001i would like to call this meeting the prince william county school board to order a motions in order for the approval of the closed session agenda ms dargaporn chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the closed session agenda as recommended do you have a second second miss wall seconds of motion any discussion please vote miss jesse votes yes okay so the vote is six yes one not president vote williams motion passed a motion to enter closed sessions in order mr chairman mrs zargaport i move that pursuant to virginia code sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 the prince william county school board enter closed session for the following reasons one to discuss with the superintendent and staff the resignation performance appointment and release of specific employees and to receive advice on related legal issues
002as provided by virginia code section 2.2-3711a 1 and 8. 2. to review and take action on the disciplinary appeals and requests for religious exemptions for individual students as provided by virginia code section 2.2-3711a 2 and 8. 3. to consult with division council and receive legal advice on legal matters relating to specific employees and students as provided by virginia code section 2.2-3711a 1 2 7 and 8 and 4 to consult with staff and legal counsel and to receive information relating to plans protecting the safety and security of student staff in the public as well as school facilities as provided by virginia code section 2.2-3711a 8 and 19. do you have a second mr chairman miss williams second any discussion please vote lori did you vote she got it the vote is seven yes one absent ralston
003motion passed at this point this prince william county school board will enter closed session and return in approximately one hour thank you [Music] okay the prince william county school board will now return to open session from closed session moving on to the closed session certification emotions in order ms agrippa mr chairman i move that pursuant to virginia code sections 2.2-3712 the closed session of the prince william county school board meeting of november 16 2021 is be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved that the prince william county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were
004identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board do i have a second mr chairman ms williams second any discussion please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed moving on to the approval of appointments and releases of specific employees emotions in order mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session do i have a second mr chairman ms williams second any discussion please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed uh moving on 9.02 emotions in order mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the request for religious exemptions from compulsory school attendance in case number re 21-22 do you
005have a second mr chairman mr jesse any discussion please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed 9.03 parent appeal motions in order mr chairman i move that for the reasons set forth in the student management and alternative program department's letter of october 12 2021 the prince william county school board approved staff's recommendation for the long-term suspension of student hs 22-010 for the remainder of the first semester of the 20-21-22 school year through january 27 and that the school board also approved the student management and alternative program department's recommendation for the students returned to school any non-traditional education eligibility determination contained in the student management and alternative program department letter the student's placement at the time of his or her return to school if recommended by student management and alternative programs department
006and student management and alternative program department's recommendation if any regarding eligibility for computer-based instruction while on long-term suspension do i have a second mr chairman yeah my second miss williams seconds in motion any discussion please vote the vote is six yes one no williams one absent ralston motion passed okay um moving on now i'd like to call the meeting of the prince william county school board order we'll move to the pledge of allegiance um mclet do you want to lead us in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you moving on to the approval of the public meeting agenda motions in order mr chairman miss zargapur i move
007that the prince william county school board approved the public meeting agenda as recommended do i have a second mr chairman mrs williams any discussion please miss jesse okay any discus any further discussion please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed next moving on the adoption of the consent agenda emotions owner order mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the public meeting consent agenda as recommended do you have a second mr truman miss williams second any discussion miss williams um i just for 1303 um i i'm glad that we're acknowledging computer science education week and hopefully one day um coding will be considered an acceptable use for substitution for foreign language requirements for those students that can't meet foreign language and clearly coding and computer science is
008an integral part of our the fabric of our society so i'm glad that we're celebrating it excellent please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed okay great moving on to citizen comment time those citizens have signed up in advance where the clerk may address the school board this evening when they are called to the podium the citizen comment period for regular school board meetings limited to one hour with the first half hour reserved for comments on the agenda items only in the second half hour for comments on agenda items or other topics germain to the operations of the pilot or policies of policies of the prince william county schools we have zero speakers on agenda items today and nine on non-agenda speakers will have three minutes to speak please use proper
009decorum and manners while at the podium if you do not do so you'll be asked to step aside when you are called to the podium please state your name and address for the record i will call the first will be the first three speakers can move up to the front or four john johnson lorena clarke lorena clarke megan colby carrera carrera carrera rakia ali john johnson good evening school board members and audience my name is john johnson 11996 is your mic on can someone help him with his mic is it on i'm sorry could you hear me okay one of the silver linings that there is has been such a thing to cover 19 is that apparent i've taken an even more rigorous look of what my kids have been learning in school and i've
010grown concerned that the increased focus on equity diversity and culturally responsive teaching and instruction has been seriously misplaced sir just if you can raise the microphone up or something or lean forward maybe that might help because the folks in the back are telling me they can't hear let's reset the clock for him um guys give me a sec reset the clock please huh that's fine but let's reset the clock okay great test test absolutely well dude thank you thank you once again one of the silver linings that there has been such a thing to kova 19 is that apparent i've taken an even more rigorous look with what my kids have been learning in school and i've been growing increasingly concerned that a focus on equity diversity and culturally responsive teaching or instruction has been
011seriously misplaced is failing to address the effects that kova 19 has had on students overall my concern aside from events from the past year also stems from referencing numerous prince william county school service resource websites some of the resources list lists organizations that actively promote topics such as critical race theory and social justice with any racism education social culturally responsive teaching or culturally responsive instruction that has been recently referenced by some members of the school board was developed by an author who is also widely known for her work in promoting crt and other such divisive or inflammatory topics virginia's own ed equity website has several pages that have similar reading lists that include other similar material including the controversial how to be an anti-racist as part of its suggested reading list by an author who
012has asserted that all institutions are devised to perpetuate racism take it all together along with news and events over the last year as a parent i'm having a hard time reconciling and understanding and believing that all of this is benign or that my concerns about cultural or equity instruction are overrun it would be tempting for me to advocate that anything equity cultural or critical related content be some earlier summarily dismissed or just more outlast ridiculed much like those who have equally ridiculed or gaslighted those who have tried to bring up similar questions to concerns but as a parent i would like the board to consider greater transparency and for parental access to educational materials that are being used to teach equity or culturally responsive content to our children or at least the option to potentially
013opt out i would also like to see further concrete steps in terms of how the school board is going to address and best help all students in prince william county recover academically academically from this past school year from cover 19. the only initiative that i've witnessed or have read so far revolves around the allocation of approximately 4.6 million across all 96 schools for tutoring tutoring that would supposedly take place for 30 minutes three times a week i'm struggling to understand this given that there's numerous teacher shortages not just in prince william county but throughout the state of virginia so a little bit of connecting tissue and linking logic would kind of help i think help me understand that at least i'm absolutely all for an education that should tell the complete story of our country
014even when it has fallen short of its own ideals there is absolutely room for sober reflection and instruction in addressing racism in the classroom but we can do better than teaching cultural or equitable theories that supposedly would benefit all but actually have political and practical prescriptions attached to it at the end of the day i think parents do have a say in what our children learn and to the ideas of which they're exposed thank you lorena clarke [Applause] good evening dr mcdade school board members and others my name is lorena clark and my address is on file with the clerk i don't often speak at the board meetings as i feel it shouldn't be my job to do so it is my opinion that we should be able to do our jobs as professionals and
015be trusted and expected to do so with that being said i stand before you as an employee who has worked at a couple of locations in the county in my 10 years of record i stand before you tonight because of site-based management prince william county is extremely large no one can deny that it requires common policies communication procedures and finally trust that those in charge will follow the policies and regulations the county has in place employees no matter where they are assigned should have the same procedures expectations and requirements that isn't so this is not because of anything except the person in charge at each site while i understand we are not clones and we are trained in the art of education county policies should be translated and applied to the same across all sites
016sick leave at some sites requires a note from doctors or you are not allowed to take your sick leave we don't even expect that from our students a parent saying the child was sick was all that is needed for students to be excused employees must pay the co-pay to see a doctor to get a note to be paid for their sick leave as this policy is not the same across all sites it is frustrating for employees who must jump through the extra hoops to use our sick leave to stay home and not get others sick it is not fair and it is not equitable this causes an unnecessary burden on staff at the sites where administrations use this policy there are many issues with site-based management outside of the example given at the elementary level
017some sites are having clt meetings four times a week while others are doing it by email allowing for their 45 minutes planning each day this puts an added stress on those educators who have less planning time due to site-based decisions resources that should be standard across the board like textbooks are site-based this leaves in equities between sites where one site purchases a physical book along with an electronic version for all students and another decides to only purchase a physical book which becomes a class set and students are left with no book to use outside the classroom sites that are permitted to charge lab fees to students can purchase additional experiences and supplies at sites that are not permitted to charge fees can access students parents and employees talk about the differences between sites due to
018site-based management when students know they are not getting the same educational experience as the sites that do offer these extras because of site-based management is an equity issue these are just a few examples of site-based management and the inequity and added stress it can cost staff and students i respect that each administrator has their own style and wants to apply it to their location it is the discrepancy between the sites in the universal rights respect and treatment of employees that i call into question please consider re-evaluating how the policy the county policies are being implemented at the site level we are struggling for employees across the spectrum we need better thank you ms clark thank you next we'll go to megan colby correa after her will be miss rokia ali kimberly stewart and rebecca darr
019hello my name is megan colby correa i'm an 11th grader at freedom high school and a part of sends or the center for environmental and natural sciences and the prince william county marine debris project i would like to thank everyone on the board for formally recognizing america recycles day in response to america recycles day i'll be talking about plastic water bottles 76 percent of students in freedom high school and patriot high school surveyed use of one or more plastic water bottles on a regular day at this rate there are over 5 000 plastic bottles being used between the two schools in one day when a plastic water bottle is thrown away it either ends up in a landfill or in the in the environment this is especially true for prince william county as less than
02038 percent of bottles are recycled though ending up in the landfill is better than ending up in the environment sierra jayann royer at the university of hawaii has found that they release methane gas and ethylene gas these two greenhouse gases contribute to climate change so even in the landfill plastic water bottles can contribute to the destruction of our environment when the bottles go into the environment they will eventually be washed into a river lake stream or other water source which will flow into the ocean this becomes a larger problem than being in landfills because it is estimated that 50 to 70 of the earth's oxygen is produced by microscopic organisms in the water called phytoplankton pollution affects their ability to photosynthesize and therefore their ability to create oxygen on top of that plastic bottles take
021450 years to break down and they never completely decompose upon breaking down they become microplastics which never leave our environment these microplastics are extremely harmful to smaller marine life which consumed them as a result of biomagnification which is simply the idea that toxins are more prevalent in higher tier consumers because they consume many of the smaller organisms that each contain some of the toxin these toxic plastics will eventually reach our larger animals including those we commonly eat in other words as plus as water bottles contaminate our environment we contaminate ourselves through the food we eat to combat this we must make a change and that change starts with reusable water bottles by using a reusable water bottle as opposed to a plastic water bottle one person could save an average of 1460 water bottles per
022year from going to a landfill or ending up in our environment this change starts with people like you and i by using reusable water bottles we could set an example and create a ripple effect that could creately impact not only our future but the next generation's future as well that's why we have brought some reusable water bottles for each of you to be role models for others and to help keep our environment clean thank you for your time thank you rokia ali um good evening school board members dr mcdade and student representatives i am rokia lee a sophomore at freedom high school and i want to thank you for giving us a chance to express the importance of using reusable water bottles and to wish you all happy happy national recycling day next i want
023you to know why we should be thinking and calling for action every day and not just today and a survey distributed to the school's districts 13 high schools it was founded that in 180 days approximately 9 million bottles in our local communities and homes were used this number will continue to increase if we do not act today and it will hopefully impact many lives such as our own and the wildlife that that is why we need a call for action not just one we keep in our agenda but where but one where we get things done i encourage members of our school district including everyone in this room every student faculty and staff member to use reusable water bottles for the sake of our future and the futures of those to come here depending on
024our work today and the important wildlife in addition to bottle usage um over 17 million barrels of oil is used to create more than 50 million plastic water bottles per year which could fuel 1.3 million cars for entire year or power 190 000 homes also a reusable water bottle takes less oil to produce replaces all the plastics that we would have used and thereby reduces both our carbon footprint and helps reduce the plastic burden on landfills oceans streams and other places that plastic waste ends up on thank you again for giving me a chance to speak tonight and i hope i made a chance change a change to use reusable water bottle because it starts with us thank you kimberly stewart good evening my name is kimberly stewart and my address is on file ms
025sarah woke up this morning at 5 am to get ready for work before she had finished getting ready she was already thinking about how to finish grading those papers that didn't get done last night the assignment she needed to upload to canvas the meeting she had with a student out for covid to make sure they had the work they need the 504 teacher narrative due today the iep meeting she has after lunch and how to get her son to swim practice on time if the bus loop runs late again today she put herself together grabbed her school bag and headed off to work kissing her kids goodbye for the day before the sun was even up she gets into her classroom and immediately is greeted by six emails on top of the two she didn't
026have time to respond to in the previous evening because she was finishing the math section grades and updating parent view she spends time responding to all the emails politely and as quickly as possible knowing she has to run down to the copier to make the last of the copies before students arrive and she is on the bus loop she makes her cup of coffee and sets it aside to run at the copier to find that it's broken again so she will need to upload the assignment now in canvas and switch up her original intended instructional plan she runs back to the classroom to set up the board post the objectives for the day set out the first activity and prep the smart board something's wrong with the smart board and it won't let her share
027her screen she's immediately emails for tech support as the principal is passing by and asks her to please cover for her colleague who will be out today because she could not get a sub to pick up the job now the grading that was going to get done will have to wait for swim practice she quickly realizes she forgot to cut out the pieces she needs for the math lesson because her student had an emergency issue yesterday and five minutes before 26 kiddos will be in her classroom she frantically tackles what's left for her to do before she grabs her coat to bust loop knowing that her cold cup of coffee will have to wait until after later it's only 9 a.m for the past two months i've come to these meetings and watched as your
028teachers have continuously stood up here and addressed their concerns regarding the current increasing demands and expectations they face almost daily i have heard them ask for increased support resources and solutions to the growing issues they face in order for this district to provide world-class educators i'm sorry a world-class education we must treat our teachers like world-class educators we must hire the best provide them the best and so they can provide our students their very best i offer each of you a challenge tonight over the next few weeks to get into our schools our classrooms and shadow a day in the life of our teachers at all levels who are overworked stressed exhausted burnt out teachers and see the true nature of the daily work and the challenges and issues they face that you are all
029asking them to do the decisions you make impact real people and these decisions and these people are begging you to take something off their plate provide them proper support and pay them for the true work they are continuously doing if you are truly working to support all stakeholders and support our teachers because they are the foundation in the first line to providing students and parents of this district a world-class education and you're currently failing at receiving a grade of an f rebecca dar [Applause] rebecca darr jessica newton and then after her will be wendy haddock and carmen thomas jessica newton hi my name is jessica newton i'm in gainesville my address is on file i'd like to address the town hall that happened last night for lori to come out and say that this town
030hall was to learn about culturally responsive instruction and then deny anyone the ability to question critical race theories completely insane many of us referenced maria burgos who was selected to be on the panel last night we questioned her at equity training for our teachers on the vdoe website which clearly references critical race theory today and marxist paolo ferrari by the end of the q a maria admitted that she is in fact implementing certain tenets of critical race theory so i ask again why we cannot just be open and honest about what we are doing the point of the town hall was for an open discussion not for lori's narrow definition allowing for only questions that she saw fit the vdoe and pwcs have openly embraced paulo ferrari through culturally responsive instruction using his education framework
031maria burgos quotes in her own equity training you can look it up on youtube education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world paolo ferreira the pedagogy of the oppressed who is this person paulo ferreri prescriptions for critical pedagogy were informed by a broader battle for social justice they were also importantly a product of his commitment not just to social reform but also to a socialist revolution ferrari was a marxist you are trying to turn our children into little social justice warriors and we see you school
032is not the place no matter how hard you try to change the definitions of the words and hide your attention intentions even maria burgos doesn't hide it anymore why are you i've seen lots of comments on how i or we should host our own town hall where we can talk about critical race theory all we want there what good will that do the definition of a town hall is an event at which a politician or public official answers questions from members of the public laurie only wants to answer questions she likes and sees fit your own equity and inclusion officer admitted to including tenants of critical race theory in her training it's time to fess up which one of you will be bold enough to address us openly and honestly about your intentions because miss
033laurie williams isn't it thank you [Applause] wendy haddock my name is wendy haddock and my address is on file with the clerk i'm speaking you tonight to raise my concerns about the school district's covet contact tracing and mandatory quarantine policy i submitted a letter to the board members last friday stating my concerns my daughter was contact trace for the second time last monday through my communication with her school i discovered what the policy really involves a student who is only exhibiting two covid-like symptoms two is put into isolation and sent home we all understand what the covet symptoms are there's a wide range of covid like symptoms and they mimic other illnesses and other conditions such as seasonal allergies a student could come to the nurse say i have a runny nose and a sore
034throat from seasonal allergies and they are sent home to quarantine and considered a probable covet case parents please hear what i'm saying your child is being sent home to be mandatory quarantined by the school system for only two covalent symptoms and they are not required to take a cova test to prove that they are positive then the school con goes on to conduct contact tracing and sends home hundreds of schools your school system currently has 446 children in quarantine and it's based on not covered tested cases this means a student who has been deemed in close contact will miss 7 to 14 days of instructional learning activities for a student who is not even tested positive for coved mandatory quarantine is enforced for someone who has maybe only has a common cold or sinus infection
035this policy must be revised immediately to include mandatory testing for student exhibiting symptoms this school district i believe received million federal dollars in covert relief aid some of that money should immediately been bought taken to purchase cova tests if this policy continues then all students fully vaccinated and unvaccinated must be quarantined because it's well documented that a fully vaccinated person can indeed have a breakthrough case of covid carry the viral load in their nasal passages and spread covet to others therefore if you continue to only mandatory quarantine unvaccinated students you are not helping to stop the spread of if you continue with his contact tracing and mandatory quarantine it must involve both unvaccinated and vaccinated students how can the school district make covid policy decisions when you are unaware of how many exact covet tested
036positive students you have in your school district carmen thomas [Applause] carmen thomas hello thank you i appreciate the opportunity to give in tonight to let me speak on some concerns that i have over the last two weeks my son who has been quarantined he was sent home last wednesday he has tested negative he does not have any coveted symptoms but yet he is mandated to stay at home for three additional days after testing negative when i asked the school to explain why this is there's different explanations one of the explanations is we have we start on day zero i've never heard of this explanation before until monday on monday the nurse told me that the date she gave me were incorrect then she also explained to me that he had a second person that he
037was around so now he has to restart quarantine again he has already missed an entire week of school he was sent home with a computer he was also told that he would be astronaut i do not say that word right but online learning that means there's no teacher monitoring my son i work outside of the home because my son is 11 i am not going to leave him home he is an elementary school child the school told me i should leave him at home and go to work that was their suggestion if that doesn't make you angry enough it should that is wrong number one my son has been in tears since yesterday he is confused he feels he's being punished but yet he is negative for covet and mandated to stay at home until
038thursday he has no symptoms why is he still required to be at home the same thing happened to my daughter in september she is in kindergarten she is five again i work outside the home i am a single parent of five kids i have them the entire all the time 98 of the time it is up to me to find child care it is up to me to work and to provide for them how can i do that if you guys are constantly quarantining children that do not have any symptoms that test negative each of my children have tested negative i have not had one case of covet in my home not one this entire pandemic it is infuriating to me my children are very frustrated all they want to do is go to school
039it's amazing to me that that is not taken seriously they want their education they want to be at school please the quarantine needs to be looked at and the restrictions need to be changed thank you [Applause] thank you um okay that concludes citizen comment time we will now move on to 1501 the annual school calendar this was on for information two weeks ago the calendar options were put out for public comments and just to review very quickly the respondents to the survey um chose option a which is very similar to this school year the majority uh of respondents which was 79 of the i think 3000 plus that responded to the survey is that right dr quesada 79 of respondents chose option a which is exactly this year's calendar which is a two-week christmas break
040and the other holidays um 75 percent of parents 84 percent of staff and 80 percent of students so at this point i will entertain a motion miss arghapour thank you mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved option a for the 2022-23 annual school calendar do i have a second for that motion second miss jesse seconds discussion anybody need a review on the options we're good okay at this time please vote the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion passed excellent uh moving on to our student representatives time joining us this evening on the dice is um machlete cerephel a junior who attends hilton high school mr phil mclis rafal salaam my name is matlix rafal your alternate student rep for the year 2020 2021. saying that doesn't get old
041it really is such an honor to represent the brightest and most dedicated students in the state not to mention the absolute delight i have about conversations that but whenever i reiterate local government proceedings i've come to realize that most prince william county students are active in their voice and noble in their thoughts a practice that ensures positive navigation of difficult conversations leading to progress a practice that many adults let alone high school students are not used to in fact we as a state just recently encountered an important opportunity to display said action in a powerful way the gubernatorial election prince william county students who were eligible to vote came out and played their part in a productive society our timelines instagram feeds and for you pages were flooded with proud red white and blue stickers
042and snapshots of long lines middle school students learned about the importance of a representative democracy and discussed their beliefs respectfully despite the rain and other presiding efforts it is safe to say that our generation is picking up the pace when we aren't being active in our community and being responsible citizens we're having a ball literally thanks to student initiative this year's homecoming week was safe and fun all at all homecoming dances students were either outdoors or masked the student athlete club from garfield led their annual pep rally students like jerica mahoney serenity walker and stephanie reyes worked overtime to decorate and organize activities for their fellow students at osborne park shady habib the junior class president as well as his fellow sca members inspired his class to have school spirit at my school hilton christian
043daniels and i had the honor of organizing and directing a pep rally with student mc's the junior class won the spirit stick this passion field weekend proved that all prince william county students have at least one thing in common resilience our ability to look at last year look back at ourselves and say no excuses proves that with drive and power by putting in the work and hours there's no limit as to how far our initiatives can reach the last line was for the students but if you understood the reference good on you i'd like to close my introduction and use my platform to remind my fellow students to be kind in their words we're so used to a virtual setting that we often forget the importance of how you come across online intention is always
044something to consider on the opposite end of the screen but at the end of the day you are responsible for the things that you post i myself learned a valuable lesson in being aware of your all-night audience and being wise about the things you say online respect your fellow students backgrounds pronouns and beliefs this quarter was hard a reality check for most about the actuality of scholarly responsibility if you're a student tuned in right now i'm proud of you for persevering in your own way be kind to yourself and your teachers i can't wait to inform you about some of the cool initiatives we have brewing for you but until next time peace be with you thank you excellent thank you very good moving on to dr mcdade superintendent's time thank you mr chairman good
045evening this week as prince william county public schools recognizes american education week i would like to thank our teachers support staff administrators and substitute educators for their dedication to our students schools and communities i recognize the diligence resilience and commitment that you have demonstrated through this difficult pandemic and i appreciate your efforts i continue to listen to the feedback from our staff members and would like to assure our teachers that i am aware of concerns expressed regarding missed planning time to cover the classroom of a colleague we have been looking into this matter and plan to provide our findings and resolution at the december first board meeting i want to take this time to recognize chanelle agee our library media programs and research supervisor for earning the virginia council on economic economic education 2021 virginia
046outstanding economic educator of the year ms agee is recognized as a strong proponent of equitable access to high quality materials for student learning and literacy and for her efforts in advancing economics and personal finance education through reading this evening dr jennifer quesada director of research accountability and strategic planning will provide a data summary of academic achievement for the first quarter of this school year before she begins i would like to share some key data takeaways first as we shared earlier this year it is clear the pandemic interrupted learning and as you are aware we have developed a comprehensive unfinished learning plan with targeted academic as well as social emotional well-being supports for students in this first quarter grade report you will see that there are learning challenges that continue uh with our students and it's
047not unfortunately surprising results as we anticipated this when we shared the unfinished learning plan we were aware of the gaps and anticipated the first quarter data results would further demonstrate the struggles of the pandemic it is important to note that while comparisons are typically made year over year due to the impact of the pandemic we cannot compare these results to last year given the fact that the return to in-person learning of more than 97 percent of students versus last year when most students this time were virtual a comparison of this data would not be appropriate the results of the first quarter demonstrate the importance of accelerating our work to the greatest extent possible especially in the area of mathematics which is also the area where we saw the greatest impact in the state of the
048school's report that was shared earlier this school year this year students in grades three through eight took the virginia growth assessment in reading and mathematics to measure growth during the school year individual student score reports will be provided with details of how students performed on each test item but the growth assessments do not include a passing or failing score the growth assessments focus on identifying skills students learned and skills that may require additional support this school year these assessments have clearly shown that there is considerable support necessary in mathematics that has been the consistent theme from multiple data sets with students scoring 40 a 45 proficiency rate this is comparable to the results that we saw in sol data from the prior year additionally first quarter reporting also shows that our virtual students continue to
049face challenges to learning at a higher rate than in-person learners we will target this student population to ensure they are receiving the necessary supports as a component of the unfinished learning plan lastly the first quarter data report also shows that our english learners and our students with disabilities continue to experience greater academic challenges in comparison to their peers implementation of targeted supports has begun and i believe the results of these efforts will manifest over multiple years our staff and students are working hard to regain ground loss during the pandemic but it is also clear that there is a considerable amount of work to do we are committed to staying the course ensuring acceleration of learning through high dosage tutoring needed interventions and extended and expanded learning opportunities as well as supporting social emotional needs as
050i stated earlier recovery will take considerable time i am optimistic that our teachers and students will demonstrate progress throughout this school year and the years ahead as we know this is a multi-year process towards recovery at this time i would like to invite dr jennifer quesada to share a brief presentation with the data from the first quarter reporting period that takes a look at both grades and attendance all right good good evening chairman latif school board members and thank you dr mcdade for that introduction the purpose of this update is to provide you the board and the public with data from the first quarter just for information purposes the first quarter ended on october 29th and grades got finalized in the hub just before the veterans day holiday on november 11th the presentation tonight provides
051some background information on enrollment in terms of in-person and virtual as well as attendance introductory information about the new virginia growth assessment is included in elementary performance in terms of grades and reading level and secondary performance grades and a failing courses analysis will also be discussed as dr mcdate has indicated over 97 percent of students in prince william county schools attended school in person in during the first quarter the table on this slide includes some information about virtual and in-person enrollment the highest proportion of virtual students has been at the middle school level for information purposes the breakdown for various student groups is included no group had more than four percent in virtual instruction this slide into includes two looks at attendance for both students attending school in person and virtually the first table shows
052the percent of students by the count of days missed the first quarter had 45 days just for information purposes 32 percent of our students overall had zero absences and 18 had five or more absences were lower for our virtual students the table on the right shows the percent of attendance this is a calculation that looks at the average daily attendance divided by the average daily membership and overall the percent of attendance was 94 percent for the first quarter which is close to a typical year the next section of the presentation includes information about the new virginia growth assessment that dr mcdade introduced in her talking points the virginia legislature passed a law effective this summer that requires the administration of what they call through year growth assessments in reading and mathematics for students in grades
053three through eight this year the fall growth assessment was offered earlier the assessment is designed to be used as baseline for determining growth over the course of the year and also is one way to identify areas of unfinished learning from the prior school year this fall students were assessed on the prior year's content and as dr mcdade indicated rather than assigning passing scores these assessments are built using a vertical scale that puts all the content in a given subject area onto a single scale vdoe's recommendation for using these scores is as a baseline for growth and as an estimate of performance on the previous year's content overall 93 percent of our students participated in the mathematics tests and 40 94 i'm sorry i participated in reading this includes over 95 percent of our in-person students
054and just over a third of the virtual students it's important to note that these tests had to be administered in person this slide shows how students who took the sol assessments in the spring also fared on the fall virginia growth assessment so for students who took both the purpose of this is to highlight those students came into the fall at the same level to a great extent is where they were in the spring in the in this next spring students will take the regular sol tests and growth will be determined from the fall to the spring as mentioned on the last slide the proportion of students scoring in the proficient range in the fall is similar to last spring videoe explains that the scoring in the proficient range indicates that students have a baseline knowledge
055of content from last year and are prepared for new content again it's important to remember these assessments were administered early in the school year this slide also includes a link to additional information available about the growth assessments and what the scores mean for the public this presentation is available in board docs with the active link and the site can be accessed through the prince william county schools testing website the remainder of the presentation is about first quarter performance in terms of grades before looking at performance it's important to remember that prince william county schools has adopted the philosophy and approach of standards-based grading which is focused on students mastering content and allows for grade remediation and replacement so as a result some first quarter grades may be amended if students demonstrate mastery of the material
056the next two slides look at elementary performance this slide shows grade distributions for elementary students in grades three through five and the four core content areas you'll see that the highest proportion of students earning a's was in history at 54 percent followed by science at 50 and the lowest proportion was in mathematics at 31 you will see that very small numbers of students receive failing grades in elementary school this next slide looks at the instructional reading level for our students in grades one through five overall sixty two percent of students were showing it reading at or above grade level at the end of the first quarter with the highest proportion in grade five at 69 percent the metric for kindergarten students will be included at the end of the year the next two slides look
057at middle school performance this slide provides a grade distribution for each of the major subject areas at the middle school level for students in grades 6 through 8. the highest proportions of students receiving a's were found in health and pe and in fine arts with the lowest in mathematics and in terms of students receiving grades of f the highest proportions were in world languages and mathematics this slide now looks at the proportion of students failing zero one and two or two or more courses overall by in person and virtual status and for english learners and students with disabilities this includes all students for whom we had the grades overall five percent of middle school students were failing two or more courses five percent of in-person students and fourteen percent of virtual students and close to
058ten percent of english learners and students with disabilities were failing two or more courses and finally the last two data slides include the same information but at the high school level for great students in grades nine through twelve in terms of grade distributions again the highest proportions of students earning a's were in fine arts and health and pe with the lowest proportion in mathematics in terms of student receiving students receiving f's the highest proportions were found in mathematics and in language arts this slide again shows the failing course analysis at the high school level at high school 69 percent of students were not failing any classes and 17 were failing two or more significantly higher proportions of our virtual students 32 percent english learners 35 and students with disabilities 24 were failing multiple courses dr
059mcdade indicated some of the key takeaways but just to summarize as indicated in the unfinished learning plan presentation as well as the state of the schools mathematics remains the content area of greatest concern and it's echoed in both the virginia growth assessment data and first quarter grades at all levels the proportion of students receiving grades of a is the lowest in mathematics and again as in previous years higher proportions of students are failing two or more courses at high school than at middle school and as dr mcdade indicated virtual only students were failing multiple courses at higher rates than in person in our english learners and students with disabilities we're also failing multiple courses at higher rates in terms of what's coming next as dr mcdade said the implementation of the unfinished learning plan specifically
060targets these areas of concern that were identified both at the end of the 2020-21 school year as well as after this first quarter of the 21-22 school year support mathematics includes math coaches targeted professional development common assessment and canvas resources support for english learners includes professional development for teachers in academic language development instruction and lesson planning and support for our students with disabilities includes again professional development increased progress monitoring and alignment of research-based interventions with students identified areas of need root cause analyses will be conducted at the school and subject level to identify specific areas with ident to address with identified students through those strategies of high dosage tutoring extended learning opportunities to accelerate student learning thank you mr chairman that concludes the superintendent's report we'll take any questions related to the first quarter reporting
061data that was shared um we'll go to miss williams and then miss jessie thank you dr casada i noticed them for the students who are failing courses do we know if that's what do we have a more in-depth analysis as to why specifically i'm curious to know if it's due to like missing assignments um because i know there's a difference too especially in virtual versus in person there tends to be a little bit more support and accountability for reminding students to complete their work on time and things of that nature i'm wondering if we had a lot of students who just in addition to maybe not uncomprehending or mastering the material whether students that just simply didn't do their work and that's why they're also failing because i know that's a first quarter issue especially
062when you're readjusting and reacclimating to a school environment would be virtual or in person ms williams i'll take that question one of the reasons in the next steps you saw a root cause analysis because we're going to we've shared data with the schools and then they they'll be receiving disaggregated data to show at the individual school level where they stand and then that has to happen at the individual school level and our level associates will be working with principals to address that there was a quick turnaround on this data so what we saw today was just the overall division level and that root cause analysis hasn't been done yet with the timing of the close of the first quarter and the commitment to report out as soon as possible so that's one of the next
063steps to figure out exactly what's happening um as a root cause across different schools because it'll be different reasons that different schools are experiencing this effect thank you i appreciate that and i appreciate look forward to the follow-up miss jesse first of all i want to thank you for sharing the data we received preliminary data for the first time under your leadership dr mcday and now we're receiving quarterly data i have a couple of questions the virginia growth assessment as a pre-assessment item what what was it what was the timeline on that when did that happen when did that occur mrs jesse that assessment occurred throughout the month of september and into the very beginning of october but most were assessed during september okay and i'm assuming it's you say baseline i i use the
064word pre-test it's sort of a pre-test so the post-test will be the actual sol and it would not be the same test there will not be a process using a this particular measure so that's a great question mrs jesse the post-test will be the spring sol and um these virginia growth assessments if you think of them are kind of like a mini version of the sol so they're all coming from the same place but it won't be the exact same assessment but they are part of the same test development and on the same scale okay when i looked at the performance the courses you know failure rate and in math we are you know we have i think a forty percent drop on it but when i look at the grades at the middle and
065high school level perhaps it seems like very few students are failing math so are we looking at whether or not our instruction aligns with the actual test performance i would have to say that's a part of the root cause analysis process where each school is really going to have to look at both grades what has been covered in the classroom to determine you know why certain students are feeling especially as we look at the english learners and students with disabilities and then also looking at to what miss williams said is it a matter of missing grades um and so those kinds of answers we don't have to respond to to the data because individual schools haven't had enough time to analyze it yet um so that's what we're expecting to find more about on a
066school-by-school basis because each school will look different in terms of the why i also noticed that that the virtual students are not doing well and i had several slides but have you done any preliminary look at why some of the virtual learners are not performing as well or have you looked at that data i think that's all the same the quarter just ended and so we quickly pulled all of this data together to get it in front of you timely but then it is going to take um even down to virtual so dr hart is overseeing the virtual program so she'll be working with miss worley to take a look at that i think we i think it is safe though to um acknowledge that you know learning math virtually is a little bit more
067challenging and so we do have to take a look at what's working for some students and not for others and how we address that i also know that ms goss is has recently learned of virtual tutoring supports from an organization that has been found to be effective and so now that we know we have those options available there will be more supports that we'll be able to target for our virtual learners but i can't um you know say enough that it does take time for us to for schools to analyze this data within their teams and they just haven't had an opportunity to dig into it the way that we would need to to have you know reasonable explanations for what is actually happening on a school by school basis as well as by grade
068level because it'll be across a school you'll find different reasons for different grade levels as well within the school and we just haven't had the opportunity to do that because of the quick turnaround on presenting this with the data and schools haven't had a lot a lot of time to grapple with this yet and your english learners that's something that seems to be something that you're going to be looking at also yes and i want i want to make sure that i impress upon everyone that as i stated earlier we unfortunately anticipated that this is what we were going to see and so when we presented the unfinished learning plan it incorporates multiple data sets this is only one view of what's happening as a result of the pandemic and we have to take all
069of those things into consideration we also have to take into consideration that students are reacclimating to being in school we do know that a part of the plan we talked about the need for greater social emotional supports for students that also impacts um learning so all of those things have been taken into consideration in the comprehensive plan that ms goss presented to the board and to the public earlier this school year and what we don't want to do is pile on we want to stay the course with the plan that we have because this plan did anticipate that we were going to continue to see data that points to the fact that we have these gaps that exist but we do have to implement with fidelity stay the course and evaluate along the way to
070make determinations about what's working and what's not working before we make any course corrections and being careful not to just continue to pile on more and more things because you know right now you know teachers are are doing a lot um and we're continuing to hear that and it's challenging so we do need to stay the course and implement the plan that we currently have in place with fidelity understanding that the full plan even as it is can't be implemented all at once in one year i agree because there's there's so much as a teacher starting out and having to do a pre-assessment which was never a part of what we did necessarily i think everyone did different things at different school levels actually i'm surprised when i looked at the data how well they
071did on a pre-assessment in september because it does take a while for students to acclimate i guess two other questions are are you going to disaggregate the data and two questions are you going to disaggregate and will we get a i'm not asking for a mid-year report but when will we get the next report as a board so we've committed that you'll every quarter when um when grades reports come out then we'll share like we did today we'll share that data with the board additionally when it is time for the spring assessment we'll bring that forward but you should expect that quarterly we'll have some updates uh both on the grades as well as this root cause analysis that schools will be working towards to determine one you know some of the why behind first
072quarter reporting and then whether or not um you know to what degree we've been able to implement some of the strategies in the plan and whether or not we're seeing benefits from that from the data that we currently have available so court i would say quarterly you should expect that we'll come back with whatever data sets we do have uh to share with the board and with the public i it's just more than appreciated i just wanted to you know a lot of people come before this board and make presentations and i just want to compliment jennifer quesada you know she oh she's a data genius i'm not sure what the term is but you have provided us with all sorts of data in the past and now you stepped up to the plate to
073working on the dr mcday to give us the additional data you did the calendar and that was done well with surveys and you also provided us with additional data here i just want to say thank you and i appreciate your professionalism and your work thank you mr wilk thank you dr mcdade thank you dr quesada just a couple things i think would be helpful as you know these are preliminary and early reports uh one thing i would like to see potentially disaggregated with the virtual failures is how many of those are with synchronous live instruction and how much of that is asynchronous self-paced courses that students might be signed up for because i know we offer both different types of courses here so like an edmentum or another program like that versus kids who might
074be taking live courses with virtual virginia or any of the courses that we offer with live instructors so we'd like to see differences if we have that information because i imagine the numbers are not broken down with the initial preliminary report correct right it's not disaggregated in that way okay another thing that possibly i'd be curious to know is depending on availability what neighboring jurisdictions might have um as possible trends or comparisons to look at just kind of seeing we're seeing kind of similarities or patterns amongst other divisions as kind of like benchmarks to kind of see where we're at and then the other thing i was thinking during this is that you know what support mechanisms are in place or we could put in place i know for math and language arts english teachers
075who have the higher failure rates a lot of times they have to make or make multiple attempts to have contact with the parents and to let them know about failure if you look at those numbers that's going to put a lot more on a math teacher to have to make those contacts same with an english teacher and language arts teacher so i want to know what could we possibly do or what is being done to better support those teacher with trying to make contact with parents because that could take hours after school or completely consume planning to try to connect not to say it's wrong i think they do need to connect but what else could we do to potentially help take some of that off their plate thank you mr will we will take
076those recommendations and follow up accordingly thank you doctor mcdade people eddie miss wall thank you chairman latif um i'm looking at slide 15. sorry the failing the failing courses high school the virtual students so what i see here is that 49 of our virtual students are failing at least one course you know that's almost i mean that's pretty much half and so my question is are we could we consider bringing those kids in to be virtu out of the virtual environment and into the classroom and i guess i'll promise that question with what kind of fluidity do we have between students who are in the virtual environment how easily could we move them into could we offer to move them into the in-person environment what kind of capacity do we have available um or do
077we could we have conversations with those families you know say hey like this might not be working let's try to bring this child in and and i also recognize that we have contracts with proximity for those teachers and etc etc and so um you know maybe that might be a limitation um in doing that but i you know i just look at those numbers i i understand it's early there might be some reasons and we haven't done the analysis but still that's quite a high number of kids who will maybe for whatever reason they're in the virtual environment it might have a lot more to do with the with covid rather than what's best for the child and considering you know vaccines are now available for everybody five and up um there's uh coveted pills
078for people who actually get coveted and end up in the hospital you know that can really drastically reduce their chances of having an adverse effect from covid anyway all of that taking into consideration my my question is what you know what can we consider bringing these kids in or at least offering and how feasible would that be well we did we did honor that originally with returning reopening plans we had to protect the seats in schools so stu any student that wanted family that decides that they want to move from virtual to in person the schools are staffed to cover that right so those seats are protected for them to return likewise parents who signed up in the time frame for virtual they have that virtual seat in the right to that seat if they
079want to remain in that seat and it would be the decision of the parent to move back to in person we have been seeing constant movement from virtual to in person since the start of the school year and every uh week uh dr quesada provides us as a school division that data where we can see the percentage so we've had quite a bit of and i know i'm not to put you on the spot i know we don't have that data readily available today but we can't share it with the board so we've seen considerable movement of families moving from virtual into in person so at any time that a parent decides that they might want their child to move from virtual to in person they may do so but they also maintain the right
080to keep the virtual seat that they signed up for in the process that we had from the beginning of the year i think it would be important something that mr wolf just pointed out that these conversations be had with parents and they make the decision that they believe is best for their student to address this and that we continue to provide the supports regardless of what the parent might choose for their child miss argopor had her hand up thank you dr latif um so i just want to take a a step here um because i've had a lot of conversations with parents who are concerned about learning loss and and where their kids are going to be and this is all all stages and ages so um could we talk because i i know we've
081talked about the high dosage tutoring and we were also talking about you know staffing issues teachers don't have a lot of extra time there's um potential plans to bring in um possibly bring in some tutors we you know we heard tonight about some virtual tutoring so that we know there's possibilities out there um and you just said that this is not something that we're going to fix in like a couple months so i know that these numbers are reflecting you know this first quarter we're just getting back do we know how is anybody actually starting any of this high dosage tutoring or or how they're i know i talked with one of my principals who gave me the whole plan of what they've been doing and how they've been doing it at her school it
082was great but i just um maybe said that the parents can also understand you know we're how we're planning on doing this a little bit because that's been what i've been hearing from a lot of the parents this week yes and we have and we heard from one of our um enduring public comment from one of our parents the concerns about the shortage of staff and teachers how are teachers doing high dosage tutoring and i want to reiterate that high dosage tutoring happens during the school day so some schools have scheduled where they can utilize certified teaching staff to do high dosage tutoring in a model that they have designed within their school but then there's also models where schools are using you know college tutors they're bringing in individuals from universities to support that
083and now we have the option of potentially having virtual tutors so to some degree it is working across all schools i cannot say that with the full fidelity because some schools are having more challenges with staffing than others and so we have been trying to look at exemplar models where schools have figured this out and it really is working well to be able to share that practice division wide but we still do we still are experiencing staffing challenges overall but the expectation is that for high dosage tutoring we have additional support like teachers assistants college tutors pre-service teachers that can come in and now the possibility of virtual tutoring to be able to offer both to students who are virtual as well as students who may be in person but i don't want to overstate
084that we do still have significant challenges and our school leaders are doing the best that they possibly can to make this work i do want to ask rita to share a little bit about some of the models that are being used currently in schools to address high dosage children which i think will also be helpful for at least one of our parents that talked about not understanding how that would work and then you could if you could share a little bit ms goss about um the ver the option for virtual tutoring that may be on the table um absolutely so good evening chairman latifah and school board members one of the models if you look at elementary school the elementary schedule has something in it called core extension and we've typically used that time to
085revisit remediate provide interventions to students and so that is a time that's clearly in the schedule for elementary where this high dosage tutoring can fit naturally into the schedule at the secondary level they are offering those six sections that you may remember me speaking about before also some you know maybe looking at um utilizing what they have utilized in the past which is maybe a flex period or an assignment to a different class teachers moving to tutor students during the day utilizing additional personnel as dr mcdade mentioned again the staffing you know is a concern at a number of our schools so the exact model at every school differs but they are really working hard to find those places in the schedule that where that can fit naturally in those periods like advisory or flex
086or another time in which it doesn't impact the student's schedule while high dosage tutoring does take place during the school day it's important to remember that we also have the expanded extended learning opportunities where other tutoring is also taking place before and after school and schools do have plans to implement that as well on saturdays or at other times thank you ms goss miss jackson um thank you dr quesada for answering my questions earlier today and i know you're really busy and you took time to provide resources for the virginia grade level assessment and i just really appreciate it as a teacher i know it is imperative to have time to review the data and time the plan and it does sound like the root case analysis will take considerable time and i agree with
087what dr mcdavid and a little bit about what um mr wilkes said about the workload and on teachers right now and i look forward to a discussion about it and i think you said in december um i just want to touch back to the grades slide and you don't need to bring it up but when we're discussing grades and and student scores it's just a small part of a student's story and i it is helpful even though it doesn't tell the whole story to have trends from years past and and if we are going to compare it to neighboring divisions i just it would be interesting to see if they have the same regulations with grading as it per like as it compares to like whether or not students can get zeros or is 50
088so that i can accurately under interpret the data and that's it thank you miss williams thank you um so first i just kind of wanted to piggyback on uh what mr wilk was saying about recording reporting requirements to parents um i think it may be worth our while to also look at the policy because some teachers are exceptionally well at that but per policy just the notification of interim time can serve as noticed appearance that your student is failing and i know that from personal experience so i'm not saying that every teacher is doing that by any means but i am saying that i think that that's something that we need to look at across the board because they're a different notification requirement i mean teach teachers buildings and school students schools also use different
089methods to notify parents so it may not always be similar um because i've no parents will get to a report card and be like well i knew my student was in trouble and the response has been well you know grades are posted on parent view or student view and i know that typically happens more at the high school level than at your lower level grade so i think that's something that we as a division probably also should look at um because i could definitely see in a higher work requirement and workload how use the use of parent view for notification and that being a primary notification um things could get missed especially if you have a single parent household or things of that nature i'm also the next thing that i was thinking about or
090um i thought about just now when miss wall was speaking is you know our well first i i definitely would not as a parent would not be take kindly to my choice being in jeopardy for my student regardless of whether it's coveted or not although i do valid i think that's a valid suggestion but i also know that there's a difference to because our elementary school students are using proximity our middle school students are concurrent and our high school students are virtual virginia and so i think when we look at this data and how these students are performing we need to be specific and not just lump all virtual students together because that that's a big discrepancy in teaching styles learning styles of everything i have a virtual student who's already their schedule has shifted
091they're using core extension time they're getting extra i know that another proximity student in the same grade on the other end of the county they're not getting the same you know middle school is completely different with concurrent teaching in a classroom high school at virtual virginia i don't even know really what virtual virginia looks like so i think that those are significant differences and we need to to be very careful when we talk about virtual student failing because one of the things that i'm particularly sensitive to is people slumping it together and saying well virtual doesn't work because in my household virtual works fantastically but that's just me there's also students virtual doesn't work for but what my long-term point is i would hate to see a program that we do know works for some
092students disappear because it appears when you lump it all together that virtual students are struggling and i think that's very important to make those distinctions um because we know concurrent has problems um so when i'm looking at this and i see middle school i'm thinking well it's concurrent but an average parent outside may not be you know outside of this boardroom with not seeing this information on a regular basis may just think well virtual learning is a waste of time why do we have computers for our students why are we even utilizing canvas why are we doing these things so i think it's very important especially because technology we can't escape it so i don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water i know there's a better expression but i can't think
093of one at this time um and so i think that that that's really um yeah that was the last thing i had so but thank you doctors i just wanted to piggyback on uh when you look at data i think dr mcdavid said everything is individual i think you do look at the data and say what's happening with virtual it doesn't mean that there's a plan to eliminate virtual learning but when a segment of kids are not learning in that manner then the parent may make a decision or the school may make a recommendation i would assume i want to ask rita and it's been a long time since the policy i remember as a principal that there was a policy that when a child's letter grade dropped more than two letter grades there was
094a policy where you had to notify the parent is that still the policy or there's a modification well we do have we still continue to have the expectation that parents are contacted if their student is not passing the course this is jesse but spelled out the way it used to be it's not spelled out um in the grading regulation the way it used to be spelled out mr chairman david i just i just want to impress upon the board the importance that we not make too much out of this first quarter data in terms of understanding it better i think that it doesn't give us the full picture but i think it's information that we need to know that we should be bringing forward because it is a piece of the puzzle but understanding that
095there are so many other snapshots that we have to look at that are happening in schools and we have to also look long term across multiple quarters to see what's happening from one quarter to the next so this is our first snapshot that can give us some visibility into what's happening and keep in mind that we anticipated this right we said that we knew coming in the door that first quarter data would look uh would would demonstrate the gaps that we knew existed from the spring sol data so we didn't anticipate that there was going to be a stark difference between what we saw in the first quarter grades and the growth assessment in comparison to what you saw in the state of the schools report so i just want to make sure that we're
096not doing trying to do too much analysis ahead of the school's root cause and then also keeping in mind that this is only one snapshot in time and that it really is going to take multiple looks at a cross-section of data both qualitative and quantitative to really make strong decisions about next steps for instruction and how we support both students and staff so i just want to say that i know that there for all of us there's a sense of urgency around this and it is concerning the gaps that we know we're seeing that is coming out of this pandemic but we also have to remember that we have things in place we do have to stay the course and again recovery is going to take some time i also want to address a comment
097that was made about the policy i do think that we need to take a look at our grading policy um it may be time to revisit that and and see whether or not that is working in the way that it should for the benefit of of students and as well as supporting teachers and making the right decisions educationally for students great i think did you have one more comment miss wall i appreciate that um reality check for us with you know how to interpret this first quarter data my question is relates to the impact of quarantines um on the grades and so i mean obviously we heard parents tonight say you know they have kids who have been out multiple times when you're out a week four ten days fourteen days it's it's hard it
098really does affect kids i mean i know my kids if they missed even one day and they were they were good students and if they missed even one day they were falling apart so i know that is a factor i'm sure there is an impact of those quarantines and so i would hope that we can maybe more narrowly tailor our quarantines um to the harm that we're to the risk that we're trying to prevent with covad but also understand that we have put kids under tremendous risk because we keep sending them out on absences but my question is regarding slide four um so with that idea of quarantines etc um five or more absences that total number is eighteen percent are the corn kids who are in quarantine are they factored into that eighteen percent
099that's a great that's a great question um miss wall so when students are quarantined and they are accessing content they're not included in absences because they're um they're counted as participating when they're accessing content that's um that's the way that the process is for attendance so follow-up would be um for kids who are accessing their content asynchronously how do we know that they're they're actually i mean how do how do we count them as present i guess if they do an assignment or if they log in or or something like that uh mr chairman denise is here too yeah miss hebner so i'll keep the answer fairly narrow we do have a variety of attendance codes that indicate when a child is in isolation or when they are in quarantine and not accessing curriculum or
100when they are in quarantine and accessing curriculum and that triggers the different absences so when a child is not accessing curriculum and is not in quarantine that's when we consider it to be absent but it so there's a variety of codes that cover all the different scenarios you know out with illness that's confirmed illness out on quarantine quarantine not accessing curriculum and quarantine when they are accessing curriculum and that is left up to the teachers the teachers are the ones who typically record you know the the attendance and so it is in a variety of ways the completion of assignment teachers contacting office hours reaching out to students there are a variety of ways that count as attending okay that's enlightening so this eighteen percent five or more absent number is basically out that's in
101addition to the number of kids and i know now it's around 400 something somebody quoted that and i think i saw that the other day when i was looking on the website but you know i know earlier on in so in the quarter it was like really high you know we had like thousands a thousand students regularly on quarantine so this 18 doesn't even capture the number of kids that we've kind of put out on a like a mandatory absence through quarantine right so that i mean i think they're i think we're definitely like this performance data is has definitely been impacted by the policies that come from bdh pwp prince william health district that are kind of mandating at that higher level what we're doing here at the local level is that correct so
102yeah that is correct um we do and we are required to follow the policies and the restrictions that are put in place by the virginia department of health we do collaborate with the health district and we have expressed our concern is our primary goal to keep our kids in school we want our children to learn we want them to be with us and so we do try to use the least restrictive situation thank you miss hemner and to that note you know some of the school districts in the regional area have decided to um while i you know have serious concerns about the quarantining and the quarantine restrictions and and requirements by the vdh and i i i disagree with them but many of the school divisions have we've we've had the least restrictive meaning
103we have the seven days and the five days i mean loudon and fairfax have just sort of decided to follow along with what we've been doing since the beginning so our quarantine number days i think are less than divisions our size across the state thank you for this dr mcdade i think as you do the root cause analysis looking at maybe the students who've been quarantined to see how their grades are might be one one thing to look at just you know as we start you know advocating for reducing quarantine times um over the next few months you know we it would be it would be helpful to see what what the quarantines are doing to our students um while i i really do appreciate this i think it is important for the public and
104for the parents that the board recognizes that it's not just the students failing that is concerning it is the students not getting the a's they were who are now getting b's the kids getting c's who are not getting b's it is the students across the division not just the ones failing it's everybody who's not performing where they normally perform that is a serious concern by the board by dr mcdade and as noted by dr mcdade's comments you know this is something we're going to address over time and we're going to make adjustments accordingly so as you look at the slides and you see okay students failing there's more to it than that there are our students and i want to thank our teachers who really are working overtime full-time to because they know they see
105the student who's getting a b and a c who wasn't who used to get an a they're dealing with that kid and that kid's stress they're seeing the students who are getting c's who who used to get b's and d's who used to get a's and b's they're seeing that so it's not just the students failing our teachers are trying to do the heavy lifting for everyone and you know i i have seen some amazing teachers you know putting out extra assignments extra homework things to help the student understand in in and realize the mastery of the information with sort of project-based learning assignments and extra credit assignments and i found that to be um you know in my experience and parents who are reporting to me very helpful in students recovering things that they
106may have missed last year so an extra credit assignment may be a math section that they didn't really you know maybe cover real well last year and so we'll give that as an extra homework assignment and and you turn it in you get some extra credit but but it shows mastery of information that actually that math assignment helps this current math assessment um i i dr mcdade i truly appreciate this you know while universities going are going to test optional they are now looking at your grades that becomes more of a value to the universities because if we're not going to look at sats and acts we're looking at grades and so the reason this board has asked for grades and we're looking at them and we're concerned we're all working towards this it's not
107just you know um one of us or it's all because the stakes are very high stakes are high for our children especially our high school students and so in them learning the material is the highest stake and all the issues that are out there this is the board's highest priority is to make sure our students are learning and so i can't thank you enough for providing this reporting we will continue to look for these reports and look forward to the root cause analysis effort and we we thank you and i think we'll move on to the next topic which is the uh vsba academy awards so once a year so there's a reason we're having our school board meeting tonight we normally do it on wednesdays we're doing it on a tuesday because the school
108boards across the state are attending a conference hosted by the virginia school board association it's a two-day conference and so at around this time each year we award board members who've taken credits courses to extend their knowledge in in understanding of how school boards should work ought to work and best practices so tonight on behalf of the virginia school boards association i am pleased to announce awards earned by our board members to the vsba academy for their commitment to effective school board governance i might add you know as i mentioned this the pandemic was brutal on boards across the country it was brutal on us trying to figure out how best we can navigate and manage what we were facing i i my school board members here i can tell you every time i called
109them they were on some session they were watching some videos some zoom conference with the vsba or other national organizations to help us better inform ourselves on how best to do what we need to do for our students and our faculty so i'd like to recognize the school virginia school board association will be recognizing miss mrs adell jackson this evening mrs lilly jesse so mr del jackson the brentsville district mrs lilly jesse of the occoquan district mrs jennifer wahl of the gainesville district miss laurie williams of the woodbridge district district vice chairwoman vice chair lisa zargaport of the um kohl's district and and myself and so congratulations what no we're not so close to what congratulations to all of you and thank you for your dedicated service to our prince william county community ms simpson
110the clerk will have certificates for each of you recognizing your efforts mr chairman yeah i'm sorry i've waited all year usually we get to know what level everyone got to we're not doing that anymore because like i was different like i was confused because you know i was really trying to beat betty covington's old record and get the most attendance i'm still working towards that so sorry i just didn't know we changed the format thank you [Music] wonderful so congratulations to all of you and thank you for your dedicated service to our our county and our school division um next we'll go to board matters we'll start with mr wilk this evening thank you mr chairman uh first one to just recognize a couple events uh first i did attend potomac shores middle school had
111a veterans day breakfast last friday hosted by the pto i had great conversations with veterans and men and women who have served are actively serving our country there is a desire for more parent volunteers and helping in the potentially the schools at the secondary level so it was good to hear from them i also visited covington harper which is right down the road from them listened and joined a strings lesson and then was a participant in a pre-k classroom as the kids colored military hearts attended and visited potomac middle school not to be confused with potomac shores that's right across the street off of route 1 visited henderson elementary tour participated briefly in a coral and pe class stop by swans creek montclair elementary had a wonderful military veterans parade that they quickly transferred on
112inside as a result of rain again many good conversations with veterans and thanking them for their service and looking forward tomorrow there's a montclair event as well rona recognized the forest park football team and attending their playoff game they qualified for the playoffs for the first time in a number of years although it was not the desired outcome uh that i wanted for my team they had a great season and then i did have a chance to be the mascot for the second half of the game so that was fun those are those uh head things are not really comfortable mr crow can attest he saw me there i was i was killing it right yes um and i just want a brief update um as i mentioned my last board matters about the safe
113schools committee the safe schools committee did meet for our november meeting following our board meeting concerns were brought up bless you by the representatives every board member has a representative miss jesse mentioned she appointed hers tonight so we have a full slate of every board member has a rep on that committee so eight reps and they're the voting members so the school board members miss wall and i don't actually get to vote we can be there and participate but a number of issues and behavioral items did come up and we we moved to add a december meeting normally we don't meet in december we wait till january but we will have a december meeting where the committee will discuss possibly making recommendations uh to the school board and the superintendents um so really excited about
114the work that's being done there i want to thank dr hart mr crow and their leadership there and look forward to more events coming up for the holiday season thank you miss jackson thank you dr latif since the last meeting i was able to attend patriot's final regular game of the season with miss wall versus patriot vs battlefield and my family and i were fortunate also to attend the brunsville district game this past friday i want to thank t craigwood staff for inviting me to the veterans day parade and celebration it was a wonderful event and to miss jacks and dr meitz for allowing me to come and tour their building talk with staff i know that they're extremely busy and i just appreciate their time thank you to all staff that have been reaching
115out to me i continue to listen and i look forward to december's discussion and listening to teacher concerns is directly linked to student success as ms wall may mention um i believe she said she was going to that we are going to be working out logistics to hold office hours soon and my other neighbor ms zagabor and i will be discussing it soon as well i also want to thank miss williams for your help and talking me through what the vsva delegate assembly was going to be like and taking the time saturday to meet with me and yesterday i attended the vsba delegate assembly and for the next three days myself and other board members will be attending further the sba conference which is i think dr rate mentioned while we're meeting today and i
116as always thank you to those who came this evening and have a great night thank you ms wahl thank you vice chairman chairwoman sorry um so i want to start out by thanking teachers for all their hard work and especially those who are working with our english language learner population students and our special education students because i know we you you get you have a heavy lift and i really just want to thank all of our teachers and especially those teachers for all you're doing to try to help our students i know you have um love of students and desire to help them succeed as your highest priorities um and i also wanted to say i will be um visiting battlefield high school later this month with delegate helmer to present some resolutions to the
117school several school teams at battlefield high school and i'll give you more updates on that next time we meet i was able to attend the senior regional orchestra's performance this last weekend it was just so great to sit in the audience and hear that beautiful amazing performance it was bittersweet because i just could not get out of my mind the students who didn't get to do that last year because of covid and everything else but nonetheless i was so very proud of those students and they did a great job colgan high school had an incredible showing of according to my count 20 students earning a spot in this very difficult to get into senior regional orchestra and that's a tribute to the fantastic specialty performing arts program that colgan houses here in pwcs battlefield students
118also represented us well with eight students and so from the gainesville district since i only have that one high school i want to congratulate phoebe yoon for flute kale ra katie rail's back english horn christian urico for violin megan vu violin ian rinker violin katie vu cello and chris wall bass um they had an amazing selection of music i want to thank um sorry kova silver lining is that it has brought a lot of parents into their children's classrooms and so parents are more involved and engaged than ever before and education is on the top mind for so many of our parents i encourage the division to address the sincerely held concerns about our policies including our masks and quarantines whatever we can do if it's advocacy that we need to do at the to
119the state level then we you know i encourage us to do it and i want to thank dr mcdade for that first quarter update as justice brandeis louis brandeis so famously said on the topic of transparency sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants and i appreciate the sunlight that you provided for us tonight on our first quarter data and i know it will be useful as we move forward um as ms jackson mentioned in the coming weeks we will be holding office hours for gainesville brunsville districts for community and parent interaction and we'll be taking input questions and concerns and we'll share more details of that through social media and as always please feel free to reach out to me directly through email or phone and i am happy to discuss with anybody
120any concerns thank you miss williams thank you mr chairman uh i just first want to start out by saying it was my pleasure to attend last saturday an event um held a fundraising event held by old bridge orchestra wait say i knew i was gonna mess up i'm sorry ulbridge chamber orchestra um hosted an event that benefited featherstone elementary school and starting a choir program the orchestra played magnificently it was just amazing and our own superintendent was the host at the or the emcee at the event it featured artwork from students at both colgan and featherstone elementary as they interpreted the music that they heard through art and then there was also a young woman from colgan high school who won an award forgive me because i do not remember her name but i believe
121it is been posted somewhere but i'll follow up i also want to just take this opportunity to say i was able to attend the vsba northeastern's regional meeting that was held last week it was great to talk to other school board members from around the northeast region and share updates in preparation for the vsb a conference that actually started today i was able to attend the early bird session on equity it was quite interesting to hear from the presenters and other school board members across the state as we looked at equity in reference to not only budgeting but policies and other topics i expect to learn more and as the conference runs through friday it's hybrid format this year so some people will be in there in person some people will be there virtually i
122also attended the four-part seminar series by reli which is the regional elected officials uh seminar series um that's hosted by george mason university um the last one was equity and budgeting so equity i don't think is going away and i also appreciate everyone's focus on equity because it is our job to provide resources to all students and to meet them where they are um if you don't mind mr chairman just take 30 extra seconds because the governor's school board meeting was also held on 11 10 21 we did an update on student performance heard about the additional supports and resources that our students are using are available to our students and what were what is being done to support our prince william county students at the governor's school as well as all students information on
123calendar dates and upcoming events and then i just would like to thank everyone who attended my town hall on culturally responsive instruction i think it was a very well-tended event i want to thank all of my panelists who participated during the the town hall when the information was being presented on culturally responsive instruction i had the vantage point to be able to look across the audience and saw that everyone was thoroughly interested in the material that was being presented i am especially grateful to ms little for coming to the school board suggesting the idea and then allowing me to partner with her to pull off this town hall the town hall i think it provided an excellent educational opportunity and learning format for all those who attended and i do hope that other board members
124or members of the community follow suit um it was not a town hall on culturally uh critical race theory so i know that there has been outcry from some members of the public to host one and i encourage them to do so thank you miss jesse good evening first of all i want to say thank you to dr mcdade and our staff i know it's a great deal of work i mentioned jennifer and collecting the data but i also wanted to thank principals because when we collect data here somebody has to send it up so it's just extra work for everyone and it's been a challenging year i wanted to talk about a little bit about community engagement there are sororities and fraternities in this school system in prince william county who do a phenomenal
125amount of work with our kids so i think i have a slide presentation so not in the pictures ms laurier williams who also attended this is the phi lambda lambda chapter of omega sci-fi fraternity and this was their achievement week celebration uh this chapter does so much work first of all that this achievement award i'm going to talk about this that particular event but they are also engaged in a mentorship program called omega u and when george hampton george hampton award you know george hampton's name is on was replaced the godwin school but there's a george hampton foundation they give scholarships in his honor there are so many activities that they're engaged in and i just want to highlight a few things because i think it's important for us to realize that we need help
126as a community if there's a village and dr mcday talked about community involvement and community engagement i want to highlight this particular chapter tonight so i think i have another slide this is one of our essay winners uh her name is kayla morgan and she's from colgan high school and this event and there's the president the bacillus of course he's very active in fact he says to me and joe i see mr fletcher is there he's a big time omega but they'll say anything the school board wants you can get and so this young lady was the first place winner and the second place winner was eric uh kelly he's from uh kogan high school also but these students will a third place one and i don't have a photo is theodore strange from christ
127chapel academy but these students will be able to to compete for five thousand dollars scholarship at the national level the last photo is something that as we talk about history and we talk about knowing our history i was here when dumfries elementary as a title one supervisor and i had no idea that there was a slave there's a slave cemetery on the grounds near the grounds of that school and this this lady is a friend of mine her name is norma fields and she and joanne bonneries many of you know joanne are people who work to they maintain that cemetery the omegas also help with the maintenance of that cemetery i know that harry wiggins also helps with that cemetery so i wanted to just congratulate the the men of omega sci-fi and i'm sure
128mr joe fletcher will want me to say it is the thai lambda lambda chapter of omega scifi incorporate it am i right raise your hand okay thank you thank you very much mr thank you dr latif um so i promise you this has something to do with schools i'll get to in a second so earlier this week um i was trying to do an order on my phone to order my tall vanilla latte made with whole milk and an extra pump of vanilla and it wasn't going through because um apparently they didn't have enough people working in the starbucks and they had to turn off the mobile order piece and i had to go in and and order like a you know regular person and um you know it struck me that you know i
129am a teacher and i see the stress that my colleagues are going through every day i'm watching my planning periods get whittled down into other activities and things which you know in my world i'm i'm i'm i am where i am it's fine um i'm there for my my students but i was thinking about it in terms of starbucks like i really don't want to see that happening in education i know we have a bus driver shortage and i've received some emails this week with concerns about the buses and there's uh concerns about how much stuff we're piling on teachers plates which is considerable because we have to evaluate a little more data there's not more people in the building to help with this data evaluation and disaggregation and all that so um as we
130get toward um you know we get further into this school year we heard a report of what's going on in the first quarter i just want to uh you know just remind us we're kind of still in this pandemic but i'm hoping i'm really hoping that with more people being vaccinated we can maybe get volunteers back into the schools we can have more parent involvement inside the schools that that's been missing for a long long time i think some people really really are looking forward to getting back i heard parents tonight talking about quarantines i can tell you as a teacher it's really hard to to have a kid miss several of your classes and you know you it it's just a lot it it you know they you're the community you're building in your
131classroom gets broken in these little weird pieces over time so this is very very challenging for all of us um so just wanted to kind of relate my starbucks experience with i hope we don't have to turn off mobile orders for our own educations here um i wanna i know it's what it is what it is um i wanna congratulate the colgan girls field hockey for a fantastic year um and i don't know any updates dr uh uh dr latif have you heard anything about the colgan girls volleyball team other three they're winning they won woo all right good good job i'm sorry i'm very excited um sad we can't be there but oh well um and and guess what benton's uh middle school volleyball was um was undefeated this year so we may have
132a really good pipeline marshall robotics apparently has been on fire lately and uh colgan students also launched the first ever outdoor recycling program so we got a lot going on i love that these students are engaged they're showing it in in these extra activities that really engage them and interest them and we're going to get through this um oh i have to say the thing don't i doctor latif i have to say wear your mask wash your hands keep your distance if you can get vaccinated thank you wonderful um thank you to to add on to miss argipur's um statement about robotics gen walls discussion on music theater sports are all back in full swing and i don't know if it's just me but i feel like you know we're doing even better than we
133normally do at it across the division and i congratulate all those who've competed all those who've tried out all those who haven't made a team who've made the teams who've succeeded who've had seasons with victories and losses it's been a great year so far and i congratulate all of you for those robotics teams that are just starting their season fantastic best wishes to all of you take a moment to highlight a community member there's a great facebook page if you don't follow it's called prince william county sports it's the administrators alex coo khu he crowd sources the information there's other administrators and folks it is an outstanding source for information about prince william county sports he does a great service to the community highlighting students across the division in all different sports and also the
134other you know the little leagues we have in the rec league z we have across the county and and i want to congratulate him and all those who helped support his effort to get information out there you know when the local newspapers when the washington post abandoned their office they abandoned their office here in prince william county and they left they don't report on our sports they don't report on what's happening in prince william county we have local news outlets inside nova prince william times potomac local bristow beat they do their best to have it but a lot of them don't have full-time sports reporters and so folks in the community have stepped up to cover that and i really do congratulate them and thank them for that it is really a great service you
135know this discussion about parental engagement and parents having a say i can if the public doesn't know seven members of this board have either children or grandchildren in the school system currently we are parents the student the folks that have uh even the folks that ran against most of us are parents um the folks who sit on our superintendent's advisory council our parents this parents and our ptos obviously are parents we take very seriously the commitment by our parents families we we heard from them throughout the pandemic um we we took what they said very seriously and we've tried to craft a common sense approach to the return to school to getting back into school and doing it safely and we're going to try to continue to do that as we struggle through the recovery
136and the re-engagement process for our students and so our system has parent view it has canvas the teachers cannot do this alone the recovery for the learning is gonna it's a team approach it's the student is involved the teachers involved our teaching assistants are involved our our cafeteria workers are involved but our parents are also involved take an opportunity to get familiar with parent view canvas it allows you to engage with your students learning see what kind of extra opportunities there are in canvas other resources take advantage of the opportunities that the schools are offering for your student to catch up if need be and you can always email your principals your assistant principals your students counselors please do that the only way we get through this is by doing it together and and we
137can i mean i have no doubt i've i've seen this you know the students are back they're back with a not a vengeance let's say they're back with a passion uh in school this year and they're just thrilled to be back and they've embraced it and now we just have to help them do what they came here for first and foremost which is the learning so thank you all and have a happy thanksgiving and at this time the meeting is adjourned