that we sent um 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 it's owned by the George Robert Wright trust it's actually not owned by the city of Boston school department uh the city believes that there is another interpretation but that is those are the facts uh the city actually uh sold it to the George Robert White Trust for for money $20,000 a long time ago uh now that area including uh acres of land around the stadium uh where 70 trees now sit that may be um taken down uh that area is not actually owned by the the school department so it is complex to say the least um that uh that that and this is why uh this matter is unfortunately in litigation um because the the actual right of negotiating a lease when you don't actually own the property property is uh problematic to say the least and so the challenge is that uh potentially what would be happening is a stadium would be demolish this fall uh and not available for your students actually because of some of the the legal questions here and what instead we would certainly like to see is a as a renovation with the existing funds thank you next speaker is Miss caliga is she going to speak uh no okay thank you Alan Lipkin is not in the meeting Greg Peterson is not in the meeting Ro Singleton please turn on your camera hello can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you my name is Rod Singleton I've lived in Boston for now 63 years I was born and raised in Roxbury I am part of the Franklin Park Defenders lawsuit um I'm just old enough to remember busing and find it ironic that I'm addressing the school committee um I remember when uh busing was a big deal and the reasons for busing had to do with separate in equality separate inequality we would never privatize the Boston Common or the public garden yet these are more these are wider more more affluent neighborhoods of Boston but we do this kind of privatization here in neighborhoods of color this is a seminal busting moment and you know I I I I can only uh see it's obvious you 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 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 uh next speaker is we're going to try my T again hello hello you can hear you hi I'm sorry you can hear me so hi everyone my name is m Peña I am here give me one second I'm so sorry about that hell little superintendent school committee thank you so much for the opportunity of letting me speak tonight I am here and um to share my support with Up Academy and appreciate it for the partnership that I have with uh bus and public schools I am a proud staff member for Up Academy d dester I had two young ones that graduated from Up Academy Dorchester my youngest one just graduated Benway high school as the Salud dictorian for the school and she is as a freshman year at tubs University at the moment um my job my job at up is in the operations team I leave the family engagement the attendance team and also the high school choice coordinator um I this is a I do this job for the wonderful students that we have at Up Academy Dorchester I take my job very serious as doing this because as myself I didn't get to complete um high school as I didn't get the support that I had when I was in school but it with the opportunity and support that I get from Up Academy staff I was able to complete my high school in 2020 and I am on my journey now with college and continue to take college classes um I have been uh working with UPAC academy one of the founders since 2013 and I have been in the Marshall building since uh it's going to be 15 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 families help the network of up and I know that up we also help succeed this uh 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 Miss P share that conclusion clud a public testimony right thank you um new business okay that concludes our business for this evening our next hybrid school committee meeting will take place in person on Wednesday September 25th at 6m here at the balding building um is there a motion second is there a second is there any discussion objection 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 thank you