Remarks by Luisa Santos
83 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
- Play at 8:32:04
“Thank you so much, and through the chair, this makes so much sense. I know you're working on a couple within my district, and I look forward to landing those, because again, our public should not be paying for two playgrounds next to each other if we can find ways to share those facilities, and of course, after school, weekend hours, it makes a lot of sense for our general taxpayer. Thank you so much.”
Facilities and Construction Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 8:35:35
“Thank you. Through the chair, I recently met with our Office of Efficiency and learned that we have some data from our first full year after completion of our guaranteed energy performance contracts, both at Robert Morgan and at Coral Park. And we are nearing a million dollars in savings at only two sites after implementing the some energy efficiency upgrades. This is tremendous news, and it's very exciting at a time where we need to find every dollar. Finding close to a million dollars is a big deal. And I really wanted to ask our staff, our facilities office, our office of efficiency, what…”
Facilities and Construction Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 8:37:32
“Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, basically, I would love to get a concrete timeline because now this is not a projection on paper. Now these are real significant realized savings from where we have invested. I understand we are strapped for initial investment, but through energy as a service, we have the opportunity to basically zero dollars up front realize these savings through these new contracts. So I would just really love for us to understand concretely when we will be able to sign on new sites and get these improvements going. And maybe you can follow up with those concrete dates or…”
Facilities and Construction Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 3:11:42
“Thank you so much, and I echo the sentiment. It's really been a moment of reflection for me because one of the first few things I got to do as a school board member was participate in the creation and adoption of this strategic plan, and when it came, this is our second to last time that we get a chance to reflect and close out the 21-26 plan, and so I really sat reflecting and thought, okay, how did that go? What can be done better? What should be different? What went really well? And there were obviously clear successes. I know it's not final yet, but around some of our VPK enrollment,…”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:00:43
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:06:49
“Right, so we get pretty close to $10 billion if we look at our 10-year outlook. So when I look at that 10-year outlook and then I see an objective that's pushing for getting rid of $1.5 billion in the next five years, knowing that every year this changes, and unless we take drastic action, it continues to increase because if we hold on to assets the way they are, that deferred maintenance goes up and up and up. Is that correct through the chair?”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:07:16
“Okay, so maybe staff can share, enlighten us on maybe some of the conversations around why this felt like a rigorous but attainable metric, and I'd really like to consider increasing the dollar amount on this, just objectively looking at the data. It seems like it just objectively won't be enough.”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:08:39
“Through the Chair, to make sure I understood correctly, you are saying that through the plans you have for the right-sizing of facilities, either by building or by repurposing, you can, you project that you'll reduce deferred maintenance by about $500,000 a year?”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:09:03
“$500 million a year for the next five years through the Chair?”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:09:08
“Okay, so through the chair. So I think this ties to the discussion that I've had through our ABC items that we are taking the right steps and we are methodically doing this, but we have to accelerate pace because if we don't, we still hit that sort of limit where we didn't do it fast enough and so we didn't release enough of our fixed costs to reinvest into the experiences of our students and families. And so I think this is a metric that's also highlighting that from a different angle that with your current projections, we only feel like we can get to 1.5 billion of getting rid of 1.5…”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:26:35
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 4:47:47
“Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say that I really appreciate the approach that's being taken here. I think we all see every day the challenges of screen time and what it's doing, especially in children's brains that are still developing. And so I'm very curious to see the results of learning about, you know, where our students, like you said, what's working, what's not, what we should shift into, what we shouldn't should shift away from. And I'm very glad that that we're taking this on. So thank you, board member Alonzo, and I'll gladly co-sponsor.”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 5:12:55
“Thank you so much. Right in time. Colleagues, I really appreciate your support in adopting the post-secondary success framework years ago. As we know, post-secondary includes college, career, military, basically all of the pathways that our students can take to lead them to success beyond the high school graduation and diploma. Since the adoption of this student post-secondary success framework, there are so many great things that have happened. I want to just call out one that really stands out, and I don't know if everybody knows this, but we lead the state, thanks to the work of our…”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 5:14:43
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 5:16:22
“Thank you so much, yes, and through the chair, appreciate the thorough follow up on what we offer and the timeline for moving forward, how we're gonna identify and then notify parents as well over the summer. So can you tell us how you plan to notify those parents of eligibility and program options? I know in the plan it says during June, July.”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 5:18:14
“Thank you. And through the chair, I know many of our schools have been doing this, will continue to do it. Is there anything different as a result of this plan that we're going to be doing? I think maybe the universal identification, basically, of students seems like a new thing. It kind of was more hodgepodge before. Is that an accurate read through the chair?”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 5:20:10
“Thank you so much, yeah, through the chair, I had a student who told me, because in ninth grade, my counselor did walk me through the pathway, I was able to start and be on track to get my associates before my high school graduation. And thank you again to Board Member Colucci for bringing that item.”
Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:01:25
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:03:34
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:04:41
“Thank you. And so through the chair, I'll just say, you know, I'm as hard as these decisions have been. And I know I've been at school sites over the last few weeks and certainly there are challenges. I'm grateful that we are making the hard decisions needed to keep us away from a situation like what we're seeing across the state. And I certainly know that my colleagues and I will do our part to get the state to to alleviate wherever possible the situation and really thank you for your team and all the hard work and frankly every department because it's really hitting every single corner of…”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:21:06
“Thank you. Through the chair, this question was on E17, the food service resolution.”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:21:16
“Thank you. Through the chair, I've learned recently that we may not meet universal criteria, objective criteria to continue providing free breakfast and lunch at every single school in the upcoming year. And I know that when we did meet the criteria and were able to start doing that, our meals served did go up, if I remember correctly, between 10 and 15%. Now that that won't be a universal option, how do you expect that to affect our food service fund?”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:26:13
“Thank you so much for that thorough explanation. And through the chair, I know up to the year before the pandemic, that free and reduced lunch form had not changed much since I was even in school. It looked pretty much the same. What are our plans for the schools that will have to collect these forms to make it a very user-friendly 21st century system for our families and students?”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:28:26
“Thank you so much and final point through the chair. As we, I know everyone is working very hard to solidify our rollout of the new student information system, ensuring that it's integrated and so that all of our systems are speaking to each other and they live in the same place I think will be really important. So thank you so much for the work done and I echo your sentiment. I have seen tremendous efficiencies built in through the Food and Nutrition Department and we're really grateful for it.”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026
- Play at 2:29:47
“Thank you so much. Through the chair, obviously safety is our number one priority, so I even hesitate to ask, but we did spend 2.4 million this year, and the request is going up to almost double, and so I'm trying to understand, even with the merging of some sites, closure of some sites, how we land here through the chair.”
Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee · May 6, 2026