Boston School Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee. I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of The United States Of America and to the republic from which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with

liberty and justice for all.

I want to welcome everyone who is joining us in tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoom. I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptops or other devices so it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting. Thank you for your cooperation. Tonight's meeting documents are posted on the committee's webpage, bostonpublicschools.org/schoolcommittee under the April 15 meeting link. For those joining us in person, you can access the meeting documents by scanning the QR code that's posted by the doors.

The meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BPS languages. Any translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they

are

finalized. The meeting will be rebroadcast on Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's webpage and on YouTube. The committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and American Sign Language. 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 please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. We'll begin the meeting with the approval of minutes. I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the March 25 meeting. Is there a motion?

So

moved. 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's report. I present to you our superintendent, Mary Skipper.

So good evening and thank you, chair Robinson, and good evening to our school committee members and to our public. It's wonderful to see everybody in person. We have a packed agenda, so I'm just gonna take a few minutes to share an announcement from our BPS Office of College Career and Life Readiness and some recent bright spots before we get into the presentations. First, the BPS Office of College Career and Life Readiness, which we call CCLR, invites grade 12 students, parents and caregivers to join a support session on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or what we call FAFSA, and the Massachusetts Alternative Financial Aid Application, or what we call MAFSA, on Wednesday, April 22 from 08:30 a. M.

Until two p. M. Here at the Bowling Building. The parents of twelfth graders will receive an electronic communication from us on Thursday, tomorrow, April sixteenth with local and statewide resources as well as information on school counselors and partners available at their home school for support. The Massachusetts financial aid priority deadline is May 1, which maximizes students' eligibility for state aid for those entering colleges in the 2026.

Completing the FAFSA or MASFA by this date is very important and a key step for students in terms of accessing grants, scholarships, tuition free opportunities, and other supports. Please email the Office of College Career and Life Readiness at cclrobostonpublicschools dot org with any questions. Few bright spots. So I'm proud to share the winners of this year's Aspen Challenge. You may remember that last year, BPS began its participation in this two year national education program that challenges high school students to design solutions to social justice issues.

This year, teams of eight students from 13 BPS schools, as well as students from Lawrence High and Somerville High, spent ten weeks developing their ideas, including how to address food insecurity, make resources available to immigrant communities, address the connection between academics and mental health, create more green space for youth, and connect students to work training opportunities. Those ideas were presented to a panel of judges composed of community leaders, educators and experts at the Solution Showcase last week. Thank you, Chair Robinson, for being there to cheer our students on. The grand prize winners are headed to the annual Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado in June, where they

will have the opportunity to learn from global leaders confronting the

most pressing issues of our time. So the drum roll. Congratulations to Boston International Newcomers Academy or BINCA and Tech Boston Academy on this well deserved honor. Additional awards included Brighton High School for originality, another course to college for collaboration, Charlestown High School for community engagement, and New Mission High School was honored with the People's Choice Award. Lawrence High School was also recognized with the Resilience Award.

For me as superintendent, you know, just to be able to see the talent, the creativity of our young people, I was so impressed with the quality of the projects and just the excitement and enthusiasm of the students. And I told them the first day when the competition kicked off, it would be a life changing event if they put hard work into it. And then in talking with young people the day that before they knew who was going to Denver, they all sort of agreed it was, in fact, a life changing event. I couldn't have been more proud of them, as I know chair was. And so many different people from the city and the district came to cheer them on.

Similarly, for the two teams that will go on to Colorado, we'll be doing the same. I'm just really thankful to the Bezos Foundation and the Aspen Institute for giving our students, you know, such a wonderful opportunity these last two years. And we're working very hard right now to figure out how that Aspen Challenge model will continue in our city in the years to come. Red Sox. So last week, I joined Meowu, the Sarah Greenwood dual language school community and several special guests for the annual Red Sox Hat Day.

This marks this is sort of a tradition. It marks the arrival of a spring and to the start of the baseball season. And you can see from some of these photos just the joy, the excitement that happens in this event. I think Wally and Tess are definitely the celebrities at the event. The kids love them.

And one of the highlights was seeing all of the kids find out that they were getting tickets to a Red Sox game in the future. They literally just jumped with joy. Thank you to chair Robinson and member Peralta for helping to dis re to distribute the Red Sox hats to the students. Also, thanks to our mayor for making all of this happen for us, to Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy, Red Sox partner and foundation board member, Linda Henry, and really just the whole organization of the Red Sox. They show up for our kids always.

And on this particular day, it's just one of our best times with Wally and Tessie. In all, the Red Sox donated 40,000 hats across the BPS to all of our schools, our k eight schools. And we're just incredibly grateful to them and to JetBlue who also was a sponsor for making that day such a wonderful day across our district. Lastly, I was honored to attend the Dever Elementary School's recent digitizing day. This was a special opportunity for the school community to come together to contribute to an online archive that will hold many of the school's memories as their last year comes to a close.

I wanna thank members Polanco Garcia and member Torres for coming as well, and really uplifting the community. The attendees contributed photos, apparel, notes, recorded interviews. These will all be uploaded to a new collection that's in collaboration with UMass Boston's Healy Library University archives and special collections. The Deborah has truly been a cornerstone of the Columbia Point community for nearly seventy years. The event reflected the connection the the different kinds of connections and memories that have just been created across so many different people.

It was incredibly meaningful to see and hear from former students and families and staff members who gathered to share stories and really celebrate what the school's meant to them. By preserving these memories, we're honoring the legacy of the Devor, and we're ensuring that its impact continues to be felt for years to come. As part of the event, a commemorative City Of Boston street sign was unveiled, the Dever School Drive, all roads lead through the Dever. This was installed to honor that legacy of the Dever's decades long impact to the community. I also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to those who came out to share memories and preserve and make available for the Devers Elementary's legacy for future generations, especially project manager, Megan Schroeder, parent leader, Cheryl Buckman, and principal, Margaret Reardon.

Going forward, the BPS Capital team will continue working with our merging and closing school communities to determine the best way to celebrate and honor them. Each school community is different and many have their own ideas of how to commemorate their story and their history. And just huge applause for the Deborah for really really expressing to us the importance of this piece of closure for the community so that we can then take it and be able to build this set of closure for the other communities as they go through closures and mergers. Later this spring, we'll share an update with the committee on where students from the closing schools are going next year and report on the progress of the long term facilities plan implementation. So with that chair, many, many bright spots wanted to call out a few, but, I will turn it back over to you.

Thank you, superintendent. I'll now open the floor for questions and discussion. Please remember our norm is five minutes per person per member per round not including district responses and keep questions related to the superintendent's report. Other topics can be raised during new business. BPS staff please keep responses brief and speak slowly to support our interpreters. Since I know this is your first in person meeting, I'll just tell you what I usually do. I usually will look to my left and ask for people on this side if they have something to say and then go that way so we're not doing a

zigzag. Okay.

Do you

have any? No. Do you have any? No.

Have a for you.

I've got a question. No, what question? Well,

I do. Well, a couple I guess I can share an announcement for myself. I had the privilege to attend the National School Board Association Conference in San Antonio with Jake Lacey from our facilities management department. BPS was receiving the Magna Award for its work on the installation of its internal air quality monitors and project has been in the work since 2014. So I think being recognized nationally for the work is something that is just a testament to what these investments very early on, what they yield and particularly the data dashboard that was created as a result of that.

And so being able for families to check that dashboard to look at what the air quality is. But also how those monitors were able to inform what are the types of renovations and upgrades that each of our buildings need. I learned a little bit more. I mean not just that our average building age goes all the way back to 1942, but of course we still have some buildings that were built in the eighteen hundred's. So, that's just a testament to how much these buildings need upkeep and investment.

And so it was good to be recognized as a district and it was also good to hear from peers from across the country just about some of their challenges that they're experiencing and how they're addressing some of them. Just a shout out to Jake for attending and the entire team. Catherine Walsh, like her team as well. And I did have a question. So you mentioned at the end of your report around hearing an update around where students are going. Is it possible to get also an update around how our faculty and staff are sort of faring as well?

Absolutely, we'll make sure that that's part of it.

I'm pretty sure we're going to hear later today later today around just some shifting in the district around particularly our social workers. And thinking really about one, those that may not have permanent status but have been in contract positions. Are they going to be offered permanent status? And, you know, our social workers when we start talking about all the issues, right, in the district chronic absenteeism from that to academic outcomes. Like our social workers are a critical part of that. So, hopefully we're able to get some of your thoughts on that.

Absolutely. It

was great to hear about the Aspen challenge and the value of that question

think, is,

the

sort of portfolio component, thinking about the social impact that this has. It could be something that could be replicated at at the district level outside of the national con context if it aligns well to anything that they put online.

Yeah. No, I think this is a great point. And I think as the graduation recommendations come out at the state level, the idea of capstone is a critical one. This is a mini stone in that it was the 10. But certainly, like I know at Tech Boston, though they did not win last year, they undertook a housing initiative for housing instability.

And that team stayed together as seniors. And they actually made it a year long project where they just launched their own nonprofit. So I think the agency that it teaches our young people, you can do a lot. And so right now we're talking with several partners about how to be able, now that we know what to do, how to be able to take that and continue to build that challenge into the fabric of BPS. And to your point, Member Skerritt, like how to use that as a springboard for bigger things when it comes to our high school students.

That's great. I also just want to comment on the Aspen Challenge because you know I'm a big fan And of what I saw in that room that morning were kids from 15 high schools, very diverse kids. These were not just the best and the brightest. Everybody was there. And not only were their projects projects incredible incredible in in terms terms of of these these being being clearly examples of strong student voice and efficacy, but all the work that they put into it, how they supported each other.

I mean we had what, 200 kids from every, you know from 15 different schools across the city. There was nobody fighting. They were not you know posturing against each other. There was more collaboration that I've seen in a long time. They were clearly interested in the projects that each other had done.

And I'm hoping that there will be a way that we can share some of that good news here. Our media is often interested in what's not working, but those projects and those student voices, as well as the people that supported them are just prime examples of what students can do when the learning is meaningful to them and they have the support to actually make the actions happen.

That's

right. And I was extremely proud that our students embraced Summerville High and Lawrence High students who they didn't formally know, and they weren't part of the fabric of the city. And yet you'd never know that with how they embraced them and worked with them and cheered each other on. And that's where when we lay the table well for students, you get great results. And so that's a kudos to all the coaches, the staff. Ian Clark is here who just does tremendous work in lifting this up. And so, yeah. So I think there's a lot to build on in this. And we just thank you for your continued support chair.

Thank you. Thank you all I will now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent? Hearing none the superintendent's report is approved. We will continue with a brief report on the Massachusetts School Building Authority, MSBA, Core Program twenty twenty six Statement of Interest for the Melvin H. King South End Academy. Due to MSBA's April 17 deadline, the presentation and vote will take place tonight. Let's aim to keep the presentation within ten minutes. I'll now turn it over to the superintendent.

Wonderful. Thank you, chair. So I'm pleased to share that we plan to submit a statement of interest or an SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authorities 2026 core program for the renovation of Academy. As a reminder, the MSBA is a state agency that offers competitive grants to municipalities to support school construction and renovation projects. The core program supports renovations, additions, and new school construction.

The application will be submitted in collaboration with our partners in the city's public facilities department and the mayor's office. This afternoon, the Boston City Council voted to approve the application following a hearing of the council's Ways and Means Committee earlier in the day. The next step in the process is the approval of this body. We are very excited about this opportunity to provide Melvin H. King Southend Academy students with a state of the art therapeutic school building that is designed to meet their academic, social emotional and mental health needs.

This will bring the district another step closer to our long term goal of giving our students with different abilities the supports they need and the high quality educational experience they deserve. At this time, I'll turn the meeting over to our BPS Chief of Capital Planning, Del Stanislaus and Assistant Superintendent, Doctor. Harold Miller, Jr, for the presentation. And then later this evening, we'll ask the committee for its support of this application. I would just like to say personally, I am over the moon on this particular project.

It is so long due to our community community and our students. And I just wanna thank all those that have supported it thus far and would ask the committee's support tonight. Del, Harold.

Thank you, superintendent. Good evening chair and members of the school committee. I am very excited to be joined here tonight with Doctor. Howard Miller to present the core application for Melvin H. King South End Academy.

As the superintendent shared, the MSBA is a state authority that funds public school construction and renovation across Massachusetts through a 1p of sales tax supported reimbursement program. It has two programs, the core program for major school construction Boston has made an effort to increase their participation in the MSBA programs and we are incredibly grateful for their partnership. The MSBA, City of Boston, and Boston Public Schools have collaborated on 57 program projects, sorry, over the years. Seven core projects, the Dearborn, BAA, JQS, and most recently, the Carter are completed. One school, the Shaw Taylor is finishing design selection.

The Root Batson Academy will begin procuring an owner's project manager in May. Madison Park will be starting the eligibility period on July 1. Under the accelerated repair program led by our operations division, 34 projects have completed construction. One is currently in construction and seven are in design slated for 2027 construction and eight projects will be starting design this summer. These collaborative efforts with the MSBA reflect $696,000,000 in construction costs with just over $263,000,000 in reimbursement coming back to the City Of Boston.

We are excited to submit the statement of interest to the m s b a twenty twenty six core program for the Melvin h king Southend Academy. If we are accepted into the program this year, the school will be on a path towards a significant capital investment in the future. I'll now pass it on to Doctor. Harold Miller.

Hello everyone, superintendent, chair, and school committee members. It's a great honor to be here to discuss not only the building project, but just a little bit about the Melvin h King. So the Melvin h King Southern Academy is a specialized public day school serving students with diverse strengths and complex needs. As a special education program, Melvin h King Southland Academy supports students from across the city who have not been well served in traditional settings. As the district has expanded inclusive practices and increased therapeutic supports in traditional schools, enrollment has declined.

Overall enrollment has increased from approximately 300 students in 2020 to 160 in 2023 and eighty students in 2025. After COVID, the rollout of the inclusive education plan and the redesign of entry and exit criteria to better align the least restrictive environment have also contributed to this decline. In 2024, superintendent Skipper established a moratorium on new placements to initiate a comprehensive reset and restructure of the school's leadership, staff and support model. For school year 2627, enrollment is projected at approximately 65 students. Melvin h King Southland Academy is now in an active rebuilding phase grounded in the Melvin h King way, asking ourselves, what would Melvin h King do?

And our core values, safety, respect, responsibility, perseverance, and kindness, and a clear commitment to equity driven transformation. Through extensive engagement with school and district community members, five strategic goals and priorities have been identified. One being high quality therapeutic and academic programming. Second, operational systems alignment, external collaboration and partnerships especially with inter agent inter agency collaboration and alignment, physical plant improvements, and clear entry and exit protocols. This work will be supported by an August institute to align all staff along with tiered home and community visits prior to the start of the school year.

Looking ahead, Melvin h King Southland Academy is transitioning to a five through twelfth grade model with long term enrollment projected at approximately a 100 students. And, I'll pass it back to chief status loss.

Thank you. For context, the school was previously split across three buildings, all of which are amount amongst the lowest quality facilities in the district according to the district wide facilities condition assessment. In school year 2526, the school vacated the Saint Mary's space and in school year 2627, the Melvin h King South End Academy will vacate the Peterborough building and consolidate into into one building on Waranaft in the South End. If this project advances into the eligibility phase, the MSBA will evaluate the Waranaft site along with other potential locations. The current facility was not designed to be a therapeutic school and it is in poor condition.

According to our facilities condition assessment, across every domain the building at Warren Ave fails, falls sorry, well below the district's average. We are confident in this application to invest in this community. I'm going to be honest, the MSBA core projects and all construction projects take time. If we are accepted into this program, there are years of planning and design work with the school community. Construction likely would not begin until 2031 per the timeline for the MSBA projects.

As with all of our MSBA core projects, this is a multigenerational investment and our facilities and operation teams will continue to make all necessary upgrades to maintain a safe, well functioning learning space for students in the meantime. For next steps on this application, we are asking for your vote tonight. The statement of interest is due this Friday, April 17 and we've been working closely with the school community to prepare it. We expect to hear about advancement at the 2026, and we'll keep you updated. This concludes our presentation, and I'll now pass it back to the chair.

Thank you. I'll now open it up to questions and comments from the committee.

First of all, thank you so much for the presentation. And I just have a quick question. Since the school serves students with complex academic and social emotional needs, how will students be involved in like the designing or giving feedback of on the new facility and programs?

Thank you for that question. As part of the MSBA design process, the the when we select a design team for the MSBA, it includes a team that focuses on engaging the community. As part of that engagement work, students, teachers, community, members of the Melvin H. King community will be engaged as part of that process. So there's a dedicated team that leads the engagement.

All right. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, sure. Hi. Assuming that everything goes as planned MSBA and approved our project. The construction will start in 2031?

Yes, 2031.

How come it takes that long from now is 2026? So the process of getting paper and everything takes about five years?

Yes. So we currently have three other projects in the MSP pipeline. So currently we have the Shaw Taylor that's heading into design. We have the Ruth Vatson and also Madison Park. And with that we will go into the eligibility period for the MSBA if selected at the end of the year.

So usually we'll hear back from the MSBA in December. So that takes a couple of months and it takes about sort of closer to another year to move through the eligibility period. And then there's procurement timelines to procure an owners project manager. And once an owners project manager is on board, it takes like another it's like another like long timeline to procure a designer to go through the process. It's quite an extensive process.

And when we're going into design, we the engagement piece is really extensive, engaging students and families and staff because a part of this is like we wanna do it right. We're building a building that will be in our community for generations to come.

Yeah. So while the construction wouldn't happen until then, there's many other parts that of engagement with the community, building out their educate, our educational vision for it. All of so the the community will be very much involved in all of that over the three years leading up to when construction actually happens.

Just another dumb question from me. Given the project of this size and it takes a while to put together the construction and to complete it. During that time, is there any in kind from us or is that the money comes directly from MSBA?

Sorry, do you mind repeating the question?

What I'm asking is the process is pretty lengthy. And there are steps along the line. Final budget for construction, will it be 100% from MSBA or is there

No. No.

Okay.

No. MSBA does not cover 100% of the cost. When we hear back from the MSBA in December if we're moving through the eligibility period, we'll go through we'll go to the City Council to request the first phase, which is a smaller amount of money to cover like costs through the eligibility period. And we'll go back to the city council a second time. But this is the MSBA and Brian McLaughlin is here.

He can share the percentage in which we are reimbursed by the MSBA on projects. So it's not a they don't fully cover the cost. There is a certain percentage that the city is like reimbursed on all of the MSBA projects.

Brian can you come up to the mic just because the people at home need

The calculation rate for the MSBA projects are calculated on an annual basis. For 2025 the reimbursement rate will be just over 61%. 61%. But by the time we enter into the feasibility study agreement with the MSBA, it may change. They usually don't fluctuate that much. So it will be probably around 60% of eligible costs of the project.

So the changes may be increased in terms of reimbursement or is there a likelihood of that being somehow decreased?

Yeah, it will likely be right around that 60% over the past several years. We've seen it fluctuate from high 50s to the low 60s. So it's usually right around that.

I see. And of course we have budget for that.

So this will come out of capital dollars. But again, with capital, because we have three large projects that are over the course of the next five years, this is a little bit more forward looking. But in order to be considered, we have to enter eligibility now.

Thank you.

This might be too premature as we're not talking about breaking ground until 2031. But has there been any consideration around the particular staffing model that might exist like at this school?

So Doctor. Miller and the staff leadership at Mel h Melvin h King has been doing a lot of work around this as part of the rebuild. Harold, do you wanna speak to that?

Yes. What I'll just say is that right now with the student population decreasing we have had cuts but we were at a three to one ratio with staffing. We're at a one to one ratio right now so we still do have enough staffing to support the project to 65 students. I could break it down by teachers. I mean we have a lot of different roles but staffing wise we're in a good place.

They've come up with a true therapeutic design so that it's teams of teachers that are supporting and grade appropriate. So instead of stretching across a second or first grade to graduation, they're really focusing on grade appropriate five through 12 Yeah. Mhmm. Particularly with the high school component of building up the things that high schoolers want Right. And need. Because for too for too long, we've asked students with the highest level of need to trade off getting that need fulfilled for sacrificing these other things, and we cannot do that anymore.

Right. And and I would also just add that aligning to MassCore and making sure that we have We offer Spanish classes. We offer instructional technology. We offer cosmetology. Art and just making sure that students have a full experience.

I think that connects well to one of my questions, which was around the ultimate enrollment goal. I think, Doctor. Miller, you said that for the longer term, it's at 100 students. And I'm curious whether that's because of the narrowing of focus to grades five through 12, whether that's because we're coming down to a single site, or whether that's actually the full need of the student fit for that level of therapeutic care. Just transparently having a a building that's going to receive that level of investment and will have the academic program to match. I think the natural question is why not more than a 100 if it serves the students well. And so I'm just curious on where that number comes from.

Well obviously we've had a lot of data over years where we're looking at enrollment patterns as well as with our inclusive education plan. Schools are building capacity to you know keep students and not just move them. And then at the same time we're looking at the Melvin H King as a sort of a bridge in a way that when a student comes to Melvin King if they're referred to Melvin King one what is the support that the school needs to refer a student. How are we transitioning a student. But also how are we making sure that students don't just stay at the Mel King and they can actually go back to a traditional setting.

So that is a shift as we know for many years students would go and too many would just stay for many years and we're trying to look at if a student does enter how long does that need to be and using the expertise of the sending school the expertise of our current staff to really look at a lot of data to determine how long a student needs to stay.

Yeah. And I also I think that doctor Miller and principal O'Shea have done a really good job with staff of establishing clear entrance criteria, which I don't think was in place. And so what you actually had were students being assigned to a more restrictive setting than they needed. This is the most restrictive setting we have in the sense of much like the Carter, it is a particular profile of student that needs the therapeutic component. And so this would be a step even beyond a self contained program.

We just need to make sure that students are appropriate for that setting. And to Doctor. Miller's point, that we are building up for students and stabilizing students and giving them the skills and support so that they can reenter a less restrictive environment with the right supports. So that's much different than what has happened over history with Melvin H. King's school. And so the 100 is a fluid number, right? Not the goal that, like other schools, you fill at 100 and you keep the 100. The 100 students today are going to look different than the 100 students next year, they're gonna be different kids.

That said, are is the plan to still ensure that it's a diploma granting institution?

Yes. Absolutely.

Yes.

And with, you know, the narrower criteria, are you imagining potential out of district placements as well as a therapeutic day school? I mean, meaning receiving from other districts?

Yes. Potentially. So Melvin H. King always had a history of when a student would come from another district or come from another district school, if the IEP were appropriate and the service is needed, they would they would be able to attend Melvin H. King to get those needs met. That would continue. I think the the main point that doctor Miller made is that the goal here is mass core for our students at Melvin H. King going forward. And so that is the academic and the rigor of the academic will be there, but with therapeutic support. That is the goal.

So whether a student is there freshman year or sophomore year and they're attaining their credits and then going back into another high school, that student can take those mass core eligible credits with them. My

last question was just where this falls kind of in the larger long term facilities planning in terms of how was Melvin h King South End Academy going to be modernized and addressed without MSBA or was the plan always for MSBA, but the opportunity has come earlier than expected? Just where does this fall in our larger view of of plans for for schools across the district?

So so on the for the Melvin H King and where it falls into sort of like the broader investments across like capital. So there is as I think everyone probably knows, there's like a list of schools, right, that we have or made commitment to, so the mayor, superintendent has made sort of like capital commitment to. And one of the things that our team does year over year, as we're looking at mergers and closures, right, we do sort of like a comprehensive look across all of our schools, high schools, elementary schools where we can do either larger investments or smaller investments. Melvin H. King is one of the schools back in 2022 where a commitment was made for a new building for that school community.

Some vision and work started then and it ended at vision and work. And so this is like a next step forward in the process. I think all of the schools that we have moved forward with some sort of vision and work and or commitment was made to communities. And I think one of the things that was really essential before we could move forward with any of that work, we had to do the facilities condition assessment to understand buildings and we had to have a long term facilities plan and also look at data to think through how are we sort of like doing some right sizing work in the district and where we should actually be investing year over year. So this is some of the work that our team has been doing.

Thank you for your presentation. I'm very excited to see this coming before us and not only just about the building itself which as you said going back to 2022 there was a promise. But the fact that this time as we move forward we're taking a strong look at the overall programming to make sure that the programming for this group of students is what it needs to be. Many people have have said that the school has just been a landing place disproportionately for black and brown young men. And that the fact that we are going from 300 to 80 to 65 to 100 means that we are taking a look at these young people as individuals and looking across our district to create the better kinds of opportunities for them.

So, looking forward to seeing what this school can become as a model for us as we think about some of our most vulnerable students in terms of creating a wide range of opportunities that they can get their needs met. Thank you and we look forward to taking action on this later this evening.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you team.

Thank you.

So we will move on to general public comment. Miss Parvax?

Thank you chair. The public comment period is an opportunity for individuals to address the school committee on school related issues. Questions on specific school matters are referred to the superintendent. Questions on policy matters may be discussed by the committee later. The meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to one hour. After one hour, anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting. We have 20 speakers this evening. Each person will have two minutes to speak, and I would remind you when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please feel free to email your comments for distribution to the committee. Speakers may not reassign their time to others.

The time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time. 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 where you live before you begin. Please sign in on Zoom using the name you registered with for public comment and be ready to unmute and turn on your camera when it's your turn to speak.

Please raise your virtual hand when I call your name. And to support interpretation, please speak slowly and clearly. We will start with our in person speakers. Our first speakers are John Mudd, Julianne Lirani, Julia Morales, and Betsy Santana. John Mudd?

Good evening. My name is John Mudd. I'm a resident of Cambridge and long time education advocate in Boston. The 2026 opportunity and achievement gap policy of the opportunity and achievement gap task force that will be presented to you later tonight is often eloquent, thoughtful and thorough. I strongly urge the school committee to adopt it as the official policy of BPS.

Most important, continues the commitment to the elimination of opportunity and achievement gaps as the North Star priority for the district and makes clear that it will remain a core and urgent priority for the district regardless of challenges, changes excuse me in leadership. It ensures that the OAG task force will serve as the external advisory board of the school committee. It states the superintendent will appoint a senior leader reporting directly to the superintendent with authority to coordinate and monitor all aspects of the policy. It reaffirms the racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity of teachers paraprofessionals shall reflect the diversity of the students and it speaks to the importance of establishing measurable annual goals and accountability. On an issue I have testified about repeatedly, it establishes a priority for the significant expansion of bilingual education and the development of long term plans with clear goals and timetables to guide the growth bilingual education programs for multilingual learners and the recruitment of bilingual educators.

As policy, all of this is admirable and should be adopted, but as long term observer, we all know that the critical issue for overcoming opportunity and achievement gaps is implementation. I hope you adopt the the plan and policy, policy, but I also implore you to follow-up with urgency to monitor programs, to insist on change where it is necessary, you.

Our next speaker is Julianne Lirani. Julianne Lirani. We will continue with Julia Morales. Betsy Santana.

Good evening, members of the school committee. My name is Betsy Santana. I'm a BPS alum and licensed independent clinical social worker in Boston Public Schools. With nearly two decades of experience serving students and families in high need communities, I'm here today not to criticize but to bring clarity to a critical gap that directly impacts student care, staff safety, and district liability. BPS social workers are being asked to provide clinical services including IEP counseling, crisis intervention, and trauma informed care yet there is no consistent district wide structure for clinical supervision to support the work.

In any other clinical setting this would be not optional, it would be required. Without supervision there is no standardization of oversight of clinical quality. Social workers are left personally liable for complex clinical decisions. Staff are navigating trauma heavy environments without adequate professional support. And ultimately students receive inconsistent levels of care across schools.

This is not just a workforce issue, this is a system and risk management issue. We cannot define this role as clinic as clinical and convenient and then fail to provide the clinical infrastructure that sustains it. I also want to name that many social workers have been operating in silence without clarity, without communication, and without support. That silence is now breaking and what is surfacing is concern, confusion, and in some cases harm. We have an opportunity right now to correct this.

My ask is simple and actionable. Establish a district wide clinical supervision structure for social workers aligned with licensure requirements, compensate and utilize independently licensed clinicians to provide supervision as a standard across all clinical fields, create a clinician led advisory group to help design and implement this structure with fidelity and sustainability. We are not asking for anything extra. We are asking for alignment between what is expected of us and what is required to do that work safely and efficiently.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next group of speakers are Ann Hernandez, Julie Valencia and Pete Mullen.

Good evening chairperson and members of the school committee and superintendent Skipper. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Anne Hernandez. I'm a BPS alum, a Boston resident, and a social worker for the last twenty six years. I want to put up a human face on what it means to four district social workers, which includes a SLIFE, DSW from next year's budget cuts.

Cutting three district social workers from next year's budget is not a small adjustment as it directly affects 37 schools, over 13,000 students, and 71 school based social workers who will now have who will have to be redistributed to the six remaining district social workers. These roles are student centered, positions that anchor safety, stability, and coherence across our systems. The district social workers currently lead high level case consultations, provide ongoing mentoring and clinical support to school based social workers, train staff in de escalation, safety care, and trauma responsive practices. In twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, we trained 329 BPS staff and a 179 to date this school year. We are also the district's crisis response team.

We coordinate safe, supported placement and transitions for vulnerable students and strengthen student support teams. To make this more concrete, one of our district social workers who is currently not on the budget for next year.

Thirty seconds.

I'm sorry. Say that again. Seconds. Thirty seconds. Trained 140 staff members in safety care, provided 68 instances of clinical support and mentoring to school based social workers, completed 96 high level case consultations, coordinated support for 45 students in transition to ensure they landed in safe supportive environments, participated in 49 student support teams. Eliminating four of these positions does not cut extras. It dismantles a critical safety and support infrastructure that holds our schools together on the hardest days. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Julie Valencia.

Hello chairperson and members of the school committee. I'm Julie Valencia. I'm a district social worker. I live in West Roxbury. I am speaking tonight about three district social worker positions being cut for the up school year.

This is a third of our team as there are 10 of us this year to support the nine school regions as well as the SLIFE programs. I urge you to reconsider this decision in order to provide the support that BPS students, families, and school communities deserve. While some aspects of the DSW role are systemic, there are also pieces of our role that include direct work with students and families. Most of our role, including both systemic and direct work, is done inside school buildings and in collaboration with school based staff, as well as with students and families when needed. In terms of direct support with students, we assist with crisis support and stabilization, risk assessments, and safety planning.

We make up the crisis team that responds to school crises across the city. The crisis work includes supporting schools in the aftermath of school based or community based emergencies, often for days after the event. We also provide the de escalation physical management training for BPS schools. This deep this decrease in our team will affect our capacity to train school based staff. Direct service work also includes IEP counseling, home visits, and parent interviews as part of the IEP evaluation process.

These home visits with both school based and district staff further fills the support gaps that schools struggle to meet, especially when there are barriers that impact students getting to school, such as chronic absenteeism, school avoidance, mental health needs, and other factors in the community that may impact students and families, and their movement within their communities. Systemically we work on lots of systems like school culture and climate, coaching, leading professional development, collaborating with student success teams and streamlining resources across the city. You. If

you if you weren't able to finish it, the two speakers, you can always send the testimonies to me. Okay, and then I will send it to the members. Pete Mullen?

Good evening. My name is Pete Mullen. I'm an educator at the Curley School and a member of the Boston Teacher Union Working Group on Multilingual Education.

I would like

to comment on the opportunity and achievement gap task force policy. As an educator for multilingual learners, I can speak for many of my colleagues when I say that this policy represents a welcome shift in our goals for multilingual learners. We're especially grateful to see the language that explicitly names that the cultural and linguistic assets of multilingual learners should be valued. We also appreciate the commitment to move with all deliberate speed to strengthen bilingual education and expand access to high quality programs that develop academic English while sustaining students home and native languages, as well as the creation of a long term plan with clear goals and timelines. In the BTU working group, we discuss what we see as best practices and challenges to ensuring multilingual learners have the best possible opportunities.

We hope that the following ideas can also be considered going forward with this policy. To ensure that multilingual learners with suspected disabilities are assessed in their home language in order to properly identify learning challenges. To research and obtain strong native language curriculum with all the materials, modification, and training needed for full implementation. Provide full libraries of home language books, not just translated copies of English language titles. Provide meaningful teacher professional development for targeted language instruction and for language acquisition.

Hope that supporting and preparing teachers to acquire all the licenses and endorsements they need. Recruiting and retaining bilingual teachers requires clear accessible pathways to licensure and endorsements. But currently, dual language bilingual teachers are expected to pass four MTELs and get two endorsements at a minimum. Lastly, a program review of inclusive SCI to ensure that multilingual learners are truly being provided with the best possible options for high achievement. Multilingual learners being included in the same way as students with disabilities fails to value their cultural and linguistic assets, which is something this task force and educators of multilingual learners agree is incredibly important. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now transition to our Zoom our speakers on Zoom. The speakers are Councilor Giulia Mejia, Laura Larasotto, Kenneth Francisco and Dora Sandoval. Counselor Mahia.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you. You can start.

Okay. Good evening, members of the school committee and the superintendent. Today, I just wanna quickly, speak on the impact of the district social workers cuts will have on Boston public schools as a city councilor who represents all of Boston, the families and the faculty and staff. Right now, four positions are being eliminated, including three regional district social workers. These roles have supported 37 schools and over 13,000 students, and they provide guidance to more than 70 school based social workers across those schools.

Their work includes crisis response, staff training, and helping schools navigate complex student needs. They also pay play a role in supporting the school climate and making sure that the teams have what they need to respond effectively. With these cuts, the number of district social workers goes from nine to six. The responsibilities do not change, but the capacity does. Schools will be reassigned.

Case caseloads will increase, and there will be less availability for training, crisis response, and the day to day support. We're also hearing concerns from staff about feeling limited in their ability to advocate, which is something that we should take seriously. I'm asking that these positions be reconsidered and that these core supports for students and school communities and reducing them and the real impact that they have. And I'll just end with, you know, at a time when we're dealing with so much on the national level and families are dealing with a lot of crisis now more than ever, we need to make sure that at the very least in our schools are we're equipped to be able to support the social and emotional well-being of all of our students, especially in this moment in time. And I ask the committee to reconsider these cuts.

Thank you.

Thank you, counselor. Our next two speakers are not signed into the meeting. So we will continue with Dora Sandoval, and she will be we need a Spanish interpretation for her. Dora Sandoval?

Hello,

miss?

Okay. Can you all hear me? Hello. My name is Sonia Sandoval, and I live in the good afternoon. My name is Sonia Sandoval, and I live in the community of Roxbury. And I am also I serve as a coordinator at the program at Saint Stephen's.

I

want to begin by sharing a personal story, which I feel very proud of. So last week, so about this personal story, I am a mother of two children, and one of them attends the Hurley School and my other student attends twelfth grade. And actually, last week, we received the wonderful news that that he got accepted to the University of Norristown, and he actually received a full scholarship that is going to cover tuition and other expenses a 100%. And this is just an example as a mother that I'm very proud of because this represents the years of hope, sacrifice, and also hard work. And this story is an example of what is possible when given real opportunities for families and it is not a coincidence, but it is a result of hard work and also programs, educational programs, bilingual programs that support students.

For instance, these programs that supported my son in being able to develop trust in himself and And also for him to value his identity and also fight for his goals. And this is why I am in full support, and I appreciate the 2026 policy to eliminate the opportunity and achievement gaps because this policy strengthens the equity and and to be able to appreciate the different languages of students.

And

it also recognizes that the families are a core a fundamental and core part of of the development of our children. And my story is not the only one, and it's not unique. It is one of many stories, and this is what happens when the correct investments are made in students and families and communities that are the key for full opportunities to be just. Thank you so much.

Next speakers are Did Rahmani, Ari Brandt, Hayden Chernoff and Yimaris Batias. Did Rahmani?

Good evening. My name is Deirdre Manning. I am a Dorchester resident and parent of two public school students. I wanted to remind the school committee and district staff that superintendent Skipper promised now three admission cycles ago that she would provide us with data on student outcomes. And as of yet, my understanding is that data has not been released.

And rather than hiring a consultant or doing it in house, it's been farmed out to two different two separate groups of graduate students at two different universities. I feel this information is critical, and it really should be provided already should have provided. This evening, I wanted to speak about charter school students. So charter school students, some of them receive standards based grades. These are the grades that BPS fifth graders receive.

But BPS fifth graders, because the district understood that these grades were a barrier for these students to get into exam schools, they devised a special process that would allow BPS students only to receive a bit of a boost, when converting those grades to the a to f or the, I don't know, one to 11 scale that is used for calculation for the composite score. Boston Collegiate is a charter school. Boston Conservatory Lab is another charter schools that uses standards based grades with four inputs, just like Boston Public Schools do. And my understanding that Excel Academy, a charter school

Oh, too fickle. Uses

standards based grades but with only three inputs. So I would like the school committee to look into why there isn't this process allowed for these, charter school students. I wanted to remind people that these are exempt receipts are publicly funded educational opportunities, and there shouldn't be a special process for BPS students that is not allowed for non BPS students. This is not equitable, and something should be done to fix it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ari Brands.

Alright. Good evening, everyone. My name is Ari Brands. I'm a resident of Mattapan and the co executive director of Saint Stephen's Youth Programs. However, tonight, I'm here representing the Multilingual Learners Alliance or the MLA. The MLA is a broad coalition of parents, teachers, education experts, and advocates who are committed to improving the education of multilingual learners in the Boston Public Schools. We have some core principles that we're advocating for. Add languages, don't lose them. Substantially increase access to bilingual education programs. Meaningfully engage families.

Develop a citywide asset based mindset on multilingualism, recruit, develop, and retain bilingual staff, spend title one funds equitably and with accountability, and provide appropriate services for multilingual learners with disabilities. We are so glad to see these policies reflected these principles reflected in essential ways in the revised policy of the opportunity and achievement gap task force being presented to you tonight. It calls for expanding access to bilingual education with a long term plan that has explicit goals and timelines, a long term plan to expand the number of bilingual educators, encouraging the use of home language by parents, and recognizing the importance of home language in the education of MLs with disabilities, and so much more. We urge you to make this the official policy of the school committee and implement it. It's time for a fresh start on this issue.

It's time to have a policy for MLs that we can all join hands and rally behind.

Thirty seconds.

Since our inception, the MLA has been anxious to work with the district in joining together with our mutual resources and energies to improve the education of MLs and MLs with disabilities. This new policy presents us with that opportunity. We strongly encourage you to approve the revised OAG policy. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Hayden Chernow.

Hi. My name is Hayden Chernow. I am a Boston Public Schools alum, class of 2023, and the current community liaison for the Center for Law and Education or CLE. At CLE, we work with families and advocates to help students, especially students with disabilities, access the education they are entitled to under the law. We are a legal resource and advocacy organization focused on ensuring that all students, particularly those from low income communities, can learn to high standards.

I'm here today to speak about the MCAS alternative assessment or MCAS Alt. While passing MCAS is no longer a graduation requirement, all students are still expected to learn grade level content. But students identified as having the, quote, most significant cognitive disabilities may be placed on the MCAS Alt. And in practice, once students are placed on this track, they can be taught to lower standards and to lower expectations. This has serious consequences.

We continue to see that multilingual learners, black and Latinx students, and students from low income families are disproportionately placed on this track. Through our work with families, we've seen that some students can be placed on the MCAS Alt inappropriately and are not fully informed about what that placement means. And that's where we see CLE's work come in. We offer trainings to help families understand what the MCAS Alt is, what their rights are, and how to best advocate and prepare their children for success. We would welcome the opportunity to partner with the district organizations in making sure parents understand how this system works and how to support their child in a pathway to success. More information and interest, please reach out to the Center for Law and Education. Thank you.

Thank you. Irmais Matias is our next speaker.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Maria Mathias, and I live in Southend. I'm a single mom. My I'm a single mom of of two.

My son attended at O'Brien Math Math and Science High School. And as and as well, I'm a former BPS graduated and a paraprofessional. And I would like to to thank the dean that worked so hard on the 2026 policy to promote the academic excellence and eliminate opportunities and achievements gap by consider the families and the community and the youth suggestions. I would like to tell you a little bit about my story. When I was a youth, when I came to this country at 13 years old, I came with not not but not knowing any English and not understanding anything at all.

I was lucky enough to came to a high school, which I had vocational program and also a bilingual program. Thanks to my parents to enroll me to that school. I'm I'm proud to say that I'm bilingual right now and graduated high school. And thanks to that, I passed my paraprofessional exam. I'm ready to go back to BPS to become an.

Thanks again to the team for your hard work in creating and to keep advocating, to creating new bilingual programs and opportunity to new students that, like me, come to this country not knowing English and having this program accessible for them will be great addition to their education. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speakers are Katie De La Rosa, George Fisick and David Dave Edwards. Katie De La Rosa.

Good evening. My name is Katie De La Rosa. I'm the inclusion liaison at the Boston Teachers Union, and I'm a Boston resident. Tonight, I'm representing the BTU inclusion done right committee to speak in support of the opportunity and achievement gaps policy, specifically objective 3.9, advancing inclusion and accelerating learning for students with disabilities. We believe that the policy correctly centers equity for Black, Latino, and multilingual learners with disabilities to have full access to inclusive settings and grade level curriculum.

We applaud the goals of reducing the disproportionate placement of Black and Latino boys in substantially separate settings and reducing the concentration of students with disabilities in chronically underperforming and transformation schools. As a committee, we have an urgent ask, which is to pair the policy's commitments with fully funded implementation of evidence based models and resources. We ask for the school committee and the OAG task force to include the following recommendations to the policy implementation. One, appropriately value the role of the paraprofessional as an essential member of the inclusive instructional team. Two, adopt and scale proven inclusive instructional models and ensure the classroom teams receive sustained collaboration time and professional development.

Three, require fidelity checks for IEP referral processes and resource allocations to ensure the necessary supports are consistently provided for students with disabilities to have access to grade level standards. We urge you to pair the priorities of closing opportunity gaps and reducing disproportionate restrictive placements with the proven tools, sustained funding, and accountability needed to implement at scale. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next five speakers are not signed into the meeting. So we that concludes public comment.

Chair. Okay. You. Thank you Ms. Farbeks and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives. Your testimony is very important to us. Our two first action items this evening are the grants for approval totaling $478,158.82 and the in kind donation for approval totaling $1,500. Now I'd like to turn it over to the super intendent for any final comments.

Wonderful. Thank you, chair. So, as chair said, nine grants for your consideration tonight, totaling more than $478,000. The largest grants are a $200,000 Massachusetts Department of Education playground earmark increasing increase, which then serves a 68 students at the O'Donnell and Hale Elementary Schools and English High School for the redesign and rehabilitation of outdoor recreation spaces for students of varying abilities, including multi sport courts and playground and exercise equipment. Second is a more than $66,000 community biodiversity grant serving 2,339 students at the Curley Hurley and Higginson Lewis k two eight, so baby Higgy and the three to eight, Lee Academy and the Manning and King Elementary Schools.

The funding will be used to restore degraded urban habitat by removing invasive species and restoring habitat for pollinators and birds that will serve as both a hands on classroom and community guard. Next, there is a nearly $49,000 Aspen Challenge grant that will serve 112 students and 28 coaches across 14 schools. The funding will support the Aspen Challenge, a project based program where students develop solutions to social issues in their communities, as you saw earlier in the presentation. And finally, every year, BPS receives a mid year adjustment to our main federal entitlement grants that may result in an increase of funding to the district. The district will receive approximately 162,000 in additional title one, two, three and four funding from our federal grants through the state.

These increases will fund academic instruction, student opportunities, family engagement under Title I, educator effectiveness under Title II, English language acquisition under title three, and college and career readiness, social emotional wellness, and technology access under title four. There is also before you an in kind donation. This is from the Friends of Rafael Hernandez Dual Language School who have donated kindly an outdoor storage shed to the school valued at $1,500. We would ask the committee to vote in favor of accepting this donation as well as our grants.

Thank you. I will now open it up to questions and comments from the committee. Anything, no? Okay, there's no further discussion. I will now entertain a motion to approve the grants as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the grants by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the grants are approved. Okay. And if there is no further discussion, I will now entertain a motion to approve the in kind donation as presented. Is there a motion?

So.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the in kind donation by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the in kind donation is approved. Our third action item this evening is the approval of the MSBA core program 2026 statement of interest for the Melvin H. King Southern Academy that was presented earlier tonight.

Are there any additional questions or comments before we move to a vote? Okay. If there are no further questions, I will entertain a motion to approve the MSBA core program twenty twenty six statement of interest for the Melvin H. Ken King South Bend Academy as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Miss Province, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, chair. Doctor. Alkins?

Yes.

Mister Peralta? Miss Polanco Garcia? Yes. Miss Torres? Yes. Mister Tran?

Yes.

Miss Garrett? Yes. Miss Robinson? Yes. The motion is approved.

Thank you. Our final action item this evening is the mass core graduation requirement policy amendment. As you might remember, this was presented at the March 25 meeting. I will now turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

Wonderful. And congratulations to the leadership and staff of the Melvin H. King South End Academy. So at the last school committee meeting on Wednesday, March 25, my team presented an update on the Mass Core graduation requirement. Tonight, we are asking the committee to reaffirm our existing policy that states MassCore is the BPS graduation requirement.

In addition, we are asking members to approve our recommendations for alternative measures to address rare or extenuating circumstances. As we reviewed last week, MassCore was first adopted by this committee in the 2021. Over the past several years, we've been working to ensure that the course coding, standards, credits, and schedule alignment in our secondary schools meet the BPS Mass Core requirement. Over the past five years, we have made real progress in supporting our students toward Mass Core completion, including the use of high quality instructional materials, equitable literacy implementation, a review of the district's course catalog, 1,800 courses, early college and CTE pathway expansion, and AP, IB, art and music classes, elective offerings and course schedules to support MassCore. Our school teams continue to work directly with students and families to ensure they are on track to meet the requirements of MassCore or graduation in general and to help them get back on track if they're behind.

Last week, we shared the details on the acceptable replacements and comparable alternatives for different student groups. Many of these situations are addressed through DESE guidance. We ask for the committee support of this vote tonight. Doctor Wright, deputy superintendent of academics, Brett Dickens, assistant superintendent, college career and life readiness, doctor Angela Hadley Mitchell, chief of teaching and learning, are all here tonight to assist with answering any remaining questions that members may have. Back to you, chair.

Thank you. I'll now open it up to questions and comments from the committee. Ms. Garrett?

Thank you. I think that this is an important carve out for special circumstances as we've discussed in detail in previous meetings. Really understanding that mask court is the standard and the bar for the vast majority of students. And I think it's well timed that we are talking about strategic planning this evening, which we know will lead to some outcomes and measures discussion about what our set of metrics are going to be that will be examined every year and improved upon every year. And so I don't have a question.

I just really look forward to the percent of students graduating with mass core as an annual measure that has an ambitious five year target and that continues to increase every year. Just so that it's clear to us and to the public that this is really a special circumstance and that we are still seeking for the very vast majority of our students to earn a mass core diploma.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ms. Banco Garcia?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to echo what my colleague is saying here regarding the vulnerability that our students, the ELLs to English language students show when they come to this country. You have to take in consideration that the mask court is a great opportunity to improve the academic performance and preparedness of all our students. So you have to consider as well without the proper support, we might be incurring in not promoting the equalities that should exist in our learners, with our learners. Because we have to consider that there is the language vulnerability of this population. Because it is important for the families to know that there is there will be an evaluation.

There will be a team giving that particular evaluation. And we have to consider as well that every student has a vulnerability, different vulnerability.

Thank you for pay attention on that part because

it's important for the students, English learner. You see why it's important the student English learner,

for

your superintendent, your team putting

attention attention on that. Thank you.

Also building on that and what we heard from public comment today about really having an asset based approach, my understanding is that a lot examples of the exceptions that are considered is really giving honor to courses taken in other countries before students have transferred here and evaluating those transcripts really carefully and thoroughly as an example. And also appreciate just the framing of the exceptions as being in the realm of similarity to the already existing alternative school requirements. Just as a frame for where that leniency might be, and that there is kind of a floor that we're still expecting in situations that are exceptions.

Thank you.

Yes, I would echo that. And when I listened to you speak, I think about the original intent of the policy being to prepare students for all of the universities in Massachusetts and reminding ourselves that that's why we're doing it. And so we see multilingualism as an asset. And we wanna make sure that all students can thrive, whatever their post secondary path. And that's really why we do what we do.

I just want to thank everybody who has worked on this over the years. When we first approached this in 2021 I think we were naive as a school committee as to what it was. We were trying to make sure students who didn't have access to foreign language had access to it because we understood they couldn't, they weren't having the courses because they weren't being offered. So we knew there were disparities in what the offerings were across our high schools. But as the work moved forward, we saw that there were many, many disparities and issues that needed to be approved and the 1,800 courses that needed to be aligned and everything.

So, I really want to thank the district for getting us thus far. Yeah. Knowing that there still is work to do but that we are, we are on our way and that I think our students will be better off for it with the opportunities. Absolutely. Right.

So thank you. So I will now read the motion language so that all members are clear and public too on what we'll be voting on. So it's ordered that the Boston School Committee hereby reaffirms their commitment to the 2021 MassCorps graduation requirements policy, including the 2025 alternative education amendment with additional flexibility for individual student circumstances. There are student situations that may require different but comparable alternatives to courses determined to meet Mass Core graduation requirements. The superintendent or their designee has the authority to review each student's situation to identify alternative courses or exceptions for specific credits.

In alignment with the alternative education requirement, all students must successfully complete a minimum of 18 credits across the four core subjects of English language arts, mathematics, history and science in order to graduate. If there are no further questions, I'll entertain a motion to approve the Mass Core graduation requirements policy amendment as presented. So moved. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Miss Parvax, will you please call the

roll? Thank

you, chair. Doctor. Alkins?

Yes.

Mr. Paranta? Miss Polanco Garcia?

Yes.

Miss Torres? Yes. Mr. Tran? Yes. Miss Garrett? Yes. Miss Robinson? Yes. The motion is approved. Alright.

Thanks. We have a long evening ahead of us with a couple of pretty significant, presentations, we're gonna just take a five minute break so people can, take care of their needs and can come back. Now we will transition to our reports. Our first two reports tonight are the presentation of the 2026 policy to advance academic excellence and eliminate opportunity and achievement gaps, followed by an update on the twenty twenty six to two thousand thirty one strategic roadmap. Let's aim to keep each of these presentations to fifteen minutes.

And I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. And I want the to invite the superintendent to give introductory remarks.

Wonderful. Thank you, chair. So very special night. As a district, we strive to put the opportunity and achievement gap policy into practice every day, you know, decision making, in our goal setting, and in our strategic planning. And you'll hear this shortly.

The intent of the policy is to close opportunity and achievement gaps for every single student in the district with intentional focus on groups that have been historically marginalized and ensure they have the opportunity to reach their full potential. It has been nearly a decade since the policy was updated, delayed in part to the pandemic. I am truly so happy to be here. This has definitely been one of the best things that we've worked on this year to bring the updated OAG policy forward for the committee's consideration. With the OAG policy as our North Star, we have developed a strategic road map that will guide our mission into the next decade.

Tonight, we will also present an updated update to our draft plan, our vision to unlock and support the brilliance and potential of every BPS student in clear, actionable steps that will guide us to the end of the decade. In a few minutes, I will turn the meeting over to Senior Advisor for Strategy and Opportunity Gaps, who you know well, Doctor. Colin Rose, an OAG task force coaches, Ellie Schakur and School Committee member who you know well, Doctor. Stephen Atkins. After they present the OAG policy, doctor Rose will walk members through our work to date and lay out the next steps in the strategic planning process.

Doctor Rose, members of my team, and the OAG task force that guides the district's work have worked hard to align the goals of the policy and the goals of the district. It is fitting that we will also present our initial thinking on our strategic plan in this meeting as the two must work in tandem for our district to be successful. I want to wholeheartedly thank the OAG task force for its partnership and for working with BPS to monitor the district's progress, guide its decision making, provide support, and hold it accountable. We look forward to continuing to work with the task force to ensure that the goals of the OAG policy are at the center as we go through the district's strategic planning process. We'll ask the committee for its support of the updated policy at a future school committee meeting, and we will continue to update members on our strategic planning.

At this point, I will now turn the meeting over to senior advisor for strategy and opportunity gaps, Doctor. Rose, NOAG task force co chair, Eylea Shakur.

Good evening and thank you to the members of the Boston School Committee and Chair Robinson and Superintendent Skipper for the opportunity to present today. I'm Ayalay Shakur, co chair of the Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Task Force, and I am here on behalf of the entire task force. We are so excited for today's presentation. As superintendent Skipper said, I'm also joined today by our co chair, doctor Steven Alkins, who's also a member of the Boston School Committee, and by doctor Colin Rose, who's senior advisor for strategy and opportunity gaps. This policy represents two years of focused work and nearly two decades of commitment to ensuring every student in Boston has access to an excellent education.

So let's start with why this policy matters. As superintendent Skipper said, this policy is intended to be the North Star for the district. It defines who we are accountable to and what success must look like. It centers the students who make up the majority of BPS, students of color, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students. These identities are not separate, they overlap.

Many of our students sit at the intersection of multiple systems of inequity. That means this policy is not about a subset of students, it's about the core of our district. The policy is meant to be revised every six years. We are presenting today after ten. And as superintendent Skipper said, there have been delays due to COVID and leadership transitions, but the urgency has only grown.

The data continues to show persistent gaps, particularly for black and Latino students, multilingual learners and students with disabilities. That is why this work is not optional, it is essential. So let's give some historic grounding in terms of how we got to this point with the policy. The OAG policy has deep roots in advocacy, particularly through Black Educators Alliance for Massachusetts, also known as BEAM. The policy was first adopted back in 2006, updated in 2016, and now strengthened in 2026.

This is legacy work and we stand on the shoulders of advocates and leaders like Barbara Fields, the late George Cox, Janet Williams and Nora Tony. The task force itself was created to ensure this policy remains a living breathing accountability tool. I want to acknowledge the advocacy of Chairman Michael O'Neill who was the one who actually called for the creation of the task force back in 2015 and then the 2016 policy was adopted a year later by the Boston School Committee. And then that brings us to the role of the task force. We are not symbolic.

We are active partners in accountability. Our role is to monitor progress, provide guidance, elevate community voice, ensure this policy translates into real change in schools. I co chair alongside Doctor. Stephen Alkins and we work closely with Doctor. Colin Rose as I mentioned before. And we want to give a shout out to Chair Robinson who was the prior co chair for the task force and served for a period of ten years. So, thank you so much Chair Robinson. I want to transition to Doctor. Alkins who will share a little bit about why we are here and what the data shows.

Doctor. Rose. Sorry. You said Doctor. Alkins. Doctor. Doctor. Hi. Good evening, school committee members. The urgency of this work is self evident.

Here you have a literal illustration of the problem. This is a graphic showing fourth grade ELA and eighth grade math scores from the start of MCAS through today. Between the dotted lines you'll see park testing which was used in between the old and the new generation MCAS. And the blank state space is a time we would all like to forget the pandemic. As you can see, performance has ebbed and flowed, but gaps towards proficiency remain similar across time and have been extremely large for the groups ILA outlined above.

Even as we see a bit of an uptick now, we need to find the conditions and support them that allow those lines to consistently rise towards proficiency for these measures and all others. As we begin to close the chapter on the 2,016 policy, the version of the policy, we want to acknowledge the many steps forward that came from that work. This includes everything from CLSP, which brought form and definition to culturally responsive practice in the district, to the opportunity index, which created a tangible and scientific way to measure student need outside the context of schools, and everything in between. Much of what you see here was part of the bright spots in DESE's 2019 review of the district.

Thank you, Doctor. Rose. And so in terms of the policy that we are about to discuss today, there are a number of stakeholders who provided feedback. We had extensive meetings with Superintendent Skipper and her leadership team, the division of schools, academics, the inclusion planning team, instructional leadership team, student input from Boston Student Advisory Council and various members of the OAG task force who are listed here. A 15 member task force representing parents, school leaders, teachers, Boston Teachers Union representatives, community advocates, people with expertise in black student achievement, multilingual learners, as well as students with disabilities and sense of belonging and wellness.

Those task force members were served as co authors together with members of the district and the broader community. So here are the six goals that are outlined in the policy. Notably, the 2016 policy also had six goals, the same six goals although we've added more form and structure to each of them. The first goal, goal one is really about accountability and systems and this goal is really designed to provide a clear outline of how accountability begins with those members here on the bench with the school committee then flowing to the superintendent, the superintendent's leadership team, the role of the task force and the designee of the superintendent, all the way down to the school building level and what happens with our schools. It also includes the accountability, how the policy will be measured and evaluated over time, a dashboard, the metrics and so forth.

Goal number two is really designed to give the conditions under which closing achievement gaps would need to happen because we know that mindsets are important, that everyone at all levels in BPS needs to understand culturally and linguistically affirming and sustaining practices and that includes professional development at all district levels so that everyone in BPS is holding high expectations and high standards for our young people. Goal number three is around advancing academic excellence and this is the goal where achievement is fully centered. Here, we have focused on schools as the unit of change. This is where the magic happens on the front lines with our teachers and our young people. So, we focus on the importance of strong school leadership, high quality teachers in every classroom, the importance of literacy and academic rigor, student wellness and belonging and inclusion and supports for diverse learners.

As you heard from many of the people during public comment, we also point out here the importance of bilingual education, bilingualism and home language. And, we talk about inclusion making sure that we are looking out for this disproportionate placement of black and Latino students and in substantially separate environments and instead making sure all young people are getting the supports that they need to thrive. If we get this right, students will experience the policy in their classrooms each and every day. Goal number four is really about education and leadership diversity. Our young people deserve to see teachers who look like them.

They deserve to have teachers that reflect their languages and their lived experience And so therefore, we really want to focus on the recruitment, the retention, and the support for teachers of color. And this is actually, again, one of the priorities that's been with us from the very beginning back in 2006 when Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts drafted the very first policy. Goal five is really centering our families, our parents, our partners, our students themselves and so this is the one that's really looking at reciprocal partnerships with those members of our community. It's about shared responsibility because we know that schools cannot do this work alone. So here, we're elevating student voice, agency and leadership, looking at families as true partners and looking at the importance of community partners, higher ed and industry partners as well.

And finally, goal number six, which intentionally comes last, really centers on the role of central office because we need central office to exist to support schools, not the other way around. And so, here the goal is focused on equitable and transparent and efficient operations and we're looking at things about how funding decisions are made, transparency in school closures and mergers, capital investments and facilities and so forth. I've already outlined some of the things that are different in this policy, again centering schools as that unit of change, having more rigor here around accountability and reporting, stronger focus on academic excellence and really we center joyful learning because at the end of the day if the classrooms are not joyful places, we will not be able to close achievement gaps. And then finally I'll turn it over to Doctor. Alkins who will talk about the connection between the policy and the strategic plan that you'll hear about next.

Thank you. So on the left you see a flowchart demonstrating how connects to and informs other key levers for change within our district. So for context, throughout several conversations with the task force, I myself was able to explore and learn the history around the 2016 policy and how it has been taken up by the district, and how it's been operationalized over the past ten years. So in short, alongside with its many accomplishments, the sense that I got was that sometimes the policy was seen as either operating in parallel with the BPS strategic plan and with certain components and tasks being assigned to either individual groups or departments. In many cases, this led to misunderstandings and a lack of clarity around accountability structures.

But as you can see, as it's described as our North Star, this policy aims to create better alignment and that this policy should inform school committee priorities, our questions and the presentations that come before the body. These priorities will in turn inform the development of the strategic plan and have, which will then be carried out by an implementation plan with key performance indicators. Our hope is to create a feedback loop of communication around data that will result in elimination of these gaps permanently and give our students pathways to unbridled success in BPS and beyond. This means that as a school committee, we must be proactive in asking for key data updates at critical junctures to inform our decisions. The elimination of OAGs is not just support for our most vulnerable populations, it will result in a removal of barriers for all students.

The work of this task force represents a collective viewpoint that we are not just an external arm of the school committee, but we are thought partners intimately involved in this work equally committed to the success of our students. In that sense, the structure of this policy that will support monitoring and implementation aims not to silo the work, but create cross collaborative teams to address its goals. The task force will work in partnership with district representatives to ensure that goals, allocations, and implementation efforts align and progress with cohesive strategy, consistent monitoring, transparency with the public, and urgency. And now I'll pass it over to Doctor. Colin Rose to talk through more about the strategic plan.

That's the next presentation. So you want me to pause or you want me to go directly into Perfect. Let me see if I could get the tech.

So for our public, that concludes the presentation specifically on the policy. But again, as Doctor. Alkins just explained, the strategic plan is really how the policy is implemented. So that's the next section.

Good evening again. So today, alongside the OEG policy, we want to give an update to the burgeoning strategic planning that's going on in the district. As the OEG policy is touted as the North Star of the district, we believe at an appropriate time to bring this update forward as we're bringing forward the policy. During the last iteration of the OEG policy, there was an implementation plan created, which was under my purview at the time. Part of the reason I came back was to support this endeavor, but an opportunity arose.

In the past, the OAG implementation plan was a separate implementation plan from the district implementation plan. Now that we are embarking on a strategic plan as a district, the thought was to create a plan in alignment with the OAG policy, so that we don't have two separate comprehensive implementation plans, and one can serve both. So tonight we'll provide an update on the development of our strategic plan. The goal of this presentation is to share information and invite school committee to give input on the strategic roadmap. And we'll stay kind of at a high level next to the objectives.

This slide shows our vision for every student in our district. And I'll read a quote that comes from the 2016 version and still finds its way into the 2026 language. This is credited to Sam Acevedo, who was one of the chairs, reverend, who's one of the chairs of the task force at the time. Every child in every classroom, in every Boston school has the same opportunity to achieve the greatness as anyone else. With the same unfettered access to excellent teaching, joyful learning, and every conceivable tool needed to unlock their brilliance.

We want that to be true for every kid in BPS. Below, we have a graphic for the high quality student experience that was created a few years ago with a massive amount of community engagement. The four components include rigorous and culturally affirming learning experiences, supportive network of caring adults, wellness and enrichment undergirded by physical spaces that support learning. The thought being that the closer we are at creating this type of experience, the closer we can get to our vision. As leadership started thinking about a new strategic plan and the high quality student experience with it, we wanted to leverage multiple foundational building blocks that have been built over the past few years under the current strategic plan.

These include the regional school model with academic and wraparound supports for schools, High quality instructional materials and equitable literacy was a lot of the academic work that was going on. The MTSS framework, both thinking about the core instruction that happens in the classroom, but also those tier two, tier three supports that students need to be able to be regulated and ready for class. Inclusive education, making sure that we provide the least restrictive environment for students. Long term facilities planning, which is changing and shifting the footprint and hopefully providing better spaces and support for our students. Language access, so the increase of bilingual and dual language programming, as well as clearer exit and entrance criteria for students who are learning English.

Career pathways, so expanding access to college and career pathways and post secondary partnerships. And community hub schools. How do we embed community resources and coordinate with the communities to make our schools better? From these foundational elements and the definition of the high quality student experience, as well as the school committee priorities, as you all worked on last year, and the OEG policy, leadership decided to create three buckets to organize the current impactful work and also identify improvement and new elements to ensure student success. These buckets are high quality instruction.

This is a category in which Doctor. Simone Wright had great influence in shaping as a leader of the academic strategy. This speaks to how we improve teaching and learning for the diverse set of learners we have in Boston, and especially those who have historically been under or miss served by our instruction. Holistic student supports is the second bucket, which speaks to the conditions and support students need to be in school and ready to learn in our classrooms. And then we have high quality programming and facilities, which speaks to the programming and physical plant we need as a district, as well as well as throughout the city to be able to support the teaching, learning, environment, support student need students need to be ready for college, career, and life.

Our theory of action comes from the notion that Boston is resource rich, but at times, coordination poor. The thought here is that if we align the resources and energies between schools, central office, and the community towards these three focus areas in an aligned and coherent way, we will make major strides towards our vision for all students. To start drafting the raw materials for objectives and goals, we enlisted the support of numerous members of our BPS community to work together by topic in cross functional groups. These groups included folks from different purchase perspectives in the district that have strong connection to relevant topics connected to those three bucket areas. Members of the team might work in family engagement, they might work in operations, they might be part of our schools team.

The thought was that they can bring their particular perspective, their experience, their wisdom, to the table as we envision, and then work to improve that particular phenomenon we were looking at in that group. To do this, we utilized the racial equity planning tool, especially steps one through four, which I'll go into a bit detail in the next couple of slides. Step one of the REPT process is connected to understanding the general context, and coming to consensus on what improvements the group would like to see at the end of the day, especially as it relates to equitable outcomes for students. That included understanding the current research in the area. So there's an image here around the NCLD report on disproportionality.

Disproportionality was one of our groups. These readings grounded groups in a shared understanding of the issue, so that we had a solid foundation. Groups also talked about the current and past initiatives and district context connected to the topic, as well as any connections to the OEG policy that was burgeoning and the school committee priorities before identifying some broad desired outcomes. Step two of the RAPT asked groups to dig into the BPS context a bit deeper through data. All groups were aided by a dedicated member of the data and accountability team, which brought specific data connected to the issues they were exploring.

Through this data, groups identified trends and key takeaways. Step three, each group was given a detailed report built from numerous focus groups conducted across the BPS community. I would like to acknowledge Tamika Buckmeyer, Doctor. Tunji Ademande, Stacy Guerrero, among others who organized engagements, connected the sessions and collected data, as well as the Office of Data and Accountability, who helped synthesize and provide themes across those focus groups. Cross functional team members also conducted empathy interviews with stakeholders from their particular area of the organization to get even more detailed information connected to the current context.

Groups created takeaways that in tandem with steps one and two began to identify some root causes and clear opportunities. In step four, these groups started refining objectives, defining broad goals and core actions, taking in the current context root causes, while also reimagining what improvement would look like in five years. These raw materials from these groups continue to be refined. Today, are bringing forward some solidify high level objectives in each focus area. These would be the anchors for discrete goals and action steps for implementation.

So, in the first focus area, high quality instruction, there's really two objectives. One around systematic effectiveness of our instruction, so increasing the effectiveness of high quality teaching at scale by leveraging high quality instructional materials, integrating high impact literacy practices, and other evidence based practices that support high levels of student engagement and learning for each student across BPS, and especially black, Latinx, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. And the second sentence there deals with how we need to share that work across our our full broad community. The second objective is really around educator capacity. So how do we match our professional development to ensure that teachers, instructors and everybody within the district can actually do that.

Focus area two, holistic student supports, has three objectives. One around attendance and engagement, right? So increased student attendance and engagement in school through aligned school central office and community based strategies. In order for students to take advantage of high quality instruction, they need to be in school. And so how do we bring down even more of the barriers?

We've done a good job over the last few years in lowering chronic absenteeism but continuing on that road. And also making our schools places that are so engaging that if there are barriers, families and students will jump over them to get to our schools. Second, student readiness to MTSS, right? Increased student readiness to engage with grade level tasks by growing clear, aligned and effective MTSS including academic and whole student supports, right. So, making sure that students are regulated and ready in our classrooms.

And then third, equity and accountability. And this is a topic that's been brought up multiple times tonight. How do we reduce disproportionality and increase accountability for students in sub separate settings, especially black and Latino boys who often are those in that gap? This to me is a pressure test really of all of our systems because those Oh sorry, I'll slow down a little bit. Black and Latino boys are Have historically been stuck in the disproportionality gap.

And if we truly have the MTSS, those systems, and the core teaching happening in classrooms that we really want, this should decrease. And finally, focus area three, high quality student experience through programming and facilities. So one is really just access to high quality student experience through those, through that programming in school buildings that align to HQSE. This is why we're doing all that work around long term facilities planning. Hopefully students are landing in spaces where they have the programming in the building to support their learning and growth into their life and career and college.

Transition support, so increased supports for students and communities who are directly impacted by grade reconfiguration, school mergers and closures. So we know that our footprint's going to continue to change. How do we ensure that we are increasing the supports for individual families and students, and also school communities that are taking in students and families? And then finally, community integration into all our strategies, right? So how do we coordinate and utilize community resources to extend access to a high quality student experience, both bringing partners into our schools, but also using the spaces in the city as our classroom.

When thinking about objectives, it's not only important to identify shared priorities, it's also important to discuss conditions necessary to effectively execute and hold ourselves accountable mutually to those priorities as an entire community. This is key for alignment and coherence, we call these enabling conditions. There are three areas we'll need to explicitly focus on. One, creating and maintaining equity centered culture and practice. Two, strengthening the system structures and practices for collaboration as a district and three, aligning resources to our priorities and ensuring structures for continuous improvement and accountability.

Moving forward towards implementation, we'll continue to use the RAPT process as we refine and create SMART goals and action steps for our objectives, as well as build out the overall metrics for student success. Finally, our next immediate steps. There are a few discussion points for tonight, namely are these the right focus areas and objectives? And to a bit of a start to a discussion around goals and or metrics we will use to measure progress. As we continue to develop the plan through the spring, there'll be opportunities to collaborate with you all, a school committee, and the OAG task force.

This could include that working session that you have on May 20. And then below you see our timeline for bringing forth the full plan this summer and into next fall. With that, that's me. I'm under fifteen minutes by thirty seconds, so I made it. And I open up for discussion for both presentations and especially those two key questions that we asked in this slide.

Yep, thank you both. I will now open it up to questions and comments from members. Go ahead. First

of all thank you so much for the presentations. And my question is more towards how you said that you want learning to be more joyful. So how will like schools make learning more joyful while still focusing on some of the academic goals that we have?

I think that that's a good question. So our policy is calling out the importance of joyful learning. I think some of that is going to come through professional development for our teachers. Understanding that when you are working with students of color, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, really all students, it has to be engaging and fun. And so I think there's ways that that can be done through project based learning, music, getting kids out of their seats, getting them to be interactive.

I think that type of professional development is as important as other types of PD. And then it's also listening for young people. I think young people know what's exciting to them And it's important that you know, that's why we really put so much energy into goal number five, where it talks about student leadership, students having a role on their school site councils or in their school leadership at their sites, and really just listening to what young people want to bring the learning to life. I think we had a great example with the Aspen challenge. When you give students real world learning, it feels connected to their lives and communities. That's really the things that really make them most excited.

Yeah, I'll piggyback. There is no learning without engagement.

No, totally agree with that, I totally agree. My second question is related more towards goal number four which says increase educator and leadership diversity across the district. So, what are like some of the changes that students will notice in terms of like teacher diversity or staff diversity and do you guys have like data, are you guys collecting data from eight schools and then like seeing like who to recruit or something like that?

This has been a really challenging area for the district. As you know, there as some of you know, there is a Judge Garrity order that goes all the way back to the seventies. There's supposed to be 25% black teachers across the district. At the time, that stat was based on the student enrollment. Now we have significant number of Latino students.

We have all sorts of languages across the district. So it needs to be racial diversity and linguistic diversity in terms of the languages as well. Unfortunately, because of union rules, we know that there's been quite a few teachers that are like sort of the last hired who are now in danger of losing their positions, that's something the task force is focusing on and that will really ask this body to really take up because, you know, just as quickly as we're bringing diverse teachers into classrooms, now we're starting to lose them at the same time. But, what it should look like is every young person has a chance to experience, not all of your teachers, but there's a good munch, a healthy mix of teachers in your schools so that, you know, we've had some students who say they've gone all the way through BPS and never had a teacher of color. Like that really shouldn't be the experience.

So, go ahead Doctor.

Wohl. So, something I think I would add on to that is the also the licensure process that also exists. And, I think we already do have some data that surround sort of the differences that we find from some of our more underrepresented demographics in terms of educators, and how they're able to get through those MTEL's. So I think part of what our role will be as a body will be asking for that data so that we can say like oh we should be investing more in support for those licensure preparation supports for those teachers as well. Also I'm not quite sure what the data is around mentorship programs that exist for our educators and for our school principals as well.

Because it's not just about recruiting, but it's about retaining our educators and our school leaders. So that's all just relevant things that we're gonna have to look at as a school committee and really think about just the data behind it. Which is especially relevant now that we've just passed the budget. So now looking at what is the impact, that first data set that we're going to receive around what has happened to our underrepresented educators.

Yep, thank you.

Hi guys. Thank you for the presentation. This is my first time here so one of my question is around, I read the preamble. Yes. And I think it was fantastic. It was a great thing. And one of the questions that I have is about clarifying accountability and is this is going to be always updated And what information will be in the dashboard for our families and communities to see? Yes.

So the policy is supposed to be updated every six years. And so it will move in a cycle with the strategic plan as well. I think we actually looked at five years so as the strategic plan is being updated, the policy will be refreshed. It's not designed to be completely rewritten but at least we will take a look at it to see what might need to be revised. In terms of the dashboard, there will be a data dashboard.

The task force is deciding, like, which data would be maybe shared in more internally versus what would be the public facing dashboard. And at our next meeting in May, we'll be deciding on the key performance indicators. So a set of like five to 10 key things that we'll be monitoring from one year to the next or even on a quarterly basis. So that will be shared with of course with the school committee so you all are also being able to sort of follow the progress as we go. Do you wanna add?

Yeah, think that second question around goals and metrics. I think the task force are gonna wanna see certain metrics. I know you all are gonna wanna see certain metrics. There's certain metrics that are important to us internally. I think it would be good to align those in a way so we again, we're not looking at five different data sets but there is a core group of data that we're looking at disaggregating and making sure that all bodies are paying attention to. I So think that would be one of the hopes this spring to try to get us aligned.

And to clarify, the task force will make a recommendation. It will then come to the school committee and superintendent and you all whittle that list down because we can't boil the ocean. We have to make sure we're focusing on a key set of indicators. And so we're looking at trying to keep that narrow to about

And I think Doctor. Rose's position is a really important one because it is the linkage between the district and all of our teams and the task force to make sure that we're all rowing in the same direction.

That's right.

To continue with your question, will the dashboard include information about the schools?

That's, yeah, that was a question that we discussed at length with the task force. We would love to see it be school by school data. For some of the metrics it might be by region as opposed to by school. So I think that would be one of the things that we will need to decide certainly with guidance from the school committee.

If the family wants some information around a school, they'd be able to go to the dashboard.

That's right, that's right.

There's likely quite a bit of data that can be disaggregated to the school level if it's not already. There would be some things that we would not want to put out there because it could be personnel or it be more sensitive data, in which case we would do it at a more aggregate level. But we'll work together to make sure that that data is available.

Yes.

And my other question is around staff training. I know that you talked about the culture linguistic and sustainable practice. Yes. So will BPS, but what measures will we actually have in classrooms so we can see the impact.

Yes and I will say the CLSP is one of the things that Doctor. Rose brought to us back in 2016 and is really been rolling across the district. But why don't you speak to how you're measuring that?

Yeah I think any tool that we're using around classroom practice should embed CLSP. When we think about climate and culture in our spaces that should be reflected in what families feel, what students feel when they come into the buildings, when they come into bowling. So I think we have some existing measures that already do that. Now training is another thing that's gotta be embedded in our professional development at all levels so folks are prepared to really in a real way live that value out so that we can see improvement.

I think it's also embedded in quality school plans and performance evaluations.

Any major measures should be embedded.

So that way we can see if the implementation is working and if it's not, what will be in place to support?

Yes, that's good a point. Okay. Because it's not always working. So we have to be able to monitor that as well.

So my other question, I don't know if I go into the strategic plan.

Sure.

Yeah. Okay. Yes. So in the equity impact statement, it

was

like there was a statement in the last page that talked about a tracker. Development of the implementation of that tracker. And there is a designated owner of that tracker. So my question is, what is the intent of the tracker? Tracker and how do you imagine this will roll out?

Yes, so the original implementation plan in 2017 we had a tracker. So it really tracked where we were in our goals. So we had put out what the goals were to the community and you could see kind of our progress as goals were being met. They were overdue, if they were kind of late. It gave the community a chance to see where we were in progress committed to. And so the hope would be to have a similar process with our goals strategic at plan level. That's separate from the main metrics of district but it would be just a way to hold ourselves accountable to doing the things we say that we're gonna do in the plan.

And then just as the way that actually played out, mean there were the departments would come and really present on progress towards goals. And we would look at the original goals and sort of track as green meant they were on target, yellow was like, yeah, that's in progress. And then red meant like this is like we're not seeing the progress we needed to see. So I would imagine there'd be something along those same lines.

Yeah, it like an internal, there was an internal way for us to figure out like where people were but it was a dashboard connected to the actual goals to say where we were.

So when you talk about a designated owner, what does that mean?

In the district?

Yeah, it said that there will be a designated owner for the major step like designated to follow-up on.

Oh, you're talking about the actual goals? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So like action steps and goals would be owned by folks, in offices. So that it's not just this ambiguous like hey we have this goal around something. Folks need to own goals.

Yeah, think this was one of the challenges from before that it didn't filter beyond the highest levels.

Yeah.

And this has to be the core work of every person in the district for it to work. And that means every department, department leads, the deputies will all be taking this and internalizing this. And it comes out in the prioritization of in their own kind of goals. How are they gonna be measuring it? In what order are they doing it? What's the resources they're gonna be using? So this is really to go across the district.

And I'll just add to that point. Back in 2016, each department had its own goals but now it's cross functional teams. So it's no longer being siloed like one department's doing this another department's doing that whereas now it's cutting across departments as it needs to.

Thank you. You. Mr. Chuan.

Thank you for developing a very thorough and well detailed policy.

Thank you.

And I noticed that, well, just a comment that I know that you gauge your expectations in developing this depending dependent upon the percentage of students meeting or exceeding MCAS. MCAS is no longer part of our equation. But looking at the graph on whatever page that is, it's very depressing. Policy exists since 2006, now 2026. Know that we have continuously revised it every six year, except for those two years I was here too.

Except for those two years of COVID, but still, I'm hoping I I'm really hoping that with this thoroughly planned, particularly on I I I stress as member mentioned professional development. One way or another, students achievement depends on the the the the the teacher's emotional intelligence and other intelligence relating to his or her teaching capability. That graph below 50%. Yes. Since, I don't know, since 2006 until now.

Hopefully with what you are doing right now, the next time that we have some graphical data, it shows a little above 50%.

Right. Yes.

I I don't know. But that had to be the reality of of our situation. Otherwise, we'll keep develop developing it, keep putting it together. Another six years, we'll come up with other plans, but the reality is there. Opportunity and achievement gap has been the controversial issues even be before I I get onboard here. Yes. It was one of the major questions when I was interviewed. So eight years down the road it's still here.

That's right. Twenty years down the road it's still here. So we have a lot of work to do. And I think that there has been just a lack of coherence and alignment in the strategies. We have seen in past iterations where there was a strategic plan sitting there was the policy sitting on one shelf.

And as Doctor. Rose said, a different strategic plan with a different set of goals over here and then the school committee would go set a set of priorities over there and none of those documents were speaking to each other. And so, really what we tried to do here with this policy is create that line of coherence. This is the first time in the district's history where the policy and the actual implementation and strategic plan is being connected through the same person to the superintendent's designee which is Doctor. Colin Rose.

So that's a huge change in the way this was implemented where you had different people sort of running different pieces of the strategy. Now, we've got the coherence and alignment that is really important and of course leadership matters. We've got Superintendent Skipper, we've got Doctor. Rose, you got the task force monitoring, you've got now the school committee where you all have weighed in on the policy. You've got Doctor. Alkins. We're gonna ask for a second school committee member to also serve on the task force. And again, that just creates more of that alignment. It has to be one set of sheet music for the district. Too often, the district is moving to multiple pieces of sheet music.

It's all playing wonderful songs, but none of it's coordinated. It has to be everyone moving in that same direction. I think we have the shot at this based on the players and the policy and the strategic plan being aligned directly to the policy.

I would say you have deputies and chiefs that need to be highly And involved then I think for improved I talked about ebbs and flows, I think we're trying to see steady improvement, right? Not some miracle but that these lines don't ebb and flow. That we have a strategy that has continuous improvement throughout the years that is steady. And

the boots on the ground. Wanna reinforce, school is the unit of change. So this policy is really trying to focus more heavily what's happening in our schools with strong leaders, strong teachers, and student engagement. Enjoy.

My my last comment before I yield to other members. Thank you for having special paying us special attention to language, you know, ELL and students with disability. Yes. I do appreciate that. Hopefully, the graph regarding those category will somehow fluctuate upward? Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Do you want to take anything? Do you want to say something?

No, was just going say just one quick clarification. We we still are using MCAS, right, as part of the benchmark, but not singularly. Right? This is also where, like, MAP and some of our internal assessments are really important. And I think that's one of the great things that's come out of working together with the task force is it's not just one measure. It is multiple measures. So I just want to give you a shout out for staying focused on that as well.

Mhmm. Yes. Thank you, madam chair. I wanna say thank you, team. Excellent job. Thank you. I think it's really, really, really good.

Thank you very much to to the team. As Rafael said, I was able to notice that you really identified what the problem was. You identified the problem. You shared the community, and you proposed very solid solutions. So you did designate and you created a strategic plan that is connected to the policies that were to be implemented.

I also believe that the language that you use in this process is very important as well as we're trying to convey what we are trying to. Which indicates that we can we have the ability and the potential to become a very solid district. There are so many things that are happening. There are so many people doing great things, but sometimes we are not aware of this because they do not align these things. They're not communicated.

I do believe that the solution is in being aligned. The solution is in alignment itself. You also mentioned about the field work that you were going to go directly to schools to be able to monitor the progress that was embedded there. So that will be critical in terms of determining what is it to be improved and what is that we can improve as well. I do not have a question per se, but I would like when you guys look at objective number one Mhmm.

In one of the slides. We're talking about alignment and the sustainability of structures in the district itself across the district. To be able to promote and revise accountability.

And supervision as well. And

at the same time, the policies that are being implemented. I believe I heard that there is a team that will be in charge in doing this. Is that correct? Or it will be an assigned team of doing this?

Well, it's really up to the superintendent's team, her leadership team, all of the different deputy, regional superintendents and so forth to carry out the work all the way down to the school leader level and to the teachers on that front line. Our job as the task force is just to monitor, to be critical friends, to really just make sure progress is being made.

And also to provide recommendations. I think one of the things we didn't necessarily go into was actually the breadth of expertise that is sitting on the task force and the different sectors that they represent. And so, hearing much of the feedback around the development of the policy, I'm just very reflective on the amount of time that we went back and forth on just the verbiage of every single section. And so that has come out. But really I think where the task force also has that power is in coming with recommendations that are coming from a range of just different expertises and sectors.

And so in that sense it can be collaborative with the district. Like there is flexibility within the policy to understand that the district has to be able to figure out how to best implement this. And at the same time the task force does have a lot of wisdom to offer in that regard.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Wisdom and recommendations that are also listed in the policy. I will also just add for goal number one, I'm so glad that you pointed out goal one, Ms. Garcia. Because the task force at one point felt like if we had goal one, we didn't need the other goal. So it was really focused on how are we aligning this work.

And so I think as the school committee, as you all think, like where should you as a body really be focusing your energy? Like if you're really focused on how is goal one flowing from the school committee to the superintendent to the leadership team all the way down to those school leaders. That's really where, you know, we tried to put a lot of energy into that first goal. Okay. Thank you.

And, the last thing I will say about that and that was why my last statement was around for us, I think as a school committee, it's going to be critical when we receive updates on certain pieces of data. And also what we're asking for. And so as we for example enter into the budget season, for example this conversation might have been better prior to having the budget season. So that's also something for us to keep in mind as we're going through the academic year to say wait a second, I would love an update on the state of our diversity of our teachers. I would love an update of MAP goals where we are, where have we grown, where have we not grown, what are the factors that have gone into that.

So I think everything is going to depend on us in terms of what we're specifically asking for, And and then also just the schedule of presentations that we'll have over the next well, the years to come, really.

Mhmm. Thank you.

Thank you so much, team. You know, this OAG policy is described as a north star, but it really has an incredible amount of detail. And the thoroughness and and thoughtfulness created by committee, I can't even imagine the amount of time required to do that to get to this point. So so tremendous appreciation for a team of volunteers who are just really unified by their commitment to the students of Boston. So a lot of gratitude there.

I think building off of where member Palanco Garcia left off and what you were just discussing, doctor Alkins, I think we are eager to dig into that goal one and think about how our oversight can move this work forward. And so a lot of my questions are maybe a little bit more technical about how we can get to that point that doctor Alkins described in terms of having the policy and the strategic plan really dictate our cycle of presentations, our expectations of interim data throughout the year, our determination of what, you know, what work is for year one, year two, year three of the plan. And so that's kind of where because I think what I might suggest to doctor Alpin's point that it would be on us to determine the right agenda for that time. Really, think the plan should have the level of detail where it's really dictating to us what the work is of that time frame so that it's really, like, informing the whole year at a glance in terms of what we need updates with. So I think a question I'm maybe getting to by the end is when will that level of detail be completed to really have this work sequenced?

Because this OAG policy is has a lot of longevity to it. You know, there is multi year work here, and the superintendent can't be expected to take up Mhmm. Every recommendation immediately next year. Right. But I think it would be fair to the superintendent and to us to know which of those things is being taken up sooner, later, etcetera, and have that mapped out, and then have what the indicators of success would be for each of those initiatives. Initiatives. So So maybe I'll stop there for the first question and just ask thoughts on kind of that next level of specificity.

Yeah, I mean I think we have a lot of raw materials right now that we need to sift through work with chiefs, department heads and leaders of offices to make sure that we have the right sequencing. We're gonna be working throughout the spring into the summer on that. Think the goal was to bring more detailed goals to you all this summer and then have that level of detail by early fall. And really work intimately with offices and individuals to make sure that we have ambitious and realistic goals. We know that this is a five year window.

This policy should, I mean the, there might be refreshes, but the essence and the objectives in this policy should be able to last decades. Right? And we can't do everything all at once. And so you're right, we need to come back with like the meat on the bones. Right now, I see these objectives as those bones and kinda asking are we going in right direction? And if we are, great. We'll start building those that meet this spring and summer.

Oh sorry, please go ahead.

Well I would just add to that. I think that even when Doctor. Rose was building out the strategic plan with the department, the cross functional teams, it was not the idea of we're gonna take every single goal and drill down on every single possible goal and objective, but we're gonna focus on these three or four key areas. And I think that's how the school committee could look at this is okay, you've got this full document. What are the areas that the school committee wants to focus in on?

You might decide the teacher diversity, retention and support is one of the areas. It could be certainly around the achievement pieces and the academic goals but is there something in academics? The strategic plan is really calling out literacy as the focus area. So that's one of the focus areas as well as

Quality instruction.

High quality instruction and high quality student experiences. So I think it's like really using the policy itself as the school committee goes into your retreat to say, okay based on what we see here, where do we wanna start the process and where do we wanna put the focus for this year and sort of deciding that year over year. That's how I see that piece. Now, the specific goals won't be available till the fall but you have the roadmap here to be able to go into your next retreat and start to say where the priorities are.

I don't really have much to add other than I think these were some of the conversations that we did have in the meetings. One, about the policy being a balance of being too prescriptive perhaps, but also what would be the process. So after functional teams are able to meet, how would we as a task force come together and decide like well wait a second, which goal should we prioritize? How does that get to the school committee? So I don't think we've actually figured that out yet as a group. But that's one of those things that we really do need to nail down.

And get the superintendent. Yeah, and the leadership leadership

team is that there's multiple places where the work has started. And so I think that's sorting exercises that happens with the deputies and the chiefs, is to build on the work that is already in motion and accelerate wherever we can as quickly as possible and get the input from school committee as to in the areas that may not yet have been started, what would be the priorities, right? So that we have kind of like a reasonable menu for that year one. Some things in progress and moving faster, other things beginning. And then as we go through the years, more new things come on to being.

It's not unlike the inclusion plan or the long term facilities where it it's it's a it's a five year plan. And so that first year is a lot of the work right now that we're doing, which is the mapping and figuring out, you know, with the the deputies and the the chiefs how they're going to be in the cross functional teams, how they're gonna be taking that work into the departments and making it concrete and actionable. And I think that's what I appreciate is that there is this level of detail and yet North Star. And I think it'll be that collaborative process of sorting with school committee, with the task force and with leadership that will get us where we need to be going.

Yeah. I think folks that are responsible for implementing need to have a strong voice in how that happens. And I think they come back for feedback and the task force gives feedback but we need the folks, the leaders in the district have I think the right to take a look at what the policy is and how they best will approach kind of coming up with the answers.

Right, I think that's an important distinction that you know the expertise of the the task force really lends itself to being very specific with the recommendations with the understanding that when we vote on the policy we're voting at level of the goals and objectives for the district to consider the recommendations as potential levers to achieve those goals and objectives. I think when thinking about a strategic plan holistically, it should include in flight work especially when that work is still going to require a significant lift from staff. And so I guess one of my questions around the strategic plan objectives right now is, you know, during the budget season, we really emphasize the priority of inclusion, rollout, and multilingual learner supports, expansion of dual language, etcetera. And right now, those aren't specifically named in the strategic plan document. They're named in the OAG policy.

So just wondering where they live. Is it that they would live as sub initiatives under what's listed here. But I just wanted to make sure that those would be clearly delineated in the strategic plan with work sequenced by year.

Yeah I mean I think these objectives are again the schema that we would attach more specific goals. So if we're talking about like bilingual programming that would be in like 3.1 when we're talking about programming for students. The multilingual work in the classroom would be in 1.1 when we talk about high quality instruction. So there'll be more detailed goals in inside of those objectives that would spell that out.

It's also making me think that we may need like our next update on strategic planning like some alignment on terms. Because when I hear the word goals, I think of, like, a metric. Whereas, I think that when you are saying goals, you're talking about, like, an initiative or a body of work. Yeah. And so I I think that there may we may need to, glossify

Core actions. Yeah.

Core

actions. Just think so that we're all talking about the same thing. Yeah. I think in terms of the what's here, what I would say is that like the preamble of the OAG policy talked about literacy and numeracy. Mhmm. But numeracy feels very absent from the rest of the policy. I know that literacy is the foundation of all subjects and I appreciate the discussion about literacy across the curriculum. But we also know about the importance of algebra one as a gateway to high school completion. We know that a lot of the new career pathways emphasize STEM. So just thinking about where that could be called out more in the next level of work.

And I would also note that the emphasis on advanced course work in high school, I think is a natural emphasis because there are a lot of designations for advanced course work in high school. AP, early college, CTE, IB, etcetera. But that work is not as easily accessed if there is not advanced coursework from the beginning. And I think defining what that is for the district and making sure that we are making sure that there is remediation and acceleration for all of our students is really important. There was the excellence for all pilot that was named in the bullets that had an end date, which replaced a different advanced program.

It seems like that work is really at risk when we're looking at budget cuts, and so I would encourage us to consider advanced coursework as a K-twelve initiative and not just a high school initiative. And I'll stop there. Thank you.

Thinking back that this work has been going on for twenty years and there was, I'm sure, as much enthusiasm about this work twenty years ago as there was ten years ago and here we are yet again. And I guess my question for me is what will be different this time?

Yes, I'm so glad you asked that question, chair. I can I wanna give the historical context because leadership matters? This is why the superintendent role is so critical to the success the success of the initiative. The 2006 policy was drafted and then came a new superintendent and she did not see where she didn't have ownership of that policy. It sat up on a shelf and it was never implemented. So that was 2006. 2016 policy comes along. We have a superintendent who's part of the process, writing and drafting of the policy together with Doctor. Rose. I was there on the task force to push chair, you were there as well.

And so then, and we had all the departments providing their guidance and weighing in tons of meetings. It took a full year to draft that document. When it was done, the same superintendent then started a strategic planning process that was totally separate and so that strategic plan had an implementation plan and the policy had an implementation plan. So, what happens when a district has two sets of implementation plans? Everyone ignores both.

That's what happened and so, no one knew what sheet music they were following. So, it was like we're not gonna follow any of it and so, both documents went up on the shelf. But, now we did do a lot of implementation. I will say there was a lot of implementation and work done for the OAG plan, but people kept saying what about the strategic plan? Which one am I following? Lots of confusion, again lack of alignment and coherence. So, this really is the first time that the OAG policy is being positioned as that North Star. So, first comes the policy, then comes the strategic plan. This is where Superintendent Skipper then figures out the how and then we've got cross functional teams. We have an actual designee.

We have the OAG task force still standing as a monitoring body. So I think again, it's about alignment and coherence, that's what's going be different and that the superintendent and their leadership team were really involved in being able to weigh in. So there's also that sense of ownership, which is why it's so important that the policy is refreshed every five or so years. A lot of the people who were here back in 2016 are not here anymore. So, this new team now has had a chance to read, to review, to weigh in, to make comments and edits. So I do think that sense of ownership is here and the alignment.

Over the years we've known that there have been some things that have impeded our progress in terms of this. One is data, and getting data disaggregated, really disaggregated, which is something I think we've asked for for a decade or more. True accountability, and being able to name things that we know are not working and holding people accountable for those things. And to that point, my question is, where is the union in this? The union for years has had an issue around inclusion, inclusion done right.

So we need a OAG done right strategy because they are critical critical at every single step from who is actually sitting in front of our students to their own mindset and commitment into this work, the belief that this is possible. We provide tons of training. Is it more than just a checking of the box? Where is the true embodiment about what this training means? And how are we going to see that showing up for our students in this next six years. Two

things there. One is that we were just really excited to have Leah Sirena, the vice president of the Boston Teachers Union, now on the task force. That's a first where we actually have the union represented in a seat. I think it's really important and her voice has just been really powerful to have. I think in terms of data, the district has to become more transparent in data.

We ask for data, it takes months to get it, there's sort of like let's present it in the best possible light and then you don't have transparency from that very moment because the data's not good in a lot of these areas and I think that transparency is important. I think that the community, the public at large, if the data is transparent, the community has to be willing to say, having the data is not a place for attack, it's a place for collaboration and partnership because now we know what we need to all work on together and collectively to make the data better. So I think that the data is really, really important. Think, you know, and I see a lot of folks nodding their heads on the bench. I mean, you know, you ask for data and you get 50 pages because it's like, there's almost like an intent that you're not able to even digest the data.

Meaningful data is what Meaningful data is what's in it. Would love Not just data.

I think it's it's it's going to be taking the needing to take the step of it being from data to information. Mhmm. I think that's where sometimes we can stumble. I also think that sometimes the data we get back at the state level doesn't lend itself to disaggregate in the way that we need to. And so that's something that our own ODA has been really trying to get at.

Know, you will ask the question, you know, how are our African American students who were born here in Boston doing relative to other students who may identify as black but not born here. And that's very hard to get at sometimes with the way that things get disaggregated. But that is something that the ODA team is committed to and we're trying to figure out. And I think to Eyali's point, being collaborative about this, that this is like, there is a problem. How do we know there's a problem?

This data has not changed in forever. Anywhere, nationally, statewide, it is a problem. We know that. So let's get together to figure this out so Boston can be the place that all of our kids are served well. Like, that is the spirit of this policy. More important, it's the intentionality with the steps that we have to take. And some of that is going to mean on our district side and central side doing things differently in order to get at the information in a way that's actionable.

I would probably say something that I appreciated about the conversations and the processes is started to name the importance of time bound goals and when we are looking at KPIs, doesn't matter necessarily if you score a touchdown on a Hail Mary. You know what I mean? And like in one play. But it's about the incremental progress and then that's what we're hoping to see. And so in a year the idea is to not see it'd be great if you jump five points, whatever it is, but it's about being realistic and saying like okay, this is a time bound goal, did we make it, did we not?

And if we didn't, okay, but are we making progress? And I think that adds to the sense of that everybody understands that this is urgent work. And so I think that that's something that I've appreciated about the strategic plan as well as the OAG policy as well.

Just wanna thank you all and we look forward to voting on the policy in a future meeting. Okay. Our third presentation is the private school applications for two schools. First the Alpha School followed by the Douglas Ridley School. Let's aim to keep the presentations of each of these schools to seven minutes. I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters and I want to invite the superintendent to give introductory remarks.

Wonderful. Thank you, chair. So in a very few moments, I'll be turning the meeting over to Doctor. Ann Clark, who's our BPS Development Officer for Strategy, Partnerships and Innovation. This will be a presentation for two private school applications, the Alpha School and the Douglas Ridley School.

The Alpha School Boston, which will be going first, is an independent nonsectarian k to eight school focused on personalized learning. The Douglas, and then I'll come back and explain. But the Douglas Ridley School is a k two through six school that is modeled after the Reggio Amelia approach to education, which is rooted in equity and anti racist practice. Most importantly, to ground us, doctor Clark's gonna explain the process for opening a non BPS school in Boston, including the role of the district and the required approval of this committee. You're also gonna hear from the administration of both schools.

Some of you may be new to the process. We have a role in BPS, which is strictly administrative in this case. The district's responsible for ensuring all private schools seeking approval meet the requirements of Massachusetts general law and for making recommendations to me and the Boston School Committee. The committee is responsible for approval of any private school wishing to operate within the city of Boston. So at this point, I'll turn it over to Doctor. Clark for the presentation, and then we'll entertain questions as we go through. Doctor. Clark?

Thank you, superintendent. Good evening, madam chair, madam vice chair and members of the school committee. As I was introduced, my name is Ann Clark and I am serving in the role of overseeing process this school year, and I'm pleased to present the findings of our internal review team this evening. As you know, the Boston School Committee is responsible for approving any private school wishing to operate within Boston city limits under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 76 Section one. In 2011, the Boston School Committee established a formal private school policy creating an internal review team process to evaluate applications from any interested parties and assess whether a proposed private school meets the standards set out by Massachusetts law.

That internal review team evaluates applicants against a defined set of criteria covering everything from curriculum and education materials to staff qualifications to student records and financial solvency. This slide shows some of those criteria and I'll give you a moment to read. And this slide shows the rest of the criteria. I'll give you another moment to read. The review itself follows a five step process, application review, site visit, leadership interview, evaluation, and a formal recommendation to the superintendent and school committee.

For the two schools before you today, the Alpha School and the Douglas Ridley School, all steps in that process are now complete. Both applications were received earlier this year, site visits were conducted in March, and recommendations have been submitted to the superintendent. The internal review team found that both schools met the criteria outlined by the Boston School Committee policy. Tonight you will hear from the school leaders at each of these schools who will give an overview of their proposal. On June 10, you will vote on whether to approve these private schools applications to open.

I'll now pass the presentation to the team from Alpha School.

Good evening, superintendent, chair board. I'm Doctor. Tasha Arnold. I'm the head of Alpha Schools, and it's with great privilege that I'm here before you today to share what it is that our school is about. I originally started as a a school teacher in Chicago and Milwaukee Public Schools. I've had the privilege to work around the world in Europe, The UAE, and most recently starting and opening schools in Mumbai, India. And with me today, I have my colleague, JC Fisher.

Hi. Thank you all for having us here. I also want thank Doctor. Clark and her team and our counsel from Foley Hoag for helping us understand what it means to be a part of the community here in Boston and prepare an application that hopefully meets the standards that that we seek to meet here.

So Alpha School, as we've already touched upon, is a mastery focused school. So we have it's it's a it's a typical school with regards to students come into the school for a full school day. Our mission is to ensure students achieve academic mastery while also developing cognitive, social, and personal competencies needed for success in school and then also post school life. Our standards align academics with student with teacher support, so our core frameworks are completely aligned with the state of Massachusetts curriculum frameworks across all subject areas. And our instructional features include adaptive mastery based pathways.

We use both formative and summative assessments. We have teacher coaching and intervention models that are developed. We also have a reading specialist that works with our students for pull out sessions. And of course we use benchmark assessments including MAP assessments as well as our own internal unit and grade level assessments. And so you'll see at the bottom it says students progress based on demonstrated mastery rather than seat time alone.

Here's a typical school day. We know that well, we've implemented a drop off time slot, so from 08:15 to 08:45 in order to allow for an influx of any sort of traffic. We have a morning launch where students come and it's about mindfulness, getting yourself ready and excited for the school day. Then we have our core academic blocks with some breaks built in there. Lunchtime, we hope to walk to a park, which is a five minute walk from the school for outdoor play.

And then we have our interdisciplinary workshops in the afternoon. And then we have closing and, of course, pickup. The calendar year is similar regards to achieving a hundred and eighty days, and, we also have professional development days allocated for our teachers. So in addition to having core mastery in academics, academics, we are also focused on life skills. So life skills include, for example, teamwork, storytelling, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, relationship building socialization, and of course the concept of grit and perseverance.

So our afternoon workshops include that core academic, as I mentioned, interdisciplinary cross planning subjects. So for example, our students might be working on carpentry, but they're applying geometric principles from geometry, history, knowing that the wood, you know, where did the wood come from, and then also giving presentations to larger groups. And we're working on developing those skills through something that's of interest to our students.

Our site is already ready. We have a certificate of occupancy and inspection from the city. We've passed all fire alarm sprinkler tests, etcetera. We're also located right across the street from Mass General Brigham, so we can have a place to receive if we ever have any medical emergencies. And we're very close to fire engine number four, so that we have close proximity to the appropriate emergency services as well.

You'll notice we're on the 4th Floor of a building. The 2nd And 3rd Floor are operated by a Montessori school. And previously, this floor was used for educational use as well, so we're maintaining the same use of the site. We have four classrooms, commons area, indoor play area, support space for our one on one meetings between our teachers and students for additional support, as well as staff, admin, and your classic plenty of bathrooms, eating area, etcetera. Lots of security. We have controlled building access on the way up and separation from other tenants to ensure children's safety.

So we

have strong interest in the school. When we initially were starting conversations with families, we had two fifty two this was back in February. Towards the February, had two fifty two families interested, 20 parents prepaid deposits should we be approved by the committee. And in year one, we're looking to launch with 25 students. And then year two, the capacity would be at 50.

So that's our our projections for year two. Our model is really focused on highly personalized instruction with our students. So our ratios are quite low. One to six is our, teacher to student ratio in year one. And then as we grow to 50, it will be one to, eight.

So in year one, we would have a head teacher, two additional teachers, a reading specialist, a role that we call dean of parents that's helping parents understand our model and working them through. And then I operate as the head of school from a regional position. So I will also be here in Boston as much as possible. You know, part of one of the privileges of starting a school is really being able to integrate into a community. And Boston's such a wonderful community with regards to, you know, inclusion and diversity, and so for us as a school, we're really looking forward to be a part of that.

One of the things that we think we can bring to the community is offering workshops for AI instruction for students where our our students are already at our other campuses are already thinking about hosting a hackathon for all students in the area to participate in. So we really hope to be a piece to add to the community, and that's something that we're really excited about is building those opportunities in a way that makes sense and also that excite, you know, students and teachers alike. So I think we just made it in our time slot, but we would love to answer any questions you may have or continue the conversation. Conversation.

Thank

you. I'll open it up to the committee for questions.

I have one question. How do students and families select them? What is the process?

Yeah, so students, parents express interest, and then so they attend an information session. They learn about the school. Is this a good fit for my family, for my child in particular? Then the child comes for the shadow day. They complete a MAP assessment, but we don't accept students based on their scores.

That's not how we accept students. What we're looking for are things such as coachability, interest, and ability to engage with our model. That's our standard for assessment. We also do a family interview because we're looking for alignment from our families, and then from there that's really how we decide our acceptance. I also interview with the parents as we build this community.

The

number of parents who have expressed interest? What's the breakdown in terms of diversity?

Yeah. We've had I don't have the exact breakdown, but we've had all sorts of interest from all across the levels. And so, you know, the the nice thing I would say about our model is it doesn't matter if you are the student who always raises their hand, if you're an ELL student, if you are a neurodiverse student. We're able to meet you right where you're at for your own specific academic needs. And so so what we notice is parents see that, so it attracts all sorts of interests from across the whole scope sequence.

Are you equipped to accommodate a student with disability?

Yeah, so we look at our student, if a student comes to us with a five zero four plan, depending on what those accommodations are, yes, we can be able to provide that. But if a student, certain services we don't provide during the school day. So if a student needs speech pathology, we're partnered with experts in that area, clinical psychologists, that we're able to recommend and also help build those relationships with our families. So our program, a lot of accommodations that students receive for dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, Extra time is already built in, so you're working at your own pace. So if you need 50% extra time, well, all students actually get that.

If we need to adjust font size or you need movement breaks, that's built into the system. So the accommodations that we give neurodiverse students, actually all of our students are receiving, and so we see that that's been quite successful for many students. But yes, some of those occupational therapy supports that would take place outside of school. But we would be monitoring that from their IEP forms, if it's a five zero four plan, whatever it might be. We're working with the families to make sure that students are receiving those supports outside of school as well.

And one of our next steps were we to receive your approval is we have an initial list for doing procurement for the right contractors for special education needs and for mental health services that we don't provide during the school day to ensure children have access to them. So if we were to receive approval, we will finalize and formalize those agreements with the appropriate local contractors.

Just one last question out of curiosity, what's the annual tuition?

Our initial tuition plan is 65,000 a year.

65,000 a year per student.

Correct.

Thank you.

We are building out, so founding family members for the first year, it's 10,000 discount per year, so 50 As five a national movement, we're working towards scholarships. We want to be able to provide this opportunity. We want to bring this to a billion students in ten years, which I know sounds quite lofty, but we do want to provide this opportunity to multiple students. And so we are working towards building scholarship program as a national push.

Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. It's interesting the school process, the curriculum, because they're putting the skilled student is very important. My question is about the scholar scholarship because some family maybe is interesting but don't have lot of money. I don't know if you you have financial or completely scholarship for the family.

We're working towards that. So we're starting to secure funds for that. We really want to be able to provide scholarships. It's not probably going to happen in year one. Year two, more of a likely probability. Year three, we think we'll be able to be providing scholarships. And that outreach would be directly within the community as well. As we said, we want to integrate into the community. So we want to provide opportunities for students who can't pay that tuition fee. Yes, absolutely.

Thank

you. Thank you so much.

Could you speak a little bit more just about how your funding is sort of managed like either through a board or just that structure and I mean just for full transparency we've recently had a school in the district, a private school that had to close multiple locations. Not gonna go into details about it, but at the end of the day it impacts our students. And so we wanna know that a private school that will be in the district is managed properly.

Of course. Go ahead. So we're part of an over 30 school network nationally right now and we're managed centrally. We have a centralized professional financial management team. We're privately held.

We have a strong corporate governance with a clear board oversight that handles all of the Alpha School program. We have a fairly capital light model, which means rather than buying real estate and running the risk of being overleveraged and collapsing under the weight of a balance sheet, right? We're keeping that money and putting it back into our schools. And then on top of that, we have over $1,000,000,000 committed from our founder to make sure that this happens and that we go through the next five to ten years because our mission and goal is to truly take this model, prove it works, and then expand across the globe to everybody, right? Over 1,000,000,000 children is literally the goal that we espouse every time somebody asks and we talk about it.

It's a very mission driven organization.

And I think this is not necessarily a question for you all, but just a question for also district of what data do we have particularly around students either returning to the district if perhaps they go elsewhere and they're not the right fit or however else they make their way back to the district? Do we just have data around that?

Yes. So we are the landing pad for all students.

Right. For sure.

And that means when a student is counseled out or doesn't fit either the model from inception or the experience, it is BPS that is here every step of the way for those students. And so I think you can understand why for us, when a new entity comes into being, for us, it's a question of who are you really serving and are you serving the average student in Boston? I was just curious. I've looked at your website. What's your total enrollment across all your sites? Yeah, so around 500 students. That's as of

now. So our Austin campus opened twelve years ago, I guess you could say twelve years ago. And then two years ago we really launched a second location in Miami. And then this past year we've had greater expansion. We have lots of demand across the country, but at the same time, we're not just opening up anywhere and everywhere. It's been through the demand of parents and us meeting with parents, having many conversations, right? Our parents trialing the model. It's not just you have an info session, oh, let's open up a school. It very much has been this is what they want. And so they brought us to Boston essentially, if you will.

And so it's expanding, but we're also being very intentional with how we scale.

Sorry, I just missed. Who brought you to Boston?

The parents that are interested in joining. Said please come to Boston. That was

Oh, see. Okay.

Yeah. That was

Yeah, because I was just wondering because when I looked, right, I didn't see any demographic data of the kids enrolled in any of the sites. I didn't see anything about students with IEPs, like what the percent was enrolled or multilingual learners? Do you have that data for your

It's pretty tradition. About twenty percent are on the neurodiverse scale within the school. We don't have that data published. But yeah I'm happy to share about that. The diversity reflects the cities that they're in pretty accurately I would say. So our campus in Georgia for example is reflecting that diversity of that city. Same in New York as well. So it's reflective of the community largely, of course, within a little bit depending on the city.

Gotcha. Yeah, I think that would just be really good data for the committee to have, Doctor. Alkin's point, sort of. And then just another question, can you just speak a little bit about are your teachers certified? Are your administrators certified? How does that work in the model?

Yeah, so most of our teachers, and that's about 65%, come from traditional teaching backgrounds. All educators have degrees. You know, they would have had to have worked extensively with children in some sort of capacity that could have been a sports coach, it could be a guide of some sort, thinking like scouts. And yeah, the senior leadership tends to be backgrounds. I have a doctorate in education.

All of our other deans of parents, many of them, I want to say 75%, 80% all have doctorate degrees. So there's a large investment in education background. But we also, as we have these life skills workshops, people that have strong coaching backgrounds tend to be a really good fit for our model. So we have those that have coached at the college level, for example, and also quite a few professors as well have been working with our students. So it's a wide range, but many have that traditional teaching background and are getting teachers those that aren't teachers are also pursuing that as well as part of their PD development.

Got it. Okay, great.

Doctor. Alcorn, sorry. I could be on a roll for a while.

No, those I'll give you my next questions actually about just getting some of the basic demographic data of where your school currently is, like across the country. Because I'm not as familiar with who specifically like you serve or just like are you seeing that you're growing in particular demographics versus others? And then just like echoing superintendent just like support for multilingual learning. Just some digging in a little bit more like to that for me.

Yeah because your sites are very much oriented in the major cities or the more diverse locations within those states. So that's why I think the data would be important. It would also be important to see, again, to Doctor. Alkin's point, but what your retention data looks like. Like when students start, how long do they go? Do they finish? Because that's going to be of concern for us. When we get students back that have gone through someplace and not had a positive experience, then we're picking pieces up. And so that's why for us we want to make sure that kids are going to be cared for if they're in your model. That be important.

So this past year I said around 500 students, we only have 6% turnover. And when I've broken that down, most of that is parents moving to another city where they don't have an Alpha school. So they actually some of them opt for additional private school options. We also have something called Alpha Anywhere which is a homeschool model, so we see parents selecting that. Where we do see turnover and I just want to you know students that are coming to us tend to not be coming from the public schools. They're coming from other private school competitors. So that's just kind of a caveat there. But sorry, I lost my train of thought there. That's cool. I normally am in bed at this time.

No, it's all good. I was just also the other thing was just noticing some of the places, but it's also some of the places where vouchers tend to be used. And so I was just kind of curious, like, how much of the business model is that? Are most of your clients private paying? Or are you seeing, you know, such as in Arizona, more of a voucher trend?

We do have a percentage of our students, I want to say it's 25, but I need to check that, that are using the voucher system in Arizona. So yes, to your point that is correct. But our other cities where we don't have the vouchers approved, it is primarily private school students that are coming over to our school.

Oh,

the thing I was going say about turnover, that's it. Where we do see a shift is at the high school level. So some students, you know, our schools are very small, so they want, you know, to be the quarterback on the team or they want a prom with 300 students or other reasons as well, be part of a large band, for example. So we do see students switching at that point. But what's interesting, at least I find what's interesting, students that have left us, a little bit more than 50% actually come back after doing a year in high school at another option of a school.

So I would say that is a pinch point that eighth to ninth grade there is a change. But those students are also often opting to then go to private schools.

Thank you for the presentation. I'm one of the new members for whom this is the first season of approving private school applications. So you'll have to forgive that some of my questions are related to Alpha Schools and others are more to further understand process. So sorry that you guys are the victims. But the under it it's a little uncomfortable, I think.

I'll just speak in I statements to hold a responsibility to approve a school for which we will have no oversight or future updates. So I think we sit with that as we, you know, are deeply invested in the the success of students across the city regardless of the schools that they go to and understanding that we have not had any real vantage point into the school and carry this responsibility. So I think it's just it's a it's an odd it's an odd responsibility that DESE has assigned to individual school committees to carry carry this for a few reasons. One is, doctor Clark, you walked through some of the things that BPS has put in place to make a process to review applications. That sound like

it

probably involve a significant amount of time from you or someone on the BPS team. So we have more information, I imagine, than some other districts that just might not be as big or have the capacity to invest in research. Research. Because it's my understanding that this review process is a BPS review process, not a required DESE process. So I just think it is important to understand that the state has tasked districts with approving independent schools with very little guidance around how we're supposed to determine whether they meet the requirements.

So I just wanted to mention that. I think also the the list of criteria from is challenging as DESE has very strict criteria for public schools around a variety of things from teacher certification and licensure to literal number of hours that students are required to be in school. We've you've had to sit through our mask corps vote earlier today, and I know you all aren't applying to be a high school in this case. But a lot of what has been criticized by BPS is, oh, I I can't believe we're having students do Edmentum to make up credits. You know, where is the rigor?

I can't believe we're thinking about making exceptions for for students to take fewer than 24 classes. And then to sit with someone paying $65,000 to do two hours of academic instruction is just it it's really surreal. Then it's on us to then make that decision. So I would love to hear a little bit about the two hours of academics and how that gets students to to mastery. I would say also maybe even for the public to understand that there are different ways to arrive at at mastery and some of the things that maybe folks are stressing in terms of what defined rigor when we're looking at different populations, we might have different expectations for how to get there.

So I would love to hear about how that works.

Yeah, so the two hours, I would say that's core content learning, right? So think of learning your math facts. We have an app called Fast Math, so you literally are. It's the automaticity of knowing your facts. And you mentioned earlier, you know, that pinch point of algebra really being, you know, critical in your success, especially in high school.

So we the whole idea is you have to have mastery in certain subjects before you can kind of move on. So we require our students to have 90% mastery at a subject level per subject in order to move on, advance to the next level of academics. Now that's measured through MAP three times a year. As I mentioned, we also have our own internal assessments as well. So that takes place in the morning.

Now our teachers get this is what my students are working on that day. They're quality checking. They're deciding when kids are taking a unit or a subject matter test. A child has a question, the teacher is there to jump strategies in order to master that learning. And then it's not that that's the only learning that occurs.

I would say in addition to that, our teachers are building these life skills workshops which are completely interdisciplinary. So you are having these cross subjects. So it's not just applying your math understanding in a times test, It's now that application of understanding how do I measure, how do I find the area, how do I in a real context that they might experience. And then also develop life skills that maybe encourage them to pursue a career in the future. So I used the example before about carpentry.

So you know that has inspired one of our students to really dive deep into wood carving. You know it's not just he's showed mastery in the content area of math, and now he's been able to apply it. So the afternoon is very much an education. It's not just you know, playtime. It's woven. It's very specific. When it comes to the number of hours, yes, our school day is aligned to actually exceed what is being done in the state of Massachusetts. We also open our school up in the afternoons. If kids want to stay after school, we have after school academics. We do Olympiads.

We do all sorts of robotics, all sorts of STEM focused activities as well. So I think part of it is there's a misconception that it's just two hours and then in the afternoon we play. That's really not what's happening. When I was an educator, I tried to really provide opportunities where my kids could apply the learning. And I know myself that's how I actually knew I learned it. And so that's really what kind of guides our afternoon focus. Does that answer Yeah, what you were

that's very helpful. Yeah. I think it's, you know, incumbent on us too as a as a school district to pay attention to what parents are asking for so that we remain competitive in an environment with declining enrollment in the city. You talked about I mean, it's a it's a modest enrollment right now, but you've also named wanting to serve a billion students, which I imagine when you're ready to do that, you'll be coming back to Boston to seek to expand or open a high school or do something else. So I think it is important that we understand how we can be competitive in this in this market to remind families that we're always here to serve students.

So I would just be curious when you talk about families asking you to come to Boston, proposition or the element of your school specifically that they define that they're looking for that they don't feel like they could find in the existing like plethora of independent schools, faith based schools, parochial schools, charter schools, public schools now, especially hearing that you all use the Massachusetts grade level frameworks. You give the same assessment that we do. Have the same school day, a hundred eighty school days. There's a lot of similarity to a typical school day. So what is the specific element that is the distinguishing factor?

So our program that we use is called Time Back. And so a lot of our parents have been spending eye watering amounts in tutoring after school. The idea is our students are achieving mastery, and they're not having to do homework after school. And the feedback that I get, by and large, is you're giving my child their childhood back. They're now able to stay at soccer practice an extra fifteen minutes, not hurry up, pack up your stuff, and run home to have to go do your homework.

That's one of the benefits that parents are highlighting. And also just a love for school. I've heard this talked about a lot today, right, like kids enjoying school. That's our number one commitment is that kids love school. We spend a lot of time coaching our children.

Our teachers have have meetings with our kids one to one, multiple times a week. And it's not just about academic coaching or life skill coaching or what are your aspirations or any key guy workshop. It's about knowing who their cousin is, where are you spending your time on the weekends. So I think it's the sense of belonging that kids feel at school contributes to the happiness. So I think giving families time back, not having to focus on extra work when we're able to do that in the school day is a huge value proposition for our parents.

So it is different. And then we wouldn't have standardized tests for the most part, except for the fact that people wouldn't believe what we're doing. We need to show this is the data. They're not just coming in for two hours and yes, we think they're learning. There is data to show that our students are growing.

And it's been really powerful for me to see how our program has worked in Brownsville, for example, in Texas where the students are bottom 3% to 7% in the country. I think the second poorest area in the country. And to see that model be implemented in the success that those students have had has been, for me, been really inspiring as an educator. And so I think that it's something that can be applied in many areas. I hope we would love to partner.

It's a privilege to be here in Boston. Think of the educational institutions here in the history even of BPS in and of itself. So we're happy to work with, provide trainings or people that are curious, learn about the model. We've had schools approach us that they're like, hey, can we do some trials? And we are doing that with some schools around the country, some public schools. So we're happy to explore that as well.

I'd also say sorry, operationally because of our size and resources, we have a lot of flexibility to serve our families. So children can come in early. They can stay late. We have the right after school programs that are very easy for them to access. And even to the point that in Austin I think it was last year, you'll correct me the students wanted to spend more time in school.

So we reopened the school during the summer so they could come back in because they wanted to engage in the core learning apps and then have meetings with each other that were semi self organized and led to continue those life skills workshops and learnings and things that they had just finished doing that they didn't really want to be done yet. And so they wanted to spend multiple multiple days days a a week week just coming back to school like they had for most of the year, which again, operationally, it's kind of nice to have that flexibility. Like that's my role. I'm not a teacher. I run our operations nationally. And so to be able to do that at these different schools and provide that level of opportunity, that's another thing that I think sets us apart.

Doctor. Arnolds, where was the place that you mentioned that students were in the bottom 3% to 7%?

Brownsville, Texas.

And like so you accepted students who were in like the three to seven percentile for Yes,

yeah.

Okay.

And they worked with us. We're now in year two. So there's

And those students were full tuition students?

So the tuition there is much lower. Yes. So they will be using in the future their vouchers. But yeah, so for so we have alpha schools. I guess I should say that that school's under the umbrella of alpha. So they the two hour learning. So it's a slightly different model with regards to the tuition pricing. But yes, it's the same format, the same program. Okay.

I'm at the end of my time. I think I would just consider, I know a billion dollars is a lot of money. And I think it would be a powerful statement of access to figure out how immediately opportunities could be made to make the tuition more affordable. It's difficult to hear that kind of financial backing and and hear that there's no avenue at this time for financial support. So I would that would be my last recommendation.

Yeah. No. We totally agree. You know, we've applied for voucher status and we've been denied in eight states. And the only state that approved us currently is Arizona. So we are continuing that work. And with regards to scholarships in particular, we are trialing that at some of our campuses. It's just not going to be in Boston for next year. So it's something that we're building up. We're reaching out and building this fund. We want to be able to do that. And as the tech price comes down over time, it will make our schools more affordable for us to offer even more scholarships.

Just one scholarship for one out of 25 and finding the 65 ks to recoup would be my recommendation. We're not a voucher state. Right, exactly.

More

questions. I do. Yeah. Have joking. Go ahead.

I mean, I know we're yeah.

Yeah. So