BoardNotes: November 2022

Caroline County Board of Education meetings are livestreamed and may also be viewed after the meeting has concluded. For information about the Board of Education, including agendas and meeting schedules, please visit the Leadership page of our website.

Preston Elementary band students opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. They were accompanied by Principal Brohawn and music teacher Ms. Mills.

At the start of each meeting, the board of education president reads the Mission Statement, "In partnership with families and community, we prepare all students to achieve college, career, and life readiness through a challenging and progressive educational experience."

Eleven Caroline County Public School Students earned academic honors from the College Board’s National Recognition Programs. Only 72,000 students nationwide have achieved this milestone. Complete details may be found in the News Release.

At the November Board of Education meeting Preston Elementary School Physical Education teacher Christi Saylor was recognized for receiving the Simon A. McNeely Award from SHAPE Maryland. Complete details may be found in the News Release.

In the interest of time, the Board Member Report presentation was provided but not discussed at the meeting.

In the interest of time, the Superintendent's Report presentation was provided but not discussed at the meeting.

Student Reports

North Caroline High School Student Board Representative Leslie Monter Casio highlighted past and upcoming events and information for Denton, Greensboro and Ridgely Elementary Schools, Lockerman Middle School and North Caroline High School.

Colonel Richardson High School Student Board Representative Levi Divjak highlighted past and upcoming events and information for the Federalsburg and Preston Elementary Schools, and the Colonel Richardson campus.

The Board approved personnel items as presented by Dr. Robert Willoughby, Supervisor of Human Resources. They also approved the minutes from the October board of education meetings.

The Board approved the FY2023 Audit Reports as presented by Audrey McKenrick, CPA, from the firm UHY LLP.Dr. Simmons also presented budget adjustments for FY23, which the Board also approved. All documents related to both items may be found in BoardDocs.

The Board approved the DESMOS curriculum for Algebra I.

Dr. VonDenBosch, Supervisor of Instruction, explained that DESMOS is a comprehensive core curriculum for Math 6-8 and Algebra I, and has been used for the core math curriculum in grades 6-8 since 2019. It aligns with the Maryland College and Career Readiness standards for Algebra I and is a robust, rigorous, problem based learning curriculum using digital and print materials. The curriculum includes a scope and sequence of units, lesson plans, practice sets, unit assessments, and family resources available in English and Spanish. It provides interactive digital resources along with flexible print activities and includes powerful facilitation tools for teachers to monitor student work and guide productive discussions around student work through an interactive dashboard. The curriculum platform is high interest, interactive, and engaging for students to discover Algebraic principles and apply them to real life situations and scenarios. The curriculum also includes digital tools such as a graphing calculator.

MOI DESMOS Evaluation

The Board approved revisions to Policy II.20.10 (Comprehensive Health Education). Following its initial introduction at the October meeting, the policy revisions were published for community review via the electronic communication as well as published on the CCPS website. No community comments were received at the end of the comment period on 10/31/2023.

Comprehensive Health Draft Revision

As a reminder, this policy accomplishes the following tasks:

• Confirms that the CCPS Health Curriculum follows COMAR requirements.
• Acknowledges the right of parents to be notified prior to the teaching of the Human Sexuality unit.
• Allows for parents to opt-out their students from instruction in the Human Sexuality unit, to the greatest extent allowed under COMAR.

The Board approved Policy XI.110.40: Distribution of Materials In Schools and On School Property. Following its initial introduction at the October meeting, was published for community comment. At the end of the community comment period (10/31/2023), no comments had been received regarding.

As a reminder, this policy seeks to incorporate, as Board policy, that:

• Direct distribution of materials is limited to programs that extend the school’s educational mission or to community partners with whom CCPS has a joint program.
• Other community entities that do not have a joint program with CCPS may have access to electronic distribution platforms.
• CCPS reserves the right to determine what is appropriate to be distributed (either directly or indirectly) and examples of inappropriate content are given in the regulation.

The Board accepted the award of Contract #24-001 to Choptank Excavating, LLC for snow removal at 17 CCPS locations for fiscal year 2024, with four one-year renewal options through December 15, 2028.

Supporting Document

The Board approved the purchase of a 2021 model year school bus from American Truck & Bus, Inc.

Supporting Documents

The Board approved the purchase of a 2018 model year school bus from American Truck & Bus, Inc.

Supporting Documents

The Board approved the purchase of a 2023 Ford Transit-150 cargo van with refrigeration installation from Pohanka Ford for use by the Food Services Department.

The USDA recently revised their summer meal feeding regulations for all children. A change of the USDA’s non-congregate meal policy allows more children the opportunity to receive free summer meals in rural America. Last summer, the Food Services Department doubled their meal distribution. A second refrigerated van is needed to keep up with the increasing demands of summer meals to the children of Caroline County.

Supporting Document

The Board welcomed Wayne Cole, Jim Orr, Tolbert Rowe, and Robert Willey. Their presentation included the details of a former education foundation in Caroline County. They also shared their progress towards creating a new foundation whose purpose would be to support student achievement in the area of financial literacy. Dr. Simmons and board members were appreciative of their work in supporting CCPS students and staff, and look forward to supporting the Foundation as the work progresses.

Director of TRIO Upward Bound Mark Berry, Jr. provided a program update to the Board. This Chesapeake College program helps students by providing support for completion of high school and preparation to enroll and succeed in postsecondary education.

Mr. Berry shared the number of NCHS and CRHS students participating in the program, past activities and upcoming events. Taijh Rochester (CRHS, Class of 2025). Kadeen Belle (NCHS Class of 2026) and Miranda Rubio-Angeles NCHS Class of 2026 were also in attendance and shared their experiences with the program.

Presentation

Next Generation Scholars Program Specialist Abigail Trice provided an update to the Board. She explained that the program is now in its seventh year with CCPS and provided data that showed the impact on the previous cohort of students, and shared plans for the upcoming cohorts of students. Ms. Trice also shared NGS connections with partners such as CCPS, Caroline County Economic Development, Caroline County Emergency Services, and Choptank Electric Cooperative.

Presentation

Dr. Simmons provided the Board an update on the new Administrator Evaluation System pilot.

Presentation

Supervisor of Instruction Christal Harkowa and Coordinator of Multilingual Learners Victoria Shull provided the Board with an update on Multilingual Learners in Caroline County Public Schools.

Presentation

Director of Operations Bill Mengel provided the Board an update on future capital projects. Mr. Mengel and Dr. Simmons explained that school construction funding in Caroline County is contingent upon the accessibility of state funds that become fully available when a school is at least 40 years old. The county covers that portion not funded by the state, and it is estimated that Caroline County may be able to incur the costs of a major construction project by FY28.

Dr. Simmons and Mr. Mengel presented pertinent information on schools now eligible (DES, RES, LMS, and CCTC), along with Federalsburg Elementary which was last renovated in 2001.

After much discussion, the Board voted to explore the future renovation / relocation of Lockerman Middle School. They cited concerns about the inability of traffic to flow easily to and from the school in the event of an emergency as one of the deciding factors.

#OneCaroline #CarolineFamily

Email: pio@ccpsstaff.org
Website: carolineschools.org
Location: Caroline County, Maryland
Phone: 410.479.1460
Facebook: facebook.com/carolineschools.org
Twitter: @CarolineCoPS

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