>> it is five o'clock. I'm going to call to order the april 24th,
2024 board of education of cecil county work session. We have all board members and our student board member in attendance.
we have a quorum. Ms. Rogers, will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
first on the agenda, we have the blueprint for maryland's future update. Dr. Lawson.
>> thank you, ms. Holly. Just a few things before I turn it over to dr. Hammer and buckley.
we are in the second year of the blueprint implementation.
we've known for a few years now that there's a lot of pieces to it.
I think on the surface, most people will agree on things like improved pay for our teachers,
expanded pre-k for four-year-olds, more college opportunities for our high school students.
there's a cost associated with that, and I think that has certainly probably caused some sticker shock around the state.
I will give credit to the interim state superintendent.
she has been very aggressive, I'd say, in the last two months. She has assembled a work group of eight county superintendents, of which I'm one,
as well as representatives from the aib, rachel hise, brit kirwan,
and ike leggett, as well as carey wright, the interim superintendent herself.
they've really had an open ear to some of the challenges that we're facing,
and I'm optimistic that they are in a position where they understand that for this to be successful for the next five,
10, 15 years, there may be opportunities along the way to take a step back
and tweak the way the implementation was thought it would be back in 2021,
'22 when the legislation passed. We have a presentation for you this evening.
encourage you to ask questions along the way. We'll go through pillar by pillar where we
think we are and where some of the challenges are. Feel free to have as much of a discussion about this as a presentation.
with that, dr. Hammer. >> thank you, dr. Lawson. Good evening, everyone. Thank you.
we literally a year ago in march were together and made
a copy of this exact presentation to present this for you today.
I can see us doing the same thing year after year, just giving you updates as the changes are being made to the blueprint.
our goal today is that we're going to just give you some of those updates, as dr. Lawson shared with you.
just a little bit of history on blueprint. As you know, this really is education reform.
the goal of this is to really have an impact that is comprehensive in terms of changing
what education looks like in the state of maryland to make it a world class education system in the nation.
the recommendations for blueprint were made by the commission on
innovation and excellence in education known as the kirwan commission that was chaired by brit kirwan.
the legislation was passed in 2021. Updates have been made year after year to the blueprint,
as dr. Lawson mentioned. As we're putting it into implementation,
things may not be working as it was planned in the legislation. Those adjustments are being made as we go.
those adjustments really are timelines and some of the language. Funding needs to be attached to this.
this is a very expensive proposition to make this comprehensive change in the state of maryland,
with over 3.1 billion over 10 years in the state of maryland.
as you know, it is monitored at the state level by the accountability & implementation board,
which is pillar 5. Just a little history lesson before we get started with our updates in cecil county.
to get started, just as an overview, as you know, there are five pillars.
pillar 1 is early childhood education. Our goal is that we're going to go
through each one of these in a little more detail with you. I have some of our staff here with us today to answer
any specific questions that you may have. Pillar 2, high quality and diverse teachers and leaders.
you'll hear a little more about that, as well as our college and career readiness, pillar 3.
pillar 4 are supports for students. Finally, the foundation really talks about
the minimum adequate funding at the 75% level,
which in terms of a timeline has been pushed another year.
one thing of note is that there are many valued services and programs that are not a part of the blueprint.
you can see several of them that are listed here, including making sure class sizes stay at
a reasonably appropriate level to meet student needs. You can see safety and security are not included in the blueprint.
neither are arts and music programs, world languages, extracurricular and athletics.
technology is limited in terms of its inclusion, as well as employee benefits.
the funds are flowing, but not necessarily to these very valued programs and services that are
very much a holistic part of the educational program that we want to develop for our students.
that's something that's important to know.
>> real quick. Sorry. >> go ahead. >> have you had any discussion as to why class size,
being one of them that I would think really important, was never added or discussed?
has there been any conversation about that? >> not directly. I think the thinking is that really it's been
said in many locals that they expect class sizes to go up.
these are some of the unintended consequences, I think, that have happened.
what we do know is that english learners, students with disabilities, compensatory education,
college classes, pre-k, the workforce issues, apprenticeships, there are certain things that
are absolutely being addressed and funded. This is what has me so concerned about the 75/25 split, is that the 25,
I don't think as we move through this in the out years that the 25% is going to be enough because the 25% has to cover all of these.
I worry that as we move through this, the 75/25, the math isn't correct.
but again, I do think whether it's the state department, msde, or aib,
aib is the accountability implementation board, I think they're in a position to pay attention to that and to listen.
we will see. Take for instance, employee benefits. We know about the charge to have first year teachers at $60,000 a year by july 1 of 2026.
nobody brought up the fact that what comes with that are increase in fixed charges.
our fixed charges are upwards of probably close to 20%. As the salaries go up,
so do the fixed charges, but there's no funding coming in just for the fixed charges.
well, where is that money supposed to come from? From the foundation money.
that's what I'm saying, this limited pot. Dual enrollment, dr. Buckley and dr. Hammer will talk about that in a minute.
we know that dual enrollment funds have been cut almost in half, but yet we're going to be expected to deliver
dual enrollment opportunities for our seniors going into next year. Frankly, the revenue is just not there.
time after time, what we're seeing is that the revenue is not there to cover the things that the community is used to.
the community is accustomed to having sports and these opportunities,
whether it's world language, whether it's music, and there is no specific callout for that funding in the blueprint.
I do think that's something that's going to have legislative attention in the coming years,
as well as from the state and the aib.
>> to get started, and again, please stop us with any questions.
thank you, mr. Fernando. Under the leadership of dr. Johnson, pillar 1 is early childhood education,
and this provides expansion opportunities for pre k of students ages 3 and 4.
it also provides opportunities for public and private partnerships with the school system in private schools.
there's also an increased number of early childhood qualified educators,
not only teachers but also paraprofessionals who have certain credentialing to make sure that they
have the skills and understanding to meet our youngest learners. Finally, a scaling impact and increase in the number of jd centers.
we're going to show you next just where we are in terms of our implementation in cecil county.
to start in 2022-23 school year, you can see the number of early childhood students we had,
we had over 700 early childhood students,
and four year olds were qualifying for a pre k program who were 185% of the federal poverty line.
those students were qualified for the program. We also have three year old half day programs across the district then and
only five judy centers at the time in 2022-23 school year.
we had one private provider that provided 30 seats. That private provider is mount aviate academy.
go ahead, miss dixon. >> does ccps pay mount aviate?
>> ccps does pay mount aviate to have those seats there.
23-24 school year, you can see the increase in students are slowly starting to creep up in our early childhood programming.
four year olds at 300% of the federal poverty line. The three year old program is still half day program,
but we've increased, we've doubled our judy centers in cecil county, and we're really seeing a tremendous impact of that birth to
age five programming to support those families and students.
that scaling has been really quite influential. Again, we still only have one private provider who has
come forth because the credentialing for that programming it's challenging and many people don't want to engage in it.
>> why do we have a private providers there no room for those other 30 seats with us.
>> it's part of the law. The law requires us to. >> I think, particularly some of the bigger counties,
is that the school systems aren't equipped to deal with all the four year olds from a pure space perspective.
I would say in cecil county, we have some challenges as it relates to space,
building capacity, not as bad as some of these other systems. They're talking about having to add actually
bricks and mortar to accommodate four year olds. As the bill was being drafted,
the thinking was that we would rely on private partnerships, and what's happened now is that this has become in practice
is that because the standards and the rigor of the program implementation is so high,
a lot of the private partners don't want to touch it because
they can't pay their people a certain amount of money because it's too costly.
across the state, everybody is struggling to have enough private providers.
>> cecil county has been described as a childcare desert by some,
to have these qualified programs, and there's an excels qualification that you have to go through all of these standards.
there's specific standards that you have to go through to be a childcare provider to have credentialing that includes space,
number, student teacher ratio, training that you're required to have. Doctor johnson, I'm missing anything else?
>> curriculum and instruction and assessment. >> curriculum and instruction and assessment that are all part of this excels qualifications.
>> do your teachers in the private provider schools have to have certain credentials?
>> I believe so. >> more so than just a daycare? >> yes.
>> that's part of the cost. >> that's what's been turning all,
many of the private providers. I'm sorry. >> step in. >> say that again. >> can you talk a little bit about head start and how that may influence this?
>> you got [inaudible]
>> our head start students and the seats they have right now, the struggle is the headstart program doesn't meet
the maryland excels criteria for a level 5.
because keep in mind, a private provider is offering a public school seat,
so these students are public school students, they're just receiving the service that a private provider.
one of the issues has been the federal legislation that protects headstart
has kept those programs from meeting the excels criteria.
that's an ongoing priority to try to get that corrected to make sure they have a chance to on board to the program,
but right now they don't work together.
>> what you'll see moving into next school year, we anticipate a lot of the same as what we've had in the past, with less expansion.
we are looking to have an additional duty center, at least one more additional duty center that would qualify,
but still only one provider, private provider is what we're forecasting for next school year.
>> we've already been told that we will not receive funding for tier 2 students next year.
mind you, tier 1, tier 2, tier. Tier 1 typically are students from poverty,
and we are now going to include students with disabilities and english learners.
those students will all be considered tier 1, and so they will have a seat in a four year old program.
tier 2 and tier 3, this current year we're in,
we did receive some funding for tier 2. Next year we're being told we won't,
so that if we want to provide services to tier 2 next year,
we are going to have to do that from the foundation money. Yet again, another example of not having the money,
so it's going to have to come from the foundation cost. The board's position, we'd be interested in some feedback.
right now, about three quarters of our students are tier 1. The other students that are in our current program are either tier 2 or tier 3,
and it's all income based. I guess we could hold out hope and hope that
some funding does start to follow these students. I think as we move into preparing for fy 26,
there is going to be what's called a sliding scale where we will have the opportunity to start charging tuition for some tier 2 and tier 3 students.
dr. Johnson and miss olpa on your toes back there, if I'm wrong.
the state is looking at hiring a third party vendor to do the income qualifications,
as well as tuition collection. Schools are not in the business right now of going to a family and saying,
you haven't paid us your hundred $80 this week, your child can't come starting monday.
that's nothing we've ever done. But right now the state is looking at picking up
a third party to do it statewide to handle that for. To summarize this, we have concerns moving into next school year that
there isn't funding to support any tier 2 and tier 3 students.
I would not be surprised as we move into next year to see our pre k numbers go down to some extent.
>> is there a formula already for the charging of the tier 2, or is that something to steel tbd?
>> it is articulated the sliding scale, dr. Johnson. >> the overall recommendation right now is 3-7% of the family's adjusted income,
and that's based on their federal poverty line percentage. For families that are 301% to 600%,
that's that 3-7% range, and then families that more than 600% of the federal poverty line would pay tuition.
>> the 300% is 300% of the poverty line for a family of four,
which is $31,000 so that a family can make up to
$90,000 for a family of four and they come as a tier 1 for pre k. Families that make more than that,
a percentage of their income comes to the school system to cover, so you follow me on this?
you can see how dicy it would get for the lead secretary asking,
well, how much does your family make and then taking 3%. Well, now you have to pay,
it puts us in the bill collection business, and again, something we are not equipped to do.
>> do we have seats for those tier 2 and tier 3, if we.
>> yes, we could make it happen [inaudible]
>> do we have teachers for those? >> as we continue with expansion,
that does remain a priority for us as recruiting early for those early childhood settings,
both pre k3 and pre k4 settings, both of which need to expand.
I would say getting teachers will be a challenge because across the state,
every one across the state will be recruiting for more early childhood teachers.
>> good question. Thank you. >> that's a nice segue into pillar 2.
where in pillar 2, we're going to focus and talk about high-quality and diverse teachers and leaders.
out of pillar 2, in comes the increase to the starting salary for teachers at $60,000,
and that is effective july 1, 2026, so fy27, we have to be at that $60,000 mark.
we have successfully negotiated with our teacher association so that we should hit that mark on july 1,
2026, so that should not be an issue. The next piece to that is the career ladder and incentive focusing on teacher leaders.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about that on a graphic on the next slide where we get into what the career ladder is going to look like.
that all has to be negotiated. We'll sit down with the association, we'll work through exactly how we're going to structure
those levels that are spelled out on the career ladder. Overall, it's about raising expectations for teacher preparation and induction.
based upon the conversation that we just had about early childhood educators and the scarcity that exists there,
we're faced along with every other lea in the state of trying to find
teachers at a time when colleges of education have a dwindling enrollment.
so not only across the state of maryland, we are an import state for our teachers.
primarily, we import our teachers into the state of maryland because we don't produce enough,
but other universities throughout the country are also dwindling enrollments in their education programs.
so at a time when we're trying to raise up the level of expectations and diversify our workforce,
there's a decrease in those going into education, which is why we've got to grow our own programs and
various other initiatives to develop and grow teachers here in cecil county.
this next graphic, it's a little busy.
this comes straight out of the blueprint. You'll note at the bottom,
those first three levels there, that has to be negotiated and submitted by july 1 of this year,
so we'll be sitting down and negotiating with the teacher association, and basically,
what those first three levels are going to spell out, when you sign a contract and you come to work with us,
you are a certified teacher, so you're going to be level 1. Where we have to then negotiate is,
what does pursuing a master's or pursuing nbc,
national board certification, or pursuing 30 credits of approved credits in a course of study, what does that mean?
does that mean I take a class or I enroll in the program, whatever that looks like? They would then advance to level 2.
then once they have completed either their master's or course of study or an nbc,
the nbc only would advance to level 3.
so why only the nbc? The national board certification has a certification process and the state has
committed to paying $10,000 for every teacher that earns the nbc status.
currently, right now, we have teachers that have a master's, they have an advanced professional certificate,
they have a master's plus 30, a master's plus 60, and for each level of that,
they receive an addendum to their salary. For example, if I have my master's degree,
I receive an additional $1,975 currently. If I have my doctorate degree, I receive 5,425.
with the implementation of the blueprint, they set a standard of $10,000 for national board-certificated teacher.
you'll see on the next slide here an uptick in the number of people that we have pursuing that.
you can, go ahead. >> does that mean that the master's and the doctorate
isn't giving them anything extra, just the board-certified? >> correct, and that's spelled out in the blueprint.
right now, we have negotiated those rates for the master's, the master's 30, the master's 60, and the doctorate,
so that would be up to us to sit down and negotiate what that would look like. But by law, we're compelled to give $10,000 for a nationally board-certificated teacher.
then as they earn renewals, they would earn an additional 8,000 for the first,
7,000 for the second, 6,000 for the third. Further, if they work in a high-poverty school or a school improvement,
a school identified as a school of improvement status, they would receive an additional 7,000.
for example, we will have two teachers next year that will have their base salary plus
$17,000 because they're nationally board certified and they're working in a school improvement that's been identified.
automatically, they will get that because of that certification. If they have a master's or master's plus 30,
they would also receive that addendum as well. There's a lot of caveats buried within here,
where we'll sit down again and we'll negotiate this with the association to work through that.
we have to have those first three levels done this year, and then we'll advance forward from
there into level 4 where we get into the lead teachers, distinguished teachers, and so forth.
then there's also a leadership track there that would kick over on a license principle and distinguished principles.
again, they would have to have an nbc in order to qualify in advance beyond as we go forward.
but that's eight years out where that has to be fully implemented.
>> how much does it cost to get nationally board certified?
>> I'm going to forward to mr. Zimmerman, 2,000. >> two thousand. >> does the school system pay for that? >> $2000
>> do we pay for that? >> we pay a third of that.
correct. We pay a third of that. Advance. Yeah.
>> dr. Buckley and maybe, mr. Zimmerman, can you speak to how the pay stipends for national board-certified teachers are covered?
is it local money? Is it state money? What's the breakdown? >> the way that it's funded,
it's about a 50/50 split. When a teacher is going to receive $10,000,
the state will cover approximately 5,000 of that up to the 10,000.
we can negotiate more than that, but the state would only cover that 50% of it up to the 5,000 threshold.
the 8,000 for the first renewal, again, they would cover half of that, is that correct?
they would cover half of that. If it's $8,000 that we negotiate,
the state would pay 4,000, so we would be on the hook for the balance of that.
on this slide, what you'll notice is this year, in fy24,
we had 29 teachers that received that $10,000 stipend,
so $290,000 of which half we paid for through our funds,
through the state funds and local funding, and then the other half of that came directly as
a pay go from the state to support that, and so that's the uniqueness that's there.
again, you can see on this slide, prior to the blueprint,
we had a practice where we would have two participants each year because we felt that we could support them,
and once they earned their nbc, they would receive a stipend of $2,000.
that was prior to the blueprint. Since the '22-'23 school year,
we had the 29 teachers, we had none that we're working in low-performing schools,
and then next year as we get into next year, we have 32 teachers,
so that's $320,000 plus the two teachers that are going to be working at a low-performing school, an additional $14,000.
right now, we have 79 teachers that are in the pipeline to become national board certified.
that's $790,000, of which we'll be responsible for paying half. Approximately.
>> this is a probably a good time to point out, and we've all heard it, particularly from county leadership that says,
the blueprint is funded. When we pay local share,
that that's enough for the blueprint. I would argue that's probably not untrue.
but what it's doing is it's paying for the blueprint, it's not paying for anything else that we saw in those three or four slides ago.
when we come to you on may 8th with a recommendation, not for a vote,
but with just a model that we think will make ends meet,
you will see the cuts will not be coming from those areas that are protected through the blueprint.
>> but it's really [overlapping]. >> that is just fundamental to keep an eye on. >> it's really not paying for the blueprint if it's only 50%.
>> special ed is woefully short, I would argue el has plenty of money,
comp-ed is somewhere in the middle, dual enrollment is a mess,
so it's hit and miss. >> so to your point, ms. Holly, those 79 teachers,
you're looking at approximately $800,000, half of which is 400,000, that's going to have to come out of, I would assume,
our foundational programming, so that would come from our foundation program, which, again, the earlier slide that we had,
those pieces there where it's taking away from the other components that make our system go, if you will.
>> can I ask what the threshold is for the low-performing schools? What is that? How many schools fall into that category, low-performing schools?
>> right now it's just one. >> [overlapping] next year one. >> okay. >> right now, we just have one that's identified as next year.
>> for next year. >> yes, the state does identify and they give us
some flexibility to self-identify certain schools. >> correct. There's specific criteria around that the state uses to identify.
>> the state defined low-performing school as one or two stars for two out of three years.
that's why we're on the merit, yes.
>> pillar 3. >> moving on to pillar 3. This pillar is chaired by dr. Foy,
and this is college & career readiness. Some of the things you're going to see in pillar 3 are the importance in the goal,
which is having all students meet college and career readiness standards by 10th grade.
we also wanted to make sure to get to that that all of our curriculum resources and assessments are completely aligned to get to that metric.
post college and career readiness, pathways and support pathways for students who
do meet the mark and students who do not meet the mark to make sure that we're supporting all students through this process
in their secondary education specifically high school. Then finally, the goal,
long term, I believe it's in 2030, wes is that we have 45% of our students
engaged in a youth apprenticeship program within the community.
big goals and dreams, so we're going to show you right now just where we are in terms of process of that.
how do you identify a student as college and career ready? >> dr. Hammer, what was that percentage?
>> forty-five percent in youth apprenticeship programs by 2030, I believe.
>> do we have enough businesses? >> we're working on it.
>> in cecil county to do that? >> that's a problem, 45% is almost 500 students and
currently we're probably closer to 25 students.
that's a big, big lift, and again, across the state, it's a concern.
>> for a student to be deemed college and career-ready, there is a new college and career readiness standard that will be utilized by the state.
this was recently passed by the maryland state board of education. You see two options here.
option 1 is at the top. If a student will be considered college and career-ready,
if they achieve a grade point, average of 3.0 or higher that is unweighted.
as for and, they also have to have math mastery,
which means they have to have an a, b, or c in algebra or they have to have a proficient or above score on the algebra mcap.
that's one path for ccr. The other option is that they score proficient or above on ela 10,
mcap 10, or the algebra 1 math. The first option brings in gpa and grades,
the second option does not, it's straight assessment scores. Those are the two pathways for students to be identified as ccr.
with that comes funding. Let's show you where we are and where we have been.
the fy23 and fy24 school years,
we were using a previous ccr standard that was based on 2019 data,
and that is because of covid impact. We have been using that standard for
multiple years and you can see the dollar value that attaches to that. We had certain number of students that met that standard,
and there is a dollar value that comes with each one of those students that met that standard that equals $737,000.
as we have moved into next school year, we're still using the previous standard,
but it's now based on the 2023 post covid data.
you can see the significant decline in the ccr numbers that we
have and the money that we have coming in to support those ccr students.
what we see moving forward and beyond,
it's going to be almost like a two-year lagging situation on our hands where data
is going to come in from one year and we're going to have to use it to calculate the number of students.
it would be from the past looking to fund students moving forward.
we're trying to estimate the funding,
we think moving forward, the funding is going to be pretty similar to what it looked like back in
the fy23 and fy24 school years because the new expectations for ccr qualifications will be used.
we believe that's going to be very helpful to us moving forward. I want to share what our participation looks like right now as
a part of some of our pathway work, advanced placement courses. You can see how it has steadily increased from the '22,
'23 school year to this current school year. The number of students and the number of courses those students have taken.
dual enrollment is another area you can see that is slowly starting to increase,
and then the career and technical education certifications that our students are earning at this point.
it's in progress for this year because those assessments are happening as we speak.
moving forward, you see we're in an upward trajectory here. However, we're going to have less money next year,
half as much money to be able to support these initiatives.
any questions about pillar 3?
>> less money, but if we have to reduce the number of courses offered because of funding as well.
>> that's a fundamental decision. If you honor all the requests,
you're going to need to grab probably $300,000-400,000 additionally out of,
once again, the foundation money. There's only so much foundation money to make this work.
doctor foy has put together a model that I don't want to use necessarily the word restrict,
but does provide some criteria for students to take courses.
we know we have a certain amount of money that we can operate with. This is an area being discussed with
the interim superintendents work group on the blueprint. We've made very clear, the local superintendents,
that this is an issue for all of us because this is just a bad year because they're counting the number of
students who are college and career-ready. Our funding has basically been cut in half.
but we're going to apply, and this is the tricky part. We know the number of students are going to spike when we
start using the 3.0 gpa minimum, you're going to see more kids,
but that pot of money is staying the same. It's something we're really going to have to work hard to get through fy25.
everything we're being told is that fy26 will be more favorable in this pillar.
but yeah, it's going to take some creative work. Keep in mind that that money is intended to go for student certification exams,
ap exams, as well as dual enrollment. >> do you know what enrollment looks like or anticipated for '24, '25?
>> dual enrollment or overall enrollment? >> for apc and for dual because I've heard some kids talking about maybe not doing
dual enrollment because of concerns about funding not be available to and they'd have to put more out of pocket.
>> that's for sure. Doctor. >> as it stands now for high school students because they are in the scheduling process,
we've had counselors reach out to students. Our numbers this year compared to last year,
they are a little down just from the requests. There has been conversation probably at the school level in
reference to dual enrollment and those things from experience. Our final number, what we have for request comes in in two weeks,
actually, which report back to me the number of requests for dual enrollment.
I'll have that final number in two weeks. >> dr. Foy, when they're going to their counselor to sign up for their classes,
what are we telling them that's available for dual enrollment now? Is it less than what was before?
>> we provide them four options. Last year, we had schools
who had dual enrollment courses taught on the main campus at the high school,
and I mean last year, meaning this current year, we also allowed students to take courses at cecil college remotely,
and we covered the price of that. Next year, seeing the crunch that we're in,
what we've shared with schools is that we will be able to support and cover those that are in house who meet a certain criteria,
and we've laid that out to schools, mainly looking at students who are in poverty as being part of that criteria.
but it's looking at the four options we have available, english 101.
we also have available statistics, environmental science, and sociology are the offerings kids get for dual enrollment.
however, if they choose to take other courses outside of the home school,
that would be, of course, their parents' responsibility to cover.
>> if a kid asked the question like, how much of this will be covered? They're not able to give them a real answer right now,
like a short thing answer. >> once the final numbers come in, we could see.
>> has it been like that all the time, though, because if 1,000 kids signed up, we wouldn't be able to support it, right?
>> this year is unique in the sense that everybody is uncertain about the funding.
I'll say it now, I was going to probably wait till a little later. This is what worries me most about the blueprint right now is that
there is just some built-in structural inequities. It's not the kind of inequity that we're used to talking about,
this inequity is really based on where you live. If you live in some counties who are robustly funding their public school system,
their students are simply getting more opportunities. That simple.
you have to question, what's the fairness in that?
that if your student, let's just say baltimore county or carroll county, they get x.
but because we live in a county that doesn't necessarily invest in the way other counties do,
our students are limited in dual enrollment. Our four-year-olds are limited.
can they come to school? You just go right down the list. I understand about being frugal and
certain financial principles and all those kind of things. But try telling that to a 13-year old.
what you end up with is a child who is simply not getting the same level of opportunities as a child who lives 26 miles down in 95.
it's just that simple. We can rationalize that it's right or it's wrong or it's this or that,
but what I'm saying is just the cold hard facts. I really truly worry about that.
>> pillar 4 is chaired by mr. Raj,
our director of student services and safety. Pillar 4, what you're going to see is concentration of poverty schools.
you may have seen that flying through our budget reports. This is restricted funds that are coming to
our school system that are to be used for a specific purpose, and these are in targeted schools so we'll go through some of
the qualifications for concentration of poverty in a moment. These are, as I've said,
targeted supports for historically underserved students and also supports for erels and our students with disabilities.
this is what is supposed to be investing in in this pillar. The first piece is concentration of poverty.
we're going to show you some of the qualifications for concentration of poverty first. There is a concentration of poverty personnel funding that first comes in,
and that essentially pays for what's called a community school advisor in each school that's identified as well as a school nurse.
those two positions are restricted positions that are coming in with state money.
the qualifications for it. You can see right here, starting at fy '23,
any school that was 65% over of the farms rate would qualify for the concentration of poverty.
fy '24, this year, if you're at 60 or above, you're qualifying, so we've added a couple more, you'll see in a moment.
next year, which is the final year, any school that's 55% or above the farm's rate will be
considered a concentration of poverty school and receive the personnel funding, okay?
there's another pot of money that comes in as well that's all required and restricted.
this is the same phenomenon. This started in fy '24, that if you had 70% of your schools at the free and reduced rate,
you received some a little bit of additional funding, which is called the per pupil funding.
it's an additional pot of money that goes specifically to those extremely high poverty schools.
so fy '25, it drops down to 65%,
so that's what we're planning for for next year. It drops in 26 to 60%,
and then it by '27, any school that's 55% or above is going to get this per
pupil additional funding to support wrap around services and other things in those schools.
so you may be curious to see how things have shaken out in cecil county.
so using that criteria that you saw, there are four schools in fy '22-'23 school year, we received restricted,
$1.1 million that came in for concentration of poverty to put that csa,
as well as a school nurse in those four schools. Okay? This current school year,
you can see the dollar value that came in from the state for the restricted funds,
and it's the same schools, okay? Next year, what we are anticipating.
you can see it's going to be a 2.7 amount of money that's coming in, not for class sizes,
not for athletics, but for specific purposes, and it's for the csa and the school nurse.
we have three schools that are going to qualify because of their poverty rate for the per pupil funding,
and you can see the chunk of money that's coming in to those three schools for those wrap around services.
you'll see gilpin manor over here started as a per pupil school,
but then the state took it away this year, but they're going to be back next year in the per pupil.
>> when you look at our state revenue in the budget reports, it will show that we have a $1.7 million increase in funding.
right away, a typical person goes to the place, well, we can get more teachers with that.
we can bring back middle school sports. We can do a whole hodgepodge of things.
no, it has to be spent on concentration of poverty. It can only be spent on community school advisors in those nine schools and their nurse,
and then some wrap around services just in those schools.
that's just one of the more common things I see that's not fully understood by so many people.
we did not get a lot of extra money from the state this year, but one point- miss hope,
do you know off the top of your head, what's our state revenue increase year over year?
well, 4 million total. >> probably not, but I can look it up for you.
>> but the bottom line is it's in the neighborhood of 3.5- four million.
but 1.7 goes to those nine schools for just those reasons.
>> you said nurse and then what was the other one? [overlapping]. >> community school advisor?
>> oh, silly. Okay. >> then some wrap around services which are tutoring, and those kind of things so this is so central.
last year, we received $18 million. Today, I still see people on social media saying,
well, they didn't buy any new teachers with that. Well, of course, we didn't because every single line is accounted for for something else.
>> quick question for the wrap around services so if we have the extra money and say we have wrap around services like tutoring,
that would be we could actually pay for a tutor to be in that school? I know we have tutors currently. [overlapping].
>> yeah. There's a needs assessment that has to take place. Schools would determine how they're going to be utilizing those funds.
it can be for health care services, support, access to resources in the community,
consultation, things like that. There's specific guidelines that came out from the state
recently that they hadn't had in the past so there's going to be some more oversight from the state about the requirements of
concentration of poverty that we will be in line with, for sure. >> well, will it be able to be used towards paris then?
>> no. No. It's it's not for personnel. It's for wrap around services really. The personnel are [overlapping].
>> even though they wrap around the kid [overlapping] >> wrap around services means wrap around the traditional school day;
before, after, outside the typical content; math, science, english, social studies.
the wrap around services. >> if I can say something real quick to that, too, I think from what I'm hearing,
this pillar is one of the one thing that a lot of people are confused about,
and they really don't pay attention enough to this. I don't know if that's because it's not been socialized enough or people just aren't paying attention,
but this might help people to really understand that those services are restricted.
people are merging things together, and I think this is really important to get that information out going
forward about these schools and criteria for them and so forth. >> I agree. I think that it's bonked into one number.
>> yes. >> you see an increase of one number and you automatically think, well,
there's more money, and it's really not unrestricted.
>> another great example of that is prek at judy center, we've received considerable increases in prek, judy center.
it's not doing a darn thing for class sizes at elkton high school, rising sun, northeast middle,
not doing a darn thing for those class sizes. >> the total state increase is 1.3 million.
that's because some things went up. Like concentration of poverty went up 1.7 million,
but foundation went down 1.5 million so when you take all the pluses and minuses,
the total increase from the state is 1.3 million at this time, for what we know for fy '25.
>> that was over the 18 million from last year?
>> this is just comparing this year going into next year, so from fy24-fy25,
it's a 1.3 million dollar increase. >> but I think the answer to question is yes.
the $18 million from last year hasn't gone away. It's still there. But again, it's spoken for.
the things it was there to cover are still there to be covered.
>> this final slide in pillar 4 shows the support that
we have provided for our multilingual learners as well as our students with disabilities, and there's not a whole lot of change that's happening here.
we are still within the confines of the law. But you can see moving from the 22-23 school year to the 23-24,
you can see that we added a multilingual csa, which is, we have a staff member who has been engaging
our students and families who don't speak english. She's been out in the community and rocking it out there, I will tell you.
we've also added some additional special education staff, and expanded slightly our el teachers.
I will tell you the last check, I think we just got an email, dr. Lawson, we have 416 students who do not speak english fully.
their english as a second language. We do need to show some expansion in this area for sure,
but I will reinforce that we are within the confines of the law, but this does have to expand as the blueprint moves along.
any questions about pillar 4? Mr. Rasch just walked in,
so he can answer them for you. [laughter].
>> [inaudible] . >> I'm going to repeat that on the microphone. Mr. Rasch explained that some of the wraparound support can be
behavioral services as well that would be provided in terms of wraparound.
>> which is helpful. That's helpful.
>> [inaudible] >> then does that pull in the paris then? Does this behavior? >> they would not necessarily be mental health support.
those are trained mental health practitioners is what we would need.
>> pillar 5. With pillar 5,
this is the dot the is cross the ts, make sure all the boxes are checked, and there's one little caveat in there,
and I'll talk a little bit about that. It's the aib, the accountability and implementation board.
it is our local plans that we develop and we submit each year, and that it's monitoring and
technical assistance from the maryland state department of education. However, the one piece that's in here that's buried within
is that accountability piece and that's the 75%.
this is the piece that you'll look at the bottom there and you'll see the different funding categories that we have.
if you remember back to when we were talking about our budget, each student gets a foundational program dollar amount.
if they're compensatory education, they get compensatory, if they're el, special education,
they get additional dollar amounts. With this accountability measure, what they're saying is 75% of the dollars that come in with
that student must follow that student to specific schools,
and therein lies the challenge because what you're left with then are foundational kids,
students, and dollars that aren't as free flowing for them in schools where there is also need.
24-25 next school year, the baseline for that is to be there.
it's a no fault year, so we are not compelled to do that. 25-26, it's required currently.
I know that during this past legislative session that recently wrapped up, there has been a great amount of discussion and
debate and back and forth around this piece. I think doctor lawson spoke to that earlier when he said,
it was just a number that was thrown out there and I don't know that folks fully understood the ramifications of the 75%.
I think now as they've dug into it, a lot of that due to doctor lawson's leadership at the state level,
we've seen the impact that that has. Leas across the state are really struggling with how do we make it
work when these dollars for the compensatory education,
el, special education, have to follow those students? They essentially become unrestricted dollars,
and that's the challenge. That's something that we'll be monitoring, that's something we'll be working on as we move forward.
but it's a no fault year next year. As of right now, it has to be implemented 25-26.
we'll see what the next legislative session brings. Questions about pillar 5?
>> I have one. >> yes. >> I'm going to make this very simple.
if little susie comes in and she's a poor regular student,
and she gets x amount of dollars. >> correct. >> from what I've understood in the past,
that x amount of dollars doesn't necessarily stay with her, you would hope it does.
does that money stay with her in her school? >> the local school systems have
tremendous flexibility with how the money is dispersed across the county.
we try to base it on student need, class size, needs of our students with disabilities.
moving forward, once the 75, 25 split becomes in effect,
that will now be predetermined for us. Probably the best way to put it.
>> would it be safe to say it's really about those three put?
>> yes. >> constitution of poverty, english learning and special ed. That's the money.
>> there are four chunks. >> four here. >> the first is the foundation. Every child that walks in is a foundation student.
the second is a student with disability. That student gets an extra chunk of funding that comes with that child.
the third is students from poverty. That student gets an extra chunk of funding when they come in,
and the fourth is english learner. You're non english speaking students, basically.
there are four buckets, if you will. Every child gets something and then they get
extra if they're part of an identified population. >> to simplify that question,
the foundation is always there? >> everybody get foundation, it's probably [inaudible].
>> it's the other three that we need to worry about moving, right? The other three? >> correct.
>> but you could have a student who comes in who has all three of the bottom ones.
>> you're correct. >> all of a sudden, that money goes to one school. >> 75% of that, yes.
that's where we had run models earlier this year, and that was some of the consternation that we had
earlier as we were going through the budgeting process and talking about the differences in like elementary schools,
I think it was a model that we had up there with similar enrollment numbers, but different diverse populations and
the dollars would have to go with one school versus the other school. >> the concept is right, really good,
because obviously the school that has more of those kids have more needs and it's harder to educate so the more money should go to that school,
but just the limited flexibility. You guys know better what school needs
the more help than somebody in annapolis telling us that. >> correct. I brought this slide back up because these are those other components
of the day-to-day make the school system go forward that have to come out of those foundational dollars.
when that 75% rule hits those dollars that come with those students based upon their need,
it leaves minimal dollars left that are unrestricted to dress the totality of what
we have to do as a system to make it go forward.
>> it basically leaves the foundation kids lacking for what they need.
>> I don't know that it leaves them lacking what they need, but it certainly creates a challenge for us,
and that's something that we've been talking about, I think, probably since october when we started having discussions around it.
that would be understanding that that would be a challenge. >> that would be on top of instead of comment that you've made a lot.
>> if it was on top of instead of. >> people have been pounding the drum for years
about needier students getting more funding. It was never really I was always expected that it would be in addition to.
now what we're finding is kind of instead of, and that's a lot of what we're seeing right now.
>> if we had enough, then it would be okay if we had more going to these schools.
>> that goes back to the inequity piece that I mentioned, when you receive money above local share,
there's more flexibility with that money. Some of our counties that are funding their schools at a higher level,
those students are benefiting in a number of different ways. >> doctor lawson, to your point, though,
what would happen is that it will start being, these folks against those folks if you don't get.
>> it's the natural thinking. Sure. >> that's what's happening now, two why are they getting more, but.
>> you moved to a county that they're getting more. >> I was going to say it harkens back to what dr. Lawson said when we're talking about
ccr and you've got students in different leas based upon funding that have greater opportunity to access a variety of courses and experience.
>> it shouldn't be lost on everybody that our neighbor four miles to the east is new castle county.
they have five school districts. Colonial red clay, brandy wine, christine and appoquinimink.
four of those five in the last eight weeks, have passed referendum from their communities for a tax increase.
the community has just yesterday in appoquinimink it came out and it won 7,500 to about 5,500.
the community voted to increase taxes for additional funding for schools.
and so we can die on the hill that will never spend more for schools.
other counties aren't taking that approach. What happens is children in cecil county don't get the same benefits advantages,
and that's particularly frustrating for an educator. >> I hate to say it, but it's already that way and it's only going to get worse.
go to hartford county with your sports team and your kids walk into the school and say,
oh, my gosh, this is so nice. They walk on the sports field and they say, wow, this is amazing.
that's not including the classes that they get offered.
my daughter went to university of maryland and she had roommates and friends from montgomery county, howard county,
obviously, the counties around there and the the opportunities that they had,
the ap classes that they were afforded that they could do.
>> when you look at the total per pupil funding on that state on the list,
and you see where we are, we're being asked to do the same exact thing as
all these other counties with considerably less funding. I think that's really in a nutshell.
>> diane, not to make it about sports, but we just played apo yesterday.
we played and one, yep. You walk back on that field and it's like it was like a college field.
I mean, they really have some it's apoqinmic it's in middletown.
then we were at patterson mills last week, and again, another school that's it's like a college campus.
one of their fields, and we won. >> that's enough. >> today, we play that
>> that's enough. >> we won. >> do we want to move on?
>> thank you to the board. >> as we close out our presentation, where we are and where we're going.
march of 23, we had to submit to the aib the initial implementation,
that was approved in june of 23. We did submit phase 2,
part 1 response was submitted in march and next week.
that plan will be submitted. We've had mr. Zimmerman has been working closely with
our representative to work through the final pieces of that plan.
everybody has been contributing to that. It's ready. It's just under review, if you will, at this point in this time.
the final slide is, as we move forward, we will put together one page updates for each pillar,
similar to the presentation that dr. Lawson made at elkton high school, where everybody was turning in unison with
their pillar pages to provide an idea of where we're at what we're doing.
we will update the strategic plan to align with the blueprint,
and then it will be submitted on a yearly annual basis.
that ties into that governance piece of pillar 5. That, I believe,
other than if you want more information about the blueprint, you can log in.
>> if 2025 for the 75 25 things a no fault year when it's not a no fault year,
what's the fine or what's what happens? >> I believe this state can withhold up to 25% of your state revenue.
>> correct. That's massive.
>> thinking about rebelling, are we? Yeah. >> wow, joe.
>> we'd be rebelling up to $35 million or so. Thank you.
>> thank you. Miss heath, do you have a motion?
>> I do. I move that the board of education enter into closed session to discuss personnel matters as
pursuant to maryland annotated code general provisions, article 3-305b1.
>> is there a second. >> second. >> any discussion? All in favor?
>> aye. >> any opposed? We are entering into closed session.
thanks for being here, guys.
at this time, I'm going to reconvene in open session, the april 24, 2024,
board of education of cecil county work session.
the adoption of the agenda, is there a motion to adopt the meeting agenda as presented?
>> a motion to adopt the agenda as amended.
>> as presented. >> yes presented. >> there's a motion. Is there a second?
>> second.. >> any discussion? >> all in favor say aye.
>> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries.
consent agenda. Would anyone like to remove any items from the consent agenda before there's a motion?
hearing none. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda as presented?
>> I move that the board of education of cecil county adopt the consent agenda as presented.
>> is there a second? >> second. >> any discussion? All in favor?
>> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries. Incoming student member of the board.
we need a motion from a board member, please. >> I move that the board of education of cecil county appoint
jazelle griffin as a 2024 2025 student member of the board.
>> is there a second. >> second. >> hearing a second. Any further discussion? All in favor?
>> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations to jazelle griffin.
as the new 2024, 2025 student member of the board,
she is from perryville high school.
next, we have an intergovernmental bid, value carpet 1, dr. Lawson.
>> thank you, ms. Holly. As the board can see, there are six flooring projects with four of them coming from an aging schools grant,
and two, those being kenmore and perryville high, will come from our fy 25 operating funds.
with that, I recommend that the board of education of cecil county approve a contract
with value carpet one for a total amount of $110,828.
>> you've heard the recommendation. Is there a motion? >> so moved.
>> second. >> any further discussion? All in favor say aye?
>> aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Contract for utility equipment simulator, dr. Lawson.
>> thank you, ms. Holly. I recommend that the board of education of cecil county approve a contract with cm labs for the purchase of software,
equipment, installation, and training of a utility equipment simulator in the amount of $243,800.
>> you've heard the recommendation. Is there a motion? >> so moved.
>> second. >> any further discussion? >> all in favor? Any opposed?
motion carries. Next step.
I just want to briefly mention a press release that was issued by the county executive on april 23,
accusing the superintendent of an ethics violation.
we would ordinarily not comment on that matter except the county executives press release violated
the confidentiality provision of the cecil county public schools ethics regulation gbcra,
which is consistent with the state provisions and,19a05.
ms. Hornburger's complaint has been forwarded to the ccps ethics panel,
and pursuant to the confidentiality provisions, there will be no further comment by the board on the matter at this time.
seeing we are at the end of the agenda.
I want to thank everyone for their work, their long evening tonight and have a nice night. Meeting is adjourned.