The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County will be updated on Superintendent George Arlotto’s plan to establish a Mental Health Task Force at its first meeting of the 2019-2020 school year, scheduled for Wednesday, July 10, 2019.
The Board voted at its May 15, 2019, meeting to have Dr. Arlotto establish the task force, which will examine ways to continue to address the social and emotional needs of students. It is expected to begin meeting in September and provide recommendations to the Board by May 2020.
CHANGES TO PUBLIC TESTIMONY SIGNUP PROCESS
The Board has changed the way members of the public sign up to testify at Board meetings and now accepts signups online or by phone.
Beginning with the July 10, 2019, meeting, signups will open on the Friday before a Board meeting when the agenda for that meeting is published, and will close at 4 p.m. on the day before the meeting. Members of the public can sign up at www.aacps.org/boardtestimony or by calling 410-222-5311.
The Board will continue to hear testimony on agenda items when those items are before the Board. Testimony on items not on the agenda will be heard during the Public Comment portion of Board meetings. To assist the Board, speakers during the Public Comment portion will be grouped by topic. Those who sign up and are not present when their name is called will forfeit their opportunity to speak.
Regardless of whether the testimony is offered on an agenda item or during Public Comment, student-specific concerns, personnel issues, and items under appeal or pending appeal cannot be discussed before the Board.
Members of the public may only sign up themselves to testify before the Board. When signing up online, only one person can sign up per computer device.
Testimony can be submitted to the Board of Education via email at any time at BoardOffice@aacps.org. Signups for those wishing to testify at Board meetings swill not be accepted by email.
Wednesday’s meeting will be held in the Board Room at the Parham Building, 2644 Riva Road, Annapolis. The Board will meet in a public session at 8:15 a.m. for the sole purpose of voting to immediately go into closed session, during which time it will discuss confidential matters as permitted by the Maryland Open Meetings Act including, but not limited to, legal advice, personnel, and negotiations. Closed session is not open to the public. The public session of the meeting will resume at 10 a.m.
A complete agenda for the meeting accompanies this news release. More information on agenda items will be posted on the AACPS website in the Board Docs section under the Board of Education tab.
The general session of Wednesday’s Board meeting will be broadcast live on AACPS-TV, which can be found on Channel 96 on Comcast and Broadstripe, and Channel 36 on Verizon. High definition broadcasts can be seen on Channel 996 on Comcast, Channel 496 on Broadstripe, and Channel 1961 on Verizon. Rebroadcasts are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. the day after the meeting and 2:00 p.m. on subsequent Sundays.
The meeting can also be viewed live on the Internet here.