CM Brewer on menstrual products, playgrounds, arts, and class size

Thank you.

I have a question about menstrual products, class size, playgrounds, art education, and affinity schools.

So starting with menstrual products.

So we did, we have a lot of interns.

They talked to a lot of schools.

56% of schools said that those period products are almost never available.

80% said they don't know if a student doesn't know how to report an empty dispenser.

So my question is, for the young women in the school system, how much is included in the budget for menstrual products, and how are you dealing with some of these issues?

Yeah, so for those, we're going to have to take a look and get back to you on that.

And I don't know if, Kevin, you have anything you want to share there.

Thank you, Councilmember Brewer.

I regret hearing that.

We do survey our schools and work with our principals and custodians on a daily basis.

I will absolutely follow up with a- It's not working.

Well, we're gonna follow up on a message to custodians, make sure that they are fully stocked in all locations.

Apologies.

Playgrounds, so I passed a bill that said a certain percentage of playgrounds have to be open within the next 10 years.

Obviously, custodians have to be paid.

What we're doing about this program, opening up playgrounds weekends.

And during the summer, who's in charge of that?

Well, specifically, we are supportive when funded of opening up our parks and having our custodians there to make sure it's open and available.

If there's any specific cases that are not open in your district.

No, it's not my district.

It's the law.

I passed the law.

And within a certain time period, the COE must open more playgrounds by law.

We're committed to that.

Okay, so you're going to make that happen.

An arts education, can you give me a sense of does every single school have either an art teacher and then how many have arts programs and are pre-K and even zero to two going to have art programs?

Yes, thank you for that question.

We've done really good work around our arts programming over the last two years, including at the principal level, having principals.

Who are now involved in pilots for arts programming.

So I'm going to turn it over to First Deputy Chancellor Junza to add some more.

Hi.

All right.

So we have a great number of schools that are mixed between licensed art, certified art teachers, and then...

We have in our elementary schools, you don't necessarily have to be a certified art teacher.

And then we have lots of our schools that are partnering with cultural organizations to provide the arts.

Can you get back to me with a number of certified art teachers?

How many schools have cultural organizations and how you evaluate them?

Can you get back?

For the first one with the certified, we have about 16% of the schools that currently lack a certified arts teacher.

include 168 elementary schools, 23 middle schools, 37 high schools, and 25 multi-grade schools.

So conversely, they do, the vast majority do.

Okay, but we still need 16%.

Yes, we certainly do.

Okay.

And then in terms of affinity schools, I think we talked about this a little bit before, but what's the funding situation with them?

So for affinity schools overall, we haven't had any issues with the funding mechanism for affinity schools.

Specifically, we've been talking about the new visions portal, but overall for affinity schools, their funding is in place.

Okay, because they feel differently.

And then just, I love your comic books.

I hate comics, but I like your books.

And congratulations on Hold Harmless.

And just in terms of class size, I understand two years we'll have more time to do, but do you have some sense of how many class sizes have already been reduced?

Because that's phenomenal.

And how many have not?

Yeah, so one of the things about the class size law is that that is interesting is that it's not about reducing class size necessarily.

It's about getting to the actual compliance numbers.

So, for example, you could have a kindergarten class that started off at 25 students and now is at 22.

It's not at 20, so it doesn't get counted as compliant, but it's been reduced.

And so...

So, you know, I'm going to turn it over to Aaron to talk a little bit more about the progress that we've made.

But just to say, you have to hit the mark to get credit.

Right.

You can't just reduce.

I think you all know this, but boy, when somebody gets to 20, which is ecstatic, just like I have hit gold.

Yes.

And you can tell the private suits go to hell.

Well, I can share the data that we have on progress last year.

So grades K to 3 saw a 28.7% increase.

Grades 4 to 5 saw a 23% increase.

Middle school grew 20%.

High school grew 16%.

And to the Chancellor's point, and to your point about overall progress towards class size reduction, about a third of the noncompliant classes are only one to three students over the new caps.

And we've reduced the number of classes that were six students or more above the cap.

That rate declined 12 points.

So 29% of classes in FY25 had six or more above the caps, and now it's down to 17% in FY26.

Okay, and it won't slip in the next couple of years, right?

I mean, what we're doing now is we're working to look at funding for schools and make sure that teachers are available in line with the new caps to make sure that class sizes are maintained.

Okay.

I just think you should keep going because I'm going to go.

It makes a huge difference.

Thank you.

Thank you.