Good morning.

Um, my name's Ben Weber.

I am the Boston City Councilor for District Six and the chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means.

Today is April seventeenth, two thousand twenty-six.

The exact time is ten oh nine AM.

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight, RCN Channel Eighty Two, and File's Channel Nine Sixty Four.

The council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings that began this week and uh run through June.

We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony in uh you know, for the record, which you can do in one of several ways.

First, you can attend one of our hearings and give public testimony.

We'll take public testimony.

Uh usually at the end of our first round of questions for my colleagues.

Um and you can also give public testimony at two hearings dedicated to public testimony.

The full hearing schedules on our website at Boston.gov/slash council dash budget.

Our scheduled hearings that are dedicated to public testimony, these are listening sessions, are both in person at City Hall.

First on Tuesday, April 28th at 6 p.m.

And then on Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m.

You can give testimony in person here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom.

For in-person testimony, uh come to the chamber and sign up on the sheet that's near the entrance.

If for anyone in the room who plans on testifying, you haven't signed up, the sign in sheets over there.

Um for virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form on our council uh budget review website, or by emailing the committee at ccc.wm at boston.gov, or by emailing Krishma Chohan at K A R I S H M A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov.

When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation and your uh your residence uh and then uh please limit your comments to a few minutes so we can ensure all comments and concerns can be heard.

Email your written testimony.

Um sorry, so in in lieu of showing up here and testifying in person or in Zoom, you can also email your written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov.

Another option is you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website.

Uh okay, and then uh for information on the city council budget process and how to testify, you can visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov slash council dash budget.

In person public testimony uh again uh will be taken following the first round of counselor questions.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they have signed up, and we'll have two minutes to testify.

Uh if you're listening online and you uh haven't signed up yet, you can sign up by emailing our director of legislative budget uh analysis, that's Chris Machouan at K A R I S H M A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov for the zoom link and your name will be added to the list.

This morning's hearing is on docket uh dock it's number docket numbers 0733 to 0740.

The focus of the of this hearing is the FY27 budget for the Boston Public Schools.

This hearing will cover topics included including inclusion, multilingual learners, uh special education, curriculum, partnership, summer programming, family and community outreach, and mergers and closures.

Uh this is one of a series of hearings to review the FY27 budget, and this is the third of three hearings with BPS.

Uh I I want to note uh for my colleagues that the BPS Central Office budget is relevant to the discussion at at any of our BPS hearings, given the overlap of this budget with many of our specific subtopics.

Uh in this case, this particular hearing uh which will touch upon mergers and closures and centrally funded offices that coordinate with schools on inclusion partnership summer programming and family and community outreach.

Um given the number of topics covering we're covering today, where we're we're gonna have two administrative panels.

The first panel will cover inclusion, multilingual learners, special education, and curriculum.

The second panel will cover partnerships, summer programming, family and community outreach, and mergers and closures.

These matters were sponsored by Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival.

No surprise, uh first counselor Flynn, then Councillor Murphy, and Madam President Braden.

Uh oh, sorry, uh that we also have received a letter of absence from uh councillor Coletta Zapada.

Um for our first panel, we have uh we have superintendent of Boston Public Schools, Mary Skipper, uh, we have Chief Financial Officer David Bloom, Deputy Superintendent of Academics, Simone Dr.

Simone Wright, apologize, uh, uh Chief of Chief of Office of Multicultural Multilingual Education, Joelle Gamer.

Am I okay, got that right?

Uh, and senior advisor of specialized services, Christine Trevis Sohn.

If I okay, again, apologize.

Uh, and then uh just for my colleagues, we're expected to have a panel this afternoon with the chief of capital planning uh uh Delivern Stanislaus, uh Chief Financial Officer Bloom, uh Deputy Superintendent Community Family Advancement Dr.

Anna Tavares, Chief of Family Advancement, Migali Sanchez, Chief of Community Engagement, Mary Amorties, and Development Officer for Strategy Partnerships and Innovation, Dr.

Ann Clark.

So again, we are waiving opening statements.

I don't know if the panel has any uh anything to present or want to talk about as an opening statement.

But thank you for being here.

Um good morning, everyone.

Uh I am gonna actually hand it off to Dr.

Simone Wright, who we are very um happy and appreciative that she has chosen BPS uh to share her passion and her experience, which is much in the area of academics.

I do want to personally thank the counselors for the many school visits that we do together for the last three years.

We have visited so many of your schools in your uh for your constituents, and I think it's helped a great deal with the council's understanding of our schools, what happens in them.

It's also helped me and my staff understand what constituents are asking for or need or alert you to.

So I just wanted to personally say thank you for that because you make a great effort to visit our schools on a regular basis.

With that, I will pass it off to Dr.

Simone Wright.

Thank you, Superintendent Skipper.

Okay.

Good morning, Chair Weber and members of the Boston City Council.

As Chair Weber stated yesterday, this is a fairly new process for me.

And I feel honored to be able to engage with each of you alongside my colleagues regarding the transformational work of academics that will impact every student across the city of Boston.

In many ways, this feels like the continuation of a conversation that we started a little over a month ago regarding our approach to learning for our multilingual learners, which I may add is one out of every three students in BPS and students with disabilities, one out of every four students in BPS.

During our time together, I have heard a number of you inquire about academic programming, evidence-based practices, success for students, and measurement of student learning.

We are primed to do more than increase performance on MCAS.

Currently, one out of four students across our high schools are enrolled in a career pathway.

That is a total of 4,051 students engaging in learning that will support each of them with continuing to cultivate their interests and write their success narrative.

At the Ruth Batson Academy, they are preparing to start supporting the next generation of aspiring educators.

Healthcare professionals are being cultivated right now at the EMK, the English high school, and Madison Park as we speak.

In addition, Madison Park is preparing future robotic engineers and electricians.

BPS has expanded bilingual education by 42%, growing from eight to 14 programs and opening for just this school year.

With our focus on norming inclusion, multilingual learners can attend a school of their choice and receive the support necessary to utilize their native language to support learning English.

These efforts have been impactful as evident by the points earned on the state accountability framework for progress towards earning English proficiency.

We earned all possible points in high school and saw notable increases in the lower grades.

For the experience of students with disabilities, it is exciting to see higher than typical growth for students in high school math and celebrate a 2.5 percentage point increase in four-year graduation rates.

However, it is worth noting that in the first year of implementation, we saw increases in proficiency for grades three through eight MCAS ELA in math.

In grade seven ELA, a focused implementation grade for the first year, we saw a six percentage point increase on the ELA MCAS.

Success with inclusion is really a call to action for high quality instruction for each student where they receive the support necessary to be successful, both during their time at BPS and beyond.

As we transition to questions, I do want to acknowledge the impact of your advocacy and collaboration with the school committee and BPS leadership.

Overall, our schools are performing better.

As a district, we recently double the number of schools of recognition.

Six of our schools exited transformation status.

The Up Holland exited state receivership, and the Dearborn STEM Academy is planning to exit state turnaround.

22 schools saw increases in their accountability percentiles for two consecutive years.

The pieces are in place, and there is continued work to do to ensure every student is able to engage in highly interesting, rigorous, and joyful learning experiences that support them with operationalizing their aspirations beyond their time at BPS.

Personally, this excites me as I continue to learn BPS.

It gives me thrills to think about the impact of our collective efforts can have right now in this moment and will have on the future of the city of Boston.

We look forward to your questions and this discussion this morning.

Okay, thank you very much.

So we we've been joined by Councillor Durkin.

We've also been joined by a group from the Mendel School.

Uh hey, hey, how is sixth grade, fifth grade?

Fifth and sixth.

Fifth and sixth.

Awesome.

Uh okay.

Uh well that's uh it's very nice to see everybody.

Uh just for our students, you know, we're here, we're having a hearing on the Boston public schools.

Uh, and uh we have here a panelists uh in the it in the in the middle here is the superintendent, Mary Skipper, who runs the school system, the the rest of these are people who help her, you know, run the school system.

So uh and uh uh over here are city counselors, I'm a city counselor, counselor Murphy, Counselor Flynn, Councillor Durkin, and Councillor Braden.

Uh we are we work on the city council and we're talking about the budget, how much money the city spends on our schools, and we're gonna ask the superintendent and all the people working her office about you know uh what kinds of investments we make in our schools, and we're gonna be talking this morning about uh the inclusion model, uh, which I don't know if you know about, but uh uh the uh how we help multi-language learners, people who are are you know come to school as a with a first language that's different than English, special education for kids who need special education services and curriculum, how we shape the curriculum, what what kinds of books you're getting, what kinds of you know things Miss Leela's talking about in class, and um so anyway.

This is the start of our hearing.

You came at a great time.

Uh we've just heard from the superintendent and and and Dr.

Dr.

Wright here, and so we're gonna uh I'm gonna we have a timer behind me.

I have to limit the amount of time my colleagues talk so we can all get a chance.

So we're gonna start with we go in order of arrival.

Counselor Flynn was here first.

I'm gonna give you seven minutes.

I'm gonna put it up on the timer, and uh then after that it'll be Councillor Murphy, then uh Councilor Braden and Councillor Durkin.

So, Councillor Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you to the superintendent and the superintendent's team for being here for the important work you are doing.

I focused much of my attention yesterday on how we're supporting BPS students with uh social workers, with psychologists.

Um, I talked about the different ratios, district social workers.

Um, I want to see them be.

I believe there was three district social worker positions cut.

They play an important role to support schools at times of crisis.

I'm gonna continue to focus on that.

Um, but let me let me go go on to a a different different subject, and I do think it's I do think it's important.

Um I had a chance to talk to a lot of um parents about uh their child with their English language learners and they have they have disabilities as well.

They're asking me Ed what we need to fight for these students to ensure that they want they want to ensure that they can continue to learn their home or their native language, but also developing their skills so that they learn they learn English as well.

But we don't want to see them, we don't want to see BPS diminish their current language or their native language.

We want to ensure that they get the services and support they need as English language learners and students with disabilities as well.

I know it's a high percentage in this in BPS, but what are we going to do to support them?

This budget has a lot of cuts.

I don't want to see us making any cuts that impact these students.

Just want to give give you an opportunity to respond on what our plan is with English language learners and and they also have um disabilities as well.

No, that's great.

And and Council Flynn, thank you for bringing up what we consider to be our most vulnerable population, right?

Which is our students with disabilities who are also multilingual learners.

Um I think one of the things that we uh as a collective staff, um, but particularly with uh Chief Kamir from the Office of OMME, Case Seal, who's the Chief of Um Specialized Services, and Christine Trevasoni, who is here who is senior advisor, is to really work together collaboratively as departments to support the students.

We initiated in the inclusion plan something called service mapping about a year ago, and the idea there is to be able to bring all the services that a student needs, that being uh English language acquisition, access to native language, and special education services together in a very organized way in the least restrictive environment within BPS.

So I will let Chief Gamere and I'll let um uh Christine Trevasoni just address a little bit of the work that they do together to support the population.

I also want to reassure that in this budget, those services are all remaining.

There is no cuts to those student populations uh whatsoever.

So I want to thank you so much uh for that question, counselor um Flynn.

Uh as the superintendent stated, there are no cuts for uh our bilingual programs, and so when families come to BPS and they choose to be in a bilingual education program, like a dual language program, or bilingual program like at the Quincy in your district, um we want to ensure that students that have disabilities are able to participate in those programs, and we also want to ensure that we are uh culturally responsive in terms of their native language.

Um we are also building out more resources within our dual language programs to make sure that we're encompassing more students with uh disabilities in our dual language programs, such as at the Hurley or at their inendas.

Uh we've created SLIFE programs for students who come in that are newcomers or new or had um interrupted learning and created SLIFE programs in the dual language schools so that when they exit a SLIFE program, they can enter into a dual language program if this is their um choice for families.

And then for our students who are um enrolled in our SEI, which uh could be considered uh general education, uh inclusive classrooms.

Um, we're really working with our teachers to equip them with all of the SEI endorsed resources that they have to really help support them to shelter the content for their students so that um we're ensuring that our students see their culture reflected in the curriculum and that we're supporting them as best as we can in terms of sheltering um the language for them.

Thank you, thank you.

Let me let me ask a specific couple questions, maybe to David and David.

If if you don't have the answer, could you give could you get it to me later today?

But here are my quick questions.

Uh the net loss of special ed classroom personnel.

So, what is the net loss of special ed class personnel, including paras, including teachers, related service providers, other facing, other student-facing roles, ABAs, school psychologists, etc.

Do you have those numbers available?

Yes.

Okay, could you read them to me?

Yes.

So our revised number um, which does include maybe a couple of administrators, but it's mostly those that you've mentioned, is 179 FTE, full-time equivalent.

Um the biggest types in that area are about 120 paraprofessional and positions similar to paraprofessional, um, think like ABA specialist or other things like that, as well as 44 support staff.

So that's about 164 of the 179 comes in those categories.

And then the last big change is the restructuring happening at the Melvin H.

King schools.

And that covers most of the positions.

Okay.

And my final question, I don't know if if um can I ask the question?

I only have 10 seconds left.

Okay, yeah.

My final question is, and I listened carefully and closely to the uh response that you provided on English language learners and um students with disabilities and that there are no cuts in certainly so I'm glad to hear that.

But would the advocates acknowledge that there are no cuts, or will the parents or the guardians will they also say that there's no cuts?

Will there be any specific cuts that they will highlight to me?

They'll say, hey Ed, I know I know this BPS team said there were no cuts, but but my son or daughter is not getting the services for for this particular program.

I just want us to make sure that if there are no cuts, then then that also means that no parent or guarding will say to me, um, hey Ed, but but I do have a cut in services for my kid.

Is that so the the IEPs are what drive the services, and similarly for multilingual learners, it is what minutes that they're getting in order to support language acquisition.

We cannot cut those.

Those are done through the teams.

So that's not a personnel decision, that is driven by those process.

However, there most of the elimination of FTEs that you're hearing David talking about are because a classroom is closing, and so therefore there's no students, or um a uh school is reconfiguring like Mel King, and the way that they're doing the reconfiguration, the services are still all being given, but they don't need the extent of staff they had.

I do think there are a few schools who had legacy models, um, and part of our reimagining funding formula is to create a better sense of equity across the district.

There were some schools who are getting additional funding over a period of time when other schools doing the same work were not.

So part of the reimagining has been to make the model more consistent across the schools.

You may hear a parent in one of those schools say, well, last year we had this in the classroom, and this year we have next year we'll have this.

That can feel very legitimately like a loss for a parent, but the most important thing to remember is that all of the services that student and family are due are being given.

Thank you, Superintendent.

Mr.

Chair, thank you for giving me an extra minute.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Uh we've been joined by uh the vice chair of the ways and means committee, John Fitzgerald, just for our uh young uh observers, you know, we have this hearing in a committee.

We have a city council, we have a Wednesday meeting, then we have committees that handle specific subjects because we're talking about the budget, that this hearing happens in the ways and means committee.

I'm the chair of the ways committee and means committee, so I get to sit up here in the chair along with my vice chair and operate the uh timer thing, it's very important.

Uh and uh but that's that's kind of that's why we're sitting over here.

Other people are sitting in other places.

Um Councillor Murphy, uh yeah, seven minutes.

Thank you.

Um so um thank you all for being here.

I'm gonna go through my questions.

I know my time just flies through, and then if the second round we can answer if we don't get to answer them all at once, but like are we willing to acknowledge that past academic strategies have not delivered the results our students deserve?

And what are we doing differently?

I did hear one of the opening statements like that we are now you know doing transformational changes and kind of really wanting to know like what does that actually mean?

And what what specific benchmarks will we commit to to improve by June 2027?

I know we like to say give us time, but we know generations of kids have not been given the supports they need to succeed.

So by June 2027, what will we do if we don't meet those benchmarks also?

Like what are we saying?

We expect knowing that less than 30 percent, and we know when our most vulnerable populations um you know, our special ed, our ESL students that it can be as low as 10 percent are reading on grade level.

We're spending more, we have less students.

So, what are the direct investments tied to these measurable academic outcomes and improvements that we're hoping for?

If you can identify which academic supports have been reduced, eliminated, or diluted.

Um, and I know you mentioned, and I do understand from my time in the classrooms that it looks different, so people assume.

So what are we doing to communicate that, but not just to families.

I don't think we also do a uh good enough job communicating that to our staff and to our um you know leaders that people have different opinions of what what it should look like, and when it looks different, that we we don't understand that well, we're doing what we need to do, right?

But it may not look the same.

Um what percentage of BPS curriculum is currently aligned with evidence-based research backed instruction.

And one question we I asked yesterday, and I was told David, you were coming back today, or we they couldn't answer it yesterday.

But when you look on page 57 of the budget book, I don't know if they if you watched that question, which is for the central office operations, we do see that in contracts and other non-personnel, it went from six full-time employees to 90.

And it went from spending in the support staff went from 90 full-time employees to 91.8, so less than two full-time employees added, but we went from spending 4,669,000 to 8,352,000, but we added less than two full-time employees.

So I really would like to get that answer before we leave because we know when we have RFIs, the budget vote already happens before we get correct.

And for those listening last year, we had over 300 unanswered RFIs during the budget process.

So I know people say we'll just put it on the record, and it's definitely not just BPS, don't worry, that's every department that we sit through and ask these questions.

And then the other question, and I do think it's tied directly to this conversation today.

Um, I asked about the Carter School, and when you look through you know the breakdown, which you can see online or in this book, and the percentage of low-income students, the Carter School has the highest percentage, it's at 96.8.

There are a few schools in the low 90s.

So, in no way, um, like I said yesterday questioning the program, it's an amazing, wonderful program.

But my question is why we have middle class, you know, rich families in this city who have severely disabled students.

We know we do.

Where are those students going?

And so I would really like to, and maybe that's a bigger conversation, but to me that's an equity question that I think we really need to look at because if I dug into all the other programs too, it may look similar.

So if we could, and if you need reminders, I don't know if you wrote it down, but if we could just start answering some of those questions.

Yeah, no, that's great.

Um, if you if you don't mind, counselor Murphy, is it all right if David goes first and just get that one out of the way so you get the answer?

And then I think uh Dr.

Wright can speak to some of the academic pieces.

I know Christine Trasoni has some additional information on the Carter.

Yes, so the um the um two questions I heard from you on the uh page 57 of the budget book.

Um the first was related to support staff.

Um so uh the support staff change is related to a change.

We're in the middle of doing a reduction of central office um stipend spending, and so we swept all of the central stipend budgets into the budget office and reduced them, and we're now getting ready to apportion them all back out again.

So I have a multi-million dollar for reserve held there, which shows up in that support staff spending.

The 1.9 FTE difference is um two different we budgeted group of transportation attendance in the budget office, so it's not really related to that.

So even though it only says support staff, even though the other line says contracts and others, it's not only funding, you're putting stipend money in a line that is only showing allocation for salaries.

So the stipends, yeah.

So stipends show up in the I'll double check this, but stipends show up in the support staff category.

Um I don't believe I got that wrong, but I will just triple check.

Um and then um for sorry.

Um then um the other thing that is um in there is the 84 new full-time employees.

Yeah, that's not I don't know where um that I don't know.

I promise you our budget office does not have 84 new full-time employees.

Oh, there it is.

Um this is under central office.

It is, it's the if you look at the header for that page, it's just the budget office.

Um so it has to do with the way we're budgeting some of the transportation and attendance.

Um and there's something off about the way that's budgeted, so we can definitely um correct that.

Um and then the last thing I would just add is um the other thing that's in there is uh uh it's a place where we hold um collective bargaining payments that haven't yet to be distributed for recent collective bargaining agreements.

So the most recent um basis agreement, the funding for that has yet to be distributed across all the positions, so it's sitting in the budget office, that's 2.8 million or 2.5 million sitting in the support staff.

But if you notice the full-time employee number went up, but it went down from 27 million to 10 million.

So it's a decrease in spending, but it's an increase in 84 full-time employees.

I know I asked it yesterday, I thought you'd have the answer, but if I would really like to do that, I'll do a clear I can get you a more detailed quick.

Yeah, and if you're saying that we're putting even transportation personnel into that line item.

Okay, if you could clarify.

So by by end of day, David will respond in detail.

Okay, thank you.

And I know I ran out of time.

So keep going.

Did you have something to add on that?

Or no?

Not on that, but on acting.

Oh okay.

Uh so I mean we uh if you want to answer one more question, then we're gonna move on to uh we'll have a second round.

But Doctor, if you said a number of things that I want to acknowledge is probably more than seven minutes.

Um of course it is, yeah.

I know that.

But my whole time went to the non-answer of the budget question that came up yesterday.

So but I'm here for it, so I'm waiting for the second round too.

Yeah, I I think what I will offer um that feels sticky right now of the number of questions that you asked is around evidence base.

Every BPS curriculum aligns to supporting teachers with facilitating learning using evidence-based practices.

Um but I think the key word here is BPS endorsed.

Anything that we have offered schools in train schools to utilize.

And we can circle back to success in a year.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean that's what does it did you have a uh we want to just leave it to the next round?

Yeah, okay.

Sure.

Uh okay.

Um president, uh, you have seven minutes.

Thank you.

Um I'm just one one question I always ask is how much tuition does the Horace Mann School for the Deaf generate income coming in from outside the district?

Um I'll I I'll have to I don't have that number with me, but I can see.

Um we get uh interestingly, it's it's actually not anymore.

Um so there's a little bit of income that sometimes comes from the Carter because when families move out of district, we will often let them keep their place at the Carter if it's not too far, and the uh the sending district will use the Carter as an out of district placement.

The other place we get tuition is if charter schools send students back to BPS for substantially separate programming, we actually get tuition for that as well.

So I can pull those tuition numbers for you.

Excellent.

Um we still miss the Horace Man from Waltz and Brighton, but anyway.

Um three.

Um I'm just wondering about um, you know, again, I'm echoing some of the concerns of my colleagues and and community members about BPS's approach to the education of multilingual learners in uh inclusion classrooms.

Uh how it seems that it's it's I can't imagine it's not a challenge.

Um but how much is BPS proposing to expand bilingual dual language and transitional bilingual education programs this coming year?

Thank you for the question.

I will say that this year BPS implemented four bilingual programs, and we also have existing bilingual programs that are expanding, meaning many of the new programs that we have uh initiated start off with K1 and we're building out.

So for example, with the four new programs that we have this year, Sarah Roberts started, Blackstone started in K1, and next year they will remain having the K1 and then expand to K2.

And so we're building out our programs that currently exist and the new ones that we've implemented, we're building out as well.

Next year we'll have a new bilingual program, a TBE program at the Ellis, and that will start in K1, and that will expand out as well.

When we're looking to create additional programs, it's a combination of working with the community to see the ask for it.

Also, we want to ensure that when we create programs that it's feasible and sustainable.

We don't want to create a program, and I also want to highlight the Cabo Verde and Criolo program that's going to be the first in the nation at the Frederick next year.

That's going to be a K1 program, and it's going to start and build out until it's K through six.

But again, I want to just really hone in on the feasibility and sustainability of when we create programs.

So yes, it's important when we're working with families and the community that they want the ask that they're asking for it, but we're also looking at our landscape across the district.

Where's the need and how can we build it out and ensure that we have sustainability and feasibility?

And the other thing too is really building up a workforce of educators who are qualified to teach in the bilingual education program, that they have not only the licensure, but we work with them as well, too, but also having the bilingual endorsement and most importantly having the language capacity and proficiency to be able to instruct in that language.

So there's many factors when we're incorporating or thinking about initiating new programs, but we're really proud of the expansion that we've had since 2024, where we started off with eight programs and now we're at 14, and we're continuing to build out and expand those programs as they are.

So what what bilingual what languages are available bilingual programs?

Well, we have multiple classrooms across the district that have Spanish.

We have a Mandarin program at the Quincy, and we have a dual language program for Vietnamese at the Mather.

Okay.

Okay.

And then in terms of multilingual learners with disabilities, that's they have double challenges in a sense.

The what does the BPS, how does BPS offer or does it offer the ability for programs that stand alone, like a plan to work with the their home language as well.

Like we have kids that you know we you've mentioned four language, four foreign four languages, but families speak many more languages than that.

How do how do we sort of bridge to you know kids with disabilities?

How do we bridge to the home language and and uh to really maximize the the effect of um BPS for the educational piece?

So I think it's not just about communicating with how do we exactly.

I think if Christine could just explain a little bit the service mapping, because I think in general, students with disabilities are encouraged and certainly can now access dual language.

It's a question of what the services look like and then how we bring those into the classroom.

Um Christine, do you want to just talk a little bit about the service mapping?

Thank you for the question.

Uh with service mapping, we're able to determine uh which services the students need and for how long, so that we can provide appropriate staffing.

We're always looking to ensure to the greatest extent possible that we hire bilingual staffing.

So we have bilingual speech and language pathologists, we have bilingual psychologists and and other staff who are able to support in native language to the greatest extent possible at our um bilingual schools such as the Hernandez and the Hurley staff, special education staff can provide and support in both Spanish and English.

So to the greatest extent possible, we try to access native language.

It's not always feasible, but that's always our goal in hiring.

So do you map what you know?

Do you map the what the home language is, and then how is it reported out what the home language is, or are you are you just focused essentially on ESL?

We're just focused primarily on the services, but I have seen in service mapping for bilingual schools such as the Hernandez and the Hurley, um, that they do list where the services might be provided in Spanish, you know, when they're in the Spanish class or when they're in an English class.

So that is mapped on that as well.

So we look at that as well.

Yeah.

It's also particularly important when we're testing students that we're testing as much as possible in native language.

That that was something that BPS wasn't doing.

And I think we've made a concentrated effort in hiring school sites to be able to do that.

And then the other, I think there's evidence also that you know, if students are bilingual, like they're thinking in Spanish to take a test that's written in English.

Right.

If you have a if you have an if you have two two quote two sheets, two exam papers, one in English and one in Spanish.

They'll ex they'll do better if they're if they can access the questions in their own language, even if they have to answer it in English.

So do we do that in our testing?

For testing for special education.

Oh no, for general students.

Yeah.

So I I do want to highlight that every educator that is in our district has an SEI endorsement.

Um, and so we have to ensure that we all have the mindset that our multilingual learner students aren't just for the ESL teachers, that we all have accountability and shared accountability for our students.

And so when you have an SEI endorsement, you have the skills to um scaffold and shelter content for students.

Uh, we do try our best to have as many uh bilingual educators uh across the district as we um can in having many staff members, but again, um a student walking into uh a classroom, that's why we call every classroom an SEI classroom because the teachers are SEI endorsed.

Um that's a requirement once you are hired as a public school teacher that within a year that you do receive that.

And um many of our teachers also uh work with our LETS, which are language um acquisition team facilitators to really help and hone in on those skills so that they can support students in the classroom.

Good.

We'll probably come back for more questions.

Thank you, Matt.

Thank you for allowing me some extra time.

Okay, thank you.

Uh counselor uh we've been joined by Counselor Culpepper.

Uh you can say hi to some students from the Mendel up there.

Um, that's the thank you for Counselor Culpepper.

So you'll have plenty of time uh later on.

I will.

Yes.

Uh yeah, I well, no, the the the clock will cut you off.

Uh it's not for me.

Um, Councillor Durkin, you're up.

So then we're gonna go to the next one.

I think reclaiming my time.

Reclaiming my time.

Okay.

Um so thank you so much, um, Chair, and really appreciate um uh seeing the superintendent here, thank you for your leadership.

Um thing that I know we've talked about is how I think the city is doing a great job with chronic absenteeism.

I know the first version of the BPS budget had some cuts to that.

Um I know we've talked, I know there was some advocacy, um, and we had talked about there being um some of those jobs coming back.

So I just wanted to, I was curious about one, the success and and what we've been doing right on chronic absenteeism.

And then my second question is really what changes have been made to the introduced budget since it's been introduced, and curious what um the top um points of advocacy and concerns for the school committee are.

Uh, great.

So uh I'll do some of this, and I know David's got some figures.

Uh so with chronic absenteeism, one of the things we highlighted was that we are now four years in a row where chronic absenteeism has gone down, we've exceeded our goals at the state level.

That's not really our benchmark.

Our benchmark is to have no student be chronically absent.

Um roughly right now we sit between 25 and 27 percent for chronic absentee, which would again show a significant drop for this year.

Uh we've done a lot of investment with re-engaging students, social emotional supports, working with house homing stability for uh students um who are housing insecure, uh food insecurity, all of the things that we know underlie often um the reasons why students are chronically absent.

I also think we've done a lot in um really increasing the rigor and the programmatic offerings for students, particularly at the high school level, which causes students to want to come to school to feel motivated, right?

Yesterday uh we heard um you know, motivation leads to performance, and I think that that's very accurate.

So you'll see in the budget, not just this year, but in past years, deliberate increases in those areas.

There was particular advocacy around um supervisors of attendance.

Uh we had three positions that have been cut.

It was in to try to align in a different way to the regional model.

When we went back and reviewed after the advocacy, we made the determination to restore those positions.

And again, this is where in good practice why our budget process is so long is to really enable us to hear that feedback from not only the working group of the council, but also from our school committee, from public commenting constituents, and then be able to act on that as much as possible.

In terms of a few of the key areas, uh David, I'll turn to David and he can kind of give you some figures.

I mean, I think you covered almost all the things I was hoping to get to, Soup, but I appreciate it.

But I think for us really it is about what the superintendent said, which is that dynamic process, right?

We put forward a budget proposal in February, and then we have several months of feedback and adjustment.

Um so yes, the three supervisors of attendance were right.

We also there were about uh four million dollars worth of positions we restored, right?

Correct um between the time that the budget process began and then ended uh in those in those positions.

Yes, and that was that was a part of it, right?

Those included transition supports for schools um and others.

And we can give you the full list of those as well.

Yeah, I think that's helpful because I think that really sheds a light on the listening part of this and and sort of how we're moving.

I also wanted to ask, um, in terms of decreasing external funds, I know that's placing more pressure on VPS.

Um I I think if they've decreased by 12%, if if I have that right.

What are the reasons for decreased state and federal funding?

And are there other opportunities we could be taking?

Yeah.

Um, or rather, you know, I mean, obviously a new federal administration would be nice, but um, but um, but are there other are there any opportunities we're missing for state or federal funding?

Um I mean, I think we're always working very collaboratively with our state delegation for sure to try and identify areas for state funding.

Um I think overall, um, obviously the federal picture is the biggest problem.

The other thing, just structurally, uh, with our documents that have been reported right now, we always have to report a decline at this point in the process because a number of our grants are competitive and not guaranteed.

So my guess is of that 11% reduction, at least half of it will end up coming back as we get some of those competitive grants.

But uh we are definitely feeling the impact of the reduction in federal programming and we're for sure.

And in, you know, we are blessed to be in a state where this our state delegation, not just our city, but our state delegation advocates strongly for us.

Um I do think where we are also seeing it, which isn't necessarily reported on the lines you're looking or any of you are looking are are our partners.

Um and those could be nonprofits that have shared mission to us, those could be our post-secondaries.

You know, we've recently uh with our in college advising corps, you know, a lot of our post-secondary institutions are also losing grants federally in from other sources.

They often fund support directly to our schools.

It can be in the form of student support folks, it can be in the uh form of school psychologists, social workers.

Uh in one case with UMass, we lost a very large grant that was impactful for college preparation, uh, and that was three FTEs.

These are all positions we don't have the funding to pick up, and yet they're they are very much mission critical to the priorities we do.

So that's the reason we're very thankful for the dollars we are getting from the city.

Now, one big topic of conversation last um time we did the BPS budget was just making sure that teachers have the ability to move up and grow and and get that training, and I think those are some of the the cuts as well, right?

Those are some of the lack of federal funding that we don't have is really just like helping skilled teachers up.

Yes, and especially also for some of our paraprofessionals as well.

We were working on a number of training programs to help them get their bachelor's degree, get their teacher licenses.

We had some really promising federal grants there that were ended.

Yeah.

Um, and then I guess this is I have 38 seconds.

This is a tough question to ask with 38 seconds left.

But how do we propose mergers, reconfigurations, and closures impact the financial stability of the district?

And and sort of how have those decisions been made to impact and make sure that we're shared up for financial stability.

So do you do fiscal properties?

Yeah, for sure.

So I think um from uh a fiscal lens, as our enrollment has declined, the mergers and closures allow us to ensure that the students um who are remaining in our system see the greatest bang for the buck and what we spend, right?

So that rather when enrollment declines five percent, instead of having to cut five percent across all of our schools, right, through the mergers and the closures, we're taking a significant portion of that cut in a c more concentrated way, and having being able then to continue to offer high quality programming at the schools that are remaining open.

Obviously, that's a very difficult conversation, and I'll handle this for that talking.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think in this, you know, this current budget is a reflection of about 25 million dollars from closed schools that are then it's getting put toward the remaining schools and students.

But I also think programmatically, you know, what we see is that when schools are very small and half full, they're not able to give the full electives of what students are looking for.

So, for instance, at the high school level, sometimes the size of the school disables them from being able to offer sports to be able to offer full enrichment programs or early college, because it's just or APs because there's just not enough students to be able to take those electives um and programs.

So that's one of the things we learned through the long-term facility studies when parents and students were weighing in on the things they wanted, it really is a rich array of arts and music and enrichment before and after school, uh, certainly athletics.

You need a certain size of economy to be able to offer that.

Otherwise, you're taking dollars and stretching it across.

It's like the difference of trying to sustain one car or two cars or one house or two houses.

You know, it just stretches resources to the point where it's very hard to be able to sustain that.

Well, I always say I'm if you never do anything, you never do anything wrong.

And I think um truly here, um, the decisions that have been made um have been ones that are really trying to promote uh district that makes sense and that works and that is structured well, but those decisions are not easy to make, and I want to thank you for your leadership because it requires a lot of political leadership too to say that changes do need to be made, um, and uh we do need to make sure that um for financial reasons that we're not spending um that we were spending the right money on the right things in order to actually help our students.

So thank you, superintendent, and thank you all for being here.

That's great.

Uh chair, just because the Mendel students and staff are here.

This is a great example where the Mendel is stretched across two sites because they don't have a building that right now is K6.

Yeah.

And that's not easy for them.

And so this is why long-term facilities is so important, so we can actually situate strong schools in buildings that support the full experience.

Yeah, uh my son went to K1 at the Mendel with Miss McPherson, and uh one of the reasons why we moved to Mission Hill, the the gym was the hallway in the basement.

So the Mendel, it was tough.

Uh and uh it's a beautiful building, and and the teachers are amazing, and um anyway, uh the the facilities uh and to provide that for the kids is great.

So just before we go to Councillor Culpepper, I just wanted to, and I should have said this uh earlier.

We're having two panels for my colleagues.

Um the first panel is um is here to talk about inclusion, multi-language learners, special education, and curriculum.

The second second panel is partnership summer programming, family and community outreach, and sorry, Councilor Flynn, and mergers and closures.

We will so counselor Culpepper, we will be talking about mergers and closures in the second that that is a second panel discussion.

I think the the superintendent uh it will is not here, but I think uh Chief Financial Officer Bloom will be here for the second panel.

Uh but just we have divided it up.

It's a it's like multi-language learner special ed inclusion model uh and curriculum for the first panel, mergers and closures, partnership summer programming, family and community outreach for the second panel.

Because I've talked so long, I know do you Councillor Fitzgerald, you were here before Councillor Culpepper.

I don't know how to I was about to call on Council.

Okay, is that okay?

Yeah, okay.

So Councillor Fitzgerald, is you're up.

Uh you got seven minutes.

Thank you, Council Calpep.

I appreciate that.

Um just for a little like basic knowledge, right?

The foundation of education, let's start at the basics.

Can you talk to me about in terms of the curriculum, right?

Because I don't it took me a long time to understand that sometimes we we purchase our curriculum at a higher right from other things to implement them in here.

Talk to me about the process of how we uh uh uh procure that curriculum and what we look for in the curriculum and how it is built up.

I know um Joel, you talked about building out the bilingual, right?

I think when um Council Braden had a question, and and uh and what is building out look like?

Like what is that?

So I just a little bit about the process from the get-go of how we procure curriculum and and who we're getting it from and what it costs to how we build out other curriculum and what what are some of the more detailed steps in that?

Thank you for that question, uh, Vice Chair Fisherald.

I first want to acknowledge that we aren't really building out curriculum anymore.

Um just across the education landscape, we are a lot clearer about grade level standards, we are a lot clearer about pedagogical approach and/or evidence-based practices, and we've actually had like nonprofits establish like clear criteria to determine if a curriculum is gonna give the teacher what it needs to be able to teach kids well.

Okay, I just said herd build out, that's why I wanted to talk.

But so I'm interested to and I think that's an important point, right?

Like a lot of times you hear academics and you think just curriculum, we are programmatic function as well.

Like a lot of the conversation me and Chief Gamir have are about curriculum for her programs, right?

So I think it's just like important to like name that distinction.

Um I think to keep it simple, um, when we are looking to purchase a new curriculum, um, we at the highest level, we're looking for something that is ed reports approved.

So a lot of times that it's talking about grade level.

I use the word coherence, but to make it more simple, our kids learning things in sequential order.

Like, does the learning set kids up to build on what they learned yesterday, right?

And I think the same thing is true when you're thinking about grade levels, right?

There's certain things kids need to learn in second grade to be successful in third grade.

Um, so we want to buy that resource so our teachers don't have to make the decision and like go figure that out, right?

Now I do want to acknowledge folks still need training on curriculum.

Um so there's a lot of work to do to make sure our educators feel efficacious in utilizing the resource to teach students well.

And then this last part might throw you off a little.

All curriculum is imperfect.

Like you have to take sort of what you've been given as a resource, what you know about your school context, to be able to teach students well.

Yeah.

And that's like that's an important point because in our district, teachers aren't robots, right?

There are some districts and schools where there is a literally a pacing guide where every day, if you're not on that, we trust our teachers with the education of our kids, and that means that their ability to start with the foundation of what Dr.

Right's talking about, but then to be able to supplement and to build in it, that's like an important component of it.

Yeah, I I would prefer we go the way of our teachers not being robots.

Absolutely.

Um so it there are some only my my wife's a public school teacher as well, and sometimes she talks about some of the curriculum that BPS has versus where she's at, and you know, she's had experience with some and should be like BPS does X, like that one.

I don't like we don't like that one, right?

What like how do we filter out what is uh appropriate or work?

It's a hard question.

I wish I had the exact name of what curriculum she was thinking about, but like how they teach math, like or whatever it would, right?

Like I haven't had a great experience with that one.

I wish BPS didn't.

Does cost come into play about sort of like look at they came in lowest and best, and so we kind of had to go with that one, and but is it the best for the kids?

So there is buying a curriculum, and then there's bringing educator voice into the selection of the curriculum, right?

Yeah, um, some would say CKLA is a good ELA curriculum, others would say EL is a good ELA curriculum, but I would offer, and I think this is an important point.

Like BPS uses the racial equity planning tool process to be able to get educator voice and ensure the curriculum we select truly represents sort of our beliefs around teaching, right?

Like we don't want to put a curricular resource in our educator's hands that makes any of our our kids feel um offended or disrespected, right?

Um, so that racial equity planning tool paired with like the procurement process helps to sort of manage that.

And I want to acknowledge, you know, this might be like a little bit of a hot take, but there are schools that do choose to use a different curriculum, and it doesn't mean that it isn't high quality.

Um it just means that for that particular group of educators, they've identified something that still supports good instruction and may better support the teaching practices at their school.

So they are they allowed to change the curriculum, like if they have the curriculum, the teachers have the or the school or the principal has the ability to say, yeah, yeah, we're not gonna use that, I'm gonna go a different route that we think is better for this population of kids that we have in our school.

Yeah, they they would work with our teaching and learning team to ensure that the curriculum still meets a certain bar.

Yeah.

Um so I think if this is helpful, um, I'm not sure that our goal is one curriculum, but our goal is a quality curricular resource that supports teacher practice.

So do we do we have to pay for the curriculum of every school, even if a school chooses not to use it?

Yeah, so um when we're buying the curriculum, we start by so let's say we're buying uh EL was one of the examples that was used, right?

So we make a determination to what curriculum we need, we put out a bid, we do that collection.

It creates a contract that says sort of at this scale, this is how much you pay for it.

What we'll typically then do is a survey of schools for what curriculum resources they need.

So if school A has worked with academics to to not use that curriculum, they'll just say, oh, we don't need any of that, and then we won't buy it.

So that so we'll have enough room in the big contract and the pricing to be able to buy it, but we try to only buy it for those who who need it, who need the you know, need the materials.

Great.

Uh appreciate the answers.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Culpepper.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And good to see you again, superintendent and all of your team.

I do appreciate the time that you've taken with me over the last couple of months to help me bring me up to speed, answer a lot of questions that I would have today that you've already answered.

So I appreciate that.

Good to see you again, Dr.

Wright.

Um and I was looking, where's Dr.

Wisdom?

S someone has to make sure that everything, you know, remains intact while we're here.

She's overseeing our schools right now.

Yeah.

I'm glad to know that she's overseeing the schools.

I do think she is very helpful.

I she's excellent.

I sent several students to her, several teachers that had issues, and uh, I think she worked them through, so I really let me just pick up on the curriculum discussion a little bit.

Uh, because it's interesting, uh David, that different schools are used in different curriculums.

You buy the curriculum, you give how do you measure whether the curriculum that the school decides to use is the appropriate one for that school?

That's a programmatic.

Yeah.

Um I mean, I I think you're asking a similar question is Vice Chair Fischer.

Also, hello.

Um I I think it is is it air reports reproved, right?

Like that's like a rubric.

It talks about grade level pedagogical practice, co-what did you say?

Say that it's called air reports.

Okay, it's a rubric, national rubric.

Um, so I think at a high level, air report sort of summarizes the criteria we would want, and we do ask the school to implement the racial equity planning tool process to make sure that all of the constituents at the school like are on board with utilizing the curriculum.

Um just want to note though, um uh Counselor Culpepper is one of the challenges though, when you choose to use your own curriculum, you have to figure out professional development.

I know, but here's my question.

How does the leadership, how do you determine when a school says, This is the curriculum I want?

How do you measure whether that's the appropriate curriculum for that school?

Yeah, it's exactly what I just said.

Like the teaching and learning team would first and foremost confirm that it is Edward Ports for approved.

No, no, how do you measure it?

Once once they get it, how do you measure this is this is the their assessments, disquote like that?

I mean, talk, yeah, talk about that.

That's what I want to hear.

Okay, student learning is what you're asking about, like impact.

Yes, yes, return and investment for students.

Absolutely.

Got it.

No, that's very helpful.

I mean, similar to our other schools, right?

Like our schools are taking various assessments, right?

We are looking at performance of like student achievement.

We are still using, I know you asked about our walkthrough tool.

We're still using our equitable literacy walkthrough tool as we go into the school to determine what percentage of kids are engaging with grade level con um grade level content and complex text.

Um, so I think we are still have a mechanism to look at the quality of teacher practice, but more importantly, you know, our proud superintendent is always looking at accountability percentiles and various assessment data to also pressure check that the impact is being had and asking us questions about it.

And so with regard to the literacy, I know we've been talking about literacy all year long.

And we know where we have, yes, even before you came.

How are we improving and measuring that we're improving the literacy of students in the Boston public schools?

Yeah.

I think that's a fair question.

Um fair questions.

They are fair questions, yes.

Um there are a number of different ways that we are measuring whether or not students are able to read, write, speak, and think.

Because that is what literacy is, right?

That's exactly at the earliest grades.

We have in I think not earliest grades, starting at age five on up, we have an internal assessment that supports us with understanding how kids are doing with literacy.

I think starting at grades three, students take MCAS.

I mean, those are our mechanisms of I would say long-term measuring whether or not students are learning how to read.

But they're not taking MCAS now, are they?

Yes, yes.

And so when you when you look at the literacy, we still know many students are still struggling, even in high school.

What do we what do we do with them?

I mean, do we let them graduate and are unable to fill out an application?

What do we do with them?

And I think I talked to the superintendent about that before.

What do we how do we go back and bring them to the point where they're able to walk into uh a job, fill out an application, uh speak articulately to the interviewer.

How do we measure whether they're at that point, and if they're not, what do we do?

So I think at the it I would say from grade six and up, it becomes a different kind of literacy issue for kids.

That's where it's you know, um if the student is on an IEP, they're likely getting direct reading support and services.

Okay.

Where it's difficult is when the student's not on an IEP and they have a true literacy issue.

And that's where we've been doing a lot more in for the last several years in the upper grades relative to uh literacy strategies across the teachers, across the disciplines, not just in the English class, but in all content areas.

Uh, it's also where we've added in reading specialists to be able to coach teachers uh uh in some cases deliver direct services.

A lot of our after school programming uh now actually has academic elements that are rooted in literacy.

So Corey McCarthy, for instance, with a lot of his student support work on the weekends, the 617 and uh uh his camps, the opportunity lab, those are all very directed to integrate, particularly literacy support for students in college preparatory for students.

So the the problem is, and this is why we have to make sure that literacy is as strong as possible in the youngest grades, is that as kids get older, it becomes an esteem issue for them.

It's a very real thing.

And so that's where for us we want to close that gap, not create it, and not forget about the kids that from past administrations years of of education have those legitimate gaps.

That's where we have to add in value to them through other kinds of programming, sometimes out of school, sometimes in school.

Summer is a big time for us with the high school kids because not only are they working, but we've readjusted a lot of credit recovery and a lot of the academic support so they can work.

We're not asking them to trade off.

And then still giving them those supports in the context of programs like quarry runs or programs like the individual schools run.

Can we add some?

Are we out of time?

You are out of time, the clock.

I argued with it to give you more time.

Will we have a second round?

We will definitely have a second round after after public testimony.

Okay.

So we've I think uh I think we're gonna hear from uh the kids, we're gonna hear from folks from St.

Stevens and some advocates.

Uh if you had one quick follow-up or something, you know, um based on I know Dr.

Wright was expecting a question about evidence-based teaching, right?

I I addressed it in my opening, but you missed it.

No, you know what?

Let me just be honest with you.

My back has been hurting me.

I got up my back, I sciatically.

But I had to make it.

I had I didn't want to miss this morning.

I had to make my back is, but it's okay though, you know, because we work through pain.

Okay, you know, all my life we've been working with Tupac, so it's nothing new.

I'm not gonna ask you the question about the Evan Evidence-based teaching.

I wait till the second round.

But I will say, Superintendent, what we've decided to do, and we'll be working with the Trotter School.

We're going to start a literacy teaching class at the church.

It's great.

And I hope it becomes a model for other churches that if you don't have after school, they can come to the church.

And uh the church has always been uh a secondary learning place for students, especially with we have Sunday school.

And so I've been listening to some of the young folks in the church read, and I said, you know what?

We really need to help them because we want our students to be able to uh be the best that they can be.

So I'll pick up the super appreciative of that.

I think is you and I have talked about, right?

Churches have always played foundational roles with us in support, and it takes a village, right?

That's modeling it.

So we really appreciate that.

And any supports we can help with there, uh, let us know.

Maybe we should start a church literacy program.

No, I'm serious, Dr.

Wright.

Because I think that's a good question.

I'll wait till my second round.

My time is up.

I want to respect the chair.

Thank you very much.

Uh so I'm just I I have a couple questions, and we're gonna go to public testimony.

Is that okay, Miss Leela?

Another seven minutes.

Okay.

Um I just I I I I feel like we talk about gridlock, you know, where uh you know uh people can't get through an intersection because other people are stuck from the other direction.

I just uh when we we have this uh sort of challenge on addressing the needs of multilinguage learners, and then we have a challenge for special ed uh needs students, and so we're going with inclusion.

How does that you know how does that impact our multilinguage learners when we have multi-language instruction?

How's that impacting our ability to do inclusion and our staffing models and and everything else?

So I mean I I I think a lot of what we're talking about is we're we're we it's hard, it's it's hard to imagine a world where we're able to help all the students all the time in you know, in in the way we're doing it.

We're saying inclusion citywide uh at you know, but at the same time, I think we have eighty-six percent of the multilinguage learners in general education classrooms.

So, how does it work for them in that in that space?

So that's uh I guess that's my first general question is like how in a in a world where most of the multilinguage learners right now are in GenEd rooms, and the teachers, while they have maybe have SEI certifications or whatever it is, they're not fluent in that language, I'm assuming.

We're not have eight eighty-six percent of our BPS teachers aren't fluent in a second language, uh unless they I mean it would be great if they were.

Um so like how how are I guess the first thing is we're we're inclusion, you know.

I understand the model and and all the benefits that it provides, and it seems like it's already providing benefits for our kids.

Like, you know, how we uh and and uh dovetailing with that is the staffing where we're having staffing reductions, like you know, that it also that that sort of seems to suggest that it's gonna be even harder to meet those needs.

So I think um, and I know folks will want to jump in on this, but I think to your analogy, like three three three years ago, three and a half years ago, we had to reset the traffic lights.

We had to like actually take a year because they were not working.

And that's what literally the inclusion plan and its implementation is, which you know it is now uh two years in on implementation that we're going into.

Um eighty-six percent is actually the lowest amount of students that have been in general education.

We actually have more students in now bilingual programming than we have ever had.

So that's actually a point of pride that we are moving in the right direction and want to accelerate that.

Uh if you were to look at that two years ago, it would have been like 95% were in general education.

Uh it was just called something different, but that's what it was.

Same with staffing.

We never could answer the question three years ago, how many bilingual staff we had because we didn't measure it.

We actually measure it now.

So what you're seeing is that BPS is actually increasing because it values the percent of our staffing who are multilingual.

In fact, in the last hiring cycle, 45% of those we hired, or 43%, spoke a second language fluently.

So I say all of this because we have data that's saying we are going in the right direction, but we feel like everybody feels that it needs to go quicker.

And that's what we're working as fast as we can in reasonable speed to do with quality.

How do we know it's working?

Yeah, I definitely want to echo the superintendent in terms of like our access scores are showing that we are going in the right direction.

We are hitting we are going in the right trajectory.

Are we complacent?

No.

But we're happy to know that having this transition to an inclusive setting hasn't set the students back.

Um that they are moving in the right direction.

I also want to highlight, like in the classroom, what does it look like in the classroom for students, for multilingual students, and what does it look like for the educators to be able to implement resources and instruction for students?

So, yes, the teachers have the SEI endorsement, but the components of a good classroom is that you're thinking of what you want the outcomes for the students to be.

So you have to have language objectives for the students.

You need to have content objectives for students.

And they also need to be in you'd also need to ensure that you are developing the students for domains.

So the speaking, reading, writing, listening has to be incorporated into the classroom.

And so when educators are implementing the high quality instructional materials in the classroom, they also need to provision how they structure it, right?

So you give students opportunity to do a think pair share.

So if a student and multilingual learner is in the classroom, you may pair them with the student who is a monolingual speaker or it could be a bilingual speaker that does speak English that gives opportunities to really express their language.

You think of the scaffolds that the teachers provide by their students' ELD level.

So you might have a student who is uh emerging who's at ELD one or two, and so you differentiate how students would be able to demonstrate their knowledge and the work versus the student who's in ELD uh three or four.

Also, we have opportunities I know.

Sorry, I don't want to cut, I just have my time's running out.

And uh if you want to uh do have one thing you want to add.

I'm just saying that when we think about the classroom, how we structure the classroom, how we want students to be able to develop, that's really important how we lesson plan and how we provision for students, and then we also have opportunities where the ESL teacher also comes in to push in to model and help support students in that classroom setting.

Okay, and then so what is the long-term plan for bilingual bilingual programs?

Like what what do we increasing, decreasing, what are we gonna say?

We're like I said earlier, we're building out the programs that we currently have.

And so if a student if a classroom if a program right now is K1, we're gonna build it out through K through six, and we're gonna look to see how we can expand across the district in terms of regions where there is a need.

And again, it's also families have to choose that they want to be in these programs.

Um, we also want to look at the existing programs that we have, and we want to be able to fill and make sure that they are at capacity.

So, for example, at the Blackstone, um, it's really a community effort to ensure that we are filling the seats that we do have.

So, right now we have a capacity for 40 students for uh K2, and right now we have 27 students that are going to be entering there.

So we really need to work with the community, and right now we have 13 students who are registered for 40 seats for K1.

So we want to be able to fill the positions that we do have across the district before we start to expand further out more.

Yeah, I would also just say, uh, Consul Weber, that building a bilingual pathway actually to do it with quality actually takes a lot of thought, resource, and time.

And particularly for languages that are low incident languages, uh such as the Cape Verdean that we are attempting to do at Frederick or doing at Frederick, the materials, finding the actual materials that go all the way through the grade strands, finding the staff who don't just speak the language, but who are actually literate in all sides of it?

That takes time to build it up.

We've worked very hard with Cave Verdian community, and it's taken us multiple years to do this to launch that.

Um that holds true with our Vietnamese, it holds true with our Mandarin, it holds true with um uh Haitian Creole, you know.

So getting the Mata hunt to be the Mata Hunt has been a life's work.

So we we can't just throw programming out there, like we're really trying to do this in a thoughtful, sustained and accelerated way, but doing it where it's it the community understands what we're doing, where they can access educating about the value of bilingual education, it in and of itself is its own plan.

I'm just do we have a like five, ten years what that's gonna look like or do we do it?

Do we just make just I and I'm yeah, do you is it better just to make decisions like year by year?

I don't know, is there a long-term plan?

What we've all collectively talked about is ensuring every region that there's access to Spanish, for instance, because we know that is the predominant, but then on the low incident languages, also trying to figure out how we're a position a program may be positioned, but there may be a secondary program, or there may be better access to that primary program more on a regional kind of basis.

That's what I think Joelle and her staff are working toward.

Okay, thank you.

I I heard the buzzer.

Uh so we're gonna go to public testimony and then for a second round with my colleagues.

Uh so uh you you get called on in the order that you signed up.

Uh this year that they're okay.

Uh well, you can you can bring up the students in any order you want, but first we do have two people before the students, uh so they they can hear maybe uh how it goes, no?

Okay, well, okay.

Uh I John Mutt, no, you want to defer to the students?

Okay, okay.

So we're gonna go with the students first.

Uh and I will is a different order than written down here, but I'll just gonna so when you come up, tell us your name, uh what grade you're in, where you go to school, where you live, and and you can come up there.

There's two microphones here.

Uh the they're both beyond, you can make sure they're at the right height.

Um and so we're gonna hear from uh uh Mamadou Diara, Lennox Bloom, Nicholas uh oh no, uh Capo Dali, Nalita Cardoso, uh Mr.

Rodriguez, I think that's yohan Juliese.

Okay, I got I was close.

Uh Jaron uh Vizcaino.

Is that you?

Okay, and then uh Miss Leela Parks is also signed up.

So Mr.

Vizcaino, Miss Visclean and so far, where you live, what school you go to, and what you want to make sure they know about BPS.

Oh, so so you I'm gonna put up two minutes here on the clock so you just know how long uh the timer is.

So whenever you're ready, you start, and then I'll start the clock.

What I would like to say is that we need more budgets for this for the Mendo School, um, to hire uh more teachers that speak our native language.

Um my name is Jaden and I'm from the Dominican Republic.

I came to this country two years ago, and I know how helpful that will be because uh I had like some teachers that help me, but not enough though, because like I even go to some schools that like have barely some teachers that speak Spanish or even um French.

And my question is like, how do you guys determine where does the foundings or the money goes to?

Like, do you guys how do you guys determine whether to buy books, um pencils or stuff like that to help kids that are in English or kids that are struggling with English?

Okay.

Uh do you would you like to answer uh superintendent?

Sure.

So I think first of all, you did a great job.

Um very good.

It's hard for adults to get up and speak.

Um I so I think these are two really good questions.

I think one is we want, we know how important it is to have teachers who can speak different languages, so students have an easier way to communicate and they see their language reflected.

So we're working hard to try to do that.

So thank you for bringing that up and saying how important it is.

I think the other is um the the guy next to me here, CFO Bloom, he's in charge of all the money.

And so he does a really good job trying to figure out as schools express what they need to make sure that we're fair across the system, and we try to give the money to help our schools do what they're looking to do.

So he heard your comment, and he's gonna make sure he goes back and sharpens his pencil and make sure he does a good job with it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, thank you.

Next up, and and uh everyone who wants to speak, please come down now, you can line up because it's kind of hard to get in and out of these seats.

Uh, and also get really close to the microphone, almost like you're eating ice cream.

Or vegetables.

Next up, we have Lennox Blue.

Another bloom.

So make sure make sure you get really close to the mic, pull the mic uh down and and uh then we can make we can hear everybody.

So let us know your name when you start.

Hi, I'm Lennox, but you can call me Lenny.

Um, and I think some stuff we should do with like the money is um for people who move to the US from like a different country and don't speak English.

We should have um classes for them so they can learn English, or people who want to speak another language can learn um another language and be like bilingual so they can speak to the people who move here and like communicate with them.

Um also we should have multicultural foods because if someone moves here and they like don't like the foods here, um there should be like foods that they'll like so that they don't they're not hungry.

Um we could also make more money from fundraisers to get that multicultural food for better food for BPS.

Okay, thank you very much.

So you yeah, uh very good.

Uh no relation to the chief financial officer Bloom here.

This is not a plant.

Um okay, so you usually what we do with public testimonies people speak for two minutes and then they they sit down.

If we want to, we don't have like a back and forth.

So I think it would be good if all your classmates and everyone spoke, and if we'll pause before the next public testimony, and if there's some answers we have here, so we'll just keep track of your comments and see if there's a uh comment at the end.

So if you let all your other classmates speak, thank you very much.

That was great.

Thank you.

That's okay.

I'm taking that out of your time.

Uh five minutes for you next time.

Uh okay, so uh we just get close to the mic, and uh when you're ready, I'll start the clock.

Say your name.

I'm ready.

Um so my name's Nicholas, but I go by Nick.

Um I'm here to say that the playground at our school has been broken for a couple of years because there's someone that's breaking it, but like our school kind of needs a better playground because it's kind of fragile and yeah.

Yeah, thank you very much.

I think uh we did you mention the gym?

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

We also do need a gym because a lot of people get hurt outside.

We're in the gym, the gym like could give them a little braces and scratches, but yeah.

Okay, yeah, we had to work with some people in the community to get uh the wood chips for the playground because there were none.

Uh this is last year, I think, right?

Or two years ago.

Anyway, okay, thank you very much.

Uh good job.

Uh who's up next.

Okay, Nalita.

Hi, my name's Nelita.

Closer.

Hi, my name's Alita.

Um I came from Kivurt one year ago, and I'm here.

I won't say that you guys what do you guys should do with the money is to help people with disabilities and people who speak different languages.

Okay, thank you.

Hello, my name is John Jelise.

I think that you guys should do what the money is spending on people have disabilities and like on teachers that like speak different languages like Spanish or English.

Because there's not like a lot of teachers that speak Spanish, and there's like a lot of people that speak Spanish, and like on gyms too, because most of the like tea like classes don't have not classes, but schools don't have like gym, either art classes.

Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Mama Doo.

I go by Momo, and what I think the council should spend the money on is more like devices for disabled students, like verbally disabled, so like iPads to help them communicate with their teachers and other students.

And what else you guys should spend the money on is more accessibility for physically disabled students, and so they can access like get on the bus or get into school because my school has lots of stairs.

Okay, thank you.

Great job.

Hi, I'm Leela Parks.

This is Jeremiah.

He doesn't want to talk.

Um I'm a BPS parent.

I'm a BPS teacher, specifically I'm a special education teacher and in English as a second language teacher.

As you can tell from my students, my Spanish is not great.

Um they would all like that to be better.

I'm here to talk about inclusion.

And the main thing I'd like to tell you is that the numbers should be the bare minimum.

IEP service delivery minutes, ESL minutes, that is the bare minimum of what we need to meet the legal requirements.

But inclusion is so much more than that.

Inclusion is a mindset.

Inclusion is a whole building coming together in support of our students.

Many of the young people here are the people you've been talking about.

They're multilingual students, they're students with disabilities, and they're on their student council because they're crushing it.

But we don't do that just by meeting the bare minimum.

We do that by surrounding them in a culture of inclusion at our school.

We're really worried about the budget cuts.

We're worried about what that might do for our current bottle model, which is just barely getting there.

Um and we're really scared about what's gonna happen next.

In my class in my grade level, sixth grade, we have um two homeroom teachers and me as a special ed and ESL learning specialist.

That's three adults for our school, um, plus a pair of professional, right?

Um we're in a sixth grade campus, which is in a different building.

We don't have any leadership on site, so we run the ship and um we haven't sunk yet, so we're pretty happy about that.

Um but if I am torn to multiple grades, for example, if I do the bare minimum minutes and I'm not in sixth grade all the time, that ship is gonna have a lot more trouble staying afloat.

Um so we're worried, we're worried that we might lose some of what's been keeping our school together.

I think given that we don't have a gym, given that we have a so-so playground, given that we're divided into two buildings and we're still fully enrolled year after year, something's going well there.

Um we need to help that grow and not risk letting it sink.

So inclusion is more than just the minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Does Nick have time to add one thing?

Uh yes, it's coming out of d uh uh counselor Culpepper's time.

Sorry, counselor called pepper.

No, no, don't touch that.

Um this will take about like five seconds.

Um so we don't know what's gonna happen next if like ICE might just walk in and take someone.

So like we want better security.

Better security uh if uh you know for honestly uh ICE agents and that kind of thing, right?

Yeah, say it again.

Um so we don't know like if I just walks in and takes someone, so like we want better security.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

So just take a brief pause if the panel would like to address uh any of those comments.

Well, first of all, it just shows our kids are brilliant.

Um because they always underscore the things that we need to, right?

So I think the good news, and it's I don't want to talk with my back to you.

Um I think the good news is that um the food to start, right?

So I'm gonna connect with the head of our food services because we actually have a global initiative where students can weigh in on what kind of food they want, and then we work to get that particular food each week.

So if you have a particular food from home country and you're like, we'd like to see this, they will work on getting in a recipe and bring that in.

So that was a great idea, and I will translate that.

I also think um all your points are really important about making sure students with disabilities and students who are multilingual learners.

Many of you are are are that they that we have the resources in the body to support.

And your teacher was absolutely right that inclusion, when it's done right, isn't just a calculation on speech because you guys have faces and you're real people, and your needs are different school to school.

And that's the reason why it's so important when we do service mapping, that we're considering what all those needs are and using that as the piece.

Um I think in the case of the Mendo, uh, there's there's you know, we're fully supporting, I think in terms of the budget, there was actually a good budget this year.

Um we would see that continuing.

Um we want to hire as many staff that can speak other languages as possible.

So we try to get the word out, and the good news in the last hiring is that like uh four out of ten teachers.

So like four out of ten, they actually spoke another language fluently.

So that shows like we really want that to happen, and it was important for you guys to highlight that.

So thank you guys so much.

We didn't get to meet your other teacher.

Mr.

Walter.

I mean, Mr.

Lyant, the school social worker also at the Hernandez.

Um, we're really appreciative for time.

I think it's important again to get more students involved with this process because I think it impacts them and they don't realize that this is their building.

That's good.

And um, is it Nicola?

Yes.

Nicholas.

So your point about ice.

So one place that you are very safe is in your school.

Like we have made sure we have very strong rules in the DPS, so no one can come and touch you.

Okay.

So just be assuming that.

And you do know your facility needs.

So it's on top of mine to figure that out.

Uh and we'll check on the playground to see what that is.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

If you're right, it's not this.

I love this.

Also about the school lunches.

We uh some schools don't like have like flavor milk and our school like milk always comes like on the day that's almost expired.

Well, we were looking to that.

It's actually what I know the flavor milk, I know.

I the chocolate and strawberry milk, I'm a lover of it.

Um certain rules that we have to with the government and allow us to do things and not.

And unfortunately, the the flavor milk, they don't actually let us serve.

Uh but we'll put another kitchen for it because you asked more.

So we'll put another picture.

Thank you.

Good job.

Okay.

Yeah, when people are drinking strawberry milk at the Mendel, they know who to thank.

Uh okay.

Well, uh thank you very much to the Mendel students.

That was great.

Uh for the kids, we've that's the Chief Financial Officer Bloom there.

Um we've been joined by two uh two of the colleagues, two of our colleagues here on the city council.

I'm not sure who came in first.

Russi Louis Gen and Henry Santana over here, they're also city counselors.

Um it's great to see everybody.

So we're gonna go to how we usually do public testimony.

Sorry, Mr.

Mudd, where you get you get two minutes.

There's we're not gonna have a QA back and forth.

Uh my colleagues will certainly take note of your comments and we can ask questions.

Um I don't know if you you want to wait for the students to kind of clear out so we can focus on your your comments, but we're gonna have public testimony from John Mudd, Kate Della Rosa, uh, then Cassandra Kribbs, Altamise Diaz, Ediana Baez, Natalie Damate, Dora Sandoval, and David Baptiste in that order.

Uh so John Mudd, Kate Delarosa, and then Cassandra Cribs is uh next.

So I'm gonna start the clock whenever do are our panelists ready.

Okay, you're okay, great.

So, Mr.

Mudd, whatever.

Thank you.

It's uh important for all of us, obviously, to listen to the students, you know, their eloquence and their reality is what we need to deal with.

Uh my name is John Mudd.

I'm a resident of Cambridge, a longtime education advocate in Boston, and the grandfather of a student at the John F.

Kennedy Elementary School.

The Boston School Committee and the district say that they are student outcome focused, research-based, and data-driven.

On none of these principles, unfortunately, does BPS's approach to multilingual learners stand up to scrutiny?

Student outcomes for multilingual learners are unacceptable.

Consistently over a period of years, less than 10% of multilingual learners reach state academic content standards in ELA and math.

For multilingual learners with disabilities, the results are even worse at 5%.

Inclusion is a model and a great program for students with disabilities.

It is not a program designed for multilingual learners.

Research on multilingual learners shows that bilingual education programs that use the native language in instruction, like dual language or traditional bilingual education, show better outcomes than putting multilingual learner students in classrooms where the instruction is only in English.

BPS provides dual language for only about 10% of multilingual learners, and the vast majority are placed in Gen Ed classes with the SL.

That does not give parents a choice of where to place their children.

And service mapping, I would say, as I have heard it explained at school committee, only includes a mapping of the ESL minutes.

The English is a second language minutes that the students need.

It does not consider the need for home language instruction.

BPS needs to change course and make a major commitment to the value of home language.

And we applaud the expansion of dual language programs, but there needs to be the development and implementation, implementation of long-term plans with goals and timelines to expand bilingual education and bilingual teachers.

I hope the council will follow up and request, demand whatever, to see such a long-term plan, which we can all rally around.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh Altimiz Diaz after that.

Okay.

Good morning.

I would like to speak about the effects of student service cuts in the budget, especially for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

The cuts are not evenly felt.

Students with disabilities and multilingual learners are disproportionately harmed.

They rely on predictable intensive support from adults like special education paraprofessionals, social workers, psychologists, learning specialists, and other staff who make who provide access to classroom instruction so students can make progress.

The budget is adding $30.5 million to special education while simultaneously cutting those 134 student-facing positions.

This is an impossible contradiction, and the most vulnerable students are paying the price.

School closures, mergers, and reconfigurations have created a cost savings that significantly offset next year's budget shortfall.

But the closures cost student students' families and staff by disrupting learning and stripping away consistent adult support that the students need to thrive.

First, approve a supplemental appropriation to restore essential student-facing positions, and second, work with us to discuss central centralizing BPS health insurance to stop this one department from shouldering the skyrocketing costs alone.

In short, restore positions, protect student services, and invest in what the students need.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let's see, uh sorry, Cassandra Cribbs, uh, Altamis Diaz, and then Ed Diana Baez.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Cassandra Cribbs.

I am honored to serve as a parent mentor with St.

Stevens at the Matterhunt School.

In addition to my professional role as a parent mentor, I'm also a parent of a child receiving special education services.

Through my personal experience, I have witnessed firsthand the transformative impact that these services can have.

Since my child began receiving support, he has exceeded important goals and milestones in ways that would not have been possible without the dedicated network of educators, specialists, and community support surrounding him.

That collective effort, the village, has made all the difference.

It is essential that we continue to invest in and protect funding for special education services.

These resources are not optional.

They are critical to ensuring that children receive the support they need to grow, succeed, and reach their full potential.

Reducing funding would directly impact the progress of students who rely on these services every day.

Our children are our future.

We have a responsibility to support them, advocate for them, and ensure they are given every opportunity to thrive.

Altemiz uh Diaz, sorry for mispronouncing your name, Eddiez, and then uh Natalie Dumate.

Buenos días.

My name is Altemis Diaz.

So I resident of Sao Boston.

But sobre todo como abuela de un niño de necessidades especiales.

I'm going to learn from abuela, como mother, but necessarily especially the importance of my name with necessities especially in La Roger Clark.

Una school inclusive.

Look at the appointment of a maestro, lo que have the appointment of the schools inclusively, because I but mother who have hers in school public in elegance and siempre avoid for me for those higher.

I'm going to translate.

Good morning, Boston City Councillors.

My name is Altimes Diaz.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today and to raise my voice.

Today I speak as a mother, but above all as a grandmother.

And when you speak as a grandmother, you speak from the deepest love, from a place of concern for your grandchildren's future.

What we are asking for today is fair.

It is not excessive.

We are simply asking for one percent of the city of Boston's operating budget for our public schools because every child deserves a quality education.

And that is not just a classroom.

It means supported teachers, counselors, therapists, and all the staff who care for guide and uplift our children every day.

As a grandmother of a student in an inclusive school like the Roger Clapp, I have seen it all with my own eyes.

This works, especially for children with special needs, like my grandson, who needs more support, not less.

Support that one percent that can truly change your lives.

Thank you.

Ella and most other students don't adapt to record not, some risk for the future of record, necessitarians inverters, my appointment for our home, most programs, my maestro and the royal clubs conclusion is a school functional when the recurs.

My name is I am an immigrant, a single mother of two children, and a mentor of the Roger Clapp School.

Today I speak as a mother and as someone who sees every day what our child our students need.

Schools are our children's second home.

And the staff who support them are not a luxury.

They are essential.

I am deeply concerned that budget cuts are being considered.

She and many other students cannot wait or adapt to less support.

These cuts are not savings.

They are a risk to our children's future.

Instead of cutting, we need to invest more, more support for young people, more programs, more teachers, and more bilingual schools.

The Roger Clapp School shows that inclusion works when it is properly supported.

The city of Boston has the resources.

Sorry prioritize the education and well-being of our students.

My name is Natalia.

I am a mother of three children, and my daughter attends Blackstone Elementary School.

I live in Matapan and have been in this country for two years.

But she has made progress and feels more confident.

That progress is not by chance.

I hope you understand it.

One attendance in the Hairly School and another one in the 12th grade.

Last week I received wonderful news.

My song was accept in that North in the Northeastern University with a scholarship that's covered 100% of these students.

As a mother, this moment represent years of effort, sacrific sacrifice and hope.

My story is a example of that is possible when I when real opportunities exist in our families.

That arisment is not by chance.

Okay.

My name is David.

I live in Mattapan.

I am a parent mentor in the St.

Stevens program at Matahunt.

I am the guardian of two children.

Thank you for giving me this chance to speak about the budget.

As a parent mentor, I visited as an observer in a child's art.

I visited as an observer in a child's special education classroom.

I wanted to understand how children with special needs learn.

But I also saw that these resources depend on the special education budget.

If the budget is cut, there will be fewer materials, less staff, fewer specialists, and less support for each child.

This would hurt the children.

These children deserve the services that help them grow at their own pace.

Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

Okay, that wraps up no one online.

That wraps up our public testimony.

We're gonna go do uh a second round of questions.

Um for this panel.

We do have a second panel, just uh so I can get my bearing tree.

Um where this panel is talking about inclusion, multilingual learners, uh curriculum and special education, issues like partnerships, summer programs, family outreach and mergers and closures are for the second panel.

Um so we're going to uh and some members of this panel are on the second panel, but um uh so again I think if mergers and closures is your focus, it might be appropriate to wait till uh after the break.

We're gonna try to have a break close to one and then come come back with the second panel.

Um counselor Flynn, I'm just I'm gonna do uh five.

Yeah, we'll do we'll we'll try to do this five minutes second round um see how this goes, and if we have some extra time, we'll come back for a third quick lightning round.

Okay, we're gonna be ready.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you for chairing this important uh hearing.

Again, thank you to the BPS team that is here, including the superintendent, who I have great respect for.

Um Superintendent, a couple comments I did hear yesterday and today.

The possibility or the recommendation of placing the um as it relates to human resources in health care, placing the supervision of the health care program for BPS employees, not with BPS, but put it under the City of Boston kind of umbrella human resources.

Is that something that you are considering or something you you would support?

So um I'll also want Chief Loom to chime in on this.

Umestly, before FY26, this has not been an issue with health benefits.

There have been extremely stable projections on which we can rely to and receive the appropriate budget.

I think there is a volatility and vulnerability right now with health care.

It does, it seems as if with GL1s, it is now fluctuating far more.

And so that is meant in FY26.

We enter the year with deficit.

We were very pleased that the city recognized the projections for FY27 were low and added dollars into it.

Um I think it's for us more that we would be able to count on what dollars, what the projections are, and then what dollars are being budgeted.

That's the main piece for us is a budgeting tool.

Where it resides, council Flynn, that's a little bit above me.

I don't know from the city side how that works, and Chief Loom might be able to comment on that.

But I think the main thing for us is that volatility in our budget is very hard to address once the school year has started.

Yeah, the only thing I would add is I think there would need to be some um just legal review given the way that the law around our uh appropriations to the school school board is structured.

Um so that's we would need to do some additional research on that.

Okay, could I make a recommendation?

Maybe asking BPS in the mayor's office, including the teachers union, um, maybe to develop a working group.

Um, I know it's not gonna happen now, but maybe developing a working group in highlighting the pros and cons about this and maybe trying to come together on some type of recommendation that works where we're saving money so we're able to continue to support the um student-facing positions.

I know we're spending a lot of money on health care, but maybe after the budget can we work to establish a working group to begin the conversation of having um I mean, I'd like to see it move to the to the city of Boston too.

I think I think we would save money that way, but could we commit to at least having a working group?

Yeah, from our perspective, we're willing to do whatever works the best.

I don't know if that comes through the council who it comes through, but we would be willing to participate in whatever is set up.

Okay.

Um thank you, Superintendent.

Thank you, Counselor.

Um then my second my second question, and I know I know we I have highlighted it earlier in some people have reached out to me, um, especially especially social workers, because they know I've been talking about this.

Um but they they wanted me to highlight that the the ratio that was cited yesterday, one mental health provider for every 117 students was concerning because it it only was based on the low-income student population, not the total student enrollment.

The framing can't create the impression that staffing levels uh more robust than they truly are across the schools.

Um so I think it's support for us to capture the reality um of our roles or the actual level of support provided to students.

Is there any way we were able to look at that number again that was mentioned yesterday yesterday, considering that fact that this well-respected social worker provided me?

Yes, um I the number did include all students, not just low-income students.

I think maybe the confusion was it wasn't limited just to social workers.

We were talking about all mental health providers.

Um but we could certainly give you the data in any in any way you you would like.

But the ratio of uh mental health service providers to student all students is 117.

Be besides social workers, uh the well uh Mr.

Chair, I don't want to um ask another question um if it's beyond my time.

Yeah, can you maybe we can come back?

That's fine.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, uh Councillor Murphy, uh five minutes.

Sure, I think I'm sorry, could we just I think this is actually a really important one?

Could we just underscore in one minute something on this?

Sure, yeah, it just and if counselor Flynn is a follow-up you can ask uh just to say that I think the the ratio there are school psychologists, there's social workers, and other kinds of roles that provide mental health supports, which is what I think Chief Bloom was quoting.

But I also just wanted to s underscore because I actually really value tremendously the work our social workers and school sites do.

You can be a social worker in one school and have a small student ratio, and yet have very complex cases, and it can feel three times that.

So it's very hard to use the ratio to actually capture all the social workers in the school sites do, but I think Councilor Flynn, it's a good it's a good stick for us to do.

So maybe what we could break down is the individual groups and what that ratio looks like.

So school psyches, um social workers and then other roles, just as a further delineation for counselor Flynn.

For sure.

Did I yeah, I mean feel free to if you have a follow-up.

Superintendent, thank you for the question.

I don't necessarily have a follow-up, but just want to say thank you, and I know David as well, want to say thank you to you.

Um as we continue this budget, let's let's try to do everything we can to bring back those district school um social workers that may or may not be cut, the three of them.

But I I I want to see them see them get back into the into the budget.

But I know it's uh it's a conversation for another time and my time is up.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Counselor Murphy.

So I know this, but it was said in the last round, all classrooms, all teachers have access to evidence-based curriculum.

And we know that doesn't mean they're all using it, but when we say they have access, okay, but can you show me an outside rating system like Ed reports?

I know you mentioned that to call Pepper, or something comparable that says focus is evidence-based.

And how can we defend high quality when the data when we're getting it right from DESI says in grades three to eight, only three in ten of our students are reading and performing on grade level.

Only two in ten black and brown students are reading or performing on grade level.

And less than one in ten students with disabilities are reading and performing on grade level.

And the other question also when we're offering and spending money on curriculum training, coaches and PD, and then there's no guarantee that the students are actually um going or the teachers will be delivering that curriculum.

Um I don't I'm not sure if you were at the working session when we talked uh for a very long time about focus.

Um I do also want to acknowledge that focus is not used beyond second grade.

I know that.

Um so I I think uh I just want to be sort of Yeah, can we but I know because my time ran out last time and only one question wasn't answered about so I'd like to and I was there, but my time is ticking.

So I I had uh one direct question.

Yep, so we will acknowledge that focus right now is going through the process to be curate approved.

Um we do we have had an external national nonprofit review it to confirm that it does support evidence-based practices using the science of reading.

And how do we defend the data though?

Well, what are we going to do?

Which was one of my questions in the first round.

What commitment are we going to stand by?

What are we going to look for at the end of next school year based on this you know, investment and shift in the district?

So you asked the question about transformational, right?

And you wanted me to like tease that out, right?

No, I just know that when words like that, I was just saying we're we're making investment.

I mean, I've been along on this ride for my son's 36.

He was one of the first students at you know, at what so yeah, so let's just but I just had the curriculum question first.

I just want to focus on that answer, please.

So I answer the curriculum question, right?

Which is it's currently going through the process to become curate-approved.

I think something I do want to acknowledge though is like focus solely is not going to teach kids how to read.

No, it's I'm sorry, I just cause my time's more than half over now.

So we got the focus, we know that's K to two.

So Skipper, we have three to twelve and above, and when the date is showing, because my data I was sharing is three to eight, and we know focus isn't taught in those grade levels, but we know if you don't have a strong foundation, you are going to struggle.

So, Superintendent Skipper, what are we going to stand by, right?

What so I think I think what Dr.

Wright is saying and about to say is that this is the full third year that we're going into that we're currently in of the reset and the implementation.

And so the what the some of what you're sharing is fully accurate, but it doesn't reflect students who have actually benefited and gone through the consistency of high quality instructional material in their classroom, and particularly uh instructional calibrated practice, which is what we're striving for.

So I think what we can commit to and what you will start to see as we're seeing in our own data internally is we're moving with literacy, and that will build and that will accelerate as that stays and we're not shifting.

Awesome.

Okay.

Um an inclusion support question comes up a lot, and we know that there are supports within the classroom, but a lot of the time is spent outside of the general-led classroom in the hallways alone, just transitional time, but all the specials, and many schools set up their specials where reading support, science, art, digital art, gym, PE, all of those things.

So what are we doing to address the fact that many of the teachers who are specialist teachers are feeling like they're not supported for big chunks of their time when the same supports that we see in the classroom with the classroom teacher aren't following those students when they go to the specials?

Uh thank you for that question, Council Murphy.

The um what's important is the professional development that we provide is provided for all staff members, including um those services.

Um we work to make sure that they are access to their IEPs, they understand accommodations and modifications and to provide those services.

Yeah, and many are special ed certified themselves, but I'm asking for the para support, the inclusion para supports that often don't follow when they're leaving the classroom.

There's not a across the district, there is not a lot of power support for inclusion.

Um it's always been in certain schools, you know, there are earlier adopters that choose to do use power support, but it has been successful in other places as well.

This question has come up in a recent meeting I had with the BTU and members, and it is something that we're looking at to support.

So the inclusion classrooms that have shifted in the district going, we're not we're expecting them to just be alone in those classrooms with dual certification.

No, but that's what you're saying.

But you're saying that the general classrooms don't have power.

Yeah, so they do have power support.

They have they often have a co-teacher.

Right.

So I think for us when we look at it, right?

Students with disabilities, right, are getting special education services for what's the periods of time they're designated under their IEP.

Right.

Many students with disabilities don't require additional support and services when they're going to another course.

Well, in their IEP, it's not written because those direct goals aren't going to be addressed directly.

But we do see that that is the concern in the safety meeting we had, I think it was just yesterday.

Knowing like what about the kindergarten first, second, fourth grade concerns?

A lot of times when we have safety concerns, we're only addressing like a weapon found at a high school or a fight in the hallway, and many times that's not what's really bothering many of the students, the teachers and the families that I hear from.

It's just you know, a third grader not feeling safe or a dysregulated student, where it often happens outside of that co-taught classroom when someone all alone is teaching music and really struggling to reach the the needs of all of those students because we know the needs don't go away when they walk out of you know their classroom and go to another space in the building.

So there's there's mechanisms that we have through regional model down to the schools, including special education, where if there's a student who is dysregulated and happens in a special, that can be flagged and then additional support can be dispensed.

Most importantly, if it's happening on a regular basis, we would reconvene team to determine whether there's additional supports that's needed.

Each year, David holds a certain amount of resource for new students coming into the district or students whose needs are grow and accelerate more than what has been allocated for resource.

So it's an important question.

The we do have the system in place for that, and we're adding to it next year a team that will be able to go out and do observation in the classroom that we currently have at the early education grades, because that's actually where we see a lot of the disconnect of kids coming from other pre-K UPKs and they come into us and we don't have a history or a background with a kid.

Uh we have that now operationalized in early ed.

Christine sit sits on those meetings, but we need to roll that further into the other grades to your point, so that when a student uh has need that's not been identified with resource, we're able to add that resource.

Okay, yeah, thank you, Councillor Murphy.

Um, so I I uh uh Counselor Louis Jen has has uh has to run, and I want to give her a chance to ask a first round of questions, and she's swapped places with uh Counselor Braden.

So uh Councillor Lou Jen, you got five minutes.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you to everyone who gave public testimony, Messian P and Keevenypubai, Tim Mayaj.

Um, really appreciated hearing from our parents from our students um and from our teachers.

Thank you to the administration for being here.

Yeah, I have a mining to 1230, so I think I'm gonna just have to put my questions on the record.

Um, I've talked about this maybe at NASIM, but I I actually just want to hear about where it's going.

Um with respect to uh SLIFE classrooms, what is the future of SLIFE right now?

Uh I know that we're not doing any addition, but where does it look right now for students with limited and interrupted formal education?

Um, what have we learned from the first few years of implementing, well, first year, right, of implementing uh the inclusion model and what are the adjustments that we need to make.

Um, when we talk about service mapping as a tool, uh I just want to make sure that like what does that substantively mean?

Um, want to make sure that we're not using buzzwords and that it actually means something.

Um for the services that really talks about how we are putting together services for our kids.

Um what do we do when we can't meet the I the IEP minutes of a student?

Like what is what is the backup, like what is the what is the next step, what is the follow-up from there?

Um and you may have my apologies if if you answered this and I asked this um if you answered this or mentioned this before, but what is the status of our special education funding overall?

Like, is it going up?

What does that look like?

That is one of the major things that we're hearing from members of community, so just want to make sure that I understand what's happening with our special education funding.

Same with our multilinguage learners, and I'll put it on the record, obviously, for the past however many years, right?

Uh four years that I've been on this body, especially with what we've been seeing happening.

I've been such an advocate for our multi-language learners for our SLIC classrooms for more resources for social workers.

We obviously see a 3,000 student decline, 2,000 of which is for our multilingual uh multi-language learners, but I want to make sure that with that, and and obviously from that comes like a decline of staff dedicated to that, but just want to make sure that that doesn't correlate with a decline in services for the students who need it.

So those are my questions for the record.

Thank you.

And as always, I know I always call you Dr.

Gamer.

I'm putting into record, always great to see you.

And you just remind me of my mother.

Kile kiloctura.

So I just want to speak to this life situation.

So all of our students who qualify for SLIFE are in SLIFE programs.

So our students who have come and are in the programs, we have created clear exit, well, entrance and exit criteria.

That's something that we didn't have before.

So students would be languishing in SLIFE for years.

But now we have a clear exit criteria for when students receive an 2.5 on access.

So I just want to say the students who meet SLIFE requirements are there.

Students who transition out of SLIFE because they meet the exit criteria.

We uh we have some programs that are in dual language programs, so they can transition to a bilingual or dual language program, or they can go and transition, depending on family choice, um, into an inclusion classroom setting.

Um how many SLIFE classrooms do we have?

And when do we first have SLIFE classrooms?

When did we first we've had SLIFE classrooms um early in the 90s?

So identified.

So when students have interrupted formal, as you know, um they come in, and so we work with them uh and their families to ensure that uh we help them develop their native uh L1 language first and then um transition to English.

Uh I would say that I'm very proud of the district in terms of like the um progression of SLIFE or the way we have supported SLIFE by having social workers, so we know that there are dynamic needs for students who are in SLIFE programs, um, so we really think of it as all encompassing to help support the students.

Um I will say that there are some closures for SLIFE programs for two reasons.

One decrease of enrollment for students who are meeting the needs as they're coming into the district, and we know that not many are coming into the district, and two, because we have created the clear entrance and exit criteria.

We do find like at the Orion Burger, we have a subset of students that came in, and because of instruction, the students have met the 2.5 criteria on access, and so those students have transitioned out of um SLIFE.

Uh, no longer do we see students in SLIFE programs for seven years at low ELD levels.

I'll say I think the number is 28.

For classroom, yes.

Okay.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

I'm gonna take a stab at the inclusion question.

Um, also acknowledging like Christine is here, she is part of one of the brain childs that supported the district in developing the inclusive education plan.

Um, so I think a few things I do just want to name.

When we talk about inclusion, we are talking about learning for every student in BPS.

Um, and I'm I'm not sure like the the questions sort of distill that, right?

Um, I think the other thing that I I want to offer as someone um that's been with the district a few months is there's an operational aspect to inclusion, thinking about scheduling and staffing, but there's an instructional component.

I think if I had to offer what I've observed in just some some initial thinking on lessons learned in future facing work, I think one is I think we're almost there with getting folks to understand that the work of teaching diverse learners is the work of educating kids in BPS.

Like the mindset piece, I think the superintendent, um, KCL, Christine have done a really really good job of helping folks to understand that.

And I think a lot of people, we've done a lot of work in helping support the operational aspects through service mapping, scheduling, doing a lot of work around intervention, and now I think it is really building the skill of our educators to facilitate good instruction when you have students that um are diverse in many ways.

Some of that is their lived experience, some of that is language, some of that is ability.

Um, and I want to just name on the record that that work is going to be iterative.

Christine, you want to talk about service mapping, what it looks like.

Sure.

So um, thank you for the question.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for being here, and all you do, Christine.

Of course.

I think with service mapping, we do look at for every student on an IP, an individualized education plan has a service delivery grid that says what services need to be provided.

We at every school we compile all of those service delivery grids to determine what services do we need to provide, how long, and by whom.

That information helps us when we're doing scheduling, when we're doing groupings, when we're identifying staff.

And so it's really based upon the data.

Before we started service mapping last year, it was really based upon what people thought was best, right?

And so we would have situations where sometimes we had enough staff, sometimes we didn't have enough staff.

This is really data-driven.

I want to be clear.

I know people talk about the bare minimum.

When we use service mapping for budgeting, we did not go for the bare minimum.

We made sure that there was plenty of support in place because we know with special education students are being funded eligible, students are moving in, students' needs are constantly changing.

I just want to quickly answer, and I know I'm already over.

You asked the question of what happens when a student isn't receiving the services they need to have, right?

We can do all the great service mapping in the world.

A student moves into district with something different.

We do what is called the seat process, and as part of that seat process, school leaders will contact us and tell us that you know we don't have enough staff to provide this uh service that this child needs.

And so we address that immediately.

I'm part of the C process, so we can look at the IEPs, we look at schedules, we look at all the needs, and we go through that to determine do we need to allocate more staffing?

And that happens throughout the year during the summer, and has even happened now since we met for the budget in January.

We have done some increased seat allocation, in pro increase the number of staff based upon changes that have happened since January.

Yeah.

David.

So the overall the overall budget for special education for the district is up about six percent.

A lot of that is because of the um cost of salaries and some of the cost of out of district.

We are seeing fewer positions.

Um so there are about 178 fewer positions.

Those are primarily coming from three things.

Uh, one is schools that are closing are being reconfigured.

The second is the reconfiguration of the Mel King schools, and then the final thing is uh reduction in centrally uh based and funded positions.

Basically, those three things account for all of the difference, and then if you look at the remaining schools, there are some increases and some decreases, and they basically balance out.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Did you know?

I guess I had the same question about multilinguage learners.

Oh, sorry.

Uh, for multilanguage learners, um, we are seeing a decrease uh overall in spending there, uh, primarily just due to decreasing in programming due to enrollment decline.

Um so we are seeing fewer teachers as well as paraprofessionals, uh about 140 or 150 fewer staff.

Um this is uh primary so about uh half of that is coming from school closures and reconfigurations, and the other half is coming from reduced multilingual enrollment.

Let me just ask one really small question.

You know, every year we do the like what's the per pupil spending.

Is that number, has that number gone up or down from last year?

Uh overall.

Yeah.

Uh the per pupil spending is up.

And what do you do attribute that to the health care costs?

A lot of it's coming from it's enrollment decline, uh, the the denominator gets lower and the it makes the per people higher, and that health insurance is definitely the big one.

I'd love to sort of like look at what that number like to disaggregate that.

Like isolate the healthcare costs, isolate the and see what that number does.

Yeah, I mean, if there's a hearing.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm gonna Yeah, I think we can just get that on the record and we can get that.

Yeah, so Adam President, I don't know if I jumped Councillor Culpepper, but thank you for allowing me to ask questions, and I will try my best.

Configurations matter a lot.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the second panel, but I'm gonna try my best.

Thank you.

Thank you, and just to follow up on the SLIFE question for the curly uh school, or they they're losing their all their SLIFE uh instructors.

Yes, the program the program at the curly is uh closing basically due to under enrollment uh and also the number and complexity of different programs at the curly, but the Hernandez School uh has a program in the neighborhood.

Okay.

Okay, uh thank you.

Uh so next up is Councillor Braden and then Culpepper Santana.

So I'm gonna skip um my colleagues have covered a lot of space, a lot of ground and their questioning.

I I I was very uh interested in seeing the recent announcement at the Elliott School about uh an AI initiative, one million dollars for an AI initiative in BPS.

Um I know that the there's sort of a double-edged sword here.

Um the Brookings Global Task Force on AI and education has worked with drawn data from about 50 countries, and they produced a really great report recently.

Um just the AI um risks currently overshadowed their conclusion was the risks overshadow the benefits, but there are huge benefits that it can empower student learning by providing access to otherwise unavailable learning opportunities and present content in ways that are more engaging and accessible, particularly for students with disabilities, neurodivergent students and multilingual learners, all the sort of folks we've been talking about all morning.

Um but then there's a huge equity question as well.

Um just uh in the sense that inevitably there is, as in many things, uh, AI amplifies the digital divide, uh, and more families, children, students from more affluent families uh are uh at an incredible advantage compared to folks who uh maybe students from uh lower income families have a greater greater um it it can magnify the inequity in our in our learning uh and our access to technology.

So I'm just asking, you know, where are we at?

Do we have an AI policy in BPS and what guardrails do we have in place to try and mitigate uh amplify the benefits but mitigate the risks of AI because what what what one concern that they talked about was that um while long-standing patterns of technology you suggest that the privileged students may be more likely to employ AI productively to enhance their capabilities, while disadvantaged students risk using it substanti substantively in ways that replace rather than augment their thinking.

So actually that doesn't actually stimulate brain development and and and increase it, it just gives them an easy way out and doesn't give them the the the rigor and the challenge to really stretch themselves and learn more.

So uh where are we at with that?

Because I think it's an it's an interesting moment to do that.

Yeah, I know and really appreciate the question.

I know Dr.

Wright will want to weigh in as well.

Um so uh we are actively working on an AI policy as well as a cell phone policy that will start to make its way up through school committee in May and June.

Uh we have actually been working on AI in the district for three years.

We for the last two years have had AI fellows who are teachers who have gone for training, work in a consortium, a national consortium, and then bring back back that practice.

Elliot was a good example of a school that benefited for that, both the principal and uh Tracy Griffith Walker, as well as some of the teachers.

I think we see the generous investment that Paul English is making is to address exactly this, to see AI as an equity issue and to ensure that all of our students are getting an informed education around AI as to what is the ethical responsible you know usage of the tools.

Um right now it's very in infancy as a pilot.

There will be an institute that will be held at UMass over the summer where we'll be able to, with some of the investment, allow the next cadre of our fellows to be able to go forward, take the class.

We're also looking at creating again through that um investment, uh the ability for our high school students for credit to be able to take the same class but a student version over at UMass.

Um we see this as uh a step for which students at all ages can become much more aware, skilled, um, but also understand the balance to your point, counselor, of the ethics, the pros, the cons, the dangers of what's appropriate usage of AI and not.

Um, particularly in areas such as mental health, where you have students seeking out mental health supports from AI engines.

Uh, you know, that has led to some pretty devastating impacts.

We want to make sure our kids know that's not a good use of it, and what would be a better way to go about that in terms of relying on human uh mental health workers.

So this is all new for us.

The good news is it is a budgeting area for us.

We very much appreciate that donation as a way to start to really get it going.

Dr.

Wright and um the teaching and learning team have been doing awesome work on this.

I don't know if you want to chime in.

I think the superintendent covered it, but we are we are just really really excited about the opportunity it presents for our students and our staff.

That's all.

Thank you.

Um to be continued, I think.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Counselor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And uh Superintendent Skipper, I do want to congratulate you on the King School, the King Academy with that application that's going in today.

It is so the application goes in.

We wait to see what happens with it.

What are we doing in the meantime at King Academy to help get them up to speed?

That's great, I appreciate this.

And as you know, this was one of the first things we talked about in your advocacy for that school.

I really appreciate it.

Um I know Christine has been very active with Mel King in terms of the programmatic, and a new building does not solve issues with programs.

So we've been tackling the program side of it.

We um two years ago did a moratorium of not placing more students there so that the staff could really settle, work on professional development, understand what a therapeutic school actually is, because it is our only day therapeutic school in the district, and uh what appropriate entrance and exit criteria are for the students there, uh, as well as what kinds of staffing is appropriate for that building to support the young people in it.

So that's all been ongoing work.

We hired Harold Miller as the assistant superintendent, which was a new position to help oversee.

There was change of leadership team in there as well.

And for the last several years, they've been working very hard on that training on that development of vision, so which is all work that frankly for a new building you would need to have done.

So we're very proud of them.

We intend to lift the moratorium in November because they've made a lot of the benchmarks we've set.

Uh Christine and Caseel have both been involved in it from OSS side.

Um, but we're we're really we're anticipating 65 as the cap for entering for next year.

Um we're also not waiting for the building, we're adding in CTE programming for the students, early college for the students, reactivating um for the high school kids the ability to do sports and participate on co-teams, the things young people want, right?

Like that's we can't hold because of the building for that.

Um however, it is pretty nice to think that at last the community is gonna actually get a building that warrants and and actually supports therapy for students.

Um so I don't know, uh Christine if you want to add to that.

Let me just follow up with that.

What are you doing with the physical arrangement of the building until you hear from the state?

Yeah, so there's been a number of things.

Uh one, we took we're getting the bars off the windows, um, which was your request and uh way long overdue.

They're actually getting new window, new window project.

They're also getting um there's some uh they've had leakage, so they're getting some work done on the interior of like the roof areas.

I think there's about 500,000 that's been allocated uh to be able to support the building because again, we're talking seven years or six years as it works through the process before we would break ground.

We're not gonna ask kids to live in something less than that.

Um so we are full intent to you know be able to beautify doing new painting in the building as well, really trying to make it a place that kids would be proud to come into while we're waiting for the building.

What's the diversity of the new leadership team and the teachers that are there already?

Off the top of my head, because they've gone through staffing change this year.

Um they were at a three adult to one student ratio based on old formula of the number of kids they had.

We've brought that down.

We'll get you those numbers.

I don't know off the top of my head after staff has been moved around what that exactly is.

Their leadership team is also they have Harold, they have Principal O'Shea, but then they have four or five people who are on their immediate leadership team.

So we'll get you the actual figures.

Yeah, because one of the things that I heard was that most of the black and brown teachers are no longer there.

So I think um part of the staffing, uh, we have to go by seniority.

And uh when uh a school staff comes down and we cut positions, uh teachers that have seniority uh get to stay if they want to, and st teachers that don't have seniority, particularly provisionals, they get accessed or they get the position gets eliminated.

We're working hard right now to ensure that for their school they have teachers who have the appropriate certifications and experience of working in a therapeutic environment.

Um where that ends up landing in terms of the overall demographic of this of the teachers, uh I think it we're still probably like a good month away from that.

Get that too.

I heard you talk about motivation leads to performance and how different activities or initiatives are taking place to encourage the students to come to school.

I remember when we were students and when I was in a Boston public school, we were excited to go to school.

I mean, we wanted to get out the house in the morning to go to school.

David, why are you looking at me like that?

We I mean we wanted to go to school, and we had a good time at school.

And look, I graduated from Boston English, went to the TAF.

It was the TAF and Brighton at the time.

No, but we wanted to go to school.

Yeah.

And I heard you talking about trying to develop initiatives to get the students excited about coming to school.

What can the council do to help you with those initiatives to help encourage the students to come to school?

I mean, because look, if they know they're gonna have a good day, a good time, you know, they want to come to school.

What is it that we can do, if anything?

Yeah, so I think um, I think you know, I watch my grandkids, and we live in a world right now where it's full of so many distractions for our young people.

Um relationship is still kind of to me the bedrock, right, of motivation for kids.

If they feel connected, they feel appreciated, seen, valued, they come.

And so that is something we're working on building the culture back in each of the buildings for, in addition to having programming that you know, this generation really wants to understand what it what do I get?

You know, what is it, you know, and so how is this gonna help me get my goals or my dreams?

So I think it's helping in that way.

And I think with council, I see it in lots of different ways.

You many of you go to like the weekend activity stuff that we do with the kids, which is a lot, where you can interact with the kids differently than in a classroom.

I think going out and speaking to young people and having them hear what the council does and what you're here for.

We talked earlier about the the uh ability of church and you know to to really get in there and have conversations, not just with the students but with parents.

Right?

Your influencers, your influencers in your own way, and I think it's seizing that and and making you know those steps to go out there and be with the kids.

So that's why I love going to schools, right, with you guys.

Because you get to see it, right?

And the kids get to see you, and they're like, oh, that adult's actually taking the time to come see me in my school.

We need to do more of that.

I think that's important.

I mean, let's get that visit to Boston Line Academy back on.

I'm sure all the counselors, right?

Council Weber want to come out to the schools and talk to the students.

So let's do it.

Let's set up something.

Where's Anna?

Is Anna here?

Let's set up a program where we all go to the schools during the week and talk to the students.

I think you're absolutely right.

I think seeing us encourage the students uh will make a difference on it.

Now, look, influencers, I don't know about all that.

Yeah, but I do know that uh I'm ready, willing, and able to come out to the schools and talk to the students and encourage them.

Look, I was one of those kids at Boston Academy.

I mean, you know, we did win a couple of championships, the state championship in basketball in the city, but I'm ready to let's do it.

The other thing I want to ask you.

Counselor Culpepper, you you were way, way over five minutes.

We do have a lot of people.

Sure.

And I mean, I love you because your habit is to let folks finish their last question.

Here's my last question.

Well, this is the third last question.

Well, you know how preachers are, we got a final final closing.

But let me just close with this.

Uh in the opportunity gap, you talk about pilot and scale before and after school, implement the pillar of quality and accessible before and after school programming across all hub schools.

When we were in school, they had the community schools that stayed open after we finished school, we went to the community schools, and they were all across the city, and they made a big difference in terms of the students not being on the street, but being in a community school.

That's what they were called.

What are you doing?

Or is this the same kind of program that we had years ago where the students could go right to the school after school and just whether it was study or tutoring or basketball or swimming?

Is this the same kind of that's exactly what we're trying to bring back?

So the the hub schools are really community schools, to your point.

We've had B BCYF in the city, and for the schools that have a center attached, the kids can go next door to those centers after school, but that's different than the culture of the school community being extended.

And what we hear from the hub school communities of parents and students, they want to be in their buildings doing things after the the hours.

High school offers that opportunity with sports and intramurals and things like that, but for the younger kids, it's just as important.

So that's what we're jump starting back with the hub schools.

And so how many schools have you started in the middle of the year?

We have 20.

20.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you give us a timeline.

Um I'm not asking for her to answer.

Just give us the timeline that we will get to all of the Boston schools that will have that help school.

You don't have to answer that.

Okay.

Yeah, don't.

Okay.

Do us a favor.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Councillor Copever.

Counselor Santana, thank you for patiently uh waiting.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and any time for for the Reverend.

Um thank you to our BPS team for being here and all the work that you do.

Always, always.

Um I'm sorry I was coming in late to the hearing as well.

Um, Counselor Louis Jan and I were actually at the English high school for their youth summit.

Intigheny, right?

Yeah, so we wanted we wanted to make sure that we were there, and um they understood that we had to come here, so we we left a little early.

Um I think a lot of the questions um that I had actually were answered.

Um some um by counselor Braden.

Um so I you know, I think I want to touch on some other parts that haven't been touched.

First, I do want to give a shout out to um um Corey.

Um he's been amazing.

He does uh amazing work.

Um I'm actually every Sunday I've been um volunteering um at the Madison and just seeing the programming that's happening um just at the Madison every single Sunday from as early, I think as eight, nine in the morning and till five, six PM.

Um, you know, it's it's uh I I didn't know it was happening.

Um, and just being able to, I think you were just talking supertitled about seeing students in a different light.

Um, and you know, for me, seeing them play chess, play basketball on a Sunday and decided to be at Madison is uh is really special and then goes to show up um that we need to create these if we create these spaces for our students, um, our students will show up and take advantage of it.

Um so uh that brings me to my question about this summer programming.

Um, you know, what are um some of the programming that's happening?

How do families find out about them?

Um, and you know, how ultimately how do we expand those opportunities?

Yes, so we're gonna in the next section session.

Uh we're gonna be doing no, no, it's okay, we're gonna be doing a lot in summer, but just uh the long and short of it is we've been able to keep, even though the funding is tight, we've been able to keep the same number of seats.

Boston After School and Beyond Fifth Quarter will still be our major partner.

Um I think we've used data really powerfully to narrow down the partners that the kids say are making a difference for them, that the data says the it's making a difference for them.

And so that has meant some partner change over the last three years, but I think we're getting to where return on investment of the summer dollars is mattering the most to kids, and that's great.

We're also doing our multilingual learner programming.

We'll be doing uh credit recovery for high school kids that need to get across the line.

We've expanded the exam school initiative by an additional down to the fourth grade.

Um, and then ESY, which is our extended school year for our students uh who uh in their IEPs require that.

We're doing that as well.

We've also opened up fifth quarter for multilingual learner students and our ESY kids.

We've never been able to do that in BPS, and it's probably the thing I'm most proud of over the last three years, is we just have inclusion happening in the summer programming.

It was very bucketed before.

And um, we're just seeing the kids and the parents really appreciate it.

Everything's rolled out um in a new platform.

Uh registration is on par to last year, which is also great.

Um so we're just we're looking forward to an awesome summer.

Well, that's that's really amazing to hear.

I think I mean, and those are the areas that I'm focused on.

I think uh, you know, school is school and and you know, I was a student of BPS.

I wasn't I wasn't always the smartest student, but I I did truly feel invested in by the adults that were in the school.

Um I I truly feel invested in when I was in after school program and summer programs.

Um I think that's what made the difference for me.

Um and you know, I think when we're in the situation right now and of you know the budget cuts is across um the city, um, those are the type of programming that you know I'm really fighting for.

So I mean I know we saw St.

Stevens out here.

Yeah, um, you know, I've been advocating on their behalf um for many years just because I think I truly um do believe that having those loving adults who who can look like you who can speak the same language who come from the same community um and oftentimes you know parents of of of students, um, I think that's what truly makes the difference um to to the majority of our students.

Yeah, um and so you know those are the programs that I'm gonna continue to advocate for like well, I mean it's your advocacy.

I mean, that's why it's in the budget, and that's why it's say it's sustained in the budget, right?

Like you've been a huge champion.

I was gonna say to Revan Culpepper, but one of a vivid memory I have is actually uh Council Santana and I had gone to the Blackstone, and they have stairs that are like part of their library area, and Council of Santana kind of held court with like a whole group of fifth and sixth graders to talk about what his experience was, and when he was able to speak Spanish and communicate with them, their eyes lit up, they were asking questions.

It was like that's the connection.

Absolutely.

That's the village.

So absolutely.

It's just uh uh I think it makes all the difference in the world, and I think that's what happened to me, and I want to make sure that happens to others.

I was gonna say if I had extra time, I would pass it to the to the Reverend.

Unfortunately, I don't.

Unfortunately, I don't know.

I know we're all filled with regret uh there's no more time.

Uh so counselor cobber, you want to say something.

No questions, but I do want Santana to come with me to we're going to the Latin Academy and I'm working on that, and then other schools.

And I think if the schools hear about it, uh I talked to Madison Park, the principal this morning.

We're working on a program to connect Northeastern with some of the things that the co-op program, we think they need to enhance that.

Yeah.

The AP, we're looking at students uh going to Northeastern to do some of the college courses.

We're looking at how many students they can uh admit with scholarship, so we're talking, but I think the if it's well known throughout BPS that the councils are coming around, the superstar Santana, look I tell you, I know that come with me and I'll stand back and I'll introduce you.

But I just think it's the partnership is important so that the students can see how much we concern about them doing well.

I think when they see that, I think they began to work to exceed just being normal and average, but they want to be awesome.

So look.

Yeah, thank thank you, Counselor Culpepper.

I appreciate it.

Sorry, uh I don't enjoy cutting you off, but uh I I relish it.

I don't enjoy it.

Um yeah, we can go to uh BLA, visit my daughter's civics class uh, you know, be fun.

They asked them about the city council if they knew any city counselors.

Uh is it in your BLA?

Is that in your district?

So uh yeah, and I also recommend it we at the BTU school where we work together on the budget and we we preserved the librarian's position.

I went with the librarian, we did an electoral college for the kids, uh uh fourth and fifth graders, and uh we that was I mean any time we spend in the schools is is really valuable.

I reached visit to English every time I talk to a class, uh Hernandez, I read uh books in Spanish to them, and that was more amusing to them than their eyes let out for a different reason.

Um but uh okay.

So just I I just a couple quick questions, then we're taking a break.

Um we heard from Miss Leela, who you know I've known for years.

She was my daughter's third grade teacher at Mission Hill School.

I think she was a first-year teacher.

There was a lot of first year teachers thrown into that environment.

You can imagine what that was like.

Um but she when she says she's worried that next year she's not gonna be able to provide, you know, be able to meet all the needs of her kids.

Um, you know, I I mean I just I think that's like that's kind of looking at what we're dealing with, where we have budget constraints uh and positions being lost, and you know, even you know, we can get all the data on what's being lost exactly.

So I just it is a concern.

Uh so I guess what what do you what's your response to that?

Yeah, so anything specific on Mendel.

Yeah, I I mean I think my my guess is more of is there it's a reaction to the general tenor, as far as I'm aware.

Yeah, I don't think this is a Mendel question.

I think this is a district-wide crop.

I mean, I I think this is where this constant, like there's IPT teams that are in the schools, part of that structure is to continue to revisit, like when there seems to be a mismatch of student need and the staffing.

Uh those concerns come up to us, and that's where David does hold dollars if we need to address it.

Sometimes it's questions, it's sometimes it's a question of a new student comes in or students come in that we don't necessarily have service mapped yet because we don't have them.

We don't have their history, their background, there's adjustment.

That's where OSS or multilingual learner department or MME will support and help.

I think we are a fluid district.

We're constantly taking kids in, kids are moving between schools, between classrooms.

We just have to have the systems so that when there feels to be a mismatch, we can address it.

And I think some of this is also implementation is year one.

Like this is new, right?

This is the whole thing is new for folks.

And so with that, it it takes a little while, like with anything where you can start to feel comfortable with what you're doing.

I give our teachers and our paraprofessionals and other educators huge credit because inclusion is something that other districts, uh, other times within BPS we should have done and taken steps, and we hadn't.

And so this is it's new, it's in infancy, we're gonna learn from it.

Most important, we need to be responsive when something bubbles and there is an issue.

And I think that's the area we're getting better at, Counselor Weber, of having those systems in place to catch those things when they happen.

Okay, and then with the service mapping, and I don't know if this is the case with if IEPs get rewritten in the middle of the year.

Yes.

So the minutes change, uh the needs change.

How how does the district approach that?

You know, do we move teachers around, students around?

Do we just make it No, they we we account for that.

So because truthfully, service mapping is dynamic, it's always happening.

When new students come in, when an IP gets rewritten, that's where the pr we we've trained principals to service map.

We've trained coasts, we've trained the ADs, like everybody has a sense of how to do it.

That's where, if for instance, a student comes in that has need and it shifts the resources, that's where it's fine for that to come up, and then that makes it to the budget office as a way for request.

Oh, okay.

So each month excuse my one?

Yeah.

Each month schools receive um updated service mapping.

So each month they receive updated service mapping, so it's a constant thing to be reviewed by IPT teams and school leaders.

Um if we're informed of something happened in the IP meeting that was outside the um usual, we're notified that uh not notified of that ahead of time.

Okay.

Um and then so just literacy, uh reading instructors, you know, we're talking about I think I think there's 70, I don't know, uh positions or it's one seventy.

It's yeah, reading reading specialists.

While David's getting that, I will just say that represents full-time people that that's what they do.

What we have done broadly is to train teachers in reading um programming.

So OG um Owen Gillingham, Wilson Reading, we do so much professional development.

So not only are students benefiting from the full-time ones that we have, but they're also benefiting from teachers having those skills to be able to impart in classes as well.

That you have to do that in a district our size.

Yeah, so 73 going down to 70 next year.

Okay, and then are there those I I don't know if for schools that have like our 10% or less profit English proficiency, like are we, I mean, I don't know, maybe if that's a language issue or a reading issue.

Uh for our schools in transformation in particular, which tend to be our schools that are having the greatest challenges on those scores, uh, we allocate an instructional coach to the position because it's not simply an issue for one reading specialist to work with a subset of kids.

That's actually a school-wide issue.

And so then the focus is working with all of the teachers on tier one instruction and making sure kids are getting what they need.

Something I I do want to add is we have normed the practice of regularly assessing where our students are with reading, and there's some pretty tight data cycles being run to support students as they're on their reading instruction journey.

So I just I want to like add that.

I think where the reading specialists come in is that they are able to help schools with developing a plan for students that may be below grade level.

Okay, it just two two more quick things.

Um is you know, we talk a lot about spending, and I feel like and I you know we we we hear I this within the same sort of narrative that we're spending too much and that we need to do more to support the kids, and it's um I I don't know how how you react to that, you know, in terms of like do we need more when we're seeing performance issues, is the issue more teachers and more paras?

Do we do we you know uh because uh I think the numbers have gone up over years, it seems like that in terms of what we're spending on the budget.

The performance, you know, is you know, we we we we sh we fight for every inch, it seems like um, and so like when you think about the system overall, you know, is it just more about the qual the quality of what's happening in the classroom or staff that we should be looking at in terms of like how we can help you in the schools?

So I think you know, honestly, I think um there was so much leadership transition and staff transition, like you know, 10 years ago through for those seven years that things got started stop, starting stop, and you can't make progress when that's happening.

I think the value for us right now in the last four years is there's been stability at the principal core, at the teacher core, and so in adding in resources in terms of the positions, we're trying to maximize them with training, professional development, calibration of the materials they use, calibration of the instructional expectations, and chronic absenteeism supports, right, and strategies, so kids are there to benefit.

Those things take a couple of years till you start to see the traction.

It's like turning a ship before it starts moving.

We are starting to now see that in the data in a way we didn't see that in the last two years because it was just frankly too new.

Where there's a problem is if like a year from now, we're starting to see things go in the wrong direction.

That's a problem.

But what we're seeing right now is our multilingual learners with access are getting stronger.

With MCAS and with other internal map, things are starting to move.

I'm not saying they're moving as quick as everybody wants them, but they're moving and they're moving in the right direction.

Same with chronic absenteeism, same with graduation and dropout, like those are all important, like when you go to the doctor, they're your major vital signs.

When those are positive, then you know that some of the stuff you're doing is working.

Does not mean it is perfect.

It's not.

And with inclusion, given it's our first year of implementation going into second, we are going to learn from that so that over the five years of the full implementation, by the end of it, we will have that practiced.

But right now, it's sort of like there was such stagnation over that other period of time that everybody's like, we want to see the results, we want to see it, we do too.

It's just that getting the foundation set takes time, and that's what's done.

Now we're adding into it, and I think that's the hope right now of kind of where we're gonna go from a trajectory of the academics.

I mean, it's interesting.

Dr.

Wright comes from a national scene.

Um, you know, when she saw like the two percentage gain for us as a large urban district, here we're like, that's two percent.

But nationally, that's like really really solid.

That's not where we want to be, but we have to start seeing the positive to build on.

And what excites me is to hear like Reverend Culpepper talk about this is a village, this is everybody.

We gotta all work together, knowing each individual counselor in here and the work you're committed to do in your schools that you're with us, that's what's gonna get leveraged, I think, to get these positive results going faster, quicker, and in the right direction.

Okay, just la last quick question on curriculum.

We we've heard about the Mississippi miracle, like I, you know, to me that is uh you know um uh there's two parts to that.

One is the the sort of curriculum they're using, the other part is I think they hold kids back.

Oh they do.

And so that maybe all of our kids would score better in fourth grade if they had been held back a year.

I like so I I just don't know what see if that works out at the ninth grade level.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I can tell you it doesn't.

It actually leads to dropout.

Well, sort of the part that people leave out is the holding holding back part.

And so I don't know if the current how much diff difference the curriculum is making if you're just holding.

But anyway, so what what what's like is that the answer here?

Do they not, Dr.

Wright?

That's what I've been told.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, you you were uh in Atlanta, and I can't.

No, I'm from Atlanta.

From Atlanta, okay.

But I've never worked as an educator in the state of Georgia.

So that's an important fun fact.

Okay.

Uh well.

But Denver and New York.

Okay, yeah, Denver's still south of here, and New York, yeah.

Uh okay, I don't know if there's any anything about that.

I think I got your answer, but something you want to answer.

I I think just something we don't want to lose as you've had a lot of questions about curriculum and high quality instructional materials.

That work is iterative, right?

Like we shouldn't be using the same curriculum for like two decades, right?

We continue to learn more about how kids learn, right?

And then, you know, I appreciated um Counselor Brain's point around AI, right?

Like that is also transforming how kids learn.

And I think much of what you charged like academics and the superintendent to do is ensure like the most innovative and impactful practices are happening across our schools in a way that we're measuring learning.

So I think to your question about Mississippi and focus and reading, right?

Um, we're still doing the work of building capacity to teach kids to read using the science of reading.

We will continue to iterate on that.

Um, and really just get better at getting better.

Okay.

Thank thank you very much.

So we're we're gonna g give everyone a break.

Can we can we take twenty minutes?

Uh, and then we're gonna come back.

We're coming back.

You would do we're gonna have another panel.

We're gonna, you know, uh have all kinds of new time.

No, no, you can't.

No.

Everyone, we're taking a break.

Uh adjourned.

This hearing's a little bit.

Okay.

I I I'm gonna I'm I'm adjourning, and you guys can continue your conversation.

Or we're I'm sorry, recess, we're recessing.

I don't like the outfit, right?

Good afternoon.

We're just we're we don't need to go through all the stuff because we're just uh ending our recess.

I'm gonna introduce our panel.

Uh we're our second panel of the day.

We have uh Chief Financial Officer David Bloom, we have Deputy Superintendent of Community and Family Advancement, Dr.

Anna Tavares, all right.

Uh Chief of Family Advancement, uh Magali Sanchez.

Do you want to raise hands?

No.

Uh okay, great.

Uh Chief of Community Engagement, Miriam Ortiz, okay.

Uh we do have the Chief of Capital Planning, Deliver in Stanislaus, uh oh, and I just hit the wrong button.

Uh and uh Dr.

Ann Clark developmental uh development officer for strategy partnerships and innovation.

Um this second panel, it will be uh focusing on mergers and closures, uh partnerships, summer programming, uh family and community outreach.

Um so I don't know, uh you know, I hopefully some of my colleagues will come back from the break, but uh did you have anything you wanted to say up front or uh a presentation?

We don't have our uh portion of the panel.

We're just excited to answer questions you have to do.

Okay.

Uh okay, Councilor Flynn, you're here first.

Uh we'll do seven minutes uh and there could be multiple we're talking, oh sorry, uh we're the mergers and closures.

I think that's the big ticket item.

We're also talking about partnerships, summer programming, and family and community outreach.

Um okay, so uh counselor Flynn, uh seven minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you to the BPS team that is here.

As it relates to family engagement, including families and um educating and supporting the child.

Can you talk uh to me or explain to me a little bit about how you're supporting um students that's their parents speak Cantonese in Chinatown of the South End, and how you're communicating with them and what you're doing specifically to support them during the summertime?

Thank you so much for the question.

We have an a very robust approach to supporting language.

Cantonese, of course, being included in the language supports through the Office of Language Access.

Also including making sure that we support the school leaders and whatever outreach is needed for families.

And I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful colleague, Mary Martise, who's the chief overseeing the Office of Language Access, who can add even additional details to that.

Thank you for the question.

Um as uh Deputy Tavares shared, um, we have a very robust approach to language access um through our office.

Um in the last uh year, that office managed uh over 23,000 requests uh across 68 different languages, Cantonese of course being one of our top ten languages.

So we do also provide um every school with access to devices that they can use for one-on-one communication or and access to interpreters if that ever is needed.

Thank you.

And maybe David or Sam might answer this one.

As you guys, as you both know, I've been working with Mia Superintendent Skippa on the Josiah Quincy Lois Elementary School Gymnasium.

What's what's the latest?

I know you gave me an update before, but can you just give me another update on what we're doing with the gymnasium and on how to how to improve it?

Sure, yes.

Uh thank you, Council Fanny.

Thank you again for the advocacy for that as well for that project.

The team has um went out and uh uh hired a uh vendor to go out and help us assess the the gym and some of the repairs that are needed.

So they're in the process of calculating what those could be, what the cost would look like for us to do some renovation there.

Once we get that information back from there, we'll be talking about the next steps on how to proceed.

Okay.

Um the Blackstone School.

What are we doing in terms of family engagement at the Blackstone School, knowing that it's a lot of a lot of immigrant families, but we also have a lot of families in public housing at Ruth Barkley across the street, not public housing, but um Villa Victoria, Castle Square is up the road a little bit, a lot a little a lot of poverty.

But what are we doing specifically for students at the Blackstone language access, a lot of Spanish speaking uh residents there as well?

Any any uh plans for the summer?

Absolutely.

We we're really fortunate to have one of our strongest partners close to the Blackstone, as you know, which is St.

Stephen's, and many of the mentors that are placed in schools, including at the Blackstone, are in work in tandem with our schools team and the St.

Stephen's partner.

We also provide, just as Chief Ortiz shared earlier, um, very much dedicated support in Spanish language, that specific need to the Blackstone, but also we include the other languages that other families and students require in order to feel supported and included and welcome to the school.

The that area of the South End is an area that we we often visit and support with different activities that happen across the schools as well with the partners in that neighborhood.

And Chief Ortiz and and Chief Um Sanchez can specifically share a little bit more about how we support that particular community, but also how we're supporting summer.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

Thank you so much, uh, Consular Flynn for that question.

I'll talk a little bit about summer programming.

I think you heard earlier the superintendent talk about the plethora of programs that we will have available for all of our Boston Public Schools students wishing to register and enroll.

Um, for summer 2026 and beyond, is what we call we're calling the program.

Um we are prepared to welcome more than 8300 students within our summer learning academy.

But I think what's really critical too is uh we also have programming for our students qualifying for expanded learning opportunities, the exam school initiative, we partner with PIC for opportunities for uh work programming for our teenagers.

Um, really uh tuning up opportunities for students with more than anywhere between 16,000 and 20,000 opportunities out there between summer learning academies, enrichment programs, as well as opportunities for work.

Um, how we support our students in an extremely personalized way uh based on their language needs is that we also provide them with in-person registration opportunities where um we partner with our helpline staff who are uh diverse speaking and they speak many of our main languages in Boston Public Schools.

We provide them with support with online registration as well as registration over the phone.

In addition to that, um our family engagement practices team trains our family liaisons, um, and they too provide personalized support within the schools for students to access summer programming.

Our goal is always that every single Boston public school student has a summer program that they can attend, and as you already know, they are free and they are a full-day program as well, where we have learning in the morning and enrichment in the afternoon.

Thank you.

And I know thank you.

Um Mr.

Chair, I'm out of time.

Um, I was gonna ask one question, but I didn't want to do that without your permission.

No, yeah, good uh go ahead.

Okay.

My final question, maybe I should have um added it to the second question, but I also want to advocate and see what support might be available the summer.

The Perikins School in South Boston is in the middle of a public housing development, which is right down the street from my home, one of the most diverse areas in the city.

Student population also, the Condon School is located also in a public housing development um diverse student body.

But what are we what are we doing?

Anything unique about the Perikins School or the Condon School students in terms of how we're supporting them this summer, knowing that they're also living within a public housing development.

I just want to um do everything I can to support them.

Yes, absolutely.

Again, and and pretty much the same.

All of the supports that we have available are available for all of our Boston Public Schools students.

I think what's in particular about the schools that you're mentioning is that they have that personalized support through their family liaison.

So with again the family engagement practices team, we provide direct coaching and opportunities where if uh the school is having any type of event or programming, we'll do tabling where we talk about summer programs, we offer uh the QR code, we provide those personalized language needs for students and families to be able to have access to student registration on the spot.

Counselor Flynn, that's a really important question to me as well.

And I will only add to what Chief Sanchez already shared with you, that we are committed to partner with you and to partner with our communities that we know have vulnerable populations, specifically speaking to socioeconomic designation, because we want every single child to have any and all barriers they may have removed so that they can access a really fun and um engaging and educational summer.

So we're we're really happy to be able to partner with you in your office as well.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chair, thank you for giving me an extra couple of minutes.

Uh thank you.

Uh Councillor Braden.

Um thank you.

Good afternoon.

Hope you got a bite to eat.

Um let's see.

Um this is more of a facilities question.

Um Mary Lion Pilot High School is merging, closing, merging with Brighton High School.

Uh so and the plan is that the lower school is going to move into the high school building, is that correct?

Sorry.

Um thank you for that question, counselor.

So the Maryland Lower School will be moving into the upper school at the beginning of next school year.

So September 20th this year, next year, this year.

This is September 26th.

Excellent.

So in the meantime, uh, does the building need any any structural any repairs or improvements um to get ready for the schools, the lower school coming in?

Yes.

So there are some um minor improvements that our facilities team um is working on with um within the school, and that work will happen over the summer.

Excellent.

Um, and then in terms of the long-term facilities plan, um, is there are we going to see the long-term facilities plan, or are we just going to get this sort of iterative iterative process of a few schools, a few little bits at a time, right?

It's very hard to sort of see the big picture when we don't um you know, for us personally, we have a growing population.

I think we've got the highest, the fastest rising population of zero to five-year-olds in the city right now in Alston Brighton.

So it's it's really important to sort of figure out where where everybody's going to go or what's going to happen.

Um, thank you for that question.

So we have the long-term facilities plan and some additional work that the team have done is um uh work around long-term projections.

Um, so now through uh well, that the projections was completed in uh January of 2025, and with the long-term projections, it also outlines like as a district where we would like to see, like where we would like to be by uh 2030, and um the number of schools we would need to get down to um looking at taking enrollment, um, I think is an important approach as we as a district, we have seen our enrollment last year uh stabilized post-pandemic, and this year we've um we're seeing a decline.

We've seen a decline in enrollment.

So taking into account the long-term projections that the our um planning and analysis team did right now, we're working up to our 2030 goal of 95 school buildings.

Um, one of the things that we want to continue to do, however, is year over year we look at our data to inform our decisions and not just make a blanket decision like across the district because one of the things that we have seen as a district is our enrollment um change, the student population that we've that we serve change.

Um we've seen, for example, uh a decline, a 22% decline in um in our uh general education population um last year, but we also uh saw a rise in our the special education students that we serve and multilingual learners.

So we want to make sure at any time we're prepped and ready as a district to serve our our student population.

Another thing I would add to that counselor is that through the engagement um the Delhi team was conducted across the city in um internally to BPF.

What we also learned was that doing these recommendations on 18 month cycle is critically important.

So we have plenty of time to review, analyze, make recommendations in responsibly manage some of the MERS enclosures as as we roll them up.

Yeah.

Um, you know, just our we're adding a lot of housing in in Alston Brighton, so our population is growing at a fair clip.

I think it was I was underestimated the population of Brighton by Alison Brighton by 7,000 this week.

So it's actually 87,000.

So the other question I had was about partnerships in Alston Brighton.

I know it's uh we have um lots of community groups who are just really trying hard to provide uh sports and and other opportunities for our youth that the city is not doing.

Um so one thing um you know, we heard yesterday about this wonderful foundations program for elementary schools for get them young young ones started in um into introducing them to sports, and uh none of those programs are happening.

No none of the schools in Brighton are doing that.

Like it's not something all some bright and it's not happening out there, so um again that's not that's not a surprise, but uh I'm just wondering in terms of who is the point person to connect with at BPS if we want to cultivate partnerships with our community groups who want to do little league and and sport sports uh programming and um music or or other programming that sort of um uh who who do we connect with to try and get things to talk to by partnership.

Sure, appreciate the question, and um and and I believe yesterday Corey McCarthy was was um um was eagerly excited about the program and opportunities that we provided district wide.

So um as he mentioned, um we did extend the invitation to participate in all these sports to all schools, including the ones in Austin Brighton.

Uh just some schools have more difficulty participating than others, and um what he has done in the team is committed to do is figure out the why and why not and try to continue to push people to get involved.

So from that perspective, um outreach has been done and communication has happened, and we continue to work with our schools to see how we can improve it going forward.

But I would say to answer your question, feel free to contact myself, Corey McCarthy, around any specific athletic partnerships that you're aware of that you want to engage in our.

I think and do you want to talk a little bit about the work?

Thank you, Counselor.

You mentioned arts partnerships, music partnerships as well.

Um I would be happy to speak to anyone who's interested in uh sharing their uh services and their talents with the Boston public schools.

Um sometimes the partnerships are best placed through the partnerships office, and sometimes they're best placed directly through the arts department, but I'd be happy to facilitate.

And is there is there money to like contract in all the windship where really trying to think of how to raise $35,000 to fill their music program?

So um the we do allocate funds specifically for partners, those funds are concentrated in our um highest uh or yeah, lowest income, highest poverty schools to basically offset the community fundraising that other schools can do.

Um so I don't believe the windship gets any of that money in particular, but uh we'd certainly be happy to uh do you how do you establish the income of the families in a school particular school?

So the partnership fund is allocated using our opportunity index.

It looks at a variety of factors about uh the students where the students are coming from when they arrive at school to determine a sort of aggregate level of need.

It was a project we worked on with the Boston Area Resource Initiative uh pre-pandemic to sort of establish a methodology for determining sort of need um across our schools.

So that opportunity index measure is the one we use for other measures when we or other work when we do need to establish family income.

For example, for Title I funding, uh we work with the state through a process called direct certification, which looks at families enrollment and benefits uh programs primarily to determine um income status.

Okay.

My time's up, so I'll come back again, probably.

Okay, sorry.

Uh okay, uh, thank you.

Um let's see.

I saw I do I just have a stack of these uh uh postcards from K2 class at the curly with suggestions for what we can work on.

I think my favorite is there's a there's a drawing here, and on the back it says more protecting wildcats.

So we should let's work on that.

Right on it.

Yeah.

Uh at least it's not ligers or you know something uh at least maybe there were wildcats uh somewhere.

Um so in terms of uh mergers and closures, um I guess first, you know, we're closing classrooms.

I know this is slightly uh off topic, but um we we you know we closed substantially separate classrooms, I think like 20 and 16 SLIFE classrooms across the district.

I guess uh especially for the substantially separate classrooms, like what are we doing to make sure those kids can transition into you know and I don't know if it's I don't know how many of those are closing because of enrollment issues.

Uh so um there's a few things that go on when substantially uh separate classrooms close, but it's actually very similar to SLIF.

Um essentially what we do for those classrooms is every single individual student who's in one of those classrooms currently, their needs are reviewed and then an appropriate placement is made.

So uh one classroom I know of, I won't mention which just for data privacy reasons, right?

It was determined that a lot of the students were actually being served pretty far away from home, and there was enough space in schools closer to home for them to be more appropriately served.

So that classroom was closed and the students transitioned to programs closer to home working with their families.

Um so it's not always that particular situation, but effectively for those high need highest needs classrooms, we're we're looking student by student at the best placement if the classrooms closing.

Okay.

Um and then so I think in uh I think in the RFIs um you you discuss it's like 23 million dollars in savings from closures and mergers.

Yep.

Um and I guess you know uh is and you that uh the I think the school closures are the ones that that primarily the mergers don't save much.

They s they they save a little bit and then often the schools get more resources to reinvest, but yeah, you're correct.

The closures are the are the bigger savings.

Okay.

And but how much of that is just from closing classrooms?

Yeah, so uh is the majority of it comes from effectively closing all the classrooms in the school.

There's a little bit of savings from sort of if we have a nurse in every building and we operate one fewer building, then we get some savings there from the school leader and others.

But effectively the way you should you can think about the savings from a closure is uh because of our enrollment decline, we have open seats in classrooms all over the district.

When you close a school, you're filling up those open seats and more effectively and efficiently using the resources, right?

So that we can um sort of prioritize the funding from the students who are remaining in our system.

I don't mean to undersell the impact of closing the school that has on the community that is being closed, but from a financial efficiency perspective, effectively we have enough open space across our system that we can close the school and students sort of filter into other schools.

Okay.

And then we we talk a lot about the long-term facilities plan.

Um but I so is there a die, is there something we can look at in that is the long-term facilities, but is it just like something that you you you know, is there an actual plan?

I guess the dumb dumb question for today.

So the long-term facilities plan um was rolled out in the district in January of 2024.

So that's something that I'm happy to share with the council.

Well, okay, so in terms of school closures, we if we look at that plan, we can't uh divine which schools are gonna close and at what years and no, so um in the plan, it does not outline um which schools would be closing, what it have in the plan.

What it has in the plan is the criteria that we use as a district um that we're gonna use as a district year over year to close schools.

The other thing that I shared um that I know at the end of the um systemic improvement plan for the district that was identified was uh long-term projections.

That's something that the district have done.

Um and is using um along with the uh the additional criteria to look year over year.

Um to look year over year at what schools um what will uh be recommended for closure and or merger across the district.

And the plan also includes a goalpost of what our goals are to reach for 2030.

So it's it's very clear in that.

Well, tw 2024, I think we've have we lost 3,000 students since then more.

I mean, so has that like have how is that impacted the sort of projections from two years ago?

Yeah, so um two years ago we were um as a district, um we were look when we looked at um our enrollment projections, right?

We were looking at sort of uh a steady because um we had sort of like leveled off at not to our pre-pandemic numbers, but like post-pandemic.

So um the projection was flat enrollment.

Yeah, so we were flat, right?

So we were looking at steady and flat, right?

And right now, and when we did um when when did when our plan and analysis team did projections, they not only looked at like where we are, right?

They they looked at um three different um, they looked at multiple different scenarios, right?

So, like, are we thinking through scenario one, which where we remain steady?

If we see a decline in enrollment, like as a district, what does that mean for um our conversations around mergers and closures?

And if we see a steeper decline in enrollment, what does that mean for mergers and closures in terms of like the number um of schools long term that would see in the district?

And so what's the I I guess what is the percentage increase or the numbers of schools you think we're gonna have to close by 2030?

Do we get that?

So right now our number for 2030 is 95 schools across the district.

Okay.

And what's the I guess uh project uh is that from 2024 or is that now as of where we stand today?

That was um that the 95 schools came from the uh 20 from last year's uh the long-term projection work that was done last year.

Do you think that and you re review re review that every year, or do you think so?

Then it's a year over year review.

So um again in October of this year, we'll do another review.

Okay.

Do you think that numbers I mean isn't that seems like that number would go up the number of schools being closed, or I I maybe we just don't know.

Uh you can see that.

Yeah, I think it's important for us.

Yeah, I think it's important for us as a district to look at our um look at our enrollment then, right?

Um that's when the district we do uh that our plan and anal analysis team does like a comprehensive review um and some more like future projections to kind of just like tell us like are we still sort of like looking at a modest um decline as you guys know with the current geopolitical climate that we're in right now, um the like we're getting coming into the city, the district, um a lower number of uh our immigrant student population and multilingual learners, so that's another place like the district we've seen a decline in enrollment.

Okay.

Um sorry, so just I I I we'll go for a second round.

So by 2030, if we close 95 schools, let's just say that's that's what what happens, uh then we're thinking we have a similar enrollment to now.

Uh not closed 95 schools, reached 95 schools left in our portfolio.

Oh, okay, okay.

Uh oh, so there could be just well mergers or get to 95 schools, and we're at like a I think we're at 105 right now.

Oh, oh sorry.

Get okay, so have 95 schools in the system.

Which would result in c how many schools are there right now?

150.

We do 105.

105.

Oh, okay.

So by 2030, you just it would there'll be 20, uh sorry, 10.

10 school, 10 more schools by 2030.

Yeah, so um at the end of so uh right now we're at 105 that we're operating, right?

Um at the end of this school year, um we'll we're gonna be down to uh um a hundred schools, right?

So technically we have like five more schools.

Okay.

Um and sorry, actually I made a mistake.

At the end of next school year, based on this year's announcements, we'll be down to 100 schools.

Okay.

So by the to the end of 2020, end of the school year 2027.

Yes.

Uh yeah, we'll be down to 100, so five more in the next three years.

Yes.

Okay.

Um what do what what's the projected savings from from that?

I don't know, David.

Do you have those numbers?

Yeah, so um from the first round uh that are gonna be closing at the end of school year 26-27.

I can get that for you.

It's pretty similar uh to the 23 million we saw uh in this year.

I think depending a little bit on what the October data says, we'll we'll need to sort of give an update then about the longer term um savings.

Um sort of we built this plan based on multiple years of data.

We've now had one year of data that says something different.

So this fall we'll then have a second year of revised data, and that'll allow us to be in a better place.

Okay.

That's why the 18 month cycles are critically important, so we can keep live update information as we review it.

Okay, I did see an article that was it was I I think on governing.com or something like school closures don't save as much money as you think uh, but that's you know it uh because if you have the same number of kids and staff and you know, but uh yeah, I I think it really this is this is uh one of the things we really want to be critical about is uh there's so much nuance to this, right?

So there are districts where they have a building emergency and they have to close a school, right?

They have to like literally just close the building and they move all the teachers and all the staff to another school, right?

That doesn't save any money, basically, right?

Similar to a merger, right?

And so I think really the the closures, the pure closures we're doing now, uh the when a school is a hundred percent closed, like Excel high school will be at the end of this year, though that we are seeing really significant savings from those closures.

Okay, okay, and then just last question before we go to the second round.

I know it's gone on too long.

In terms of the cost savings, like how can we uh or can we attach those savings to the students who are being directly impacted by those?

Like is there is there any correlation there between the money that we're being saved and the kids who who's who who are having to move schools?

Yes, in terms of like reinvesting some of those.

Yeah, so 23 million, like can we, you know, can we make a portion of it?

Can we talk to those parents and say, look, this is happening, but some of those some some of that is being reinvested.

I can I can promise you that my colleague on my immediate left is constantly ensuring that we're reinvesting those resources.

Uh sorry, Friday afternoon.

Um Dell Dell works very hard to ensure that I'm setting aside money to make sure we're doing really intentional work both in as the communities close that there are high quality events and supports for those students and families to sort of capture the end of a community, and then a really strong transition into their new school environment.

It is always going to be disruptive to change schools when you don't want to, but um we're working as much as possible to give families the predictability and support they need through that process.

Okay, okay, thanks a lot.

Uh Councilor Flynn, um I you know I don't know, I'll give you how about six minutes since uh we have a light uh bench here.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And I know Excel was mentioned, and oh that was my question that I wanted to ask is I was a substitute school teacher at Monument High School, and it was divided into three schools actually, monument high school, Excel high school, and Odyssey High School, and that was now it's um Excel, obviously.

Um what is the after this after the school is closed?

What is the short-term plans and long-term plans?

And I know I'm going to be having a conversation with the superintendent, but what is the public information you can relay about Excel as it relates to short-term and long-term?

Uh thank you for that question, counselor.

Um as a district, um, short-term, we are looking at um uh how we invest in that community.

We had um a community meeting um last year with the South Boston um community um discussing just like the short-term plans to um do some capital investment work in that building, but also come back to the community and engage the community on sort of our long-term plan of uh BPS high school uh moving into that building.

So long-term long-term strategy is possibly having a BPS high school at South Boston High School.

Yes.

Okay.

Um but as we approach the school year in September, there won't be there won't be an educational program there.

Um it'll just be vacant basically.

Uh yeah, there won't be an educational program there.

What we're doing right now is like uh looking to start some um work uh in the building.

Oh, okay, um infrastructure construction work?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we may we may hold events there depending on different need, but that's not guaranteed, but we may have some you know administrative things happening.

Okay.

So the infrastructure, the improvements would be to prepare it for whatever the long-term planning is.

Yes.

Okay.

Do we have any ideas yet of what we're looking at in terms of long-term um school?

Is so it would be a high school, not a grammar school or elementary school.

Yeah, we're looking at a high school, um, and uh we want to make sure, like as we're looking across um our high schools uh in the district, um we're looking at we want to make sure that we engage the commun like the like we told the South Boston community, a part of this work is engaging um the South Boston uh community, like in the process um and making sure that like whatever school that we're setting up in that building, they're being set up with the resources um to be successful, like in the neighborhood.

Okay.

One of the concerns residents had, and I actually had a had a public hearing on it, and I know BPS attended the world war one artifacts, the bookcase, the World War I memorabilia is is important to the community.

Um so that would basically stay there, that could stay there during this period of transition.

Is that is that accurate?

Yes, we don't have any intentions on removing any of that information.

We want to make sure we memorialize that as well.

Okay.

And thank you for your that was helpful in that conversation.

Yeah, thank you, Sam.

Um so once it shuts down, then the construction will start taking place?

Yes.

Okay.

And Council as well, and I know parking um was also an important issue that you uh helped us build with the community, so we want to reassure everybody that parking will remain, the current arrangements will remain the same.

If you want to start doing construction, that's impacted, we'll definitely reach out and the two known community know as well.

Okay.

And I know, and I've talked to the superintendent about about this issue, but can you explain to me what will the community engagement be in terms of what type of school might go there, or is there any input that you want to hear from residents in terms of um what they're looking for, or are you just going to um come up with a plan and implement a plan?

Would there be community engagement in that?

Yeah, the uh thank you for that question.

I think um uh for internal uh internally within um BPS, like a criteria um for one, engaging like our school communities.

So in I think the first round of engagement will be uh with our school communities, and I think um I I actually a great example of that would be the merger between the CLAP and the Wintrop schools before we went to um before we brought this out to the broader community, we actually reached out to these uh to all of the schools within a certain like uh number of like miles.

We looked at um the uh Cabo Verdian uh student like population and we got feedback and um we had schools uh the wintrop and the CLAP like raised their hands um with interest and then we were able to engage the broader community um on the merger, and I think it's a it's uh a process like that we would um want to use uh with the South Boston community.

Okay, and I know Congressman Stephen Lynch is a graduate of the school and has asked me what the um you know short-term plans and long-term plans are, so I'll keep him posted.

Um there are a lot of graduates that um are interested in knowing what the short-term and long-term plans are.

Not just Congressman Lynch, but others across across the neighborhood.

Um construction fields, um, and they got a good education at South Boston High School.

My father, as you probably know, is a graduate of Southie High as well.

Um, and it has an important, it was an important school in the community, is an important school in the community.

Let me let me just ask one more question, and this is about the Vietnamese students.

It had a high concentration of Vietnamese students, wonderful, wonderful students, and I work with them.

Many of them were in the junior ROTC program.

What is the status of many of the um Vietnamese students that went to Excel high school?

What generally speaking, what is their next um what is their next school for September?

Thank you for that question.

Actually, um so a part of like building the criteria for the long-term facilities plan, we discussed families wanted an 18-month cycle.

We've heard we heard from a lot of families about uh the PLAS implementation of uh closures across the district.

But what we're seeing right now for our high school students is that they are they are actually choosing to um to leave earlier.

So in terms of Excel, the majority of students, uh the majority of their rising ninth, sorry, rising 10th and 11th graders um actually left at the end of last school year.

And um and I think the number is and I can get if I misspeak.

I think it's 96 percent um of those students got into their top um choices uh for where they wanted to further their education.

So the majority of those students um already uh moved on to another high school.

And the only thing I would add, counselor is that um in all situations we're very intentional in our planning to make sure we do individualized um outreach and support to each student and each family to discuss the options and discuss their plans and discuss their interests so we can make sure there's an alignment and a match of what they would like to do.

Yep, and our team, it's like a uh uh handheld like approach.

So each family received um, I think I look at it as like different tiers, like each family got um a phone call for families who we couldn't reach.

Um we had some uh we had some door knocking going on, um, some in-person sessions at schools with families to ensure that we're um supporting students um and families through the transition.

That's excellent to know, and I know I know there was a wonderful assistant vice assistant principal there, John Matthews, he did an excellent job working there and really related well extremely well to the to the students helping them and just wanted to just want to acknowledge him for his professionalism as as an educator.

Um Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh we've been joined by Councillor Warrell.

Uh Councillor Brayden is next.

I just wanted to highlight this is the second panel of the day.

Their focus is on mergers and closures, uh family outreach, summer programs, and partnerships.

Uh I mean, you if you have other questions uh on different subjects, you know, feel free to ask, but um that's uh that's what this panel is prepared on.

Um this morning we covered inclusion multi-language learners, special ed uh and curriculum.

Um Councillor Braden, you got six minutes.

Um thank you.

And let's see.

Um I was looking on your long-term facilities plan.

Um it's not that enlightening.

Um, and just um a few of the schools that are in supposed to be in Alson Brighton aren't there anymore, so um the Jackson Mann's gone, the Horace Mann School for the Deaf is gone.

Um I'm wondering, I know that there's uh um I looked in here um an a long facilities um Brighton Elementary School study.

Um I know there's been money allocated for that.

Is that happening or is that just being put in the bottom drawer at the moment?

Uh thank you for that question.

Um the Alson elementary schools and I think school and I think a few other schools that is listed in the capital budget um uh studies.

I know that there's a commitment um for from the mayor and the superintendent um for those schools um as we're doing sort of like the implementation of the long-term facilities plan and talking about um neighborhood or school by school, like in like where we're where we're investing.

Um so for this year's like core project for the MSBA, we announced um the Mel King, um, so the Alston elementary schools, and there's a few other um elementary schools is identified there to show that commitment, and as um projects are rolling off the capital budgets, um moving um some of those schools into like actual study and into actual projects in the capital budget.

So given the fluctuating population, I'm are we anticipating that there would be consideration of building a new 21st century elementary school in Alston Brighton?

Um so the study that's identified there, right?

In the future, we're hoping that um there is a new Alsen elementary um school.

We don't have a timeline right now, but um that is that is the um plan.

And that place would be located?

Um we don't have a location yet.

As we partner with the MSBA, one of the things that happens is if we move through the eligibility period and into feasibility, the MSBA would work with the district at actually looking at the different um parcels that the district the district owned and identify a site that would fit the program for an elementary school.

So the other question is what's the timeline for Boston Green Academy to move out of the Taft building on Warren Street?

We currently don't have a timeline as I shared, I think, with counselor, like with Councillor Flynn.

There's a number of our high schools are closing, right?

Um that are in larger buildings where schools like BGA and other schools across the district can would have the can have the opportunity to move and expand.

We have to go through that process and that engagement process with um the school communities in order to find figure out like the best space for their programming um for their CT programs, etc.

Um, so that is um some work that as a district um we're starting and hope and and is hoping that it would go through the the next couple of months of this year.

So um we have um a need for more UPK seats in in Alston Brighton, and given that our population of little ones is increasing pretty rapidly.

Um are we any plans like the the Mary Lion lower school building?

Is that a possible place for a UPK?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So we are we are expanding.

Um we are adding um UPK seats to the Mary Lion.

Um that's one of the reasons why they are moving into the upper building in order for us to um add capacity um for K zero seats.

So that's happening next school year.

So they're adding a K0 class next school year and the following school year, they're gonna add um capacity for K1.

When will they be in the new in the bigger building like the uh the high school as is now, or will they be in the lower school building across the street?

So they'll be in the upper building.

All together, yes.

UPK and total be UPK uh pre-K through six.

Through six, okay.

Yes, very good.

And um and I know the Gardner Pilot Academy's got a it's um it's got repairs and replacement windows that's in the process.

We've we've approved those applications for MSBA.

Um do we have a timeline for when that repairs might be done?

Once we get all the final approvals uh in the finances set up, the team will um work with um the contractors are designed to lay out what the uh what the actual project scope will be, including a timeline.

So once we have that, we'll have to share it.

That's great.

Super.

And um in the Edison, the elementary school, um, their auditorium has been beautifully repaired.

I think we're getting movable seating, so that's gonna be good.

I'm gonna be going to SpongeBob the musical there in a couple of weeks.

So I'm really excited to be in the new newly refurbished uh auditorium.

Enjoy that.

I will.

Um, what about um the high school auditorium?

How's that moving along?

Um it's actually moving along pretty well.

Um we are working, we've been working um with the public facilities team um on the on like the next steps for the auditorium at Brighton High Schools.

Um there were a few other things that came up like through um sort of like when they when the public facilities team like did walkthroughs, etc.

Um like things like um bathroom roofs, um there are different things that are that are part of um a conversation.

So that team is actually getting together, and I know that they're moving into sort of like looking at a feasibility study this August.

I understand it's sort of an emergent situation with the heating system.

They don't think it'll start up in October when we if we unless we do a new heating system, is that correct at the high school?

Um I know that I know that they have two heating systems and one's gone.

Okay, but I know that our I know that our chief operator operating officer, I know that Brian and team is definitely working on the the heating system for sure.

Okay, yes, very good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Uh Council, uh, six minutes.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to BPS for being here.

Um one of the first questions I have is for uh student support.

Uh are you able to provide me the number of what they were funded last year versus you know what's proposed this year?

But as you pull that up, I'll I'll ask this other question around mergers.

Uh the district proposes to absorb roughly 23 million through school closures and reconfigurations, including 160 of the 569 staff positions associated with the closure of Deborah Elementary, Excel High School and the Mary Lion Pilot High School.

We are closing both the Mary Lion and the Henderson Upper Schools.

Can you remind me of how many kids are in tennis at these schools and where these students going?

Okay, I'll let Dell look up the questions about uh the number of students and where they're headed while she's doing that.

Um the student support budget uh for this year is 5.3 million dollars for next year it will be 4.1.

4.1.

So that's the general funds uh across all funds.

Um it was six uh 6.4 and going to uh 4.5 got it.

And 3.6, sorry.

All right, yeah.

And then I I guess I brought this up yesterday.

My concern is that a lot of or a good portion of that uh will impact a lot of the summer programming um and after school programming that our district and our students have have been relying on.

Um, and that that is uh a real concern for me because we know the importance of those programs.

Yeah, I think I think I can tell tell you today that we have confirmed uh funding for all the summer programming to be continued.

Like even the um Discovery Hub, um the Madison program in when you say all summer programs.

Now I'm now now I I shouldn't have said that without Corey because you're gonna get into all the details that I'm not totally sure about, but the program score we ran last year.

Corey Corey sent me a list of what he was expecting to run this summer and the funding challenges we were having, and we've we were able to identify uh the missing funds.

Okay, awesome.

Great to hear.

Um then Dell, I'll hand it over to Del for your question.

Sorry, and you asked for um the enrollment numbers uh for the Mary Lion and the Henderson Yes, yes.

Okay, so for the Mary Lion, um last last year when the closure was announced, there was 96 students in that high school.

Um, and and there was 47 students that were in the Ryzen 10th and 11th grade class.

All of those students actually transitioned last year.

They did not wait the 18 month cycle to transition, so we helped them to transition at the end of last school year.

Um all of the uh when we looked at the percentages of students um that just like transferred, just like the overall percentage.

I just want to note that this also includes um students at Excel high school.

Um it's 96% of those students were transferred into one of their top, one of the top high schools that they choose on their choice forms.

Okay, and that it also includes the Henderson upper school.

No, so the hen the Henderson was announced um this school year, so we are actually in the process of um uh of um working with that school community to transition any student or family that requests a transfer, we're actually in the process of like working with those families.

Um the deadline passed on April 2nd, so we were able to um support all families who have requested um to uh they wanted a transfer um for this school year.

So we were able to support all of those families.

And just so is uh the Henderson High School had approximately 200 um students, just under so uh about just over 40 kids in each uh grade uh nine through eleven, and then slightly more students in 12th grade due to some overage um special education students.

Um so uh that that are those students who are in uh the school still open next year for grades 10 through 12, so those are students who are still uh making choices and deciding what they what they'd like to do.

Okay, and we're able to because I know it's in Henderson's an inclusion school, and then are we able to see um or find a place for those students um that might be slightly older?

Uh yeah, so our special education team has been working with those families actually one on one on transition.

So um working with those families who would like to trend uh who are transitioning to just like other traditional um schools in the district, like with inclusion and or um some of our families um have opted to transition to um the next program, um, which is a program um to that support uh students with like um special special needs to be independent.

Um so there right now what I can say is that we only have um 15 students across um the Ryzen 10th and the 11th grade that is going to um uh actually remain at the Henderson um next year.

So any family any family that is raising their hand or in discussion that do not want to remain for the 18 month cycle, we are supporting those families um one-on-one with transition.

All right, and my team's gonna be mad at me if I don't ask these three questions.

Um your colleagues are uh pressuring me to have you speed things up.

I see it, I see the pressure.

Take your time, Council.

Uh so we spent a couple of years with school-based inclusion planning teams, uh, where we had those teams design school-specific inclusion plans for staffing or service mapping.

Uh, were they aware they would be that they would be moving to the reimagined school funding?

And does this new school does this new funding formula meet the school-specific uh IP uh inclusion plans that each school came up with?

Yeah, I really appreciate that question.

Uh they definitely all knew something was coming.

They didn't not every school knew all the details of the plan, only some of the communities were represented in our working group.

But what I will say is we designed our new funding system around the way we were doing inclusion planning.

So the way it worked was rather than saying to schools, okay, we have a new funding system, here's how you have to do inclusion, acknowledging that these school-based planning teams were doing the work, what instead we did was we said, looking at the needs of the students in your building, here's the amount of funding you have to build out your design for the upcoming year.

So each school was allocated a pot of funding and then given flexible resources.

So some schools prioritize more co-teaching, other schools prioritize more paraprofessional support.

It really varies by school and by need.

Got it.

Um I guess the the to dive a little bit more deeper into that question.

Um of those classes, a school might have, and I think you might have answered this, wanted one or two strands with inclusion support, um, which could have been half of you know the the strands, they might have four, but one or two of the strands.

So what was it like that a lot of money that you that you talk about?

Was it reflective of you know them might have wanting you know more than one or two strands of inclusions?

Okay.

It's a great it's a great point.

So it used to be exactly as you said in the old model, we were very prescriptive and restricted.

Right.

You have to put all the kids in this one class, even if you have three or four and you think there's a better option out there, yeah.

You're not you're sort of you weren't allowed to do that.

Now a school can look across their strands and figure out like what's the right programming for them and figure out the best way to distribute the resources.

Got it.

So the schools have much more flexibility now.

Um and so one school might say we're gonna assign all four students with disabilities to this one class and give it full day co-teaching, because we think that's the right thing to do.

Another school might say we're gonna distribute the students across two classes and have the second teacher move back and forth.

Okay.

And so it'll really depend on the school.

So how how would you describe um this funded formula?

Because it it sounded like the inclusion planning team was school specific inclusion.

Yeah.

Um and then there's like this idea of like a one-size-fit-all.

How would you describe how we're moving forward as a district?

So I think the the way the funding, so for inclusion or for the funding formula, because it's a for both.

Okay, good.

Okay.

I feel like they do kind of go hand in hand.

I shouldn't have asked, I shouldn't know the answer was gonna be both.

Um so the funding formula, the intention of the funding formula is we fully fund things that you are required to do.

So if we tell you you have to have a full-time nurse, here's the funding for a full-time nurse, right?

And then we flexibly fund things that you have some choice over.

So rather than saying you're gonna get four inclusion teachers and two paraprofessionals, we might say you're gonna get $750,000 based on the needs of students, and you do that.

So in the budget book, there's a multicolored three-page section that sort of talks about what all the different rules are, but on the right-hand side of that, you can see some say restricted, so there's just used for these things, and some say flexible.

So that's the intention of the funding formula.

For the inclusion plan, I think our intention is um right now to be pretty school-driven and flexible, right?

So there are obviously some guardrails around that, right?

You can't say, well, this student doesn't actually need services, so we're not gonna give them services, right?

But um the idea is that schools have flexibility within their funding allocation to be able to design the inclusive model that works best for them.

Um at some schools, as I was saying before, that's more co-teaching at other schools, it's a little bit different, right?

So each school sort of makes their own plan and and is doing their own engagement about what their priorities are.

Um I think as we get a little bit further into implementation.

I'm hoping that we'll have some really uh easy to identify best practices that we can share across schools, uh, but we are sort of wrapping up year two of implementation right now, so it's still still a little more time there.

And um what's what's the current range of the flexible funds that have been allocated to different schools?

Like what's the what's the smallest and the biggest amount?

Right.

Um so um our school budgets um uh overall range from so like the Alaghi has a two million dollar budget, right?

So for the flexible funds, no, no, total.

Okay, of the whole school budget is two million dollars.

Right, but right did you break out the flexible funds?

Yep.

Uh so and and actually you can look through in your budget book, there's a uh one for everyone.

Thank you for those budget books.

Yeah, of course.

I I can't remember.

I I remember somebody asking for them in the past, but uh it flips my mind who it was.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, thank you.

Um, right, it was you can't sorry sorry that slipped my mind.

Uh so uh sorry, let me just pull up here.

So um so the Al Gier is another great example.

So sort of the smallest amount a school can receive is sixty thousand dollars, right?

Which is enough for a half-time teacher.

That's sort of the minimum, yeah, right.

But that would be a school that has very, very few students with disabilities, yeah, right?

Um, because our our um class our sort of maximum caseload is 20.

So you would have to have less than 10 students with disabilities in your building to be getting $60,000, right?

The most the school is receiving this year for inclusion is 2.4 million dollars.

Um that school obviously has significantly more students, that is uh the Henderson.

The Henderson has the highest allocation.

Uh the other school over two million dollars is East Boston uh 7 to 12.

All right.

Now I have more questions around that, but I don't I there's other questions I I want to get to.

Um separate classrooms.

Um is that classroom the least restrictive environment for those students?

Subseparate.

Yes, it is the least restrictive environment determined by that student's IEP team.

Okay, and then we have 3,509 students in sub-separate classrooms.

Nearly 3,000 of those students are black or Hispanic.

43% of students in sub-separate classrooms are black, but black students only make up 28 or 29% of the BPS total population.

And we know that there's an achievement gap for our black students and BPNs.

Should we still be keeping our students in sub-separate classrooms?

And are these the best environments for them to reach their full potential?

Yeah, I think there's two things I'm gonna steal entirely from the update that was given to school committee on Wednesday about by Dr.

Rose about sort of our new strategic plan.

I think there are two things that are true.

One is that for each individual student, the IEP team has currently determined that that is the correct placement for that student.

The second thing is that we would say as a system, the disproportionate placement of black students into substantially separate classrooms is not is not okay, right?

And we need to that is something that we very actively need to review and address, right, to make sure that black students are not being disproportionately identified as needing uh as being disabled as requiring additional services and requiring substantially separate placements.

Right.

So that as a as an individual level, it is the least restrictive environment according to their IEP, but as a system, that is something we need to be reviewing and reviewing and interrogating as a part of our inclusive and a part of our a big part of our inclusion inclusive inclusion plan is interrogating that exact disparity.

All right, and then my uh second to last question.

No, I'm joking, my last question.

Being influenced by Culpepper is mostly my last one last question.

Um do we have numbers on black students' admissions to the exam schools for the most recent period?

Um we certainly can get you the numbers we have.

Okay.

And I know we don't have those with us today.

Okay.

And I know we talked about trying to uh raise the achievement uh for our black students in third, fourth, and the fifth grade.

Um and then when you look at uh the 2025 MCAS results and reading, um, it just speaks to the amount of work we still have to do.

Uh in third grade, only eight black students and twenty-eight Latino students exceeded expectations in reading, and in fourth grade, only eight black students and twenty-six Latino students exceeded expectations in fifth grade, only eight black students and twelve Latino students exceeded expectations.

What are the targeted interventions we are using to raise those scores?

Okay, you you might not have the best group of people on this one.

Yeah, we'll we'll give you something.

You you just missed Dr.

Wright this morning, but we'll we'll get you some specific answers there.

Um I think what I will say is I know that is one of the main focus areas of our strategic objectives that were released, and I think we can share those with you as well as just some more details on on exactly what you're asking for.

All right, and if we could get demographic breakdown on the um uh recent exam school emissions, yeah, what is the plan for releasing that data for how the new uh you know percentages and there's a new formula this year?

Yeah, I think we can we can certainly follow up with all the data and timely.

Okay, all right.

Okay, um is this the I mean he's talking can I think those graphs.

I think he's yielding his time.

I think he's I heard him say he's yielded his time.

We're just uh never getting to the to the end.

Uh I I did have a couple questions, but I I'll defer to the no no no defer to the chip.

Yeah.

No, I'll just uh just give you a second.

I mean okay, you give me a second.

I will uh I I will give you you fire away.

What's the difference between family engagement?

Wait, nope.

How many?

This is uh questions from some community members now.

I'm gonna ask is how many school site councils are in district, and how many sanctioned school parent councils and school side councils at each of the following?

Um D E L A C and C P C as well as alternates for each they didn't they didn't break down what D L A C and C P C were DLAC.

DLAC okay.

DLAC, yes.

Yes, thank you for that question.

Um so all of our schools have a functioning school site council with uh meetings that they hold either on a monthly basis or a bi-monthly basis.

Um and so within those school site councils is where the shared decision making process happens.

We have BTU members, we also have family members, we also have community members that are part of the council as they're voted in by their uh respected um areas, right?

And uh at the upper grades at the secondary schools, we also have students on there and the principal school leaders also on the council.

Got it.

And um family engagement, student supports.

I just feel like there's so much alignment, and I know that they do work together.

Um and I could just constantly just go back to this question of trying to find more ways on um, I guess looking how um those two family engagement, student support, because if you're supporting the student, I I would assume that you have to support the family.

So um just trying to you know can encourage more line and more of those two departments uh working hand in hand.

Um with that, um, I see Council Culpepper back.

So I'll defer back to the chair.

Thank you.

Okay, thank thank you.

Just um speaking about the budget books that uh again, thank you to Councilor uh Councilor Warrell for uh getting these to us.

We we talked a little about page 57 in the in the book, which has some interesting, difficult to just decipher numbers um staffing and and in the central budget office.

And I think we have an explanation.

I I saw like a one page, I think that was circulate to everyone.

Uh uh Chief Bloom.

Is that is that right?

Okay, just page 58 is partnership funding, which we're talking about uh this afternoon, and that that's also an interesting page.

It's the partnership funding department is the source of funding for district wide partnerships, such as the partnership with the private industry council, and and I know so my my question is two parts.

One is does partnership funding go out in that discretionary funding that we're talking about with Council.

And the other part is why is this the dollar figure for all zero zero things?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is the um the danger of doing things by mail merge.

Um our partnership funding uh isn't entirely grant funded through our long-term entitlement grants, which is why it uh this is and this table is general fund only.

Um that's why it's all zeros.

Um it does not include any of the school-based partnership funding, which adds up to close to seven million dollars.

Um that's reflected in individual school budgets in their contracts and other non-personnel section when you're looking at their one-pagers.

And that comes comes from grants.

Is that what you say?

Is that the partnership funding uh in that partnership funding budget is primarily funded by Title I and Title IV federal entitlement grants.

Okay.

Um so I know hub schools are supposed to, they don't do they get funding, or they do they use that partnership funding for the extra services.

So hub schools get uh funding through from the central office budget for a hub school coordinator, um, either hired by the district or in partnership with an outside organization like the YMCA or City Year.

Um that hub school coordinator coordinates resources, so that includes both the use of the school funds like the partnership fund, any app before and after school programming that's going on, as well as um no cost to the district partners that come into our schools.

Um I know we were talking about the Gardner the other day, the Gardner has like a Friday music program that comes in.

Um it doesn't, we don't no one gets charged anything, but it's it is a part of the program.

Okay.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Yeah, I don't know.

Somehow so is that a mistake, the zero dollar figure, or should it be seven million?

No, it's it's it's we're never we're never sure what to do with this.

It's the the budget book reflects the funding that is being approved by the council, right?

So it's the general funding, it is excludes those grants.

The office does exist, it's just entirely uh funded by grants.

So we should have we should have put a note in on that that says this office is supported by I think it's like three million dollars in federal grants.

Okay, okay, thank you.

That would have made it more clear.

This is very confusing.

I see that.

Uh okay, Councillor Culpepper, six six minutes.

Thank you.

We can we can do this.

We can do this together.

Six minutes.

Yeah.

No, we're not doing it together.

And we also have no no this is my time.

I haven't started the clock yet.

We do have in someone signed up for in-person testimony.

So uh do you want to take them?

Uh you want to do that?

Okay.

Take them.

Okay.

Um I would take them.

Car Caris McLaughlin.

Um, you can come over here.

There's a microphone.

You're gonna have two minutes to speak.

Uh, and then I'll have the clock behind me.

When it would when you start, just tell us your name, where where you live, uh uh, and anything else.

So I'm Dr.

Karis McLaughlin, and I live on 25 Cobden Street in Roxbury.

And um, I can confess that I thought I was just signing in to come to the room.

But since I'm up here, I think I might have something to say.

So I was just listening to the comments about um who exceeds.

And those numbers were low.

So were those the numbers for one school or the district.

But so this is not a question answered.

Okay, so let me just say this.

But Councillor Culpepper and I can answer follow up questions.

Let me just don't don't don't no no, don't take away my from my two minutes.

No, I so at any rate.

If it's one school, that's a problem.

If it is an entire district, and I'm hoping that it's not, because that will mean I'm gonna have to spend time coming to these meetings, a whole bunch more.

So if it is an entire district, that's a disgrace.

That's a disgrace.

Boston is not underfunded.

This is historic.

I can bring in the data, and we have to do better by these kids.

So it is not okay to have a report that says that under a hundred kids are exceeding at high levels.

I don't even know how that can occur.

So if I'm misspeaking, I take it all back, and I'll leave it on one school.

It's still an issue.

So there is how would I put it?

We can't we have to stop accepting these poor standards because these kids look like me.

It's not right.

Education does change people.

And it gives them opportunities, the opportunities that I had because I was educated well and I had teachers who knew what their job was.

So everyone's getting paid from the superintendent on down, and they get healthy, good salaries, and so I expect to see better.

So now I'm gonna have to put you all on my agenda so that I can be here to speak up for the children.

They deserve that.

When I look at what this country is going through, and every right that is being taken away from these children, they don't have the opportunities I had.

I did not grow up thinking that I was nothing, and I'm a lot older than they are.

But I did not grow up thinking that I was nothing.

What these children have to listen to every day.

DEI is a derogatory statement.

Being black is worse.

We have to do better.

So now you're on my agenda.

You will be on my agenda because the numbers that I heard, I was in awe.

I said, you can't be.

So do something.

Force your people to do something because there are some of us who are not going to tolerate this.

Unfortunately, I had to stop here to find my good friend Minyard.

And so I came in.

But I think it's a good thing.

So thank you for allowing me to speak.

It was a mistake.

But I guess maybe a good one.

Yeah.

Thank you very much, Dr.

McLaughlin.

There's a lot of company, distinguished company who signed this thinking they were just making a record that they were here and then they get called up.

But thank you for your comments.

All the numbers are district wide.

You know, these are they're very difficult to, you know, to sort of stomach, and you know, it's something that we've spent a lot of time.

We had a panel before this uh that from 10 a.m.

we've been here.

This is our third hearing on BPS uh in the budget cycle.

We had several hearings on BPS before the budget, and it's something that I think we're all you know uh trying to grapple with, and uh you know it's um that anyway.

So I think your comments were spot on, you don't have to correct anything, and I think I think almost everyone here agrees with you, if not everyone.

So uh okay, thank you very much.

Counselor Culpepper Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good to see you.

We had great conversations this morning, and uh look.

I got a few questions that have to do with family and community advancement.

And in you can follow me if you want to page 53.

It says district operations amplify the voices of the historically marginalized.

How is that happening?

Uh, before you answer just our our uh our central staff, you don't have to touch the buttons.

Uh he will take care of if you lean in to speak, he'll turn on and off your mics.

So just sorry.

Back to Councillor Cole Pepper's question.

Thank you so much for that question, Counselor Cole Pepper.

Megali Sanchez, I'm the Chief of Family Advancement, and I'm here with Mira Mortis, who's the chief of family engagement as well as our other colleagues.

Um I can talk a little bit about how we engage our families with our school site council programming earlier.

I'm sorry, yeah, all of our councils across the schools.

Earlier, I talked a little bit about how we have active school site councils within all of our Boston public schools.

Um they have either monthly or bi-monthly meetings.

Uh, and the purpose of the school site councils um, well, first of all, it's required by mass law, but in Boston, because we find it very critical and important, we also have a um have it written within our BTU contract that it is a requirement for all of our schools to have a council.

Um the councils are represent have representatives that are either from that are from the school, BTU members, family members that are also from the school, as well as the school leader chairing it.

And at the secondary level, uh students are also do also have the opportunity to also sit on the school site council.

Um the body performs as a um, they take votes for any type of impact that will be happening in the school community until they have conversations about it, they discuss it.

They take votes for any type of impact that will be happening in the school community until they have conversations about it, they discuss it.

The same thing with the budgets for their school.

They also have the opportunity to review every item in the budget, make recommendations before it actually goes up to Chief Bloom's area.

And so we know one of the challenges for the Boston public schools is the parent involvement and parents actually coming to be involved.

How involved are they with the school council site?

And when the budget took place, uh we know the school committee approved the budget.

How involved were they in the budget and what recommendations, if any, did they make?

Because one of the challenges that I see, and it's a major challenge.

When you look at private schools, and you look at parent involvement, those parents are all over that school.

When you look at public schools, there's little or no involvement by many of the parents.

And I'm really trying to get to how do you get to the parents that you know historically have not been involved?

What are you doing there?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll definitely get started, and I'm sure that Chief Ortiz will have something to add.

Um, so some of the things that we do is we ensure that when we're welcoming our families, we're actually engaging with them in a language that they can understand.

We provide them with those types of um language rich resources so that they feel welcomed and part of the community, right?

Because that's very, very critical.

Um, and we also ensure that we're meeting them where they are in a very personalized way.

Um, you know, sometimes being on a council in front of maybe 80 or or 40 of your parent peers, because that's how many people attend different school site council meetings, can be a little intimidating.

So we do provide um training to our families through our family engagement practices team.

We provide a lot of distinctive and personalized supports.

Um we come into the schools and provide these trainings.

We actually have a budget training that we also do with Chief Bloom's team in preparation for budget season so that families know how to engage with the process and what this process looks like at every session that we have with our families, we ensure that we have um language-based support within the languages that they need.

Um, and so those are just some of the some of the ways that we're um we ensure that we're providing opportunity for that authentic engagement that you're describing.

And and with regard to that, I see you mentioned that providing parent-teacher connections and opportunities for parents to gain skills and knowledge about academic expectations, district goal one and FA standard three.

How is that happening?

And how successful are you with that?

Knowing that part of the challenge is the parents dropping the kids off or the kids going to school, parents getting them ready, parents going to work, after work, coming to the how successful are you, and and how are you doing that with regard to the connection between the families and the teachers?

Yeah, so I'll again get us started with um so within our family engagement practices team, we have a team that supports family liaisons and school-based communities directly by providing coaching support, um, not just to family liaisons, but any of the um leadership that is within our Boston public schools, all around authentic family engagement, um, ensuring that families have access, direct access to our academics as well as our curriculum programming.

Um we also offer a sessions of with our parent university, and with the parent university, there's uh opportunity for families to engage in trainings on how to best uh support my child with reading and mathematics and other um initiatives that we have within the district, and clearly initiatives that are more aligned to academics is where we first focus on.

And what what data?

What is the data telling you about parent involvement?

Or are you keeping data?

Yes, we definitely keep data.

We keep data through like I shared earlier, our school site council procedures.

We also keep data, a lot of data with our within our helpline, we keep data around any of the programs that we provide.

So what does that look like with parent involvement?

What percentage of parents are involved in the school site council?

What percentage of parents are involved in the parent-teacher meetings?

What percentage of parents are involved in learning more broad broadly about the teaching experience and the classes?

What's the percentages like?

Yeah, I I'm happy to share specific data even for schools.

But what I can tell you is that as part, for example, of the school site councils, as I mentioned earlier, it's a requirement for us to have parents and they have to be at parity.

Parents, BTU members, as well as if the school decides to have a community member, should they have a partner?

So the parents are involved, that's one way that they are involved.

And then there's also the data telling you, what's the data look like?

Is it 50% parent involvement, 75, 25, or is it per school?

Do we have the number one schools with the highest parent involvement and the number four schools with the lowest parent involvement?

What is the data look like?

Yes, and that's data that I'm happy to come back with.

Okay, okay.

Um, because I think it's really critical to understand the personalization of how school site councils work and how they can also differ from grade level, right?

So at the elementary level, we often find that we have a lot more parental involvement.

Um, and then as we move into the secondary level, we see that involvement kind of diminishing some, right?

So I think it's something that's very personalized that um we can definitely share on a school by school basis.

Can you share anything overall about the VPS system overall in terms of averages or percentages of parent involvement?

I mean, if you don't, if you don't, don't worry about it, you can provide it when you get it.

But I'm really looking at how do we really bring up the level of parent involvement in all of the schools.

I know the the lowest, the like the three or four schools parent involvement is a lot less than the one in two schools, but I want to see what the percentages look like of parent coming to parent nights and parents' involvement in the different schools.

Can I just have one last question, Mr.

Chair?

Yes.

Uh and it had to do with uh the Boston public schools and the PIC, the private industry council and that relationship.

And I wanted to just hear a little bit about how much we're paying PIC and how that relationship works with regard to the private industry council.

Thank you so much.

You're gonna give me that data, right?

Of course, because I do think, and I talked to the superintendent earlier about creating a school environment where kids want to come to school.

Because I know when I went to school and you heard us talk a little bit about, I wanted to go to school.

It was it was at English High, all boys at the time.

I wanted to go to school, and we don't have that same kind of energy by the students just I gotta get to school today no matter what.

The and so we wanted to talk, and we did talk a little about how do we create that kind of environment where the kids are just excited to go to school and uh go on to the back.

Yeah, for the private industry council, we pay them about 1.3 million dollars a year for a variety of services.

I think Sam can maybe talk a little bit more about what services we get from them.

Sure.

Um great question, um counselor.

So we work with them on um first and foremost, obviously, just um employment opportunities uh in um connecting employment opportunities with education.

We work with them a lot of work on um youth workforce development.

Um so that's the primary one of the primary um things that we do with PIG.

They've been doing a great job, great partner with us over the years, and um they've been having huge success with that.

And the other area we work on is um summer jobs helping us uh facilitate payment with summer work uh with our students as well and different opportunities during the year and in the summertime.

So a lot around youth employment work and um connecting with our counselors and working with our students to make sure that they have career plans and uh and educational plans and how they're ties together.

So that's largely kind of what we do.

I just wanted to give in a great example of the kind of work that we do in partnership with the PIC and also with the Boston Chamber recently did a workshop for students on how to understand your paycheck and under understanding the money that comes in, the money that goes out, why, and also helping them understand um the advantages of of putting checks in banks, uh compound interest and so on.

So um, and that was a uh a relatively new idea that came out of conversation with with our partnership with the PIC and the chamber.

So, one of the things that we talked about with PIC when they came in for the summer jobs for the young folks, and we know Madison Park has that co-op program, but they've been having challenges in terms of getting students placed in co-op jobs.

So we'll talk with Northeastern so that Northeastern can partner better with uh Madison Park so that the students and Northeastern's responsible is well, we've got uh eight or nine students that we have working at Northeastern, and my qu and my point to them was we don't want you to put them to work in Northeastern.

We want you to put these young folks in private jobs so that just like Northeastern students, when you graduate, many of the Northeastern students stay with that job and it becomes their profession.

So uh Dr.

De Pina, can can we talk to Pitt about working with let's say Madison Park on co-op jobs so that those young folks that are at Madison Park can work a co-op job while they're still in school with the possibility of graduating and possibly continuing to work where they had that uh co-op job.

Northeastern does a great job at that.