Prince George's County Public Schools Budget Priorities

It's 7.49. We are now entering budget season for school districts. And here to talk more about the plans and priorities for Prince George's County Public Schools is Superintendent Dr. Sean Joseph and Board Member Amy Olivo. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. I want to begin with the story we've been following up on, including this morning, on the spike in illnesses. You know, it's that time of year at schools and how you all are working with the county's health department on that. Dr. Joseph, tell us more. Yeah, we had a situation at Princeton. We saw a spike in staff and student absences as a result of influenza, so in speaking with the health department, we thought it best to close school, allow a deep cleansing of the building, and give the school two or three days for the incubation period to end, and now kids are back in school, but we want to make sure we don't... Spread illness at this moment right now. And making sure that kids and staff are washing their hands properly and staying home if you are sick, right? Don't spread it in the building. I'll start with you again, Dr. Joseph, and then Ms. Oliva, I want to get you on this. Following the budget reductions that you had already talked about, what are some of the changes we could see leading into the new school year? Well, what I would say, the great news is we just got our state ratings. And we had 37 schools. One of the largest improvements that we've had so 84% of our schools are 3, 4 or 5 right now and I think we were able to cut $150 million from the budget last year but still continue to move with our priorities and this year working with the board we've got a promise, Prince George's County promise of improving reading, mathematics, transportation and customer service and moving into the legislative season we've got to work with our legislature just to Help us accelerate the growth while we're cutting. As we move towards that overall excellence, I know that's a pillar that you all are reaching. What do you want to see move forward and change? Absolutely. So I'll tell you, we're really excited this year to work with, we've already begun working with our state legislators, but also our community. Our cuts last year were really difficult for everybody. And we know that... We're likely having to make more cuts this coming year. And so we've developed a really robust outreach and advocacy strategy with our community. We know that our PGCPS parents and our larger community wants to see support for public education. They want to be engaged from the very beginning in this advocacy. And so coming up on January 11th, we'll be doing a webinar for staff. And on January, I'm sorry, excuse me, November 11th. And November 12th, we'll be doing a webinar for the larger community to begin to get them engaged in advocacy. And understanding how the budget process works so that we're listening to them. That's good. That's next, I believe, Wednesday and Thursday of next week so that people can take part. The governor, of course, he was reelected. We're projecting. He also talked about the state budget, that release coming out at the top of next month. What do you all expect to experience there when it comes to Prince George's County Public Schools? What are you prepping for? We're prepping for about $75 to $100 million in reductions again. This year, which is less than last year, but still significant. So we'll be working closely with our unions and our parents and our students to just prioritize how we work to do that. The good news is Maryland schools are funded very well. The challenge for us is flexibility, and part of the legislation that we're working with our state colleagues on is trying to give us some more flexibility in how to spend dollars. So, for example, in Prince George's County, we spend over $400 million in special education, but we don't receive that type of money from the state, so we have to pull from other places. So flexibility and dedicated funding for special education, for example, is something that's really important for us as we continue to accelerate our work. All right, Dr. Joseph, Ms. Ms. Olivo, thank you so much for coming, and make sure you all take part in those sessions coming up next week so you can be on the front end of that process. We appreciate your time. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Steve? All right, listen, we were just talking about...