Board Work Session, October 14, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usod9ah5Ho
NOTE: The Board is meeting
in person for the first time since the pandemic started.
Murray is the only member
absent at the time of roll call.
After the board prayer and
pledge of allegiance, the agenda is adopted and prior board minutes are approved.
Dr. Miller takes a moment of personal
privilege to recognize Danielle Gittens, the owner of Brewington Management Company,
LLC, and PGCPS alum. Miller reads Ms. Gittens’ record of accomplishments, which
include attending Oxon Hill High School and then graduating from UMD-College
Park. She is a civil engineer who has managed numerous construction projects,
including three UMD Medical System sites in the county. Miller presents her with
a plaque, and photographs are taken.
Student Board Member Ceron-Ruiz is next recognized for
a moment of personal privilege. He acknowledges Indigenous People’s Day and the
Piscataway on whose land we now stand. He also invites MS and HS students to
tomorrow’s Hispanic Heritage celebration at Eleanor Roosevelt HS.
Next is public comment. Maryland
State Senator Joanne C. Benson
of the 24th District is first recognized to speak. She notes she is
not here to speak on behalf of senators or delegates. Her speech is needed tonight.
She has served in multiple positions within the school system, and she LOOOVES
PGCPS. Around 1970, a group went to Fredericksburg, VA, for 2 days to talk
about how to deal with the integration of Prince George’s County public schools.
At that time, the racial composition of the county was about 10 percent brown
and black children. Senator Benson starts listing names, Floyd Wilson, Cora
Rice, Steve and Ruth Brown, Linwood Jones, Clement and Barbara Martin, John
Spearman, Joe Parker, Nathaniel Exum, Joanne C. Benson, Sarah McKinney-Ludd,
Teresa Bank, Dr. Al Thornton, and the list goes on. These are the warriors who
are responsible for most of you sitting up here. Tonight she is speaking on
behalf of 133,000 rising stars and 14,000 workers who take care of our beloved children.
School board members, we are profoundly displeased with what has been going on
here. I have been waiting for someone to come here and tell you what you need
to hear and what you need to do. We have changed superintendents, we have
changed chairs of the board, like you change your clothes. When we converse
with state Board of Education members, this is their response: we have viewed
school board meetings, we have looked at school board members, and it is
abundantly clear to us that they are not focused on children’s education. She
remarks that the group she just mentioned met in Cora Rice’s basement, starting
at 6 or 7 in the evening and when they looked up, it was dawn. Do you think we are
going to allow this foolishness to continue? We have sent 2.8 billion dollars
plus all the other grants. We are not going to continue to allow this disruption
to continue. Your actions and behaviors on this board are getting in the way of
our plans for excellence for this school system. She can’t even go grocery shopping
at her local Giant in Largo because everyone comes up to her and asks what are
they going to do about that disruptive board? She is not interested in
foolishness which leads to parents not being willing to send their children to our
local school systems. What you are doing is casting a dark shadow over the
teachers, who have been working under great stress due to the pandemic. We have
a superintendent born and raised in the county, graduated from PGCPS, everyone
talks about how wonderful she is. And we have this foolishness going on in the
school board? None of you are the superintendent. Don’t you forget it. Don’t
run over her. Don’t disrespect her. Review your role as a school board member. No
cliques, we don’t have time for that. Look, you have to do some soul searching and
determine if you are operating in the best interest of our children. We don’t
want to continue seeing unprofessional behavior. Take your personal agendas
somewhere else. We need a world class school system, and you all have the folks
who can do that. Senator Benson continues in this vein.
Lawrence Weaver is the next
speaker and discusses his company, Global Justice Solutions. He offers his
product, an online dispute resolution platform, for the county to pilot and
test, free of charge.
Mike Krevitz discusses the challenges
of placing his special needs son, who has been in residential care for two
years, in a school due to a PGCPS policy that they can only apply to one non-public
school at a time. He was finally enrolled in a school just a week ago, even
though his whole team has agreed it will not be able to serve their son’s needs
as outlined in his IEP, while they do one application at a time. No one has
been able to produce this policy; in fact, no one has responded to their
emails. He concludes that no one in this side of the bench cares about your
internal drama and dysfunction. We care about your working for our kids. It’s
unacceptable.
Written testimony from
community members has been posted to Board Docs.
Discussion Topic 4.1 is a thorough
presentation by senior administrative staff on “Mitigating Interrupted
Instruction Caused by the Pandemic.”
Board members then have the
opportunity to ask questions
and make comments about the plan for follow up.
Next is second reader, Item
5.1, the FY2022 Comprehensive Maintenance
Plan. Dr. Fossett is on hand to answer questions as Mr. Stefanelli was
unable to attend the meeting.
Ahmed has a few questions and
comments. She is excited to hear about the success of the student internship
program and the efforts to work with the Maryland Dept. of Labor to get an
internal program going for trades helpers. Her goal would be in 5-10 years
having 50 percent maintenance/plant staff coming through these programs. She
would like to know goals for the programs. Fossett states PGCPS has a goal to
grow staff in house and from students. Numbers have not been established. Ahmed
asks on p. 9 why plant/maintenance staff have been managing capital projects
and why that number has increased over time. She has a huge concern about that.
Why are those team members taking time away from their important duties fixing
our crumbling infrastructure to work on capital projects when our capital staff
should be doing that? Fossett explains our internal force does not work on
those projects. We contract out for project managers through CIP. Ahmed notes
the high numbers of work orders and corrective work orders described on pp.
25-26. We were in such a great place before the pandemic; how did we get to
this place? Fossett explains that was during the heart of the pandemic. Our maintenance
staff were on a every other week schedule.
Ahmed then continues, at a
previous board meeting they discussed the capital budget. There were projects
marked as substantially complete but the punchlists were not complete before closure
of project. She asks how much work our internal team is having to do to finish punch
lists left incomplete by developers. Fossett responds it would be difficult for
him to explain in a simple statement but please know that our staff holds
contractors to a high standard.
Queen would like to get a
list of what our custodial staff do so we can understand why we get other
people to do all these jobs?
Valentine asks about the CTE
program and if it has an entrepreneurship class. Goldson responds that yes, it
is part of a curriculum.
Ahmed then has the
opportunity for a follow up in the second round of questioning. She would like
to see the most recent reports regarding the comprehensive site evaluations for
each building as well as cyclical inspections. She is going to vote in support
the maintenance plan and understands it is going to be discussed in OBAFA
committee. She is appreciative of the work of the maintenance and operations
team. She hopes we can fill the 36 vacancies quickly.
Williams inquires about lagging
work orders and staff numbers. Fossett explains more staff won’t necessarily correct
all problems. We need capital dollars for new construction and maintenance
dollars for our old construction. Williams responds asking for more clarification
regarding rate of work orders, noting that more come in during the school year
than in summer. Fossett states emergency work orders are prioritized. Next Williams
points out that PGCPS is facing challenges with supply chain. She asks if they
are foreseeing any changes to the maintenance budget as a result of these
issues? Fossett agrees they are seeing delays in receiving equipment and parts,
as are other school districts. Williams and Fossett also discuss how the age of
systems can make finding obsolete parts a problem.
Adams-Stafford inquires if there
are goals for this year for completion rates, if there are plans to temporarily
reallocate custodial staff to schools with substantial increases in student
populations, and finally she would like to know how retrofitting fits into the
work plan as part of handling increasingly severe weather or if that is with
capital improvement. Fossett replies it is always a priority to increase completion
rates. Goldson interjects it is also in the budget guide. Fossett continues,
there is funding for temporary custodial staff but it is a challenge to find
staff right now. Adams-Stafford asks if they have relationships with local
trade unions? Fossett says yes, they do. Retrofitting would be more on the capital
side, it’s part of the Educational Facilities Master Plan.
Roll call vote is taken.
All board members approve
the plan, including Murray who was absent at the start.
Miller notes she forgot
to mention in her earlier comments that the board has retained the temporary
legal services of Andrew Nussbaum for appeals and other matters that may come
before the board on an interim basis.
There is some discussion
between the chair and Queen, but no one has their mics on so it is not clear
what they are discussing. Goldson replies with clarification regarding how to
get follow up items addressed.
The final item is the approval
of actions taken in executive session, related to personnel matters.
Those voting yes include:
Adams-Stafford, Ahmed, Burroughs, Ceron-Ruiz, Harris, Murray, Thomas
Those voting no include:
Boozer-Strother, Mickens-Murray, Monteiro, Williams, Valentine, and Miller
Meeting adjourns.
[NOTE: There are many
sources of information about PGCPS and its integration efforts as referenced by
Senator Benson in her statements. See, for example:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Long_Day_s_Journey_Into_Light/FpFwPs5o0icC?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/pg/magnets/magnet.htm
Comments
Post a Comment