City Council - Ways & Means Committee Hearing on Dockets #0733-0740, FY27 Budget: Academics and Outreach

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Good morning. My name is Ben Weber. I am the Boston City Councilor for District 6 and the Chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means. Today is April 17, 2026. The exact time is 10.09 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. The Council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings that began this week and run through June. We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record, which you can do in one of several ways. You can attend one of our hearings and give public testimony. We'll take public testimony usually at the end of our first round of questions from my colleagues.

and you can also give public testimony at two hearings dedicated to public testimony. The full hearing schedule is on our website at boston.gov slash council dash budget. Our scheduled hearings that are dedicated to public testimony, these are listening sessions, are both in person at City Hall, first on Tuesday, April 28th at 6 p.m., and then on Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. You can give testimony in person. Here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom. For in-person testimony, come to the chamber and sign up on the sheet that's near the entrance. If for anyone in the room who plans on testifying, you haven't signed up, the sign-in sheet's over there. For virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form on our council budget review website or by emailing the committee at ccc.wm.gov.

at Boston.gov or by emailing krishmachohan at k-a-r-i-s-h-m-a dot c-h-o-u-h-a-n at Boston.gov. When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation and your residents. And then please limit your comments to a few minutes so we can ensure all comments and concerns can be heard. Email your written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm.boston.gov. Another option is you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website. Okay, and then for information on the City Council budget process and how to testify, You can visit the City Council's budget website at boston.gov slash council dash budget.

In person, public testimony, again, will be taken following the first round of councilor questions. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they have signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you're listening online and you haven't signed up yet, You can sign up by emailing our Director of Legislative Budget Analysis. That's Karishma Chauhan at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C-H-O-U-H-A-N at Boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. This morning's hearing is on docket numbers 0733 to 0740. The focus of this hearing is the FY27 budget for the Boston Public Schools. This hearing will cover topics including

Inclusion, Multilingual Learners, Special Education, Curriculum, Partnerships, Summer Programming, Family and Community Outreach, and Mergers and Closures. This is one of a series of hearings to review the FY27 budget. and this is the third of three hearings with BPS. I want to note for my colleagues that the BPS central office The budget is relevant to the discussion at any of our BPS hearings given the overlap of this budget with many of our specific subtopics. In this case, this particular hearing which will touch upon Mergers and closures and centrally funded offices that coordinate with schools on inclusion partnerships, summer programming, and family and community outreach. Given the number of topics we're covering today, we're going to have two administrative panels. The first panel will cover inclusion, multilingual learners, special education, and curriculum.

The second panel will cover partnerships, summer programming, family and community outreach, and mergers and closures. These matters were sponsored by Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026. Today, I'm joined by my colleagues. In order of arrival, no surprise, first, Councillor Flynn, Murphy, and Madam President Breadon. We also have received a letter of absence from Councilor Coletta Zapata. So for our first panel, We have Superintendent of Boston Public Schools, Mary Skipper. We have Chief Financial Officer, David Bloom, Deputy Superintendent of Academics, Dr. Simone Wright, I apologize,

and Chief of Office of Multicultural Multilingual Education, Joelle Gamer, am I, okay, got that right, and Senior Advisor of Specialized Services, Christine Trevisone, if I, okay, yeah. I apologize. And then just for my colleagues, we're expected to have a panel this afternoon the Chief of Capital Planning, Delaverne Stanislaus, Chief Financial Officer Bloom, Deputy Superintendent of Community Family Advancement, Dr. Ana Tavares, Chief of Family Advancement, Magali Sanchez, Chief of Community Engagement, Miriam Ortiz, and Development Officer for Strategy Partnerships and Innovation, Dr. Ann Clark. So again, we are waiving opening statements.

I don't know if the panel has anything to present or want to talk about as an opening statement. Thank you for being here.

So good morning, everyone. I am going to actually hand it off to Dr. Simone Wright, who we are very happy and appreciative that she has Chosen BPS to share her passion and her experience which is much in the area of academics. I do want to personally thank the counselors for The many school visits that we do together. For the last three years, we have visited so many of your schools for your constituents and I think it's helped Thank you for that because you make a great effort to visit our schools on a regular basis. With that, I will pass it off to Dr. Simone Wright.

Thank you Superintendent Skipper. Good morning, Chair Weber and members of the Boston City Council. As Chair Weber stated yesterday, this is a fairly new process for me. And I feel honored to be able to engage with each of you alongside my colleagues regarding the transformational work of academics that will impact every student across the city of Boston. In many ways, this feels like the continuation of a conversation that we started a little over a month ago. regarding our approach to learning for our multilingual learners which I may add is one out of every three students in BPS and students with disabilities one out of every four students in BPS.

During our time together, I have heard a number of you inquire about academic programming, evidence-based practices, success for students, and measurement of student learning. We are primed to do more than increase performance on MCAS. Currently, one out of four students across our high schools are enrolled in a career pathway. That is a total of 4,051 students Engaging and learning that will support each of them with continuing to cultivate their interests and write their success narrative. At the Ruth Batson Academy, they are preparing to start supporting the next generation of aspiring educators. Healthcare professionals are being cultivated right now at the EMK, the English High School, and Madison Park as we speak. In addition, Madison Park is preparing future robotic engineers and electricians.

We continue to expand programming that supports our commitment to bilingualism and native language instruction for our multilingual learners. In less than 24 months, BPS has expanded bilingual education by 42%, growing from 8 to 14 programs and opening four just this school year. With our focus on norming inclusion, multilingual learners can attend a school of their choice and receive the support necessary to utilize their native language to support learning English. These efforts have been impactful as evident by the points earned on the state accountability framework for progress towards earning English proficiency. We earned all possible points in high school and saw notable increases in the lower grades.

For the experience of students with disabilities, it is exciting to see higher than typical growth for students in high school math and celebrate a 2.5 percentage point increase in four-year graduation rates. I do want to acknowledge that we anticipate through your questions that we will speak more directly about the progress of the inclusive education plan. However, it is worth noting that in the first year of implementation, we saw increases in proficiency for grades three through eight MCAS, ELA, and Math. In grade seven ELA, a focused implementation grade for the first year, we saw a six percentage point increase on the ELA MCAS.

Success with inclusion is really a call to action for high quality instruction for each student where they receive the support necessary to be successful both during their time at BPS and beyond. As we transition to questions, I do want to acknowledge the impact of your advocacy and collaboration with the school committee and BPS leadership. Overall, our schools are performing better. As a district, we recently doubled the number of schools of recognition, six of our schools exited transformation status, The Up Holland exited state receivership and the Dearborn STEM Academy is planning to exit state turnaround. 22 schools saw increases in their accountability percentiles for two consecutive years.

The pieces are in place and there is continued work to do to ensure every student is able to engage in highly interesting rigorous and joyful learning experiences that support them with operationalizing their aspirations beyond their time at BPS. Personally, this excites me as I continue to learn BPS. It gives me thrills to think about the impact of our collective efforts can have right now in this moment and will have on the future of the city of Boston. We look forward to your questions and this discussion this morning.

Okay, thank you very much. So we've been joined by Councillor Durkan. We've also been joined by a group from the Mendel School. Hey, sixth grade, fifth grade? Fifth and sixth. Fifth and sixth, awesome. Okay, well. That's very nice to see everybody. Just for our students, you know, we're here, we're having a hearing on the Boston Public Schools. And we have here a panelist. In the middle here is the superintendent. Mary Skipper, who runs the school system. The rest of these are people who help her run the school system. And over here are city councillors. I'm a city councillor. Councillor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Durkan, and Councilor Brayden. We work on the city council and we're talking about the budget, how much money the city spends on our schools.

And we're going to ask the superintendent and all the people who work in her office about We're going to talk about what kinds of investments we make in our schools and we're going to be talking this morning about The inclusion model, which I don't know if you know about, but how we help multi-language learners, people who come to school as the first language that's different than English. Special Education for kids who need special education services and curriculum, how we shape the curriculum, what kinds of books you're getting, what kinds of things Miss Leela's talking about in class. So anyway, this is the start of our hearing. You came at a great time. We've just heard from the superintendent and Dr. Wright here, and so we're going to Flynn. We have a timer behind me. I have to limit the amount of time my colleagues talk so we all get a chance. We go in order of arrival. Councilor Flynn was here first. I'm going to give you seven minutes.

I'm going to put it up on the timer. And then after that will be Councilor Murphy, then Councilor Breadon, and Councilor Durkan. So, Councilor Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the superintendent and the superintendent's team for being here, for the important work you are doing. I focused much of my attention yesterday on how we're supporting BPS students With social workers, with psychologists, I talked about the different ratios, district social workers, I want to see them be I don't want to see those jobs cut. I believe those three district social worker positions cut. They play an important role to support schools at times of crisis. I'm going to continue to focus on that. But let me go on to a different subject. And I do think it's important. And I had a chance to talk to a lot of

Parents about their child. They're English language learners and they have disabilities as well. They're asking me, Ed, we need to fight for these students to ensure that they want to ensure that they can continue to learn Thank you. Thank you. We don't want to see BPS diminish their current language or their native language. We want to ensure that they get the services and support they need as English language learners and students with disabilities as well. I know it's a high percentage in BPS, but what are we going to do to support them This budget has a lot of cuts.

I don't want to see us making any cuts that impact these students. Just want to give you an opportunity to respond on what our plan is with English language learners. and they also have disabilities as well.

No, that's great. And Councilor Flynn, thank you for bringing up what we consider to be our most vulnerable population, right, which is our students with disabilities who are also multilingual learners. I think one of the things that we as a collective staff, but particularly with Chief Gamir from the Office of OMME, Kay Seal, who's the chief of OMME, Specialized Services, and Christine Trevisoni, who is here, who is Senior Advisor, is to really work together collaboratively as departments to support the students. We initiated in the inclusion plan something called service mapping about a year ago. And the idea there is to be able to bring all the services that a student needs that being English language acquisition, access to native language, and special education services together in a very organized way in the least restrictive environment within BPS.

So I will let Chief Gamir and I'll let Christine Trevisoni just address a little bit of the work that they do together. to support the population. I also want to reassure that in this budget, those services are all remaining. There is no cuts to those student populations whatsoever.

First, I want to thank you so much for that question, Councillor Flynn. As the superintendent stated, there are no cuts for our bilingual programs. And so when families come to BPS and they choose to be in a bilingual education program like a dual language program or a bilingual program like at the Quincy, in your district. We want to ensure that students that have disabilities are able to participate in those programs. And we also want to ensure that we are culturally responsive We are also building out more resources within our dual language programs to make sure that we're encompassing more students with Disabilities in our dual language programs such as at the Hurley or at the Hernandez. We've created SLIFE programs for students who come in that are newcomers or new or had interrupted learning.

and created SLIFE programs in the dual language schools so that when they exit a SLIFE program, And then for our students who are enrolled in our SEI which could be considered general education. We're really working with our teachers to equip them with all of the SEI endorsed resources that they have to really help support them to Thank you. Thank you. in terms of sheltering the language for them.

Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask a specific couple questions maybe to David. And David, if you don't have the answer, could you Could you get it to me later today? But here are my quick questions. The net loss of special ed classroom personnel. So what is the net loss of special ed class personnel including paras, including teachers, related service providers, other student facing roles, ABAs, school psychologists, et cetera. Do you have those numbers available?

Yes.

OK, could you read them to me?

Yes. So our revised number, which does include maybe a couple of administrators, but it's mostly those that you've mentioned, is 179. FTE, full-time equivalent. The biggest types in that area are about 120 paraprofessional and positions similar to paraprofessional. I think like ABA specialist or other things like that, as well as 44 support staff. So that's about 164 of the 179 comes in those categories. The biggest reductions are taking place at schools that are closing or being reconfigured, which is about 77 of the 179. Centrally funded positions make up 51. and then the last big change is the restructuring happening at the Melvin H. King schools. and that covers most of the positions.

Okay, and my final question, I don't know if, can I ask the question? I only have 10 seconds left. Okay, my final question is, and I listen carefully and closely to the and that there were no cuts and certainly So I'm glad to hear that. But would the advocates acknowledge that there are no cuts or will the parents or the guardians, will they also say that there's no cuts? Will there be any specific cuts that they will highlight to me? They'll say, hey, Ed, I know this BPS team said there were no cuts, but... But my son or daughter is not getting the services for this particular program. I just want us to make sure that if there are no cuts, then that also means that no parent or guardian will say to me,

Hey Ed, but I do have a cut in services for my kid.

So the IEPs are what drive the services, and similarly for multilingual learners, it is what minutes that they're getting in order to support language acquisition. We cannot cut those. Those are done through the teams. So that's not a personnel decision. That is driven by those process. However, most of the elimination of FTEs that you're hearing David talking about are because a classroom is closing and so therefore there's no students or a school is reconfiguring like Mel King. and the way that they're doing the reconfiguration, the services are still all being given but they don't need the extent of staff they had. I do think there are a few schools who had legacy models and part of our reimagining funding formula is to create a better sense of equity across the district. There were some schools who were getting additional funding over a period of time when other schools doing the same work were not.

So part of the reimagining has been to make the model more consistent across the schools. You may hear a parent in one of those schools say, well last year we had this in the classroom and this year we have, next year we'll have this. That can feel very legitimately like a loss for a parent. But the most important thing to remember is that all of the services that student and family are due are being given.

Thank you, Superintendent. Mr.

Chair, thank you for giving me an extra minute. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you very much. We've been joined by the Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, John Fitzgerald, just for our young observers. We're having this hearing in a committee. We have a city council. We have a Wednesday meeting. and we have committees that handle specific subjects because we're talking about the budget that this hearing happens in the Ways and Means Committee. I'm the chair of the Ways and Means Committee so I get to sit up here in the chair along with my vice chair Murphy. Thank you.

So thank you all for being here. I'm going to go through my questions. I know my time just flies through. And then if the second round we can answer if we don't get to answer them all at once. Like, are we willing to acknowledge that past academic strategies have not delivered the results our students deserve? And what are we doing differently? I did hear one of the opening statements like, that we are now, you know, doing transformational changes and kind of really wanting to know like what does that actually mean and what specific benchmarks will we commit to to improve by June 2027. I know we like to say give us time, but we know generations of kids have not been given the supports they need to succeed. By June 2027, what will we do if we don't meet those benchmarks also? What are we saying?

We expect, knowing that less than 30%, and we know in our most vulnerable populations, Our special ed, our ESL students that can be as low as 10% are reading on grade level. We're spending more, we have less students, so what are the direct investments tied to these measurable academic outcomes? and improvements that we're hoping for. If you can identify which academic supports have been reduced, eliminated, or diluted. And I know you mentioned, and I do understand from my time in the classrooms that it looks different so people assume so what are we doing to communicate that but not just to families I don't think we also do a good enough job communicating that to our staff and to our

You know leaders that people have different opinions of what what it should look like and when it looks different that we don't understand that well we're doing what we need to do right but it may not look the same. What percentage of BPS curriculum is currently aligned with evidence-based research-backed instruction? And One question I asked yesterday, and I was told, David, you were coming back today, or they couldn't answer it yesterday, but when you look on page 57 of the budget book, I don't know if you watched that question, which is for the central office operations. We do see that in contracts and other non-personnel, it went from six full-time employees to 90 and it went from spending

The support staff went from 90 full-time employees to 91.8, so less than two full-time employees added, but we went from spending $4,669,000 to $8,000. I really would like to get that answer before we leave because we know when we have RFIs the budget vote already happens before we get and for those listening last year we had over 300 unanswered RFIs during the budget process so I know people say we'll just put it on the record and it's definitely not just BPS don't worry that's every department that we Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and the percentage of low-income students. The Carter School has the highest percentage. It's at 96.8.

There are a few schools in the low 90s. So in no way, like I said yesterday, I'm not questioning the program. It's an amazing, wonderful program. But my question is, we have middle-class, rich families in this city who have Severely Disabled Students. We know we do. Where are those students going? And so I would really like to, and maybe that's a bigger conversation, but to me that's an equity question. that I think we really need to look at because if I dug into all the other programs too, it may look similar. If we could, and if you need reminders, I don't know if you wrote it down, but if we could just start answering some of those questions.

Yeah, no, that's great. If you don't mind, Councilor Murphy, is it all right if David goes first and just get that one out of the way so you get the answer? And then I think Dr. Wright. can speak to some of the academic pieces. I know Christine Trevisoni has some additional information on the Carter.

Yes. So the Two questions I heard from you on the page 57 of the budget book. The first was related to support staff. The support staff change is related to a change we're in the middle of doing a reduction of central office. and so we swept all of the central stipend budgets into the budget office and reduced them and we're now getting ready to portion them all back out again so I have a multi-million dollar reserve Hill there, which shows up in that support staff spending. The 1.9 FTE difference is we budget a group of transportation attendants in the budget office. So it's not really related to that.

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

So the stipends, yeah, so stipends show up in the, I'll double check this, but stipends show up in the support staff category. I don't believe I got that wrong, but I will just triple check. And then for, sorry, here we go. Yes, that's correct. And then the other thing that is In there is...

The 84 new full-time employees?

Yeah, that's not... I don't know where... I don't know... I promise you our budget office does not have 84 new full-time employees. Oh, there is.

Yeah, this doesn't say just for the budget office. This is under central office.

If you look at the header for that page, it's just the budget office. So it has to do with the way we're budgeting some of the transportation and attendance. and there's something off about the way that's budgeted so we can definitely correct that. And then the last thing I would just add is The other thing that's in there is it's a place where we hold collective bargaining payments that haven't yet to be distributed for recent collective bargaining agreements. So the most recent basis agreement, the funding for that has yet to be distributed across all the positions, so it's sitting in the budget office. 2.5 million sitting in the support staff.

But if you notice, the full-time employee number went up, but it went down from 27 million to 10 million. So it's a decrease in spending, but it's an increase in 84 full-time employees. I know I asked it yesterday, I thought you'd have the answer, but if I would really like an explanation, a clear one.

I can get you a more detailed explanation by the end of that.

And if you're saying that we're putting even transportation personnel into that line item. If you could clarify.

Great, so by end of day, David will respond in detail.

Okay, thank you. And I know I ran out of time.

Did you have something to add on that? No?

Not on that, but on academics.

Oh, okay. So, I mean, if you want to answer one more question, then we're going to move on to, we'll have a second round. But, Doctor, if you...

You said a number of things that I want to acknowledge as probably more than seven minutes.

Of course it is, yeah. But my whole time went to the non-answer of the budget question that came up yesterday. But I'm here for it, so I'm waiting for the second round, too.

Yeah, I think what I will offer that feels sticky right now of the number of questions that you asked is around evidence base. Every BPS curriculum aligns to supporting teachers with facilitating learning using evidence-based practices. But I think the key word here is BPS endorsed. Anything that we have offered schools and trained schools to utilize. And we can circle back to success in a year.

Okay, yeah, I mean, that's it. Did you have a, you want to just leave it to the next round? Yeah, please, thank you. Okay, sure. Okay, Madam President, you have seven minutes.

Thank you. Just one question I always ask is how much tuition does the Horace Mann School for the Deaf generate income coming in from outside the district?

I don't have that number with me.

It's probably the only school in the district that actually generates income.

We get Interestingly it's actually not anymore so there's a little bit of income that sometimes comes from the Carter because when families move out of district we will often let them keep their place at the Carter if it's not too far and the The other place we get tuition is if charter schools send students back to BPS for substantially separate programming.

Thank you very much. Again, echoing some of the concerns of my colleagues and community members about BPS's approach to the education of multilingual learners in inclusion classrooms. It seems that it's, I can't imagine it's not a challenge, but how much is BPS proposing to expand bilingual dual language and transitional bilingual education programs this coming year?

Thank you for the question. I will say that this year BPS implemented four bilingual programs and We also have existing bilingual programs that are expanding, meaning many of the new programs that we have initiated start off with K-1 and we're building out. So for example, with the four new programs that we have this year, Sarah Roberts started, Blackstone started in K1, and next year they will remain having the K1 and then expand to K2. and so we're building out our programs that currently exist and the new ones that we've implemented we're building out as well. Next year we'll have a new bilingual program, a TBE program at the Ellis and that will start in K-1 and that will expand out as well too.

When we're looking to create additional programs, it's a combination of working with the community to see the ask for it. Also, we want to ensure that when we create programs that it's feasible and sustainable. We don't want to create a program, and I also want to highlight the Cabo Verde and Criollo program that's going to be the first in the nation at the Frederick. Next year, that's going to be a K-1 program. And it's going to start and build out until it's K through 6. But again, I want to just really hone in on the feasibility and sustainability of when we create programs. So yes, it's important when we're working with families and the community that they want the ask They're asking for it, but we're also looking at our landscape across the district. Where's the need and how can we build it out and ensure that we have sustainability and feasibility?

And the other thing too is really building up a workforce of educators who are qualified to teach in the bilingual education program, that they have not only the licensure, but we work with them as well too, but also having the bilingual endorsement. and most importantly having the language capacity and proficiency to be able to instruct in that language. So there's many factors when we're incorporating or thinking about initiating new programs but we're really proud of the expansion that we've had since 2024 where we started off with eight programs and now we're at 14 and we're continuing to build out and expand those programs as they are.

So what languages are available in bilingual programs?

Well, we have multiple classrooms across the district that have Spanish. We are the first in the nation for Haitian Creole. We will be the first in the nation for Cabo Verdean Creole. We have a Mandarin program at the Quincy. and we have a dual language program for Vietnamese at the Mather.

Okay. Okay. And then in terms of multilingual learners with disabilities, they have Double challenges in a sense. How does BPS offer or does it offer The ability for programs that stand alone, like a plan to work with their home language as well. Like we've kids that, you know, you've mentioned four languages, four languages. Languages, but families speak many more languages than that. How do we sort of bridge to kids with disabilities? How do we bridge to the home language and to really maximize the effect of and BPS for the educational piece.

So I think...

It's not just about communicating with parents, but how do we... Exactly.

I think if Christine could just explain a little bit the service mapping, because I think in general, students with disabilities are encouraged and... It's a question of what the services look like and then how we bring those into the classroom. But Christine, do you want to just talk a little bit about the service mapping?

Thank you for the question. With service mapping, we're able to determine which services the students need and for how long so that we can provide appropriate staffing. We're always looking to ensure to the greatest extent possible that we hire bilingual staffing. So we have bilingual speech and language pathologists. We have bilingual psychologists and other staff who are able to support In native language to the greatest extent possible at our bilingual schools such as the Hernandez and the Hurley staff, special education staff, can provide and support in both Spanish and English. So to the greatest extent possible, we try to access native language. It's not always feasible, but that's always our goal in hiring.

So do you map what the home language is and then Is it reported out what the home language is or are you just focused essentially on ESL?

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

It's also particularly important when we're testing students that we're testing as much as possible in native language. That was something that BPS wasn't doing. And I think we've made a concentrated effort in hiring school psychs to be able to do that.

And then the other, I think there's evidence also that, you know, if students are bilingual, like they're thinking in Spanish, to take a test that's written in English, if you have two problems, Two exam papers, one in English and one in Spanish, will do better if they can access the questions in their own language, even if they have to answer it in English. Do we do that in our testing? for testing for special education. Oh, no, for general students, general ed as well.

Yeah, so I do want to highlight that every educator that is in our district has an SEI endorsement. and so we have to ensure that we all have the mindset that Our multilingual learner students aren't just for the ESL teachers, that we all have accountability and shared accountability for our students. And so when you have an SEI endorsement, you have the skills to We do try our best to have as many bilingual educators across the district as we can in having many staff members. But again, a student walking into a classroom, that's why we call every classroom an SEI classroom, because the teachers are SEI endorsed. That's a requirement once you are hired. as a public school teacher that within a year that you do receive that.

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

I'll probably come back for more questions. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me some extra time.

Okay, thank you. We've been joined by Councillor Culpepper. Say hi to some students from the Mendel up there.

Good morning, students from the Mendel.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Culpepper. You'll have plenty of time later on.

I will. Yes.

Yeah, well, no, the clock will cut you off. It's not for me. Okay, Councilor Durkan, you're up, seven minutes.

Reclaiming my time, reclaiming my time. Yeah, yeah, okay. So thank you so much, Chair, and really appreciate seeing the superintendent here. Thank you for your leadership. One thing that I know we've talked about I know the first version of the BPS budget had some cuts to that. I know we've talked. I know there was some advocacy. We had talked about there being some of those jobs coming back. So I was curious about, one, the success and what we've been doing right on chronic absenteeism. And then my second question is really what changes have been made to the introduced budget since it's been introduced and curious what the top points of advocacy and concerns for the school committee are.

Great, so I'll do some of this and I know David's got some figures. So with chronic absenteeism, one of the things we highlighted was that we are now four years in a row where chronic absenteeism has gone down, we've exceeded Our goal is at the state level. That's not really our benchmark. Our benchmark is to have no student be chronically absent. Roughly right now, we sit between 25% and 27% for chronic absenteeism, which would again show a significant drop for this year. We've done a lot of investment with re-engaging students, social-emotional supports, working with homing stability for students who are housing insecure, food insecurity, all of the things that we know underlie often The reasons why students are chronically absent. I also think we've done a lot in really increasing the rigor and the programmatic offerings for students, particularly at the high school level which causes students to want to come to school, to feel motivated, right?

Yesterday we heard, you know, motivation leads to performance. And I think that that's very accurate. So you'll see in the budget, not just this year, but in past years, deliberate increases in those areas. There was particular advocacy around supervisors of attendance. We had three positions that had been cut. It was to try to align in a different way to the regional model. When we went back and reviewed after the advocacy, We made the determination to restore those positions. And again, this is where in good practice why our budget process is so long is to really enable us to hear that feedback. from not only the working group or the council, but also from our school committee, from public, common, and constituents, and then be able to act on that as much as possible. In terms of a few of the key areas, David, I'll turn to David and he can kind of give you some figures.

I mean, I think you covered almost all the things I was hoping to get to, Sue, but I appreciate it. But I think for us, really, it is about What the superintendent said, which is that dynamic process, right? We put forward a budget proposal in February, and then we have several months of feedback and adjustment. So yes, the three supervisors of attendance were- Right.

We also, there were about- $4 million worth of positions we restored between the time that the budget process began and then ended in those positions.

and that was a part of it, right? Those included transition supports for schools and others and we can give you the full list of those as well.

Yeah, I think that's helpful because I think that really sheds a light on The listening part of this and sort of how we're moving. I also wanted to ask, in terms of decreasing external funds, I know that's placing more pressure on BPS. I think they've decreased by 12% if I have that right. What are the reasons for decreased state and federal funding and are there Other opportunities we could be taking or other, I mean obviously a new federal administration would be nice, but are there any opportunities we're missing for state or federal funding?

I mean, I think we're always working very collaboratively with our state delegation, for sure, to try and identify areas for state funding. I think overall, obviously the federal picture is the biggest problem. The other thing just structurally with our documents that have been reported right now, we always have to report a decline at this point in the process. because a number of our grants are competitive and not guaranteed. So my guess is of that 11% reduction at least We are definitely feeling the impact of the reduction in federal programming.

For sure, and we are blessed to be in a state where our state delegation, not just our city, but our state delegation advocates strongly for us. I do think where we are also seeing it, which isn't necessarily reported on the lines you're looking, or any of you are looking are our partners. And those could be non-profits that have shared mission to us. Those could be our post-secondaries. You know, we've recently with our... College Advising Corps, a lot of our post-secondary institutions are also losing grants federally and from other sources. They often fund support directly to our schools. It can be in the form of student support folks. It can be in the form of school psychologists, social workers. In one case with UMass, we lost a very large grant that was impactful for college preparation, and that was three FTEs.

These are all positions we don't have the funding to pick up, and yet they are very much mission critical to the priorities we do. That's the reason we're very thankful for the dollars we are getting from the city.

Now one big topic of conversation last time we did the BPS budget was just making sure that teachers have the ability to move up and grow and and I think those are some of the cuts as well, right? Those are some of the lack of federal funding that we don't have is really just like helping skilled teachers up.

Yes, and especially also for some of our paraprofessionals. As well, we were working on a number of training programs to help them get their bachelor's degree, get their teacher licenses. We had some really promising federal grants there that were ended.

And then I guess this is, I have 38 seconds. This is a tough question to ask with 38 seconds left, but how do proposed mergers, reconfigurations, and closures impact the financial stability of the district? And sort of how have those decisions been made to impact and make sure that we're shored up for financial stability. So do you do fiscal?

Yeah, for sure. So I think from a fiscal lens, as our enrollment has declined, The mergers and closures allow us to ensure that the students who are remaining in our system see the greatest bang for the buck in what we spend, right? So that when enrollment declines 5%, and so on and so forth. And so instead of having to cut 5% across all of our schools right through the mergers and the closures, we're taking a significant portion of that cut in a more concentrated continue to offer high-quality programming at the schools that are remaining open? Obviously, that's a very difficult conversation, and I'll hand it over to the superintendent.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think in this current budget, there's a reflection of about $25 million from closed schools that are then It's getting put toward the remaining schools and students. But I also think programmatically, what we see is that when schools are very small and half full, they're not able to give the full electives. of what students are looking for. So for instance at the high school level, sometimes the size of the school disables them from being able to offer sports, to be able to offer full enrichment programs, or early college, because there's just, or APs, because there's just not enough students to be able to take those electives and programs. So that's one of the things we learned through the long-term facility studies When parents and students were weighing in on the things they wanted, it really is a rich array of arts and music and enrichment before and after school, certainly athletics. You need a certain size of economy to be able to offer that. Otherwise you're taking dollars and stretching it across.

It's like the difference of trying to sustain one car or two cars. or one house or two houses. You know, it just stretches resources to the point where it's very hard to be able to sustain that.

Well, I always say, if you never do anything, you never do anything wrong. And I think truly here, the decisions that have been made have been ones that are really trying to promote a district that makes sense and that works and that is structured well but those decisions are not easy to make and I want to thank you for your leadership because it requires and a lot of political leadership too to say that changes do need to be made and we do need to make sure that for financial reasons that we're spending the right money on the right things in order to actually help our students. So thank you, Superintendent, and thank you all for being here.

That's great. Chair, just because the Mendel students and staff are here, this is a great example where the Mendel is stretched across two sites. because they don't have a building that right now is K-6 and that's not easy for them. And so this is why long-term facilities is so important so we can actually situate strong schools in buildings that support the full experience.

Yeah, my son went to K-1 at the Mendel with Ms. McPherson. One of the reasons why we moved to Mission Hill, the gym was the hallway in the basement. It was tough. It's a beautiful building and the teachers are amazing. Anyway, the facilities and to provide that for the kids. It's great. So just before we go to Councilor Culpepper, I just wanted to, and I should have said this earlier, we're having two panels for my colleagues. The first panel is here to talk about inclusion, multi-language learners, Special Education and Curriculum The second panel is partnerships, summer programming, family and community outreach, and I'm sorry, Councilor Flynn, and mergers and closures. We will, so Councilor Culpepper, we will be talking about mergers and closures in the second, that is the second panel.

I think the superintendent is not here, but I think Chief Financial Officer Bloom will be here for the second panel. But we have divided it up. It's like multi-language learners, special ed, inclusion model, and curriculum for the first panel, mergers and closures, partnerships, summer programming. Family and Community Outreach for the second panel. Because I've talked so long, Councillor Fitzgerald, you were here before Councillor Culpepper. I don't know how to, I was about to call on Councillor, okay, is that okay? Yeah, okay. So, Councillor Fitzgerald, you're up. You got seven minutes.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper. I appreciate that. So, just for a little, like, basic knowledge, right? The foundation of education. Let's start at the basics. Can you talk to me about, in terms of the curriculum, right? Because it took me a long time to understand that sometimes we purchase our curriculum at a higher rate from other things to implement them in here. Talk to me about the process of... How we procure that curriculum and what we look for in the curriculum and how it is built. I know, Joelle, you talked about building out the bilingual, right? Brayden had a question. And what does building out look like? What is that? So just a little bit about the process from the get-go of how we procure curriculum. and who we're getting it from and what it costs to how we build out other curriculum and what are some of the more detailed steps in that.

Thank you for that question, Vice Chair Fitzgerald. I first want to acknowledge that we aren't really building out curriculum anymore. Just across the education landscape, we are a lot clearer about grade level standards. We are a lot clearer about pedagogical approach and or evidence-based practices. And we've actually had nonprofits establish clear criteria to determine if a curriculum is going to give the teacher what it needs to be able to teach kids well. I just had heard build out, that's why I wanted to. So I'm interested to... Yep, and I think that's an important point, right? Like, a lot of times you hear academics and you think just curriculum. We are a programmatic function as well. Like a lot of the conversation me and Chief Gamir have are about curriculum for her programs, right? So I think it's just important to name that distinction.

I think to keep it simple, when we are looking to purchase a new curriculum, we, at the highest level, we're looking for something that is Ed Reports approved. So a lot of times that it's talking about grade level. I use the word coherence, but to make it more simple, are kids learning things in sequential order? Like, does the learning set kids up to build on what they learned yesterday, right? And I think the same thing is true when you're thinking about grade levels, right? There are certain things kids need to learn in second grade to be successful in third grade. So we want to buy that resource so our teachers don't have to make the decision and go figure that out. Now, I do want to acknowledge Folks still need training on curriculum. So there's a lot of work to do to make sure our educators feel efficacious in utilizing the resource to teach students well.

And then this last part might throw you off a little. All curriculum is imperfect. Like you have to take sort of what you've been given as a resource, what you know about your school context to be able to teach students well. Yeah.

And that's an important point because in our district, Teachers aren't robots, right? There are some districts and schools where there is literally a pacing guide where every day, if you're not on that, We trust our teachers with the education of our kids, and that means that their ability to start with the foundation of what Dr. Wright's talking about, but then to be able to supplement and to build in it, that's like an important component of it.

Yeah. I would prefer we go the way of our teachers not being robots. Absolutely. There are some, my wife's a public school teacher as well, and sometimes she talks about some of the curriculum that BPS has versus where she's at, and she's had experience with some, and she'll be like, BPS does X, that one, we don't like that one. How do we filter out what is appropriate? It's a hard question. I wish I had the exact name of what curriculum she was thinking about, but how they teach math or whatever it was, right? I haven't had a great experience with that one. I wish BPS didn't. Does cost come into play about sort of like, look, they came in lowest and best, and so we kind of had to go with that one, but is it the best for the kids?

So... There is buying a curriculum and then there is bringing educator voice into the selection of the curriculum, right? Some would say CKLA is a good ELA curriculum. Others would say EL is a good ELA curriculum. But I would offer... And I think this is an important point. Like, BPS uses the racial equity planning tool process to be able to get educator voice and ensure the curriculum we select truly represents sort of our beliefs around teaching, right? Like we don't want to put a curricular resource in our educator's hands That makes any of our kids feel offended or disrespected, right? So that racial equity planning tool paired with like

The procurement process helps to sort of manage that and I want to acknowledge, you know, this might be like a little bit of a hot take, but there are schools that do choose to use a different curriculum and it doesn't mean that it isn't high quality. It just means that for that particular group of educators, they've identified something that still supports good instruction and may better support the teaching practices at their school.

Are they allowed to change the curriculum? If they have the curriculum, the teachers or the school or the principal has the ability to say, we're not going to use that, I'm going to go a different route that we think is better for this population of kids that we have in our school?

Yeah, they would work with our teaching and learning team to ensure that the curriculum still meets a certain bar. So I think if this is helpful, I'm not sure that our goal is one curriculum, but our goal is a quality curricular resource that supports teacher practice.

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

Yeah, so when we're buying the curriculum, we start by, so let's say we're buying, EL was one of the examples that was used, right? So we make a determination of what curriculum we need. We put out a bid. We do that collection. It creates a contract that says, at this scale, this is how much you pay for it. What we'll typically then do is a survey of schools. for what curriculum resources they need. So if school A has worked with academics to not use that curriculum, they'll just say, oh, we don't need any of that, and then we won't buy it. So we'll have enough room in the big contract and the pricing to be able to buy it, but we try to only buy it for those who need the materials. Great. Appreciate the answers. Thank you, Jim.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you again, Superintendent, and all of your team. I do appreciate the time that you've taken with me. over the last couple of months to help me bring me up to speed, answer a lot of questions that I would have today that you've already answered, so I appreciate that. Good to see you again, Dr. Wright. and I was looking with Dr. Wisdom.

Someone has to make sure that everything remains intact while we're here.

She's overseeing our schools right now.

Yeah. I'm glad to know that she's overseeing the schools. I do think she is very helpful. She's excellent. I sent several students to her, several teachers that had issues. and I think she worked them through so I really. She's excellent. Yes, she is. Let me just pick up on the curriculum discussion a little bit because it's interesting, David, that different schools are using different curriculums. You buy the curriculum. How do you measure whether the curriculum that the school decides to use is the appropriate one for that school?

Yeah, I mean, I think you're asking a similar question as Vice Chair Fitzgerald. Also, hello. Good morning. Good morning. I think it is, is it Ed Reports Repoved? Right, like that's like a rubric. It talks about grade level, pedagogical practice, coherence. Say that again, what did you say? Say that again. It's called Ed Reports. It's a national rubric. So I think at a high level, EdReport sort of summarizes the criteria we would want. And we do ask the school to implement the racial equity planning tool process. to make sure that all of the constituents at the school are on board with utilizing the curriculum. One thing I do just want to note, though, Culpepper is one of the challenges though when you choose to use your own curriculum you have to figure out professional development.

I know but here's my question how does The leadership, how do you determine when a school says, this is the curriculum I want? How do you measure whether that's the appropriate curriculum for that school?

Yeah, it's exactly what I just said. Like the teaching and learning team would first and foremost confirm that it is Ed Reports approved. No, no, how do you measure it?

Once they get it, how do you measure?

This is their assessments.

Talk about that.

That's what I want to hear. Student learning. Is what you're asking about? Like impact?

Yes. Return on investment.

Absolutely. Got it. No, that's very helpful. I mean, similar to our other schools, right? Like our schools are taking various assessments, right? We are looking at performance of like student achievement. We are still using, I know you asked about our walkthrough tool. We're still using our equitable literacy walkthrough tool. I think we are still have a mechanism to Look at the quality of teacher practice. But more importantly, our proud superintendent is always looking at accountability percentiles. and various assessment datas to also pressure check that the impact is being had and asking us questions about it.

And so with regard to the literacy, I know we've been talking about literacy all year long and we know... Well, we have, yes, even before you came. How are we improving and measuring that we're improving the literacy of students in the Boston public schools?

Yeah, I think that's a fair question. I think they're all fair questions. They are fair questions, yes. There are a number of different ways that we are measuring whether or not students are able to read, write, speak, and think. Because that is what literacy is, right? That's exactly. At the earliest grades, we have, I think not earliest grades, starting at age five on up, we have an internal assessment that supports us with understanding how kids are doing with literacy. I think starting at grades three, students take MCAS. I mean, those are our mechanisms of, I would say, long-term measuring whether or not students are learning how to read.

But they're not taking MCAS now, are they? Yes. Yes. And so when you look at the literacy, we still know many students are still struggling even in high school. What do we do with them? Do we let them graduate and unable to fill out an application? What do we do with them? And I think I've talked to the superintendent about that before. How do we go back and bring them to the point where They're able to walk into a job, fill out an application, speak articulately to the interviewer. How do we measure whether they're at that point? And if they're not, what do we do?

So I think at the, I would say from grade six and up, it becomes a different kind of literacy issue for kids. That's where it's, you know, if the student is on an IEP, they're likely getting direct reading support and services. Where it's difficult is when the student's not on an IEP and they have a true literacy issue. And that's where we've been doing a lot more for the last several years in the upper grades relative to literacy strategies across the teachers, across the disciplines, not just in the English class, but in all content areas. It's also where we've added in reading specialists to be able to coach teachers and in some cases deliver direct services. A lot of our after school programming now actually has academic elements that are rooted in literacy.

So Corey McCarthy, for instance, with a lot of his student support work on the weekends, the 617 and his camps, the Opportunity Lab, those are all very directed to integrate particularly literacy support for students in college preparatory for students. So the problem is, and this is why we have to make sure that literacy is as strong as possible in the youngest grades, is that as kids get older, it becomes an esteem issue for them. it's a very real thing and so that's where for us we want to close that gap not create it and not forget about the kids that from past Administration's years of education have those legitimate gaps. That's why we have to add in value to them through other kinds of programming, sometimes out of school, sometimes in school. Summer is a big time for us with the high school kids.

because not only are they working, but we've readjusted a lot of credit recovery and a lot of the academic support so they can work. We're not asking them to trade off. and then still giving them those supports in the context of programs like Corey runs or programs like the individual schools run.

Are we out of time? You are out of time. The clock, I argued with it to give you more time.

Will we have a second round?

We will definitely have a second round after public testimony. I think we're going to hear from the kids. We're going to hear from folks from St. Stephen's and some advocates. If you had one quick follow-up or something based on...

I know Dr. Wright was expecting a question about evidence-based teaching, right? I addressed it in my opening, but you missed it. You know what? Let me just be honest with you. My back has been hurting me. I got up. My back... Syatica. But I had to make it. I didn't want to miss this morning. I had to make my back. But it's okay though, you know, because we work through pain. You know, all my life we've been working through pain, so it's nothing new. I'm not going to ask you the question about the evidence-based teaching. I'll wait until the second round. But I will say, Superintendent, what we've decided to do, and we'll be working with the Trotter School, we're going to start a literacy... and I hope it becomes a model for other churches that if you don't have after school they can come to the church and uh

The church has always been a secondary learning place for students, especially when we have Sunday school. And so I've been listening to some of the young folks in the church read, and I said, you know what? We really need to help them because we want our students to be able to be the best that they can be.

Yes, super appreciative of that. I think as you and I have talked about, churches have always played foundational roles with us in support. And it takes a village that's modeling it. So we really appreciate that. And any supports we can help with there, Let us know.

Maybe we should start a church literacy program. No, I'm serious, Dr. Wright. Because I think... I'll wait until my second round. My time is up. I want to respect the chair.

Thank you very much. So I have a couple questions and we're going to go to public testimony. Is that okay, Ms. Lila? Another seven minutes? Okay. So I feel like we talked about gridlock, you know, where... You know, people can't get through an intersection because other people are stuck from the other direction. When we have this sort of challenge on addressing the needs of multi-language learners, And then we have a challenge for special ed needs students. And so we're going with inclusion. How does that impact our multi-language learners when we have I think a lot of what we're talking about It's hard to imagine a world where we're able to help

all the students all the time in the way we're doing it. We're saying inclusion citywide, but at the same time, I think we have 86% of the multi-language learners in general education classrooms. So how does it work for them in that space? So that's, I guess that's my first general question is like, how in a world where Most of the multi-language learners right now are in gen ed rooms. And the teachers, while they maybe have SEI certifications or whatever it is, they're not fluent in that I guess the first thing is,

Inclusion, you know, I understand the model and all the benefits that it provides, and it seems like it's already providing benefits for our kids. Like, you know, how we... And dovetailing with that is the staffing, where we're... Having staffing reductions, that sort of seems to suggest that it's going to be even harder to meet those needs.

Yeah, so I think, and I know folks will want to jump in on this, but I think to your analogy, like three years ago, three and a half years ago, we had to reset the traffic lights. We had to like actually take a year because they were not working. And that's what literally the inclusion plan and its implementation is, which it is now two years in on implementation that we're going into. 86% is actually the lowest amount of students that have been in general education. We actually have more students in Now, bilingual programming than we have ever had. So that's actually a point of pride that we are moving in the right direction and want to accelerate that. If you were to look at that two years ago, it would have been like 95% were in general education. It was just called something different, but that's what it was. Same with staffing.

We never could answer the question three years ago how many bilingual staff we had because we didn't measure it. We actually measure it now. So what you're seeing is that BPS is actually increasing because it values the percent of our staffing who are multilingual. In fact, in the last hiring cycle, 45% of those we hired, or 43%, spoke a second language fluently. So I say all of this because we have data that's saying we are going in the right direction, but we feel like everybody feels that it needs to go quicker. And that's what we're working as fast as we can in reasonable speed to do with quality. I think Joelle will want to add some particular factors in here about how for multilingual learners and inclusion it is working. More importantly, how do we know it's working?

Yeah, I definitely want to echo the superintendent in terms of like our access scores are showing that we are going in the right direction. We are hitting, we are going in the right trajectory. Are we complacent? No, but we're happy to know that Having this transition to an inclusive setting hasn't set the students back that they are moving in the right direction. I also want to highlight in the classroom, what does it look like in the classroom? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're thinking of what you want the outcomes for the students to be. So you have to have language objectives for the students. You need to have content objectives for students. And you also need to ensure that you are developing the students for domains.

So the speaking, reading, writing, listening has to be incorporated into the classroom. and so When educators are implementing the high quality instructional materials in the classroom, they also need to provision how they structure it, right? So you give students opportunity to do a think-pair-share. So if a student, a multilingual learner is in the classroom, You may pair them with a student who is a monolingual speaker or could be a bilingual speaker that does speak English. That gives opportunities to really express their language. You think of the scaffolds. that the teachers provide by their students' ELD level. So you might have a student who is emerging who's at ELD 1 or 2, and so you differentiate How students would be able to demonstrate their knowledge in the work versus a student who's in ELD 3 or 4. Also, we have opportunities.

Sorry, I just have my time's running out. If you want to... Do you have one thing you want to add?

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

Okay, and so what is the long-term plan for bilingual programs? Like, what do we... Be increasing, decreasing, what are we going to see?

Like I said earlier, we're building out the programs that we currently have. And so if a program right now is K-1, we're going to build it out through K-6. and we're gonna look to see how we can expand across the district in terms of regions where there is a need. And again, it's also families have to choose that they want to be in these programs. We also want to look at the existing programs that we have and want to be able to fill and make sure that they are at capacity. So, for example, at the Blackstone, It's really a community effort to ensure that we are filling the seats that we do have. So right now we have a capacity for 40 students for K-2. and right now we have 27 students that are gonna be entering there. So we really need to work with the community and right now we have 13 students who are registered for 40 seats for K-1. So we want to be able to fill the positions that we do have across the district before we start to expand further out more.

Yeah, I would also just say, Councilor Weber, that building a bilingual pathway actually to do it with quality actually takes a lot of thought, resource, and time. And particularly for languages that are low-incident languages, such as the Cape Verdean that we are attempting to do at Frederick or doing at Frederick. The materials, finding the actual materials that go all the way through the grade strands, finding the staff who don't just speak the language, but who are actually literate in all sides of it. That takes time to build it up. We've worked very hard in the Cape Verdean community and it's taken us multiple years to do this, to launch that. And that holds true with our Vietnamese. It holds true with our Mandarin. It holds true with Haitian Creole. So getting the Matterhunt to be the Matterhunt has been a life's work. So we can't just throw programming out there.

We're really trying to do this in a thoughtful, sustained, and accelerated way, but doing it where the community understands what we're doing, where they can access educating about the value of bilingual education. It in and of itself is its own plan.

Do we have like five, ten years what that's going to look like? Do we just make, and I'm Is it better just to make decisions like year by year? I don't know. Is there a long-term plan?

What we've all collectively talked about is ensuring every region that there's access to Spanish, for instance, because we know that is the predominant. But then on the low incident languages, also trying to figure out how where a program may be positioned but there may be a secondary program or there may be better access to that primary program more on a regional kind of basis. That's what I think Joelle and her staff are working toward.

Okay, thank you. I heard the buzzer. So we're going to go to public testimony and then for a second round with my colleagues. So you get called on in the order that you signed up. Okay, well, you can bring up the students in any order you want, but first we do have two people before the students so they can hear maybe How it goes? No? Okay, well, okay. John Mudd, no? You want to defer to the students? Okay, okay. So we're going to go with the students first. And I will... is a different order than written down here. So when you come up, tell us your name, what grade you're in, where you go to school, where you live, and you can come up. There's two microphones here. They're both beyond. You can make sure they're at the right height.

And so we're going to hear from Mamadou Diarra. Lennox Bloom, Nicholas, oh no, Capo Dali, Nelida Cardoso, Mr. Rodriguez, I think that's Yohan Gilles, okay, I was close, Jaron Vizcaino, is that you? Okay, and then Ms. Leila Parks is also signed up, so... Mr. Vizcaino, Ms. Vizcaino, sorry.

Where you live, what school you go to, and what you want to make sure they know about BP.

Oh, so I'm going to put up two minutes here on the clock so you just know how long the timer is. So whenever you're ready, you start, and then I'll start the clock.

What I would like to say is that we need more budgets for the Mendel School to hire more teachers that speak our native language. My name is Jayden and I'm from the Dominican Republic. I came to this country two years ago and I know how helpful that will be because I had like some teachers that helped me. But not enough, though, because I've been going to some schools that have barely some teachers that speak Spanish or even French. And my question is like, how do you guys determine where does the fundings or the money goes to? How do you guys determine whether to buy books, pencils, or stuff like that to help kids learn English or kids that are struggling with English?

Okay. Would you like to answer, Superintendent?

Sure. So I think, first of all, you did a great job. Very good. It's hard for adults to get up and speak. So I think these are two really good questions. I think one is we know how important it is to have teachers. who can speak different languages so students have an easier way to communicate and they see their language reflected. So we're working hard to try to do that. So thank you for bringing that up and saying how important it is. I think the other is the guy next to me here, CFO Bloom, he's in charge of all the money. And so he does a really good job trying to figure out as schools express what they need to make sure that we're fair across the system and we try to give the money to help our schools do what they're looking to do. So he heard your comment and he's going to make sure he goes back and sharpens his pencil and make sure he does a good job with it.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay, thank you. Next up, and everyone who wants to speak, please come down now. You can line up, because it's kind of hard to get in and out of these seats. And also, get really close to the microphone, almost like you're eating ice cream. Or vegetables.

Next up, we have Lennox Bloom. Another Bloom.

So make sure you get really close to the mic. Pull the mic down, and then we can hear everybody. So let us know your name when you start.

Hi, I'm Lennox, but you can call me Lenny. And I think some stuff we should do with the money is, For people who move to the US from like a different country and don't speak English, we should have Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching! They'll like so that they're not hungry. And we could also make more money from fundraisers to get that multi...

Multicultural Food for Better Food for BPS.

Okay, thank you very much. So yeah, very good. No relation to the Chief Financial Officer Bloom here. This is not a plant. Okay, so usually what we do with public testimony is people speak for two minutes and then they sit down. If we want to, we don't have like a back and forth. So I think it would be good if all your classmates and everyone spoke and if we'll pause before the next... Public Testimony, and if there's some answers we have here. So we'll just keep track of your comments and see if there's a comment at the end. So if you let all your other classmates speak. Thank you very much. That was great.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm taking that out of your time. Five minutes for you next time. Okay, so just get close to the mic, and when you're ready, I'll start the clock.

I'm ready. So my name's Nicholas, but I go by Nick. I'm here to say that the playground at our school has been broken for Thank you very much.

I think we Oh, yeah, go ahead.

We also do need a gym because a lot of people get hurt outside. We're in the gym. The gym could give them a little braces and scratches, but yeah.

Okay, yeah, we had to work with some people in the community to get the wood chips for the playground because there were none. This is last year, I think, right? Or two years ago? Anyway, okay, thank you very much. Good job. Who's up next?

Okay, Nelida. Hi, my name's Nelida. Closer. Hi, my name's Nelida. I came from Cape Verde one year ago, and I'm here. I want to say that What you guys should do with the money is to help people with disabilities and people who speak different languages.

Okay, thank you.

Hello, my name is John Gilles. I think that you guys should deal with the money you're spending on people that have disabilities and on teachers that speak different languages, like Spanish or English. because there's not like a lot of teachers that speak Spanish and there's like a lot of people that speak Spanish and like on gyms too because most of like classes don't have, not classes but schools don't have like gym either art classes.

Thank you very much.

Hello. My name is Mamadou. I go by Momo. And what I think the council should spend the money on is more like Devices for disabled students, like verbally disabled. So like iPads to help them communicate with their teachers and other students. and what else you guys should spend the money on is more accessibility for physically disabled students and so they can access like get on the bus or get into school because my school has lots of stairs.

Okay, thank you. Great job.

Hi, I'm Leila Parks. This is Jeremiah. He doesn't want to talk. I am a BPS parent. I'm a BPS teacher. Specifically, I'm a special education teacher and an English as a second language teacher. As you can tell from my students, my Spanish is not great. They would all like that to be better. I'm here to talk about inclusion, and the main thing I'd like to tell you is that the numbers should be the bare minimum. Service Delivery Minutes, ESL Minutes. That is the bare minimum of what we need to meet the legal requirements, but inclusion is so much more than that. Inclusion is a mindset. Inclusion is a whole building coming together in support of our students. Many of the young people here are the people you've been talking about. They're multilingual students, they're students with disabilities, and they're on their student council because they're crushing it. But we don't do that just by meeting the bare minimum. We do that by surrounding them in a culture of inclusion at our school. We're really worried about the budget cuts.

We're worried about what that might do for our current model, which is just barely getting there. And we're really scared about what's going to happen next. In my grade level, sixth grade, we have two homeroom teachers and me as a special ed and ESL learning specialist. That's three adults for our school plus a paraprofessional. We're in a sixth grade campus, which is in a different building. We don't have any leadership on site, so we run the ship, and we haven't sunk yet, so we're pretty happy about that. But if I am torn to multiple grades, for example, if I do the bare minimum minutes and I'm not in sixth grade all the time, That ship is going to have a lot more trouble staying afloat. So we're worried that we might lose some of what's been keeping our school together. I think given that we don't have a gym, given that we have a so-so playground, given that we're divided into two buildings and we're still fully enrolled year after year, something's is going well there. We need to help that grow and not risk letting it sink.

So inclusion is more than just the minutes.

Thank you.

Does Nick have time to add one thing?

Yes, it's coming out of Councillor Culpepper's time.

Sorry, Councillor Culpepper.

No, no, don't touch that.

This will take about like five seconds. So we don't know what's going to happen next if ICE might just walk in and take someone. So we want better security.

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

Say it again. So we don't know like if ICE just walks in and takes someone, so like we want better security.

Thank you very much. So just take a brief pause if the panel would like to address any of those comments.

Well, first of all, it just shows how our kids are brilliant because they always underscore the things that we need to, right? I think the good news, and I don't want to talk with my back to you, I think the good news is that the food, to start, right? So I'm going to connect with the head of our food services because we actually have a global initiative where students can weigh in on what kind of food they want and then we work to get that particular food each week so if you have a particular food from home country and you're like we'd like to see this they will work on getting a recipe and bring that in. So that was a great idea and I will translate that. I also think all your points are really important about making sure students with disabilities and students who are multilingual learners, many of you are that, that we have the resources in the budget to support.

And your teacher was absolutely right that inclusion, when it's done right, isn't just a calculation on paper because you guys have faces and you're real people. and your needs are different school to school. And that's the reason why it's so important when we do service mapping that we're considering what all those needs are and using that as the baseline. I think in the case of the Mendel, we're fully supporting. I think in terms of the budget, it was actually a good budget to share. We would see that continuing. and we want to hire as many staff that can speak other languages as possible so we try to get the word out and the good news in the last hiring is that like four out of ten teachers So like four out of ten, they actually spoke another language fluently.

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

So thank you guys so much. We didn't get to meet your other teacher.

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

And was it Nicholas? Nicholas. So your point about ICE, so one place that you are very safe is in your school. We have made sure we have very strong rules in the BPS so no one can come and touch you.

So just be assured of that. And if you do know your facility, So it's on top of mind to figure that out and we'll check on the playground to see what happens.

Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah.

Also about the school lunches, some schools don't have flavored milk. Our school like milk always comes like on the day that's almost expired.

But I know the flavor of milk, I know, the chocolate and strawberry milk, I'm a lover of it. There's certain rules that we have to, with the government, they allow us to do things and not. And unfortunately, the flavored milk, they don't actually let us serve. But we'll put another pitch in for it, because you asked for it.

So we'll put another pitch in for it.

Thank you. Great job.

When people are drinking strawberry milk at the Mendel, they know who to thank. Okay, well, thank you very much to the Mendel students. That was great. For the kids, that's the Chief Financial Officer Bloom there. Yes, and we've been joined by two of our colleagues here on the City Council. I'm not sure who came in first. Ruthzee-Louijeune, and Henry Santana over here. They're also city councilors. It's great to see everybody. So we're going to go to How we usually do public testimony. Sorry, Mr. Mudd, you're going to get two minutes. We're not going to have a Q&A back and forth. My colleagues will certainly take note of your comments and we can ask questions.

I don't know if you want to wait for the students to kind of clear out so we can focus on your comments, but we're gonna have public testimony from John Mudd, Kate De La Rosa, Then Cassandra Cribs, Altamiz Diaz, Ediana Baez, Natalie Demate, Dora Sandoval, and David Baptiste, in that order. So John Mudd, Kate De La Rosa, and then Cassandra Cribs is next, so. I'm going to start the clock whenever... Are our panelists ready? Okay, you're... Okay, great. So, Mr. Mudd, would you be ready?

Okay, thank you. It's important for all of us, obviously, to listen to the students, you know, their eloquence and their reality is what we need to deal with. My name is John Mudd. I'm a resident of Cambridge, a long-time education advocate in Boston, and the grandfather of a student at the John F. Kennedy Elementary School. The Boston School Committee and the District say that they are student outcome focused, research based, and data driven. On none of these principles, unfortunately, does BPS's approach to multilingual learners stand up to scrutiny. Student outcomes for multilingual learners are unacceptable. Consistently over a period of years, less than 10% of multilingual learners reach state academic content standards in ELA and math. For multilingual learners with disabilities, the results are even worse, at 5%.

Inclusion is a model and a great program for students with disabilities. It is not a program designed for multilingual learners. Research on multilingual learners shows that bilingual education programs that use the native language in instruction, like dual language or traditional bilingual education, show better outcomes than putting multilingual learner students in classrooms where the instruction is only in English. BPS provides dual language for only about 10% of multilingual learners, and the vast majority are placed in Gen-8 classes with ESL. That does not give parents a choice of where to place their children. And service mapping, I would say, as I have heard it explained at school committee, only includes a mapping of the ESL minutes.

The English as a second language minutes that the students need. It does not consider the need for home language instruction. BPS needs to change course and make a major commitment to the value of home language and We applaud the expansion of dual language programs, but there needs to be the development and implementation of long-term plans with goals and timelines to expand bilingual education and bilingual teachers. I hope the council will follow up and request, demand, whatever, to see such a long-term plan, which we can all rally around, communities, schools, parents, advocates, to implement. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Kate De La Rosa, and then Cassandra Cribs, Altamiz Diaz after that.

OK.

Good morning. My name is Katie De La Rosa. I'm a Boston resident, BPS educator, and the inclusion liaison for the Boston Teachers Union. I would like to speak about the effects of student service cuts in the budget, especially for students with disabilities and multilingual learners. The cuts are not evenly felt. Students with disabilities and multilingual learners are disproportionately harmed. They rely on predictable, intensive support from adults like special education paraprofessionals, Social workers, psychologists, learning specialists, and other staff who provide access to classroom instruction so students can make progress. When 109 special education paraprofessionals and 25 psychologists, counselors, and support staff are cut, the students lose those very adults who they depend on for individualized support and access. The budget is adding $30.5 million to special education while simultaneously cutting those 134 student-facing positions.

This is an impossible contradiction and the most vulnerable students are paying the price. There's an imbalance in how we are addressing the city's financial challenges. School closures, mergers, and reconfigurations have created a cost savings that significantly offset next year's budget shortfall. But the closures cost students, families, and staff by disrupting learning and stripping away consistent adult support that the students need to thrive. We cannot claim to educate all children well while also hollowing out the systems that serve them. My colleagues at the BTU and I urge you to consider two actions. First, approve a supplemental appropriation to restore essential student-facing positions. And second, work with us to Discuss centralizing BPS health insurance to stop this one department from shouldering the skyrocketing costs alone.

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

Thank you very much. Let's see, sorry, Cassandra Cribs, Altamiz Diaz, and then Ediana Baez.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Cassandra Cribs. I am honored to serve as a parent mentor with St. Stephen's at the Matterhorn School. In addition to my professional role as a parent mentor, I'm also a parent of a child receiving special education services. Through my personal experience, I have witnessed firsthand the transformative impact that these services can have. Since my child began receiving support, he has exceeded important goals and milestones in ways that would not have been possible without the dedicated network of educators. Specialist, and community support surrounding him. That collective effort, the village, has made all the difference. It is essential that we continue to invest

In and protect funding for special education services, these resources are not optional. They are critical to ensuring that children receive the support they need to grow, succeed, and reach their full potential. Reducing funding would directly impact the progress of students who rely on these services every day. Our children are our future. We have a responsibility to support them, advocate for them, and ensure they are given every opportunity to thrive. We cannot afford to let them down. Thank you.

Thank you. Altamiz Diaz, sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, Ediana Baez, and then Natalie DeMatte.

Buenos días. Mi nombre es Altemis Díaz. Soy residente de South Boston. Hoy vengo a hablar como abuela, como madre. pero sobre todo como abuela de un niño de necesidades especiales. y a recalcar la importancia de lo que es la escuela inclusiva. Soy parementor, soy abuela. Tengo a mi niño con necesidades especiales en la Roger Clark. Una escuela inclusiva. I know firsthand how important it is, not only for my grandson, but for every child with special needs, to have the support of a teacher, to have the support of a therapist, Lo que es tener el apoyo de un consejero.

Creo que es de suma importancia que sigamos apoyando a las escuelas inclusivas porque nuestros niños merecen una educación de calidad. Nuestros niños son el futuro de la nación, del país, del mundo y necesitamos tener educación de calidad. Yo como abuela estoy aquí hoy, pero también como madre que tuve hijos en escuela pública y que gracias a Dios hoy son profesionales porque mamá creyó en ello y siempre abogó por mejor educación para sus hijos. Gracias.

Okay, gracias. I'm going to translate what she said.

Good morning, Boston City Councilors. My name is Altimas Diaz. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today and to raise my voice. Today, I speak as a mother, but above all, as a grandmother. And when you speak as a grandmother, you speak from the deepest love, from a place of concern for your grandchildren's future. What we are asking for today is fair. It is not excessive. We are simply asking for 1% of the City of Boston's operating budget for our public schools because every child deserves Equality Education. And that is not just a classroom. It means supported teachers, counselors, therapists, and all the staff who care for guide and uplift our children every day.

As a grandmother of a student in an inclusive school like the Roger Klopp, I have seen it all with my own eyes. This works, especially for children with special needs, like my grandson, who needs more support, not less. I also speak as a parent mentor. I see the hard work of teachers, the struggles of families and the incredible potential our children have when they are given what they need. So today, I ask you from the heart, but with firmness, do not cut, invest in our children. Support that 1% that can truly change your lives. Because this is not just a number, it is the future of our children and our grandchildren. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Natalie Diamante, and then, I'm sorry, Dora Sandoval.

Muy buenos días, concejales de la ciudad de Boston. Mi nombre es Ediana Baez. Soy inmigrante, madre soltera de dos niños, y soy mentora en la escuela Roger Clark. Hoy hablo como madre y como alguien que ve cada día lo que nuestros estudiantes necesitan. Las escuelas son el segundo hogar de nuestros hijos El personal de apoyo no es un lujo, son esenciales. Me preocupa profundamente que se estén considerando recortes. Mi hija tiene necesidades especiales y depende de servicios y profesionales capacitados Ella y muchos otros estudiantes no pueden esperar ni adaptarse a menos apoyo Estos recortes no son ahorros, son el riesgo para el futuro de nuestros niños.

En lugar de recortar, necesitamos invertir más, más apoyos para nuestros jóvenes, más programas, más maestros y más escuelas bilingües. La escuela Roger Clark. de nuestras escuelas con incursión es una escuela funcional cuando se le da lo necesario. La ciudad de Boston tiene los recursos. Es momento de priorizar la educación y el bienestar de nuestros estudiantes. No estoy pidiendo demás, estoy pidiendo lo justo, una educación de calidad y un futuro digno para nuestros jóvenes. Muchas gracias.

Thank you.

Good morning, Boston City Councilors. My name is Iñiara. Sorry. I am an immigrant, a single mother of two children, and a mentor of the Roger Klopp School. Today, I speak as a mother and as someone who sees every day what our students need. Schools are our children's second home, and the staff who support them are not a luxury. They are essential. I am deeply concerned that budget cuts are being considered. My daughter has special needs and depends on services and trained professionals. She and many other students cannot wait or adapt to less support. These cuts are not savings. They are a risk to our children's future.

Instead of cutting, we need to invest more, more support for young people, more programs, more teachers, and more bilingual schools. The Roger Clapp School shows that inclusion works when it is properly supported. The City of Boston has the resources. It is time to prior talk. Sorry. Prioritize the education and well-being of our students. I am not asking for more than necessary. I am asking for what is fair. A equality, education, and a dignified future for all our young people. Thank you.

Thank you. Natali, Dora Sandoval, and then David Baptiste.

Muy buenos dias, mi nombre es Natalie Mate. Soy madre de tres niños y mi hija asiste a la escuela Blackstone Elemental. Vivo en Marapan. I've been in this country for two years and I'm from Colombia. I work as a mentor and I came here with the hope that my children will have a better opportunity. Hoy estoy aquí porque estoy preocupada. Mi hija está aprendiendo inglés. Ha sido un proceso difícil, pero ha avanzado y se siente más segura. Ese progreso no es casualidad. Ha sido gracias al apoyo de la escuela, especialmente a los profesionales bilingües, quien han sido una clave para su aprendizaje. Si perdemos ese apoyo por los recortes de presupuesto, mi hija retrocederá. No estamos hablando solo de números, estamos hablando de menos oportunidades para niños que están aprendiendo como mi hija.

Es una escuela diversa. Los recursos lingüísticos no son lujos, son una necesidad. Les pido como madre... Thank you.

My name is Natalia. I am a mother of three children and my daughter attends Blackstone Elementary School. I live in Mattapan and have been in this country for two years. I am from Columbia and I work as a parent mentor I came here with the hope that my children would have better opportunities. Today I am here because I am concerned. My daughter is learning English. It has been a difficult process, but she has made progress and feels more confident. That progress is not by chance. It has been thanks to the support of the school, especially the bilingual paraprofessionals, who has been key to her learning. If we lose that support due to budget cuts, my daughter will fall behind. We are not just talking about numbers. We are talking about fewer opportunities for children who are learning.

Like my daughter, in a diverse school, language resources are not a luxury. They are a necessity. I ask you as a mother to protect the budget behind every decision. There are children who just need someone to believe in them. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Dora Sandoval. Sorry. Yeah, entonces, yeah, David Batiste.

Hi, good afternoon. Sorry, my English is in process. I hope you understand me. My name is Dora Sandoval. I live in Roxbury. I would like to begin to sharing my personal story about I am very so proud. I am the mother for two childs, one attendance in the early school and another one in the 12th grade. Last week, I received wonderful news. My son was accepted in the Northeastern University with a scholarship that covers 100% of these students. As a mother, these moments represent years of effort, sacrifice, and hope.

My story is an example of what is possible when real opportunities exist in our families. That arrangement is not by chance. It is the results of the support zone My receipt by attending school with bilingual education programs then help him build confidence in himself, values, and identifications. that children of Mexican immigrants value and believe in his dreams and goals.

That is why I am here to raise my voice and ask you support families and their effort to expand bilingual programs and Ensured that our budget does not cut support for all English-learning students. There is a urgent need to hearing more bilingual teacher and bilingual professional. Thank you so much and I hope you understand me. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Baptiste. My name is Jean-Baptiste David. I am from Matapén. I am also a mentor in the Saint-Yves-Venant program. I am responsible for the team. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about the budget. Even as a parent-mentor, I was especially visited by special education classes. I wanted to understand who For those who have special needs, I would like to encourage you to use visual materials and tools that can help you adapt with individual support for each student who needs it. I would like to point out that resources depend on the budget. This is what the special education budget enables us to do.

If, for example, Yotava is cut off from the budget, there will be less material, less employees, less specialists, and more support for each person who needs it. Sartafet, Simonio, Marle, Ampil, Esio, Patapab, Jwen, Edza, to develop social, emotional, and academic development. This will allow Timunyo to learn more about learning. Thank you for listening.

Good morning, everyone. My name is David. Is it okay if I just say David? Okay, my name is David. I live in Mattapan. I am a parent mentor in the St. Stephen's program at Matterhunt. I am the guardian of two children. Thank you for giving me this chance to speak about the budget. As a parent mentor, I visited as an observer In a child, sorry. I visited as an observer in a child's special education classroom. I wanted to understand how children with special needs learn. I saw teachers using visual materials, adaptable tools, and individual support for each student. I also saw that these resources depend on the special education budget.

If the budget is cut, there will be fewer materials, less staff, fewer specialists, and less support for each child. This would hurt the children. They would not get the help they need for their social, emotional, and academic growth. Their challenges could get worse and teachers would have more pressure. This is why I believe it is very important to keep strong funding for this program. These children deserve the services that help them grow at their own pace. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

Okay, that wraps up. No one on line? That wraps up our public testimony. We're going to go to a second round of questions for this panel. We do have a second panel, just so I can get my bearings straight. where this panel is talking about inclusion, multilingual learners, Curriculum and Special Education. Issues like partnerships, summer programs, family outreach and mergers and closures are for the second panel. So we're going to, and some members of this panel are on the second panel. So again, I think if murders and closures is your focus, it might be. Appropriate to wait till after the break. We're going to try to have a break close to 1 and then come back with the second panel.

Okay, so, Councilor Flynn, I'm just, I'm gonna do, We'll try to do this five-minute second round, see how this goes, and if we have some extra time, we'll come back for a third quick lightning round.

Okay, whenever you're ready. Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you for chairing this important hearing. Again, thank you to the BPS team that is here, including the Superintendent, who I have great respect for. Superintendent A couple comments I did hear yesterday and today. The possibility or the recommendation of placing the, as it relates to human resources in healthcare, placing the supervision of the healthcare program for BPS employees, not with BPS, but put it under the city of Boston kind of umbrella human resources. Is that something that you are considering or something you would support?

So I'll also want Chief Bloom to chime in on this. Honestly, before FY26, this has not been an issue with health benefits. There have been extremely stable projections. on which we can rely to and receive the appropriate budget. I think there is a volatility and vulnerability right now with healthcare. It does, it seems as if with GL1s, it is now fluctuating far more. And so that is meant in FY26. We entered the year with deficit. We were very pleased that the city recognized the projections for FY27 were low and added dollars into it. I think it's for us more that we would be able to count on what the projections are and then what dollars are being budgeted. that's the main piece for us as a budgeting tool. Where it resides, Councilor Flynn, that's a little bit above me. I don't know from the city side how that works and Chief Bloom might be able to comment on that.

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

Yeah, the only thing I would add is I think there would need to be some just legal review given the way that the law around our appropriations to the school board is structured. So we need to do some additional research on that.

Okay, could I make a recommendation may be asking BPS in the mayor's office, including the teachers union, maybe to develop a working group. I know it's not gonna happen now, but maybe developing a working group in highlighting the pros and cons about this and maybe trying to come together on some type of recommendation that works where we're saving money So we're able to continue to support the student-facing positions. I know we're spending a lot of money on healthcare. But maybe after the budget, can we work to establish a working group to begin the conversation of having, I mean, I'd like to see it move to the city of Boston too. I think we would save money that way, but could we commit to at least having a working group

From our perspective, we're willing to do whatever works the best. I don't know if that comes through the council, who it comes through, but we would be willing to participate in whatever is set up.

Okay. Thank you, Superintendent.

Thank you, Councilor.

And then my second question, and I know I have highlighted it earlier, and some people have reached out to me, especially social workers, because they know I've been talking about this. But they wanted me to highlight that the ratio that was cited yesterday, one mental health Provider for every 117 students was concerning because it only was based on the low-income student population, not the total student enrollment. The framing can create the impression that staffing levels are more robust than they truly are across the schools. So I think it's important for us to capture the reality of our roles or the actual level of support provided to students.

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

Yes, the number did include all students, not just low-income students. I think maybe the confusion was it wasn't limited just to social workers. We were talking about all mental health providers, but we could certainly Give you the data in any way you would like, but the ratio of Mental Health Service Providers to all students is 117.

Besides social workers, Mr. Chair, I don't want to ask another question if it's beyond my time.

Yeah, maybe we can come back. That's fine. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Councillor Murphy, five minutes.

Sure. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Could we just... I think this is actually a really important one. Could we just underscore in one minute something on this?

Sure, yeah. And if Councillor Flynn has a follow-up, he can ask.

Okay. Just to say that I think... There are school psychologists, there are social workers, and other kinds of roles that provide mental health supports, which is what I think Chief Bloom was quoting. But I also just wanted to underscore because I actually really value tremendously the work our social workers and school psychs do. You can be a social worker in one school and have a small student ratio and yet have very complex cases. And you can feel three times that. So it's very hard to use the ratio to actually capture all the social workers in the school psychs do. But I think Councilor Flynn, it's a good stick for us to do. So maybe what we could break down is the individual groups and what that ratio looks like. So school psychs, social workers, and then other roles, just as a further delineation for Councilor Flynn.

For sure. Yeah, I mean, feel free to have a follow-up.

Superintendent, thank you for the question. I don't necessarily have a follow-up, but just want to say thank you, and I know David as well. I want to say thank you to you. and as we continue this budget, let's try to do everything we can to bring back those district school social workers Murphy.

So I know this, but it was said in the last round, all classrooms, all teachers have access to evidence-based curriculum. And we know that doesn't mean they're all using it, When we say they have access, okay, but can you show me an outside rating system like Ed Reports? I know you mentioned that, Culpepper, or something comparable that says focus is evidence-based? And how can we defend high quality when the data, when we're getting it right from DESE says In grades three to eight, only three in 10 of our students are reading and performing on grade level. Only two in 10 black and brown students are reading or performing on grade level. and less than one in 10 students with disabilities are reading and performing on grade level. And the other question also, when we're offering and spending money on curriculum training

Coaches and PD and then there's no guarantee that the students are actually going or the teachers will be delivering that curriculum and

Murphy. I first want to acknowledge, I'm not sure if you were at the working session when we talked for a very long time about focus. I do also want to acknowledge that focus is not used beyond second grade.

I know that.

So I think I just want to be sort of...

I know because my time ran out last time and only one question wasn't answered about... So I'd like to... And I was there, but my time is ticking. So I had one direct question.

Yep. So... We will acknowledge that Focus right now is going through the process to be curate approved. We have had an external national nonprofit review it. to confirm that it does support evidence-based practices using the science of reading.

And how do we defend the data, though? Well, what are we going to do, which was one of my questions in the first round? What commitment are we going to stand by? What are we going to look for at the end of next school year based on this investment and shift in the district?

So you asked a question about transformational, right? And you wanted me to like tease that out, right?

No, I just know that when words like that, I was just saying we're making investment. I mean, I've been along on this ride for... My son's 36. He was one of the first students that, you know, whatever. So, yeah. So let's just, but I just had the curriculum question first. I just want to focus on that answer, please. Yeah.

So I answered the curriculum question, right? Which is, it's currently going through the process to become curate-approved. I think something I do want to acknowledge though is like focus solely is not going to teach kids how to read.

I'm sorry, just because my time is more than half over now. So we got the focus. We know that's K-2. Skipper. We have three to 12 and above. And when the data is showing, because my data I was sharing was three to eight. And we know focus isn't taught in those grade levels. But we know if you don't have a strong foundation, you are going to struggle. Superintendent Skipper. What are we going to stand by, right?

So I think what Dr. Wright is saying and about to say is that this is the full third year that we're going into that we're currently in of the reset and the implementation. And so some of what you're sharing is fully accurate, but it doesn't reflect students who have actually benefited and gone through the consistency of high quality instructional material in their classroom. and particularly instructional calibrated practice which is what we're striving for. So I think what we can commit to and what you will start to see as we're seeing in our own data internally is we're moving with literacy. and that will build and that will accelerate as that stays and we're not shifting.

An inclusion support question comes up a lot and we know that there are supports within the classroom but a lot of the time is spent outside of the general ed classroom in the hallways alone just transitional time but all the specials and many schools set up their specials where Reading Support, Science, Art, Digital Art, Gym, PE, all of those things. So what are we doing to address the fact that many of the teachers who are specialist teachers are feeling like they're not supported for big chunks of their time when the same supports that we see in the classroom with the classroom teacher aren't following those students when they go to the specials.

Thank you for that question, Councillor Murphy. What's important is the professional development that we provide is provided for all staff members including those services. We work to make sure that they have access to their IEPs, they understand accommodations and modifications and to provide those services.

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

Across the district, there is not a lot of power support for inclusion. It's always been in certain schools. There are early adopters that choose to use power support. but it has been successful in other places as well. This question has come up in a recent meeting I had with the BTU and members and it is something that we're looking at to support.

So the inclusion classrooms? that have shifted in the district going, we're expecting them to just be alone in those classrooms with dual certification? No, but that's what you're saying, but you're saying that the general ed classrooms don't have Paris anywhere in the service.

Yeah, so they do have Paris support.

They often have a co-teacher.

Co-teaching model, right. They have a co-teacher.

Right, so I think... For us, when we look at it, students with disabilities are getting special education services for the periods of time they're designated under their IEP. Many students with disabilities don't require additional support and services when they're going to another course.

Well, in their IEP it's not written because those direct goals aren't going to be addressed directly. But we do see that that is the concern in the safety meeting we had, I think it was just yesterday, knowing like, what about the kindergarten, first, second, fourth grade concerns? A lot of times when we have safety concerns, we're only addressing like, Thank you. Thank you. It often happens outside of that co-taught classroom when someone all alone is teaching music and really struggling to reach the needs of all of those students because we know the needs don't go away. When they walk out of their classroom and go to another space in the building.

So there's mechanisms that we have through regional model down to the schools, including special education, where if there's a student who Is this regulated? It happens in a special. That can be flagged and then additional support can be dispensed. Most importantly, if it's happening on a regular basis, we would reconvene team. to determine whether there's additional supports that's needed. Each year, David holds a certain amount of resource for new students coming into the district or students whose needs grow and accelerate more than what has been allocated for resource. So it's an important question. We do have the system in place for that, and we're adding to it next year a team that will be able to go out and do observation in the classroom that we currently have at the early...

We have that now operationalized in early ed. But we need to roll that further into the other grades, to your point, so that when a student has need that's not been identified with a resource, we're able to add that resource.

Okay, yeah, thank you, Councillor Murphy. Councillor Louijeune has to run and I want to give her a chance to ask the first round of questions and she's swapped places with Councillor Breadon. Louijeune, you got five minutes.

Thank you. And thank you to everyone who gave public testimony. Really appreciated hearing from our parents, from our students, and from our teachers. Thank you to the administration for being here. Yeah, I'm running to 1230, so I think I'm going to just have to put my questions on the record. I've talked about this maybe ad nauseum, but I actually just want to hear about where it's going. With respect to SLIFE classrooms, what is the future of SLIFE right now? I know that we're not doing any addition, but where does it look right now for students with limited and interrupted formal education? What have we learned from the first few years of implementing, well, first year, right, of implementing the inclusion model and what are the adjustments that we need to make? When we talk about service mapping as a tool, I just want to make sure that, like, what does that substantively mean? I want to make sure that we're not using buzzwords and that it actually means something for the services.

That really talks about how we are putting together services for our kids. What do we do when we can't meet the IEP minutes of a student? What is the backup? What is the next step? What is the follow up from there? and you may have my apologies if you answered this and I asked this, if you answered this or mentioned this before, But what is the status of our special education funding overall? Is it going up? What does that look like? That is one of the major things that we're hearing from members of the community. So I just want to make sure that I understand what's happening with our special education funding. Same with our multi-language learners, and I'll put it on the record. Obviously, for the past however many years, four years that I've been on this body, especially with what we've been seeing happening, I've been such an advocate for our multi-language learners, for our SLIFE classrooms, for more resources, for social workers.

We obviously see a 3,000 student decline, 2,000 of which is for our multilingual, multi-language learners, but I want to make sure that with that, and obviously from that comes like a decline of staff dedicated to that, But just want to make sure that that doesn't correlate with a decline in services for the students who need it. So those are my questions for the record. Thank you. And as always, I know I always call you Dr. Goodman. I'm putting it into the record. Always great to see you.

He just reminded me of my mother. We're waiting, we're waiting, right? So I just want to speak to the SLIFE situation. So all of our students who qualify for SLIFE, are in SLIFE programs. So our students who have come and are in the programs, We have created clear entrance and exit criteria. That's something that we didn't have before. So students would be languishing in SLIFE for years. But now we have clear exit criteria for when students receive 2.5 on access. So I just want to say the students who meet SLIFE requirements are there. Students who transition out of SLIFE because they meet the exit criteria,

We have some programs that are in dual language programs, so they can transition to a bilingual or dual language program, or they can go and transition, depending on family choice, into an inclusion classroom setting.

How many safe classrooms do we have? And when did we first have SLIFE classrooms?

When did we first?

Yeah.

We've had SLIFE classrooms early in the, since the 90s. Okay.

Okay.

So when students have interrupted formal as you know they come in and so we work with them and their families to ensure that We help them develop their native L1 language first and then transition to English. I would say that I am very proud of the district in terms of like the Thank you. Thank you. I will say that there are some closures for SLIFE programs for two reasons. One, decrease of enrollment for students who are meeting the needs as they're coming into the district. And we know that not many are coming into the district. And two, because we have created the clear entrance and exit criteria,

We do find like at the Orenberger, we have a subset of students that came in and because of instruction, the students have met the 2.5 criteria on access. And so those students have transitioned out of SLIFE. No longer do we see students in SLIFE programs for seven years at low ELD levels.

I think the number is 28.

For classrooms? For classrooms, yes. Thank you, David. Thank you.

I'm going to take a stab at the inclusion question, also acknowledging Christina's here. part of one of the brain trials that supported the district in developing the inclusive education plan. So I think a few things I do just want to name. When we talk about inclusion, we are talking about learning for every student in BPS. And I'm not sure the questions sort of distill that, right? I think the other thing that I want to offer someone that's been with the district a few months is there's an operational aspect to inclusion, thinking about scheduling and staffing, but there's an instructional component. I think if I had to offer what I've observed Just some initial thinking on lessons learned in future-facing work. I think one is,

I think we're almost there with getting folks to understand that the work of teaching diverse learners is the work of educating kids in BPS. Like the mindset piece, I think the superintendent, Kaseel, Christine have done a really, really good job of helping folks to understand that. and I think a lot of people, we've done a lot of work in helping support the operational aspects through service mapping, scheduling, doing a lot of work around intervention and now I think it is Thank you. Thank you. that are diverse in many ways. Some of that is their lived experience, some of that is language, some of that is ability. And I wanna just name on the record that that work is gonna be iterative.

Christine, you want to talk about service mapping, what it looks like?

So thank you for the question. Nice to see you. Thanks for being here and all you do, Christine. Of course. I think with service mapping, we do look at, for every student on an IEP, an Individualized Education Plan, has a service delivery grid that says what services need to be provided. We, at every school, we compile all of those service delivery grids to determine what services do we need to provide, how long, and by whom. That information helps us when we're doing scheduling, when we're doing groupings, when we're identifying staff. And so it's really based upon the data. Before we started service mapping last year, it was really based upon what people thought was best, right? And so we would have situations where sometimes we had enough staff, sometimes we didn't have enough staff. This is really data driven. I want to be clear. I know people talk about the bare minimum. When we use service mapping for budgeting, we did not go for the bare minimum.

We made sure that there was plenty of support in place because we know With special education students are being found eligible, students are moving in, students' needs are constantly changing. I just want to quickly answer, and I know I'm already over. You asked the question of what happens when a student isn't receiving the services they need to have, right? We can do all the great service mapping in the world, A student moves into district with something different. We do what is called the seat process, and as part of that seat process, School leaders will contact us and tell us that we don't have enough staff to provide this service that this child needs. and so we address that immediately. I'm part of the seed process so we can look at the IEPs, we look at schedules, we look at all the needs and we go through that to determine do we need to allocate more staffing and that happens throughout the year during the summer.

and has even happened now since we met for the budget in January, we have done some increased seat allocation, increased the number of staff based upon changes that have happened since January.

The overall budget for special education for the district is up about 6%. A lot of that is because of the Cost of salaries and some of the cost of out of district. We are seeing fewer positions. So there are about 178 fewer positions. Those are primarily coming from three things. One is schools are closing or being reconfigured. The second is the reconfiguration of the Mel King schools. And then the final thing is a reduction in centrally based and funded positions. basically those three things account for all of the difference and then if you look at the remaining schools there are some increases and some decreases and they basically balance out.

Thank you. I guess I had the same question about multi-language learners.

Oh, sorry. For multi-language learners, we are seeing a decrease overall in spending there. primarily just due to decreasing in programming due to enrollment decline so we are seeing fewer teachers as well as paraprofessionals about 140 or 150 fewer staff this is primary so about Half of that is coming from school closures and reconfigurations, and the other half is coming from reduced multilingual enrollment.

Let me just ask one really small question. You know, every year we do the, what's the per pupil spending? Is that number, has that number gone up or down from last year?

Overall? Yeah. The per pupil spending is up.

And would you attribute that to the health care costs?

A lot of it's coming from enrollment decline. The denominator gets lower, and it makes it for people higher. And then health insurance is definitely the big one.

I'd love to sort of like look at what that number, like to disaggregate that, like isolate the healthcare costs, isolate the, and see what that number does. I mean, if there's a hearing. Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, I think we can just get that on the record and we can get that.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam President. I don't know if I jumped Councilor Culpepper, but thank you for allowing me to ask questions, and I will try my best. Configurations matter a lot. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the second panel, but I'm going to try my best. Thank you.

Thank you. And just to follow up on the SLIFE question for the Curley School, are they losing all their SLIFE instructors?

Yes, the program at the Curley is closing basically due to under-enrollment and also the number and complexity of different programs at the Curley, but the Hernandez School has a program in the neighborhood.

Okay. Okay, thank you. So next up is Councilor Breadon and then Culpepper, Santana.

I'm going to skip. My colleagues have covered a lot of ground in their questioning. I was very interested in seeing the recent announcement at the Elliott School about the Thank you very much. There's sort of a double-edged sword here. The Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education has worked with drawn data from about 50 countries and they produced a really great report recently. and I'm just the AI The risks currently overshadow the benefits, but there are huge benefits that can empower student learning by providing access to otherwise unavailable resources.

Learning opportunities and present content in ways that are more engaging and accessible, particularly for students with disabilities, neurodivergent students and multilingual learners, all the sort of folks we've been talking about all morning. But then there's a huge equity question as well, just in the sense that inevitably there is, as in many things, AI amplifies the digital divide. and more families, children, students from more affluent families are at an incredible advantage compared to folks who, maybe students from lower income families have a greater It can magnify the inequity in our learning and our access to technology. So I'm just asking where are we at? Do we have an AI policy in BPS?

and what guardrails do we have in place to try and mitigate, amplify the benefits, but mitigate the risks of AI? Because one concern that they talked about was that While long-standing patterns of technology use suggest that privileged students may be more likely to employ AI productively, to enhance their capabilities, while disadvantaged students risk using it substantively in ways that replace rather than augment their thinking. So it doesn't actually stimulate brain development. It just gives them an easy way out and doesn't give them the rigor and the challenge to really stretch themselves. and learn more. So where are we at with that? Because I think it's an interesting moment in time.

Yeah, and I really appreciate the question. I know Dr. Wright will want to weigh in as well. So we are actively working on an AI policy as well as a cell phone policy that will start to make its way up through school committee in May and June. We have actually been working on AI in the district for three years. We, for the last two years, have had AI fellows who are teachers who have gone for training, work in a consortium, a national consortium, and then bring back that practice. Elliott was a good example of a school that benefited from that, both the principal and Tracy Griffin Walker as well as some of the teachers. I think we see the generous investment that Paul English is making is to address exactly this. to see AI as an equity issue and to ensure that all of our students are getting an informed education around AI as to what is the ethical, responsible

Thank you for joining us. allow the next cadre of our fellows to be able to go forward, take the class. We're also looking at creating again through that investment the ability for our high school students for credit to be able to take the same class but a student version over at UMass. And so we see this as, a step for which students at all ages can become much more aware, skilled, but also understand the balance, to your point, Councilor, of the ethics, the pros, the cons, the dangers of what's appropriate usage of AI and not.

Particularly in areas such as mental health where you have students seeking out mental health supports from AI engines, That has led to some pretty devastating impacts. We want to make sure our kids know that's not a good use of it and what would be a better way to go about that in terms of relying on human mental health workers. So this is all new for us. The good news is it is a budgeting area for us. We very much appreciate that donation as a way to start to really get it going. Dr. Wright and the teaching and learning team have been doing awesome work on this. I don't know if you want to chime in.

I think the superintendent covered it, but we are just really, really excited about the opportunity it presents for our students and our staff. That's all.

Thank you. To be continued, I think. Absolutely.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Superintendent Skipper, I do want to congratulate you on the King School, the King Academy. With that application that's going in today?

Yes.

So the application goes in. We wait to see what happens with it. What are we doing in the meantime at King Academy to help get them up to speed.

It's great. I appreciate this. And as you know, this was one of the first things we talked about. And your advocacy for that school, I really appreciate it. So I know Christine has been very active with Mel King in terms of the programmatic. A new building does not solve issues with programs. So we've been tackling the program side of it. We two years ago did a moratorium. of not placing more students there so that the staff could really settle, work on professional development, understand what a therapeutic school actually is because it is our only day therapeutic school in the district. and what appropriate entrance and exit criteria are for the students there, as well as what kinds of staffing is appropriate for that building to support the young people in it. So that's all been ongoing work. We hired Harold Miller as the assistant superintendent, which was a new position to help oversee. There was change of leadership team in there as well.

and for the last several years they've been working very hard on that training, on that development of vision, which is all work that frankly for a new building you would need to have done. So we're very proud of them. We intend to lift the moratorium in November because they've made a lot of the benchmarks we've set. Christine and Kaseel have both been involved in it from OSS side. But we're anticipating 65 as the cap for entering for next year. We're also not waiting for the building. We're adding in CTE programming for the students, early college for the students, reactivating for the high school kids the ability to do sports and participate on co-teams. the things young people want, right? Like that's, we can't hold because of the building for that. However, it is pretty nice to think that at last the community's gonna actually get a building that warrants and actually supports therapy for students.

So I don't know, Christine, if you want to add to that.

Let me just follow up with that. What are you doing with the physical Arrangement of the building until you hear from the state.

Yeah, so there's been a number of things. One, we're getting the bars off the windows, which was your request and way long overdue. They're actually getting new window, new window project. They're also getting... They've had leakage, so they're getting some work done on the interior of the roof areas. I think there's about 500,000 that's been allocated to be able to support the building. Because again, we're talking seven years or six years as it works through the process before we would break ground. We're not going to ask kids to live in something less than that. So we are full intent to be able to beautify, doing new painting in the building as well, really trying to make it a place that kids would be proud to come into while we're waiting for the building.

What's the diversity of the new leadership team and the teachers that are there already?

Off the top of my head, because they've gone through staffing change this year, they were at a three adult to one student ratio based on old formula of the number of kids they had. We've brought that down. will get you those numbers. I don't know off the top of my head after staff has been moved around what that exactly is. Their leadership team is also, they have, Harold, they have Principal O'Shea, but then they have four or five people who are on their immediate leadership team. So we'll get you the actual figures.

Yeah, because one of the things that I heard was that most of the black and brown teachers are no longer there.

So I think part of the staffing, we have to go by seniority. And when a school staff comes down and we cut positions, Teachers that have seniority get to stay if they want to, and teachers that don't have seniority, particularly provisionals, they get accessed or the position gets eliminated. We're working hard right now to ensure that for their school, they have teachers who have the appropriate certifications and experience of working in a therapeutic environment. Where that ends up landing in terms of the overall demographic of the teachers, I think we're still probably a good month away from that.

Get that information. We will. We'll absolutely get that to you. I want to look at that. The other thing, I heard you talking about motivation leads to performance and how different activities or initiatives are taking place. To encourage the students to come to school. I remember when we were students and when I was in a Boston public school, we were excited to go to school. I mean, we wanted to get out the house in the morning to go to school. David, why are you looking at me like that? I mean, we wanted to go to school. And we had a good time at school. And look, I graduated from Boston English, went to the Taft. It was the Taft and Brighton at the time. But we wanted to go to school. And I heard you talking about trying to develop initiatives to get the students excited about coming to school. What can the council do? to help you with those initiatives to help encourage your students to come to school.

I mean, look, if they know they're going to have a good day, a good time, they want to come to school. What is it that we can do, if anything?

Yeah, so I think, you know, I watch my grandkids and we live in a world right now where it's full of so many distractions for our young people. Relationship is still kind of to me the bedrock, right, of motivation for kids. If they feel connected, they feel appreciated, seen, valued, they come. And so that is something we're working on building the culture back in each of the buildings for, in addition to having programming that this generation really wants to understand. What do I get? What is it? You know, and so how is this gonna help me get my goals or my dreams? So I think it's helping in that way, and I think with council, I see it in lots of different ways. Many of you go to the weekend activity stuff that we do with the kids, which is a lot, where you can interact with the kids differently than in a classroom. I think going out and speaking to young people and having them hear what the council does and what you're here for,

We talked earlier about the ability of church to really get in there and have conversations not just with the students but with parents. You're influencers. Your influence is in your own way. And I think it's seizing that and making those steps to go out there and be with the kids. So that's why I love going to schools with you guys. because you get to see it, right? And the kids get to see you and they're like, oh, that adult's actually taking the time to come see me in my school. We need to do more of that.

I think that's important. I mean, let's get that visit to Boston Latin Academy right on. I'm sure all the Councillors. Right? Councilor Weber, want to come out to the schools and talk to the students? So let's do it. Let's set up something.

Where's Anna?

Is Anna here? Let's set up a program where we all go to the schools during the week and talk to the students. I think you're absolutely right. I think seeing us encourage the students will make a difference on it. Now look, influencers, I don't know about all that, but I do know that I'm ready, willing, and able to come out to the schools and talk to the students and encourage them. Look, I was one of those kids at Boston Academy, I mean, You know, we did win a couple championships, a state championship in basketball in the city, but I'm ready to, let's do it.

The other thing I want to ask you about- Councilor Culpepper, you were way, way over five minutes.

Can I just finish my last question?

Sure.

And I mean, I love you because you're happy to let folks finish your last question. Here's my last question.

Well, this is the third last question.

Well, you know how preachers are. We got a final, final, final closing. But let me just close with this. In the opportunity gap, You talk about pilot and scale before and after school, implement the pillar of quality and accessible before and after school programming across all hub schools. When we were in school, they had the community schools that stayed open After we finished school, we went to the community schools. And they were all across the city, and they made a big difference in terms of the students not being on the street, but being in a community school. That's what they were called. What are you doing? or is this the same kind of program that we had years ago where the students could go right to the school after school and just, whether it was study or tutoring, of Basketball or Swimming. Is this the same kind of program?

That's exactly what we're trying to bring back. So the hub schools are really community schools, to your point. We've had BCYF in the city, and for the schools that have a center attached, the kids can go next door to those centers after school, but that's different than the culture of the school community being extended. and what we hear from the hub school communities of parents and students, they want to be in their buildings doing things after the hours. High school offers that opportunity with sports and intramurals and things like that but for the younger kids it's just as important so that's what would jump starting back with the hub schools.

And so how many schools have you started with?

We have 20.

This is the fourth last question. 20. Yeah, okay, sorry.

Can you give us a timeline? I'm not asking for her to answer. Just give us a timeline that we will get to all of the Boston schools that will have that help school. You don't have to answer that.

Yeah, don't. Do us a favor. Okay, thank you very much, Councilor Culpepper. Councilor Santana, thank you for patiently awaiting.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and any time for the Reverend. Thank you to our BPS team for being here and all the work that you do. Always, always. I'm sorry I was coming in late to the hearing as well. Councilor Louijeune and I were actually at the English High School for their Yufsa Mann.

Antigone, right?

Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that we were there. And they understood that we had to come here. So we left a little early. I think a lot of the questions that I had actually were answered. Brayden. So, you know, I think I want to touch and some other parts that haven't been touched. First, I do want to give a shout out to Corey. He's just been amazing. He does amazing work. Every Sunday I've been volunteering at the Madison and just seeing the programming that's happening just at the Madison every single Sunday from as early I think as 8, 9 in the morning until 5, 6 p.m. I didn't know it was happening and just being able to, I think you were just talking superintendent about seeing students in a different light and for me seeing them

Thank you. Thank you. That brings me to my question about this summer programming. What are some of the programming that's happening? How do families find out about them? And ultimately, how do we expand? Those opportunities.

Yeah, so we're going to, in the next session, we're going to be doing, no, no, it's okay. We're going to be doing a lot in summer, but just the long and short of it is we've been able to keep, even though the funding is tight, we've been able to keep the same number of seats. Boston Afterschool and Beyond Fifth Quarter will still be our major partner. I think we've used data really powerfully to narrow down the partners that the kids say are making a difference for them, that the data says it's making a difference for them. And so that has meant some partner change over the last three years. But I think we're getting to where return on investment of the summer dollars is mattering the most to kids, and that's great. We're also doing our multilingual learner programming. We'll be doing credit recovery for high school kids. that need to get across the line. We've expanded the exam school initiative by additional down to the fourth grade. And then ESY, which is our extended school year for our students. who in their IEPs require that. We're doing that as well.

We've also opened up fifth quarter for multilingual learner students and our ESY kids. We've never been able to do that in BPS. and it's probably the thing I'm most proud of over the last three years is we just have inclusion happening in the summer programming. It was very bucketed before. and we're just seeing the kids and the parents really appreciate it. Everything's rolled out in a new platform. Registration is on par to last year, which is also great. So we're just, we're looking forward to an awesome summer.

That's really amazing to hear. I think, I mean, those are the areas that I'm focused on. I think, you know, school is school and, you know, I was a student at BPS. I wasn't always the smartest student, but I I did truly feel invested in by the adults that were in the school. I truly feel invested in when I was in after school program and summer programs. And I think that's what made the difference for me. And I think when we're in the situation right now and the budget cuts across the city. Those are the type of programming that I'm really fighting for. So I mean, I know we saw St. Stephen's out here. I've been advocating on their behalf for many years just because I think I truly do believe that having those loving adults who can look like you, who can speak the same language, who come from the same community, and oftentimes parents of students,

I think that's what truly makes a difference to the majority of our students. Those are the programs that I'm going to continue to advocate for.

Well, I mean, it's your advocacy. I mean, that's why it's in the budget and that's why it's sustained in the budget, right? Like you've been a huge champion. I was going to say to Reverend Culpepper, but a vivid memory I have is actually Councilor Santana and I had gone to the Blackstone. and they have stairs that are like part of their library area and Councilor Santana kind of held court with like a whole group of fifth and sixth graders to talk about what his experience was. And when he was able to speak Spanish and communicate with them, their eyes lit up. They were asking questions. It was like, that's the connection. That's the village.

Absolutely. I would love to go Culpepper and his district and then do a tour in your district with some of the students there. I think it makes all the difference in the world and I think that's what happened to me and I want to make sure that happens to others. I was going to say if I had extra time I would Pass it to the reverend. Unfortunately, I don't. Unfortunately, I don't get an extra eight minutes either. Inadvertent.

I know we're all filled with regret. There's no more time. So, Councilor Colbert, do you want to say something? No questions.

But I do want Santana to come with me. We're going to the Latin Academy and working on that and other schools. And I think if the schools hear about it, I talked to Madison Park, the principal, this morning. We're working on a program to connect Northeastern with some of the things that the co-op program, we think they need to enhance that. The AP, we're looking at students I'm going to Northeastern to do some of the college courses. We're looking at how many students they can admit with scholarships. So we're talking, but I think that if it's Well known throughout BPS that the counselors are coming around. The superstar Santana. Look.

I tell you.

I know. Come with me and I'll stand back and I'll introduce you. But I just think it's... The partnership is important so that the students can see how much we're concerned about them doing well. I think when they see that, I think they began to work to exceed just being normal and average, but they want to be awesome. So, look.

Yeah, thank you, Councillor Culpepper. I appreciate it. Sorry, I don't enjoy cutting you off, but I do not. I relish it. I don't enjoy it. Okay, well, yeah, we can go to BLA, visit my daughter's civics class. You know, it'd be fun. They asked them about the city council, if they knew any city councillors. Is it in your BLA? Is that in your district? So yeah, I also recommend it. I went with the librarian. We did an electoral college for the kids. 4th and 5th graders. And that was, I mean, any time we spend in the schools is really valuable. Every visit to English, every time I talk to a class, Hernandez.

I read books in Spanish to them and that was more amusing to them than their eyes light up for a different reason. Okay, so just a couple quick questions, then we're taking a break. We heard from Ms. Lila, who I've known for years. She was my daughter's Third grade teacher at Mission Hill School. I think she was a first year teacher. There was a lot of first year teachers thrown into that environment. You can imagine what that was like. When she says she's worried that next year she's not going to be able to meet all the needs of her kids, I think that's kind of looking at what we're dealing with, where we have budget constraints and positions being lost. We can get all the data on what's being lost exactly. It is a concern, so I guess what's your response to that?

Anything specific on Mendel?

Yeah, I mean, I think... My guess is more of it's a reaction to the general tenor as far as I'm aware.

Yeah, I don't think this is a Mendel question. I think this is a district-wide question.

I think this is where there's constant, like there's IPT teams that are in the schools. Part of that structure is to continue to revisit like when There seems to be a mismatch of student need and the staffing. Those concerns come up to us, and that's where David does hold dollars if we need to address it. Sometimes it's a question of a new student comes in or students come in that we don't necessarily have service mapped yet because we don't have them. We don't have their history, their background. There's adjustment. That's where OSS or Multilingual Learner Department or MME will support and help. I think we are a fluid district. We're constantly taking kids in. Kids are moving between schools, between classrooms. We just have to have the systems so that when there feels to be a mismatch, We can address it.

And I think some of this is also implementation is year one. This is new, right? The whole thing is new for folks. And so with that, it takes a little while like with anything where you can start to feel comfortable with what you're doing. I give our teachers and our paraprofessionals and other educators huge credit because inclusion is something that Other districts, other times within BPS, we should have done and taken steps, and we hadn't. And so this is, it's new, it's in infancy. We're gonna learn from it. Most important, we need to be responsive when something bubbles and there is issue. And I think that's the area we're getting better at, Councilor Weber, of having those systems in place to catch those things when they happen.

Okay, and then with the service mapping, I don't know if this is the case, if IEPs get rewritten in the middle of the year? Yes. So the minutes change. The needs change. How does the district approach that? Do we move teachers around, students around?

No, we account for that. Because truthfully, service mapping is dynamic. It's always happening. When new students come in, when an IEP gets rewritten, That's where we've trained principals to service map. We've trained COAS, we've trained the ADs, like everybody has a sense of how to do it. that's where if for instance a student comes in that has need and it shifts the resources that's where it's fine for that to come up and then that makes it to the budget office as a way for request.

Each month schools receive updated service mapping. So each month they receive updated service mapping so it's a constant thing to be reviewed by IPT teams and school leaders. If we're informed of something happening in the IEP meeting that was outside the usual, we're notified of that ahead of time.

Okay, and then, so just literacy, reading instructors, you know, we're talking about, I think there's 70, I don't know, positions, or? It's 170.

Yeah, reading specialists. While David's getting that, I will just say that represents full-time people that that's what they do. What we have done broadly is to train teachers in reading Programming, so O'Gillingham, Wilson, Reading, we do so much professional development, so not only are students benefiting from the full-time ones that we have, but they're also benefiting from teachers having those skills to be able to impart in classes as well. That you have to do that in a district our size.

Yeah, so 73 going down to 70 next year.

Okay, and then are those... I don't know, for schools that have, like, are 10% or less English proficiency, like, are we, I don't know, maybe that's a language issue or a reading issue.

Yeah. For our schools in transformation in particular, which tend to be our schools that are having the greatest challenges on those scores, we allocate an instructional coach to the position because it's not simply an issue for one Reading Specialist to work with a subset of kids. That's actually a school-wide issue. And so then the focus is working with all of the teachers on Tier 1 instruction and making sure kids are getting what they need.

Something I do want to add is we have normed the practice of regularly assessing where our students are with reading. And there are some pretty tight data cycles being run. to support students as they're on their reading instruction journey. So I want to add that. I think where the reading specialists come in is that they are able to help schools with developing a plan for students that may be below grade level.

Okay, just two more quick things. One is, you know, we talk a lot about spending, and I feel like, we hear, I don't know how you react to that, you know, in terms of like, Do we need more, when we're seeing performance issues, is the issue more teachers and more paras? Do we, you know, because I think the numbers have gone up over years, it seems like that, in terms of what we're spending on the budget. The performance is, we fight for every inch, it seems like.

And so when you think about the system overall, is it more about the quality of what's happening in the classroom? or staff that we should be looking at in terms of like how we can help you in the schools.

So I think, honestly, I think there was so much leadership transition and staff transition. you know 10 years ago through for those seven years that things got started stop starting stop and you can't make progress when that's happening I think the value for us right now in the last four years is there's been stability at the principal core, at the teacher core, and so in adding in resources in terms of the positions, We're trying to maximize them with training, professional development, calibration of the materials they use, calibration of the instructional expectations. and Chronic Absenteeism supports, right, and strategies so kids are there to benefit. Those things take a couple years till you start to see the traction. It's like turning a ship before it starts moving.

We are starting to now see that in the data in a way we didn't see that in the last two years because it was just frankly too new. Where there's a problem is if, like a year from now, we're starting to see things go in the wrong direction. That's a problem. But what we're seeing right now is our multilingual learners with access are getting stronger. With MCAS and with other internal map, things are starting to move. I'm not saying they're moving as quick as everybody wants them, but they're moving, and they're moving in the right direction. Same with chronic absenteeism, same with graduation and dropout. Those are all important. Like when you go to the doctor, they're your major vital signs. When those are positive, then you know that some of the stuff you're doing is working. Does not mean it is perfect, it's not. And with inclusion, given it's our first year of implementation going into second,

We are going to learn from that so that over the five years of the full implementation, by the end of it, we will have that practiced. But right now, it's sort of like there was such stagnation over that other period of time that everybody's like, we want to see the results, we want to see it, we do too. It's just that getting the foundation set. That takes time, and that's what's done. Now we're adding into it, and I think that's the hope right now of kind of where we're gonna go from a trajectory of the academics. I mean, it's interesting. Dr. Wright comes from a national scene. When she saw the two percentage gain for us as a large urban district, here we're like, that's two percent. But nationally, that's like really, really solid. That's not where we want to be, but we have to start seeing the positive to build on.

And what excites me is to hear like, Reverend Culpepper talk about this is a village. This is everybody. We've got to all work together. Knowing each individual councilor in here and the work you're committed to do in your schools that you're with us, that's what's going to get leveraged, I think, to get these positive results going faster, quicker, and in the right direction.

Okay, just last quick question on curriculum. We've heard about the Mississippi miracle. To me, that is... There's two parts of that. One is the sort of curriculum they're using. The other part is I think they hold kids back. What do you do? Maybe all of our kids would score better in fourth grade if they had been held back a year. See if that works out at the ninth grade level. Yeah, yeah.

Because I can tell you it doesn't. It actually leads to dropout.

Well, it's sort of the part that people leave out is the holding back part. Yeah, 100%. And so I don't know how much difference the curriculum is making if you're just holding. But anyway, so what's... Is that the answer here?

Do they not, Dr. Wright?

That's what I've been told. You were in Atlanta? No, I'm from Atlanta.

But I've never worked as an educator in the state of Georgia, so that's an important fun fact.

Okay, okay, well. But Denver and New York. Okay, yeah, Denver's still south of here and New York, yeah. Okay, I don't know if there's anything about that. I think I got your answer, but is there something you wanted to add?

I think just something we don't want to lose is you've had a lot of questions about curriculum and high quality instructional materials. That work is iterative, right? Like we shouldn't be using the same curriculum for like two decades, right? We continue to learn more about how kids learn, right? And then, you know, I appreciated Councilor Breadon's point around AI, right? Like that is also transforming how kids learn. And I think much of what you've charged academics and the superintendent to do is ensure the most innovative and impactful practices are happening across our schools in a way that we're measuring learning. So I think to your question about Mississippi and focus and reading, right, We're still doing the work of building capacity to teach kids to read using the science of reading. We will continue to iterate on that and really just get better at getting better.

Okay, thank you very much. So we're gonna give everyone a break. Can we take 20 minutes and then we're gonna come back. We're coming back. We're going to have another panel. We're going to have all kinds of new talent. No, no, you can't. Permission denied. Everyone, we're taking a break. Adjourned. This hearing is adjourned. Okay, I'm adjourning and you guys can continue your conversation. Sorry, recess, we're recessing.

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Good afternoon. We don't need to go through all the stuff because we're just ending our recess. I'm going to introduce our panel. Our second panel of the day, we have Chief Financial Officer David Bloom, We have Deputy Superintendent of Community and Family Advancement, Dr. Ana Tavares. Chief of Family Advancement, Magaly Sanchez. Do you want to raise hands? No? Okay, great. Chief of Community Engagement, Miriam Ortiz. We do have the Chief of Capital Planning, Delvern Stanislaus. Oh, and I just hit the wrong button. and Dr. Anne Clark, Development Officer for Strategy Partnerships and Innovation. This second panel, it will be focusing on I know mergers and closures.

Partnerships, Summer Programming, Family and Community Outreach. So I don't know, hopefully some of my colleagues will come back from the break, but did you have anything you wanted to say Upfront or a presentation?

We're just excited to answer questions you have.

Okay, Councillor Flynn, you're here first. We'll do seven minutes and it could be multiple. We're talking, oh sorry, mergers and closures, I think that's the big ticket item. We're also talking about partnerships, summer programming, and family and community outreach. Okay, so, Councilor Flynn, seven minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the BPS team that is here. As it relates to family engagement, including families and Educating and Supporting the Child. Can you talk to me or explain to me a little bit about how you're supporting students that their parents speak Cantonese? in Chinatown of the South End, and how you're communicating with them and what you're doing specifically to support them during the summertime.

Thank you so much for the question. and a very robust approach to supporting language. Cantonese of course being included in the language supports through the Office of Language Access. We are very in tuned with also working with colleagues from the Office of Multilingual Education, OM. They are also our partner in ensuring that we have a robust approach to ensuring that all families across all languages but in particular in Cantonese and in Mandarin across our families specifically in the areas where those languages are prominent. Our schools like for example as you know the lower and upper Quincy being one of them that come to mind immediately We participate in many of the events that are at the school also including making sure that we support the school leaders and whatever outreach is needed for families and I'm lucky enough to have

A wonderful colleague, Mary Mortiz, who's the chief overseeing the Office of Language Access, who can add even additional details to that.

Thank you for the question. As Deputy Tavares shared, we have a very robust approach to language access through our office. In the last year, that office managed over 23,000 requests across 68 different languages, Cantonese, of course, being one of our top 10. We do also provide every school with access to devices that they can use for one-on-one communication or and access to interpreters if that ever is needed.

Thank you. And maybe David or Sam might answer this one. As you guys, as you both know, I've been working with Superintendent Skipper on The Josiah Quincy Lowes Elementary School Gymnasium. What's the latest? I know you gave me an update before, but can you just give me another update on what we're doing with the gymnasium and on how to improve it?

Sure, yes, thank you, Councilor Finn, and thank you again for the advocacy for that as well, for that project. The team has went out and... I hired a vendor to go out and help us assess the gym and some of the repairs that are needed. So they're in the process of calculating what those could be, what the cost would look like for us to do some renovations there. Once we get that information back from there, we'll be talking about the next steps and how to proceed.

Okay.

The Blackstone School. What are we doing in terms of family engagement at the Blackstone School knowing that it's A lot of immigrant families, but we also have a lot of families in public housing at Ruth Barclay across the street. Not public housing, but Villa Victoria, Castle Square is up the road a little bit. A lot of poverty, but what are we doing specifically for students at the Blackstone? Language access, a lot of Spanish-speaking residents there as well. Any plans for the summer?

Absolutely. We're really fortunate to have one of our strongest partners close to the Blackstone, as you know, which is St. Stephen's. And many of the mentors that are placed in schools, including at the Blackstone, are in work in tandem with our schools team and the St. Stephen's partner. We also provide, just as Chief Ortiz shared earlier, very much dedicated support in Spanish language that specific need to the Blackstone, but also we include the other languages that other families and students require in order to feel supported and included and welcome to the school. That area of the south end is an area that we often visit and support with different activities that happen across the schools as well with the partners in that neighborhood. And Chief Ortiz and Chief Sanchez,

can specifically share a little bit more about how we support that particular community, but also how we're supporting summer.

Thank you so much, Councilor Flynn, for that question. I'll talk a little bit about summer programming. I think you heard earlier. The superintendent talked about the plethora of programs that we will have available for all of our Boston Public Schools students wishing to register and enroll. For summer 2026 and beyond is what we're calling the program. We are prepared to welcome more than 8,300 students within our Summer Learning Academy. But I think what's really critical too is we also have programming for our students qualifying for expanded learning opportunities. The Exam School Initiative. We partner with PICC for opportunities for work programming for our teenagers. Really tuning up opportunities for students with more than anywhere between 16,000 and 20,000 opportunities out there between summer learning academies, enrichment programs, as well as opportunities for work.

How we support our students in an extremely personalized way based on their language needs is that we also provide them with in-person registration opportunities where we partner with our helpline staff who are We provide them with support with online registration as well as registration over the phone In addition to that, our family engagement practices team trains our family liaisons and they too provide personalized support within the schools for students to access summer programming. Our goal is always that every single Boston public school student has a summer program that they can attend. And as you already know, they are free and they are a full day program as well, where we have learning in the morning and enrichment in the afternoon.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I'm out of time. I was going to ask one question, but I didn't want to do that without your permission. No, yeah, go ahead. Okay. My final question, maybe I should have added it to the second question, but I also want to advocate and see what support might be available this summer. The Perkins School in South Boston is in the middle of a public housing development, which is right down the street from my home, one of the most diverse areas in the city. Student population also. The Condon School is located also in a public housing development, diverse student body. But what are we doing? Anything unique about the Perkins School or the Condon School students in terms of how we're supporting them this summer, knowing that they're also living within a public housing development?

Do everything I can to support them.

Yes, absolutely. Again, and pretty much the same. All of the supports that we have available are available for all of our Boston Public Schools students. I think what's in particular about the schools that you're mentioning is that they have that personalized support through their family liaison. So with, again, the family engagement practices team, we provide direct coaching and opportunities where if the school is having any type of event or programming, we'll do tabling where we talk about summer programs. We offer the QR code. We provide those personalized language needs for students and families to be able to have access to student registration on the spot.

Councilor Flynn, that's a really important question to me as well. I will only add to what Chief Sanchez already shared with you that we are committed to partner with you and to partner with our communities that we know have vulnerable populations, specifically speaking to socioeconomic designation. because we want every single child to have any and all barriers they may have removed so that they can access a really fun and engaging and educational summer. So we're really happy to be able to partner with you and your office as well.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me an extra couple of minutes. Thank you. Councillor Brayden.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Hope you got a bite to eat. Let's see. This is more of a facilities question. Maryland Pilot High School is merging, closing merging with Brighton High School. The plan is that the lower school is going to move into the high school building, is that correct?

Sorry. Thank you for that question, Councillor. So the Mary Lyon Lower School will be moving into the Upper School at the beginning of next school year. So September 20, this year.

Next year? This year? This next year. September 26. Excellent. So in the meantime, does that building need any structural, any repairs or improvements To get ready for the lower school coming in?

Yes. So there are some minor improvements at our facilities team. is working on within the school, and that work will happen over the summer.

Excellent. And then in terms of the long-term facilities plan, Are we going to see the long-term facilities plan or are we just going to get this iterative process of a few little bits at a time? It's very hard to see the big picture when we don't... You know, for us personally, we have a growing population. I think we've got the highest, the fastest rising population of zero to five-year-olds in the city right now in Alston, Brighton. So it's really... Important to sort of figure out where everybody's going to go or what's going to happen.

Thank you for that question. So we have the long-term facilities plan and some additional work that the team have done is... Workaround Long-Term Projections. The projections were completed in January of 2025. And with the long-term projections, it also outlines as a district where we would like to be by 2030. The number of schools we would need to get down to looking at taking enrollment I think is an important As a district, we have seen our enrollment last year stabilize post-pandemic, and this year we've seen a decline in enrollment. Taking into account the long-term projections that our planning and analysis team did,

Right now we're working up to our 2030 goal of 95 school buildings. One of the things that we want to continue to do, however, is year over year we look at our data to inform our decisions. and not just make a blanket decision like across the district because one of the things that we have seen as a district is our enrollment change the student population that we've that we serve change we've seen For example, a decline, a 22% decline in our General Education population last year but we also saw a rise in the special education students that we serve and multilingual learners so we want to make sure that at any time, we're prepped and ready as a district to serve our student population.

The only thing I would add to that, Councilor, is that through the engagement that Dell and her team has conducted across the city and internally to BPS, What we also learned was that doing these recommendations on an 18-month cycle is critically important. So we have plenty of time to review, analyze, make recommendations, and responsibly manage some of the murders and closures as we roll them out.

We're adding a lot of housing in Alston, Brighton, so our population is growing at a fair clip. I was underestimating the population of Brighton by a second. Alston Brighton by 7,000 this week, so it's actually 87,000. The other question I had was about partnerships in Alston Brighton. I know we have lots of community groups who are just Really trying hard to provide sports and other opportunities for our youth and The City is not doing. So one thing, you know, we heard yesterday about this wonderful foundations program for elementary schools for get them young ones. Allston Brighton

Again, that's not a surprise, but I'm just wondering in terms of who is the point person to connect with at BPS if we want to cultivate partnerships with our Community groups who want to do Little League and sports programming and music or other programming that sort of, who do we connect with to try and get things? to talk to about partnerships.

Sure, I appreciate the question. And I believe yesterday Corey McCarthy was was eagerly excited about the program and opportunities that we provided district-wide. So, as he mentioned, we did extend the invitation to participate in all these sports to all schools, including the ones in Austin-Brighton. Just some schools have more difficulty participating than others. and what he has done and the team is committed to do is figure out the why and why not and try to continue to push people to get involved. So from that perspective, outreach has been done and communication has happened and we continue to work with our schools to see how we can improve it going forward. But I would say, to answer your question, feel free to contact myself, Corey McCarthy, around any specific athletic partnerships that you're aware of that you want to engage in.

And I think, Ann, do you want to talk a little bit about the work?

Thank you, Councilor. You mentioned arts partnerships, music partnerships as well. I would be happy to speak to anyone who is interested in sharing their services and their talents with the Boston Public Schools. Sometimes the partnerships are best placed through the Partnerships Office and sometimes they're best placed directly through The Arts Department, but I'd be happy to facilitate.

Is there money to contract? I know the Winship were really trying, I think they had to raise $35,000 for their music program.

We do allocate funds specifically for partners. Those funds are concentrated in our highest or Yeah, lowest income, highest poverty schools to basically offset the community fundraising that other schools can do. So I don't believe the Winship gets any of that money in particular, but we'd certainly be happy to

How do you establish the income of the families in a particular school?

So the partnership fund is allocated using our opportunity index. It looks at a variety of factors about The students where the students are coming from when they arrive at school to determine sort of aggregate level of need it was a Project we worked on with the Boston Area Resource Initiative pre-pandemic to sort of establish a methodology for determining sort of needs and many more across our schools. So that opportunity index measure is the one we use. For other measures or other work when we do need to establish family income, for example, for Title I funding, We work with the state through a process called direct certification which looks at families enrollment and benefits programs primarily to determine income status.

Okay, my time's up, so I'll come back again, probably.

Okay, sorry. Okay, thank you. Let's see, so I do... I just have a stack of these postcards from K-2 class at the Curley with suggestions for what we can work on. I think my favorite is there's a drawing here. And on the back it says, More Protecting Wildcats. So let's work on that. Right on it. Yeah. At least it's not Ligers or, you know, something, at least maybe there are Wildcats somewhere. Okay. So in terms of mergers and closures, I guess first, you know, we're closing classrooms. I know this is slightly off topic, but...

We closed substantially separate classrooms, I think like 20 and 16 classrooms across the district. I guess especially for the substantially separate classrooms, like what are we doing? To make sure those kids can transition into, you know, and I don't know if it's, I don't know how many of those are closing because of enrollment issues.

So there's a few things that go on when substantially It's actually very similar to SLIFE. Essentially what we do for those classrooms is every single individual student who's in one of those classrooms currently Their needs are reviewed and then an appropriate placement is made. So one classroom, I know of, I won't mention which just for data privacy reasons, right? It was determined that a lot of the students were actually being served pretty far away from home. and there was enough space in schools closer to home for them to be more appropriately served. So that classroom was closed and the students transitioned to programs closer to home working with their families. So it's not always that particular situation, but effectively for those highest needs classrooms, we're looking student by student at the best placement if the classroom's closing.

Okay. And then, so I think in the RFIs, you discussed it's like $23 million in savings from closures and mergers. Yep. And I guess, you know, is and that the I think the school closures are the ones that primarily, the mergers don't save much.

They save a little bit and then often the schools get more resources to reinvest, but yeah, you're correct. The closures are the bigger savings.

Okay, and how much of that is just from closing classrooms?

Yeah, so the majority of it comes from effectively closing all the classrooms in the school. There's a little bit of savings from sort of if we have a nurse in every building and we operate one fewer building, then we get some savings there from the school leader and others. but effectively the way you can think about the savings from a closure is because of our enrollment decline, we have open seats in classrooms all over the district. When you close a school, You're filling up those open seats and more effectively and efficiently using the resources so that we can prioritize the funding from the students who are remaining in our system. I don't mean to undersell the impact of closing the school that has on the community that is being closed but from a financial efficiency perspective effectively We have enough open space across our system that we can close the school and students sort of filter into other schools.

And then we talk a lot about the Long-Term Facilities Plan. So is there something we can look at that is the Long-Term Facilities Plan? Is this just like something that you Is there an actual plan? I guess the dumb question for today.

So the long-term facilities plan was rolled out in the district in January of 2024. So that's something that I'm happy to share with the council.

Okay, so in terms of school closures, if we look at that plan, we can't divine which schools are going to close and at what years.

No. In the plan, it does not outline which schools would be closing. What it has in the plan What it has in the plan is the criteria that we use as a district, that we're going to use as a district year over year to close schools. The other thing that I shared that I know at the end of the... The systemic improvement plan for the district that was identified was long-term projections. That's something that the district have done and is using along with the additional criteria to look year over year. Sorry, to look year over year at what schools will be recommended for closure and or merger across the district.

And the plan also includes a goalpost of what our goals are. to Reese for 2030. So it's very clear.

Well, 2024, I think, have we lost 3,000 students since then? More? I mean, so has that, like, how has that impacted the sort of...

We were looking at sort of A study, because we had sort of like leveled off Not to our pre-pandemic numbers but like post-pandemic so um the projection was flat and yeah so we were flat right so we were looking at steady and flat right and right now and when we did um When our planning analysis team did projections, they not only looked at where we are, they looked at three different They looked at multiple different scenarios. Are we thinking through scenario one, where we remain steady? If we see a decline in enrollment as a district, what does that mean for our conversations around mergers and closures?

and if we see a steeper decline in enrollment what does that mean for mergers and closures in terms of like the number of schools long term that we would see in the district?

And so what's the I guess What is the percentage increase or the numbers of schools you think we're gonna have to close by 2030?

So right now our number for 2030 is 95 schools across the district.

Okay, and what's the I guess I Is that from 2024 or is that now as of where we stand today?

The 95 schools came from the From last year's, the long-term projection work that was done last year.

Do you think that, and you review that every year?

Yes, so then it's a year-over-year review. Again, in October of this year, we'll do another review.

Okay. Do you think that number's, I mean, isn't that, seems like that number would go up, the number of schools being closed, or maybe we just don't know?

Yeah, I think it's important for us as a district to look at our enrollment then, right? That's when the district, our planning and analysis team does a comprehensive review and some more future projections to kind of just tell us Are we still sort of like looking at a modest decline as you guys know with the current geopolitical climate that we're in right now? um they're like we're getting coming into the city the district um a lower number of uh our immigrant student population and multilingual learners so that's another place like the district we've seen a decline in enrollment

Okay, I'm sorry, so just, we'll go for a second round. So by 2030, if we close 95 schools, let's just say that's what happens. Then we're thinking we have a similar enrollment to now. Not closed 95 schools, reached 95 schools left in our portfolio.

Oh, okay, okay. Oh, so there could be just, well, mergers or... Get two 95 schools, and we're at like a, I think we're at 105 right now.

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, so have 95 schools in the system, which would result in how many schools are there right now? A hundred and five.

A hundred and five.

105. Okay, so by 2030, there would be 10 more schools by 2030?

Yeah, so at the end of... Right now we're at 105 that we're operating, right? At the end of this school year, we're gonna be down to 100 schools, right? So technically we have like five more schools. Sorry. Actually, I made a mistake. At the end of next school year, based on this year's announcements, we'll be down to 100 schools. Okay.

So by the end of the school year 2027... Yes. Yeah, we'll be down to 100, so five more in the next three years. Yes. Okay. And what's the projected savings from that? I don't know. David, do you have those numbers?

Yeah, so from the first round that are going to be closing at the end of school year 26-27, I can get that for you. It's pretty similar. to the 23 million we saw. I think depending a little bit on what the October data says, we'll need to give an update then about the longer term. We built this plan based on multiple years of data we've now had one year of data that says Thank you.

It was, I think, on governing.com or something like, school closures don't save as much money as you think, but that's, you know,

Because if you have the same number of kids and staff and you know, but yeah, I think it really did this is this is one of the things we really want to be critical about is There's so much nuance to this and Right, so there are districts where they have a building emergency and they have to close a school, right? They have to like literally just close the building and they move all the teachers and all the staff to another school, right? That doesn't save any money, basically, right? Similar to a merger, right? And so I think really the The closures, the pure closures we're doing now, when a school is 100% closed, like Excel High School will be at the end of this year, we are seeing really significant savings from those closures.

Okay, and then just last question before we go to the second round. I know it's gone on too long. In terms of the cost savings, how can we, or can we, Attach those savings to the students who are being directly impacted by those. Is there any correlation there between the money that we're being saving and the kids who are having to move schools? Yes, in terms of reinvesting some of those funds. Yes, I was going to say, $23 million, can we take a portion of it? Can we talk to those parents and say, look, this is happening now? but some of that is being reinvested.

I can promise you that my colleague on my immediate left is constantly ensuring that we're reinvesting those resources. Sorry, it's Friday afternoon. Del works very hard to ensure that I'm setting aside money to make sure we're doing really intentional work both in As the communities close, that there are high quality events and supports for those students and families to sort of capture the end of their community and then a really strong transition into their new school environment. it is always going to be disruptive to change schools when you don't want to but we're working as much as possible to give families the predictability and support they need through that process okay okay thanks a lot uh

Flynn. I'll give you about six minutes since we have a light bench here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know Excel was mentioned and that was my question that I wanted to ask is I was a substitute school teacher at Monument High School and it was divided into three schools actually, Monument High School, Excel High School. and Odyssey High School. And that was, now it's Excel, obviously. What is the, after the school was closed, what is the short term plans and long-term plans. And I know I'm going to be having a conversation with the superintendent, but what is the public information you can relay about Excel as it relates to short-term and long-term?

Thank you for that question, Councillor. As a district, short term, we are looking at How we invest in that community. We had a community meeting last year with the South Boston community discussing just like the short-term plans to do some capital investment work in that building but also come back to the community and engage the community on sort of our long-term plan of BPS High School moving into that building.

So a long-term strategy is possibly having a BPS high school at South Boston High School? Yes. Okay. But as we approach the school year in September, there won't be an educational program there. It'll just be vacant, basically?

Yeah, there won't be an educational program there. What we're doing right now is like, Looking to start some work in the building.

Okay.

Infrastructure, construction work? Yes. Okay. We may hold events there depending on district need, but that's not guaranteed, but we may have some, you know, administrative...

Okay, so the infrastructure, the improvements would be to prepare it for whatever the long-term planning is?

Yes.

Okay. Do we have any ideas yet of what we're looking at in terms of long-term School. So it would be a high school, not a grammar school or elementary school?

Yeah, we're looking at a high school, and we want to make sure, as we're looking across We want to make sure that we engage, like we told the South Boston community, a part of this work. is engaging the South Boston community in the process and making sure that whatever school that we're setting up in that building, they're being set up with the resources to be successful in the neighborhood.

Okay. One of the concerns residents had, and I actually had a, had a public hearing on it. I know BPS attended. The World War I artifacts, the bookcase, the World War I memorabilia, is important to the community. So that would basically stay there. That could stay there during this period of transition. Is that accurate?

Yes, we don't have any intentions on removing any of that information. We want to make sure we memorialize that as well. And thank you for your advocacy on that. That was helpful.

Yeah, thank you, Sam. So once it shuts down, then the construction will start taking place? Yes.

Okay. and Councilor as well. I know parking was also an important issue that you helped us with with the community. So we want to make sure that parking will remain, the current arrangements will remain the same. If and when we start doing construction that's impacted, we'll definitely reach out and let you know and the community knows as well.

And I know, and I've talked to the superintendent about this issue, but can you explain to me what will the community engagement be in terms of What type of school might go there or is there any input that you want to hear from residents in terms of what they're looking for or are you just going to Would there be community engagement in that?

Yeah, thank you for that question. For internal internally within BPS like a criteria for one engaging like our school communities so and I think The first round of engagement will be with our school communities. Actually, a great example of that would be the merger between the CLAP and the Winthrop schools. Before we brought this out to the broader community, We actually reached out to all of the schools within a certain number of miles. We looked at their Cabo Verdean Student Like Population, and we got feedback, and we had schools The Winthrop and the Klopp raised their hands with interest, and then we were able to engage the broader community on the merger.

And I think it's a process like that we would want to use with the South Boston community.

Okay, and I know Congressman Stephen Lynch is a graduate of the school and has asked me what the short-term plans and long-term plans are. I'll keep him posted. There are a lot of graduates that are interested in knowing what the short-term and long-term plans are, not just Congressman Lynch, but others across the neighborhood. Many were in the building construction fields, and they got a good education at South Boston High School. My father, as you probably know. is a graduate of Southie High as well. It was an important school in the community, is an important school in the community. Let me just ask one more question, and this is about

The Vietnamese students, it had a high concentration of Vietnamese students, wonderful, wonderful students that I worked with and many of them were in the junior ROTC program. What is the status of many of the and many Vietnamese students that went to Excel High School. Generally speaking, what is their next school for September?

Thank you for that question. Actually, so a part of building the criteria for the long-term facilities plan, we discussed families wanted an 18-month cycle. We heard from a lot of families about the PLAS implementation of closures across the district. But what we're seeing right now for our high school students is that they are actually choosing to leave earlier So in terms of Excel, the majority of students, the majority of their rising ninth, sorry, rising 10th and 11th graders actually left at the end of last school year. And I think the number is, and I can get if I misspeak, I think it's 96% of those students got into their top choices for where they wanted to further their education.

So the majority of those students already moved on to another high school.

And the only thing I would add, Councilor, is that In all situations, we're very intentional in our planning to make sure we do individualized outreach and support to each student and each family to discuss the options and discuss their plans and discuss their interests so we can make sure there's an alignment and a match of what they would like to do.

Yep. And our team, it's like a handheld approach. So each family received, I think, I look at it as different tiers. Each family got a phone call for families who we couldn't reach. We had some door knocking going on. That's excellent to know, and I know there was a wonderful

Assistant Vice, Assistant Principal there, John Matthews, he did an excellent job working there and really related well, extremely well to the students, helping them, and just wanted to acknowledge him. for his professionalism as an educator. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. We've been joined by Councilor Worrell Breadon is next. I just wanted to highlight this is the second panel of the day. Their focus is on mergers and closures. Family Outreach, Summer Programs, and Partnerships. If you have other questions on different subjects, feel free to ask. That's what this panel is prepared on. This morning we covered inclusion, multi-language learners, special ed, and curriculum. Okay, so Councilor Breadon, you got six minutes.

Thank you. Let's see. I was looking on your long-term facilities plan. It's not that enlightening. A few of the schools that are in supposed to be in Alston Brighton aren't there anymore, so. The Jackson Man's gone, the Horace Mann School for the Deaf is gone. I'm wondering, I know that there's, I looked in here, facilities, and also Brighton Elementary School study. I know there's been money allocated for that. Is that happening or has that just been put in the bottom drawer at the moment?

Thank you for that question. The Alston Elementary School and I think a few other schools that are listed in the capital budget studies I know that there's a commitment from the mayor and the superintendent for those schools as we're doing sort of like the implementation of the long-term facilities plan and talking about neighborhood or school by school like in like where we're where we're investing um so for this year's like core project for the MSBA we announced um the Mel King So the Alston Elementary Schools and there's a few other elementary schools is identified there to show that commitment. And as projects are rolling off the capital budgets, moving some of those schools into actual study and into actual projects in the capital budget.

So given the fluctuating population, are we anticipating that there would be consideration of building a new 21st century elementary school in Alston, Brighton?

So the study that's identified there, right, in the future, we're hoping that there is a new Alston Elementary School. We don't have a timeline right now, but that is the plan. And that place would be located? We don't have a location yet. As we partner with the MSBA, one of the things that happens is If we move through the eligibility period and into feasibility, the MSBA would work with the district at actually looking at the different Parcels that the district owned and identify a site that would fit the program for an elementary school.

So the other question is, what's the timeline for Boston Green Academy to move out of the Taft building on Warren Street?

We currently don't have a timeline, as I shared with Councillor Flynn. There's a number of our high schools are closing, right? That are in larger buildings where schools like BJA and other schools across the district can have the opportunity to move and expand. We have to go through that process and that engagement process with the school communities in order to figure out the best space for their programming, for their CTE programs, etc. So that is some work that as a district we're starting and is hoping that it would go through the next couple of months of this year.

So we have a need for more UPK seats in Alston Brighton, and given that our population of little ones is increasing pretty rapidly, are we any plans, like the Merry Lion Lower School Building. Is that a possible place for a UPK?

Thank you for that question. So we are expanding. We are adding UPK seats to the Mary Lyon. That's one of the reasons why they are moving into the upper building in order for us to add capacity for K-0 seats. So that's happening next school year, so they're adding a K-0 class next school year, and the following school year, they're gonna add capacity for K-1.

Will they be in the bigger building, like the high school as is now, or will they be in the lower school building across the street?

So they'll be in the upper building.

All together. Yes. UPK and it will be UPK pre-K through six. Yes. Very good. I know the Gardiner Pilot Academy has got repairs. Replacement windows, that's in the process. We've approved those applications for MSBA. Do we have a timeline for when that repairs might be done?

Once we get all the final approvals and the finance is set up, the team will work with the contractors and design to lay out what the actual project scope will be, including a timeline. So once we have that, we're happy to share it.

That's great. Superb. and In the Edison, the elementary school, their auditorium has been beautifully repaired. I think we're getting movable seating, so that's going to be good. I'm going to be going to SpongeBob the Musical there in a couple of weeks, so I'm really excited to be in the new auditorium. Newly refurbished auditorium. Enjoy that. I will. What about the high school auditorium? How's that moving along?

It's actually moving along pretty well. We've been working with the public facilities team on the next steps for the auditorium. at Brighton High Schools. There were a few other things that came up through when the public facilities team did walkthroughs, et cetera. Things like bathroom, roofs, there are different things that are part of a conversation. That team is actually getting together and I know that they're moving into sort of like looking at a feasibility study this August.

I understand there's sort of an emergent situation with the heating system. They don't think it'll start up in October unless we do a new heating system. Is that correct, the high school?

I know that they have two heating systems.

One's gone.

Okay, but I know that our chief operating officer, I know that Brian and team is definitely working on the heating system for sure. Okay. Yes. Very good.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much.

Councilor Worrell, six minutes. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to BPS for being here. One of the first questions I have is for student... Support. Are you able to provide me the number of what they were funded last year versus what's proposed this year? But as you pull that up, I'll ask this other question around mergers. The district proposes to absorb roughly $23 million through school closures and reconfigurations, including 160 of the 569 staff positions associated With the closure of Denver Elementary, Excel High School, and the Mary Lyon Pilot High School, we are closing both the Mary Lyon and the Henderson upper schools. Remind me of how many kids are in attendance at these schools and where are these students going?

I'll let Del look up the questions about the number of students and where they're headed while she's doing that. The student support budget for this year is $5.3 million. For next year, it will be $4.1 million. That's the general funds across all funds. It was 6.4 and going to 4.5. Got it. 4.6, sorry. All right.

Yeah, and I guess I brought this up yesterday. My concern is that A good portion of that will impact a lot of the summer programming and after-school programming that our district and our students have been relying on. and that is a real concern for me because we know the importance of those programs.

Yeah, I think I can tell you today that we have confirmed funding for all the summer programming to be continued.

Like even the Discovery Hub, the Madison Programming, when you say all summer programming.

Now, I shouldn't have said that without Corey because you're going to get into all the details that I'm not totally sure about.

The programs Corey ran last year.

Corey sent me a list of what he was expecting to run this summer and the funding challenges we were having, and we were able to identify the missing funds.

Okay, awesome. Great to hear.

And then I'll hand it over to Del for your question.

Sorry. And you asked for the enrollment numbers for the Mary Lyon and the Henderson? Yes. Yes. Okay, so for the Mary Lyon, last year when the closure was announced, there was 96 students in that high school. and there was 47 students that were in the rising 10th and 11th grade class All of those students actually transitioned last year. They did not wait the 18-month cycle to transition, so we helped them to transition at the end of last school year. When we looked at the percentages of students that transferred, just like the overall percentage, I just want to note that this also include Students at Excel High School. It's 96% of those students were transferred into one of their top, one of the top high schools that they choose on their choice forms.

Okay, and that also includes the Henderson Upper School?

No, so the Henderson was announced this school year, so we are actually in the process of... Working with that school community to transition any student or family that requests a transfer. We're actually in the process of working with those families. The deadline passed on April 2nd, so we were able to support all families who have requested They wanted a transfer for this school year, so we were able to support all of those families.

The Henderson High School had approximately 200 students. Students just under. So about just over 40 kids in each grade 9 through 11, and then slightly more students in 12th grade due to some overage. Special Education students. So those are the students who are in, the school's still open next year for grades 10 through 12, so those are the students who are still making choices and deciding what they'd like to do.

Okay, and we're able to, because I know Henderson's an inclusion school, and are we able to seek or find a place for those students that might be slightly older?

Yeah, so our special education team has been working with those families actually one-on-one on transition. So working with those families who are transitioning to just like other traditional schools in the district, like with inclusion and or some of our families have opted to transition to the NEXT program, which is a program that support students with like Special needs to be independent. So right now what I can say is that we only have 15 students across the Rising 10th and the 11th grade that is going to actually remain at the Henderson next year. So any family that is raising their hand or in discussion,

that do not want to remain for the 18-month cycle, we are supporting those families one-on-one with transition.

All right. And my team's going to be mad at me if I don't ask these three questions.

Your colleagues are pressuring me to have you speed things up.

I see it. I see the pressure. Take your time, Councilor Worrell. So we spent a couple of years with school-based inclusion planning teams Where we had those teams design school-specific inclusion plans for staffing or service mapping, were they aware that they would be moving to the reimagined school funding? And does this new school Does this new funding formula meet the school-specific inclusion plans that each school came up with?

Yeah, I really appreciate that question. They definitely all knew something was coming. They didn't... Not every school knew all the details of the plan. Only some of the communities were represented in our working group. But what I will say is we designed our new funding system around the way we were doing inclusion planning. So the way it worked was rather than saying to schools, OK, we have a new funding system. Here's how you have to do inclusion. acknowledging that these school-based planning teams were doing the work, what instead we did was we said, looking at the needs of the students in your building, here's the amount of funding you have to build out your design for the upcoming year. So each school was allocated a pot of funding and then given flexible resources. So some schools prioritized more co-teaching, other schools prioritized more paraprofessional support. It really varies by school and by need. Got it.

Okay, I guess the to dive a little bit more deeper into that question. So of those classes a school might have, and I think you might have answered this, wanted one or two strands. With inclusion support, which could have been half, of the strands. They might have four, but one or two of the strands. So was it like that allotted money that you talk about, was it reflective of them might have wanting more than one or two strands

Yeah, it's a great point. It used to be exactly as you said, in the old model, we were very prescriptive and restricted. You have to put all the kids in this one class, even if you have three or four and you think there's a better option out there, you weren't allowed to do that. Now a school can look across their strands and figure out what's the right programming for them. and figure out the best way to distribute the resources. So the schools have much more flexibility now. And so one school might say, we're going to assign all four students with disabilities to this one class and give it full day co-teaching. We're going to distribute the students across two classes and have the second teacher move back and forth. It will really depend on the school.

How would you describe this funded formula? because it sounded like the inclusion planning team was school specific inclusion. Yeah. And then there's like this idea of like a one size fit all. How would you describe

How are we moving forward as a district? So I think the way the funding, so for inclusion or for the funding formula? For both. Okay, great. I feel like they do kind of somewhat go hand in hand. I should have asked. I should have known the answer was going to be both. So the funding formula, the intention of the funding formula is we fully fund things that you are required to do. So if we tell you you have to have a full-time nurse, here's the funding for a full-time nurse. right and then we flexibly fund things that you have some choice over so rather than saying you're going to get four inclusion teachers and two paraprofessionals We might say you're going to get $750,000 based on the needs of students, and you do that. So in the budget book, there's a Multi-colored three-page section that sort of talks about what all the different rules are.

But on the right-hand side of that, you can see some say restricted, so there's just use for these things, and some say flexible. So that's the intention of the funding form. For the inclusion plan, I think our intention is right now to be pretty school driven and flexible. So there are obviously some guardrails around that. You can't say, well, this student doesn't actually need services, so we're not going to give them services. The idea is that schools have flexibility within their funding allocation to be able to design the inclusive model that works best for them. At some schools, as I was saying before, that's more co-teaching. At other schools, it's a little bit different. Right, so each school sort of makes their own plan and is doing their own engagement about what their priorities are. And I think as we get a little bit further into implementation.

I'm hoping that we'll have some really easy to identify best practices that we can share across schools, but we are sort of wrapping up year two of implementation right now. So it's still certainly a little more time there.

And what's the current range of the flexible funds that have been allocated to different schools?

Like what's the smallest and the biggest amount? Right. So our school budgets overall range from So like the Alighieri has a $2 million budget, right? For the flexible funds? No, no, total.

OK.

The whole school budget is $2 million. Right, but did you break out the flexible funds? Yep, and actually you can look through in your budget book, there's one for every school. Thank you for those budget books. Yeah, of course. I can't remember. I remember somebody asking for them in the past, but it slips my mind who it was. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, right. It was you, Councilor Ruff. Sorry. Sorry that slipped my mind. So... Sorry, let me just pull up here. So the Algiers is another great example. So the smallest amount a school can receive is $60,000, which is enough for a half-time teacher. That's the minimum. A school that has very, very few students with disabilities, right? Because our sort of maximum caseload is 20. So you would have to have less than 10 students with disabilities in your building to be getting $60,000.

The most the school is receiving this year for inclusion is $2.4 million. That school obviously has significantly more students. That is... The Henderson. The Henderson has the highest allocation. The other school over $2 million is East Boston's 7-12.

All right. I have more questions around that, but there's other questions I want to get to. Sub-separate classrooms? Is that classroom the least restrictive environment for those students, the sub-separate? Yes, it is the least restrictive environment determined by that student's IEP team. Okay, and then we have 3,509 students in sub-separate classrooms. Nearly 3,000 of those students are black or Hispanic. 43% of students in sub-separate classrooms are black. but black students only make up 28 or 29% of the BPS total population. And we know that there's an achievement gap for our black students in BPS. Should we still be keeping our students in sub-separate classrooms and are these the best environments for them to reach their full potential?

Yeah, I think there's two things I'm gonna steal entirely from the update that was given to school committee on Wednesday by Dr. Rose about sort of our new strategic plan. I think there are two things that are true. One is that for each individual student, the IEP team has currently determined that that is the correct placement for that student. The second thing is that we would say as a system, the disproportionate placement Thank you. Thank you very much. as being disabled as requiring additional services and requiring substantially separate placements. So that as an individual level, It is the least restrictive environment according to their IEP, but as a system, that is something we need to be reviewing and interrogating as a part of our inclusive ed

A big part of our inclusion plan is interrogating that exact disparity.

All right. And then my second to last question. Now I'm joking, my last question.

You're being influenced by Culpepper.

My last one. Do we have numbers on Black students admissions to the exam schools for the most recent period?

We certainly can get you the numbers we have.

Okay.

And I know- We probably don't have those with us today.

Okay. And I know we talked about trying to I've raised the achievement for our black students in third, fourth, and the fifth grade. And then when you look at the 2025 MCAS results in reading, It just speaks to the amount of work we still have to do. In third grade, only eight black students and 28 Latino students exceeded expectations in reading. And in fourth grade, only eight black students and 26 Latino students exceeded expectations. And in fifth grade, only eight black students and 12 Latino students exceeded expectations. What are the targeted interventions we are using to raise those scores?

You might not have the best people in front of you. We'll give you something. You just missed Dr. Wright this morning, but we'll get you some specific answers there. and I think what I will say is I know that is one of the main focus areas of our strategic objectives that were released and I think we can share those with you as well as just some more details on exactly what you're asking for.

All right, and if we could get demographic breakdown on the recent exam school admissions.

Yeah, what is the plan for releasing that data for how the new percentages and there's a new formula this year?

Yeah, I think we can certainly follow up with all the data and timeline.

OK. Is this the... I mean, he's talking. Can I keep going?

Is this like one of those graphs? I think he's yielding his time. I heard him say he yielded his time. Is he giving me some of his time? We're just never getting to the end. I did have a couple questions, but... I'll defer to the chair. No, no, no. I'll defer to the chair. No, I'll just give you a second. Okay, can you give me a second?

I will give you, you fire away. What's the difference between family engagement Wait, no. How many, this is questions from some community members now I'm going to ask is, how many school site councils are in district and how many sanctioned school parent councils and school site councils at each of the following? D-E-L-A-C and C-P-C as well as alternates for each. They didn't break down what D-E-L-A-C and C-P-C were.

D-LAC.

D-LAC, okay. D-LAC, yes.

Thank you for that question. So all of our schools have a functioning school site council with meetings that they hold either on a monthly basis or a bi-monthly basis. And so within those school site councils is where the shared decision-making process happens. We have BTU members. We also have family members. We also have community members. that are part of the council as they're voted in by their respected areas, right? And at the upper grades of the secondary schools, we also have students on there and the principal school leaders also on the councils.

Got it. And... Family engagement, student support. I just feel like there's so much alignment, and I know that they do work together. And I just constantly just go back to this question of trying to find more ways on, I guess, Look in how those two family engagements student support, because if you're supporting the student, I would assume that you have to support the family. So just trying to... You know, can encourage more alignment and more of those two departments working hand in hand. With that, I see Councilor Culpepper is back. So I'll defer back to the chair.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. Just... Speaking about the budget books, I can thank you to Councillor Worrell for getting these to us. We talked a little about page 57 in the book, which has some interesting, difficult to just decipher numbers. on staffing and in the central budget office. And I think we have an explanation. I saw like a one page. I think it was circulated to everyone. Chief Bloom, is that right? Okay, just page 58 is partnership funding, which we're talking about this afternoon, and that's also an interesting page. It's the Partnership Funding Department is the source of funding for district-wide partnerships such as the partnership with the Private Industry Council, and I know, so my question is two parts. One is, does partnership funding go out in that discretionary funding They were talking about it with Councilor Worrell.

And the other part is, why is this the dollar figure for all these zero?

Why does it say zero for everything? Yeah. Yeah, this is the danger of doing things by mail merge. So our partnership funding... is entirely grant funded through our long-term entitlement grants, which is why this table is general fund only. So that's why it's all zeros. It does not include any of the school-based partnership funding, which adds up to close to $7 million. and that's reflected in individual school budgets in their contracts and other non-personnel section when you're looking at their one pagers. And that comes from grants, is that what you said? The partnership funding in that partnership funding budget is primarily funded by Title I and Title IV federal entitlement grants.

Okay. And so I know hub schools are supposed, they don't, do they get funding? Do they use that partnership funding for the extra services?

How is that funded? So how schools get funding from the central office budget for a hub school coordinator? either hired by the district or in partnership with an outside organization like the YMCA or City Year. that hub school coordinator coordinates resources. So that includes both the use of the school funds like the partnership fund Any app before and after school programming that's going on as well as no cost to the district partners that come into our schools. So I know we were talking about the Gardner the other day. The Gardner has like a Friday music program that comes in. It doesn't we don't no one gets charged anything, but it's it is a part of the program Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know. So is that a mistake, the zero dollar figure? Should it be $7 million?

No, it's... We're never sure what to do with this. The budget book reflects the funding that is being approved by the council. So it's the general funding. It excludes those grants. The office does exist, it's just entirely Thank you.

Culpepper. Okay, Councillor Culpepper, six minutes. Thank you. We can do this. We can do this together.

Six minutes?

Yeah.

No, we're not doing it together.

And we also have one. No, no.

This is my time.

I haven't started the clock yet. We do have someone signed up for in-person testimony.

Do you want to take them?

Let's take them. You want to do that?

Take them. Because it's going to be late. I would take them.

Karis McLaughlin. So you can come over here. There's a microphone. You're going to have two minutes. To speak, and then I'll have the clock behind me. When you start, just tell us your name, where you live, and anything else.

So I'm Dr. Karis McLaughlin and I live on 25 Cobden Street in Roxbury. And I can confess that I thought I was just signing in to come to the room. But since I'm up here, I think I might have something to say. So I was just listening to the comments. about who exceeds. And those numbers were low. So were those the numbers for one school or the district?

So this is not a question to answer. Oh, okay.

So let me just say this.

But Councilor Culpepper and I can answer a follow-up question.

No, no, no. Don't take away from my two minutes. So at any rate, if it's one school, that's a problem. If it is an entire district, and I'm hoping that it's not, because that will mean I'm gonna have to spend time coming to these meetings a whole bunch more. So if it is an entire district, That's a disgrace. That's a disgrace. Boston is not underfunded. This is historic. I can bring in the data. and we have to do better by these kids. So it is not okay to have a report that says that under 100 kids are exceeding at high levels. I don't even know how that can occur. So if I'm misspeaking, I take it all back and I'll leave it on one school. It's still an issue.

So there is, How would I put it? We have to stop accepting these poor standards because these kids look like me. It's not right. Education does change people. And it gives them opportunities, the opportunities that I had, because I was educated well and I had teachers who knew what their job was. So everyone's getting paid. From the superintendent on down, and they get healthy, good salaries, and so I expect to see better. So now I'm going to have to put you all on my agenda so that I can be here to speak up for The children, they deserve that. When I look at what this country is going through and every right,

Thank you for joining us. Thinking that I was nothing. What these children have to listen to every day? DEI is a derogatory statement. Being black is worse. We have to do better. So now you're on my agenda. You will be on my agenda because the numbers that I heard, I was in awe. I said, you can't be. So do something. Force your people to do something because there are some of us who are not going to tolerate this. Unfortunately, I had to stop here to find my good friend, Minyard. and so I came in. But I think it's a good thing. So thank you for allowing me to speak. It was a mistake.

But I guess maybe a good one.

Thank you very much, Dr. McLaughlin. There's a lot of distinguished company who've signed this thinking they were just making a record that they were here and then they get called up. Thank you for your comments. All the numbers are district-wide. They're very difficult to stomach. It's something that we've spent a lot of time. We had a panel before this from 10 AM. We've been here. This is our third hearing on BPS. in the budget cycle we had several hearings on BPS before the budget and it's something that I think we're all you know trying to grapple with and you know it's Anyway, so I think your comments were spot on. You don't have to correct anything. And I think almost everyone here agrees with you, if not everyone. So, okay, thank you very much. Councilor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you. We had great conversations this morning. And look, I got a few questions that have to do with Family and Community Advancement. And you can follow me if you want on page 53. It says, District Operations Amplify the Voices of the Historically Marginalized. How is that happening?

Before you answer, just our or central staff. You don't have to touch the buttons. He will take care of, if you lean in to speak, he'll turn on and off your mic. So just, okay, sorry. Back to Councillor Culpepper's question.

Thank you so much for that question, Councilor Culpepper. Magaly Sanchez, I'm the Chief of Family Advancement, and I'm here with Mira Mortiz, who's the Chief of Family Engagement, as well as our other colleagues. So I can talk a little bit about how we engage our families with our school site council programming earlier. I'm sorry, yeah, all of our councils across the schools. Earlier I talked a little bit about how We have active school site councils within all of our Boston public schools. They have either monthly or bi-monthly meetings. And the purpose of the school site councils, well, first of all, it's required by mass law. But in Boston, because we find it very critical and important, we also have it written within our BTU contract. that it is a requirement for all of our schools to have a council. The councils have representatives that are either from the school, BTU members, Family members that are also from the school, as well as the school leader chairing it.

And at the secondary level, students do also have the opportunity to also sit on the school site council. The body performs as a, they take votes for any type of impact that will be happening in the school community. And so they have conversations about it, they discuss it. The same thing with the budgets for their school. They also have the opportunity to review every item in the budget, make recommendations before it actually goes up to Chief Bloom's area.

And so we know one of the challenges for the Boston public schools is the parent involvement and parents actually coming to be involved. How involved are they with the school council site? And when the budget took place, we know the school committee approved the budget. How involved were they in the budget and what recommendations, if any, did they make? Because one of the challenges that I see, and it's a major challenge. When you look at private schools and you look at parent involvement, those parents are all over that school. When you look at public schools, There's little or no involvement by many of the parents. And I'm really trying to get to, how do you get to the parents that you know historically have not been involved? What are you doing there?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll definitely get started, and I'm sure that Chief Ortiz will have something to add. So some of the things that we do is we ensure that when we're welcoming our families, we're actually engaging with them in a language that they can understand. We provide them with those types of language-rich resources so that they feel welcomed and part of the community, right? Because that's very, very critical. And we also ensure that we're meeting them where they are in a very personalized way. Sometimes being on a council in front of maybe 80 or 40 of your parent peers, because that's how many people attend different school site council meetings, can be a little intimidating. So we do provide training to our families through our family engagement practices team. We provide a lot of distinctive and personalized supports. We come into the schools and provide these trainings. We actually have a budget training that we also do with Chief Bloom's team. in preparation for budget season so that families know how to engage with the process and what this process look like.

At every session that we have with our families, We ensure that we have language-based support within the languages that they need. And so those are just some of the ways that we ensure that we're providing opportunity for that authentic engagement that you're describing.

And with regard to that, I see you mentioned that providing parent-teacher connections. and opportunities for parents to gain skills and knowledge about academic expectations, District Goal 1 and FE Standard 3. How is that happening? How successful are you with that? Knowing that part of the challenge is the parents dropping the kids off or the kids going to school, parents getting them ready, parents going to work. After work, how successful are you and how are you doing that with regard to the connection between the families and the teachers?

Yeah, so I'll again get us started with, so within our family engagement practices team, we have a team that supports family liaisons and school-based communities directly by providing coaching support Not just the family liaisons, but any of the leadership that is within our Boston public schools. All around authentic family engagement, ensuring that families have access, direct access, to our academics as well as our curriculum programming. We also offer sessions with our parent university. and with the parent university there's opportunity for families to engage in trainings on how to best support my child with reading and mathematics and Other initiatives that we have within the district and clearly initiatives that are more aligned to academics is where we first focus on.

And what data, what is the data telling you about parent involvement? Or are you keeping data?

Yes, we definitely keep data. We keep data through, like I shared earlier, our school site council procedures. We also keep data, a lot of data, with our Within our helpline, we keep data around any of the programs that we provide.

What does that look like with the parent involvement? What percentage of parents are involved in the school site council? What percentage of parents? are involved in the parent-teacher meetings. What percentage of parents are involved in learning more broadly about the teaching experience and the classes? What's the percentages like?

Yeah, I'm happy to share specific data even for schools. But what I can tell you is that as part, for example, of the school site councils, as I mentioned earlier, It's a requirement for us to have parents, and they have to be at parity. Parents, BTU members, as well as if the school decides to have a community member, should they have a partner? So the parents are involved. That's one way that they are involved. And then there's also the... What's the data tell you?

What's the data look like? Is it 50% parent involvement, 75%, 25%? Or is it per school? Do we have the number one schools with the highest parent involvement and the number four schools with the lowest parent involvement? What does the data look like?

Yes, and that's data that I'm happy to come back with because I think it's really critical to understand the personalization of how school site councils work. and how they can also differ from grade level, right? So at the elementary level, we often find that we have a lot more parental involvement and then as we move into the secondary level, we see that involvement kind of diminishing some, right? So I think it's something that's very personalized that we can definitely share on a school-by-school basis.

Can you share anything overall about the BPS system overall in terms of averages? or percentages of parent involvement. I mean, if you don't, don't worry about it. You can provide it when you get it. But I'm really looking at how do we really bring up the level of parent involvement in all of the schools. I know the lowest, like the three or four schools, parent involvement is a lot less than the one and two schools. But I want to see what the percentages look like of parents coming to parent nights and parents involvement in the different schools. Can I just have one last question, Mr. Chair? Yes. And it had to do with... The Boston Public Schools and the PIC, the Private Industry Council, and that relationship. And I wanted to just hear a little bit

about how much we're paying PIC and how that relationship works with regard to the private industry council. Thank you so much. You're gonna give me that data, right? Because I do think, and I talked to the superintendent earlier about Creating a school environment where kids want to come to school. Because I know when I went to school, and you heard us talk a little bit about it, I wanted to go to school. It was an English high, all boys at the time. I wanted to go to school. and we don't have that same kind of energy by the students just, I gotta get to school today no matter what. And so we wanted to talk, and we did talk a little about how do we create that kind of environment where the kids are just excited to go to school.

Yeah, for the Private Industry Council, we pay them about $1.3 million a year for a variety of services. I think Sam can maybe talk a little bit more about what services we get from them.

Sure. Great question, Councilor. So we work with them on, first and foremost, obviously, just employment opportunities connecting employment opportunities with education. We work with them a lot of work on youth workforce development. So that's one of the primary things that we do at PICC. They've been doing a great job, a great part of this over the years and they've been having huge success with that. And the other area we work on is Thank you. Thank you. Connecting with our counselors and working with our students to make sure that they have career plans and educational plans and how that ties together. So that's largely kind of what we do.

I just wanted to give a great example of the kind of work that we do in partnership with the PIC and also with the Boston Chamber recently did a workshop for students on how to understand your paycheck. and understanding the money that comes in, the money that goes out, why. and also helping them understand the advantages of putting checks in banks, compound interest and so on. And that was a relatively new idea that came out of conversation Our partnership with the PIC and the Chamber.

So one of the things that we talked about with PIC when they came in for the summer jobs for the young folks, and we know Madison Park has that co-op program that they've been having challenges in terms of getting students placed in co-op jobs. So we'll talk with Northeastern so that Northeastern can partner better with Madison Park So that the students, and Northeastern's responsible as well. We've got eight or nine students that we have working at Northeastern. And my point to them was we don't want you to put them to work at Northeastern. We want you to put these young folks in private, and many more.

Can we talk to Pitt about working with, let's say, Madison Park on co-op jobs so that those young folks that are at Madison Park can work a co-op job while they're still in school? With the possibility of graduating and possibly continuing to work where they had that Thank you. Thank you. I'm finishing, Mr. Chair. If you're talking about Brandeis, it's okay. Okay, great, yeah. You don't call some weapons a Brandeis grad until you've opened to Brandeis. But... Many of my friends that went to Northeastern and had co-op jobs, that became their profession.

And many of them are retired from a co-op job that they had when they were student at Northeastern. And I'm pushing Northeastern to work with Madison Park, not to place students just at Northeastern, but to find private jobs where those students in the technical area can work in those co-op jobs with the possibility of continuing to work with them. Can we talk to the Private Industry Council to do some of the same? Oh. Sorry. I apologize. No, you can finish. Because this is serious. I mean, it's really serious. I want to talk to the Private Industry Council, and I'm encouraging you to talk to them about working with Madison Park to help them find co-op jobs so that those jobs possibly could become a full-time job after they graduate from Madison Park.

Yeah, so the short answer to your question is we can definitely continue to have conversations with them, but also it's more broader than them is what I would say as well.

Right, right, right.

So we do have, through Brett Dickens' office, our Career and Technical Education Department office, We're really working on how we have career-connected learning going on in the district, and that's a big priority as a superintendent in the mayor's office, about how we connect students with employment. It was very beneficial for me when I was attending the Burke High School in the early 90s, and I was a pig student. So there's a lot of value in that. So that is one of our big pushes. So I would even expand that conversation, frankly, to say not only PIG, but also our other partners, our other Union Trades, and other areas. So we're going to continue to engage in those conversations. That is happening, and I'm happy to work with our office to do that.

And you were a PICS student? You had a PICS job from the birth?

Ropes and Gray. I'll never forget it.

It was the best experience of my life. Great example. I'm going to hold you up now. Go on.

Thank you, Councilor. And to add to what Dr. DePina just said. and I was a PIC student and I worked at Franklin Park Zoo and as a zoo teen and I ended up managing that program for a while. So PIC, great.

No, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, go on.

So adding on to what Dr. De Pina just said, There's a team right now that's actually working with Madison Park and also some of our city partners that are working with Madison Park to expand co-op where students Some of our students are going over to National Grid and stuff like that. There's also the project labor agreement. that was reached with the unions, the 18 unions, where graduating students from Madison Park will get apprenticeship into unions. So there's a lot of work that the team is doing, meeting with Groups on a monthly basis to move some of those co-op pieces along in partnership with not just the PIC program but with different teams across the city of Boston.

And so that project labor agreement that you referred to, is that the one the mayor just signed with the unions, Madison Park? Or are you talking about a separate one?

It's the one with Madison Park.

The one she just signed?

Yes.

And so that's beginning to work? for the student's benefit already?

So it would start, the implementation would start next year.

Okay, okay, okay. And since you got to the mic real quick, I know you were going around to those schools when they were doing the presentations about the school closings. Can you tell me a little bit about the anticipated school closings and the mergers over 27 and 28? What it looks like.

Thank you for that question. So sort of like... Where we are right now, I think I was sharing with Councilor Weber earlier, it's going into at the end of next school year, right? and across the district, we'll have 100 schools. Right now, based on our projections, which is something that we are going to continue to closely monitor Our plan is to get down to 95 schools by school year 2030. For this year, our plan is to remain on the same timeline in terms of announcements as we're evaluating our projection data that we're looking at. That is coming in across the district. So last year we did announcements. We did sort of like announcements and engagement in November and December.

The plan is to align it with that same timeline because of our enrollment for the district. Parents and families have given a lot of feedback about that timeline and wanted to ensure that they learn about the student choices. In the same timeline that BPS is doing, that BPS, the enrollment season is opening for BPS.

And so you did four last year, right? When you made those announcements last, you did four. So from 2026 to 2030, you're only Looking at closing five schools. If you have 100 now and you're looking at 95 by 2030, you're only looking at closing five schools. Over the next four years?

So that's based on current year projections. That number can change. The number can change based on our enrollment data, right? Right now, as a district, we are seeing a decline in our enrollment, so we really need to right-size the district for the student population that we are serving now. Thank you. Thank you. In our enrollment system where we would see our multilingual learners, our immigrant students coming into the district, we're seeing those numbers are down. That can look different in the future.

We not only just want to right-size just based on our current year projections, but we also want to do that work in consideration for some fluctuation in the district over the upcoming years.

But potentially, you're only looking at closing five schools over the next four years. As of right now, yes. And will that be mergers? Are you looking at mergers? Because one of the things from the school in Dorchester where we're at, Those parents really talked about mergers and Tell me just a little bit about mergers.

That's a great question. When we talk about mergers, so mergers is always a part of the consideration when we're thinking, when we're discussing rightsizing. and I think the school that you're pointing out is a great example. We wanna make sure that when we're merging schools, we wanna make sure that students is also getting access to higher quality buildings across the district. Unfortunately, as a district, 40% of our buildings have really, really low There's still a lot of work to do. One of the things that we look at is When we're merging a school, do we have an opportunity like the Lila G. Frederick School where we merge the CLAP and the Winthrop School

and those students are getting access to a higher quality building, one of our newest buildings in the district. Yes, mergers is a part of the conversation. We want to make sure that when we're doing them, we're giving students access to higher quality.

Thank you. You talked about those 40%. I know Dr. DiPina wants to talk about that. My time is up. I won't ask you today. We'll wait for another day. Thank you so much because I think one of the things we want to do as a council is be as helpful to you as possible to make Boston Public Schools the best school system they can be. And so let us know if you have any concerns you think We can help. You heard us talk earlier about going out to visit the schools, and we are. Councilor Weber is going to go to me with Boston Latin Academy, I think. Is your daughter there?

Embarrass my daughter.

No, don't embarrass her. But... I think it's important that we do that, and I also think it's important that we focus on updating. These schools are old, used, you know, ceilings dripping, and so as much as we need to help In terms of capital improvements, we're with you 100%.

Thank you. And I'm sorry, Councilor, I'd just also be remiss if I didn't add the other important piece of work that we do at the playground, the dropout recovery work that we do with them, how they help us reengage students who've dropped out as well. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say that. So I apologize if I didn't say that earlier.

For students that drop out that I know that dropped out on, can I just call you?

Please. We'll connect you. Yes, we can connect with the right people. Yes, if you can. If you do that, yes. Okay, great. Manny over those guys at the Reengagement Center, they're awesome. Okay, okay.

Because I'm working with a couple of students now. Please let us know. I'm just trying to coach him to get a GED. Please, I'm happy to help. Okay, great. Thank you, Doctor.

Okay, thank you.

Thank all of you.

Thank you very much. I just, in terms of hub schools, private funding, I mean, I think you've mentioned federal funding. Are we imagining... That funding is going to stay the same, go down to zero, magically increase.

Yeah, it would be magical if it increased. I would take some of that magic. Right now, we are projecting relatively stable federal funding in our main congressionally authorized All those big grants we're expecting to save more or less flat for next year those are authorized as a part of the current year federal budget So the deal that was reached basically funded those for next year. We'll know the exact levels in July. Our concern. is mostly around sort of specialized federal grants that are being withheld or we're just losing opportunities to apply for them because they're not being offered anymore.

Okay, just a couple quick last things. I mean, we heard about the capital budget for the city, and there's sort of a goal of like 7% of the operating budget to borrow each year. and then we're sort of hitting that ceiling. Does it work the same in BPS? Yeah. And then what are we prioritizing?

So we are a portion of the city's capital budget, so we count towards the 7%. So I'll turn to Della to talk a little bit about prioritizations.

Thank you. So the estimated spending for BPS as part of just like the overall city capital budget for FY26 is $47.8 million. and budgeted for FY27 is $178.9 million. And in terms of projects for BPS, between FY28 and 31. So this encompasses the larger MSBA projects like Madison Park, Root-Batson Academy, and Shaw-Taylor, nearly a billion projected.

Okay, is the priority to create new buildings, just maintain old ones?

That's a good question. So there's a mix, right? New building, major building projects, so that's like Madison Park, Shaw-Taylor, and the Root-Batson. And then there is like major renovations that is also identified in the capital budget and some smaller capital projects that our facilities team manages and our accelerated repair projects that sits under facilities as well with support from the MSBA.

Okay, and just, I think I asked, long-term facilities plan, when a school's merged or, well, merged, if it's closed, and then those kids end up at new schools, the funding for those kids it just there's no they get funded at that new school there's more funding goes into the school pursuant to the funding formula but there's no

additional like transition student there are yeah we do some transition funding for schools it sort of varies on the specifics of what's happening so There's some, for example, there's some additional funding going to the merged Frederick School to support the merger there. And then there's some transition support funding for students who are transitioning from schools that are closing.

And would that just show up in the school budget?

The Frederick transition support funding shows up in the school budget. The capital planning department budget also has money for supports for those students.

Okay, that's it for me and I think for my colleagues. If you really had a burning question, but Councilor Culpepper, a lot of people have been here since 10 a.m. Happy to play with fire here.

And anything else I have, I can always follow up with you at a later time. Thank you for giving us your day and your expertise. Because the answers that you give make a difference in how we go back and begin to formulate ordinances and resolutions and hearing orders. I thank you so much for your time and your expertise.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilor Culpepper. And thank you to the panelists for being here. A lot of you have been here all day. And special thanks to CFO Bloom for being on both panels. Thanks for being here. I just want to thank our central staff for today and Ryan, Megan. and many more. Thank you for helping us out Ethan in the back and everyone who came to testify and also to the students at the Mendel. We had fourth and fifth grade and I look forward to more of that. I'm going to just adjourn this hearing and continue the budget hearings next week. Thank you very much.

Thank you.