Harford county on december 1st, 2025 at 4:04 p.m. This work session will be conducted in a
hybrid fashion. Miss riley, please take a roll call. Mrs. Alvarez. I come back. She's
here. Okay, miss bruce. Miss bruce is absent this evening. I'm sorry. Hold on. Mrs. Perry.
here. Mr. Sewell here. Doctor mueller present. Mr. Mcvicker here. Mr. Korn, present. Mrs.
hahn. Present. Mrs. Alvarez. Present. Vice president. Page here. President boynton here.
superintendent wilson here. This completes the roll call. All right. Thank you. Trey, do
you want to lead us in the pledge of allegiance for. I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright. Welcome, everyone. So we don't
have to own the working session. We don't have to vote on the agenda. Right? Correct. I'd
like to add an item e if there's no objection. We meant to put it on here. We talked
about it earlier, but if you could provide an update on the curriculum transparency process
that's underway. All right. But we're going to start. We'll start with you as well. We're
going to start with a blueprint update. All right. Good afternoon everyone. On this
particular page of your handout. And I have those for our audience. I have copies on the
back. Just a quick overview that we are in year five of blueprint implementation. It
has flown by. This year is one of the first years that the arb can exercise its authority to
start withholding funds from districts, and in order to ensure that we had full release
of funds, we had to show that we had progress on our blueprint implementation plan,
which is available on hhpz.org, as well as our student performance, which we have met
that requirement, we have had to provide a 2025 career ladder. For this career ladder, we have
level four teacher leadership positions that have been negotiated with our teachers
union. We have to have an approved career counseling mou with the susquehanna workforce
network and harford community college, and ours was approved. We have to have an approved
prepaid of 12 comprehensive math, and that has been approved, and we have to make
progress on the minimum school funding requirement of the blueprint, which we have
progress on. So late breaking news at about 30 minutes ago, the aib did vote to release
funding due to successfully meeting this year's requirements. Thank you. Well,
any other team? All of it, all of the funding. They're they're not going to withhold funding
okay. We're not going to get all the blueprint funding. Right? Okay. There are two districts who are going to get warning letters about fundings being withheld. But that was
not ours. So within the world of the blueprint, a lot of things are well underway. So
things that you can think about hearing or things that will be updating you on is always our
continued advocacy. I will be on a panel at mako in next week. I think about that very hard at
a panel at mako, and our talking points will be about the inadequacy of the funding
for both the foundation of how we're paid per per student, as well as special education
funding. We'll also talk about making sure that legislators keep the good things that are
in blueprint, but be willing and open to change the things that are not sustainable. We
will continue to advocate and support anything that we can do to help private pre-k providers,
so that we have a successful mixed delivery system for pre-k. In order for us to realize the
goals of the blueprint for pre-k, we would not have enough space or ability to reach all
of those students. So we need private pre-k providers to participate if we are going to
meet those goals. How many do we have set up in harford county? Now, off the top of my
head, how many providers? Yeah, I think we have. We're doing better. I don't know the number
off the top of my head, but we have a mixture of some small at home providers which will have
anywhere like 4 to 8 seats. And then we have a couple of the bigger. Places right now. But I
do have it. It's on the web. Okay. I know recruitment for that's been pretty tough. Yeah.
so on hhpz.org, if you go under the blueprint page and go under early childhood, we have a
chart that shows our number of pre-k seats and our private providers. But that is
something that we are doing well on. And actually on the right hand side of this page
document I gave you, there are now public blueprint dashboards available, which we have linked
on our blueprint site and on our state of the district site that are through the
accountability and implementation board. And it has all of that data too. So it
has our pre-k enrollment. It has our tier one pre-k. So our students experiencing poverty,
it has teacher vacancies, our number of teachers achieving national board certification.
and then it goes into our english language arts and math results as a total district.
and then based on community schools, these public dashboards are going to
continue to grow in number in the aib. But the the interesting thing that you all
could be interested in is you can go in and look at every county so you can go in and
look at what our enrollment or our scores are, and then you can change it and adjust to any
county and see what those are. So it is the blueprint progress dashboards. We are going to
continue to focus on literacy and math, but specifically focusing on early grades,
literacy and implementation of the big statewide programs for comprehensive literacy and math
plans. We are going to continue our significant community partnership for apprenticeship
programs. You'll see in my next update that that's something you might have hopefully seen
in our board weekly updates on fridays. But we some recent data has shown that we are
number one in the state for youth apprenticeships, and that's something we're extremely proud of. And we're going to continue to invest in that. In terms of some other
college and career readiness aspects of the blueprint, we are going to launch a new early
college program at swan creek school, so stay tuned for more information on that. The
superintendent is conducting student focus groups at joppatowne high school as part
of the college and career readiness work, we are continuing a special education
deep dive and also something that impacts our blueprint. Implementation is spanish
language immersion, which we have one over at emerton and we'll have a new program at red
pump, and those are through federal grants that we are able to house. How's that related to
blueprint? The blueprint has pillar for is about supporting students in who are have any
sort of additional need or schooling effort. So it's students experiencing poverty,
students requiring special education services, students experiencing homelessness,
english language learners, and students who need any other additional support, high dosage
tutoring, etc. So that kind of all fits in there. So everything we're doing for
english language learners, although of course the language immersion programs are not just for english language learners, it would actually fall more in the college and career
readiness pillar because of the outcomes of those. Students are usually present higher and
better outcomes on things like mcat and others. For once they go through that program. Okay.
thank you. So those are the big picture blueprint things. As you know, the blueprint is a
massive bill and it is now integrated in most of the things we do. So when you talk
about blueprint, it's not really just dual enrollment or. Or just pre-k. It's also our
comprehensive math plan, our comprehensive literacy plan. It's also our human resources,
our career ladder, how we recruit. And we have to report on all of that with the state.
and it's very significantly on how we allocate our resources and how we report that to the
state, which that team over there does an amazing job for. And it's now kind of integrated
into everything that we do. Any questions? I have a question. You said that. What did you say
was being implemented at swan creek for college new early college program. And what is
that? So an early college program means that a student if they we have p-tech right now.
so p-tech is at joppatowne and a student who goes through and we also have tam teacher
academy of maryland. When they go through those programs at the end, by the time they
graduate their senior year, they will have their associate's degree. And so it's called early college because we sequence it so that you can get enough credits and to work
through all of that. So at swan creek, part of the goal is to have this option for students
who are homeschooled right now, who might want to come and take advantage of that, that
opportunity, and to work through that at swan creek. And one more question. Where does
the funding for that come from? It's all about enrollment. I mean, any program we offer. So
I mean, any program we offer, the students are enrolled, essentially pay for the program.
and for this particular one, we are targeting homeschool families because we know we've
had interest from homeschool families to participate in the dual enrollment. And so while
it will be open to any of our existing students, if they choose to do an early college
model online, if homeschool families join, every student who joins the school system
gets funding to pay for that. So it's about our it's about our enrollment. So you both get
the per pupil funding for that student. And then plus there's also blueprint money that we
use for dual enrollment and for other things for students who are college and career ready.
does that come out of I'm just saying out of our general budget. Yes. Okay. So along
those lines, I have another question. Let's say harford christian, which is does not
offer the dual enrollment. Could they also, like the homeschoolers, be eligible for
dual enrollment? They would have to enroll at cps to do it. Yes. So if you're a
homeschooler, you'd have to give up homeschooling and enroll in cps. But it's the
reason why it's attractive. And we've had conversations and feedback from some families is
because there are some students who really like the families who like the home environment
for their learning, and it's totally online. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate that. The
blueprint on the on the website, I'm looking for it and I'm not finding it in the
superintendent's tab, you go to superintendent and then go to blueprint. All right. Thank you.
so this might be creeping a little bit into the next section on legislative. But I know there's been conversation and maybe some attempts to slow roll parts of it to annex parts
of it, to change parts of it. Likelihood of anything that we've been working on getting
changed next legislative session. You want me to give my betting, my betting information
for anything we should I, I, I think and doctor olson has said something similar. Some of the
changes that we might see are going to be at the margins, and they're going to be in the
details. Some of the substantive changes that we might want to see aren't here
yet, but there's potential for some of the future. So, for example, we would like to
change how we're funded for special ed, but we have msde is conducting a adequacy study,
and we met with the person at msd today who's leading that funding adequacy study. And we
feel confident that it'll at least give us more information to be able to use for the
legislature so that some of our big rocks, you know, there are some things that we can work
together with the aib and msd on to, to kind of shift, but most of the big things are not
going to be, I would say. I mean, conversations we've had with aib and msd and what we
expect to change this year, part of what we're dealing with is an election year. No one's
willing to go in and make really aggressive changes. So while we have little things
that we had talked about in, the superintendents have put forward a list of things and
it's been pared down. And in conversations with msd and aib, many of those are going to be
addressed, but they're smaller, not things that we've really spent much time on here. And so
I'm thinking more, trying to keep the wording out there about big picture that we know
the blueprint is not sustainable. We know that the way it's designed with the the
foundation formula is not sustainable or even close to accurate and special education is a huge portion of that. So trying to stay on message of the big picture thing so that
they keep hearing it because I don't expect changes this year on that, particularly because it's election year. But I think the reality of what's happening with state funding that there
needs to be. And so I think we just need to keep on this message and keep pushing it
through. So with the hopes of getting a victory there next year, something that seems to
resonate when we talk about the foundation formula not being enough is to remind people that
it does not account for safety and security, it does not account for transportation and
it does not account for class size. So I worked with mr. Carsley a few weeks ago and
miss mumby because they were meeting with the state board president, and we worked
through the talking points for mr. Carsley in order to talk to the state board president. And
that's where we landed as being something that we have a lot of synergy and partnership and
cooperation on is that if you have a formula that says this is enough, if we give you this
much, enough to for students to learn, but it does not include transportation safety and
security or class size, then how do we then how is that enough? And that that seems
simple enough. It's really complicated. As you all know, we've had a couple times where
we spent too long talking about the blueprint over hours late into the night, and when it
boils down to it, that's really what kind of makes sense and resonates to people and that,
you know, the gap in funding that we have for special education at cps, the state
funding formula says that we're about $65 million off the mark on what's the state funding
formula gives us and what we spend. But the state as a whole is $1 billion off the mark. And
so there's some significant challenges that we don't think will change immediately, but we
have to keep working on it. Good. Any other questions. Otherwise we can just
transition to legislative. All right. Item b legislative. Know we covered a little bit on that
from a blueprint perspective doctor mueller. So I spent some time today looking at the main
website to see what they have up so far. We did actually vote on some priorities at the
conference, but apparently they haven't posted them, so I couldn't pull those up for you.
but I do want to say above and beyond everything made. It really stands for that local
control. And that was again reiterated at this last meeting. I am your member on the
legislative committee, and I'm going to ask everyone, I mean, whether or not we agree or see
eye to eye on things. If you have issues that are important to you, let me know. Let's make
out a list of all those issues, and maybe even vote as a board to support those issues. For
example, I know trey, it would be important to him to have full voting rights. Now, the
rest of you might not care if he has full voting rights or not, but I want him to let me
know that and I'll put it on a list. And then we can each look at those lists at our own
leisure, and possibly come back at a future time and have a vote for our legislative agenda.
what things do we want to encourage for made to support for us? Okay. And I just think
that that's a fair way to do it. I'm offering to compile it so you'll see that your stuff is
on there. You know, don't I'm not going to leave anybody off just because I don't think the
students should have any rights at all. Doesn't, you know, you know, I'm kidding. But that way
we can have we've not we've been very negligent in the past in doing that. And I think it's
important that our voice is heard as well as the other districts, that it's not just
kind of by default for the things that we're going to support, because every district
represented on that committee, yes, that's the one, that committee. And there's one other one, I can't remember which one is it. There's two committees where everybody has
to have somebody on. Is it like a simple vote or a majority or how does that work? Is it. It's
a it's a simple majority. Okay. Well once that gets updated, if you could share it with the
board I will. It's just not there. Is there anything that from your memory that was really noteworthy or that will. No. Because this were just our priorities. And the big thing,
like I said, above and beyond anything else, they are 100% focused on the local control, the local control, anything that's going to take away local control, they're going to be
against. That's great. Okay. Thank you. I'm doctor bolson, you're listed here as well. I
know in the past you you've gone to annapolis and testified for a number of different
causes. Anything you want to add to this? Yeah. One. Yeah. Yeah we have we have the list
here. This is what I shared with the delegation two weeks ago. Now, this document right
here. Yep. Right. So we we essentially mentioned three things. The four things I guess
the, the the ad to two adequacy studies that katie's already referenced, the blueprint, the
foundation formula adequacy study and the special education adequacy study. And in my mind
that that's kind of the biggest thing that we need. But as we said that we're not probably
not going to get a lot of movement on that this year, at least according to what our,
our in-house lobbyists and sam have have said. It doesn't look like it's going to happen. The
other one, which I talked to you a little bit about at the the presentation to our
delegation, was this idea of comprehensive information sharing regarding students
criminal activity. Leas msde juvenile services. And and I feel like that was something.
and in fact, delegate griffith last year had a bill that he was working. They had two bills
actually, that he was working on, and I supported and went down and advocated or testified
with him on those bills. I think in the end, last year there were a lot of similar
bills because it was about it was really about the information sharing. It was also about what happens with reportable reportable offenses. And and his bill was
particularly focused on the situation that occurred here last year, where we had a
student who was with us, who some law enforcement were aware was greatly concerning, but
there was no legal way for them to let us know. And so we talked about the circumstance
that we had the student and and so that stalled last year. I think he got a lot of traction
with that last year. But it did stall in the end. And I think there was an interest at the
end of the legislative session to do more of a study of this. I'm hoping that his bill goes,
you know, comes back again and it gets a little more traction this year. We'll continue to
support it. There were other issues in other districts. You remember something from anne arundel and howard county, where there was a student who was transferred and there
wasn't notification there. So the superintendents are all interested in seeing better,
clearer rules about this. And anecdotally on that front, our conversations, I feel like our
our conversations with law enforcement this year have probably been better than ever. Kathy's been a part of that. I think that's been a really good addition to the mix. I'm seeing,
for example, the reportable offenses notifications that come directly to me, they they
didn't use, those didn't usually come. I wasn't part of the distribution list for those.
are you getting from all jurisdictions in harford county? I don't know. Mostly sheriff's
office is where we we get that from. And again, that's also because that's who we kind of
get it from most frequently. And in one of the issues and I think every superintendent
raises concerns about this is reportable offenses for crimes that are committed by our
students outside harford county. So it's I'm not aware that I've ever received anything, say a
student did something in or baltimore or anne arundel. And so that I know is a challenge
for everybody across the line. And it is an issue for law enforcement to figure out, you
know, where a student goes to school. They don't necessarily get that information, but those
are just the types of things that that I think. So anyway, that is one of the priorities
from all the superintendents, not just me. And then the last one big picture is school
construction funding. And you know, we've been talking capital improvement here. We
understand the the local burden we have and the challenges we have in confronting school
construction. And every district in the state is feeling that. And we're feeling
there needs to be another focus on that from from our legislators. So I know, again,
tight fiscal year will be hard for them to invest a lot in that. But sometimes funding of
things like that's a little different from funding your regular operating budget things. So that is another area we'll be advocating. Any questions, anything that the board would
like to sort of put on the front burner when it comes to having conversations with our
legislators? I mean, we'll see him tonight. Okay. Great. Can everybody so right before this
meeting tonight, I shared with you four different documents in your emails. And so if I'll
just give you guys a second to open them up. Sorry. It was last minute. I completely
slipped my mind. But the four document that you documents that you have, number one is
going to be and they're not numbered but the first and oh, and yvonne has printed copies
as well. Thank you so much. So the first is going to be a, a printout of what the current
maryland state law is regarding board members voting rights and their ability to sit on the
board. So how they're elected, their qualifications, etc. That is the full that is the full
law that I've provided. For. And then the second and third documents are the two proposed
versions of the law that I have worked with some legislators to write. And the third is an
excel sheet that outlines the student member voting rights across the across the state in
different counties. So just to start, I'm coming to you guys with a proposed legislative
bill that I've been working with some of our legislators at the maryland general assembly.
I do have a legislator that is willing to sponsor the bill. I'm not going to throw out a
name quite yet just because she has confirmed it with me. But I would prefer that, you know, we
kind of not share name yet just so it doesn't compromise anything. Well, you just gave a
hint. Okay. Well, by the way, it's okay. But anyway, so my main priorities are budget,
calendar and curriculum. Now, I understand that budget's going to be a bit harder to pass in
terms of allowing the student to vote on these matters, so I'm proposing to our
legislators to bring this bill forward in two in actually two different bills. So one would
contain calendar and curriculum and the other would contain calendar, curriculum and budget. That way, one or the other can go through if it does go through, but we have a better
chance of one or the other going through instead of one piece like budget, compromising
the entire bill, going through or going forward, I should say. So. I'll start with the
document that does not contain budget. So that would be the one that start. That is
actually you guys can't see the labels, but it starts with g at the top, and there's not a
whole bunch of bolded text at the very last page. So when you scroll down under number three
and then roman numeral three, that tells you everything that the student member cannot vote
on, right? So right above that it says that except as otherwise provided in
subparagraph three of this paragraph, the student member of the county board has the same rights and privileges as a member appointed or elected under subsection d, and then it
outlines the exceptions. So I'm a full sitting or sorry, the student member is a full sitting member, except for the 15 exceptions that are provided for in the bill. This includes
everything from geographical attendance areas to negotiations with unions, to
teacher and student discipline of certified and non-certified employees, etcetera, etcetera.
appointment salary of the county superintendent. But the the main two points that I'm
focusing on in this first piece of legislation is number eight, which says which I'm leaving in
employee discipline because I don't I want nothing to do with that, honestly or not me, but I,
I don't think that student members should, just for obvious reasons. But the second
piece of that says and other appeals under 405 c of this article. So for anybody who
remembers whenever we voted on the book or on whether or not we were going to appeal this to
the circuit court, my vote was considered preferential because it fell under that other appeals kind of piece in this law. Judicial right. Is that what it was? I'm sorry, quasi
judicial. Is that. No, it was just the other appeals. It was other appeals. Okay. Because it
doesn't actually outline anything about judicial or law or anything in here. But so I
am proposing to remove that that way in the future, if there is any appeals that fall
under something that I am not restricted on voting on, for example, a book, then the
student member would be able to attend and vote on that specific matter. So but that
still applies to the exceptions that are given in the law. Right? So this isn't saying
that I can vote on all appeals or not. Me sorry. The student member can vote on all appeals.
this is saying that the student member can vote on appeals that don't that aren't outlined as
an exception in this document. And then my second point is number 15, which is school
calendar and curriculum. And you can see that these are cross through and these. So
these would be things that I want to remove. So that would allow the student member in the
future to vote on school calendar and curriculum. And then before I go into any
explanations I'm just gonna go to the next document, which also includes budget. So it is all the same. It's all the same language except for point nine, which says budgetary matters
under title five of this article. And then at the very end. So it includes everything
else. But also at the very end, after speaking to some of our legislators, we found it to be
beneficial that this has passed and has, you know, worked well in other counties to have a
section that says on a majority vote of the elected members, the county board may determine
on a case by case basis whether a matter under consideration is covered by the exclusionary
provisions listed in subparagraph three of this subsection. So pretty much what
that allows the county board to do is to determine whether or not a specific consideration
that is being brought to the board falls under the exceptions of the student member. So for example, I'm going to use the book again. So it was sort of a gray area. We
had to speak to some of our, you know, we had to speak to legal on that just to kind of
see where I, my vote landed in that. But what that piece would do is it would allow the board
as a group to determine and vote whether or not they think that my exclusion applies to
the matter at hand on a case by case basis. So that would only be brought if a member or the
student member feels that it necessary. And then after that would be number four. So this
pretty much this worked in baltimore city. This is how they had it passed. So the only
way that baltimore city legislators would or not sorry, maryland would allow in
baltimore city for the student member to vote on budget was for a section in there
outlining that the student member must be trained on the budget with a curriculum slash
lesson kind of created by the business services department of any of the given school systems.
so in our case, obviously cps. So business services for cps would develop a, a budget kind
of lesson slash I mean considered curriculum to instruct the student member.
just give them an overview of how everything works. That way they are informed and are informed voter on whenever they, you know, get to vote on budgetary matters. So it is
outlined what they would focus on. So it would be a training focusing on operating capital budgets. It would be facilitated by representatives of the school district's
department of business services. And then there is a requirement that each student member shall
be required to complete the budget training within two months of their election, and
in order to be eligible to vote on budgetary matters. So again, these are two different
documents. So two different bills. So they are both again possibly being excuse me being
brought forward. And then you know in the in the house so far I will say that. And then I'm
working on hopefully having a cross file in the senate. That way we can get the ball rolling.
it will not be considered pre-filed. It will be spontaneous. And yeah, and then
the third or the fourth sheet that I gave you guys is an excel sheet that outlines the
student members voting rights, but it's more focused on their exceptions. So everything that
you see in that document is every county in maryland, what the student member of the board
cannot vote on. So imagine everything else they can vote on except for the points
outlined in that document. So I know I just kind of spewed a lot of information. So if you
guys have any questions, please feel free. I'm more than willing to answer. Are you coming to leo after this? Okay. I, I think what I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm coming to leo after
this. Yes. That's your opportunity. That's my opportunity. Okay. Give my copy.
oh, yeah. Sure. Thank you. So I do have a a few questions. Just kind of like in our role in
this as a board. So really it would be more of a supportive role. So you know, supporting
the legislation if you agree with it I would really appreciate your support. And,
you know, lobbying your your legislators at the general assembly to kind of help get
this, this conversation moving forward. Like I've said, I've met with most of our delegation,
almost all of them. There's like maybe 1 or 2 that I haven't so far. And there has
been very a very wide range of either support or nonsupport. Right. But I've what I've been
able to tell is that is that a lot of them seem to to like the ideas that are being outlined
in this bill. So really what I'm asking from you guys is just general support for for
this initiative and to help me, you know, speak to legislators and lobby for their for their
support as well on either bill. So if your support if you don't support budget, then that could
be for the bill that just contains calendar curriculum or vice versa. So perhaps a letter
from the board a letter would be would be very helpful. Yes. From from members who are who
are willing. Yes. I would really appreciate that. That would be very I think about the
best way to to to do it. I mean, a letter would require the board to have some consensus
over which one they would want to support and require a majority vote. And honestly, I
have not spoken to the board members about that, so I don't know where where the board would fall otherwise. Individual board members or board leadership could provide
a letter that might be the path of least resistance. But let's talk about it, okay? Yeah. The
house delegation chair for her county, she delegate riley, she informed me that a letter from
the board would be preferred, that that would be what she would want in order to feel
more comfortable and to bring it to the delegation, because obviously it starts here with,
how does that work? The delegation would vote on it. Yeah. So it would have to be
passed. It would need a majority from the delegation. Yes. So the delegate, it would
first be considered sponsored by whichever delegate or senator brought it forward. And
then once it is voted on on both sides of delegation, the delegation brings it together.
and then if it is approved, then it would be then sponsored by the harford county
delegation. It wouldn't be then sponsored by a singular person. It'd be sponsored by the harford county delegation to go forward to the full general assembly for final approval.
you know, one thing that might be helpful if you have it, if not, we can help you get it
would be to see where harford county student voting rights compare against all the other
counties. The documents that's on the. Where is that? That's the last page. It's the last page. It's really small. I didn't realize how small. How small. I can't even see that
with my glasses on. So it's in your email as well. All right. Okay. Was this initiated from
previous mobs or like was this an idea that you had coming into the position. So it was a
little bit of both. So it was definitely initiated by both myself and sasha okay last year.
but it she had never to the best of my knowledge, she had never brought it forward to any
legislators. It had just been kind of a conversation. And then whenever I was elected and
brought into the role, I kind of made it my my biggest initiative for the year. So on
one of the the, for instance, the appeal, voting on the appeals and that that whole
process, a lot of those are done random times throughout the day. Like I'm just like
wondering like like the the workload. I mean, you guys are on for a year and I see your
position as basically a learning position to, you know, to shadow board members to kind
of understand what a board does. But the some of the appeals, you know, are, like I said,
they, you know, how would you manage that with your with your school. So the my goal in
taking the appeals piece out of it, out of the exceptions, would be just to mainly attend.
obviously, I would really only be able to attend the appeals that aren't outlined as
exceptions. Right? So to my best, my understanding, most of our appeals pertain to that
would be like teacher and student discipline, just stuff like that. Right. And boundary
exceptions. Thank you. And those would be not pieces that are not things that I could
vote on. So I wouldn't I wouldn't have to attend those. Not me. Sorry. The student
member would not have to attend those. So really, the only appeals that the student member
would be able to attend would be the ones that are are not outlined as exceptions in the
document, and that would be mainly those those odd ones, like for example, I know that
the topic of of book removals from schools is is gaining footing, unfortunately. But
it's that could be something in the future that the student member would be able to vote on
with this amendment. I'm trying to keep us so we can get out of here at five. So if there's any
other questions, if we could just take them offline with trey, that'll be great. And yeah, just I just want to throw out one more thing. The so for my main thing that I brought
with this bill with these amendments is that the student member already participates in all of these processes other than the appeals, of course. So we already participated. We're
actually automatically placed on the calendar committee and are part of the development of
the calendar. We are a part of all of the curriculum conversations, and we are also
a part of most, if not all budgetary conversations as well. So I mean, I've had meetings
with the budget department. I had a meeting with curriculum today. I've had, you know,
everything I've received. I've received a small kind of overview and training on the
budget. So the student member already participating in all of the same processes that any
other board members participating in and contributing in the same sense. The only difference is that at the very end, when yvonne calls for a vote, she just has to say
preferential before our vote. So I think the other thing to your point about appeals, we
don't all attend every appeal, only the ones we can. We only need a five, I think, to. Yeah,
but that's all we've ever had. One except for maybe the no. Have we ever had an appeal
where everyone showed up? I don't think so. Extremely rare. Yeah. Book was that book was
nine. Okay. That was the only 1 in 2 and a half years. Yeah. All right. Trey, hey, thank you
for all your hard work. Thank you guys for for listening and hearing me out again. This
document is with you. And it's also in your emails as well. For any questions you might
have, just please feel free to reach out. Thank you. Trey. We're going to move on to item
d board budget priorities. So if you recall when this meeting was first set up, you know four
months ago this was we kind of looked at the timing and we this was supposed to be a
working session for the budget. Sort of like we did last year where we did the walk arounds,
things like that. So we don't really have a ton of information yet to be able to make any decisions. Obviously, you know, it's a process that's going to take us through,
hopefully not through july, but it could take us through july. We're still waiting for we got
moving pieces with blueprint. We've got state numbers coming in. We've got the county, which
is just sort of began to signal sort of what where the budget's going to be. But I did still
want to allow some opportunity here for the board to talk about what their budget
priorities are going to be for the upcoming year. As you know, we always have a limited budget,
and the question that we always have to make is one of trade offs. Do we want this or do we
want that? As I've said before, there's an old saying, you can have anything you want, but you
can't have everything. So the job of the board is to decide what we want based on our
priorities. That information can be given to the superintendent, not just through the board, but we'll also have a number of public, both board and administration
input sessions and a number of other meetings that will help us determine where we want to put our money. And this will all help inform the superintendent on the budget
that he builds and brings to the board, probably in what, february, january, january?
okay, so that's right around the corner. So with that in mind, try to have a draft for
you beforehand. Deborah still nodding. We've we try to have a draft we can give you to take
home for the christmas break so that you can, you know, enjoy reading while you're like, you've just been assigned homework. So with that in mind, I'll open it up to the board
just for general thoughts about the budget this year and budget priorities. I, I think that
with our budget already stretched very thin, you know, we really need to be very
careful about implementing new things such as, like what we were talking about earlier with
the pre-college at swan creek. I know there were other things that we discussed on the
calendar committee about, you know, gradual entry for upper grades and that kind of thing,
and all of those things cost money. So in an ideal situation, if we had unlimited funds, it
would be wonderful to be able to implement all of those things. But, you know, when
when our budget is already stretched so thin by implementing these other
programs, it's going to cost us teachers. And one of our priorities is, you know,
lowering class sizes because a lower class size is ideal for teachers. It takes away from
their burden, and it creates an environment that, you know, students are more paid
attention to. They get the supports that they need individualized because the
larger the classroom, you can't do that. So, you know, I feel like we need to be very
selective on implementing new things because we already don't have the budget to support
those things. I think for any new thing, it should have, like a fiscal note attached to it
saying, hey, this is how much it's going to cost. And also, is this discretionary or is it
mandatory, like the example she gave? Is that discretionary or mandatory for blueprint? Well,
all we're supposed to provide diverse pathways. So how we do that is discretionary on all of
it. So whether or not we do p-tech. But that's part of our of our plan and part of our
funding. So that would be a budget request that would come forward. We'd include it in the
request to the board, how many staff whatever, and would be part of the request, because
some of these things, like the spanish program, for example, which I asked about, which was
also in the blueprint, that's a federal army grant. So we don't pay for that. And not
everything costs. I mean, there is money. So I'm not saying, but like for example, for the
for the, the language immersion program, the money that the that we're getting from the
federal government supports resources like materials and training sort of cars. But the
actual teacher would be the same teacher that we would have had. And so it it washes itself
out. So there is a, you know, kind of a leveling out, like when we start a program, a new
magnet program or something, those students come from somewhere and it changes those class sizes. And we now have different teachers. And so there's some shuffling. And
it's not always a direct correlation to lots of extra positions. There could be I'm
not saying the math always works exactly, but it's not. Every new thing doesn't mean
necessarily that you're getting, you know. Yeah. And expanding the early early college what is
it called. Early early college. Expanding that actually maybe budget positive because of the
additional funding. That's the reason for doing it. Yeah, because it gives us additional
revenue. If we're able to bring in more students who otherwise wouldn't attend harford county
public schools, we now can have more revenue for those students and cost less to educate them
than the money we get in from the state. I would say, you know, it's well known to the to
deshaun, this team, what the board's priorities are that have been established, which
are largely the same what they were last year. So I would ask that any budget that comes
forth considers those priorities as paramount. And everything that that is in the
budget should relate one way or another to either required spending through blueprint or
law, or through the or to the board's priorities. And then the board, in consultation with
the administration, will have to decide if there's not enough money. What are the discretionary things that we don't need? You know, we've been through the list over and
over again, whether it's pools or harford glen or middle school sports. And so it just
comes down to priorities. What are your thoughts on classroom size? We ended up going up
about two per classroom on average last year. That was the calculation. I don't think we
did, partly because we saw a little dip in enrollment. So 500. Well, no, not quite that
well. Is it like eric. What's it like 400. Yeah. Upper threes 368. Sticks in my mind 378 so.
and if I recall, there was a chunk of that in kindergarten, which is where we had the
likely biggest. That's not insignificant. That's like ten classrooms. Depends on where
they are. It d on how they're spread out. Is it supposed to continue to decline
or decline? It's all incremental. Yeah. I mean, I think it's I think our
projection has been very flat and projections are always let me put it this way. I think
within a margin of error, it would be hard to know whether it's going to go up or down.
it's projected to be that flat. And so we had a little bump this last year, and I think we
were a little surprised at how much smaller the kindergarten class was, because, you know,
five years out from covid, we thought there was a covid baby bump as an so as it turns out,
not apparently in harford county. So again, kindergarten's always the hardest one to predict. So that one was probably the biggest surprise for us this year. And
there's one of the reasons for that. Early college is looking at strategies for finding
opportunities for homeschool families that might be interested in something like
that. So if the students want to stay at home, this is a way to do it. The college offers
multiple degrees that they can deliver the college courses fully online. Then of course
swan creek. So any enrollment we get from that in the marketing. And one thing mr.
scott has done at swan creek is he has actually marketed a bit, which is unusual. Normally we
don't do that with the schools, and that's something we could consider because the, you know,
again, a national trend is seen. A lot of families move toward homeschooling. I think, you
know, you can fill in the reason why one of them is the technology for doing that is so
much more available, and it's easier to homeschool than it isn't the main driver, though,
just the demographic shift of fewer people having babies. It well, that's the bigger. That's
the bigger drop in overall enrollment. But in harford county. You know, if homes if
we had the same homeschooling numbers we had eight years ago, we'd be up in enrollment. So it
is a it is a notable difference here. But with that said, again, coming up, coming up with
strategies that will and so that that's a whole different topic. But the early college is
one that. We know well. We have pretty good confidence, would attract new families to us only
because that's an area where we've had requests for access to the dual enrollment that,
you know, currently, homeschool families don't have access because we only pay for the
ones who are enrolled with us because they're the only ones we're funded to pay. So this
would be an approach, and that would require some that would require some recruiting of
students. But just like we do, we recruit students for the immersion programs. But again,
enrollment is what drives, you know, the overwhelming majority of the funding we receive. And
so as enrollment goes up, we have positive. And as enrollment goes down, there's a
little delay in that, which can be problematic. But that's one of the reasons for that.
otherwise, with regard to the priorities. I mean, I think in a lot of ways, again, when I've
given you information like feedback and evaluation, like even what we gave the
legislators, you know, we pretty much always give you information. Here's what's happening with regard to the priorities. Here's the student achievement, which is the first
core priority. Here are the multiple things we're doing around the topic of
transparency. And and then, you know, we and we also have here the things we're doing around
safety and security and those sorts of things, like the major areas where the board's expressed an interest. We have a great deal of information to give you about not just the
work we're doing there, but in data and results to support that. That's moving. So. Again,
my budget will absolutely. My recommendation will absolutely be align with those priorities.
I agree with those priorities. But you know, within that is is where the sausage making occurs.
not everyone agrees with all the parts of that. But that's the nature of education in
general. And so I feel very good about being able to advance all those priorities.
and it is going to be a challenging budget year, because I am worried that the
state's increasingly having trouble meeting its fiscal responsibilities and its
commitments. So I don't know what salinas is going to happen during this legislative session
when they start grappling with some of the shortfalls they've heard. I don't expect to see
federal money growing that much. I don't know if we're going to take a big hit. We haven't had
any real indication that there's any major hits coming in federal, but it's a good chance we'll see some one of the places that could be an issue probably won't hit in
this year's budget, but maybe the next is around things like title two and the things that,
for example, the president's bill, which is really what we have to go on, at least as a
sense of where things are going with the federal money, collapsed a number of the title
programs into one. We don't know if those are going to be funded at the same level. You
know, the administration has expressed support for the title one funding, which is important.
that's been flat for us, and they've expressed a commitment to maintain the funding for
special education. But as we've said, that's nowhere near where it should be. But I don't
expect that to go up either. So right now, at least for the next this next budget, not
expecting any big changes with the federal money, the state moneys are variable. And then of course, always the local not knowing how things are going to shake out in an election year,
which always leads to just greater volatility. So I think there's two two big drivers to
the the budget this year. One has been an ongoing issue. The other one is sort of a one off,
which we're all familiar with because we did the collective bargaining, the guidance a
couple of weeks ago. And that is obviously the unique year that we have to get to 60,000
for starting level, level a employees. And if we just did the ordinary cola, we wouldn't
be there. So obviously that's going to be a bit of a shock to the budget. The other one
that's been an ongoing issue where I know you've had some conversation around has been changes to special ed, where we sort of disproportionately spend there. Are you looking to
do any big changes there? We're working on a plan for special ed. I mean, the one thing I
mean, one of the simple things, and we can do a presentation on this if you want. We have so
much information. But. Is it's growing at a rate faster than our budget can sustain. And
there's a lot of reasons for that. I won't go into them in this particular conversation.
and so we're looking at changes and all of the changes we're looking at. The first priority
is improving student outcomes and special education. That's the first motivation for any changes behind that. There are also there are budgetary things. One of the things I think is
happening with the special education budget is because it's growing. At the rate it is,
it's still not growing fast enough to support the new students who are coming into it,
because we're seeing, you know, special ed entries at a much quicker rate. You know, for
example, when we've shared this data before, we're up 15% in special education enrollment
over four years. But our overall student enrollment is flat and down over the same
time period. And that means the students were serving are far, far more expensive than just a
few years ago. Because in addition to seeing special education enrollment go up more
quickly, we've also seen free and reduced meals, enrollment go up or those numbers have
have gone up. I think we kind of flattened out this year a little bit, but we're up again.
we're up historically. Yeah. In our in our multi-language learners or esol students,
while that's still a very small population here, it has grown quicker than our regular
population as well. So all of the areas where students require additional resources,
there's more money that comes from the state, but not enough more, because the costs for
educating those students is always greater. So while our enrollment is relatively flat,
the needs of our students are going up at a faster rate than our budget supporting. And but
the very, very biggest of all those is special education. So a lot of work happening right
now here at the state level, talking about how to sort of modify the work in that area to
to yield better results for students. And hopefully one of the things that performing
better in that area will do is reduce the pace at which we're we're identifying kids for
special education, because some part of those students are students who might not need the
support the same way. But again, a lot more to that story. So is that that's a lot of
information jammed into a short thing. Ask a question. I'm sorry. Yeah. To what extent are
we able to track the students who are leaving? For example, is there any any metric by
which we know if they're going to private schools or homeschooling or. I know,
because I think you mentioned that once before, that there I guess in the senior year,
there's an issue with senior year and that credit issue. A lot of kids are there was an
issue with respect to that. But is there is there a metric by which we we can measure whether
or not the kids are going to private school? So just wrapping my head around what
you said with senior year, I think I know what you're I think I know what you're
referencing there. The information we get on departures is not fabulous,
because we rely on families to tell us where they're going, and they don't always do that.
so we we can track we get data on how many private school enrollments are in harford
county, how many homeschool enrollments are in harford county. We try to get the one way we get information from families when they leave is when they request records to go
to the next district. So let's say they move to anne arundel county. We'll get a request
from anne arundel school. We can code that student, as you know, move to another district.
those data are at times incomplete only because not every family even asks. Some
just go. We never get the request. They pop up somewhere else and we actually have a
challenge of figuring, you know, this is kind of the time of year where we're going through
the process of determining who's showing up because they don't, don't, don't all tell us they're leaving. So that's always a challenge in any school system, particularly
this size. But the the question of, you know, in a given day where they're going. I don't
know how much we have at our fingertips to really report on that, but I guess, I guess the
question is, what then would be the the next step after that question just to. I mean, the
data, is it data pointing to the people who are going to homeschooling within the county?
is it pointing to go or are they going to private school? I mean, I, I have anecdotal
stories from around my neighborhood, but that that's not you know, that's not the
breadth of data that you should have or might have. Yeah, it's it's anecdotal and that's
helpful, obviously, because it informs kind of the whole range of reasons people go. But there
isn't a single tracking mechanism that the state does to help us know, you know,
whether our student services does have access to students who are registered for
homeschooling and they have access to them. They provide different resources that we
could bring. Our head of student services to explain it better might not be the best
person, but I do know, like we have enough information that we're able to survey our our
students in the county who are who are homeschooling. And we actually just did that about a
year ago. And it's part of the information that they would like access to some of those
higher level things in, in high schools. But we would have to bring one of our, our head of
student services to provide that information. But we do have some information. It's
just not perfect. Thank you. Do you have anything to add before we move on on budget? Not at
this time I do not. Okay. And yvonne, do we have a date set yet for the budget public input
meeting? It's on my to do list for you. All right. And that's usually in what, like this
january, february, february, early february I think. Okay. All right. Sounds good. So we'll get that scheduled and we'll let everyone know. Just want to wrap it up with brief
update on the transparency and the curriculum project that's underway. Yeah. Thank you. So I
have heard from the consultant at rti that she's met with three board members. So I guess
the ones of you who have met with her were able to do that. She has sent yvonne more dates
through january for anyone else who would like to meet with her so she can get your input. I'm
not sure if there's been sent back out yet, but they are in your inbox. If you would like
to meet with her. They are meeting with all of our curriculum supervisors on
wednesday of this week in the afternoon to talk with them about their processes, of how
we're going to get all of this information. And the feedback that I've heard so far is that
a couple things are bubbling up. One, obviously, we want a very clean and easy way to find
things online and to find all the information that's required that's in our curriculum, and
have all of that available and easy to find. So if I'm a parent and I'm like, my child's
in eighth grade next year, I want her to go to have a degree and I'm going to look up, have
a degree or ninth grade. These are the different courses. And this is the type of curriculum
that you could and I could find and look at it ahead of time for the year ahead. There's
also been some feedback of some more tangible something like a large binder that has something
that board members could reference on a grade by grade and content by content. That
wasn't it. Well, hopefully not required. Oh, required. Okay. So anything that's required.
right. But montgomery county has something they call the refrigerator curriculum, which
is the idea that each family member could put the curriculum up on the refrigerator. It's
like a one pager. So think refrigerator curriculum, but in a binder, that's all still in
conversation. So if you don't think that's a great idea, please meet with our consultant and talk with her. Okay, I know, but that's where all the feedback of what you guys are
looking for on what we can make sure that we are both meeting what the board is looking for,
but what is really going to serve our families so our families have access to the
information they need. Our families right now do have access to all of their students
current coursework in their current classes, but they don't necessarily have it for the
next year. And so this will provide an opportunity, in a way, for families to get that
information and to be able to look ahead for the years ahead. Has anybody here met with them,
met with rti? Yes. We're getting to the end here. But just, you know, 30s on initial
feedback, do you have anything that you wanted to add on your. No. I thought they were very
open to gathering information. I mean, I guess they're in the information gathering mode. So.
yeah. Okay. Yeah. I thought it was good. All right. Good. Well, I would encourage everyone to
meet with them so that they hit the mark on what the board's looking for. And you have dates
in your in your email from yvonne of more opportunities to do. So. Awesome. All right.
anything else. Otherwise we can wrap up. Well sorry to bore you, trey. I'm sorry. All right.
there's nothing else. Next board meeting will be public. Normal open board meeting