[Music] [Music] my name is Henry Santana atlarge city counselor and I'm the chair of Boston city council committee on education today is Friday March 29th 2024 this hearing is being recorded it is also being live streamed at a.gov city-council DTV and broadcast on Xfinity channel 8 RCN channel 82 files Channel 964 written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.edu boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors public testimony will be taken at the end
of this hearing individuals who will be called in the order in which they signed up and we'll have two minutes to testify if you are interested in testifying in person please add your name to the sign-in sheet near the entrance of the chamber if you are looking to testify virtually please email our Central staff liaison Shane Pac Shane dopac boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list today's hearing is on docket number 0381 message and Order authorizing the city of Boston to
accept and expand the amount of $500,000 in the form grant for the open data curriculum awarded by Massachusetts Department of Education to be administered by the department of innovation and Technology the grant will fund the development of a curriculum that can be used by teachers in the Boston Public Schools as well as other educational providers that leverage existing open data from the city state and federal government this matter was sponsored by the administration and was referred to the
committee on February 28th 2024 we received a letter um of absence and support from councelor Braden um which I will read into the record dear chairman Sana I regret that I am able to attend this morning's Hearing in the committee on education due to her prior scheduling commitment please convey my support for the open data curriculum developed by the department of innovation and technology and the Boston Public Schools respectfully submitted by um District 9 city councelor um Liz Liz Breeden I
will also read into the record um um an absence letter from District um counselor from district 7 Tanya fernandz Anderson dear chairman Santana and Council colleagues I hope this finds you well I regret to inform you that I will be unable to attend today's hearing I'll will RW the recording to remain engage in this very important topic thank you in advance for your understanding sincerely um district 7 um counselor Tanya fernandis Anderson um I will begin um with my opening statement but want t
o thank um our panelists um for being here today um I just want before we begin I just wanted to mention um for my colleagues and the public that igr informed us um that the curriculum development that would be funded by this grant would be available not only for Boston Public Schools but also other educational providers igr also noted that the curriculum development and support would be will go through do it the department of innovation and Technology not BPS it's my understanding that this Arr
angement is meant to address do it having the capacity and expertise to develop and manage this curriculum while PS BPS would not so we'll be hearing today from the panel from do it that IG are recommended will be able to speak about the program that would be funded by this gram I just wanted to clarify in case anyone was wondering why the panel is joining us today are from do it and not BPS my office and I have had the opportunity to learn a little bit about this gram before today's hearing so
I'll just say that as chair of Education I'm excited to discuss the opportunity for the city of Boston to develop a high school level data science curriculum that will make use of real world data from the city of Boston open data portal having access to actual data about the city could provide some interesting opportunities for students to learn about Boston and investigate Community issues my hope is that this could be a way to encourage Civic engagement by our students my own Civic engagement
Journey has parked while I was in school and led me to where I am today so I'm excited to discuss how this program might be able to inspire our next Generation with that I'd like to introduce today's panelist testifying on behalf of the administration I'd like to give the panelist an opportunity to provide a brief overview of this Grant and then um I'll open it up um to discussion um for my colleagues um here today we have um Santiago GES um Chief Information officer of the city of Boston um and
then also Carri Jordan um chief of staff department of innovation technology um Chief garus and chief Jordan please proceed with your opening statement and I'll leave it up to you um as to who wants to speak first thank you thank you chair um we're really excited to be here today um we know that in our field of computer science and data analytics and data science uh there is an under representation of communities of color of women and of others in getting access to some really high paying jobs
and to really exciting careers and at the same time we know that our students when they're learning about the fundamental skills that would allow them to get access to those careers um a lot of times they're having to learn statistics and uh data visualization and things with information that's not very relevant to them so um our Hope was to leverage the vast resource that we have in terms of the open data that we collect as part of our operations we collect information about what we do uh for c
onstituent Services through 311 we collect information about the value of our properties through the assessing Department we collect so much information that is relevant to the lives of these students that we think that if we were able to uh build curriculum in partnership with BPS and with teachers that we would be able to um give access to these students to learn those really valuable skills but with information that is relevant to them so um in some ways the same way that we love finding patt
erns and examining and understanding how our City Works um that we can extend that to um the the students at BPS and Beyond to be able to learn um how data science can help us better understand the the workings and the realities of the city that we live in I don't know if car wants to yeah just say that um Carrie Jordan chief of staff department of innovation and Technology um I would just add that if we were awarded this grant we'd just be appreciative of the Department of uh Early Education an
d secondary education in Boston Public School for the partnership awesome U thank you both um so much for for that overview um I'd like now to um go into um questions um and I know so I'll I'll start off um and hopefully some of my colleagues um will will join um just that you know again thank you for that overview are there any particular grade levels or classrooms that um this curriculum would like to focus on yeah we have we have two that we have considered so Massachusetts has a required Civ
ics component uh now that is part of a graduation requirement so we've thought about like trying to do something that would align with the Civics curriculum um Al alternatively we've also been considering you developing curriculum for the math like and and data science um type of work so that's partially what we've been doing with BPS is trying to select uh what grades and what uh areas the curriculum would be the best fed um seems that initially focusing on the higher grades is a little bit eas
ier but if this is successful we could figure out ways how to adapt components of it to uh lower grades great thank you so okay so the focus would be primarily PRI middle school high school students um if if how would you measure the impact of this new curriculum if if I may yes so we um plan to get some information from both the teachers and the students around interest in data science prior and after uh participating in the curriculum um again the ability of students to complete some of the as
signments that we think that would be part of the lesson plans um we hope that in the long run the participation in this well the other thing for us as a department we hope that to see an increase in you use from the open data portal um from students and from people in BPS we invest a lot of money and trying to make sure that the that the open data portal Works uh so making sure analyze Boston is the the the name of our data portal so hopefully it will take some time to get to this but uh ideall
y we would see more BPS students going into um data science careers especially now that we're about to see this big transformation in terms of artificial intelligence and uh really exciting careers that we're setting up a lot of BPS students to go set up become billionaires and uh set up shopping Boston so it's an aspirational goal I love that I love that hopefully that way we can make that happen for our VPS students um and you know it's my understanding and obviously for my open statement you
know this is this curriculum is not just for BPS students um so um you know what specific schools are eligible and and kind of how are how are these schools chosen um to be part of this curriculum so we intend on making the curriculum available through the open data portal so any teacher anywhere in the world could use the data that's in the data portal and the curriculum and our intent is to uh put it out in a way that is open source so if someone wanted to make modifications so the curric to a
dapt it to their city or their town or their country they could um we based on the funding that we have part of how we're going to use the funding is to um help get access to and compensation to BPS teachers that can help us design the curriculum so um but once it's assigned our intent is to share it broadly thank you chief um you know you just mentioned since the curriculum is um will be an open source um and I you know you just mentioned kind of your Partnerships with BPS um are you Consulting
with any other other schools other than BPS on the curriculum design um or um would there be some way of um for other schools to give feedback um back to this curriculum um not directly we've been working uh with a group called data science for everyone which is a national I think that they have some International components um of people that have been working on introducing data Science Education in K22 so through them we have access to kind of expertise and experience of school districts and
teachers and Educators that have been doing this throughout the US um and including people in Can Academy and other places that have U implemented this type of instruction so um our hope is once we develop the curriculum with the feedback of BPS but informed with this kind of group of experts that will make it available and again our hope is that um by the end of this the curriculum is the beginning of a conversation and if people want to enhance it take it repurpose it change it that they uh ar
e able to do so absolutely absolutely um you know you you know I was particularly excited earlier you mentioned you know how you really how we really want our students and you know obviously our our BPS students here in the city of Boston um to go into data science and computer science careers right um and I don't know if if this isn't a question for you but um do we currently track um career trajectories for our students here in the BPS and if so um um can you speak to a little bit to that I I
what I am familiar with is I know at the state level there's a lot of great work that Desi has done uh to start tracking long-term outcome of students in Massachusetts that they'll have information I I'm not familiar with what BPS is able to do Beyond but this day they have a lot of data about postsecondary post-graduation outcomes uh income unemployment claims all sorts of stuff and they um I know that they publish some of this stuff um I don't know what BPS is doing in terms of tracking that n
o know absolutely um thank you um are there any you know obviously in open statement I mentioned how you know your role um you know as as a du it um Department in this and and why BPS is not here um are there any other parts of our school curriculum that do it has a row row in currently um or would this be a new um kind of um role for Do It um and if if there's any other roles that you played in curriculum um you know can you speak to those as well yeah well now we're we we are Partners to BPS i
n different ways and our department has the honor of providing internet connectivity to all schools uh we work closely as we support the purchasing systems the uh systems that run payroll for BPS but I think that this is the first time that we're doing uh work in the curricular side um one thing that we have started to discuss is the potential of having do it also be a place where we're going to need to have teachers be able to access professional education professional development um so being a
ble to embed themselves in teams that are doing data science and data analytics so we've also talked about potentially our amazing analytics team being host to teachers during the summertime or whatnot when they're um have time to develop and learn how these tools and skills are used so this is the first and it again I would be remiss to say this is in the spirit of Mayor woo calling us to embrace the possibilities and taking City Hall out of City Hall we figured how could do it be more helpful
and again it's just knowing that data science is something that we do in data analytics is something that we do every day for the city why not figure out how to try to get a better value for the students that our part of our city oh no thank you Chief thank you for that and um you know as as chair of Education I'm I'm very excited about um you know this new this new um opportunity that you guys are overring and um really love um you know your expansion um but to that point um you know are there
any new staff um that that's going to be you know that that this grant will be um supporting um as you're kind of expanding on this new role or would you be using um you know your your previous staff to kind of take on um the this other role yeah we've been able to use the staff to cover a project manager who's an incredibly talented person who unfortunately is unable to uh join us today but charlam miasme who had previously been a summer fellow with the mayor's office of new Orban mechanics um
is helping us get this project through the finish line and again there is a lot of work with a lot of different stakeholders and I believe that charlot me also has a background in education as well so it all plays out nicely but charia is helping us and again there's I think that there's some intent we had set aside in the budget funding to help support stiens for teachers and uh we've been in conversations with BPS around what might be needs that they have on their end to try to support the wor
k so we've been working through the budget to try to make sure that we're covering those needs yeah no thank you you know again I'm this this gets me really excited and you know again as chair of Education you know our youth and and our and our BPS students are um very important to me so um you know is is there anything that the council can do to support more Innovative curriculum um development like this um you know I I I think here on the council we um again really prioritize Our Youth and wou
ld definitely love to support um you know you you um and do the department and and and kind of how can we expand it so um what like what type of what would support look like from from the council um to really um invest in more programs like this yeah well hopefully this is the beginning and not the end of uh of a way in which do it can be helpful Carrie is amazing and thinking about he's constantly pushing all of us in the department our Chiefs and others about how is it that we get connected wi
th the community and with the youth um so I think for the time being approving the grant would be a good first start but I think that again we keep working with our partners in the worker empowerment cabinet and people across the board around how we can we run a worldclass Innovation and technology department and I think that and we are of the people we're here we're we belong to these students and these families and and to you all so we we want to be able to be of use and get the best um the be
st experience but I don't know care if you have other no that that sums it up as a as a lifelong Bostonian and a student a student of BPS um I'd be proud to see the curriculum losed in the classroom whether it be Humanities whether it be math um so we're just hoping for the support and any other ideas that may come we're open to consider them great no thank you um I think I definitely covered a lot of questions here and um you know I want to stay you know kind of have it's one final question but
also like a statement um you know you mentioned you know the this um this kind of pilot will kind of be focused more on our older students or middle you know in our high school students um and you know we're talking about career paths and really setting up our our our students for Success um I and I know this is new and you're still expanding but are there any plans to um you know partner with our with our universities and colleges ac across the city and um you know really create those Pathways
um as we're training our BPS students um you know Pathways to to colleges or universities um you know again I know it's early and um but is that something that um you guys are planning on or um you know can it be a possibility yeah absolutely we we work very closely with uh the the Boston area research initiative and Dan O'Brien is an incredible academic who's built a lot of um pioneered a lot of work in urban informatics and again like how is it that we use use data and uh Advanced analytics t
o understand so there's a lot of work with people at North Eastern at bu um hopefully there's opportunities to work with people at um boss and some of the other um um schools and universities that that we have and again we know based on what we hear and the conversations and the work that we do with this University collaborators that there's an increase in um programs that they have available able to have um for like careers and data science like be you just build this beautiful new building for
data science um so yeah we that's that's the goal is that that every BPS student thinks they could go to the highest of the highest to the best of these universities to be successful and then afterwards do maybe they want they could choose a very prosperous career they can come back work with do it in the future it's just a satisfying I love that I love that no thank you um and you know thank you thank you both for for indulging me in in my questions um you know um Central staff has informed me
that there's no um there's no current um no one has signed up for public testimony um so you know I I I those are the questions that I had um but wanted to kind of open it up to you both for any um you know final remarks um or any questions for for the chair as well I just say thank you for your time today and appreciate um approval and passage like thank you for the consideration oh great thank you I just want to thank again the panelists and members of the public for um participating in today
's hearing um and really um appreciate the Insight that you both provided into into this grant um um the hearing um you know with that the hearing on docket number 0381 um is ajed thank you thank [Music] [Music] you [Music]
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