BoardReport

Board Member Report 2021-3-25

Board Member Report 2021-3-25

While we are gradually returning to normal, I urge our parents, students and staff to contact schools if you have any questions. The school will strive to find solutions to challenges faced by families, which may have been overlooked.  

Please note that for the school board itself and individual board members, we could not comment publicly on personnel matters, teacher contract, etc. The school will try our best to accommodate the individual needs for every student and staff, but we have to function as a healthy, financially feasible organization for the sake of the whole community.

I want to talk about the recent Atlanta massacre which killed eight Americans, six of them are Asian Americans. The board and the superintendent sent out a statement to parents and we want to make sure our Asian American community feels safe and protected. There is an ongoing crisis where violence, physical attack and hate towards Asian American in this country. It has been in existence for a long time. The Atlanta shooting has brought this crisis upfront. Yesterday, several board members, myself and Dr. Martirano attended a rally at Downtown Columbia to support AAPI community. It’s heartwarming to see the support from the community.

At the same time, I feel very sad when the Atlanta Police Spokesman Jay Baker said the killer just had a bad day. That remark literally says that eight lives are nothing. I truly wish the government, the media and the general public can look directly at the struggles and challenges Asian Americans are facing. One key problem is that Asian Americans are not treated as Americans.

We need to support each other to move our society forward. Only when we support each other fighting against discrimination and racism, respect each other, value everyone’s effort of pursuing their dreams, are we a full American country.

We may have different approaches to address these problems. However, we should be able to stand up for those who are suffering discrimination and racism, lift their voice, listen to their concerns and support them. We should take care of our community, elders, weak, ill, handicaped, children, women and everyone in need. 

Asian Americans will not go away.  Our struggles are the struggles of Americans. We should always stay united and find solutions to address this issue.

Thank you.

Board Member Report 2021-2-25

Board Member Report 2021-2-25

Starting from March 1st, next Monday, we will have several thousands students returning to the classroom. This is the first step and large scale of our bridge to normalized in-person education. The phase by phase return helps us to have a capacity for a socially-distanced classroom and other logistic arrangements. 

It is important for the community to fully understand the unprecedented actions the Board and administration have taken to ensure the health and safety of our students and employees.

I know some of our staff have complex feelings. Some are excited to return to the classroom, and some have anxieties. Some even quit their jobs. For our teachers, staff and administrators, I truly appreciate what you have been doing for our students during this difficult time. 

Approving the hybrid plan is one of the most difficult decisions for me as a board member. We need to safeguard the health of our workforce, students and community. We also have to meet our students’ needs. We have to find a middle-ground for these two and we are walking a fine line here. 

There may be glitches, uncertainties and unknowns in the implementation of the hybrid plan. We are actively looking for your feedback on how to revise and improve our delivery of education. It is a complex and interwoven system and we are exploring something we had never tried at this scale before. We are patient and optimistic. 

I sincerely hope all of us will work together to get through this unprecedented difficult time. The pandemic will be gone eventually, but the support and encouragement you render to our educators and our students will never go away.

Thank you very much.

Board Member Report 2020-12-22

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our teachers and staff, students and families taking this unprecedented challenge this year.

I wish everyone happy holidays and happy New Year. We are looking forward to a gradual and steady return to normal of our education and life in 2021, year of Ox. Oxes are known for diligence, dependability, strength and determination. Let’s embrace these. 

Thank you.

Board Member Report

Board Member Report (2020-12-07)

Revised for publication.

First I want to congratulate our returned board members, Ms. Mallo and Ms. Delmont-Small and newly elected board members: Dr. Lu, Ms. Mosley and Ms. Watts. I often make mistakes using he or she. So please forgive me if I make similar mistakes in the future.

The world has been different and might never be the same for many reasons due to the pandemic as well as the election. We are facing un’precedented challenges to provide a quality and safe learning environment for our students. 

There have been some discussions on our new board leadership and some of them were difficult conversations. The conversation keeps evolving. We have a diverse and capable board. Listening empathetically and working respectfully across diversity and social differences  to reach a solution is not easy, in many ways. 

I truly appreciate the opportunity to serve as the board chair. It is both an honor and huge responsibility. 

Let’s reset and start anew.  We are all here to serve the public. Let’s work together to have a board that will have the priority to serve the students and families in Howard County.

For the board functionality and board member relationship, I want to share some suggestions for an effective board I learnt while serving on Columbia Association board as following: 

  1. Don’t make random or wild assumptions or accusations of other board members. 
  2. Speak kindly and don’t speak ill. Don’t embarrass, belittle or humiliate other board members deliberately. 
  3. Respect other board members’ opinions and votes.  There will be different opinions and votes from time to time.  Let’s try not to take it personally. 
  4. Respect other people’s time. We have to run the board efficiently while giving every board member enough time to share his/her opinion. 

For me, as a board chair, I believe in the collective ingenuity of the board and passionate service of each board member.  I will serve in a coordinator role and encourage every board member to take different initiatives and leadership roles. I believe each board member is an equal part of the board and should work together in that spirit. Each board member should have the opportunity to serve as chair or vice chair if he/she wants to serve in those roles and have the support specified in the approval procedure during their four year terms. 

Another spirit is to have enough discussions before we make motions. Let’s separate our board discussion into two parts: having discussion first, then talking about making motions.

Let’s continue our journey to provide quality education for all of our students. We are facing many challenges. Covid-19 pushed us to adapt the virtual learning model, which has presented many challenges for our students,including but not limited to students of special education, students of foreign language learners, students who need face-to-face instructions, students who have internet connection issues, etc. As the vaccine will soon become available to the general public, I believe our society including our  school system will be able to fully reopen gradually. We need to create a plan to prepare for that moment. I believe we need to provide extra education opportunities through innovation, partnership and other out-of-box solutions for our students during this transition time, next summer and beyond.  

Let’s discuss all potential ideas, put them on the table, examine them carefully and find options that are pragmatic, efficient and effective to serve our students. 

We are in this together. We have always been. Let’s work together and go through this turbulent time together. We can and we will prevail.

Thanks you.

Board Member Report 2020-9-10

Board Member Report 2020-9-10

Modified for publication.

This is the first board meeting since our full virtual education started. We have mixed feelings about it, doubt, uncertainty, disappointment and excitement. As a parent myself, I totally understand some frustrations from parents and also appreciate what has been done given the constraints. 

First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our students and parents, our teachers and staff,  and our community to take a fresh start for the new semester. September 10 was Teacher’s Day when I grew up in China. I always appreciate so much help I received from my teachers when I grew up. Students, parents, the community and the system showed gratitude to our teachers. 

It is especially difficult for our young learners, kindergarteners, first graders, students with special needs and high school seniors, students who are transitioning from one school to another. However, we are keeping to change, improve and adapt our work to help all students. 

Our school system keeps exploring ideas of bringing a small group of students into the classroom settings and provides much needed service for them, especially for students with special needs. The situation is unprecedented and we are working slowly but steadily on this. We must put safety as our highest priority. We are crossing the river while feeling the pebbles in the water. 

Second, I would like our staff taking the community inputs and feedback, reflecting on what we learn during this process, and thinking about our second semester ASAP. What is the criteria we can aim to reopen school safely, smoothly and gradually? 

Third, I know some of our parents’ confidence in our school system has eroded during our struggle to offer education services for our students while dealing with covid-19. We saw 300 less enrollment in kindergarten, more than 2200 withdrawals from our school system. How to regain parents’ confidence will be a challenge for us. 

Finally, we are entering Phase III recovery for the state and the county. However, we still need to keep vigilant until the covid-19 is under total control. Please keep wearing a mask and keep social distancing. The quicker we can keep the numbers down and covid-19 under control, the faster we can get back to the normal life. We are almost there.

Thank you.

Board Member Report on 2020-07-09

BOE board member report on 2020-07-09

Revised for publication

Welcome Mr. Koung to serve on the board. It is a tough job this year with so much unknowns. We look forward to working with you.

School Reopen Effort

School reopen will be tonight’s main focus. I believe the health of our students, teachers and staff are the highest priority. Whatever approach the school is taking, we will keep that in mind. Then how to implement a workable solution will involve all stakeholders. For example, we had a survey to understand our students/parents, teachers’ concern and need. 

At the same time, until we have a solid data to know how many teachers are committed to come back to the classroom, we are not able to make any sound decision for the fall easily. 

For some schools, maybe there are 10% teachers who want to come back to teach. For some subjects, maybe all the teachers want to teach online. So we need the solid data, not the survey data to make a sound decision. Our decision should be flexible and workable.

We need to work hard to give parents, students and teachers different options to suit their individual situation and need. If possible, they can choose online or classroom instruction. We need to put more efforts and priority into students who need more resources, for example, students with special needs, and students lagging behind already. 

Thanks for community members for your input. We know every one care about this schedule. Prof. Meagan Fitzpatrick from University of Maryland helped me to understand the various disease spreading modeling, which is very informative and useful.

Again, I want to emphasize the importance of our online teaching curriculum. I want our school to use this opportunity and develop a flexible/robust online curriculum and integrate them into the classroom curriculum for our future.

Equity, Inclusiveness, diversity and respect

Tonight we are going to talk about equity policy too. Equity, inclusiveness, diversity and respect are all working together. These objectives are mutually supportive and inclusive and we should work in such a manner. Also we need to take historical background and cultural sensitivity into consideration. We have a long way to go. During this process, I believe we should take a positive and affirmative approach to overcome any challenges, address each problem one by one, unite the majority of our people and embrace a better future. 

Motion:

Finally, I appreciate the feedback from Jewish Federation of Howard County and I am sorry for the omission.  

I ask the board to reconsider my motion I made during last board meeting and amend it as following:

Move the Howard County Board of Education denounce any bias and racism towards African American, Asian American, Latino American, Muslim American, LGBTQ+ community, the Jewish community and any other groups who have been ignored, marginalized, discriminated against and/or oppressed and allocate resources in accordance with these values as a school system and a Board.

Note: the original motion and this motion passed unanimously.

2020-6-25 Board Member Report

2020-6-25 Board Member Report

Revised for publication.

First I would like to thanks our student board member Allison Alston, who has demonstrated a strong leadership. When I saw her performance at Reservoir High School’s Black History Month, I was really surprised and admired. You are a super star. We will miss you.

Today, I will talk about something different. The nation is watching the hardship, struggle and pain the African American community are experiencing. As a community member and a school board member, I share the same pain and the same concern:  Where are we going? How can we get to  the point where injustice will go away? When will everyone have the same opportunity to pursue their dreams and reach their full potential?

Two recent events highlighted here:

  1. I read the petition from more than 400 HCPSS high school students shared with the board. A 2015 Glenelg High School graduate is leading the campaign. Glenelg High School unfortunately had been on the newspaper front page for several racist incidents. Just reading the petition, for example:
    1. Some students called black students “N word” and there were no consequences. 
    2. Some teachers could not remember Asian American Students’ names or faces in a small classroom for half the semester. Some of our staff could not pronounce students’ family names.
    3. Some staff or teachers discouraged African American students or Latino American students from entering  into AP classes. 
  2. Many community members called me regarding a recent social media post from an HCPSS administrator. They feel the post was insensitive and offensive. They  believe our officials  should have been more thoughtful and responsible when they express their opinions  publicly, which includes clicking the “like” button on social media platforms. 

All these events made me think: What can we do to eliminate explicit and implicit biases, microaggression, discrimination and oppression? How can we systematically implement the necessary actions steps?

The questions are tough to answer as we are naturally inclined  to find a fast and easy way out, yet unsuccessfully so. The inconvenient truth is, only when we are able to face the reality truthfully and do self-reflecting and soul-searching, we are able to move forward. We can aim big, however, we should act small, starting with incremental steps for which we have the ability to execute as well as to examine the outcomes each step along the way. 

I agree that HCPSS should include more anti-bias training to help our workforce to better connect with the students and families. These connections will create stronger motivations for our students to work hard and also provide more opportunities for them to excel. We also need to increase culture proficiency training.When we do so, we need to ensure that everyone is included. No individuals or groups should feel being ignored, marginalized, discriminated against and/or oppressed.

I agree that HCPSS should work hard to reduce bias during the hiring process to increase workforce diversity and leadership diversity. When we do so, we need to ensure that everyone is included. No individuals or groups should feel being ignored, marginalized, discriminated against and/or oppressed.

I agree that HCPSS should include a more diverse curriculum to help our students expand their learning horizon which will promote better cross-group, cross-culture understanding and respect. When we do so, we need to ensure that everyone is included. No individuals or groups should feel being ignored, marginalized, discriminated against and/or oppressed.

I want to make a motion: 

Motion:

The Howard County Board of Education denounces any bias and racism towards African American, Asian American, Latino American, Muslim American, LGBT community,  and any other groups who have been ignored, marginalized, discriminated against and/or oppressed. 

Board Member Report 2020-05-28

2020-5-28 Board Member Report

Revised for publication.

We are almost at the end of our semester. We are experiencing a turbulence and we are facing uncertainty for the fall. 

It is important for the school system to keep examining our distance delivery model and listening to our teachers, students and parents.  Our students’ well-being and academic growth are both in the center of our daily operation. We should be able to conduct a survey before the school closes for the summer. 

Many questions can be asked, for example: 

  1. How do you feel during this time?
  2. Do you have a preference for synchronous (live-streaming) or asynchronous (pre-recorded) class formats?
  3. What is the best/worst part of distance learning? Where do you want to see improvements and changes? 
  4. If we could make one change or do one thing to help you with right now, what would it be? 
  5. For students in special education, ESOL, GT, etc, what do you want to change for the distant learning model?
  6. Do we have enough support for our high risk students and families?
  7. Which kind of interactions do you like with your teacher?

There are many more questions. It will take lots of effort to design an effective and actionable survey.

There are many unknowns. It is important to explore different possibilities , plan for the fall by conducting surveys and learning from the students and teachers. We should always pursue innovation in our teaching methodology and delivery. 

I know many families are exhausted and anxious to know what is next. Frankly we don’t know the full picture until we get over this pandemic. However, I strongly believe that we will be able to overcome this short period of difficulty. Our community is gradually open again and comes back to normal soon. We will stay strong and safely.

Thank you. 

Board Member Report 2020-05-14

Board Member Report

2020-05-14, Thursday

Revised for publication.

First, I want to thank Ms. Min Woo, Specialist and Mr. James Lemon, Executive Director of Community, Parent and School Outreach for hosting the Well-Being in the Asian Community seminar. I dialed-in and listened for a while. I just missed Dr. Martirano’s excellent speech. It was a great seminar for the community. 

We have been hearing more feedback from our parents, students and teachers.  For students with special needs or resource limited families, please keep reaching out to school and discuss your children’s needs and how the school can help to meet their needs. 

For High School seniors, we care about their graduation, one of the most important ceremonies before their grown-up life. 

For High School juniors, they worry about their senior year experience and graduation next year. Please notice that everything will be a little different and take some time to self-reflect, manage your course-load and re-prioritize your curriculum. 

At the elementary school level, we are keeping revising our distant learning practice. I believe the school can do a little more than we are having now. For example, 

  1. Having more, short virtual meetings with teachers and peer students online. Building a connected classroom with our teacher and classmates of younger ones will also help our students’ psychosocial well-beings. It does not need to be long and well-scripted. Even a fireside chat with our teachers, a joke around with their peer classmates will be very helpful. 
  2. Providing a curriculum less intense, more engaged and more organized. Building and keeping a good routine for our young students will help them in the long run. Helping them to learn to be self-disciplined and being resilient, being independent from a daily, not so rigid agenda will help our students. 
  3. If a teacher wants to engage more with their classroom and students, we should encourage that engagement. Sure, we don’t want to  overburden our teachers. 

When we look back in the future, we may realize it is NOT what the academic knowledge our children learn, but the way we deal with this unprecedented crisis. Our children will learn flexibility, adaptability, accountability, discipline, compassion, and resilience. These great traits will benefit them all the way in the future.

Another topic I would like to highlight: we need to use this opportunity and time to prepare on how to integrate distance learning into our curriculum, especially if we are not sure how/when we will come back in the fall. If we are not able to get this right, those less-fortunate students will be impacted more disproportionally.

I truly appreciate our superintendent, teacher and staff’s dedicated effort during this time.

Thank you. 

My board member report on 2020-4-16

Revised for publication on 2020-04-16

We are entering a new phase of our education. We finally started our distance learning for high school students. I am glad to  hear many positive feedback from our parents. Middle school and elementary school will start next week. I wish this will give our students and families some relief, engagement, feelings of belongings and education. We are all together. 

I wish parents and students keep sharing their feedback with our school system such that the school system is tracking what the school system is doing, and keep improving the methodology, delivery approach and community communication.  In the current situation, I am especially worried about our delivery model for kids with special needs, younger kids having few parents’ involvement, kids who are already struggling or lagging on their subject. 

We probably will not go back to school for this semester. High School seniors will probably graduate without a prom or a graduation ceremony. Other students transition to a new middle school or a new high school even do not have a chance to say goodbye to their friend. I wish the school, community and parents are keeping a close eye on their children’s mental health. More video games, more screen times and less physical activity time for several months are very challenging for every student in this pandemic era.  

We need to be really careful on our spending. We will receive our 2021 operating budget in five days from the county executive. In Scott E’s blog, according to Dr. Holly Sun, Howard County’s Budget Director, Howard County is estimating a revenue loss of over $35 million in the current fiscal year, with major losses in income tax, recordation, and hotel tax. A significant revenue impact is also anticipated for FY 2021. These revenue losses don’t qualify for any known federal aid, which usually only covers expenses related to emergencies.

Here I am asking our school, pause any non-urgent spending until we hear from the county executive on the 2021 operating budget. 

As a board and a school system, we need to prepare for a difficult time ahead of us. We need to scrutinize any spending and probably think about a hybrid education delivery mode in the future, to incorporate distance learning as another education tool. 

Thanks.

My board member report on 2020-03-26

My Board Member report for today’s virtual board meeting

(revised for publication here):

This is a difficult moment which we have never faced before. Everyone is putting their effort to mitigate the current difficult situation. We don’t even know when this coronavirus emergency will end. My school visits have been on hold for two weeks now. I appreciate that the board receives daily update from the superintendent and his staff.

The plan presented by the superintendent last night was the school’s first step. It is not perfect. I am hoping we will be able to work together to improve this plan and make sure our students are taken care of and everyone in the community stays safe.

I am looking forward to a simple, limited structured instruction plan for our students before we have a fully developed plan. We can not wait for another four weeks. We can have a relatively structured curriculum and routine for students every day of the week, one for the morning and one for the afternoon, with much longer recess time and lunch time. This will be very helpful for many students and parents. Our students love our teachers and they want to hear from their teachers.

I don’t expect the online education will be the same as classroom education. We will not be able to serve every student as usual during this difficult time in our nation. We are not able even to offer PE class now.

So we need adapt to the new situation quickly. There will be up/downs during the process, as long as we can implement, correct and improve. This is also an opportunity to develop our future education model, incorporating online teaching and classroom teaching.

For the current plan, I am very concerned about the 25 thousands ES students who need to wait to the end of the second closure period. I am also concerned about the HS seniors facing graduation, special education kids needing intervention programs, kids from low income families getting the necessary help.

Let’s stay calm and work together through this difficult time. Stay safe. Thanks.