Committee.

I'm Chairperson Jerry Robinson.

We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands for a nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoom.

Please note that we are starting at 5 p.m.

this week in order to accommodate a very packed agenda.org.

Any translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized.

Zoom participants should click the globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language preference.

We'll begin the meeting with the approval of minutes.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent?

Hearing none, the minutes are approved.

We'll now move on to the superintendent's report.

I present to you our superintendent, Mary Skipper.

Our wonderful.

Thank you, Chair, and welcome to everyone tonight, many of our BTU members in the audience.

So as we close out the school year, I want to begin tonight by honoring the members of the Boston Public Schools family and the city's larger educational community that we lost this year.

These are some of the individuals remembered for their dedication to BPS students, their families, and staff, and the lasting impact that they had on many young lives.

Roscoe Baker, legendary athlete, community leader, trailblazer, educator, and mentor to countless Boston youth over his decades of service to the city of Boston.

Mario Farina, a BPS bus monitor known for his patience and compassion that he showed to every child.

Zachary Schwartz, a math teacher at the Holland High School of Technology, at the Al Holland High School of Technology, formerly the Burke, for his 10 years, all of the time he gave as the advisor for music and sports and the analytic club.

Jeanette Sisko, retired media specialist at the former West Roxbury High School, who served BPS for 41 years.

Gloria Smith, longtime director of Welcome Services, known for her dedication and passion for centering our students and families.

Benjamin Julian Tan, a music teacher at the Ellis Elementary School, remembered for his talent, joy, and laughter.

Tommy Glavin, a member of the district's facility staff, a hard worker who took pride in making sure our facilities were ready for our students and staff every day.

And Yolanda Allison, a retired school counselor at the O'Brien High School, who had 33 years of service in the district and positively impacted generations of students in BPS.

Please join me in a moment of silence in the memory of these individuals and any other members of the greater BPS community who we have lost this year.

Thank you.

Last week, the Boston City Council took the important and difficult step to approve the FY27 Boston Public Schools budget and the supplemental appropriation re-requested for FY26.

I want to extend my deepest appreciation to Mayor Wu for her unwavering support of BPS.

This is not easy work.

Our students deserve the careful consideration and thoughtful deliberation that was given to these budget decisions.

As we've said from the beginning of this year's process, this was a very difficult budget.

The BPS finance team worked hard to balance the rising costs of health insurance, transportation, increased special education services, and all of our collective bargaining obligations with an enrollment decline of approximately 3,000 students since last school year.

The approval of this budget means a few things for us that we will continue to build on our progress and invest in our long-standing academic priorities.

To ground everyone, we experienced an enrollment decrease of 3,000 students over two years, which includes a large decrease in multilingual learners due to the current federal immigration landscape.

The district has also been in the long-term process of closing schools and consolidating classrooms to match enrollment needs even before this recent decline.

An important point to remember is that even with the elimination of positions for FY 2627, because we have 3,000 less students to educate, our teacher to student, para to student, and support staff to student ratios will remain at the same levels as last year.

There are 368 permanent educators who are initially accessed.

All permanent teachers and parents with seniority, to whom we have a contractual obligation to find a position, are guaranteed a position for the upcoming school year.

The majority of the 368 permanent educators have already secured a position.

66 remain unassigned, but we will identify a position for them before the next school year.

There were initially 205 paras accessed, 46 remain unassigned, and again we'll find positions before the end of the school school year.

So to be clear, there will be no layoffs for this group of permanent teachers and paraprofessionals.

As with every year, due to a number of reasons, such as positional changes at the local school and district level, could also be licensure issues, performance issues.

Only provisional teachers and paraprofessionals without seniority may be affected.

In the coming weeks and months, schools and the district will continue hiring for vacant positions with an intentional focus to help those provisional educators who have been with us to find open positions.

I also want to shift over to an update on hiring for next year, which Dr.

Alkins and others requested at last month's meeting.

BPS staffing data is still in flux due to the ongoing hiring transfers and non-renewal decisions that happen at this time of year.

As a reminder, October 1st serves as the district's annual snapshot for the data when we look at actual final staffing data.

Office of Human Resources Chief Francis Canty recently provided an update to the OAG task force, and I think that information is important to share with you as well.

Our current data snapshot from October shows 58.8% of the district staff members who identify as a person of color.

Staff diversity for vital student-facing positions, teachers and school counselors, reached 43.4%, marking a five-year high for the district.

Language fluency has risen significantly, with 2,075 educators reporting fluency in the 2025 cycle, or what equivalent is equivalent to 42.7%, and to give you a sense, that's up from what was 31% in 2021.

As this data shows, OHR continues the hard work to recruit and retain our educators of color and multilingual staff.

This continues to be our focus as we work with our provisional staff to find open positions and resolve any outstanding licensure issues or waivers that may be needed as we move into the next fiscal year.

We expect to provide an update to the committee with finalized numbers in the fall.

Quick update on school leader PD.

Last week, BPS school leaders gathered here for our professional development of the last one of the school year.

This was a time for us to reflect on our achievements and growth, celebrate all the goals that we've met and those that we're working toward, note changes in leadership, and wish our retirees and colleagues well as they move on.

We celebrated the retirement of three longtime school leaders who have given so much to our community.

Tracy Walker Griffith, who is retiring from the Elliott K-8 Innovation School with 33 years of service.

Michelle Burnett, who's retiring from the Chiddock Elementary with 34 years of service, and Paula Gonzalez, who's retiring from the Otis Elementary with 37 years of service.

And actually, tomorrow in this room, we'll be celebrating all retirees across the district as well.

Another update on summer programming.

As we close out the school year, we are excited to launch the 2026 fifth quarter summer and beyond season.

This marks an important transition from the regular school year into summer learning, enrichment, and continued student support and engagement.

In partnership with Boston After School and Beyond and our expanded learning opportunities department, which we call ELO, BPS will offer programming from Tuesday, July 7th through Friday, August 7th.

Staff will also attend the professional development, which will be held on Monday, July 6th.

To this point, 4,631 students have enrolled in summer learning academy programs.

We have a total capacity of 5850 for seats.

So there's roughly about 1,219 seats remaining for interested families.

We have the second round being assigned this Thursday.

We anticipate many of those available seats will be filled, but nonetheless, as I'll talk about later, we want families to continue to register.

In addition, we have 2,856 students who are currently enrolled in high school credit recovery across 12 sites, and 625 students at the middle school level who are currently enrolled in middle school course recovery opportunities.

The annual exam school initiative is almost at capacity with 277 students enrolled with a total capacity of 290 seats.

So we're pretty close there, but we anticipate that that will fill.

Families can continue to register their children at Boston Public Schools.org, and it's also on the home page for easy family access.

The district's user-friendly summer registration platform, Avella, is available in all BPS languages.

The BPS specialized services office launched our extended school year 2026, or what we call ESY registration on March 16th.

As of today, we have 2,544 students who are currently enrolled in ESY with 8,241 eligible students invited.

ESY is our summer programming for students with disabilities and provide students with the opportunity to retain skills, build confidence, and prepare for the next school year in a structured supportive environment.

For support with registration, please email us at ESY at Boston Public Schools.org or call 617-635-8599.

We encourage families to enroll in ESY in all summer programming as soon as possible to ensure their child has a seamless transition to summer.

To support full enrollment capacity across fifth quarter programs, ELO is monitoring enrollment, wait lists, and remaining seats while coordinating outreach priorities with site coordinators and regional teams.

School leaders are identifying students who are placed waitlisted, eligible but not yet enrolled or in need of additional summer support.

Family liaisons are helping coordinate direct family outreach through calls, texts, and language access supports.

AFCA is aligning clear and consistent family-facing communications, while the Office of Data Accountability is supporting the use of enrollment data to guide targeted outreach.

ESI is being engaged to confirm and align any additional invitation waivers to eligible students and families, and ESY special education and student support teams are coordinating with ELO to ensure students with support needs receive accurate information about available opportunities.

The BPS helpline and welcome centers are providing families with registration, wait list, language access, and Avella navigation support, while site coordinators and regional operational leaders are confirming student participation, identifying barriers, and ensuring outreach staffing and program operations, and making sure they're aligned to fill any remaining seats so that we're full before programme begins.

Finally, there's a limited number of youth summer jobs that are still available for youth who are interested in working and have not yet secured a job.

Youth who have not been hired yet are urged to visit right away.

Boston.gov forward slash future boss as soon as possible.

A quick update on the cell phone policy.

As we mentioned at the last school committee meeting, we continue to move forward on drafting a policy on personal devices in schools.

We continue to engage with the community and gather input from stakeholders, including students and school leaders and staff.

We are also tracking legislative actions at the state level on this topic.

In the fall, we expect to receive additional guidance from DESI.

We know this is an issue on top of mind for many students.

We've heard public comment about it from families and from educators.

We'll continue to keep this body and the public updated as we finalize that policy next fall.

First, I'm thrilled to share that BBS has been chosen to participate in Bloomberg Philanthropy's new National Skilled Trades Initiative.

An exciting first of its kind in the nation initiative designed to offer high school students a direct path to apprenticeships and high wage careers in the skilled trades.

Here in Boston, one of nine regions nationally, the initiative will be based at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School.

Boston will receive 12.8 million dollars to build a pathway for at least 100 BPS students each year to secure apprenticeships in the construction trades and water utility management sectors.

There's a loud applause from the crowd.

BPS is grateful to Bloomberg Philanthropies for this powerful recognition of BPS's commitment to providing students with sustainable, viable career pathways and opportunities.

It's truly exciting for our students.

Also, congratulations to the English high school baseball team.

Expect another huge round of applause, which advanced the division five finals this week for the third year in a row.

Is anyone from English out there?

Come on, that's good news.

This is the third year in the row that they've done this.

You might remember that they won the D5 championship back in 2024.

So please join me in rooting for the Eagles as they start their next series against Georgetown on Friday.

Good luck and go.

In closing, we'd like to share a video of highlights from the 2025-2026 school year.

This look back is over an incredible school year, capturing some of the most memorable people and moments.

I want to thank the talented BPS digital content team under the leadership of Chris McKinnon, our chief of comms, for putting this together.

The team visited 80 schools this year and covered more than 300 events and stories across the district.

So you can imagine it was tough to squeeze everything in into just a few minutes, but we hope you enjoy it.

So with that, we'll play our video and then I'll hand it back to you, Chair.

And I remember storming into my principal's office demanding that we get this course.

Could we just do that real quick on time, right?

Then I need one more over here.

I'm hoping after I graduate, I get hired here and I'll work here for a couple years.

And after that first year playing, I just didn't want to stop playing.

I had heard a lot of good things about the fact that it was a health career school and the fact that it was vocational.

I am a finalist for the Massachusetts State Educator of the Year.

I'm tremendously grateful for Boston Schools giving my start in 2010 as a long-term sub.

Thank you, Superintendent.

Given the length of tonight's meeting, I'm going to ask members to submit their questions to Ms.

Parvex for us to answer at a later date.

But if anyone has any quick comments, I will take that, but longer questions should be submitted.

You can go ahead.

Just uh very much appreciate, Superintendent, the updates on where we are with staff who was who were affected by the budget.

I'll I'll submit my actual questions, but I do appreciate that update.

Just want to clarify that Mtel for folks who may not be familiar is testing for educators related to licensure, just for folks who may not know the uh the initials and also helpful to hear the summer numbers, the distinction between summer programming and credit recovery.

That in the fall when we have our update on summer programming, we would love the data team to think about how to connect participation in those summer programming with effects on summer learning loss or whether the intention of the program, such as the exam school initiative actually um results in a higher yield for students who participate in those programs.

Actually, just on that uh that point because I know uh Member Scarrett, you had asked this before.

Uh we will we can say that in 2025 uh 2024 and 2025, about half of the students that participated in ESI also received an exam school seat.

And in this last cycle, it was it increased to sixty-three percent.

So that is uh where our goal is a hundred percent, but uh we're working really hard on that.

And in a big piece of this is making sure that that program is full every summer.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Superintendent.

I just want to bring the attention back quickly to what you said about that there are still youth jobs available.

Um in my house, we are describing uh that process this year as a uh cross course on adulthood.

Given the amount of paperwork that has to be going through, but it's worth it.

And I really want to encourage all our youth, 14 and above.

If you still don't have a job, contact the office because they can guide you through the processes and things process, but they are there to help you.

Thank you.

Um I just wanted to do one quick shout out about what happened this morning at the O'Donnell school.

Um the mayor and many of our partners who are working in the Wicked Math program were at the O'Donnell this morning to celebrate a young fourth grader who achieved the highest score on the math um champion test and is going off to represent the state of Massachusetts um in Texas.

Um he's a fourth grader.

Um we we had a wonderful opportunity to both observe and participate in math games with um a wonderful group of third and fourth graders who come to school early two mornings a week to um play all kinds of math games and clearly love math.

And so there's a lot of good work out there.

I don't know if other people here are part of Wicked Math, but we really got to see what it looks like in hope that all of our schools will make this possible for all of our kids.

It was quite inspiring to see.

Thank you.

Okay.

So anyway, thank you all, and I will now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Okay.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent?

Hearing none, the superintendent's report is approved.

We will now move on to general public comment.

Ms.

Provex.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period is an opportunity for individuals to address the school committee on school related issues.

Questions on specific school matters are referred to the superintendent.

Questions on policy matters may be discussed by the committee later.

The meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to one hour.

After one hour, anyone who hasn't testified, will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting.

We have 27 speakers this evening.

Each person will have two minutes to speak.

And I will remind you when you have 30 seconds remaining.

Please feel free to email your comments for distribution to the committee.

Speakers may not reassign their time to others.

The time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation would not be deducted from speakers' allotted time.

Please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or district staff.

Please note that the comments of any public speaker do not represent the Boston Public Schools or the Boston School Committee.

Please state your name, affiliation, and where you live before you begin.

Please sign in on Zoom using the name you register with for public comment and be ready to unmute and turn on your camera when it's your turn to speak.

Please raise your virtual hand when I call your name to support interpretation.

Please speak slowly and clearly.

We're here to share our concerns about the placement process for students with IEPs.

My son's transferring next year.

I submitted a letter from a provider on his team detailing the clinical reasons why this placement would be the safest, most appropriate fit.

It's a school that's 0.2 miles outside of our zone in Dorchester.

We've been sent from the welcome center to the coast to the OSS to the welcome center back to OSS.

Everyone's saying they do not have the power to assist us, but you all make the policy so you can.

The welcome center is making placement decisions but has never attended an IEP with my child in section 1414E of individuals with disabilities educations acts.

Educational agencies will ensure that parents of children with disabilities are members of the decision process of the educational placement of their child.

There's no mention of the welcome center, which isn't to diss them, but they're not in that.

We have great schools in our zone, but for a variety of reasons.

Whether it's too large of a school will require him to transfer after one year or is not able to explain how inclusion will be implemented in their classrooms.

They aren't a good fit.

I understand the district is firm and saying that all schools are inclusive, but I have not seen communication on what that looks like as a policy and within the classroom.

When I asked the district for who was staffing classrooms, what license they had, and what services were offered in schools in our zone, I was told that this sort of list does not exist.

There's no clear, easily accessible information on what our inclusive district looks like.

And parents and guardians are being asked to trust when an algorithm will make the best decision for our children, especially at a time when teacher and parallel layoffs are coming and not just from the closed schools.

The district needs to change the placement policy.

All schools in the district are being called inclusive, but not all schools are inclusive.

The simple act of labeling a school does not make it real.

Students already are feeling the consequences of this decision.

When classroom staff can't meet our children's needs, they are moved to a more restrictive environment.

There is intentional harm and thank you the time.

Thank you.

Hello.

I've heard many times that students should not have to go.

Oh, Pope Bastion Roxbury.

Um I read heard many times that students should not have to go to school outside their community to get the supports they need.

And I agree.

And I also know that that's the law of the land, and I know that that's the law because people with disabilities and parents like us won those rights through decades of tireless struggle.

We know that the school our child was assigned a wonderful school, a school less than a mile from our home, does not have the capacity today to offer meaningful inclusion to our child.

How could they?

There was a magic wand.

It was waived.

It was said that all schools can apply inclusion now.

We know this is not true.

There's no way that it could be.

We know that they're not.

I'm seeking an appropriate placement for my child.

This winter I requested information about the district where a co-teaching model is in place where a special educator works together with a general educator to provide the supports that their students need.

I was told by the Office of Special Aid Services by the director that she doesn't know where that model is in place.

About two seconds.

For two years every morning, my child is in tears.

I don't want to go back to that school.

I don't know what school is the school that he needs, but I know that I've asked.

I know that I've asked the coasts.

I know that I've asked the welcome center.

I know that I've asked the Office of Specialized Services.

Um this is not the way that it's supposed to be, and you guys have the ability to change it.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

If you you can always send dates by email.

You can send me your testimony by email if you don't have time to wait at all.

John Mudd.

My name is John Mudd.

I'm a resident of Cambridge and a longtime education advocate in Boston.

I want to speak tonight to focus on the implementation of the new opportunity and achievement gap policy.

The policy coming before you continues the commitment to eliminating achievement gaps and increasing the racial and linguistic diversity of teachers.

It calls for annual SMART goals in each area.

These SMART goals are crucial.

The policy also includes strengthening the education of multilingual learners through the development of long-term plans with milestones and timelines for expanding bilingual education and bilingual teachers with instruction in native language.

All three goals are critically important.

We also know that implementation is key.

Putting policy into practice so that it makes a difference to students in their classrooms is what will make a difference in student outcomes.

That is why the promised strategic implementation plan must include SMART goals.

When will you see it?

And who will be included in developing it?

I want again to make a plea that the committee and the superintendent take the lead in convening working groups of committee members, BPS staff, and selected experts, stakeholders, advocates to work together to develop strategies and plans that we could all rally behind.

Such collaborative work would have the potential to break through the current dysfunctional structures like these meetings, where we talk at each other rather than talking with each other.

Isn't it worth a try?

The new policy which is before you to approve tonight gives new guidance.

Let's try to follow through to implement it together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Camille Stubb.

Hello, my name is Camille Stubby.

I am a seventh grade math teacher at the Margarita Moonese Academy.

I live in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Less than two weeks ago, the district cut two of our SLIF positions and OMME mandated that 19 of our 22 SLIFE students exit the program this year.

I am speaking with great concern about the guidelines used to exit students from the programs and these teacher cuts.

SLIFE exits are supposed to be individualized based on native literacy and math level, as stated in the meta-consent degree filed with the Department of Justice.

And this past month, OMME lowered the access score requirements from 2.5 to 1.7s in meetings with our schools, and did not consider native literacy in their exit assessments.

They simply exited all students who have been in the program for two years.

Native literacy is critical for student success in general education.

Many of my students are former SLIF students.

One in particular was exited prematurely from his previous school last year.

This student is still learning to read and write in Spanish, his native language.

I read everything aloud to the student in Spanish, and he needs the help of a computer to scribe his responses.

In advisory at the beginning of the year, um, the student shared his goal for the year to learn how to read and write.

The entire class fell silent.

One student piped up and said, You don't know how to read, and the student simply responded, no, no puedo.

This year, luckily, he has a gap in his schedule where he receives foundational native literacy support, like decoding in phonics in Spanish.

He's gone to refusing to write anything in Spanish to at least trying to write something down phonetically in Spanish.

This teacher who is providing him the support was informed last week that they would be cut next year.

The student will enter eighth grade without foundational native literacy and without support.

The struggle, the struggles the student experience foretell the reality SLIFE students will face when forced out of the program.

I'm asking the district to stop last-minute SLIF cuts and to stop the forced student exits.

Also, please stop creating more barriers for our most vulnerable students.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next group of speakers are Elizabeth Nabruit, Kimberly Hirsch, Jen Hayes, Vanya de la Rocha, and Anna Villard.

Elizabeth Naberish.

Good evening, school committee members.

My name is Beth Nivrich.

I live in Hyde Park.

I'm a proud BPS parent and SLIFE ESL teacher at Boston International Newcomers Academy.

I'm here tonight in solidarity with our SLIFE community.

You're gonna hear tonight about the SLIFE program model and who it is designed to serve, but I want you to really understand what this looks like at the secondary level.

At Binka, we welcome 16, 17, 18-year-old students who are still learning how to write their name.

Their circumstances are all different.

They've grown up in countries with political turmoil and violence, their families couldn't afford to send them to school, or they haven't had access to education because of barriers that are almost always outside of their control.

So imagine these students entering a BPS high school and being asked to go to a 10th grade history or chemistry class where the content is presented in English.

We can all agree that that would most certainly lead to failure.

And that's why our SLIFE programs are so critical.

They're not a magic wand, and students absolutely need support when they exit.

But in BPS SLIFE programs, our students are taught by skilled educators who often share the same linguistic and cultural backgrounds as our students.

Students have individualized goals and teams of educators who track their academic progress and help them adjust to an unfamiliar school system.

Most importantly, for our overage life, we teach them how to read in English and in their native language.

Yes, our students are in many ways some of BPS's most vulnerable.

But in my 16 years as an educator, I've personally witnessed how they are also some of our most resilient.

With the right supports, they go on to learn English, graduate from high school, and work and live in our communities.

In fact, one of my former SLIFE students works in this very building.

So in a moment when the political climate has turned on our SLIFE students, let us be the ones who do not abandon them.

I urge you to continue to prioritize explicit instruction and literacy, to honor individualized transition plans and timelines, and to continue to fund the SLIFE program model as outlined in the Medicine Center.

Jen Hayes.

Hi, I'm Jen Hayes.

I am a SLIF teacher at the Margarita Mooniz Academy, and I live in Revere, Massachusetts.

Dr.

Jim, Dr.

Jim Cummings, a renowned theorist in second language acquisition, has found that students who are not yet literate in their first language may require between seven and ten years to develop academic language proficiency in English.

This research, which is included in DESI's MtELS for both ESL and bilingual educator endorsement exams, directly contradicts the current mandate to exit SLIFE students after only two years.

The rationale we have received from OLM is that remaining in SLIFE programs for longer periods is exclusionary or unsustainable in the current political climate.

However, literacy research consistently demonstrates that students learn to read most effectively through explicit systematic instruction.

Students with interrupted or limited formal education often require highly individualized and intensive literacy support in order to develop foundational reading and writing skills.

If academic language acquisition can take many years and literacy development requires explicit systematic instruction, why is the district limiting specialized SLIFE services to two years?

How does this policy align with the research on language acquisition, the documented needs of students with interrupted formal education, and the professional judgment of educators working directly with these students?

Will exited SLIFE students have the literacy skills necessary to thrive independently in mainstream academic settings?

Is the district planning to provide professional development for educators working with former SLIFE students?

There is not sufficient capacity for educators to teach foundational literacy skills while simultaneously teaching grade level content.

I believe these students deserve access to personalized explicit literacy.

Vanya, Ana Velarde, good evening.

My name is Ana Velarde.

I live in Somerville, and I am a sixth and seventh grade dual language science teacher at the Mario Mana Academy in East Boston, and I'm also a proud member of the Boston Teachers Union.

I am here today to speak about the importance of protecting SLIF programs and native language literacy services.

Since the beginning of the year, our fifth and sixth grade SLIFE Native Literacy teacher who was notified that her position was cut last minute, has spent time in my classroom supporting students in Spanish.

Her work has been essential.

She helps students access grade-level content.

She develops literacy in their native language, and she helps them navigate the many challenges that come with entering a new school system.

Two months ago, after a teacher unexpectedly retired, she was reassigned to cover a general education history class, and her absence has been felt immediately.

Her students no longer receive the specialized support they need, and I up and left trying to meet the needs of students whose linguistic and educational backgrounds require expertise that I, as a general education teacher, cannot provide alone.

This experience has shown me that native language literacy services are not an extra.

They are not interchangeable with content instruction in Spanish, and they cannot simply be absorbed by already overstretched classroom teachers.

A SLIFE program without native language literacy instruction is not the same program.

Our students deserve individualized support that honors their language, their educational backgrounds, and their unique needs.

I urge the district and the school committee to protect SLIFE programs to preserve native literacy positions and ensure that decisions about students and services are driven by what our students actually need, and not by staffing shortages or budget cuts.

Thank you.

I want to remind the speakers that we have interpreters in the channels, so if you can slow down a little bit, please.

Thank you.

The next group is Alicia Silva, Ariana Sicairos McCarthy, Shaina Gilbert, Robin Kelly, and Juan Gutierrez.

Alicia Silva.

Good evening, buenas.

I'm Alicia Sova, I live in Newton.

I'm an 18-year teaching veteran of the Boston Public Schools.

I am honored to work with students that have had limited access to formal education, at least for 11 more days because my job was cut.

Our children have experienced unthinkable trauma, and we asked them to come to school and behave normally.

And I think how much time would my child need in school to learn her letters if she had seen me shot in the head at our dinner table because I refuse to sell drugs.

How much time would your child need if they had juvenile arthritis and were unable to walk the five miles to school?

Or in a wheelchair in the middle of a desert in a refugee camp.

What is the time limit on trauma?

When do I tell my baby students?

Okay, get over it, get out, and by the way, the one person it took you 15 to 16 months to trust is telling you goodbye.

It has been decades for me watching courts tell BPS what to do.

But we all know what is right.

Aren't you tired of that?

We understand change.

Teachers understand change.

BPS wrote that teachers would be consulted.

If this life program were to change, were we consulted?

No.

Students with limited formal education have traveled to our shores, our coast, not for the American dream, but for the Boston dream.

They just want to be safe and learn how to read.

Big Poppy said it best when he said this is our city.

So two seconds.

Surround myself with take care of children, and they listen to teachers.

Fully fund SLIFE classrooms to teachers.

I work by myself.

I'm not bilingual.

SLIFE is not for life.

We know that, but love is for life.

Love is for SLIFE.

What are we modeling for our future citizens, our future Bostonians?

Thank you.

Hi, Ariana Sigaros McCarthy.

I live in Rasendale.

I am a BPS alumna, parent, and ESL teacher of SLIFE students at Boston International Newcomers Academy.

I'm here tonight in solidarity with the SLIFE community.

This is my 19th year of teaching in BPS, almost half of which has been working with SLIFE students.

SLIFE programs serve students who come into BPS with a wide range of skills.

Students have the opportunity to learn from educators who understand that our job is to adapt and meet them where they are.

By design and the meta consent degree, SLIFE programs provide intensive instruction in students' native languages.

This is supported by decades of research that show how strong literacy skills and native language are an indicator of literacy skills for second or third languages.

Our students who are coming in need time with specialized and skilled teachers to fill those gaps.

As a district, we should be staffing programs that enhance our students' ability to acquire language and not cutting those supports.

This past January, the district told us that best practices included a support plan for students who exit SLIFE.

The plan detailed supports like reading intervention, co-teaching and content classes, and the support of SLIFE social workers.

But instead of providing schools with enough staff to ensure the long-term success of SLIFE students, BPS is cutting the positions as recently as last week.

So, SLIFE specific supports.

How can a student who arrived as a non-reader in Spanish in ninth grade fully access a grade level text in English?

At the secondary level, former SLIFE students are overwhelmed by the sheer length of texts being put in front of them.

This leads to disengagement in class, frustration, increased absences, and eventually dropping out.

BPS needs to pause and consider the needs of SLIFE students before putting a timeline on their learning.

Our students deserve better.

Shane Gilbert.

Hello.

My name is Shana Gilbert and I'm from Boston.

I'm a proud graduate of Boston Public Schools, a second-generation SLIFE educator, and have taught Haitian newcomers at Tech Boston for 16 years.

I'm here, I'm here regarding the district's recent decision to prematurely exit nearly all SLIFE students from their program against teacher recommendations.

SLIFE students are English learners with interrupted education, often due to trauma.

Many enter BPS with major gaps in literacy and math.

They require specialized instruction to build foundational skills.

The SLIFE program prepares them to succeed in grade level classrooms alongside their peers.

The goal of SLIFE is not to be in SLIF for life, but to benefit from SLIFE for a better life.

SLIFE is described by the district as a two-year transitional program, but some need more time.

My Haitian students have experienced political instability.

Dangerous migration, disrupted schooling, and now they live in fear around immigration policies.

These are some of our most vulnerable learners.

How we choose to support those with the fewest advantages reflects who we are as a district.

For over 16 years, I have seen SLIFE students become college graduates and professionals because BPS provided the proper instruction and the time they needed.

But today, the district plans to use a single metric to abruptly exit students from SLIFE.

This decision will weaken the program and deprive students of critical support.

I urge the school committee to ensure that SLIFE program decisions, from entry to exit, remain grounded in equity, educator expertise, evidence, and the long-term success of our students.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Robin Kelly.

Robin Kelly.

Good evening.

I'm Robin Kelly from Dorchester.

I've been teaching middle school SLIF at the Mario Yamana Academy for 11 years, in which I have witnessed muddled messaging and inconsistent application of the SLIFE program as it is outlined by the Mediconsent Decree.

The district's concern over length of time in SLIFE is valid.

However, the two-year max does not address the root of the issue.

Sorry, the district is encouraging us to exit kids who are not ready.

This year, the district and ohm have sent conflicting messages.

Guidance in our Google Classroom says students need a 2.5 overall in access to exit.

In December, Ohm emailed some schools saying the goalpost has been lowered to 1.7, which is it.

Claiming that students have been in the program for too long based on a set length of time, follows a one-size fits-all model.

We know SLIFE is anything but.

For some students, a few months since Life is enough.

For others, it's longer.

We must ask: has the district actually been providing our students with the full services and supports needed to make meaningful academic progress per the medical degree?

Most recently, no, not in terms of consistent foundational native literacy, appropriate ESL, and a clear infrastructure to support students whose progress is limited.

I have loads of examples.

Furthermore, at our school, OM has proposed staffing cuts that would eliminate native language literacy, an essential and legal requirement of SLIFE.

The native language component is necessary for development in English and for a successful transition to general education.

We oppose these cuts as well as the restructuring of SLIFE exit guidelines without educator and community input.

We teachers are on the front lines.

We know our students best and we know what they need.

I've seen the consequences of exiting students before they're ready.

Students forced to exit because the district timed them out, have struggled with attendance and engagement, in some cases dropped out.

Conversely, I recently spoke with a former SLIFE student who was in the program for three or four years.

Now she's in college.

This juxtaposition between what teachers think and current guidance shows what happens when SLIF students are rushed into general education, and it should not be a mistake that the district continues to make.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Juan Gutierrez.

My name is Juan Gutierrez, I'm a resident of East Boston BPS alum and now a native SLIFE educated at the Mara Yuman Academy.

During our last contract campaign, educators and families fought for inclusion done right.

We demanded that inclusion cannot mean putting students with many different needs with uh into classrooms without the appropriate staffing, adequate services, and specialized supports required for them to succeed.

That same principle applies to SLIFE students.

We believe in meaningful inclusion opportunities for SLIFE students.

We want students learning alongside their peers and transitioning successfully into appropriate educational settings.

But those opportunities have to be planned for and supported by a team of educators.

They cannot be created by removing the very educators who provide specialized instruction.

For SLIFE students, native literacy is an essential support and a required component of the SLIFE model under the Medicons Decree.

Every student deserves the opportunity to develop literacy in their native language.

That means explicit native literacy instruction.

And as it stands, the district is cutting the native literacy component at my school.

If BPS continues to operate a SLIFE program while removing native language literacy instruction, then the district is fundamentally altering the very model students are entitled to receive.

There's a difference between content instruction in students' native language and native literacy instruction.

Content classes and students' native language can support literacy development, but they cannot replace explicit native language reading instruction.

And at the umana, that is what the district is proposing.

And let's be clear.

Services for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and SLIFE students were not simply given.

They were fought for and won by families, students, educators, and community members.

And now the district cries budget constraints when it comes to special education, ESL, and SLIFE services.

Inclusion does not mean placing students in classrooms without support, without planning or without a real transition plan.

The fight to ensure that inclusion is done right is not over, and it is our duty to keep fighting for our SLIFE students.

Our not in-person speakers are Mayra da Rocha, Deedra Manning, Paulo de Barros, Caruis McLaughlin, and Kelsey Brandel.

Mayra de Rocha.

I'm Myra Jerosha, Spanish Native Literacy SLIF teacher at the Margarita Muniz Academy.

Boston calls itself a sanctuary city, yet we are dismantling the some of the very educational sanctuaries our newest immigrant students rely on.

During COVID, SLIFE students were identified as some of the most vulnerable, and we're in the first wave of students to return to in-person learning.

Now, when they need us the most, the district has decided to exit them from the program regardless of where they are academically.

The meta consent decree is a legal document that is very explicit about what criteria SLIFE students need to meet before entering the general education classroom, which includes native literacy and math proficiency.

BPS is replacing an individual student-centered and evidence-based process with a one-size fits-all model that they have admitted will put students into gen ed classes that they will not be prepared for, violating this department of justice order.

We'll be pushing these students into classes where they are doomed to fail when SLIFE students are already statistically more likely to drop out of school.

How many futures are we willing to sacrifice in order to satisfy a standardized timeline?

That's why it's so important to stand up.

So two seconds.

Our next speaker, Steve Remanning.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Deirdre Manning.

I'm a Dorchester resident, single parent of two public school students.

I'd like to make a few points this evening.

Um the first is that it's been three admission cycles since the superintendent stated that there would be data made available on the outcomes of students who have gone through the exam school admission process.

My understanding is that data has not been made available.

The second point that I'd like to make is that it's been two months since the last admission cycle concluded, and I do not believe any of that information about low cutoff scores or any of that has been made available.

The third point that I'd like to make is that this exam school construct continues to put certain students at a disadvantage.

My daughter is friends with a girl who will be a rising seventh grader.

She is black.

She lives in Mattapan, which inexplicably is considered a tier four neighborhood.

I think that just about anybody would laugh if you stated that a girl who lives in Mattapan has anywhere near the resources that a student who lives in Charlestown or the Back Bay or the North End.

Yet this girl was put at a disadvantage because she was considered a tier four student across the street from her was tier two.

So if she lived across the street, the outcome would have been very different.

This particular girl has a brother who's already at BLS.

Now I know that she's a high performing student, even though I don't know her composite score, because she did actually get a seat at an exam school, but she did not get her first choice, which was BLS.

It's really strange that a girl who lives in a neighborhood that is under-resourced, yet she is not allowed to join the school that her brother attends.

There's a huge disconnect there, and I wish that the committee would take a really hard look as how you divide students into tier groups.

It's extremely inequitable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Paulo de Barros.

Harris McLaughlin.

Thank you.

Oh, I'm Caris McLaughlin.

I live in Roxbury, and I'm the mom of a former Boston public school student.

And so I attended your retreat, I guess, a few weeks ago.

And what I heard at that retreat was I basically the comment that school committee members were not sure what their task is.

And so what I did in response to that when I hear things, I say, okay, so what can I do to be helpful?

I went down to the Masses Massachusetts Association of School Committees and got the um Massachusetts General Laws.

So this is the work that guides school committees.

And I'm not sure if you're aware, but a lawsuit is coming that will state clearly that none of the gateway cities are preparing kids well enough.

And there's going to be a recommendation that they need to leave these gateway cities and be educated in neighboring um communities that may have more money.

Now that's simplistically put, but you should be aware of that lawsuit.

And that lawsuit will look at historically what Boston has been unable to do for too many neighborhood school kids.

Every kid should be able to look at their neighborhood school no matter where it is, and know that they will get a good education.

It's the least that we can do for them.

And I support kids going to school wherever they choose, but in their neighborhood, I think is most important.

So I hope that you will look into the lawsuit.

It's already filed, it's at Suffolk Superior Court.

It is serious, and there are answers that you're going to need to give.

And so, school committee, that will be your task.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kelsey Brandel.

Good evening, school committee, Chair Robinson, Superintendent Skipper.

I'm Kelsey Brendell, parent of a child with multiple and severe disabilities.

You may see him and likely you've probably already heard him, despite my best efforts.

He, like so many of our students with disabilities, can't speak, at least out loud, and that's part of the reason I am here.

I try very hard at trying to hear and listen for the voices of many students in BPS and our city.

And I've been so lucky to have met and spoken with so many students like him who may not have words, but they and their families can more than make themselves heard, as you know.

It's such a privilege to be able to bear witness to their eagerness when talking about their child, their lived experience, and how they might contribute themselves to a bigger conversation about BPS with curiosity, civility, and passion.

And I'm here tonight because I'm noticing something that started as a whisper and now is a scream in the world of special ed here in Boston, and we have got to get back to prioritizing some of the ways in which we could actually make a material difference in the lives of those most vulnerable who navigate BPS every day, and who would tell you that some of the fissures and pain points are not always too daunting to solve.

We're becoming, I fear, distracted by conversations and people that scare us rather than inspire us.

And we have families waiting for real solves, and sometimes they are very meaningful solves that are achievable and speak to the everyday experiences of our special ed factors.

I well understand, you know, it's not a mystery.

Many of the topics that we talk about here tonight, school closures, the enormity of budgetary restraints, how the plan for inclusion has sparked critical debate about whether and how we are actually serving with this plan as it evolves.

But I really want to remind us and this body about who we are really, really talking about and invite a more robust and candid conversation than the ones that we've been having.

Who are we leaving out?

And how can we create additional ways for families to be heard and truly considered as partners?

Please send you to send the test without testimony.

Yes, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now transition to Zoom.

Our first the first speakers are Kimberly Hirsch, Cheryl Buckman, April Wong, and Eugenia Corbo.

Kimberly Hirsch.

Yes, hello.

My name is Kimberly Hirsch, and I'm here to address the accessing of Safe Teachers.

During the last school year, I was an ESL SIFE teacher at Charlestown High School.

There's also a district's life teacher leader with the telescope network in Ulm.

In that capacity, I wrote a district wide newsletter and facilitated two district-wide professional development series.

I was also part of an OLM working group adopting OpenSIAD First Life, and I had a grant from the Teacher Leader Fund to adopt the DKP Civics curriculum first life.

I had planned to continue this important work, but two weeks before school started last August, the district closed my science program, and all the work that I was doing to support the site community stopped.

My knowledge, experience, and curriculum completely cut off from the students who need it most.

In a few years, the political climate's going to change again, and someone in the central office will determine that there's a need for a slight program in Charlestown.

And those teachers will have to start over from scratch like I did.

They will have to fundraise to rebuild a culturally and linguistically relevant classroom library.

They will have to train again in rules-based reading intervention.

They will have to rewrite weekly restorative circles and trauma-informed lessons and reestablish field relationships with field trip sites.

They'll have to discover again how to meet the incredibly unique needs of the five students who come to Charlestown.

The decision to get Cyf Teachers was made because our student population has decreased.

We understand that.

Too many resources.

It's inefficient.

But it is also inefficient to force schools and teachers to reinvent the wheel every four years because of national politics.

Life educators and students need you to find another way.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Sherald Buckman.

Good evening.

My name is Cheryl Buckman.

I'm a parent to a seventh grader at the Ruth Batson Academy, the parent lead at the Dever and resident of South Boston.

I'm here to express my deepest gratitude for all the hard work, engagement, and collaboration with the Deborah community throughout this challenging transition process.

I stand before you today in immense pride.

The physical building may close, but the spirit of the Dever cannot be contained by brick on water.

Its legacy is going to be spread far and wide across this entire district.

As our students, families, and phenomenal educators carry its values into their next chapters.

From my family, the Dever is not just a school.

It's a cornerstone of our lives.

I'm forever grateful for the education I received within those walls many years ago.

That legacy continued when my brother walked those same halls.

And it came full circle when my own son became a Denver student.

This community ran on family.

It was built on the belief that we lifted each other up, looked out for one another, and fought for every single child's future.

It's truly been an honor to serve my voice for this community to advocate for our kids and our fantastic educators.

Thank you for listening to us, working alongside us and recognizing the heart of our community.

As we move forward, we trust that you'll help us carry the Dever's deep-rooted commitment to family and excellence into the future of this entire district.

The doors may close, but the Dever Dolphins will keep moving together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is April Wang.

Hi, my name is April Bo Wong.

I live in Fields Corner and I am the mother of a four-year-old rising K 1 BPS student.

We are Chinese American.

We decided to raise our family here because we wanted our children to be exposed to their heritage culture, food, and language.

So when the K 1 lottery opened in January, I was devastated to learn that my son was ineligible to attend Josiah Quincy Elementary, which has the only bilingual Chinese program in the district.

In December, the district said that opening citywide access to low incidence language programs would result in relatively small student impact, which essentially means you are denying hyper minoritized students access to heritage language learning.

This is the opposite of equitable policy.

Equitable policy does not diminish students' needs because they don't meet a certain population threshold.

This current school year, JQES had a capacity of 36 seats in its K 1 program.

Only 23 were filled.

This is a waste of resources and an underutilization of a program.

The district said it couldn't open up these bilingual programs citywide because of transportation costs.

Let's talk about that.

In an ideal world, we would have it invest resources to ensure all kids have district transportation to their schools.

But you all know that education doesn't operate in an ideal world, which means that we need to think creatively about solutions rather than just saying no.

In the face of a broken education system, our communities have always found solutions to intractable problems.

For three years, my family has spent between 90 minutes to three hours when the red line was getting second.

My son did a daycare in Taitung Village, Chinatown.

This was a sacrifice.

My husband and I both work full-time jobs.

But it was worth it to show that our son would start life learning his heritage language.

If given access to the bilingual program at JQES, we would continue to take him on public transportation every day.

BPS enrollment is plummeting.

The district is losing families and kids left and right, and the ones you seek to serve equitably are the ones leaving first.

Do something, fix it, open access to your bilingual programs, and stop dismissing language and low incidents.

Thank you, your time, sir.

Our next speaker, So Genia Corbo.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

You can spot.

Okay.

So good evening.

My name is Eugenia Corwan.

I'm the parent, a parent at the Mario Mana Academy in East Boston.

I have a child in fifth grade.

On May 20th, our school building was hot, very hot.

By mid-afternoon of 73 classroom sensors, 70 were flagged high, 41 classroom were at or over or above 85 degrees.

We were at or over 90, and the hottest room read 95 degrees inside where children are trying to learn.

The building averaged 85 degrees, and most of those classrooms have no windows that can be opened.

This was the second day in a row that our children sat in that heat with no air conditioning.

Two days we could watch the temperature climb through the morning and into the afternoon, and there was nothing the school itself could do about it.

I know at least one family that pulled their kids out of school that day because of the high heat.

And this was not just our school.

At 2 p.m.

the same day, across the 125 Boston schools being monitored, more than a thousand rooms were at or about 80 degrees.

305 rooms were at and above or above 85.

31 rooms top 90 with one reading nine to seven degrees.

The school's hit hardest including ours where the buildings with modern central air.

The wind, the schools with window units were generally fine.

The buildings didn't overheat because the equipment failed.

It happened because the central air could not be switched on yet.

We've been informed that the heating cannot be turned off until until May 15th, and only at that point can the process start for cooling, and that can take up to three weeks.

And that is too long.

So that's scheduled failure.

And a scheduling failure is fixable.

High heated May is no longer a surprise.

I'm asking BPS and the city to make sure the startup process for cooling is sped up so that our buildings are ready before the first hot week and not after.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, the next speaker from Jessica Cortes, Melanie Kane, and Marie Banduva and Courtney Freely Carp.

Jessica Cortes.

Good evening.

My name is Jessica Curtis, and I'm a parent at the Mario Umana Academy in East Boston.

Following up on Ogenia's testimony, I want to talk about who was sitting in those 90 degree rooms for the second day in a row.

Yumana is about 90% Hispanic, and we're a Title I school with large numbers of English learners and students with disabilities, including an ABA program and a special ed program.

These are exactly the children the district says it's committed to serving first.

The research is unambiguous.

Children are physically more vulnerable to heat than adults.

Their bodies don't shed heat as efficiently, and their comfortable learning temperature is lower than ours.

Studies find the temperature for best concentration is around 72 degrees, and that student performance can rise by roughly 20% when a classroom is cooled from the high 80s to the high 60s.

Researches have also found that classroom heat widens the achievement gap, hurting disadvantaged students the most, and that air conditioning closes that gap, especially for students who are struggling.

So when our central air sits idle in a high need school, we are not being neutral.

We're widening the gap that we say we're trying to close.

And here is the part that's so important.

This is not the first hot May in Boston, and it will not be the last.

Late spring heat has become predictable.

We learned the system couldn't run because the steps to bring it online take up to three weeks, and the Ever Source meter read for our school wasn't scheduled until the end of the month.

So I'm asking BPS to work with the city and with Eversource to speed up the seasonal cooling startup so that our kids can get the building that they deserve before the thermometer climbs.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next Melanie Kane is not in the meeting, so we will continue with Anne Marie Baduva, followed by Courtney Freene Carp.

Anne Marie Baduva.

Please accept the prompt.

Okay, she declined the so we will continue with Courtney Philly Carp.

Courtney Philip Harp.

Please turn on your camera there.

Thank you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Courtney Philly Carp.

I am a West Roxbury resident and a parent of a sixth grader who previously attended the Henderson School and currently attends the Roosevelt Q3.

Um I come tonight to join the other parents who are requesting action of this school committee in reviewing the policies around the placement of inclusion students.

I heard an earlier person testifying that there seemed to be some confusion among school committee members about what their responsibilities may or may not be.

I would refer you to your own website where it specifically says that your role is to establish, set and review the policies to support student achievement.

I think what you have consistently heard from both FedPAC and individual parents is that there is a huge disconnect between the school labeling rooms, schools as full inclusion, and saying that any one of those services, any one of those rooms can serve as any individual student in their individual needs with an IEP.

That is simply not true.

I don't know how many parents need to come here and tell you that it's not the case.

There are countless incidents of parents trying to find the right placement for their student and going to a welcome center.

The specific charge I have for you tonight is what as you as a school committee, the oversight body of this school district going to do in response to the parent outcry.

You have legal obligations to service students with disabilities, and it is important that the public understand what you are doing.

I ask that you ask the superintendent and the staff to explain how the welcome center process works, whether OSS is involved.

So to think about my experience is that it is not, um, and how parents are expected to go to the welcome center with an IEP and figure out a placement for their student when there's no universal definition of inclusion, no universal staffing of those rooms, and no information for parents to access to help decide what the right choice is for their student.

So my ask for you tonight is to please put these questions to the district for a future committee meeting so the public can benefit from the answers.

Thank you.

So we will try with Anne-Marie Baduva again.

Hi, this is Ann Marie Vadiva.

I am a parent of a BPS student enrolled at the Mary Lyons School in fifth grade, who has not been able to attend school since September and has been in receiving in-home um tutoring that has been ineffective.

And I'm going to read uh my statement.

In general, um my statement is more for the parents.

I'm providing a solidarity and support uh to parents of autistic students who are navigating um inclusion uh placements that uh are non-existent or that don't work for them.

Um and basically um my experience very quickly um sorry, sorry, not right now.

I need your challenge.

Sorry, uh sorry, not right now.

Um, I'm gonna skip to the end since I'm not gonna be able to read everything.

I just want to say um, on behalf of all parents of autistic students who are not able to access general inclusion settings and who are not having being allowed to have real dialogues with uh administrators about how to access education.

I challenge BPS uh if they are serious about it, proving that they are not discriminating against a minority as a result of a disability, which many of us feel like is what is happening if FBPS is really serious about educating children with disabilities to invite all parents of BPS autistic students who are struggling to go to a school to come to a public meeting and to hear what all parents of such children are saying their children need to access the school environment and to invite the parents and the students to design school environments in BPS buildings where the needs identified by the parents and the students are fulfilled, and um we are that is not happening.

We are being stonewalled, and we actually need BPS to work with parents to help our children.

Otherwise, you're time to thank you.

Chair, that concludes public comment.

Thank you, Ms.

Parvex, and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives.

Your testimony is very important to us.

Our first two action items this evening are the grants for approval, totaling five million, thirty-nine thousand sixty-one dollars, and the in-kind donations of five thousand two hundred twenty-five dollars and forty-nine cents.

No, I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

Uh great.

Thank you, Chair.

So excuse me.

So before you tonight, there are 14 grants for your consideration, which total approximately five million dollars.

Rather than name all of the grants, I'll give a brief overview in the interest of time.

The grants fall into several focus areas.

Social emotional learning.

There are three grants totaling nearly 186,000.

Health and wellness, there are two grants totaling just over 350,000.

College and career readiness, one is a summer continuation funding, which is total of 7500, career and technical education, one grant for more than 920,000, Madison Park High School, facility improvement.

There's four community preservation act grants totaling over 3.5 million dollars for schoolyard improvements at the Conley, Everett, Trotter, and UP Academy Schools, Up Academy Dorchester.

Uh, and then academic instruction.

There's two grants for 20,000 for the Everett and Josiah Quincy Elementary Schools and the Elliott Innovation Schools.

There are also before you two in-kind donations, uh, one that total fifth uh five thousand two hundred dollars.

There's a book donation to the Sarah Roberts Elementary School, which is valued uh at $1,350 in a donation of more than $3,800 from the New England Dairy and Food Council for handheld immersion blenders for the BPS Central Kitchen.

We asked the committee to vote in favor of accepting these grants.

Um, and certainly these generous donations.

Uh CFO Bloom uh is here as well as uh Marcella to answer any questions.

Thank you.

No, I like to turn it over to oh, sorry.

I want to turn it over to our members for any comments, questions.

And just quickly wanna know the community preservation act, which are the biggest grants here.

How is the process for selecting the schools that are gonna receive those improvement, those grants, m given that we have many schools with many needs?

So the city runs an application process for community preservation act um projects.

Um any member of the Boston community can submit a proposal.

Um in the past, uh there were definitely moments where BPS was not taking full advantage of our opportunity to propose things as well.

Um over the last few years, we've done a better job of reviewing data on sort of what projects are eligible and where our school saying the mo having the most need.

So we're definitely able to propose more relevant projects, but there are still projects that get proposed by the community and and can be selected.

Is the facility plan in involving this at all or is that separate?

Yeah, so it's it's not a part of the long-term facilities plan because it's run directly by the city.

Um I see Sam walking up, so I'm just gonna wait for him to get all the way up here in case I think.

It is a separate, it is a separate process.

It's a separate process run by the city, but uh Sam has a mission.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

Yes, it is a separate process, but our teams are very involved in the process and we um coordinate with um the folks that involve the city side and as we implement the the construction projects.

Our teams have been involved in that part of it as well.

All right, so I'm just trying to understand how you choose school A versus uh school B to get those grants and those.

So that decision is um largely not in our control.

Uh however, we do make recommendations based on our facilities conditions assessments that we've conducted.

We've ranked all of our playgrounds um in their conditions, safety years, danger, equipment failures.

So we have a ranked list of how bad our playgrounds are.

So we do have our internal list, and that's public information as well.

So we make recommendations to that committee based on that information.

The collectively a decision is made.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I have a question.

Um about the Madison Park, um that is one of the largest uh grants in there.

So it's a new grant.

So I was just wondering, uh, and it's 220 students that have going to be assigned to this.

I just was wondering if the uh what happened to the students if the grant is not renewed.

Thank you for the question.

Um that that grant supports two new programs at Madison Park that are currently in uh part B DECI status waiting for approval.

The bulk of that grant um will go to uh construction craft labor and robotics for all the startup equipment and supplies that are needed for the program.

The construction craft labor consumable supplies on an annual basis are at a fairly low cost, so we believe we can pull all of those expenses into the Perkins grant and the robotics uh program for the second year.

Um the grant will support a second teacher who will then be absorbed into Madison Park's budget, and also um you heard the superintendent's um announcement about the Bloomberg grant for the construction trades that will also support the construction craft labor.

So we think those programs are off to a very solid launch.

So the so they're in it to win it.

So it will there will be renew.

Is that what we're saying?

If the grant is not renewed, um the equipment that is needed for the grant is front loaded, and the consumables that are needed to maintain the program are a fairly low cost.

And Desi asked us the same questions that you are about it.

Um if the grant is not renewed, we feel very confident that through other grant funding, the Perkins grant in particular, we can sustain the programs for the students at Madison Park.

Thank you.

Everybody else is fine.

Okay.

So thank you.

So if there are no further questions, no further discussion, I'll now entertain a motion to approve the grants as presented.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Is there any objection to approving the grants by unanimous consent?

Hearing none, the grants are approved.

Thank you.

I will now entertain a motion to approve the in-kind donations as presented.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion objection to the motion?

Is there any objection to approving the in-kind donation by unanimous consent?

Hearing none, the in-kind donations are approved.

Our next action item is the fiscal year 2027 school trust funds.

You may recall that we voted on the school trust funds policy at the June 17th, 2025 meeting to allow the school committee to annually approve expenditures from the trust fund, allowing BPS finance to load the trust funds directly into school budgets.

I will now invite the superintendent to offer any final comments.

Chief Financial Officer David Bloom is here to review the items.

First, is the chair said is the FY27 school trust funds.

The second is the FY27 interim salary and non-personnel payments on external funds, which we presented during the May 6th meeting.

Um I know we still have a lot to get to, but Chief Bloom is here where you have any questions.

Thank you.

And I'll just say, you know, we've been really trying to be more proactive since meeting with the committee last year.

Um we're especially uh proud of progress on the Mary Dorothy Devereaux Award, which is one of our most active awards.

Um, you know, we're working closely with all the schools involved to make sure that awards are getting out.

There was one just in my inbox yesterday.

Um so we're actively working through each of those items.

You have good.

Okay.

Um thank you for these.

Just um understanding the helpfulness of front loading these dollars so that schools can apply them to the benefit of students.

Makes sense.

Just wondering what impact it has on the oversight of expenditures and just the monitoring of appropriate spending.

Um, so since the school committee vote on this last year, we formed uh finance trust committee to monitor um the all expenses on and uh our tracker, which is like all the requests that come in to ensure that all next steps are completed and everything is sort of following um the regulation.

Everything so far has been good since um last summer.

Um and I will say, you know, we do also have an example of uh sort of good news good news, bad news situation, which is one of our scholarship funds is actually um now sunsetting because we've spent it's spent all of its money um in providing scholarships for our students, which is you know wonderful and that it provided all the scholarships it was meant to, but a little bit sad that it's it's coming to the end of its life, and that's the Greece uh as my scholarship.

So um, yeah, we're continuing to work and monitor this very actively.

Thank you.

No, all right, thank you all.

If there are no further discussion, I will entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year 2027 school trust funds as presented.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Ms.

Parvex, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, Chair.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Peralta?

Yes.

Ms.

Planco Garcia, Ms.

Torres.

Yes.

Mr.

Tran.

Yes.

Miss Garrett?

Yes.

Ms.

Robinson.

Yes.

The motion is approved.

Thank you.

Um our next action item is the approval of the fiscal year twenty seven interim salary and non-personnel payments on external funds.

This was presented at the May 6th meeting by Chief Financial Officer David Broom.

I will now turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

This is just the process that we do each year to enable us to be able to begin to spend money.

It's really perfunctory in a lot of ways, but David, I don't know if there's anything else.

No, I think we discussed it in our last meeting, and we're we're definitely both Marcel and I are here if you have any final questions before the vote.

Thank you.

Any questions?

No questions, but just a reminder from the last meeting that I think we did ask around whether there had been any history of kind of defaults or incidents with this act, and you had replied that there had not.

Is that correct?

Yes, I can confirm that that's correct.

Thanks.

Okay.

Thank you.

I will now entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year twenty-seven interim salary and non-personnel payments on external funds as presented.

Is there a motion?

So thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Miss Provex, will you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Peralta?

Yes.

Ms.

Polanco Garcia.

Miss Torres?

Yes.

Mr.

Tran.

Yes.

Miss Garrett.

Yes.

Miss Robinson.

Yes.

The motion is approved.

Thank you.

Our next action item is the approval of Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School Renewal Application.

This was presented at the May 6th meeting by Elijah Hexall, Principal of Dudley Street Neighborhood Schools, and Jesse Solomon, executive director of BPE.

We'll be voting on the following items.

Renewal application, accountability plan, memorandum of agreement, revised expulsion policy.

I will now turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

So tonight uh we're seeking approval for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter Schools charter renewal application.

I think if you remember at the last meeting, uh Principal Hexdall, who is uh awesome principal of Dudley Street neighborhood uh sorry, Dudley Street Charter, and Jesse Solomon, who's the executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence.

Uh, they both spoke about the school's academic progress to now comes overall success.

The school is requesting votes on four items.

The first is the approval of its application for renewal of its public school charter.

The second is its approval of its accountability plan.

This outline um includes its intended outcomes and metrics.

The third is its approval of the memorandum of agreement between the school's board of trustees and the Boston Plan for Excellence, which serves as the school's educational management organization.

And finally, it's revised expulsion policy which aligns to the updated guidance from DESI.

Uh as I indicated May 6th, we recommend the renewal.

Um we see Dudley, although it is a horseman in district charter as a BPS school.

Uh a little later in the agenda, we're also going to ask the committee to consider updates to the charters of several other Horace Man charter schools.

Um just as a technical reminder, Horseman in district charters.

They are independent public schools that operate under a five-year charter that's granted by the Commonwealth Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

We're bringing all of these changes together in a combined presentation in an effort to move all of the necessary governance documents forward before the end of the school year.

It's an effort by our district to help the schools get their approvals as needed.

Each Horace Man Charter School will have an opportunity to present a more complete overview of their school in the fourth year of their respective charter terms, as Dudley Street did this year to this body.

Questions coming?

No, she has something to say, but we'll do it in mind.

Right now I'm just calling for questions, concerns.

Okay, before we move to the vote.

Out of abundance of uh cautions due to the relationship with Dudley Street School.

I am recusing myself from the vote.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So now I will entertain a motion to approve the Dudley Street Neighborhood Chartered School Renewal Application, accountability Plan, memorandum of agreement, and revised expulsion policy as presented.

Is there an is there a motion?

So move.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Is private suite please call the role.

Thank you.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Caranta.

Yes.

Ms.

Polanco Garcia.

Miss Torres.

Abstain.

Mr.

Tran.

Yes.

Miss Garrett.

Yes.

Ms.

Robinson.

Yes.

The motion is approved.

Thank you.

Okay.

Our next role is the approval of two private schools, the Alpha School and the Douglas Ridley School.

You'll recall that development officer for strategy partnerships and innovation and clock presented these schools at the April 15th meeting.

As we take this vote, I want to make sure everyone understands that the school committee's role in this process is to verify that the private schools that come before us have met the criteria recommended by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

That's the CESI, which is implemented through the policy established by the school committee in alignment with Massachusetts general law, chapter 76, section one.

Boston families, your role is to determine the school that best meets the needs of your students and families.

As the chair of this body, I want to reaffirm our commitment to Boston Families.

Boston Public Schools takes pride in serving all students and the diverse needs they bring.

I will now turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

Thank you, Chair.

So um tonight we're asking for a vote on two new private schools being proposed in the city of Boston, the Alpha School and the Douglas Ridley School.

As was presented at the May 6th meeting, the Alpha School Boston is an independent non-sectarian K-8 school focused on personalized learning with the help of artificial intelligence.

The Douglas Ridley School is a K-2 through 6 school model in the Reggio Amelia approach to education, which is rooted in equity and anti-racist practice.

Again, I want to be clear the district's role in this process is strictly administrative.

BPS has two primary responsibilities.

One to ensure all private schools seeking approval meet the requirements of Massachusetts general law, and two, make recommendations to superintendent and the Boston School Committee.

School Committee is responsible for approval of any private school wishing to operate within the City of Boston.

Both applications meet the district's requirements.

We are joined today by JC Fisher, executive vice president of operations, and Dr.

Tasha Arnold, head of schools for Alpha School, and Douglas Ridley school founder, Courtney Swartz.

I would um Ian is and Clark is also here.

Were there to be any questions about the applications?

Thank you.

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

Um, uh one thing that I will say that I I think this conversation um has brought up from me particularly um has been around clarifying exactly when we say administratively, like what is our oversight and what is our role in that sense, um, particularly because um anything that we do oversee takes resources away from overseeing our own district.

Um, and so I think that's a concern that's been brought up for me.

I think additionally, um it it has already been said um in regard to just the oddity that it is that we are put in this position um to make decisions on schools that are operating within within our district, and um the concern that I particularly have with any school um is truly its commitment to serving all students, and we've already seen an example of it this year where when students weren't appropriately served because for whatever reason the adults in the room couldn't get it together, um the students are the ones who suffer, and the district is is the one that's left picking up the pieces, and so um, you know, a message to all of our schools that are seeking to operate that um yes we do this in partnership um but please keep in mind that um if to abide by your mission um to make space truly make space for all those students um who are walking through your halls um and um to the to the families that are considering um any school option that isn't um bps those same uh uh anything that should be considered we would also ask look at the schools within BPS and see that our schools also do offer a wide range of options that are available for you like your family um and there are resources that are willing to work with you to figure out what those best options are um so um I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Yeah I I would love to just um echo Dr.

Alkin's sentiments.

I think that the just even coming off of this hour or so of public comment and the understandable rigor with which we're asking to be uh to apply a lens to our staffing models, the way that we're serving our most vulnerable students, etc.

And our obligation um and an honor to continue to work to do so and we know we have a lot of work to do.

It is an extremely uncomfortable position to evaluate um a potential school on paper uh and then have no more oversight um on this important initiative um the majority of states nationally do not have this practice um there are some states in New England who do there are other districts around the state who have not universally approved private schools who have come before us and I think it's our duty as a committee to explore all of those best practices to reevaluate the criteria that we currently have.

We have a very um saturated market for a declining student population in the city.

I think there may need to be an ask of what is missing to Dr.

Alkin's point of the wide variety of options that already exist um and I think that that research um should really be undertaken in a rigorous way and in partnership with DESI um before we have this challenge before us again.

And um I'll chime in.

Having founded a school uh I can say that what lies on paper and what actually it takes to operationalize it and make it successful of very different things.

And what happens in those years uh between um there's lots of twists and turn and I think we have an example recently of a school where there may have been excellent intentions but the result ended up being an extreme disruption for many many families uh within the city limit.

So I would again just encourage the schools that are putting in these applications um the when I look at the guidelines they're very base very very base from DESI.

And I think there's just so much more that goes into actually operating a school successfully.

So we have what we have I think we uh this is a huge district resource for us.

And so I think to Dr Alkin's point like Ian Clark has spent a considerable amount of time as have the departments in reviewing the portions that we can review.

But again I just don't I just want to be clear this is just fundamentals that's it and once this gets approval it's really up to the public and to the parents that become part of those schools uh to hold folks accountable to them.

Okay, uh an understanding that our role in voting on these two private schools uh pretty much uh administrative.

Um I don't see how uh DESI is charging us with some kind of a duty to do something that doesn't have to that doesn't carry any weight.

Assuming just assuming that our body rejected the applications.

Does that stop the schools these private schools from being uh from being um established I doubt it.

So if if we vote yes or we vote no pretty much we voted uh we will vote based upon our own assessment of the situation, right?

Right.

Our our job as the district officials is to look at the guidelines that DESI has provided uh and to ensure that the schools have checked those boxes.

If they have then our recommendation needs to be that they be granted to open.

Right.

Well I understand that um given the list of checks that we you know we must go through in order to assess a school and I I I do know the your staff has performed the uh the inspection not only adequately but promptly and thoroughly I understand that but that there's an equate to my own assessment of the situation.

And whether my own vote will somehow uh influence uh the process or not I doubt it.

But I just because of that I'll state right here before this war both of the schools are going to vote no.

That's my pretty much my my status my standard can we have nothing yeah.

Um this for several years we've had schools come before us I think um this year because of a number of issues that have occurred it's been the first time that we've done two things one to look at the um amount of time our own staff take to go through this process acknowledging the fact that we are basically um approving competitors at a time when um resources are short and parents have needs and the needs are great understanding what happens for example when a school that looked great on paper was unable to complete and then what happens with when the district had to open its arms quickly to be able to uh provide opportunities for those families that we don't know whether or not they will take advantage of but this district steps up so there's a lot of resources coming out of the district um right now we have the we have the process that we have but before we get to this point next year superintendent we're really asking that you and Desi sit down for us to take a different look at this because we do not if if nothing else um we should be paid for our time to do the work and it's been a significant amount of work I know that in the past there have been other schools that have started the process but were not approved at the district level so they never came before us.

Um it would be great if we could even take a look at over the past decade how many applications have been both successful how many have not gotten to the end but also what is happening with those schools so that we can also make sure that families and others um are aware of it.

The other issue is that this the assumption was often that schools that were being proposed would be bringing new ideas or doing things differently to add value so that they would not be duplicating what was already in existence.

And I'm not sure if our application critically looks at those issues as well.

So we have we have what we have for this evening and the information that we have, but we're asking that as we move forward in the future that we take a very close look at this so that um we can be sure that we're moving in the right direction.

Bobby DJ.

So at this moment I will now entertain a motion to approve the alpha school as presented.

Is there a motion?

So thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Miss Privax, will you please call the vote?

Thank you, Chair.

Dr.

Alkin?

Yes.

Mr.

Peralta.

I am boring, yes.

This private school have met the criteria set forward by the Massachusetts Department of Education to operate in our city.

Ms.

Polanco Garcia, Miss Torres?

Yes.

Mr.

Tran?

No.

Miss Garrett?

Yes.

Ms.

Robinson.

Yes.

The Alpha School is approved with um five.

Oh, sorry.

One, two, five, yeah.

That's mine.

So it's a send personal.

I believe that.

Thank you.

Okay.

I will now entertain a motion to approve the Douglas Ridley School as presented.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Miss Pavex, will you please call the role?

Thank you.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Peralta?

Yes.

Ms.

Polanco Garcia.

Miss Torres?

Yes.

Mr.

Tran?

No.

Miss Garrett.

Yes.

Ms.

Robinson.

Yes.

The Douglas Whitney School is approved with five yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Our next action item is the approval of the artificial intelligence policy that was presented at the May 6th meeting.

I will now turn it over to the superintendent for final comments.

Presented the district's proposed AI or artificial intelligence policy and guidelines.

This work started more than three years ago with the release of the district's initial AI guidelines.

This year, following a thorough community engagement process, we developed this draft policy.

The proposed policy does several things.

It provides clear guidelines for safe, responsible, and ethical use, it includes strong student safety protections, clear expectations for academic integrity, and requirements for AI training and literacy for both students and staff.

The policy defines the boundaries that will govern AI usage and the guidelines to find how we will work within those boundaries.

Policy and guidelines are designed to work together.

Right now, BPS is incorporating AI into student learning to enhance students' understanding and critical thinking.

Our goal is to enhance outcomes, not replace human interaction or instruction.

Tonight we asked the school committee to vote in favor of this policy.

And Lisa and Tony are here with us.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

I I just want for the record to clarify that yesterday.

I also was told that it's gonna be included in the QA that it's gonna appear as part of the of the process.

Um I'm gonna leave it there.

I think as we were told in the last meeting, this must be a living document given the nature of what we are treating here, which is uh changing by the minute.

I would really appreciate if you keep an eye on these.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have two questions.

I'm wondering if you could narrate any adjustments or additional um thinking in relation to the policy since the presentation.

If I know that there's been a lot of community engagement, if there was any new information that affected wording of the policy additions, um deletions since the full presentation at a previous meeting.

Yeah, so there's not a lot of change specifically in the wording in this current version.

I think what we're doing is updating the FAQ sheet with things that we have learned that we want to include in the next version of the guidelines.

So we met with the students, for example, from Society Latina, um, and one of the things that we heard there was about when educators are using AI detection tools, for example.

Sometimes those AI tools will say that a student used generative AI to create um a piece of writing from scratch when in fact a student might have been using a translation device that was approved and readily available to that student, but because there was an AI portion on the back end of that, it popped up on the AI detector.

Um and so we want to call that out along with any time that a student is using an online tool that's a part of their accommodation or modification within their IEP.

Um so now that AI is being embedded in so many of the um online tools that we're using.

We need to make sure that our faculty and staff are aware of that.

Um, and so we've inputted that in our FAQ sheet.

Um then additionally, talking about there was a question from the school committee about how we're gonna really meet as a district and what are the metrics that we're gonna look at and and who's gonna take a look at those metrics, and we're gonna develop a steering committee.

Um, one of the things that came up Society Abu Latina was making sure that the student voice was being heard, um, and so we want to make sure that we have students on those committees going forward.

And so we've added that in the FAQ sheet as well.

Thank you.

Um, just extending um member Peralta's point around how this policy intersects with existing policies.

I think it's also just worth underscoring that there are a lot of links and connections to other key documents in these guidelines, particularly the BPSAI guidelines, which give a lot more detail around kind of teaching and learning expectations, with this document being more of like a goals and guard like a guardrails document, or kind of a guiding principles document.

There's also a reference to the code of conduct, or references to Massachusetts State guidelines.

Um, so with you know, just encourage that um lens with a read of understanding this as a key addition to those other um foundational documents.

Um, but my last question is related to how fast this is going to move and appreciate the language about revisiting the policy annually.

Um, but a lot of the work that's going to be most relevant to educators are best practices related to the use of AI both for themselves and for their students.

Um there will be situations that come up next week that have never happened before, and schools will be looking to the central office for guidance around those.

Um I understand the steering committee is kind of an ongoing body to look at the policy, but is there a centralized point of contact for a school leader to be able to call with a new situation as related to teaching and learning or some issue in their building uh and its connection to AI?

That's a really great question.

Um I am that contact for anyone who has questions.

And in addition to the steering committee for using this document in our guidelines to govern the use of AI and decide whether or not we want to pursue new initiatives and how we're going to roll that out thoughtfully, there will be a separate.

Making some of those higher level decisions for the district um and taking recommendations from the steering committee um on how we move this forward so the governing structure will be multi-layered um and making sure that there's voice represented um across levels and I appreciate it that it's both of you in partnership for example like kind of on the tech side and the teaching and learning and would just think about how that continues for those phone calls because I think some of the phone calls will not be related to tech.

They will be related to best practices in terms of classroom use and so it actually might need to be directed to teaching and learning more so and so thinking about what that guidance is for school leaders in terms of how to get um how to get that clarity.

Absolutely thank you.

Yeah I also think uh student conduct will be another through line and so they'll absolutely be this interdepartmental uh overseeing I have I have a question um they have to do with our second language learners and I know that uh this the entire toolkit is in English and um how were there uh the multilinguals and uh the different community with different languages were included as part of knowing the needs and what the the expectations are when it comes to AI.

Yes so when we did our community engagements this spring all of our materials we had translated into the major BPS languages and um we held Zoom that was able to handle translation in in their native language.

And then once we get um this uh policy approved and we have our guidelines updated um those will also be translated into our major languages for our multilingual families is this is gonna be like the this policy gonna be a mandate or is it a choice by school you know uh all the schools in Boston Barbie school will be using this policy or is it something that is only what so if it's yes what about the schools in the community that cannot afford or uh disadvantaged when it comes to internet and all that what happens there?

I mean all of our schools are equipped with network so we have internet at every single site we've equipped every school with one device per student and all of our like all of our teachers, all of our staff um at the school they have internet.

And so I want to be clear this is not a mandate that we are making people use AI.

This is a policy saying we're protecting you with this policy and what we are mandating is that you learn about AI because it's already being used in your life and you're being impacted by this technology and you deserve to understand how.

So probably professional development around um what are the rails um so students teachers and everyone involved that'd be using this will be aware of where to do it what where to go.

Yes.

When anything happens when it comes to AI.

Correct.

Correct and we already we we've heard from the students um many many times at school committee they're really asking for this they they want the guardrails.

They want to become um like they want to understand and become proficient at the components of AI that are gonna make them, you know, an ethical user of it, a responsible user of it, um, and they're really not getting that anywhere else.

And so that's why, much like education in general, it's incumbent on us to bring that to them.

And I think that's they've done an excellent job doing that.

Yeah.

I think in addition also that training is going to be made available to all of us because many of us have very little limited understanding as well, so that we'll be able to um participate first in the you know, personal online training that is provided to district staff, and then in addition, there is other training once we get that foundational piece.

So I feel it's just as important that we understand what it is we have a policy for and understanding what is going on in our schools, making sure everybody, yeah, including ourselves.

Yes, absolutely.

And Chair, I'm sorry, just that made me think about one other piece too.

When we're thinking about professional learning for students around use and being judicious around that use, I think building in um and underscoring when not using um, when not using AI is uh more appropriate, um, some of the disproportionate use by demographic groups that's coming out uh in terms of research in terms of overuse and over-reliance on AI to complete assignments, um, particularly for populations of color, I think is is also really important, and if there's some way to also include um the impact on the environment, um on and for things like data centers, etc.

Um, that all go into students' understanding of responsible use um and being um really um equipped and informed consumers of what's available to them.

Okay, so okay.

All right, then I will now entertain a motion to approve the artificial intelligence policy as presented.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Ms.

Privax, will you please call?

Thank you, Chair.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Peralta?

Yes, Miss Blanco Garcia, Miss Torres?

Yes, Mr.

Tran.

Yes, Miss Garrett, yes, Miss Robinson.

Yes.

The policy is approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nice job.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Our final vote tonight is the approval of the 2026 policy to advance academic excellence and eliminate opportunity and achievement gaps as presented at the April 15th meeting.

I want to invite the superintendent to give following following remarks, final sorry, final remarks.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, so as we presented on April 15th, the intent of the opportunity achievement gaps policy is to close opportunity and achievement gaps for every single student in the district with a focus on groups that have been historically marginalized and ensure they have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

After nearly a decade since the policy was updated, delayed in part to the pandemic, we ask the committee to approve this new policy.

Dr.

Colin Rose, members of my team and the OAG task force that guides the district's work are working to seamlessly align the goals of the policy and the strategic goals of the district.

There's several members of the task force in attendance tonight and joining us online for tonight's vote.

I want to acknowledge them and ask them to stand so they can be recognized for their great work.

As a district, my team and I see this policy as incredibly thorough and critical, North Star for the goals we set in the work we do now and in the years to come.

So with this, uh, turn back to chair.

Okay.

So I'm now op detained questions, comments.

I just I just want to say you are a beautiful sight to see.

Thank you so much.

I trust you as very intelligent and capable people.

You brought us here.

Now let's help help us to implement this policy and not come back in 10 years and say we gotta do it again because we are basically in the same place.

I trust you.

Thank you.

Um just also want to express appreciation for um the thoughtfulness and work that goes into this set of goals and objectives and the collaborative nature of um you know key invested constituents will move this forward both in and out of the district.

Um I would um love if a little bit of narration in terms of what the expected like crosswalk or relation between the forthcoming strategic plan and what we're voting on this evening will how they live together um both in relation to like will all of these things literally show up in the the plan will the plan be in service of these um will kind of the the measures by which we update our success be reflective in both um just any forecasting um around what to expect um with that would be helpful thank you as as much as we can I believe that our strategic plan should be in service of this policy and aligned to this policy right so that the metrics and I know we've had conversations around school committee metrics but also the KPIs for for the uh strategic plan aligned to the values and the the things that are being asked to be measured in the OEG policy.

So I mean the experience of having implemented a OEG policy with a strategic plan on the other side uh and having people serve two major documents uh in the district and focus is what I think we want to avoid.

Um and so as much as we can uh we need to outline exactly what we're doing as a district in our strategic plan and make specific crosswalk to uh the policy and speak to it.

That will really be the ongoing work of the task force is to really monitor sort of working with uh Dr.

Rose as he's working with his district working groups um to develop the actual goals, the SMART goals that will be in the strategic plan and the implementation component and to make sure they they crosswalk with the policy.

So we'll be looking at the KPIs, we'll be looking at you know lots of different things and reporting back to the school committee on a regular basis.

Yeah, the only other thing is, you know, I know the school committee is working on kind of a cadence of where you want to see certain topics, and we've been talking about how we could use the OEG policy um and task force meetings to deepen some of those conversations because again the stuff that we do as a district and we're prioritizing should be aligned to this policy.

So how do we do deeper dives in those task force meeting where there's more dialogue and back and forth with some experts uh to really uh take a look at what we're doing and and the data that's connected to it.

Um I had an opportunity to uh observe uh you guys at work uh uh two weeks ago or three weeks, I don't remember.

I I would have to say that you comprised uh a group of well educated, well learned, and very much uh committed to uh the interest of the students.

I I I and I do see that during that that um meeting.

The only thing the only thing that I I'm I'm thinking that you are facing pretty difficult difficulty right now, a pretty uh uh uh difficult situation is uh there are two of us who are before you for uh a vote.

I wish uh that I I I don't know what happened, but you know, I wish that both of us, I not me, but you know, both of above of my committee members can join you and assist you, you know, in your work, given the fact that um Dr.

Alkins has been there for quite a while.

I uh I I I I know he he he's missing his friends but uh if you have to make a decision on uh on the two candidates uh please be discreet it's it's it's not going to be easy but and one more thing I like to uh remind you I I know that the policy is somehow uh a mirror art or for lack of better term is mere imaging our uh strategic plan but then again during the school year during our performance of our duty of course there are times that we lose sight of our uh of our strategic plan and you are the people that could hit on our hand and make sure that we stay in line and stay you know within the the w with the the boundary of of of the road okay so uh please keep that in mind because I am a very forgetful guy so please make sure that I I get hit in the head uh as frequently as possible.

Thank you.

I have one one question for you guys.

On goal so I was reading the goals and objectives like I was told and on now goal three advanced academic excellence contain eleven objectives.

How are we prioritizing how we attack this which goes first how are we doing that?

As a task force how would you go about doing that?

I I think that um you know goal three which is specifically on academics is really looking at um all of the levers that the district is already focused on but we want that laser focus to really continue.

Um I think one of the the ways that it crosswalks with the strategic plan already is the literacy goal is really elevated the equitable literacy is elevated in the strategic plan um as a as a starting point as well as um inclusion we've heard a lot tonight about inclusion and the need to get that right and I think that's um reflected as well.

So all of those things are happening you have an amazing superintendent skipper has an amazing team that's hard at work and so all of those things are moving along all eleven of those goals but I think that that's um literacy is where it all starts um including numeracy right because you need to computation is also part of literacy and making sure young people across all content areas and grade levels are reading at or above grade level it's really important.

Yeah and all that those eleven objectives should be connected to what what we say is high quality instruction.

But there will be criteria as too when we do meet or I mean to me everything is in in implement uh it gets spelled out in implementation right so what are we focusing on?

What are our strategies and what are we working on so sorry and so like one of the ways that the data will sort of inform the uh the task force will be able to come back and make some very more specific recommendations I think to what you're talking about and then for us I think where the rubber meets the road really will come down to budget season like in particular.

So like when we're really thinking about not wanting to in a in a year like we just saw um wanting to you know mitigate learning loss for example um and maintain all of the gains that we made across like the district um so it will really depend on um that's like one where where we have the lever as a school committee to really think about you.

Yeah and I would just add that I think this is the deep work that the working groups and the uh the deputies and the chiefs are working on right now, will be throughout the summer, which is to really look to make sure that we've accounted for each of the goals, where they are, the baselines, and then the disaggregation of them, which I think is incredibly important um that hasn't been done consistently in the district.

So, and I think that's something that school committee has also asked for as well, relative to you know its measures.

So I think there's really great alignment, and I can just say from my perspective, that's half the key to success, is having that alignment, having a strong implementation plan and having a task force that's willing to walk with us in that accountability.

Yeah, all I can say to you is um congratulations.

Um 20 years ago plus this work began, um, and this district has always given lip service to the fact that this was important work.

What I feel is different now that there is a partnership between the task force and the district to move the work forward.

Um, it's the best shot that we will have ever had.

Um, to you, ILA, thank you for being the fearless, consistent leader for the past decade, um, through thick and thin and through all the other iterations of many people.

There are many folks sitting in this room that have been on this journey for at least the past 11 years, 12 years.

Some people who are at the reiterated um task force, but also to the energy and excitement that the new members bring and returning bring.

Um that as we look at the strategic plan and this um the OAG work together, um, as I say, it's it feels like the best shot that we will have to actually begin to make some real movement on the um strategic plan.

So, so thank you.

And I know the work is just beginning, certainly not over.

This is just turning the first page in it.

So let's get on with the vote for tonight.

Thank you, Chair Robinson.

I just want to just take a moment to just thank and acknowledge you for being the co-chair working with me on the task force for those 10 years.

Um, and just you know what a testament that is to your strength to be chairing the school committee, but also serving as co-chair of the task force because that work was deeply important to you and important to the district.

So thank you.

Yeah, some of the most important work we continuously say we need to do in this district, and now hopefully we'll be able to move forward on it.

So I will now entertain a motion to approve the 2026 policy to advance academic excellence and eliminate opportunity and achievement gaps as presented.

I'm going to read the motion so it's clear what we're voting on.

Ordered that the Boston School Committee hereby approves the opportunity and achievement gaps, OAG policy, goals and objectives outlined in the attached document.

This approval applies only to the goals and objectives and does not constitute approval of any accompanying recommendations.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Ms.

Professor, will you please call the role?

Thank you, Chair.

Dr.

Alkins?

Yes.

Mr.

Peranta.

With a lot of hope and excitement, yes.

Yes.

Mr.

Trend.

You guys are thorough.

You hold the hammer.

That hammer away the lip service.

Yes.

Miss Garrett.

Yes.

Miss Robinson.

Yes.

The OG policy is approved.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

We will now transition to reports.

And again, since we have a full agenda tonight, I'd like to ask all presenters to please be mindful of their allotted times.

Our first presentation tonight is the Horace Man charter governing updates.

Let's try to keep this presentation to under 12 minutes.

I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters.

And I want to invite the superintendent to give introductory remarks.

Wonderful.

So the Horse Man Charter Schools require updates to their charter documents as part of the standard renewal process, and occasionally when changes are made to the technical guidance from the state.

The reason these documents are coming forward now, rather than with the typical charter renewal timelines, is because they are either one-offs like the expulsion policy, or they weren't ready in time for those presentations like the accountability policy.

So this language gives a little bit of that flexibility.

These charter governing updates require school committee approval as well as approval from the charter schools boards of trustees, the Boston Teachers Union, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

There are several items before you tonight.

There's representatives, we have a SCARCAST here tonight.

And Mike Bauer, Chief Operating Officer of UP.

Education Network.

Oh, he's joining us remotely.

And a representation from our Office of Legal, who is our Office of Legal Advisor, Lorenzo Di Silvio.

So with that, I will turn it to Anne.

Good evening, Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and members of the school committee.

This evening, I am presenting governance documents from our five Horace Man Charter Schools for your approval.

I will begin with a brief overview of Horace Man Charter Schools, and then I will turn it over to my esteemed colleagues.

As Superintendent Skipper mentioned, there are many members of BPS staff and Horeman Charters here tonight to answer any questions you may have.

Horace Man Charter Schools were created by the Massachusetts legislature in 1997 as a middle path between traditional district schools and independent commonwealth charter schools, offering charter-like autonomy while maintaining union membership and a close district partnership.

All five operating Horceman charters in Massachusetts are located in Boston.

Teachers at all five schools remain BTU members, accrue seniority, and are paid according to the BTU salary schedule.

Autonomies of a Horseman Charter School include the following.

Horseman operating funds come directly from the district where the school is located.

To the extent provided by the terms of their charters, Horseman Charter Schools may be exempt from local collective bargaining agreements and all union and school committee work rules, provided that employees of the school will continue to be members of the local collective bargaining unit to accrue seniority and to receive at minimum the salary and benefits established by the local collective bargaining agreement.

The documents before you tonight fall into four categories: MOUs with BPS and the BTU, accountability plans, mission statement and enrollment policy updates, and expulsion policies.

On the expulsion policies specifically, DESI recently updated its requirements, and all five schools are required to revise their policies accordingly.

All documents before you have received provisional DESI approval where required.

Boston Public Schools, as I said, has five Horace Man charter schools.

Three are secondary schools, two are elementary schools.

There are two relevant subtypes of course manned charter Schools.

Type one schools, Boston A and Evening Academy, and the Edward M.

Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, require approval from both the BTU and the School Committee.

Type three schools, Boston Green Academy, Bradley Street Neighborhood Charter School, and UP Academy Dorchester, require school committee approval with good faith BTU negotiation.

The demographics of each school are listed here, and this information was also in your cover memo.

All of these schools have required some document updates this year.

In summary, the specific documents you have before you this evening are as follows.

For EMK, you have an accountability plan and an updated application enrollment policy.

For BDEA, a revised mission statement and accountability plan.

For both BDEA and EMK jointly, MOUA with BPS, and for BDEA, MOU B with the BTU.

And finally, for BDEA, EMK, Boston Green, and UP Academy Dorchester updated expulsion policies.

Please note that Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School submitted its comparable documents alongside its charter renewal presentation on May 6th, and you voted on these documents earlier in the evening.

I now pass off the presentation to Dr.

Karen Walker Gregory.

Good evening, everyone.

Just wanted to summarize the our accountability plan.

Every five years, we are required to submit a five-year accountability plan, and we're actually in our third year of it, but we needed final approval from DESE Board of Trustees, and now requires obviously the school committee approval.

The three main elements are positive school culture, health careers preparation, and college readiness.

When we talk about positive school culture, we're really looking at positive responses on panorama climate survey, and we're really looking at increasing engagement in extracurricular activities.

When we talk about health careers preparation, we're looking in our lovely CNA and EMT credentials that our students are earning each and every year, and looking at reflections on engagement with health careers exposure activities in collaboration with Mass General Brigham.

When we talk about college readiness, we're looking at 75% of the seniors enroll in and pass at least one AP class, dual enrollment early college or DESI Advanced Course.

We're looking also at 95% of all graduates admitted to a two or four-year college, and we're using MAP testing to measure growth in ELA and math.

Those are the three big bullet points around accountability.

The next one is charter enrollment charter amendment around enrollment policy and application.

And this is just really a request that was DESI asked us to update our enrollment and application so that we're in alignment with their guidelines.

So now it aligns EMK practices with more recent detailed DESI guidance.

It incorporates our approved enrollment maximum and our expanded CTE.

It also clarifies and accepts new students into grades 9 and 10, reflects a shift from paper applications to online application.

It establishes clear non-discrimination and privacy protection policies and simplifies application questions.

It now establishes enrollment preferences for siblings of VMK students and BPS students.

And we also continue with a lottery process.

Now we're going to move on to Boston David.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to present.

It's been a while since BDA has been here, and there's a lot of new members, so we welcome the opportunity to introduce our school to the school committee.

Our first document is the mission statement.

The mission statement defines the school's role and purpose within the Boston Public School landscape.

Back in 2018, we engaged our community to revise the statement as part of our strategic planning process.

These revisions were made through a collaborative process that included input from students, staff, and the board of trustees.

Perhaps the students were most articulate about how they wanted this mission statement to be changed.

The revisions are intentionally removing deficit-based language and center student voice and experience.

And then excuse me, the next document is our accountability plan, similar to EMK.

This was created in 2032.

And this one is significantly different than EMK's because we are an alternative school.

In 2324, DESI established new alternative ed school guidelines in partnership with Alt Ed leaders and researchers.

Unique to Alt-Ed, we were asked to group our students into engagement phases, and I think this is a pretty unique feature of our accountability plan.

Students were grouped based on historical data and trends that we saw in our data, but they're grouped by connected, partially connected, and minimally connected, and we then set up goals for students that fell into those three categories.

Our accountability plan includes goals for each of our key design principals.

So we have academic growth and achievement, and that is where the engagement levels are specific goals, excuse me, for students in those in those phases, and then we have postgraduate readiness goals and social emotional development goals.

This accountability plan now serves as our strategic plan.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Bettina Toner.

I'm a partner at the law firm of Croquitas and Blue Steam.

KB is proud to represent four of the five Horace Mann charter schools, EMK, BDEA, Austin Green Academy, and UP Academy Dorchester.

I'm going to provide a brief background on EMK and BDEA's recent updates to their memoranda of understanding with BPS and BDEA's MOU with the BTU.

I will also briefly describe the basis for recent updates to the expulsion policies for EMK, BDEA, BGEA, and UAD.

First, a bit of background on the memoranda of understanding or MOUAs.

As you saw on a previous slide, in accordance with the Massachusetts Charter School statute, Horace Mann charter schools have an MOUA with BPS that defines services and facilities to be provided by the district to charter to Horace Mann charter schools and which states the funding of the charter school by the district.

And also certain Horace Mann charter schools, as you heard, also have what's called an MOUB with the local collective bargaining units, which describe any waivers to applicable collective bargaining agreements.

This slide provides at a high level the key provisions that each MOU has historically included.

So it's a bit of a laundry list, I won't read it, it's in the materials.

The items highlighted on the list are the ones that have most significantly have been most significantly updated in the most in the current versions that are before you.

So first, as part of the recent renegotiations regarding EMK and BDEA's MOUA, those schools have made a couple of notable updates from the last versions of those MOUs.

First, with respect to EMK and BDEAs, MOUAs, BPS and BPS and EMK and BDEA have made changes to their current MOUAs to better distinguish between certain discretionary and non-discretionary services provided by BPS to each Horace Mann charter school.

Discretionary services are those services that are provided, those services that the Horace Man's charter school can elect to receive from BPS and pay BPS for.

The non-discretionary services are those services provided by BPS to the Horace Man Charter School at no extra cost to the school to the charter school and are generally services that are provided to other BPS schools.

Past practice was for certain certain services, such as the use of BPS's Office of Legal Advisor, Office for Civil Rights, and certain special education and student discipline services to be provided to BDEA and EMK by BPS as essentially non-discretionary services, as they would be provided to other BPS schools.

The new MOUA for EMK and BDEA shifts the designation of those services to the discretionary bucket, so to speak, and adds provision for BPS funding for EMK and BDEA to pay for certain independent legal counsel for certain matters.

This is a positive addition for BDA and EMK and BPS in that it helps to avoid legal risk for BPS and the Horace Man charter schools when those schools or those entities have different or conflicting interests.

This was a request that was made by BPS legal, and it makes a lot of sense.

For example, there can be situations, for example, in a special education matter where a parent is maybe looking for an out-of-district placement.

In that situation, the Horace Man Charter School and BPS may have conflicting interests, and so it doesn't wouldn't make sense for BPS legal to represent both BPS and the charter school.

So it's a great, it's a great change to the benefit of all parties.

So that was one major change.

The other change is with respect to indemnification.

The previous MOUA had a modest indemnification provision, a broader indemnification provision was added in favor of BPS to address certain to address concern expressed by BPS legal that there were certain risk to BPS in providing discretionary and non-discretionary services to the Horceman charter schools.

So that the significant change with respect to indemnification is a broader indemnification in favor of BPS.

It's not a mutual indemnification, it's in the Horeman Charter Schools indemnifying BPS.

So that was the other major change.

Very quickly with respect to the MOUB between EMK and BTU EM between BDEA and the BTU.

The one significant update was a change to the dispute resolution process.

That change was made in response to a request from BTU membership to allow members to access the arbitration process in the BTU CBA.

So that change was added to the BDEA MOUB to include that option.

With respect to the MOUB for EMK, the parties have been engaging in good faith negotiations with respect to that MOUB, but were not able to finalize that agreement prior to this evening's meeting.

And then very quickly, if I may, I did just want to mention the expulsion policy for EMK, BDEA, UA UAD, and Boston Green Academy, by law, long-term, as folks probably know, long-term expense expulsions, long-term suspensions and expulsions for certain serious violations of the student code of conduct, permit an appeal to the superintendent.

As mentioned earlier, I think in another presentation, perhaps, EMK BD or all of the charter schools, the Horceman charter schools, adopt the BPS Code of Conduct.

In the past, some of the larger Massachusetts public school districts had a practice of allowing the superintendent to delegate the hearing of suspension, long-term suspensions and expulsions to a designee.

There was a lawsuit that was decided by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2020, whereby the SJC said no, the statute says that the superintendent actually needs to hear those appeals.

So DESI has recent recently requested that all of this the Horace Man Charter Schools update their expulsion policies to reflect that change in the law or to that clarification in the law.

So that's the change to the expulsion policies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not gonna hear from Green Academy.

Is there anything else from PGA?

No.

Good.

Alright.

Okay.

So then I'll now open it up to questions, comments.

Appreciation for the school teams, particularly appreciate the specificity of your school improvement goals as aligned by your as aligned to your key mission with targets and growth goals that reflect both academic growth and holistic indicators of student perception data, school culture.

I think these are some of the things that we've been talking about as a committee to have macro at the district level for multi-year growth, and so it's just helpful to see how you all are measuring uh growth and success at the school level.

I will just say this has been a lot of work to align, but I think to all the positive.

These schools are our schools.

Um, you know, they they are independent and yet they are very much a vibrant part of the PPS.

Our students see that, our parents see that.

So I think there's just great alignment in the document.

Um, so I want to I want to thank all of our leaders for that and the attorneys, right?

And uh Lorenzo for your work on this as well.

Great.

Yes, great.

Thank you all, and we will vote on these items at the July 8th meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, our next presentation tonight is an update from the Boston Special Education Parent Advisory Council SPEDPAC.

Let's aim to keep this presentation to under 20 minutes.

Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for introductory remarks and invite Edith Basil and the parents who are presenting with her to come forward.

Yep.

And Edith, was I right before eight o'clock, right?

748.

Um so tonight, Boston Special Education Parent Advisory Council or SPEDPAC, Chair Edith Brazil is with us tonight, and we'll provide an update on SPEDPAC's work.

SPEDPAC empowers our BPS parents and caregivers by providing support in education.

Thank you to Chair Brazil and check thank you to the SPEDPAC executive board for their advocacy on behalf of our district students and their families.

At this point, I will turn it over to Chair Pazef.

Thank you so much, Superintendent.

Good evening, Chair Robinson, Vice Chair Scarrett, members of the school committee, district leadership, families, and community members.

My name is Edith Gazill, Chair of SPEDPAC.

Hi, my name is Shanique Marino.

I'm Vice Chair of SPEDPAC.

I want to acknowledge first of all, as we give our presentation, the partnership with Chief K-Seal in the Office of Specialized Services Team over the past year.

And I really want to give a special shout out to those who work behind the scenes, particularly Melissa Mendoza Patterson and Oileen Griffin, who really are the muscle behind all of the work that we do and often do not get acknowledgement.

So tonight, the concerns highlighted in tonight's presentation extend beyond any single um particular highlighted event that has happened over the years.

The concerns extend beyond any single department and require leadership vision and accountability at the district level to develop and sustain the systems necessary for meaningful and lasting change.

Tonight's presentation reflects what families have been telling us throughout the year and how those experiences align with the district's own data.

These themes do not emerge from a single meeting or event.

They emerge through family conversations, support requests, public testimony, community events, district engagement sessions, SPEDPAC general meetings, and our own inclusion town hall, which I'm thankful that Chair Robinson attended, which was held last month.

What stood out was not what families were saying, but how many families were saying the same thing across schools, neighborhoods, language backgrounds, and lived experiences, the same concerns surfaced repeatedly.

Those concerns became SPEDPAC priorities because they emerged consistently across the district and often mirrored patterns reflected in the district's own data.

At their core, these concerns are about equity, access, literacy, things we heard tonight, inclusion outcomes, accountability, and trust.

For students facing the greatest barriers, families want to know that their children are receiving the services, supports, and opportunities they need to succeed.

Family feedback is one of the district's most valuable sources of information and an opportunity for continuous improvement.

Tonight's presentation candidly reflects what families have been telling us, what the district's own data is telling us, and what both suggest about the work that remains ahead.

A strong thing we heard throughout the year was the need for more responsive partnership between families in the district.

Schools have children for six hours a day.

Families have them for the other 18 hours plus weekends, summers and across a lifetime.

Parents understand their children's strengths, challenges, histories, cultures, languages, and lived experience in ways that no report or data dashboard can fully capture.

Many families describe navigating the district system of opening tickets to solve problems.

Rather than being connected to someone empowered to resolve concerns, families often feel sentenced and maids that delay solutions and allow concerns to escalate.

At its core, this is an inequity issue.

A responsive system should work for each family, not just those with time, resources, advocates for attorneys needed to navigate complex systems.

Families repeatedly told us that access to support should not depend on who knows how to escalate concerns.

These concerns surface across autism programming, school closures, inclusion, transportation, placement, school assignments, ESY, and district planning.

Families noted that system failures often fall the hardest on students with disabilities and racial and linguistic groups that already face the greatest barriers.

Before making decisions, families want the district to ask who is impacted, who benefits, who bears the burden, who has been engaged, whose voices are missing.

Families emphasize that trust is not built through engagement alone.

Trust is built when families are authentic partners and see their voices reflected in decisions.

Implementation and student outcomes.

Families consistently state they want students to learn alongside peers in environments where they feel welcomed, supported, challenged, safe, and experience a genuine sense of belonging.

They want inclusion that provides access not only to classrooms but also to services, interventions, and opportunities that set students up for success.

Families want the district to ask and answer.

What makes inclusion successful?

What are some schools more successful at?

Why are some schools more successful than others?

How is success measured?

Why are Henderson and Mary Lyon 9 through 12, the district's only high school inclusion pathways being closed rather than strengthened?

Families express concern that school closures like Henderson Opera represents the loss of institutional knowledge.

More importantly, families ask: how does the district learn from success instead of repeating cycles of dismantling, reinventing, and rebuilding?

Inclusion is not new to BPS.

For decades, school leaders and educators across the district developed expertise in building successful inclusive models.

Inclusion depends on strong leadership, but school leaders cannot build inclusive schools without district support, staffing, resources, and clear expectations.

Inclusion is built, not assigned.

It requires infrastructure, teachers, staffing, coaching, mentoring, collaborative planning, professional learning.

When those investments are reduced, inclusion weakens.

When inclusion weakens, outcomes suffer.

Families express concern that while staffing expertise and institutional knowledge are being reduced, district spending on contracted services and out-of-district tuition continues to grow.

The question families are asking is whether resources are being invested in building district capacity instead of increasing dependence on services provided elsewhere.

The cost of underinvesting in inclusion is not savings.

It is a lost opportunity to strengthen the district's ability to serve students successfully in the district while shifting costs to outsourcing, litigation, and out of district placements.

Families consistently pointed out that BPS has decades of experience educating students with disabilities and asked, What have we learned?

What has worked?

What should we be, what should be replicated?

What mistakes should not be repeated?

The district already has successfully successful schools, experienced educators, family expertise, audits, evaluations, and years of data.

Yet long-standing challenges continue to persist despite decades of study, planning, and recommendations.

For this past year, for the past year, BPS has conducted an independent autism audit.

Families welcome the effort but asked a simple question why hasn't family experience and expertise in informed this work?

And how will families be engaged before recommendations are finalized?

Implemented, monitored, and measured.

Families raise similar concerns regarding literacy.

Families are less interested in newly named initiatives and more interested in results.

They want effective curriculum, strong instruction and interventions to improve literacy outcomes.

Families want students to become stronger readers, stronger writers, and should successful learners.

Families emphasize that institutional learning must lead to better curriculum, stronger instruction, effective interventions, accountability, without change, and sustained progress.

District data show that one-third of students receiving special education services remain in substantially separate placements.

Although black students only comprise 29% of district enrollment, they are the only group disproportionately represented in substantially separate placements.

But the disparities do not stop there.

Black students are disproportionately represented across multiple indicators, including identification and categories such as emotional impairment and intellectual impairment, the highest rates of suspensions, physical restraint, and seclusion.

For example, while black students comprise only 29% of the district enrollment, they account for 51% of all of the seclusion incidents.

Given the rising mental health needs across Boston, families question why black students remain disproportionately concentrated in the district's most restrictive therapeutic settings, including substantially separate EI programs and the Malvin H.

King Academies.

Families see these patterns not as isolated outcomes, but as evidence of unmet needs, missed opportunities for intervention, and the district's failure to deliver the transformational changes long promised at the Mel King Academies.

Melvin H.

King was a civil rights leader, community organizer, champion of educational equity, and fierce advocate against displacement, gentrification, exclusion, and systemic injustice.

Imagine this.

Three therapeutic school sites in the South End in Fenway serving primarily black boys.

Schools named after a man who spent his life fighting displacement, gentrification, and racial inequity, buildings in chronic disrepair with rotting bars on the windows, while new schools rise across the city.

BPS quietly closed two of the Mel King schools located in Fenway's most valuable real estate without meaningful family and community engagement.

BPS notified virtually all Mel King Academy black educators that they will be displaced.

Sound familiar?

This is not the vision of equity Mel King fought for.

It is the very inequity he fought against and a reminder that displacement of black educators continues in BPS with the racial equity planning tool or without the racial equity planning tool or racial equity checkpoints.

Families emphasize that equity must be examined through the intersection of race, disability, and language.

Families consistently raised concerns about the supports for multilingual learners with disabilities and the need for ESL, SEI, and native language instruction in special education services, working together rather than operating in separate systems.

Families caution the district not to conflate inclusion with immersion.

Inclusion means students receive appropriate ESL, SEI, native instruction, specialized instruction, and accommodations necessary to access learning.

Placing multilingual learners with disabilities in settings without those supports is not inclusion.

It is immersion.

Families also express concern that language differences may sometimes be mistaken for disabilities, and disabilities may sometimes be overlooked because of language differences.

District data raise concerns about both under identification and over-identification of multilingual learners, underscoring the importance of culturally and linguistically responsive evaluations conducted by highly skilled bilingual and bicultural assessors and service providers.

Families raise concerns about the need for more bilingual educators, bilingual service providers, and staff who understand students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Most importantly, families stressed that multilingual learners with disabilities should not have to choose between native language supports, English language acquisition supports, and disability supports.

They are entitled to all three.

One-third of students receiving special education services are multilingual learners.

Families believe staffing expertise and resources should reflect that reality.

Rather than reducing bilingual staff, families want BPS to strengthen its capacity to serve multilingual learners with disabilities and ensure schools have the staffing and expertise necessary for students to thrive.

Equity requires ensuring that language is never a barrier to identification, access, literacy, belonging, opportunity, student outcomes, or long-term success.

Families repeatedly raise concerns regarding access to appropriate artism services.

Literacy intervision, specialized instruction, transition planning.

Access to culturally responsive evaluations emerged as reoccurring themes throughout the year.

Families emphasize that access should not depend upon extraordinary advocacy.

Students should not have to wait extended periods for evaluation services, interventions, or appropriate placements.

Literacy emerged as one of the most urgent concerns.

Families repeatedly emphasize that strong literacy instruction is funded foundational to all students' success and expressed concern that current approaches are not producing the outcomes students deserve, particularly for students with disabilities and students educated in substantially separate settings.

Families also question how recommendations emerging from the autism audit will be implemented, monitored, and communicated with families.

Families repeatedly emphasize that access alone is not the goal.

The goal is improved outcomes.

Families want to know whether students are learning, progressing, becoming more independent, developing literacy, achieving their goals, and preparing for successful futures.

This happens when dollars are allowed to improve practice through consistent professional learning and investments in supporting schools, principals, and teachers with adequate staffing resources, technology, professional development, coaching, and mentoring.

This means building a strong workforce in the district, not outsourcing services and using funding on costly litigation and outside placements because BPS programs cannot serve the need of the majority of students within the district.

Families want solutions when students are not making progress and greater transparency about the decisions, how decisions are made when students when supports are not working that lead to stronger and more successful industries programs.

Families consistent consistently connected student outcomes to people, whether discussing inclusion, literacy, autism services, multilingual learner supports, transportation, or program quality, conversations repeatedly return to the same themes: teacher development, coaching, mentoring, collaborative planning, staff retention, and specialized expertise.

Families describe staff and shortages in turnover not as operational challenges but as student outcome issues.

When schools lose a dynamic multicultural workforce of experienced educators with specialized expertise, students lose continuity, support, and opportunities to succeed.

Families also emphasize the importance of educator diversity and express a strong desire to recruit, retain, and support more black educators, bilingual educators, and service providers who reflect the racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity of BPS students.

Research consistently demonstrates that students benefit when they see themselves reflected in the educator workforce and when educators understand the communities they serve, the communities they served.

Families repeatedly pointed out that successful schools are built through intentional sustained investment in educators, strong staff and pipelines, professional learning, coaching, mentoring, and collaborative planning.

Families are concerned about investment in stable teaching force necessary to sustain and expand successful practices across the district versus funds for use for outsourcing.

Families repeatedly emphasize that when budgets are tight, the last cuts should be made to the people closest to the students because staffing decisions are ultimately student support decisions, student opportunity decisions, and student outcome decisions.

Perhaps the strongest emotional theme that emerged throughout the year was urgency.

Families understand that systems change takes time, but the pace of change must align with the pace of childhood development because students experience educational opportunities in real time and critical developmental periods only once.

Families conveyed that delayed services, delayed interventions, delayed staffing decisions, delayed transportation solutions, delayed implementation, delayed accountability, and delayed action can have lifelong consequences.

The concern is that BPS often focuses on process when opportunities for action already exist.

One family member captured this concern by noting that systems may operate on strategic plans, but childhood operates on developmental timelines.

Students cannot be put on hold while systems try to catch up.

Students experience each stage of development only once.

That is why urgency emerged as such a powerful theme throughout the year.

Families emphasize that urgency must also be reflected in budget decisions, staffing, and school level supports.

Inclusion cannot succeed without fully staffed schools, strong classroom supports, clear expectations, and consistent implementation.

Families urge the district to build on what it already knows works, strengthen successful practices without with intention and evidence, invest in district capacity, and reduce reliance on outsourcing in out-of-district placements by ensuring every school has the infrastructure necessary to support students successfully.

Our last slide is our six recommendations.

I'm sorry, we overtime that we have, which we think is the most powerful and important part of our presentation, because this is not just about assessing what the concerns are, but it's making recommendations in terms of you know what where do we go from here?

What is what are the possibilities and opportunities?

So these six recommendations reflect what families have consistently communicated throughout the year.

Families are asking not simply for engagement, but rather meaningful partnership as co-creators in decision making.

They also want transparency, accountability in a district that responds to concerns before they escalate.

Two families are calling for meaningful engagement and autism programming and implementation, stronger literacy, multilingual learner supports, and intentional efforts to address long-standing disparities and disproportionalities affecting.

Can I turn this off black students?

Three, families want a clear definition of inclusion, stronger implementation of inclusive practices, and equity measured not only by access but by outcomes.

Four.

Families want an infrastructure of successful inclusion models that are preserved, strengthened, and scale.

Five families are asking for sustained investment in educator development, coaching, mentoring, staffing, and educated diversity, including targeted efforts to recruit, retain, and support black educators, bilingual educators, literacy specialists, and staff with ex expertise across all disability categories.

Six.

Families want school closures, program design, and system transformation efforts to meaningfully consider educational impact, disability impact, and racial equity impact and community impact.

At the core, these recommendations are about equity, opportunity, accountability, and outcomes for students with disabilities.

In closing, we want you to hear from a student of SECPAC.

This is Elijah.

Good evening.

My name is Elijah and I'm a student at Melvin H King's Health and Academy.

I have dreams and goals for my future.

I passed the MCAS, but I was held back twice during my senior year.

I want to go to college, continue my education and build a successful life.

But like many students, I face challenges.

I'm here because students need more than a place to sit and complete worksheets.

We need meaningful instruction, meaningful support, and adults who listen when we tell them we need to be successful.

I've spent SARMs in classes where I was the only student in the room.

I often felt disconnected from what was happening in class, and I do not feel the work is preparing me for college or my future.

I have told my school team that I do not feel ready to leave school.

I want support that helps me succeed, not just graduate.

I don't want to leave school with a diploma and still feel unprepared for my future.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation, all of you.

Very, very helpful.

I want to open it up to members for questions and comments.

First, uh, just very grateful for the presentation, and to hear um directly the feedback um from families.

And actually, I'm kind of curious uh on a couple of things.

Um, one, if you've heard directly from families or either um BPS staff that have attended about what their particular experience has been with um service mapping and sort of that shift that the district is putting in place, is it working?

Like what are some of the complexities that maybe they've faced with that?

You want to take that question or I can.

I can.

Um, so for parents that are dual language, their the main concern is getting information in their language in their preferred language, whether they're using the app that allows them to talk directly with the teacher and not getting feedback from the teacher, just understanding the curriculum that their child is in and knowing how to get services through the IEP.

Not understanding the IEP and just getting a package that says this is the parents' information isn't enough if I don't speak English.

And the package sometimes does not come in a different language.

So if your child has an IEP and this is your first experience with an IEP and they're not getting their due diligence done on their behalf of their child to understand what they're even signing, some parents are just signing and not understanding that they're not getting their child's needs met, not because they don't want them to, but because it wasn't explained to them.

And when the services are offered, they often aren't people in place that have the correct need or like uh we have TAs helping with ABA students.

ABA students should have ABA staff and it's there's no ABA staff available, so that's a concern right now.

And and I think uh just to add to that, um, you're really asking about accountability and outcomes.

So service mapping really has to do with um, you know, be what what families told us is that they want the district to measure success through outcomes rather than access alone.

So the key question is not whether students receive services, and that's part of service mapping.

How many hours did a student receive speech?

Because that's in the IEP.

And is the speech actually helping them?

Right, but the the key question is whether the services improved outcomes, and that was the key thing that parents focused on.

Families want outcomes measured tied to literacy, inclusion, belonging, graduation, post-secondary readiness, independence, and long-term success.

So you heard from one of our students who's also a spread pack member.

Uh what we see service mapping as the floor of of compliance, what we are talking about is the ceiling of best practices.

So, how do we maximize those best practices to ensure that when the student receives, for example, that 30-minute block of whatever instruction that it results in outcomes and and that's really the shift in saying that we want best practices and scale those practices that we know result in outcomes.

No, I agree with you.

I think that's why I'm particularly asking about it because I agree.

Outputs are the is the currency that we're really talking about.

And to get there, we also need to understand are the right inputs in place, right?

And so, and actually in and what you said was also very interesting to me just to hear in it a teacher or a teacher not giving feedback.

Sometimes the teacher isn't equipped to give feedback because they don't know the the child's history, but that that's the disconnect.

The conversations aren't being had.

There's a lot of students that come to me and they're getting certificates of completion and they want to continue their education.

They shouldn't be going through a process where they weren't taught to read in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, but so by the time they're in ninth and tenth grade, their reading level isn't at the level where they can take the MCAS.

I know that since changed, but at one point it was you need to pass the MCAS, and a lot of kids got certificates of completion and now they're only able to get jobs, and that's not all they want.

And then you have a child here saying the same thing.

I I'm I'm choosing to stay back so I can be more educated.

When that should have happened during the 12 years, they were in school.

I I have, yeah.

Okay.

So um I uh thank you for the presentation.

Um I was wondering about um how families are notified.

I know we you talked about IEPs and uh how are families notified in a when a child is coming up for an IEP at the school have they spoken to you guys about that are they notified on time so they'll be present so you're really talking about is the district committing to timelines for evaluations for IEP team meetings I know that with early intervention there's a lot of diligent work to make sure that students are captured by the time they are they're turning three years old because that's when they transition into BPS and they get their services and on Monday we met with OSS and we we met the person that is doing that work.

Um BPS in the past has struggled with that I think there has been progress in that area so we always like to highlight the the good things that are happening as well as the challenges.

In terms of assessment completion uh yes so there are some families that have talked about their assessments may not be completed on time and part of it is what we when we talked about the itinerant services so there's a lot of outsourcing of related service providers like speech OT ABA um what we are saying that as the district moves towards inclusion developing pathways and being creative about that so that you have in district staff planning inclusion requires planning and it requires planning of all team members and if someone is contracted they come and provide a service and they leave and so they're not available to see how the student functions say in an after school program or a before school meeting because contracted services are blocks of time that are dedicated to payment and it's a contractual a arrangement what we are saying if BPS is building and scaling inclusion there has to be investment in teachers in the district who can co-plan who can problem solve who see students across multiple settings throughout the day and really get to know the student because that's what builds belonging this and understanding the whole child.

I would just add to that that one parent I met with had a child that needed ABA the school didn't have that available they got an email saying when they did have someone that met those requirements they would put that in place.

Luckily her child's teacher has an autistic child so because of that you know the wraparound was there because of that teacher but if that teacher didn't have that support from being a parent that child would have fallen between the cracks and reading is a struggle for the regular child whatever regular may be so if a child has disabilities and they're not able to read at grade level and they continue to be moved to the next grade they max out when they get this fourth grade not even having a third or fourth grade reading level and that's a concern for parents because the reality is the average kid in Boston right now can't read on grade level and that's that's a fact.

And I'm a parent of deaf adult kids now luckily they had good teachers I mean teachers are great in Boston but if they don't have the services this is where we're at and it's this it's a continuous pattern of reading inclusion.

So like Edith said having to having someone that I can go to that I remember that I can connect with kids need that connection because if it's a new person every time they're not gonna want to adapt to a new person so then they you they lose that continuous support and they fall through because they either don't come to school with it with high school kids they won't show up anymore.

Like I've taught at some of these schools they won't show up and their response is because no one cares.

So when a child tells you no one cares and you know the teachers care it's the programming that's not consistent.

If the program is not consistent what am I coming for?

I'm not gonna get what I want in the end and there's a child here again saying I'm I want to be kept back because I want to learn before I go to college.

I don't want to get to college and struggle.

That's what we don't want to continue to happen because they have a disability.

I have another question.

Um you talked about engagement.

So I was wondering if you guys have a protocol in place to engage the families, how yes.

So I'm really happy that you asked that question because it's really critical.

So we're talking about, you know, how do we have a you know stronger um sense of governance around parent engagement?

Parents come with expertise, not just they know their students best.

So feedback is important, but the expertise that families have can be critical, critical to developing better programming because parents know what works and what does not work.

And so we want the district to move beyond engagement and really build the district capacity with families by investing in families really working collaboratively with the district, not after decisions are made, but prior to decisions being made, developing the planning for implementation, monitoring the success of programs, and then really getting the the family's perspective on how it's working, because oftentimes, especially with students with disabilities, uh students with autism, they hold things in all day long because they want to feel a sense of belonging, and then when they get home, that's when they let loose and they tell family, they tell their parents, well, you know, they may be um self-injuring, but it could be that's that's data around my school day has not worked for me, or they may be excessively tired, exhausted because they're masking the fact that their instruction is not working for them.

The family piece is critical, and we have availed ourselves, like for example, with the autism audit, it's been going on for a whole year, and every family member that we talk to that have children with autism, they have not been contacted, they have not been surveyed.

How can the district create a program without collaborating with families to get their feedback on what is and is not working because you want to you want to continue those parts that are successful and build capacity where there are challenges?

So I agree with Edith said.

If children are being challenged in the ways they need to be, there is there isn't gonna be any growth.

A lot of these children are getting just a packet of paper.

This is your homework, you go home, there's no follow through, there's no conversation with the parents.

There's no they used to be reading logs, reading logs are gone.

So kids are not even having the back and forth that we did have at one point with teachers.

When parents come to us and say, My concern is that my child doesn't speak, most of the time it's not that they have speech delays, they don't know how to read, they don't know how to do to express how they're feeling based on not having language because they don't know how to read.

That's all encompassing.

So if they don't have those supports and you're not engaging them in the way that they learn, it's a disservice to them.

It's a continuous disservice because they're gonna go through and they're gonna go through the motions, but they're never retaining anything they learn.

So having an extended school year is great, but if they don't meet those requirements, then that's another loop they fall through and it continues and it continues.

So it's a cycle.

So what we're saying basically is family engagement should move beyond consultation and become a governance strategy.

And parents know best.

Yes, and and and families are asking to be engaged before decisions are made, not after decisions are finalized.

Um the recommendation that we like to make is to establish clear expectations for family engagement during planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of major initiatives that impact students with disabilities, so that family voice is treated as a source of expertise and accountability for the district, not just simply feedback.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

Well, uh a couple of uh uh presumptions uh will predicate uh my questions.

The first presumption is uh this document right here, and your and your uh presentation relies on parents with children with disability, right?

So most of the the uh the information you provided here are from parents with uh children with disability.

Okay.

Um the second uh presumption is uh from your from your remark from your presentation.

I presume that you are uh in favor of inclusion than right, isn't that right?

Yes, in inclusion is focused on student outcomes.

Okay, okay.

Now, just back to the so I'm some okay.

I'm I'm a parent with children with disability and part of my legal work is dealing with uh disability issues for the last thirty-five years.

So you when you put here the black students represent 29% of enrollment.

I would presume that those twenty-nine percent of black students are students with disability.

Yes.

Oh no, no, no, twenty-nine percent in the total districts.

Right.

I see.

So what we're doing is we are comparing the um number of students in the district compared to when we look at how many students, for example, are secluded, how many students are suspended.

Okay, many students are in substantially separate programs.

So that's a that is that leads to my question.

That's a disability indicator right there, but not all of them.

So the 29 everybody.

Um forty-three percent of students in substantially separate separate classrooms are students with disability.

Is that is is that correct?

So I don't know the exact number of black students who are in substantially separate programs off the top of my head, but I know that there are more black students in sub-separate programs than any other demographic group.

Talking about all students, uh, all black students, not not just students with disability.

So if you look at uh this the data that you provided here, indicated that 35% represent uh black students represent 29% of enrollment, meaning somehow the entire student body, right?

But forty-three percent of students, again I would presume that's black students are placed in substantially separate classrooms.

So for example, I I I get where you're going with that.

Um, I think black students represent 29% of the total enrollment of the district, they represent 43% of the total enrollment of substantially separate classrooms.

So in other words, you would want if if black students were 29% of the total population to be commensurate, you would say, well, they're 29% of the students in special ed.

We look at that would be another extension data.

We look at lots of different kinds of data through this lens where we look at the overall population of BPS and then we look at the different demographic groups, you look at gender, you look at um socially economic to see if there's m disproportionate numbers.

We also have we are also disproportionate in the number of students who have IEPs and who are then served in substantially separate settings, right?

And to either point of that group, our black students are I think it's almost like a hundred and seventy-five percent greater chance uh based on that data.

So uh okay, that clarifies a couple of things.

The the issue now boils down to the substantially separate classroom.

Are those classroom reserved for students with disability or can you say that uh I think that's a good classrooms?

Yes, the students with disability.

The the students that I think especially separate classrooms means that a student is segregated from the general population, seventy-five percent or more of the day.

Uh-huh.

So in other words, they are not with their general education peers.

Because of their disability or because of what?

Well, you know, th that's sort of getting into the weeds of why, and so when we talk about disproportionality and we think about, for example, Mao King Academy, I think has maybe 40% black students or higher than that, even though black students are 29% of the population, the majority of them are also black males.

So you have to think about why are there so many black males in this particular category, just like you want to think about when it comes to multilingual learners, you have under and overrepresentation in communication impairment.

So that's a category of disability.

So that's connected to language difference.

So are we determining disability based on language difference, or is there a disability related to language?

So that's something that the district needs to address in terms of disproportionality.

So it could be two-sided, it could be under-representation.

I'm not catching the disability because I don't know how to navigate where you are with your language, so I'm not going to identify you even though you may be dyslexic and you speak a different language, because I'm not assessing you in your native language, or it could be, oh gee, I'm looking at you don't you you are saying a uh um an ELD two or three, and I am misclassifying you.

So it's two-sided when it comes to multilingual learners.

When it comes to black students, it's over representation in substantially separate class from suspension, seclusion, and in disability categories like emotional impairment and intellectual impairment.

And so that's work that the district has to do around doing a better job with assessment.

It also has to do with ensuring that your assesses are bilingual by cultural, but also are representative of understanding how to do assessments on students who don't look like them, and are not using tools that are not culturally responsive.

And the other thing I want to say is more expensive to educate a student in substantially separate placements.

So if they're misclassified, not only are you paying more money, but you're not getting the results.

And so if you look at the data on student outcomes, the student outcomes are poor when you misclassify students, so you look at the Mao King data, three the outcomes are poor.

I hear you, and I see you where you're coming from, and I understand all that.

Uh the issue I have here is that you know the the the data that RP4 is 29% of black students in enrollment, 43% of them are in substantially separate classrooms.

No, that's not the data point.

It's it's it's that right here.

It's that of the students in substantially separate programs, of those specific students who are served in substantially separate programs, 43% of those students are black.

And so 43% of the students are uh disabled.

40%.

A hundred percent of students in substantially separate programs have disabilities.

But forty-three percent of the students in those classrooms are black when only twenty-nine percent of stud of students in the district are black.

So if it were a proportional representation, they would be the same.

Right.

But those two percentages, I can see why it's the two percentages in this sentence represent two different proportions of students.

One is students writ large that share the same racial group, the first one, and the other is measuring the percent of students in a specific program type.

Um it's not forty-three percent of the twenty-nine percent.

I see.

Yeah.

So I uh I'll I'll I'll uh stop my question.

I have it's complicated.

But I was trying to understand whether that helps with the inclusion or that doesn't help with the inclusion.

Uh that you're trying to advocate it identifies the issue.

It raises the concerns.

Well, when it if I could say when it comes to inclusion, you know, our position is that we don't want to simply expand inclusion.

I the recommendation is to build an infrastructure for inclusion and so the district, what we're recommending is that the district should first identify successful inclusion models.

What is the definition or the metrics for an inclusion model as successful and then establish non-negotiables for every school that must be in place?

So what are the elements that should be in place in every school that is an inclusion school?

And then the other piece is um including uh staffing, collaborative planning, coaching, professional development cannot be understated, and implementation supports um for that.

So families are asking the district not to re to start reinventing inclusion, to look at the models that exist in the district that are working and replicate that success by looking at what are they doing that needs to be replicated across every school in the district, not just saying a school is an inclusion school.

I mean, I was gonna say when the kids thrive, the district drives, the numbers will speak, but when parents get involved, um I I actually said that at the Haynes E C I asked Miss Wood, I'm like, Can you tell the other schools how to do this?

But it only goes to say uh it's a first grade, so I was kinda sad with my son how to leave.

But um, I agree, like when there's consistency across the board and parents are involved, par even if they don't speak English, if they can come in and show you how this works for their kid, and then the other parents do it, it's more so like parents getting to know other parents and then parents talking with the district.

But when the parents don't even know how to navigate that, it's like a domino effect.

It just keeps falling.

But we have great teachers.

We have the support.

It's just everyone coming to a meeting of the minds and having a conversation that helps the kids move forward.

And there are models that that are successful.

So I can go back to we we had on one of the slides in nineteen eighty nine, the Henderson, the Patrick O'Hearn is what it was called then, um, became an inclusion model.

It's very unique, but we also got the Mason and the Elliott.

There were many schools.

Roosevelt, and and so what would happen then, and this is institutional knowledge, and that's why we're saying don't reinvent the wheel.

Think about what worked in the past, where a school that was successful was matched with a school that was on their way.

So you don't want to take for example the LED is kind of a unicorn, you can't really replicate that because of the variables, but you could take a school that is a strong inclusion model and pair it with a school that could benefit from reaching up to that level.

Um, you know, it's sort of like you don't want um to pair a student who is an advanced learner with someone who is struggling with the concept.

You want you want a school you want to pair schools that are on the way with a school that can see themselves achieving that level on an orchard gardens, that would be a great healing.

A lot of different languages are spoken at both schools and the kids can transition to eighth grade.

I've been looking at I've been doing the I I've been I'm from Boston, so I look at um different demographics at the schools and I'm also I speak three languages, so when parents talk to me, the main thing is I don't want my kid to only have one school as an option, but I don't want to lose the supports I have at the school.

So when they're getting ready to transition, it's like, well, this school doesn't go to eighth grade, so where do I go?

But I also don't want to put my kids somewhere where they're not happy and then I have to wait to show like that's always the cycle when summer comes.

So parents are just selecting one school, reali not realizing your kids gonna go somewhere random.

So this is this is the thing every school year, like right now, that's the crunch time.

And I mean, the other thing is you have collaborative co-planning with teachers.

Why not have collaborative co-planning with schools, school to school?

So you may have teachers from one school that is struggling with a practice to visit, you know, uh another school to observe what they're doing.

Like, how can you pair schools up?

A school that is doing a little better, not you know, far ahead, but is is achievable for another school.

How do you pair within the district a struggling school with a school that is on its way so that they learn from each other?

Because you have models, we often think about, you know, how do we address failure?

But how do you replicate success is a different way to look at it in terms of what is one thing that a particular school can do that's gonna make the biggest difference and really scale that?

You can't do everything, but really thinking about incremental continuous improvement.

You said it well.

Following up on we cannot do everything, uh thank you so much for the work that you are doing.

Uh, the three of you and the entire um uh uh uh group of this pickback.

Uh thank you for putting together the six recommendations.

My question is, again, is there's a lot of work in front of us.

But I would like to know you used the word uh urgency several times, and I want to know about the urgency of the urgency.

Let's think about next school year that is about to start in a couple months.

My kids don't want me to say that, but that's the reality in a couple months.

We're starting a new school year.

What we to the members of this committee, uh, as a government committee, what is it that we should be paying the most attention to in fiscal in the school year 25 26 or 26 27?

So I would say what families are asking for with regard to urgency is execution, prioritization.

Like what is the biggest challenge?

What how can you prioritize a goal to, for example, close literacy gaps?

And then that goes into staffing.

What are the staffing gaps?

Because if you don't have the people and you don't they don't have the expertise in the specialization, you can't do the work.

So that really goes into professional learning.

Um, and then resource allocation.

How are schools being supported?

Shemika said we have fantastic teachers and school leaders, but they need support.

And this has to come from the district level.

Um, and so um the it's really thinking about the district identifying actions that can be taken immediately.

What can you do right now and having that prioritization and and and and taking action within a year?

Like, what is my goal for the next year?

How can it be prioritized for this school to grow for that year, and then taking actions that require longer planning?

So really thinking in the short term, what are the immediate steps that can be taken, and how do they roll into the longer range planning?

And and when we talk about urgency, it has to be reflected not only in plans but in decisions and budgets.

Budgets are important because we know right now there's an increase in outsourcing and out of district in litigation.

How can we recoup those funds to build the kind of programs that we're losing students with disabilities to?

What are those out of district schools doing that BPS can replicate?

And do you need to partner with one of those schools to build those programs in the district so students aren't getting up five o'clock in the morning, you're not only paying for expensive tuition, but you're also paying for transportation, which often can be more than than curriculum with more than tuition costs, and then students are getting home late, exhausted, cannot be part of the community.

That's the biggest budget killer is the out of district placements.

If they can get the services in the district, that would be preferred for parents, and I mean, I think for the district.

Yeah, uh p parents do not want their children leaving five o'clock in the morning, going on a van, um, out of their community, and then coming home late at night.

Um, they can't take advantage of after school programs and do other things.

We have community.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean the main thing is having community.

It's great to have an option to go out of district, but the the choice would be to stay where your family and your friends are, people you know at school.

And so we're what we're saying is the district doesn't need to start over.

The district needs to look at what is already working.

And you know, often you think, well, we're re reinventing and rebuilding and dismantling that is that that's the problem that parents talk about and and they they really focus on schools that have closed on the backs of students with disabilities that were working, and now they have to start over.

And and so w how can you preserve and strengthen programs instead of closing them?

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna stick with closure, closing the the literacy gap and investment on and in district services.

I think that's something that will come up, like uh the the next uh agenda item.

We talk a lot about in the evaluation of the superintendent and the district about we need data from K to two on literacy, how how are the students doing?

For third grade home, uh is is too maybe too late.

We need to see how they are doing in this in this first year.

So thank you so much.

Do you want me to speak about literacy?

So families repeatedly identify literacy as one of the most urgent issues facing students with disabilities because reading is the foundation of learning.

Students who cannot read professionally, struggle to access curriculum, demonstrate knowledge, build independence, achieve positive long term outcomes.

The concern is not simply literally literacy intervention, it is literacy outcomes.

MCAS, I don't know how to pronounce it I have a list.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I have a list.

So um data have shown persistent literacy challenges for years, particularly for students with disabilities, multilingual learners.

I've experienced this with my kids because we're multilingual learners and we have deaf people in our families.

So it's really hard when you don't hear people speak a different language in your house, and then you go to school.

So just navigating that.

Um families are asking whether the district has spent enough time evaluating effectiveness of the core instruction itself in a strong multi-tiered system of support, tier one instruction should successfully meet the needs of most students.

Intervention should s supplement strong instruction, not compensate for weak instruction.

Families families express concern that the district has responded to disappointing literacy outcomes by layering additional initiatives, interventions and supports onto existing practices without fully examining whether the foundation is producing the outcomes students need.

A strong intervention cannot fully compensate for a weak foundation, just as exercise cannot overcome poor nutrition, intervention alone can't overcome an effective core instruction.

The recommendation is to evaluate literacy efforts through outcomes rather than implementation alone.

Families want the district to identify which instructional practices are producing measurable ga measurable gains in reading proficiency, strengthening what works, continue what does uh discontinue what does not and hold itself accountable for results.

The question is not how many literacy initiatives exist, the question is whether more students are becoming proficient readers.

And I'll say to that, um parents are the first teacher, but if we're not engaging the families, we're doing a disservice to the kids.

Your kid can go to school and learn all the things, but parents need to be involved because if parents are not involved, we got latchkey kids, they're not going home to do homework, they're just going home to do whatever it's at their leisure.

But if there's a reading log that goes home and holds a parent accountable, the teacher accountable, everyone's checking in on that child's reading.

But if there's nothing like that happening, you know, pipeline to prison is real.

I I grew up in Boston.

I work in the family justice system, I've taught enrichment classes.

So I've seen people I grew up in the community go through the prison system because they have uh middle school barely education.

So I've lived it.

I'm almost 40.

I don't want to be fighting this when my kids are forty.

So I'm trying to change this now.

Reading should be the main thing.

Like that should be something you graduate with.

It's reading really is fundamental.

And I mean it's like having a home as a foundation.

Being able to read is a foundation.

I I'm a child of an immigrant who does not read or write in English or Spanish.

My mom has dyslexia.

I graduated with high honors.

So I had to fight through chapter one.

I don't know if you guys remember when it was chapter one in ESOL.

And um and here I am.

So I'm a lived experienced Boston public student, and I loved all my teachers.

I had great teachers, and I just want that for the next generation.

And I just want to say, we need to debunk the myth that some students cannot learn to read because we know from the research that 95% of students, regardless of disability, can learn to read with the right intervention.

Oh, and I'm autistic as well.

So I'm I'm all over things.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um first of all, thank you to the three of you.

Um, and I don't know if Elijah's coming back, but um okay.

Um I actually had a question.

It's too good for the new output.

But um the I really appreciate uh your bringing these themes from parents and also bringing the student voice um for that perspective as well is so helpful.

Um also appreciate the emphasis on tier one instruction as being the place where students receive the most of their um most of their teaching and learning experiences, as they should, and and the emphasis you had on acting on what we already know um and building on successes as we work to create a collective definition of strong inclusion practices.

Um I know uh Chair Brazil, you mentioned some historical examples of strong inclusion practices.

I was wondering if there were any um that parents are speaking about in the present that combine a strong um like pedagogical and like staffing or model for inclusion and growth outcomes like in the present that we might be able to um look at as we seek for that more universal definition of a strong inclusion model.

So I think a a strong inclusion model really means investing in educators, investing in teachers.

When we say that cutch should um the last the last thing you want to do is cut those individuals who work closest with the students, I can say that in the first round of inclusion, you know, way back in the day, 1989, it was really investing in professional development, giving teachers time to plan and ensuring teachers had the expertise, but also ensuring that the the class size was right, and making sure that each adult had you know it's it's sort of the the collaborative planning is probably the biggest piece because the collaborative planning has more to do with um teachers having the opportunity to plan in advance.

So I'll give you an example of Mary Lion, if that's okay, and say how that developed so Mary Lyons became such a strong inclusion model because teachers led the professional development on site.

So instead of teachers going to professional development, professional development came to them.

And so there's always gonna be one teacher that you know loves professional development and wants to lead the team and you know that's their thing, that's their jam.

And so that teacher would get the PD and lead the PD in the school.

What makes that authentic is they understand their student population, and so if they get a new student, those teachers will collaborate, get together, do the co-planning, talk on the weekends.

When teachers are successful, they work beyond the school day.

They meet for coffee, uh, they talk on the phone, they say, Oh, we're getting a new student.

What can we do?

Let's get together and discuss it.

It's really investing in teachers when teachers feel that they have that agency to uh uh really create the instructional infrastructure.

And like if they don't have um, if if if there's a lot of students who are struggling with reading, give them a reading specialist.

You know, a lot of times we look at uh students who are acting out, but that's a data point.

Students act out when something is not working, and so what we've seen over the years is you know, my what we see what we saw initially is it didn't I wouldn't I'm not gonna say it didn't matter who the principal was but the principal could change but this those teachers who are have stable teaching forces they don't leave they've been at the school for thirty years twenty-five years when someone comes in new they've orient that individual to the way that school runs I can point to the manning as an example they were an extremely strong inclusion model where they previously had substantially separate classroom for students with emotional impairment they partnered with um Italian home they they um had um partnerships with local um community centers and and and health centers and and then and they invested in their teachers and so when a inclusion model unravels the first question that I have is is there teacher turnover because teachers are are the you know when the model is successful and the teachers are engaged in professional learning you ultimately have a stable teaching force and I'm not saying they never change but the culture the the culture of a professional learning community is there and that is what fosters success is investing in teachers who are working close closest to the students.

I appreciate that agree.

I'm wondering how parents are assessing whether that is present from what you all are hearing.

You know we heard a lot of public comment today around um student assignment and feeling as if some schools are ready and truly living an inclusion model versus just having the model more by label or as was expressed.

And it's just wondering what are you hearing from parents in terms of how they're differentiating the two um because to your point chair I agree professional development is so important but parents might not even know the level of professional development that's happening from one school to the other in as much detail.

So what are some of the indicators that parents are using to say this school not this school when determining that the inclusion model is in place in terms of for me it's most parents talking to each other.

Okay.

So not knowing how to even find sometimes the welcome center is an issue um a lot of people don't even know this building exists.

So that's one thing a lot of the parents have issues finding where to register their kids and when they register their kids what programs are offered they see the list and that's as far as they go because they don't know there's an option to go do a deep dive and actually visit the school and learn what what they offer.

So if that's explained in layman's terms to them not just a packet that says parents rights parents don't really know what their rights are.

They can read that if they don't speak English they don't understand their rights and then they they go to the welcome center they'll get a list and then they'll check off the list and then their kid gets placed somewhere now because they didn't know that they had the right to go visit the school or call the school and find out what services are or even know what services their child needs that's the issue.

The IEP being done is one thing but half of the time it's them getting support from the social worker at their PCP.

It's not because they're getting support from the district.

So if they if they didn't have a a social worker they don't go to a primary care doctor they go to a clinic now they're not even getting that social workers help.

So that's the issue.

They're not having someone that there's not a point a point person.

So they're navigating it from here say from another parent.

And I would I would add to that that uh what is success look like in terms of an inclusion school yet the metrics can be parent feedback.

And so if you you think of say the Henderson which is kind of a unicorn too because uh of the nature of why it was designed but part of it was to include students who would otherwise go out of district.

And it it worked really well, because parents felt that their children were safe, they felt walk welcomed, they there was a sense of belonging and they were making progress.

So my son's twenty four now, but when he went to Horseman, they were hearing kids in his class as well.

It wasn't just all inclusive to deaf kids.

And um eventually he had to go out of district, but he I didn't want to go out of district because that was his community.

So he had to go to the Learning Center for Deaf to learn how to read at 21.

He should have gotten that at Horace Man, but it was specifically ASL for deaf kids.

And to Ida's point, when you're in subs substantial um separate classes, he missed out on that reading aspect because he wasn't around his hearing peers only when they did recess or lunchtime.

But they were always in the same school together.

So if they would have merged them together, his language would have belt.

His he has friends that speak that are profoundly deaf, but he doesn't because he didn't have that connection and he didn't have that community, and then he had to go out of district for two more years, past the time he wanted to stay in, and he was given a completion of um high school, but I said no, and um now he has a diploma.

But parents should parents that don't know how to navigate that end up with a kid that just has that completion.

And I would say that um success should also be measured on reducing um dependence on outsourcing, yes.

Uh reducing dependence on litigation and reducing um uh spending on out of district placements over time.

So for example, when the Henderson nine through twelve is closed, those parents whose children go to the lower school are thinking, where is my child gonna fit?

Thinking that right now, what school has the capacity for my child?

And then all the other things that come with it, it's like the child might be bullied at the new school.

They don't have supports their their teacher that may have encouraged them to get to the next grade.

Now that teacher that they're familiar with that would have been their teacher in the next school year is gone.

So the comfort of knowing I'm gonna be here to eighth grade is now taken away from them and they're in a whole new school setting where they have to learn to adapt to things that they're not used to.

It it really affects the kid overall when they're not good with transition and then drastically their school has changed overnight.

It's not an easy way to adapt for them when they whether they have a disability or not, but definitely when they have a disability.

And and it's where can where how does the district build capacity to have that seamless alignment for transition for children who would otherwise go to the Henderson?

And and so that really includes the staff who have the specialization, who have the professional development, the expertise, and also have that collaborative planning model.

Like where does that exist for in that way for those students?

And I I really think that parent feedback is an assessment because you know there's a bottleneck effect on, you know, trying to get into certain schools that may be outside of your region, and when you see that bottleneck effect and and and parents, for example, because we've talked to them, decide, oh, I'm gonna homeschool my child, I'm gonna take my chances on a charter school, or I'm gonna um, you know, go some maybe try MECO.

Because parents are out of desperation, they want to find uh a model that works and and and so it's it's it's not that they don't want to be in BPS, they want to be in a neighborhood school in in with in the district, but when parents go to advocates and attorneys and through litigation, it's because they're desperate and those metrics that I talked about welcome, challenge, sense of belonging, and making progress are not there for their children.

Yeah.

I just wanted to um engage um Elijah briefly before we moved on because I really appreciated.

I think we all did um the clarity and and honesty of your sharing your student experience, so thank you for doing that.

And we were talking a little bit um on this last question about bright spots or where things have worked, and you talked about some of your experiences where you felt like your um classroom experiences were not preparing you at the level that you wanted, and was wondering if you have had any experiences over the course of time in your school that were opposite that and what they looked like that were more engaging and more positive than some of the ones that you said as we think about trying to build on successes.

Um there's not many that I can think of.

I feel like I've always felt like like the work was just never challenging.

Mm-hmm.

Just so I'm reckonvening out in five or ten minutes, you know.

One way that I really learned.

One way that I learned that the work was preparing me for college was my aunt was in college.

And she was talking to me about all the work she has to get done, and I'm like, that doesn't seem like anything I'm doing or even close to it.

That seems way more complicated.

I'm not prepared for that at all.

Like the way the assignments they give us, to me it's insulting almost.

It's just like I feel like we're we're in high school or in twelve grade.

This is like I say sixth, seventh grade level work.

So, thank you for sharing that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I feel for what has been very helpful for me this year has been able to listen in on your monthly phone calls where we can hear the voices of parents and recognizing that almost a quarter of our district are have are families who have children with special eds.

That's almost what eleven thousand families, and we don't hear from nearly that if we hear from one percent.

And so my question to you is like, what can we do?

I mean, I understand and agree with all of the things that you have raised as concerns as well as recommendations for improvements, but what can we do as a collective, a district and SPEDPAC, etc.

to reach out to make sure that all families are aware and then trying to look collectively at do we have the resources to actually do what families need when we have that significant number of families.

So many of the things you talk about are the same things we need to do for our typically developing students, and it's not happening for them either.

So the question is, you know, how do we really become a district that is in strong partnership with all families, but especially our families with children and special needs, so that these things get discussed and grown in ways that we can begin to make the difference.

Well, I would say I'm glad uh Chair Robinson that you came to our table because coming to our table would allow you to hear the perspective of families.

So our town hall that we had on May twenty eighth was the highest attended general meeting that we had this year, and because it was led by family voice.

One of the things that we have asked for and we believe would be helpful is for us to be part of an inclusion task force where we can make recommendations and bring that parent expertise and voice into what makes a good inclusion school.

We have the questions, we have the data on what is and is not working, and parents have that expertise on knowing what works.

And and it's it's it's it's tough right now going for parents to the welcome center.

And I I just have to be um clear and say that some families have told us they've gone and and they looked at a school when they think that is a possibility and the school would quietly tell them we can't implement your child's IEP.

The school just does not have the resources.

And parents appreciate that, but it's scary to hear it as well because what school what other schools are not being as candid about what they can and cannot do.

Because I think schools need to be supported, and that's where that infrastructure comes in the district saying, What are the non-negotiables?

How can schools be fully resourced and staffed?

Because that's really where it is.

You cannot have an inclusion school unless you have an infrastructure for staffing and and all of the things that we talked about this evening.

And that takes more money.

It is expensive.

Inclusion means that there's a place in in the school for every student, regardless of the nature and impact of their disability.

And to do that, you're gonna have to not just look at your staffing, but you're gonna have to look at environmental adaptations.

Do you have a sensory room?

Do you have technology?

Do you have specialized equipment?

Do you have um are you able to adapt the environment so that the school looks like an inclusion school?

And students in is in its accessible to all students.

And so that takes the lens of parents who know what their children need to say, we've captured that.

And that's where building trust and partnership comes in as well.

I mean, you responded to I you took the word down.

I was going to say the something similar, but I mean, just to piggyback on what you said earlier about um implementing spaces like the sensory spaces, orchard gardens does do that.

So I've seen at different schools I've seen a little bit of everything that you discussed, but if all of the schools had a quiet corner, so when you're unregulated, you can just sit there and they have sensory toys, or you can read your book like if a child brings a book to school, they can go sit in that corner.

The teachers do that at Orchard Gardens, but I don't see that at other schools.

But that was just the teacher doing that because that's something they thought would work.

It's not the school telling them to do it.

These teachers just, you know, they know their student and they were like, okay, I'll make this area.

So it was nice to go to parent teacher night and see that they had these spaces, but it wasn't in every class, it was just certain teachers doing it.

Well, thank you again for tonight.

Um, this has been very, very helpful, and we look forward to meeting with you again um in the fall.

But if in closing, if there's one thing that we can do to start the new year off better next year, what would be a top thing that community engagement?

Pardon me?

Community engagement, like having some sort of outreach for the family so that they know in verbiage they can understand because that a lot of the times if they'll look at that paper, I don't know what this is about, and that's it.

So they won't come out if they'll they're reading words they don't understand.

And if English is a second language, just forget about it.

They're not gonna come.

And I I would say yes, strengthening parent partnership, which has to do with uh shared the co-creation, shared decision making, implementation, planning.

But I would also say, I would go back to the beginning and say, look at what is working.

You know, replicate and scale success, whether it's a program, whether it's an intervention, how do you do that across the district and create that infrastructure by looking at what what is the district already doing successfully?

Because like I said, we look at problems and look at data, but what is the action plan?

And how do you replicate best practices in schools that are struggling working hard but don't know what to do?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Before we do the last part of the meeting, we're gonna take a five-minute break, and then we will come back to do the next two pieces.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sped Pack.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate you guys.

On to the next item.

Okay.

Thank you.

No, we're doing good.

We're going to get out of here by 11.

All right.

Thank you.

Our next presentation tonight is the superintendent's school year 2025-26.

Summative evaluation.

Evaluating the superintendent is among the chief responsibilities of the school committee.

The superintendent completed her self-evaluation and shared it with the committee for review.

Each committee member completed an individual evaluation, providing their insights and assessments of the superintendent's performance.

Dr.

Alkins and Vice Gare Vice Chair Scarrett led the process this year and consolidated our feedback into a comprehensive summative evaluation, which will be presented this evening.

We will vote on the superintendent's summative evaluation at our virtual meeting on July 8th.

I will now turn it over to the superintendent remarks, followed by Dr.

Alkins and Vice Chair Scarrett.

After the presentation, I will open it up to the other members for comments on the superintendent's evaluation.

I'd like you to I would like to remind you to speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters.

And I now invite the superintendent to give introductory remarks.

I'm certainly grateful of this opportunity to reflect on my work as superintendent and the progress that we're making as a district.

Certainly the questions, the feedback, the collaboration from this committee helps me and my team continually evaluate our work and improve.

And I'm deeply grateful for our partnership and our shared belief in the potential of every BPS student.

I'd not be able to do my work without my talented and dedicated team.

I just tried to get them to leave and they were like, no.

This year was especially challenging as we faced new budget pressures, some of which were out of our control and could not be predicted, including changes in federal immigration policies and the rising cost of health care, transportation, and special ed services.

My team has worked hard to find operational efficiencies.

We've eliminated vacant positions, we've made difficult staff reductions to ensure the district's priorities were not impacted, and student services were protected.

And that holds true literally every day.

Feeling certainly for school year 25-26 has been one of a lot of reward.

Over the past four years, we've intentionally created the foundation for academic growth.

We're now starting to see the results of our work.

Six BPS schools were named as schools of recognition by DESI, the highest number of BPS schools ever honored in one year.

Two schools exited the highest level of DESI oversight, and six schools rose from the 10th accountability percentile more than any other year before.

We saw historic gains in the access assessment for our English language learners and increases in reading and math at nearly every grade level on our map.

Thank you for joining us on this happy occasion.

The ribbon cutting for the completion of the renovations of 39 Boyleson Street.

We meet the basic needs of food, clothing, and showers, but also strive to raise people out of homelessness.

It's rare that you find another neighborhood in the city that has this level of service for its citizens and its neighbors.

This space, if you've been here before, you know how fundamentally different it is today, relative to what it was.

And when they built this building, no one ever thought we were going to run a homeless shelter.

It was a tower, an office tower and office building.

Over the years, we kept like tweaking it, tweaking it, right?

A little bit here, a little bit there.

When it comes to building a city, when it comes to building community, it is not complete unless everyone feels that any place that they go is a place of dignity, respect.

It's a place where they are treated like a full human being.

Not every city and probably very few other cities are a place where this kind of major investment coordination and community effort comes to the top of the list even in difficult times.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a foundation and anchor of downtown.

Two, three.

It is a gift for all of us to be able to see this coming to fruition beam by beam.

This is going to change how things are done across the country.

But uh thanking him for his uh continued insight.

Um, and also I want to send a shout out to Rebecca Granger, who had a huge hand in organizing us and just sort of wrangling us, making sure that we were on top of getting all the evaluations put together and just aggregating um all of this.

So thank you.

So the Boston School Committee has a number of responsibilities, including defining the vision, the mission, the goals of BPS, establishing and monitoring our annual operating budget, hiring and managing and evaluating and evaluating the superintendent, and setting and reviewing district policies and practices to support student achievement.

So for the public, uh annually, the school committee does have a school or a school committee retreat where among other things we discuss um goals and priorities with the superintendent in collaboration with the superintendent so that we can have alignment with how we want to assess progress uh for the district for the year, and also in thinking about um its long term sustainability and success.

And in the evaluation process, those goals are then reflected upon by the superintendent and in her self-evaluation.

Then following that, um, individual members will also submit their their own evaluations, and then we pull together a summit of evaluation reflective of all of our feedback.

And then finally, for our vote in July, uh, we will vote on the summit of evaluation and performance rating.

So a little bit behind the actual standards.

Um, so DESI provides the standards for the superintendent evaluation across four different domains.

One being instructional leadership, the second being management and operations, the third being family and community engagement, and the fourth being professional culture.

And you'll understand a little bit more around that just given the feedback.

And so to reflect on what the school committee priorities are and what was agreed upon, like at our retreat and through numerous conversations, the school committee has prioritized accelerating academic performance.

So, for example, utilizing high quality instructional materials andor evidence-based practice, our use and our support for multi-tiered systems of support throughout the district, improving our access to advanced coursework and the continued educator professional learning.

For priority two, we always want to ensure access for all students, and so that consists of a couple of different dimensions, which uh consists of continuing to refine the structures and processes that prioritize learning experiences for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and multilingual learners with disabilities, expansion of all programming and courses that build multilingualism and multiculturalism, including a like host of uh of examples within there.

So, dual language, transitional bilingual um education, and heritage language courses.

And then the last priority is uh making sure that we maintain consistency and high quality learning opportunities, so and continuing our implementation of the long-term facilities plan and ensuring access for every student to a high quality student experience, and rigorous uh and culturally affirming learning experiences that include wellness and enrichment, a supporting network of caring adults, and the physical spaces that do support learning.

So, within the evaluation, we we assessed the superintendent across a number of goals, um, and so the first goal that was aligned to that first priority was accelerating academic performance that was measured through national metrics and performance on those state and national metrics, such as MCAS Access and NAPE and advanced placement, some of which you heard um in the superintendent's introduction, um, also uh data related to increased student engagement, um, including decreasing chronic absenteeism and dropout rates, and increasing rates of graduation and secondary pathways, secondary pathways enrollment.

And so I will not necessarily reiterate all of the statistics, but I think some of them bear uh mentioning again, so the historic 81.3 um percent graduation rate, uh, particularly um with increases for black and Latina students, students with disabilities and multilingual learners, alongside a near record low dropout rate of 3.6%.

Um superintendent also noted the 38% increase in early college um enrollment, with about 2,500 students participating in CTE programs, and about 68% of advanced placement students scoring a three or higher on their exams, and of course, a surge of students who received a seal of bioliteracy.

The committee also recognized the proficiency increases in grades three through eight, uh, ELA and math MCAS, uh, which is the third consecutive year of meeting chronic absent uh I'm sorry, um the third consecutive year of meeting chronic absenteeism targets and improvements in access scores for multilingual learners.

And while celebrating these milestones, the committee noted that we must work urgently to accelerate progress for the majority of our students, most critically, uh despite progress, only a third of BPS students are meeting or exceeding expectations on the MCAS in grades three to eight across core subjects.

But to accelerate the rate of progress, the district must strengthen early education or that pre-K-2 uh range in terms of literacy practices to ensure that students have a strong foundation.

Further, with the statewide elimination of state exams graduation requirement, mass core must reflect a commitment to rigorous academic experiences consistent across all of our schools.

Related to student learning goal two for ensuring access to all students.

The district would like to celebrate the annual progress toward full implementation of the inclusive education plan.

So we are in the third, ending the third year of a complete five-year rollout.

The committee noted also the expansion of inclusive settings into the additional grades, inclusion planning teams in every school, service mapping efforts to align supports and resources, and opportunities for multilingual learners through the expansion of dual language and bilingual programming, and of course, the launch of the reimagined school funding formula.

The committee also applauds the district's sustained investment in HQIM and the associated professional development and focused resources for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

Collectively, we name the need for greater transparency and communication around the impact of inclusive education efforts and more concrete data around classroom level implementation and application of professional development learning.

For student learning goal three or consistency or ensuring consistency and high quality learning opportunities under the leadership of Superintendent Skipper, the district has continued to make notable progress in our gains to right size the district and move towards the 2030 vision of approximately 95 high-quality schools.

This includes the 10 capital projects that are currently underway and the continued refinement of programs that meet the needs of our students.

Of particular importance is the timeline leading up to public announcements and committee votes.

The current window between announcement and school committee vote left some affected communities expressing feelings of being caught off guard and excluded from meaningful participation before decisions were finalized.

The long-term success of this plan will depend largely on whether the affected communities feel they were true participants in the process.

So when we look at the first standard regarding instructional leadership, again, we want to note some of the highlights.

Additionally, we can note that the superintendent and her team has allowed for and has created that HQIM is now paired with 12 hours of additional professionally of professional development focused on inclusive and culturally responsive teaching practices.

And BPS has strengthened its multi-tiered systems of support across all schools, leveraging AI to support this work.

And if we look at the distribution of ratings for our for our school committee, we can see that six folks on the committee noted gave the rating of effective.

So just highlighting again that five-dimension rubric that we have.

Looking towards standard two around management and operations fiscally, we applaud the rollout of the reimagined school funding formula that focuses on the instructional needs rather than on enrollment.

The mid-year deficit of 53 million, however, begs our attention to strengthen proactive rather than reactive measures that support long-term sustainability.

The escalating costs such as health insurance and transportation are of particular importance to the committee and the district.

Operationally, the administration demonstrated strong execution capacity by advancing MSBA core projects over multiple years, securing invitations for the accelerated repair program, and opening two new school buildings, the Sarah Roberts and the Carter.

This school year marked an increase in bus on time performance driven by the success successful deployment of the Zoom tracking application, which increased athletic trip coverage, and even our district has received national recognition for green initiatives such as the fleet electrification and the indoor air quality monitoring system.

Our focus areas, as mentioned earlier, do include reducing chronic absenteeism rate of 30.9 and outstanding work orders that still exist for capital repairs.

Further, we want to note that the district has made gains in its racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of educators, suggesting a more well-prepared workforce for our students.

The committee remains concerned about our impending reduction of staff and how this impacts the gains that our students have seen and the staff themselves.

Just looking at the distribution bearings, very similar to standard one.

Standard three, as we think about family and community engagement, we've heard a bit about that in our previous presentation.

And I think it's fair to say that our evaluation reflects an alignment there.

So the district we note has strengthened its communication efforts and infrastructure and the touch points that enhance access to information for families.

And some of those noteworthy accomplishments include the successful implementation and use of Parents Square, the increased multilingual communication support from through the Office of Language Access, improvements to our own district website, responsive family support systems such as the BPS helpline, and our focus outreach efforts that have increased the district's ability to connect with families.

Moving forward, the district has to continue to cultivate and include timely responsiveness to follow-up inquiries from families to ensure our accountability, and particularly during complex decisions, we must unpack what transparency means for communities.

Moving forward, the committee advises that the district must ensure that families, students, and stakeholders clearly understand how their valued perspectives and lived experiences actively drive the content and implementation of the strategic plan and our active partners in supporting the vision.

With PD as a core priority, the district must continue to build a safe and inclusive organizational culture that's built upon mutual trust and respect to sustain continuous learning and ensure that educator voices are heard and encouraged.

Professional learning should be aligned to practical classroom conditions and the needs of our educators.

And so together, these overall ratings average a score of 4.0 out of five.

And so this per the DESI rubric, this indicates that performance consistently and consistently exceeded expectations in all essential areas of responsibility and the quality of the work overall was excellent, and that annual goals were met.

And so just showing a distribution across all the dimensions of each school committee member.

And just another way just to show the entire distribution of all responses.

And so family and community engagement always is challenging, I think, to just to acknowledge, but it is very doable for our district.

So just um showing the average uh numerical uh breakdown for each rating.

And so, in summary, uh we highlighted um certain areas of strength.

So, of course, the institutional stability and steadfast leadership uh superintendent has consistently used the image of sort of riding the ship and sort of needing to slow it down before you pivot and turn it in a direction where we know that we are moving in uh in a positive direction, and um I think our evaluation is reflective that um that that's what we are exactly what we're doing, and so uh we are thankful for her commitment.

Um, we are thankful for um the strategic direction that's uh that she is providing, and that the team is enacting.

Additionally, um, areas of strength that we noted were increases in those indicators that were tied to student success.

So many of the national scores and the in the growth, still acknowledging that we have a ways to go, the commitment to equity and cultural competency.

Um the superintendent has demonstrated a deep commitment to our workforce diversity and us um implementing and sustaining those culturally sustaining practices and moving the district's curriculum and programming to be reflective of the rich diversity that our students and our families bring to the district.

Um, and of course, uh last, um, the superintendent has uh successfully executed critical operational upgrades, including more equitable school funding and the reimagined school funding model, a supportive regional model, and an improved transportation efficiency, as well as infrastructure for effective educator and school leader hiring and retention that has a direct impact on the student achievement.

So areas for continued growth, as stated earlier, uh community engage community and family engagement is by far the the biggest challenge that we face.

Transitioning from a culture of post-decision communication to one of early communication that really discusses clarity of roles, one that um really thinks about how we're establishing those part those participation roles uh earlier in our process, and that we're conducting an equity analysis before announcing such structural changes.

And so um I think over the next uh year uh we're gonna work collaboratively to revisit these systems to ensure timely and responsive feedback, loops to uh constituent issues and inquiries.

And of course, student proficiency and in um wide performance gaps.

Um the district we acknowledge is showing areas of improvement.

However, we understand that overall student outcomes remain largely unchanged and the progress is not even across our schools.

Um, and so we understand that this issue is urgent for everyone, and um knowing that we need to accelerate these academic outcomes and close and close persistent achievement gaps for multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and our historically marginalized student groups.

And so uh we look forward.

Uh so we just voted on the policy, so um, this is one step in the right direction.

Um, but um we do look forward to making progress and receiving updates as a committee on many of the key indicators named in the OAG policy, and also including some monitoring on um pre-K2 literacy and numeracy, which we uh and also uh data on our educator uh diversity workforce and the how we're developing relational trust where our students and our families are partners in ensuring their student success.

Additionally, we noted areas in goal setting and accountability where we are looking to establish long-term measures and targets to be reported annually, um, thinking about SMART goals is another way to put it, where we are looking at annual targets as uh measures and indicators of progress and looking at um measures um um tied to key inputs and investments to track whether or not our district is successfully moving our strategic levers identified to drive student outcomes, and last, um thinking about how we are preserving our key investments.

Um so this is going to involve working more closely with the city to carefully manage and forecast these escalating operational costs such as transportation, health insurance, and utilities that really to limit the impact on student-facing resources and district priorities.

Uh as a key example of district prioritization, the superintendent and her team must execute a deliberate strategy to protect the gains that we've made in our workforce diversity amid shifts in the staffing and upcoming contract negotiations.

And so as we enter into our new year, we understand that the district must actively gather feedback on the reimagined school funding formula and partner with school committee and the wider BPS community to identify areas of improvement and additional investment.

So as we look forward to what are next steps in the evaluation process, um we think about a vote on the summit of evaluation and the performance rating on July 8th.

And thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Yeah, very good questions.

Alright, so opening it up for questions.

Um I want to thank Dr.

Alkins for leading that um suit summary uh and for your leadership through this process.

I want to thank Superintendent Skipper and your team for your leadership.

Um, and I also just wanted to maybe narrate a little bit about our approach and kind of guiding principles to the um evaluation itself uh with a real commitment to it being a data-driven document, um, with that data being about student outcomes and foremost, um, also about the programmatic updates that we've received throughout the year from various team members on your team, Superintendent Skipper.

And um last but certainly not least on the community engagement and feedback that we've heard throughout the year, um, I think today was a great example with the diversity of testimony in terms of things that are of great importance to families and staff um that our hope is that some of those themes um are reflected in some of the areas for continued growth um and that that um those themes are reflected in some of the things that we want to continue to monitor.

I know that sometimes the nature of public comment at these meetings can feel like I'm able to quote it because I have a written one we talk at each other rather than talking with each other.

But we are listening as a school committee and while we're not always able to respond in the moment um those testimonies um and collective experiences really serve to push our probing and thinking around where the district um can strengthen and so um really just appreciate all of um my colleagues uh in using those data points to um really celebrate successes uh and by next year be able to be at an even greater capacity to have a data driven evaluation as those goals that Dr.

Elkins referred to will be clarified um and those long term targets will be set.

Thank you.

I have uh a glow that we forgot.

Is the uh we put in the uh the the launch the nation's first gate variant uh on ever so that's a glow.

And and also the um one thing uh about for me will be probably to think about how um it's family engagement and how to build a concrete measurable uh process for families to feel heard and uh before any thing is discuss yeah microphone okay anyway uh uh thank you for uh very thorough and uh thoughtful analysis uh with your uh you know with your input regarding um the the uh overall picture of everything I I appreciate that the only the only thing that I notice uh among us among the members of the committee we all each of us look at the same exact data uh under each criteria uh look at the same uh um information as well as the narrative everything we look at the same the funny thing is each of us come up with uh different rating um so what I'm trying to uh convey here is that regardless of what we do uh i everything that we have been doing so far there is always an element of uh subjectivity in it so we'll we'll have to carry that with us and um the the uh evaluation that we we've we've done while I I appreciate it but um in my mind even the these this subjectivity of each of us I uh really do not agree with the w you know with the overall uh uh rating that's that's that's just me thank you.

Okay.

Do you want to clarify that any more what you mean by that?

Well no th th there is no need to to to to to clarify anything.

Uh each of us is uh entitled to our own subjectivity in um putting down the rating or the performance evaluation, whatever.

Even though we are all looking at the exact same information, data, narrative, regarding each each category.

But when we put down when we put down the rating, each of us come it called with different uh you know, div uh different rating anyway.

Some with you know s some plus the together, some are not.

So it it it's just that I no the reason I'm I'm raising this is it's not uh is this is is nothing i is nothing of a a critique.

No, it it's just that um I uh enjoy the uh diversity to put it that way.

That's why I that's why there's definitely also Mr.

Tran, I think it is important that we retain our individual interpretations of the data.

I do think there is alignment in that.

Um none of the categories has us further than one rating apart um from one another, and so while there isn't sameness, there is some level of um closeness in terms of where we're viewing successes, so I um I think as Dr.

Alton showed in the distribution, there are different ratings, but not there there aren't outliers that's that stand multiple steps away from another either.

Um but I appreciate the point that we should probably should not all have identical interpretations of the same data, but should be able to substantiate our yeah, we should be able to substantiate our um positions and what we tried to do was take the most prevalent themes from everyone's individual um report and rise those to the summative.

But the public does have our individual reports as well.

Um if folks wanted to read those um so that you can get everyone's specific feedback.

I I think I've I've read most of the uh evaluation as well.

And I've read evaluations of other members before.

Um I myself sometimes do have issues or uh ideology that may be far different from one that Mary is implementing.

Um I'd be very trying to be interesting right now.

I I I don't really the inclusion of practice is something that I don't really buy into it yet.

But looking at everything given before me based on the information, maybe I'm maybe I'm such a mechanical guy.

I I have my yeah.

But maybe I'm I'm such a mechanical guy, even though there are things that I may not agree with uh Mary, but when it comes to making a determination on you know, on the four corners of the performance, I believe that is where I put myself down uh uh where where I I I put the assessment in, regardless of whether the programs, the projects, the uh initiative is something that I have concern with.

But if if if the performance is there that I believe is far exceed what what we expect, then so be it.

She deserves it.

That's all I say.

Well uh w what I would say is that um what is comforting is that within our evaluations there was um and I I'm just saying this more like qualitatively, like there was consistency in what we identified as areas for growth.

There was consistency in and I think where the difference is, I think some of the things that you're pointing out, some of the differences were actually in highlighting certain accomplishments, right?

So some things might resonate more with us on an individual basis for in terms of accomplishments, but we were all pretty consistent on what we identified as areas for growth, and it's comforting to know that that aligns with even what we've heard here tonight from other presentations, um and not just that, but it's also in alignment with what the superintendent superintendent identified herself as like I know that this is an area that like we need to address.

And so um you know I take that as a you know as a strong as like as as a strong indicator that like moving forward that there's the like that that there's um agreement in how maybe not necessarily always how we go about the change but that this area needs to be addressed.

And so um yeah I can thank you so much.

I I just want to start by saying thank you to um members Alkins and Scarit because we have to do individual evaluations and you have to do yours and also combine all of ours.

So thank you so much for for that work.

And to Superintendent um Skipper I said in my evaluation that this is not an annual evaluation.

This is for me it's a four month evaluation because that in my capacity of a of a member of the committee has been uh four or five months working with you.

But I I do want to say thank you so much uh for the things that been mentioned here for your leadership for the stability that you are bringing to the district for your commitment that is clear um anybody working with you know that you're hard is on this work and and that's really really appreciated.

And we have we hope to keep you for a long time.

So you can keep uh driving this ship in the right direction.

Um in terms of things that I I'm really hoping that was you were able to s to see uh I was happy to see uh m member Trent that even though I'm the new guy I wasn't too far away from the rest of my partners in terms of uh a couple things like like um family and community engagement.

Uh I think that's that's an area that we all need to keep growing.

Um I personally would like to see you uh in the room with the families and and it may be uh looking for the different rooms than what we are accustomed like where else are are our families that you would be good for you to be there and and and be available to to the families.

And the last thing is about uh outcomes when when uh Dr Austin said goals were met, yes and for next year I would like to see those outcomes with the metrics like, you know, we were in a on a retreat on May twenty your team said that yes we are gonna work on on on those metrics and bring it to you before the end of this school year.

I I I hoping that that's gonna happen because for me it's gonna be easier to to do this evaluation next year if I know what was the goal.

Like where are we trying to heat that target?

Did we did it or not?

It's gonna be easier in talking about subjectivity and and trying to align that subjectivity with the objectivity of having those metrics.

So thank you so much for your work.

So yes first of all I want to say thank you to Dr Alkins and to Vice Chair Scarrett um for leading the superintendent evaluation process and to thank you to all the members for doing your part also in getting us here um and particularly want to say thank you to you superintendent and your team for all of the work that you've accomplished in this past year.

Um we thank you for the way you engaged in the evaluation process.

That's always never easy but you gave us a lot 34 pages worth of district accomplishment which is great and your commitment to continuous growth and improvement in service of your team, the district and our students and everything else is clear and the data you presented, the reflections you shared and your openness to discourse.

And we talk often about what we've got to do to improve the family and community engagement.

And I know you're right there with us, actually.

So thank you again, and we will vote on the superintendent evaluation at our July eighth meeting.

Okay.

Look in the home stretch here, folks.

So our final presentation tonight.

Well, Tiva, come on down.

Is the private school application for the South End Village Academy private school?

Let's aim to keep the presentation to four minutes.

I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters.

And I want to invite the superintendent to give introductory remarks.

Great.

So I will be brief.

South End Village Academy, SIVA, has submitted an application to operate at the site of the former Croft School on Washington Street in the South End.

And as I stated earlier in the meeting, the district's role in the process of approving a private school's application to operate in Boston is strictly administrative.

At this point, I will turn it over to Ann Clark for the review of the process in the school's application.

We plan to bring this to our school committee on Wednesday, July 8th, the vote.

Good evening again, Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and members of the school committee.

As you know from our earlier presentations this year, the Boston School Committee is responsible for approving any private school wishing to operate within Boston City limits under Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 76, Section 1.

Our internal review teams follows the process outlined in the school committee policy and evaluates applicants against a defined set of criteria covering curriculum and instruction design, staff qualifications, facility safety, and compliance, organizational governance, and financial stability.

The review follows a five-step process: application review, site visit, leadership interview, evaluation, and a formal recommendation to the superintendent and school committee.

All five steps are now complete for the application before you this evening.

Tonight, as the superintendent said, you will hear from South End Village Academy, a new independent school proposed for 1525 Washington Street in Boston South End, serving students from preschool through grade three in its first year with plans to expand to grade six over time.

The application was received this spring.

A site visit was conducted on June 3rd, and the review team's recommendation has been submitted to the superintendent.

The review team found that SIVA meets the criteria outlined by the Boston School Committee with conditions, which are detailed in the review team report included in your materials.

I'll now pass the presentation to head of school, Christina Lopez from South End Village Academy.

Good evening, members of the Boston School Committee.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present tonight.

My name is Christina Lopez.

I'm here in my role as head of school, and I'm here representing teachers and families that are intent on the survival of their beloved school community.

The South End Village Academy, or Siva for short, was born from the wreckage that was left after the crisis at the Croft Schools.

We learned in early March about the inexcusable actions of the school's founder.

We were informed that there was no more money left, and I was tasked to close school within a week.

To me and to many parents and teachers in our community, closing early was not an option.

Siva immediately was established by parents as a nonprofit corporation to collect donations to fund the remainder of the school year at the South End.

They secured a 50501c3 status and continue to raise over a million dollars in record time.

Concurrently, they made plans to be an option in case a buyer was not secured for all three CROFT schools.

After months of a failed sale process, Steve exercised a purchase agreement to acquire the assets and the lease of the South End location.

The possibility for a future of our new school was taking place.

Our ability to mobilize, to raise funds, and to create the plans necessary to responsibly run a school speaks volumes of how much we love our school, we need our school, and of our confidence that we can do a phenomenal job if given the opportunity.

Our school is designed to be a neighborhood school.

We want to help be part of the reason why families can stay in our vibrant city.

Our program is rigorous and joyful for students in and out of the classroom and also flexible, communicative, and supportive for all of our families.

We are a village within a neighborhood.

It is grounded in the basics.

We ensure the use of quality research backed curriculum, give teachers ample time to plan together to collaborate, respond to data, and communicate with families.

We use project-based learning to get kids into the neighborhood to connect with and learn from their neighbors, art, local organizations, and small businesses.

Being a neighborhood school means that we have a priority to welcome and support all of our neighbors.

We believe that diversity in all meanings of the word creates a rich community.

We commit to meeting students where they are academically in all families where they are financially.

This has been our home since 2022.

We have five years left on the lease with the option of two five-year extensions.

The next is enrollment.

There is demand.

We have a philanthropically committed family community.

And our financial models of our standalone school, apart from the rest of the CROF schools, show that we can get to sustainable operating surplus over the next couple of years.

In the meantime, there will be a deficit, but we were gifted a $1 million donation to help continue cover the commitment of financial aid and so that our program is delivered with fidelity.

Lastly, we have a responsibility to establish a professional institutional grade operation.

We have set up all parts of the school thoughtfully with experts.

It is a requirement after what we went through to be transparent, responsible stewards of the school, and this includes the SIVA board.

They are parents who are incredibly smart, committed to the mission, and can oversee the proper execution of the school.

They have already been doing this since March, meeting every other night after their day jobs, sometimes until midnight.

They have a wide range of backgrounds from nonprofit to business to education, and it has been a privilege to work with them.

And I thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback, questions, and consideration.

Thank you.

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

Go ahead.

So save time.

Very bluntly.

What's the uh deletion?

$34,000 is the set tuition.

And uh I I see that you have approximately 42% of students receiving deletion support or scholarship.

That is correct.

Okay.

Around 30% of our tuition dollars go to financial aid, and that impacts 40% of our students.

Right.

So the 70s have the seventy seven the seventy, seven students that you have right now.

42%.

That's pretty good.

And um, talk about the diversity and and and the social economic uh status of of of students.

The financial aid speaks to the socioeconomic diversity.

Um so we use clarity to determine need um for financial aid uh for diversity forty percent of our students identify as students of color.

Good okay.

Thank you.

That's all I need to ask.

Mm-hmm.

I have one question.

What is the admission process?

The admissions process is very personalized.

We get to know families um very closely and so after they express interest in our school we invite them in immediately to meet the family to bring them into their space and to learn about them to see if it would be a good fit they fill out an application um and then we decide on admitting them from there.

If they are admitted they can choose to go through the program uh the clarity application to get financial aid.

If they qualify financial for financial aid and there's enough room in our budget we will populate a personalized tuition for them.

Okay.

What I was gonna ask was along the lines of the financial aid is that forty percent lower than what you had originally had as profit.

It's actually higher for next year um given the attrition of students through the crisis.

Okay.

And so the people who are staying were really committed to maintaining the financial aid status and so we maintained a higher percentage of our financial aid students.

And and so does your model also project that you like you'll be able to stay at about that forty percent mark or higher.

It's actually going to go down over the next few years.

Do you like to speak to this?

Sure.

Um thank you for the time um so I spent I've um I've uh joined the CVA board kind of in the in the midst of the crisis and so we now have pretty have a pretty good picture of of the economics of the school just as we've basically been uh funding the bills basically for the schools since March.

Um and basically the the the crux of it is that um we have um our aroma is down and uh as you might expect uh the people who were paying full tuition were more likely to leave than the people who are on some sort of financial need and so now the number of that are on scholarship has gone up.

The reality is that and you can see it in the in the projections is that the um absent uh significant philanthropic help over the course of it on a sustainable basis that forty percent or or forty percent of students or thirty percent of the kind of gross revenue number in aid is an unsustainable figure and so over time um we um it is an enormous priority for us to try to make that number as high as possible while also m being financially sustainable and so over time we project in you can see in our projections that that number comes down to something in the in the order of twenty percent of gross tuition which probably means something closer to twenty-five percent are on some sort of aid which is and that's that's what we think is is um is feasible given kind of what we think is our fundraising capacity but I think it's going to be an an it's a it's a really a crucial part of what we are being a neighborhood school trying to serve um as socioeconomically diverse group as we possibly can um while also being financially viable so I was probably gonna ask more about like just what you all had in the pipeline for philanthropy and just fundraising.

Yeah so the um we have um yeah we uh I think I think we sort of surprised uh we were surprised by the um the generosity that we had just within our parent community um and uh the the fundamentals of these independent schools and you guys know school economics better than I do I'm sure but these they they're expensive to run um and the the major things are um payroll which is it it costs what it costs to get great educators and um facilities are in in Boston in particular very expensive um and so a part of our plan is um are the the next major step for us is to um find a site in which to uh in which to grow so we can actually get to basically to get back to the enrollment where we were at around 140 150 kids uh we have uh we have a hundred forty uh ish in the projections um and so we are um actively um uh actively in negotiations for leasing a new space and um as part of that we're going to have to do a capital campaign to do the tenant improvements and those tenant improvements are expensive uh this this is like uh two three million dollar kind of project uh and so we're going to have to start a capital campaign very quickly um uh this summer we have um quite a bit of it already spoken for in terms of just interest from uh you know uh philanthropic people who are really eager to see the school succeed uh and so that's that's given us a head start um but that's it's gonna be it's going to be different than the then the crop school which was a for-profit school which didn't have uh philanthropic access this is something that we um do have we have it within our community and we think we have um a compelling story to tell to the to the larger um Boston community as well um sorry um good evening the 77 enrolled students right now do you have capacity to enroll more um for the 26 27 year and all all of your budget assumptions based on the 77 as if you were to get no more students this would be where you were are you still actively recruiting students we're going slowly because of space um our building can accommodate I think ninety ninety-four ninety four kids so we do have space where we can enroll more however um we are making sure that we are growing responsibly and making sure that next year's um there's stability um and so we could enroll more um we don't necessarily want to the budget built off of that number 700 yeah the 77 we're a little higher now just as a we're 8181 now we're being cautious I mean we can we can get to ninety-four or ninety-five based on kind of what we think the occupancy is but it's it gets tight and so we're trying to be cautious about that.

We all we do have um you want to talk about some of the other alter space alternatives we yeah we build a lot of partnerships with neighborhood organizations and so currently we share space with the Salvation Army for the past year and so we have a continuing MOU with them to use their second floor which is a full gym and also classrooms.

And so we do have kind of across the street ability to walk across the street and have space there to continue to learn in their beautiful classrooms.

We're also in conversations with United South End settlements um to create an MOU there as well.

Just to extend on Zark Dalkin's question around philanthropy your model for this 26-27 year is very dependent on the pledge and annual fund line in order to the black how committed is that funding um versus in hand versus pledged um it is um it is pledged and ready to be delivered um by the this particular um this is it's actually a board member um and so I think that's as it's as secured as it is it as it possibly could be absent it actually being in our bank account which it which it it's um right now we have um we have sufficient funds to uh to operate in the in the bank account for now and so that'll be called when it's needed um and are the projections for on the philanthropy line for the twenty seven twenty eight and twenty eight twenty nine year um based on kind of the internal board capacity to give at that level or imagining that you would bring someone to focus on development or would that be kind of built into some of your existing roles in terms of where are the where are the projections coming based on the projections are uh really based on kind of what we think we can do within just the parent community the um we're hoping we can do more, especially when it comes to the capital campaign, which isn't in this budget.

Um the just because that's it this kind of contemplates the lease expense but not the actual tenant improvement build out which would be required.

Um and so right now we're kind of thinking that most of our philanthropy is going to be from the you know the parent community, but we're we're out we're we're hopeful and we have several um very skilled fundraisers that are on the board um to be able to reach out to a broader um broader, you know, philanthropic group.

I think over time we would love to add actual, you know, um uh professional development uh capabilities in-house to to help with this over time as we scale.

But in the in the in the meantime, in the interest of sort of being financially um prudent, that's it's like that's a cost item we're just not prepared yet for.

But with which is and the board is kind of doing a lot of that like work for now.

And just related to the board, um, in terms of the I think um you said head of school Lopez that it's completely comprised of parents currently.

Currently, yes.

Um is there uh um intention to seek expertise in gap areas um that parents may not have.

Um what is the imagined kind of growth for the um for the board is a very impressive um set of experiences, but particularly in the area of finance, for example, um, you know, if you want to have a finance committee, things of that nature, um, are you ex uh looking beyond the parent community?

And were any of these board members board members before um board members of Croft?

None of these board members were board members of Croft.

These are all parents.

Um we will definitely this this board was born in an emergency situation and we are still operating as such.

We end school on Friday.

Um and so once school ends and Steva begins on Monday, we can turn our our eyes to see um what will the board look like and open procedures there.

Um we also have we've had um we reach out to some consultants too to kind of bridge the gap in some areas that we are missing um so that we can ask for advice um and make sure that we're taking the right steps, and so um an example of that is we hired a bookkeeper or we hired a consultant who has run um a school similar to ours um and reached out as needed to be coached.

Um and so we know when to ask for help and we've really appreciated that help.

Um, but the board is really doing most of it now.

Thank you.

And my my very last question, just with the um public nature of um how you all have been birthed and what the school community has been through over the last year.

Um do you have planned um more public communication updates around the financial health, um, overall health of the school um already set, or is that something that you imagine are building into your plans um moving forward?

So just to be clear uh on the question, it's how how are we going to share the message of our school more broadly within the public?

Not really the message of your school.

I really mean like the um like the the financial health of the school specifically, um six months from now, one year, you know, like what does that look like?

Yeah, I mean I think that's um that's a good question.

The um because I think it's something that um we've had as as we've enrolled students, I think a lot of uh a lot of folks were you know asking, you know, how does the how does the model work?

Um and so I think that's something that we haven't we haven't we haven't um laid out a precise roadmap in terms of how we're going to um uh communicate that to the community, but it's definitely on our radar screen.

I mean, uh we've we've lined up an auditor as a nonprofit, we have much a much higher standard uh in terms of of um of reporting.

We are required to for uh file a Form 990 um and we will get audited financials um and so those are those are two things we're going to do.

Um, but in addition to that, I think we're going to be much more transparent about how things are evolving, you know, as the school year progresses.

I think um I I think you know, some sort of quarterly or s or semi-annual update about, you know, how what our cash position looks like, what are, you know, what our cost needs are for the next, you know, six months, I think those would be go a long way in terms of building back this the trust that we we need in in this community.

Um obviously we we no one here was a part of kind of what happened uh at Oxford Street, but you know, we we have a very we have I think what is like a kind of a traumatized group of of parents um who obviously didn't had no idea what what they what they were had gotten themselves into.

And so I think uh we're gonna, or on the side of um, you know, communicating and being as transparent as we possibly can about how we're doing financially.

Thank you.

Um I'll keep my question I got a ton, but I'll keep my question short.

Um you mentioned in the equitable access, multilingual learners saw that.

I didn't see anything about students with disabilities, and so I was just wondering like what is your thinking about that model?

Sure.

Um so for our enrolled students for next year, we have twenty-seven percent of them get services um based on an evaluation.

We work very um collaboratively to personally support each child.

We bring in outside providers, um, we meet with them.

Some of those providers have um executed parent workshops to learn a little bit more about their approach and also trained teachers, so we have wider skill base on their approach, um, and then we work with families very um like in in tight feedback loops so they understand what interventions are we doing, how is the service provider working at school?

Um, and we have seen a lot of success with students who have pretty significant diagnoses.

Do you have a sense of like your current population that you're projecting of the 77?

What portion have an IEP?

I think for an extra there's no confirmed IEPs, although there's a few in process right now, but like I said, twenty-seven percent receive services based on an evaluation.

But it I mean, I only say this because of the conversation I was having earlier, which is facilities is definitely your driving cost staffing.

Unknowns in the form of what students need, yeah, is like another.

And so I think I would just think about having funding set aside for those kinds of unknowns to keep sustainable.

The other thing is when you jump from 77 to 140, are you you're not building up third to fourth?

You're taking in a block of grades at that point.

We will grow by one grade every year.

But the but uh to answer your uh I think your your question is the the the bulk of um of the enrollment increase comes from the lower grades.

Which is which is uh which is uh which we've what we've historically have had, we've had two preschool classes, two.

So you want to go two strand.

Exactly.

And that's and that's actually, I mean, in some respects in terms of what's like most uh eas easiest to rely on is that is the demand at that young at that younger level uh for preschool and pre-K and there where there's a a lot of demand in our neighborhood.

And so that I think we're very, very confident in those things where where it's harder, and I'm sure you guys know this as well, just in terms of enrollment at the higher grades, it's harder.

It'll be harder to backfill any of the students that we lost in the crisis basically in the you know, third grade, fourth grade, but we're gonna try our best to get to um to add 'cause uh, you know, once we have we have incredible teachers there in a classroom with ten kids that could easily have eleven or twelve, we would love to add additional students there.

Um you know, and now that could be somebody that can pay full pay and that could it in many cases those are great opportunities for uh very high need uh students because there's the those are places we have a lot of uh access capacity.

And so that's that's uh what we'd like to do.

Historically we have added at our higher grades.

So this past year with second grade, which is our oldest grade, we had four new students.

One came from abroad and a few came from private schools where they were getting on a bus to go outside the city.

And so families who decide that they really want to raise their kid in the city and chose something outside of the city originally kind of were looking at us as a solution to staying in the neighborhood.

Um and similarly before this crisis when we were adding third grade, we had three families interested in joining third grade.

Um so there is a little bit there.

Okay.

Um and last, um the material component of what currently exists with Croft that will go away.

But these are things like technology, desks, furniture.

Is it a clean break?

As in yes, every okay.

So just clean break so on Friday it will cease to be Crofts and on the next day it will be SIBAS.

So that was our purchase agreement.

Does the lawsuit that has been filed seize asset of what was cross?

Not in the South end because of our purchase agreement.

Okay.

Hi.

Um question about um I know y you're gonna be operating in the South end.

Are children from the Jamaica Plain site also coming to join you in this endeavor?

I have spoken to 25 of the Croft JP families um as they are navigating this next step.

I'm hoping that we'll be able to welcome a few of them um i at SIVA next year.

How long had Croft been operating before this crisis?

In the South end uh for four years.

I was the founding head of school in the South End.

And what about in Jamaica Plain?

In Jamaica Plain it was six years.

Six years.

And Providence eight years?

Okay.

What was the what was the God I'm so interested.

What was what was the initial since you were the founding what was the initial enrollment at the beginning in South and ooh.

You're testing me very late at night.

Um we had two preschool classes and one pre-K class I can't remember the number.

It was roughly fifty.

Yeah, like twenty four more yeah and then what what did it max out at uh yeah one twenty four this past year?

One twenty-four so there's a lot of good information in that about your financial sustainability.

I'm telling K zero to K two I know really the K zero to third grade is the most expensive grade.

So anyways there's a lot to it on earth but what is your financial plan stability so that three years from now history does not repeat itself.

I think first and foremost history will not repeat itself because we were one school of three and when we peeled back the layers um there was just incredible inconsistency with how um we like where the money was going.

And so our our financial analysis of our school as a standalone school was actually viable.

I think JP's was viable as well.

It was Providence um that was really struggling and so some of our um revenue was actually going to happen.

So it's a totally different scenario which is why we've looked really hard at what is within our four walls and what is viable in the South end.

I mean I think um in terms of viability that's kind of ultimately what's leading to the projections which is uh is going to be a less is going to be a more moderate amount of financial aid which is just uh like it's an unfortunate reality of trying to make this more viable um and then I think it's going to be exercising a muscle of of um of or developing a strong like f philanthropy muscle to uh to basically be able to fund both um the kind of scholarship uh part of the budget but also you know ongoing capital projects as needed and so I think we're going to um we're going to start um be this m we're going to start looking more like other independent schools which you know they have scholarship they have a certain amount of financial aid and then they have an annual fund and then capital needs and we're gonna be I think I don't think our um real estate is going to be the fanciest.

I think we'd rather spend we'll it'll be adequate and and good but I and we we'd rather allocate more resources to financial aid that would be to us that would seem like uh um an accomplishment to be to be something that's like to to be to to make that more of a priority than our peers and that's what we're gonna do uh the best we can to to do.

I know you're saying that this year the amount of financial aid is quite substantial but you would assume it will go down in future years.

What is that due to the commitment to families who are there on financial aid because they need will probably not change but exactly how will you balance that?

Yeah which and so the we that was a promise we kind of when we decided we were going to take on the task of of continuing the school we made a kind of a commit a commitment to that anyone that was here we were going to keep and uh make sure that there was a spot for for them and um that that is something we honored.

Um what it basically means that it on the incremental enrollment it's going to be we're going to have to be um uh much like l I think we're gonna have to do less financial aid so we're going to have more financial aid in the upper grades and in this next kind of interim period there's going to be more financial aid in the upper grades less kind of at the preschool pre K level and over time it'll probably average out to more of a standard you know each class kind of has a certain amount um but so but in this interim period it's going to be a little lopsided because of because of what we just described.

Thank you.

Anybody else have been all right well then thank you so much and we will vote on this our July 8th meeting.

Thank you so much.

Is the extended day a separate financial model is it yeah that's separate five months and no it's in our financial it's kind of like a pass through we you know we everyone's kind of billed uh to the extent they sign up for extended day um and we're we're still um figuring out uh how we're going to manage financial aid on that um but that's something that um it's a smaller number it's something that's more manageable um and we're we're still kind of figuring that out uh as as we go where we've got um Clarity who's the the provider that we use there they have a lot of good advice on this because they see this you know every single day they see how schools are doing this and so we we're we're working with them to come up with something that feels um both you know financial responsible but equitable as well okay great thank you thank you very nice will now return to public comment yeah we um John Mudd.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry to keep you at this hour but uh I'll try to keep it short.

Uh uh I think it is important to try and put the rich discussion you had around special education and inclusion in context.

I started working around special education in Boston public schools in the nineteen nineties I hate to say and inclusion for special education students has traditionally meant shifting special education students from substantially separate classes into mainstream regular education classes with the necessary training, staffing and resources and with a special concern for the disproportionate assignment of black boys into substantially separate classes.

Research shows that this kind of inclusion can be good for students if done right.

In its memo answering questions about the proposed FY27 budget BP uh to the the school commit uh the city council uh wro uh requested BPS wrote it could report no reduction in substantially separate classes no reduction in the number of students in subset classes and no cost savings the number of percentage students in subset classes I think is still hovering about a thirty seconds and uh we do not have goals for uh the achievement of uh reduction of subset or the reduction of uh black students in subset classes you somebody asked what is one concrete suggestion to this big pack and I would say take them up or you should take the lead in collaborative planning.

You have an institution under the new business.

My shout outs because of thank you my shout outs will be on July eighth.

All righty thank you very much I I say the same I have some questions about this live program but hopefully we can talk about that in our next meeting.

You have a memo in your packet also that can have any questions.

Some context yes just to follow up on a Mr.

slide we have a pack we have it I guess but would we have a member of the office with us?

Absolutely.

Absolutely I can call and explain it or Joel will yeah absolutely thank you.

Okay.

So please note that our next meeting will be remote on Zoom on July eighth and we'll start at five thirty PM.

So if there's nothing further I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting is there a motion.

Is there a second second?

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent?

Hearing none the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all have a good night.

And the lights didn't go out there