001okay um good evening i would like to call this meeting of the prince william county school board to order uh this meeting of the prince william county school board has been conducted electronically under the virginia code 2237082 and the authority granted by the general assembly on april 22 2020 through amendment 28 to hospital 29 which permits the school board to meet electronically during dependency of the current state emergency for the purpose of transacting such business as is statutorily required or necessary to continue operations of the prince william county public schools and the discharge of his lawful purposes duties and responsibilities emotions in order for the approval of the closed session agenda ms zargaport mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the closed session agenda as recommended do you have a
002second mr chairman miss williams second any discussion seeing none please vote miss ralston how would you vote yes mr ralston votes yes did it come on motion passes uh next the prince william county school board or the motion is um what am i doing moving on the motion enter closed session emotions in order mrs argenport mr chairman i move that the pursuant that pursuant to virginia code section 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 the prince william county school board enter closed session for the following reasons one to discuss with division council and staff the performance appointment transfer release assignment and promotion of specific officers employees and appointees under virginia code section 2.2-3711a 1 and 8 2 to discuss and consult with legal counsel regarding requests for religious exemptions pertaining to specific students under virginia code section 2.2-3711a two
003and eight and three to receive information and discuss with division council on actual and staff actual or probable litigation and specific legal matters involving specific staff and students under virginia code section 2.2-3711a 7 and 8 and to dispense with the attendance of the superintendent and staff as necessarily as necessary as provided by virginia code section 222.1 22.1-69 i do have a second mr chairman ms williams that's william seconds any discussion is seeing no discussion please vote miss ralston how do you vote yes mr ralston votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed okay at this time the prince william county school board will um move into closed session and return in approximately one hour [Music] the prince william county school board is now returning to open session from closed session moving on to
004the closed session certification emotions in order mrs agrippa mr chairman i move that pursuant to virginia code section 2.2-3712 the closed session of the prince william county school board meeting of april 7th 2021 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be 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 identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board is there a second from this one okay okay second uh mr austin any discussion has seen no discussion please vote miss ralston how do you vote
005yes ms ralston votes yes mine came up did you refresh oh there it is the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed outstanding um motion patches uh moving on to the closed session action items um uh we do have a motion miss argipur thank you mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session have a second miss wall i second most wall seconds any discussion okay see no discussion please vote oh mr halston how do you vote my apologies [Laughter] yes yes ms ralston votes with an uh uh a a resounding yes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed okay um excellent so we're now moving on to uh the next motion uh motions in order miss zargarpur
006thank you mr chairman i move that the prince william county school school board approved the request for religious exemption for students re-24 re20-25 and re20-26 do i have a second mr chairman miss wall aye second any discussion i see no discussion please vote miss ralston how do you vote yes mr also votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed excellent motion passes next we'll move on to the um pledge of allegiance um right oh right right i gotta do the purpose of meeting um madam vice chair would you like to read the purpose of the meeting i will this meeting of the prince william county school board is being conducted electronically under virginia code section 2.2-3708-2 and the authority granted by the general assembly on april 22nd 2020 through the amendment 28 to
007house bill 29 which permits the school board to meet electronically during the penancy of the state of emergency for the purpose of transacting such business as is statutorily requested or excuse me required or necessary to continue the operations of the prince william county public schools and the discharge of its lawful purposes duties and responsibilities excellent next we'll do the pledge of allegiance um miss jesse would you like to lead this in the pledge 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 okay thank you next moving on to the approval of the public meeting agenda emotions in order miss agrippa mr chairman i move that the prince william county school board approved the public meeting agenda
008as recommended is there a second mr chairman williams high second any discussion is seeing no discussion please vote mr miss ralston how would you vote on the agenda yes miss ralston votes yes i see ben kim down there welcome ben the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed okay um excellent motion passes moving on to the adoption of the consent agenda emotions in order mr chairman mrs reporter i move that the prince william county school board approved the public meeting consent agenda as recommended uh is there a second miss wall mr chairman second okay miss wall seconds of motion any discussion as seeing no discussion please vote miss ralston how do you vote yes mr ralston votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed a yes unanimous motion passes moving on assistant comment
009time there is no citizens who've signed up for tonight's meeting not writing moving [Laughter] miss ralston it's time to come back in here we need you in here now thank you [Laughter] next we'll go to the student representative i i have here miss caroline silvera but mr kim ben kim our senior from unity reed high school our student representative of the school board will be making our student representative comments for this evening april 7th 2021 mr kim hey thank you that's my first time i've ever seen no citizen's comments that's crazy um uh good evening i look forward to sharing with you all a survey presentation on how hybrid learning is going so far but first uh let's look through the engine and item that stood out to me was the fenestration project uh contract
010award for unity read to say that i'm excited to be like an understatement because i'm not gonna be a student there by the time the renovation is complete i think it's really going to help out the students there it's a much needed infrastructure investment and this increase in natural light is going to bring a lot more life into our building but also save some lighting expenses i think all the older schools in the county should continue to be renovated so that students can learn in the best environment possible let's bring all of our buildings into the 21st century as for a new superintendent as a new student senate we're excited about the new superintendent mrs mcdade i think bwp did a really fantastic job and i'm grateful students were able to be an integral part
011of the input process um chicago is pretty cold compared to virginia but we still hope for code reds um thank you dr wallace and mr iman i want to offer an additional thank you to the division staff admin and students working on finalizing coveted safe nada proms and spirit weeks and graduations each of the high schools they look a lot different than previous years for sure but students especially seniors really hope to partake in these rites of passages from pjcs to the real world lastly i want to highlight a student senator ayesha khan from woodbridge high school a senior high school although you may not know iu show personally you've likely seen some of her work she's the creative mastermind behind the student senate twitter and a true joy to work with recently aisha was
012accepted into some amazing schools including you know harvard yale princeton dartmouth and penn you guys have masks on but you know our jaws are all dropping wherever i usually go we can't wait to see how she's going to change the world she makes us all pdcs proud now for the survey data uh mr stevens could you cue the oh yeah it's up here um so first i just did this uh student survey of hybrid learning at my school that's next slide please so about the survey it was administered to students at my school the week prior to spring break just the hybrid students got about 48 students which is about 10 percent which is the ideal amount of the 500 uh in-person students in my school it was in english and spanish i see the
013right some of the demographics of the sample so there they are next slide please so first uh when students were asked about their experience with in-person learning uh their responses seemed overwhelmingly positive as seen by the data over 80 percent reported a positive or very positive experience as opposed to some very small negatives so that's great uh next slide please uh students will also asked about what they saw as the biggest benefits and challenges of in-person instruction on the left we see the benefits we see that 54 figure for having a sense of normalcy that may indicate that what is most helpful about in-person instruction is the routine you know the schedule uh the accountability of being in the building uh personally i was surprised by the the only eight percent figure for like seeing
014friends in person so this this was a insightful data as for the challenges we see that student we see some potential student support for later start times with almost 40 percent number saying waking up earlier to go to school was a challenge we also see some students may be missing out on the social aspect of school which is maybe why they came in person in the first place from what i've heard and from personal experience i think most of this comes from lunch you know really quiet lunch rooms and stuff but my school is like we start to play music there so i guess that makes it better and maybe as more students return for quarter four i know a couple people who did return for quarter four um i hope maybe socialization can improve
015uh next slide please in this question we ask you know which best describes how impersonal learning has impacted your academics uh there's all the talk about you know does in-person help with academics but then over 60 of this respondents said that yes it did have a positive impact at 31 for no impact and six percent were negatively impacted so there's that data next slide please uh some hybrid since like you know hybrid students they can be both virtual uh and in person i thought we asked them about any challenges that maybe being teachers being in the building presented for the virtual students the majority of respondents as you see said you know there's no challenges but some did note that internet and audio issues with the mask may be challenges next slide please to kind
016of summarize across grade levels in-person learning has been a positive experience for hybrid students at uni read respondents selected a sense of normalcy as the biggest benefit of in-person instruction most of the respondents academic performances have been positively impacted by in-person instruction and for the when they're virtual there's occasional internet problems and audio disruptions with the mass thank you i can answer any questions on the floor does anybody have any questions for mr kim mr agapor not a question i just want to thank you for all the work that you guys have done uh the student senate has been amazing um you guys are such a wealth of of information and you're and you're willing to learn how to do all these things in this period of time where we've got you know you can't
017meet in the same way that you used to before right so you've got all these virtual meetings and these things that you're still accomplishing uh during this pandemic i just want to congratulate you and thank you for all of your your hard work okay well thank you and i just to add to that because you know i'd like to congratulate you mr kim on on this great work the great effort all the students have made this year the student senate as as mrs argoport pointed out has done a great job i think we ought to congratulate mr girvin jeff girvin and his department for all the work they've done in creating the student senate our high school social studies departments our high schools i know they're working on picking the next round of student senators
018and and school board reps and so um you know we we continue to thank you and this process has been really good for the public and for the students and certainly good for our board so thank you very much uh moving on next to superintendent's time and i'll take a moment here to introduce our deputy superintendent keith emon who is in for dr waltz this evening um and i think you know sometimes and i'll take a little privilege here to say that um you know we don't talk enough about deputy superintendent keith iman and all the great work he's done in the long years of service he has with our school division and he has announced his retirement this year um i've gotten a chance over the three years on my board to work with
019him got to know him even more his his lovely wife has taught my children they have given their entire life to our school division the last 16 years of their life in in his wife mrs iman janine iman continues to to rob and work and and do some great things for our schools i i think it would be very hard to to just in a few words wrap up what keith iman has meant for prince william county schools but mr iman i i can't thank you enough and i think this board thanks you and and you know we'll have more time to talk about your retirement and in the way you're going to enjoy that but um welcome this evening and and we're we're happy to hear from you regarding superintendent's time thank you sir
020good evening dr latif and i appreciate the comments they're they're heartfelt and i appreciate that thank you very much good evening everyone and i bring you dr walt's sincere apology for not being able to be with us tonight and on his behalf i appreciate the opportunity to update the school board staff members parents students and community members on the important work occurring during this pandemic i have good news to share regarding vaccinations for a number of our students during the month of april prince william county public schools is partnering with novant uva and the prince william health district to support the effort to vaccinate our students 16 years and older who qualify as a student with a disability or those who have an underlying health condition our school division has reached out to the parents
021and guardians of students who may qualify we are thankful for the partnerships that have made vaccinations available to our staff members and now to this group of students during the pandemic we continue our important efforts to ensure that equity is embedded in all of the work that we do faith thompson a first grade teacher at yorkshire elementary school serves as a model for this critical work miss thompson is working with bookworm central and spark our education foundation for pwcs to provide a program that teaches diversity and inclusion using stories the program is now being used in 117 classrooms in seven schools check out this video for more information there is more to this program than just reading the books with the student there is a whole structure that we have given to it we have
022built things around it for both the teacher and the student to have not just short-term reflective moments but really long-term reflection practices around this topic the teacher guide actually has discussion questions to start classroom discussions with their children they have classroom activities that further allow the students to experience collectively what the hope of the book was they took the vision and my input and the book selection the books that i picked and they built a whole program around it with activities and lessons for teachers there are 10 books i am human say something all are welcome you matter the day you begin the sandwich swap fry bread same same but different it's okay to be different which is my favorite one and the skin you live in so i chose these books because i've read
023a couple of these over the past couple of years in my classroom i asked my librarian for some recommendations and she gave me some great ones which are included in here and then some just from looking online and trying to find more book choices just googling so they come from a little bit from everywhere this is our alphabet and this is our alphabet same same but different it's very important for kids to see themselves in the stories that we read but i think it's important also because it gives us a chance to talk about what does it mean when someone is different than us how can we interact with someone's different than us and that helps with tolerance which they're gonna need that skill to be able to accept and other people for their entire
024lives pwcs is currently offering digital tools boot camps for parents beginning tonight and continuing through the beginning of may this inform these informative classes are very helpful for parents in light of the virtual learning taking place due to the pandemic the tools being covered in these boot camps include canvas zoom near pod flip grid padlet and adobe spark the classes are available in multiple languages and parents are encouraged to sign up through the parents tab on the pwc website at www.pwcs.edu although the pandemic has caused a majority of our teaching and learning to occur virtually we are very proud to share the pwcs has managed to continue offering our robotics program this school year check out this video on how this program has flourished during the pandemic this robot has three motors in elementary school
025we have vex iq and first lego league this is first lego league it is lego parts they build the robot and they program it onto a brick in middle school we are doing vex it is full blown metal robotics building and then in the high school we're doing vex first tech challenge first robotics competition which is the 125 pound robot and we're doing sea parch which is underwater robotics we started by building our boards and just scheduling our regular meeting and so it was understanding how to take this thing that's hands-on and do it in a safe way but also give the kids the learning experience that they were looking for be my team meet over zoom and we divide the jobs by i'm the programmer we have two brothers on our team that keep
026the robot parts and bin at their house they do the manual building we have somebody doing cad which is basically a online version of our robot we have two engineering notebook people that write down everything we do during the day and what problems we face there's a hard copy and a powerpoint presentation and then we have somebody who just makes sure everything's aligned to help out with every job the neat thing that also came out of it was collaboration between schools so my example would be marshall eaglebots and the suddenly roadrunners meet together as a team they learn together they're looking at the game together robotics is considered a sport and falls under virginia high school league because virginia high school league is allowing teams to start meeting now then our robotics kids can start
027meeting now in groups of nine and ten our school division and our coaches are excited to give the kids a season no matter what it looks like the week before spring break dr waltz had the opportunity to visit enterprise elementary school and elementary school to talk students and staff and participate in a video to be used for our outstanding educators ceremony as well as our retirees ceremony both events are being held virtually this year as a result of the covet 19 social gathering limit required by the state due to the pandemic the outstanding educators ceremony will be aired for the first time on april 27 and the retirees ceremony will be aired may 11th both will be streamed live on pwcstv.com or can be viewed on comcast channel 18 or verizon fios channel 36 both
028events will be available for viewing on demand on pwcs.com after they are first aired because of the pandemic virginia code and authority granted by the general assembly has required our school board agenda topics to be limited because of this limitation we have temporarily suspended board resolutions to recognize and honor various observances however we do think it is important to mention these observances this week is national library week and national assistant principles week we appreciate our many library media employees and assistant principals who work so hard to provide critical resources and support to our students and staff as many of you saw when you arrived at the kelly leadership center this evening we have hundreds of blue pinwheels lining the walkways outside and if we could bring the picture up that would be great these have
029been placed as part of the pinwheels for prevention campaign that is held each april to recognize child abuse prevention month these pinwheels are a visible show of support for keeping children in our pwcs community safe working together we will create positive family situations and prevent child abuse april also includes following important observances world to autism month month of the military child and national occupational therapy month and once again on behalf of dr waltz and myself thank you stay safe and healthy thank you mr imon we really appreciate it next we'll go on to the update on the prince william county racial and social justice commission with miss laurie williams miss williams thank you mr chairman um since our last school board meeting the um racial and social justice commission has initiated sub committees uh or
030i guess committees because the commission itself so on this past monday april 5th the working session for the education commission education committee excuse me met at 6 30 um it was the first of i'm sure many to come committee sessions so basically it was just framework was provided things that we'd like to look at discuss how we'd like to move forward in the future all meeting minutes will be publicly posted on the racial and social justice commission's website a few meetings worth note monday april 12th will be the working session for government services committee and that's also 6 30. monday april 26 will be the working session for the policing committee at 6 30 again um and then on thursday april 15th at 6 30 will be the main meeting again for the commission as
031a whole to discuss issues so i hope everyone will stay tuned and any information you need and further detail regarding the commission can be found on the pwcgov.org website under the human rights commission page sorry thank you okay great miss williams thank you next we'll move on to the next agenda item which is on for information at the request of miss jesse and miss williams this is our update on the work of the superintendent's advisory council on equity including the equity scorecard i guess i'll turn that over to mr imon that would be correct thank you good evening once again chairman latif vice chairwoman zargapor and members of the school board i also want to welcome any of our members serving on the superintendent's advisory council on equity who have joined us tonight either in
032person or virtually we are pleased tonight to provide the school board with an update on the work of the superintendent's advisory council on equity at ms williams request along with an introduction to the latest pwcs equity scorecard at miss jesse's request you will see an emphasis on the impact of the work of this advisory council has had on the school division everything from how equity is embedded throughout our planning and input implementation of the work we do each and every day using our equity lens to the development of the funding year 22 budget to the influence on the new strategic plan to the impact on the contents of the equity scorecard and to the development of a formal pwcs equity statement all of this work began with the advisory council's adoption of two property the
0332020 school year which guided all of this important work i'll now turn this presentation over to our advisory council facilitator mrs carolyn custer carolyn thank you mr iman next slide please good evening chairman latif school board members and dr waltz in his absence it is my pleasure to provide an update on the continued work of says the superintendent's advisory council on equity says has identified many important priorities these priorities have guided the work of the school division for this past school year priorities have focused on access to high instructional needs for all students ongoing resources programs learning opportunities and staff to support those students who are failing or falling behind staff is utilized in creative and innovative ways to ensure that all students are provided multiple and supplemental opportunities for instruction and for learning next
034slide please the equity lens to be used in decision making was recommended by says and has been adopted by prince william county schools the equity lens is continuously shared and is embedded in the daily work of all prince william county school staff currently all policies regulations and guidelines are reviewed with an equity lens and edits will be done as needed additionally mr iman dr quesada and i have been requested by the prince william county office of economic development to attend a meeting on april 15th with christina nguyen sherry johnson and maria burgos to discuss a survey regarding branding and messaging this ensures a collaborative effort of equity and inclusive practices for all prince william county stakeholders and additionally this continues our emphasis on the importance of positive outcomes that will occur when schools parents and
035communities connect and engage as assets of learning and at this time mrs teener will provide additional information about how our school division is embedding the equity lens and the work that we do daily in prince william county schools ms hemer thank you mrs custer good evening dr latif members of the school board ms deputy iman i appreciate the opportunity to share just a few examples of how we've implemented the util and utilize the recommended equity lens using an equity lens during decision making is key to ensuring that all of our students our needs are met and are successful as the slide outlines ultimately the goal is to have our work the lens embedded in the work that we do each day but just a few examples at our senior staff level the tool has been
036embedded into our planning and our meeting agenda so that when we bring an item forward for discussion we're going through the process and looking at it comprehensively to ensure that equity is a part of our con of our decision making and our discussion all members of our team review and submit in writing the aspects of the lens for the team to consider when they're bringing forward the agenda item this includes development and refinement of regulations policies as well as our day-to-day practices our school leaders have been provided the tool for use at the school level and it's a valuable tool for our leadership teams and advisory councils the creation of the graphic serves as a visual resource and reminder for leaders that we strive in equity in all that we do the lens requires us
037to ask and consider data it requires that we consider the impact of decisions not just on student achievement but on opportunity and school climate as well it demands that culturally responsive leaders recognize that there are disparity gaps and determine why they exist the process ensures that we consider what stakeholders need to be present in the discussion and reviews how disparities may be mitigated it serves as a written reminder that maybe we interrupt for just a moment only to ask because you're referring to the graphic if we could back the slide it up one i think that would be good that's okay i may be seeing something different than what you're seeing we're currently seeing and the impact of with the graphic off to the right my apologies and on the home screen it was showing
038the next slide i apologize no worries no worries so the process ensures that we consider what stakeholders need to be present in the discussion and and it reviews how disparities may be mitigated it serves as a written reminder that disparities must be mitigated this work is powerful and it's necessary to ensure excellence for all of our students our committee is grateful to mrs custard for her work on behalf of prince william county schools and mostly recently for her participation in professional development around equity during the month of march in discussion with mrs custer and our planning team we were pleased to note that many of the first steps that we've taken align with the vision of the very recently released new resources from virginia department of education with a focus on the five c's that
039promote equity continuous reflection compassionate student and family engagement cultural responsiveness curriculum reframing and courageous leadership the new video e resources include an equity audit that will be helpful in guiding the work of our committee and our schools in the future as i mentioned many of our aspects are previous work or should i say our initial steps are in alignment with the courageous leadership that calls for our leaders to understand that our differences are our greatest strength it calls for us to lead with a lens that is culturally competent and equity oriented no exceptions this must happen at all times so i'd like to highlight just a few of these examples please note that these are just a few specific examples and not a comprehensive review of all of the aspects of our work under the
040leadership of dara duggar director of osmap with support from dana scanlon our title ix and student equity officer our code behavior task force has taken the equity lens and used it to evaluate the coded behavior for bias related to gender race ethnicity culture and disability as you heard during our language arts textbook committee presentation the committee thoughtfully selected materials that ensured and reflected our diverse racial ethnic language religious and gender groups our division leaders continue to implement the use of the ecwid lens as we work to make decisions that we can work and to work to identify disproportionate representation in all programs and services based on race language and ability we're acting to disseminate racist beliefs and structures and allocate resources to support equity goals at this time i'd like to turn the presentation back
041over to mr iman thank you now if we could see slide four that would be great thank you um in light of the pandemic the advisory council's adopted priorities and the use of the equity lens were prominent in the superintendent's thinking when both adjusting spending for the current school year and developing the funding year 22 or next year's school budget which has now been presented uh has been adopted by the school board and presented to the board of county supervisors on slide four in the current fiscal year using advisory councils identified priorities things included on this slide and many others were adjustments made during the fiscal year spending things for technology support for student mental health support for school operations during the pandemic purposes of ppe and the implementation of many additional academic supports next
042slide please in the development of next year's school budget fy 22 once again those priorities were prominent in the thinking of the superintendent and the staff and the budget that was presented to the port adopted by the board things associated with those priorities included special education replacement funding supplemental summer school programming for students to provide the additional support needed following this pandemic year of instruction a division-wide purchase and implementation of language arts textbooks increased funding for economically disadvantaged students at our schools and additional translations funding next slide also in next year's school budget funding to support title ix equity in student activities and programming resources and facilities and some additional staffing to help with our efforts around equity chief among those is the chief equity officer but as you all know as board members there
043were discussions on a number of you on positions that were seen to be needed including such things as additional technology support to provide equity at all of our schools the increased numbers of technology in our schools we also included 11 additional pre-k pre-k classrooms in next year's school budget and with that i'll turn it back over mrs custer thank you sir next right please it has been my honor to serve as the facilitator of states this year the council is composed of an amazing group of individuals who are truly committed and dedicated and we are especially excited to have a student carolinas rivera as a member of the council who represents our students i have the pleasure of working with a says subcommittee on the development of our prince william county schools equity statement the
044sub committee members were dr kate olson flynn lynn colon india daniels gloria jordan maria ramadan tanisha holland denise eatner and christy taylor after much thought and discussion of our school division we completed our recommendation and we presented it to the entire council at our march meeting it was approved by all members and will be shared by mr iman to the superintendent staff in april and then with the school board for approval the work of saves connects nicely to the new strategic plan which has equity embedded throughout the plan and is identified as a core value for prince william county schools most notably is the learning and achievement for all things but certainly equity appears throughout all of the themes the indicators of success focus on equity in terms of outcomes access opportunities and research resources
045which we all know are critical saves provided valuable insight into what prince william county schools should consider in our equity sport card and they are the first audience each year to to discuss the scorecard their discussion and great questions will lead to the inclusion of additional data points and at this time i turn the presentation over to mr imon who will share additional information about the equity scorecard and then introduce dr jennifer castell thank you mrs custard and to keep i do my apology before we move to dr casada the overview of the latest pwcs equity scorecard please allow me to set the stage the equity scorecard web page is designed to provide a wealth of information group by category and section dr casado will highlight what is available and provide some examples her presentation
046has active links to the various sections of the sport card and she will demonstrate accessing some of them dr cassada is prepared to answer questions about specific charts but it would take well over an hour if not longer to go through all of the more than 100 charts that make up the scorecard during the board meeting therefore based on the agenda planning meeting with the board officers it is not our plan to go into all of them but instead to demonstrate how they can all be explored i do ask that you wait to ask questions until dr quesada has finished and to please keep in mind our discussion tonight is intended to be about the makeup and layout of the scorecard and how to use it and not about the steps being taken to address
047improvement opportunities it is our request that the school board members write those kinds of questions down and submit them to me so that they can be answered much like we have done with pandemic related questions in fact we will also set up individual meetings with board members and the appropriate staff to discuss the responses to detailed questions it's now my pleasure to turn the presentation over to dr kassad jennifer thank you mr emon good evening chairman latif school board members and mr iman i'm honored to be with you tonight to share the pwcs equity scorecard with you and the public you will notice i'm presenting from my office this is because during my presentation i will leave the powerpoint and show you the equity scorecard website as mr iman described and how you and the
048public can access the data please note that the presentation that is posted in board docs has live links to the various components of the equity scorecard webpage we encourage everyone to take a look so last year we just shared the equity scorecard with you for the first time before we had the web page developed and this year thanks to the collaborative efforts of my staff most normally marissa escara and patrice barnes as well as staff in the office of communications services most especially carl tildner we have over 80 data charts included for easy access and more coming up to the 100 mr iman was describing i'm going to highlight what we have available on the web page and share some examples of the data charts don't worry i'm not walking through all of them but
049there's a wealth of information available in this scorecard and we continue to consider additional analyses to conduct and display so what is the equity score card it's a graphical representation of pwcs data in a variety of categories using an equity lens data including in the areas of enrollment performance program participation and discipline are shown disaggregated by variables such as race ethnicity economic status english learner status disability status and sometimes gender to show gaps in addition as a result of input from the states council additional data about teachers and some resources including computers and things like trailers comparing title one and non-title one schools are also presented and as a reminder a good amount of additional information about performance at the school level can be found on both the virginia department of education school data profiles
050as well as the pwcs school data profiles links to where both of these can be accessed are included at the end of this presentation as i mentioned the equity scorecard includes data in a variety of areas the links on this slide represent those areas i also mentioned over 80 charts are considered currently included with more to come next year um for the next part of the presentation i'm going to go to each section of the scorecard to show you what is available and then i will discuss some specific examples this section of the equity scorecard provides basic demographic information about students and staff in pwcs hence called student and staff demographics student enrollment over time is shown by ethnicity economic status english learner status and disability status when you see the dark blue bars and
051you click on one it opens up below to show a data chart and text explaining that chart i'm going to show you an example now as an example on this page the staff diversity minority and non-minority graph shows the breakdown of staff for administrators instructional staff and all staff comparing the proportions that are minority and non-minority over the past three years in response to questions from space members when we discussed this at the last meeting additional elements related to staff characteristics are being considered for future scorecards as a reminder there were no updates in the next section of the scorecard i'm sorry is assessment and as a reminder there were no updates in terms of sol data since the last time we discussed this as the sol tests were not administered in the spring of
0522020 due to the pandemic those tests are being administered this spring so these charts will be updated once we have all the data you will see that there is a statement about the reason there are no sol scores for 2019-20 but for what we do have they're grouped by subject area within each subject area results are shown by ethnicity and student group for both overall pass rates and pass advance rates again each blue bar can be clicked on to show the resulting the resulting chart along with text explaining the data in the chart i'm going to show you an example using reading by ethnicity this graph shows performance by ethnic group for three years again remember this ends through 2018-19 because there were no sol reading tests given in 2019-20 as another example we have
053past advanced rates by ethnicity for the same time period what we've been showing so far has been four major racial ethnic groups asian black hispanic and white we will be adding for future presentations um the category of two or more races because that's now um required reporting for the state of virginia so to be consistent we'll be including those so parallel graphs are included for each content area i will discuss the student group charts and digital representations of gaps themselves later in the presentation the third section of the equity scorecard focuses on college and career readiness over time the measures in this section will expand also so for rights included now includes things like performance of students on advanced exams such as ap ib and cambridge as are both participation and performance of students on
054the sat and act in addition to exam performance graduation rates advanced diploma percentages and dropout rates are also included one interesting thing on this page is we have some charts that present the data in five year increments in addition to just um annual trends so i'm going to show you that one as an example a closer look oops i'm sorry do the right thing hold on a second i'm going the wrong way hold on my apologies what's happening okay um back to that sorry all great things okay so percent of graduates earning a qualifying score by ethnicity in five year increments this shows you a comparison over time looking at data from 2009 10 2014 15 and 2019-20 just to show you a different look at the data because sometimes year-to-year trends um don't tell
055the whole story okay the next slide shows you program participation this is a section that includes data about participation in gifted programs by level elementary middle and high school both annual trends and the five-year increments as we just discussed plus at the middle and height at the high school level their cte participation and abort advanced course participation at the high school level identification for special education is also included note for program participation measures um gender is also included and now i've solved my problem here again sorry for the technical challenges the graph i'm going to show you now is the percent of students identified for special education by gender just as a different look so also one thing to point out in addition to the graphs themselves there's text describing what's in the charts we've
056worked with communications um to do this to ensure accessibility and the communications office has been absolutely fantastic at working with us on that so what this graph shows you for the past three years is the identified students for special education services by gender you will see that a higher proportion of male students are identified than female students the little yellow outline box that you see represents the amount of the gap in percentage points and i will explain that just a bit more in a little bit finally the last section of the equity scorecard is the learning climate page this page includes includes the largest number of graphs future iterations may break this page into multiple components our hope is to be able to include some satisfaction data in the future also by different groups so
057the first area of focus in learning climate is discipline data are presented um by at the division level as well as separately for elementary middle and high school comparisons are included by ethnicity student group and gender and data are presented in terms of discipline referrals as well as exclusionary discipline i'm going to show you an example of exclusionary discipline by ethnicity at the division level this presentation shows the breakdown of this um with the percent of students within each group with suspension short and long-term suspensions over the past three years again this information can be seen for each level as well as by student group and by gender in addition to discipline data this page includes presentations of teacher quality as defined by the state in terms of years of experience and teachers teaching outside
058their field the data are presented comparing title one and non-title one schools and they also compare prince william county to the state in addition we've got a chart showing teacher education level and teacher retention both for title one and non-title one schools data about some resources including computers per 100 students and trailers are included it's important to note that the data shown or for the end of 2019-20 the computer data for example will obviously look much different after this current school year based on the additional resources that um mr iman talked about that have been provided by both the board and the federal funding for the remainder of the presentation i'm going to discuss a few of the data charts as examples this slide includes three charts the one on the left shows student enrollment
059in prince william county schools for the past three years it's important to note for this one slide only it includes 20 20 20 20 21 official fall membership data which is that ever important september 30th date are used to be consistent with what the state shows the outermost circle represents the current year just to highlight something you can see that the proportion of hispanic students in france william county schools has increased slightly over time with the proportion of white students decreasing slowly decreasing slightly over that same time period the two charts on the right show enrollment over the same time periods but for english learners in the lighter blue compared to native english speakers and then on the one on the bottom is economically disadvantaged students compared to those students who had not identified as
060such so you'll see the trends over time for those as well this chart is another example from the student and staff demographics page we're including it because this was something of interest in particular to the um committee members it compares staff and student breakdowns um you can see um the darker blue sections of the bar show the proportions of staff and students that are minorities and you can see how those have changed over time and compared to one another i mentioned earlier that many of the data charts most notably in performance and program participation include visual gap representations when a single group is compared to another group for example english learners and native english speakers we've overlaid the bar chart with a yellow outline box that shows you the size of the gap and percentage
061points this is just a visual representation so you can see how those size of the gap may have changed over time the types of groups that we compare are included on this um on this table on this slide just to show you um how groups are compared to one another um and to overall here are some examples of gaps i showed you one earlier for gender for students identified in for special education this slide shows you two examples first on the left the chart shows you students identified for special education by student group meaning by economic status and by english learner status you can see that the gaps for both sets of comparisons have been pretty stable about two to three percentage points um over time between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students those are the ones
062on the far left and then english learners and native english speakers um in the set of write bars the chart on the right looks at exclusionary discipline by student group a quick glance if you notice the set of bars in the middle that's comparing english learners and native speakers you'll see that there were no um no gaps um between those two groups in terms of exclusionary discipline however you do see gaps by economic status those are the bars on the left of that chart and disability status by the um those are the bars on the right the good news is that those gaps are getting smaller but the other news is that they're still there and there's work to be done remember that these data are further broken down by level elementary middle and high
063school on the scorecard page i have two more data slides for you this one shows us some graduation related data by ethnicity the chart on the left shows on-time graduation rates for the past three years by ethnicity you can see that all groups except hispanic students had graduation rates over 95 percent last year and then the chart on the right looks at advanced diploma attainment by ethnicity a quick glance here shows you that lower percentages of our black and hispanic students have received advanced diplomas than our white and asian students and then the final data slide for right now includes information about teachers as i mentioned earlier again our space members asked lots of questions related to teachers and led to the inclusion of these metrics and the scorecard and will help shape future data
064presentations here the chart on the left shows teacher retention at title 1 and non-title 1 schools you will see that teacher retention is higher at 9 non-title 1 schools a pattern that is not unique to prince william county and then the chart on the right parallels one produced by vdoe this one shows a comparison of pwcs to the state for both title one and non-title one schools in terms of a couple of different things first the proportion of teachers who are teaching outside their field that's the lightest blue teachers who are inexperienced that's the medium blue and teachers that would be both it's important to note that the scale on this chart only goes up to 10 so you can see the differences also note bwcs has lower proportions of teachers teaching outside their fields
065as well as those who are inexperienced than state inexperienced i'm sorry than state averages title one schools both in pwcs and the state as a whole have higher proportions of these teachers than non-title one schools so the last few slides are included as resources to remind people of the other data presentations at the school level that are available first pwcs is produced for upwards of 20 years annual school data profiles that include information on performance student and staff characteristics stakeholder satisfaction and program participation this slide just includes an example from minneville elementary school high school profiles also include graduation and other high school specific data prince william county school data profiles are available from the main pwcs website website for each school as well as summaries by level elementary middle and high and as i've
066mentioned a few times earlier video videoe also publishes their own school quality profiles these are really useful if someone is interested in data on a particular school and especially on how that school compares to either the division as a whole and or the state the link that's on this slide takes you to the pwcs overall report from which you can access the school report it is important also to note that in our equity scorecard in our school data profiles we don't replicate everything from the state because they do a really good job of providing some data by the school level and we make sure to link on our data profiles as well as our equity scorecard page to these videoe resources thank you all so very much for the opportunity to showcase this evolving equity
067scorecard and data presentation and thank you to school board members for their um interest in driving this over the past several years i would like to conclude by again thanking the sales members for their wonderful questions and insights each year they've been the first to discuss this score card and the work of space will drive what's included here each year scorecard is a way for pwcs to share and reflect on where we are as a school division with respect to equity in terms of outcomes opportunities and resources and help provide insight for setting priorities in keeping with the focus on equity thank you thank you dr quesada and i hope that the board was able to see the connection between the work of the superintendent's advisory council on equity and the work being done across
068our school division and the impact on things like the equity scorecard with that dr latif i'll turn the meeting back over to you thank you mr imon at this point we'll ask the board if they have any questions miss williams thank you chairman latif i first want to start by saying thank you for this presentation both um that reflects the superintendent's counsel and on the equity scorecard personally i've been asking for months to receive updated information um with regards to the equity score card i know we had received information and um periodically on the superintendent's council i'm definitely excited to hear more about the formalization of the prince william county schools equity statement that will come out of the council from what i understand it's pretty exciting so i'm looking forward to hearing more about
069that and i just want to congratulate everyone who's working on that council i have been told that it's been developing very well and that it got off to a bumpy start but people are generally much more pleased with its participation um as far as the equity scorecard goes um dr kassadek wonderful presentation i'm overly thrilled with the fact that all of this information is on our website and it's publicly available and when you click on the links they're easily excuse me easily digestible which i think is really important because i don't remember in our school's history as being able to present data in this such a diverse way and so easily digestible under this topic um but however ultimately the only reason why i wanted an update on the equity scorecard is to know what
070we were doing with regards to the information that we had what what the school division what not necessarily policies but progress what steps we were taking how we were addressing things like the achievement gap or hiring of new staff more diverse staff you know if there was an update of that nature maybe my request was misinterpreted but i think most of us on the board are pretty familiar with this information i'm definitely biased because i hawk on this all the time so i may be the most familiar on the board and i'm willing to to take that and say you know maybe i'm being a little bit more aggressive about my request but it has been months long and i understand too during covet we haven't been able to do as much as we would
071like to do just simply because of the restrictions put on us for our meetings because our main priority was simply having students in buildings our safety and and security of our students and then the rest of our families and our staff and so there were much bigger things at play immediately when we pivoted because of coved but i would like to know more about what steps the division is taking to address these issues that we finally had presented to us in a nice clean um easily digestible manner that really provided a foundation for what a lot of us knew was already occurring but we just didn't have the data compiled in a way to say this is what it looks like this is the picture and now that we're at the point where the school
072year is almost ending and we are going to have a new administration come in i think it's even more imperative that we address publicly what we have been doing what we think we may do in the future not only for the public but also sort of in a transitional sense right if we have a new administration coming in and if we're very transparent about what actions and what steps we've been undertaking i think it makes it so much better for the new administration because they're coming in on a more knowledgeable basis if they want to shift direction or whatever they'll have that opportunity to do so and also for the members of the public who are interested in the subject matter you know they may want to volunteer next year and sit on a committee
073or provide feedback for the school division so i very much appreciate this um update dr satya you did a great job of running us through and also the public on how to access this data where you know where it is what it looks like i i do think that that is very important um when we talk about the subject matter that we're all informed so i do appreciate that but i was very i would have much rather heard um personally right um what steps we were doing to just to address some of the issues that arose from having an equity score card but i think this is an important presentation as well so thank you miss jesse good evening i think there's been a miscommunication on my part perhaps because when dr burkhoff miss jesse
074can you just speak into the mic moving a little closer when dr maria barcos made the presentation i asked for an equity report card report and i talked to mr emon about an equity report card report and why this is important to me is that when i came on this board my focus has always been student learning and high levels of student learning and so you know in 2016 mrs hart mrs ralston and i went to roanoke virginia to see the first equity report card we brought it back to prince william and for me it's all about learning when dr berkos made her presentation i the term equity lens and culture diversity and cultural competence at the end of the day is all about whether or not student learning is taking place and i'm asking
075you to be patient with me because this is very personal to me in terms of my own personal growth as an individual and i've seen high levels of learning for me personally i've seen high levels of learning in schools and in the title one program that i was off given the opportunity to supervise so that's been my focus and it's been the focus of other members of this board so i think we're all on the same page but for me it's very very personal and i did not expect this very summarized report dr mr iman and if there was a change in the report i i wish i had been called because i would have asked for a little bit more data but you know that uh everything that dr quesada does i'm always praising
076but she knows that i come with the questions that i'm always going to ask the hard questions are kids really learning and when i look at this report that you gave tonight i think this is the second time that we've been told you can go to other sources to get more information you can meet with us but um i have to tell you i'm disappointed in the scope of this report tonight but that's something that we can deal with down the road i would mr kasada could you do you have um i'm just going to refer to two slides because i've been asked by community groups please know that the minority community is very concerned about the gaps and i've made presentations to them be and because they are very concerned about student learning when
077it comes to african american students when it comes to students uh all minority students and when the gap has taken place and it's not just the african-american community but all of us we're all concerned about high levels of learning and not just for meeting the goals but in advance placement do you happen to have information on what was slide 17 of your report on advanced exam performance if you don't have it i can just read it i brought it with me so um on slide the the number of the slide is is confusing me miss jessie the equity scorecard has advanced per advanced exam performance and has advanced pass rate performance by every possible um breakdown so i'll just share with you that as we look down the road you know i've been on this
078board for seven years and i've just i'm at a point where i'm just trying to share with you where i see for me personally i think other members of the board share this but when we look at slide 717 in your report that you gave to us we see that the percentage of students earning qualified scores in advance placement african american students in 2016 22 versus 52 for asian kids and 46 percent for white in 2017 we're at 24 by 2019 only 21 that's the kind of data that i think uh i was hoping we would get tonight i i was hoping would at least get i know you showed a slide on reading but it wasn't in my package on where we were in reading in terms of the gap and in slide 28
079we talk about gifted education so for me it's not just about passing or world class performance has to mean that we're concerned about our kids and give to that and advance placement so in slide 28 of the report that you gave to us earlier you will see that i'd like the equity committee to look to look at i think ms williams said what are we going to do about these gaps because the gaps are in my view when i look at the trend data we're pretty much flat lining in terms of the percentage of students in elementary gifted programs when we look at our ell and economically disadvantaged students we're looking at a 10 percent uh participation rate compared to other students so those are the kinds of things that i would like to see
080us down the road look at i know that we're going to be going through a transition and uh uh for me i'm also looking at uh this cultural diversity the culture of competency and this this lens that we look at the lens and i think there was a slide where you talked about what you guys are looking at as a lens down the road we really need to talk about what we're going to do about it i i think i'm correct that mr iman the last time we made this presentation on the scorecard and on the strategic plan he said we're not going to discuss what we're going to do about it and i think mr williams said it and i'm saying it tonight too i expect us to talk about what we're going to
081do about it are we going to change our practices when we look at best practices are we going to be looking at the meta-analysis are we going to be looking at john hattie's work or marzano's work and how we're going to change our practices and i guess i i just feel badly because i i didn't want to be the the debbie downer this evening but it's been seven years and i am just not pleased with where we talk about what are we going to what are we going to do in terms of changing our practices not adding staff not adding money what are we going to do differently to change this what looks like trend data for not just minority students but all those subgroups that we're looking at so in closing um i want
082to thank dr waltz i want to thank mr imon i want to thank uh all of you in the instructional portions of this this administration but during the during our search for superintendent one of my questions of course is what does world class really mean and if world class world class has to mean that we're looking at higher levels of learning which means in closing we have to share the good the bad and the ugly and when i look you know in your data profile you chose manyville and minneville is wonderful they're doing wonderful things but it's not really the representative representational sample of where we are and i'm just again i'm repeating myself because it's very emotional for me we have got to look at where we are and what are we going to
083do about it so to the superintendent's staff as we look down the road i'm going to be back i'm going to be asking the same question and the question is how are we going to close these gaps other than just adding personnel we've got to change our practices and i would like to see that and to mr iman i'm sorry there was a miscommunication tonight for me but for me i asked for this equity report card and if it was going to be downplayed to this 18 slide presentation i know you have your hand up but i have made the request and if you're going to modify it i would have appreciated being contacted to let me know that you were going to do that thank you mr iman thank you dr latif yeah um
084i just wanted to address a couple of quick thanks to ms williams and miss jesse's comments tonight's effort is to provide the latest data on the sport card that's only been just updated and was provided to the equity council and at their next meeting they're going to look in other words just as we presented to the board tonight to give you time to explore all of that because to go through every slide and detail tonight would take all evening this way you have a chance to look at the data we've presented the ugly all the data is there if you as as individual board members can take a look at the areas that you'd like us to explore first and to do follow-up and if you provide that to us we can respond appropriately in
085writing be it publicly or both and we've offered meet with individual board members to discuss those questions that they may have so um and again not to be to debate the interpretation but the data has to be has to be presented in a format that you understand how to go after it take a look at the things that of your highest interest and we're happy to respond so i just want to be real clear that the issues that you're presenting and i can go back and play the tape from tonight's meeting to find the issues you've identified but it'd be preferred to me that if i got those in writing we can take specific looks at those first much like we're going to do with the advisory council when we meet again they'll provide us
086with their input and we'll take a look at those areas one of the ones that they told us immediately was they wanted to look at hiring practices and what we're doing so we're going to explore that with the council among other things so we're open to doing what you both are asking for it's a stepped process because there's so much data there mr iman there has to be a point in time where we deal with as a school system what are we going to do differently and i i just think that down the road that's going to be the issue for uh many members of this board and i know i don't speak for myself what are we going to do in terms of changing our practices and i don't know what that's going to
087look like because we have a new superintendent coming in but until we look at what are we going to do differently we're going to have this trend data that seems to not change very rapidly but that's the issue the issue is what are we going to do differently and i'm sorry maybe you and i miscommunicated because i wanted a more i don't see any new data in here because i've gone back and looked at your other report that you gave to me the last time i guess one question i will ask do you have any new data what are we looking at now where are we in terms of our where do you see us in terms of our are you looking at formative data uh what are you what are we going to be
088looking at in terms of where we are now compared to where we were at the beginning of the school year and i know it's very difficult what new data we're going to be looking at i i don't dr quesada i don't know if you want to address the new data so to speak what i will say mrs jesse is is that the equity support card has been after going to the advisory council uh dr casada has worked with our associates and they too are utilizing that data to work with their t school teams in order to make those changes that you're asking about patrick assad i don't know if you have any follow-up um sure just just just a minute and miss jesse thank you as always for questions in terms of so the equity
089scorecard itself um is the division look right and so um it's it's the most up-to-date information we have in terms of big picture measures you ask about formative and in process um metrics and so the schools look at you've heard throughout the course of this year at presentations when principals have been here for the various things that they're um they're looking at in terms of performance on their own formative assessments in reading and math in other subject areas and then through their individual you know instruction with students but in terms of what we're looking at from like my office at the division level um we look big picture um division-wise you're going to be getting subsequent updates as in response to the questions that many of you asked at the last meeting there will be
090periodic reporting of as much ongoing data in terms of um elementary reading for example grades we just finished the third marking period so there'll be updates on that so from my perspective i can say that but i know that my colleagues the level associates mrs goss mrs hebner and principals and directors and supervisors are working all together to look at the everything from unit assessment data to lexia data to all sorts of different different things along the way at the individual student the classroom and the school level what this equity score card so far has been has been that division look and as i mentioned what's tricky is we didn't have some of the updates as i said we didn't have sol test last year so we didn't have some of our division performance metrics
091for the end of last year when we have those this year i mean that's coming up on us rapidly um when we'll we'll have that and we look at it first overall and then we'll do these same breakdowns um and as the new new and evolving measures and more consistent metrics for assessment across schools we're working actively with everyone to try and include that so i'm not sure that's what i can speak to because my role is to look at it um at the division perspective but the the scorecard is kind of still a big picture but looking at it what's different from how we've shared things like with the strategic plan report and everything and before is it it's focused on the comparisons of gaps which i know is of interest um to everyone
092and just shows those different things and each time we identify um gaps i know that at the next council meeting they'll have questions and that'll lead to their recommendations for things to focus on in the subsequent year um their first thing as mr iman mentioned was related to to teacher hiring but they're going to digest um the other data some of the focus last year was on the discipline piece so uh we vamped that up so i'm not sure i'm going to stop now because i feel like i'm rambling a little bit thank you i i think that i guess the best way to say it is this there are people this system is not in a category where we do not collect data at all we do as and we share data at the
093school level i think we do some responding to data but as a board i i have not in my seven years of being on this board seen a response to the data when i looked at the strategic plan it said look at when there were gaps if you notice you remember jennifer you had a little arrow at the bottom you said it'll be on the report on this equity report card the activity report card comes out an equity report card we don't talk about what are we going to do about this it's a simple question to me at some point there's got to be a point where we say this is the data this is where we're doing great this is where we're not doing so great and here's where we need to improve and
094this is what we're planning to do to respect specifically respond to those guests that's all i'm asking and to be honest with you i know you and i have been down this road and you and i've shared data and i admire your work but i'm just i want to know what we're going to do differently and somewhere in the next i guess next school year as we're coming i want to know what are we going to do differently based on the data that we have collected that's all i'm asking thank you very much for your presentation thank you miss jesse um i have a quick question you know and sort of to add on to what um miss jessie miss williams asked but you know we we got a report a few weeks ago on
095second quarter grades and um you know obviously this year's metrics will have an effect on our overall metrics as we look back on this year and in the idea of what ms jesse and ms williams are talking about or what are we doing about it now so the question i would have is you know as we announced today the idea that parents can request to go in four days i would like some clarification on this quote request and for example if we have i'm looking at the data yeah yeah so this has to do with equity it's grades and equity um so so i'm looking at the grades which will go into the equity report card and for example in mathematics we have some extremely high fail rates uh for second quarter i don't have
096to read them here um but but many of you have seen the data so so an example of how are we addressing equity how are we addressing improving improving our student success pals data we talked about is there an effort by our schools and our folks i know we've talked about okay we're going to do this tutoring and we're going to do this is there an effort to call those families and those students say hey you're struggling we know you're struggling we want you to come in four days or what can we do to help you what efforts are actively being done right now while we're in the midst of this pandemic to help address this that will play into our equity scorecard do we have anyone who can answer that or miss riemann well
097dr latif what i will say is yes schools are working proactively both in response to parent questions and concerns and reaching out to families with kids that they have concerns about perhaps some of our and what i would also like to to to say as well in terms of all those activities that are going on this year to support our students as you've heard um up until this meeting uh we've had principals attending all year long talking about the activities and the efforts that they are making at the at their schools to do to do just that but uh perhaps one of our uh level associates could address that in um uh perhaps dr hart you might be able to uh speak on behalf actually why don't you because so that that's great mr yuma
098just before we get into this whole thing um my my actually concerns right now uh you're i did ask about the elementary grades that's true but i'm looking at the high school math scores which um grades were troublesome but but sure if anyone can talk about what we're doing here to address this in an active way that can help maybe um i know miss jesse is talking about long term but these numbers right now are going to affect what this equity score card looks like next year when we're sitting here and we're going to sit back and say well it was the pandemic it was this time this is what we couldn't do anything we have a chance right now to do something what are we doing so anyone i guess you can take an
099anyone can answer that i i don't it could be elementary could be middle it could be high whoever wants it well dr latif if your focus is high school perhaps mr mulgrew can assist sure again what i would say is um you've heard some examples specifically of what's being done all year long at our meetings with principals talking about the efforts of their schools but mr mulgrew if you'd like to address high school specifically that's fine yeah dr latif we if we're comparing last year's grades in this year's grades one of the things i want to make sure is that last year we kept the concept of the the last part of it the fourth quarter so to speak after we closed out was done basically to allow students the opportunity to improve the grade
100as they did it so if i'm teaching a particular concept yeah and i'm teaching the and the student didn't get it in february but then they again demonstrate the concept and then perhaps a new concept in may we go back and give them credit rolling grade books is what we've been able to do that's why those numbers in last year were historically low so so so just to let me just clarify so second quarter grades for three of our high schools for math 20 20 21 the percent of students failing are 41 in one high school 42 percent in another high school and 37 that's not a comparison that's actually failing second quarter this year i understand that in math yeah so in in and so so i mean the board i mean let me
101not speak for the board i i have extreme amounts of anxiety about these numbers and and i worry about them and these are numbers that sort of trend out in all subjects in all grades and and so um but anyway i'm sorry go ahead and answer you you've talked about some of the things if i'm teaching a concept for example if i'm teaching jefferson's declaration of independence and then the student doesn't grasp the concept if when i teach the emancipation proclamation i compare the two if the student demonstrates a knowledge then of the declaration of independence in the comparison i go back and give them credit so i will go back and get and go back to the first quarter when i taught the concept on the declaration it doesn't matter when the student it
102does matter a little bit but you want them to get it the first time but it's more important that they grab the concept so if i do the comparison at the semester time i'll go back and give them credit the first month because they've already demonstrated knowledge on that particular aspect because all i do is i build on the earlier knowledge and i test it again i assess it again if they get the knowledge they go back it's very true in math right okay some of the problems that we may have had was them getting used to the virtual learning sure that's an obvious problem some of it may be with canvas or technology issues but if the student demonstrates the knowledge later on we're going to give them credit for that as they move
103forward it's one of the concepts of standards-based grading is that when the student demonstrates the knowledge it's not what they look like in september it's what they look like in june that's extremely important and their grade should reflect their current state of knowledge in june or may if you want to put it that way okay um let me go to mr chairman latif i'm sorry i normally don't do this but i'm asked someone who sat on this board and waited years for this equity scorecard information while i appreciate how extremely important the topic is that we're talking about now the students grades and discrepancies during the pandemic it is specifically pandemic related and yes it may really this information may go on to impact equity scorecard information in the future it is not what the
104equity score card is about decoded scorecard is about what has been going on systemically in our school division for years that we now have a data picture on and what we are aren't doing about it we're they're gonna be students failing during the cove during a pandemic because it's not normal there's gonna be bad grades just like there's gonna be good grades and i think we have beat to death and we should continue to talk about how we're going to help students and how we're going to address students and what we can and can't do and what isn't isn't working during a pandemic but for me this question completely erases all of the effort and hard work that i i personally have put into trying to get us to even just talk about what's been
105going on for years in this school division i'm on a racial and social justice commission i i mean i spent a lot of time talking about equity i spent a lot of time with ms jesse talking about equity and i know you do too but it's just almost it's not even almost it is personally offensive to put in the pandemic which is a once in a hundred year event and its effects on our students and teachers and their grades into our equity scorecard discussion when we can't even get answers as a school board what we're doing to address the information that we have so i know those things were released today and i'm sorry for being rude and interrupting i had to get up and walk out because i don't want to use language that's
106inappropriate but it hurt me to my core that much because i think this is an important discussion but this is all we've been discussing it's been in the newspapers it's been in the news we get updates in it it's an academic i mean the administrator announcement we're constantly being told every time the superintendent has a pandemic update what services we're going to provide and how many students are in and what options certain individual site schools are making and it's not new news that four days a week is an option dr wells has said it for months it's not been available to all students but if your student has been severely struggling he said it publicly but when it comes to this equity scorecard we haven't heard anything and i know we're doing things but i
107also want to i want the public to know what we're doing too i want to know what we aren't doing i know our gifted program went through a whole revitalization so that we can instruct gifted teachers that gifting students don't just look like a plus students but that's not being shown because our black and brown students only went up a percentage point so are we in what are we missing those are the kinds of things that when i'm looking at this equity score card we should be looking about because we're all going to have to recover from this pandemic that's given it's like inflation when it comes to moving forward but if we're not tackling the issues that are have been present before the pandemic they're going to be present after the pandemic and and
108that's what this was about so i'm sorry but i'm just that passionate about it because i want all of our children to succeed i want all of our staff to deal with our children equitably on our staff to be dealt with equitably i want a curriculum to be dealt with equitably and and that's why we're that's why we're talking about this not not because of the pandemic and and i i know that's a an issue that's near and dear to your heart and you're passionate about and it is important um but there's only i i don't see how it fits um so let me let me just maybe speak about it in the way i was thinking about it the pandemic has been affected different populations much differently and the scores here for the second
109quarter reflect some of the same demographic challenges our equity report card has shown and so if you take a look at the schools where we have more struggles they are the same schools where we're struggling with here on the equity report card and so as i look at it in a broader sense on a day to day sense now it's continuing so the problems that exist in our equity report card if we take what we see here and say okay what are we doing with it as miss jesse points out what's our plan well one of the things is the same patterns that exist where we struggle over the long term is where we're still struggling now pandemic or not but but it's accentuated by the pandemic and so i'm using that in my questions
110and as an example now i'm very happy to sort of um do my questions offline regarding this but the reason why i bring it up under the equity issue is that the same concerns and inequitable or rather struggles that we're seeing in different demographic populations are continuing if not worsened by the pandemic and that concerns me and it concerns me very much and so i think this is the exact time to be talking about this but but i understand your passion i don't mean to change your subject i think you and ms jesse made it clear tonight to the the board and into the staff that we want to know what we're doing about making the improvements on each of these things and that's truly understood and so i take that in and bring up
111the question well we look at this we have the same patterns of problems in our schools that we're now seeing on a daily basis in the pandemic and even more accentuated and i would like to know and and we we've we've heard from you all the kinds of things we're doing for this but is it enough how are we assessing if it's enough are we having the summer programs and the enrichment opportunities that is going to help address the long-term issues that have continued to be an issue here and the short-term accentuation of the problem so i don't see this as a as a thing and you know i we we won't turn this into a discussion between you and me we can certainly do that offline i understand and and take your comments um
112sincerely and accept them but that is the reason i ask these questions it is because it continues to be an accentuation or perpetuation of the current problems that exist in the school system not by fault of anyone but by a pandemic but we also have to deal with those and so how we deal with them is going to end up being reflective of how we deal with equity in general uh miss jesse i have a number of folks here but go ahead miss jesse um i agree with both of you you know this is you know for miss williams has been the spirit on the board for me it's been 30 40 years of watching these kids in these low-income schools not learn at the same level i've been searching and searching i went from
113program to program to program until i found professional learning communities and found that there's research out there there's places where kids can learn but also i think that your concern if there were equity gaps before the pandemic where are we now that the pandemic those kids that gap is probably widening and maybe tonight is not the night but maybe we do need to have a discussion on the gaps that are probably widening as a result of the pandemic and i think it is a separate subject but it needs to be discussed to be honest with you when i looked at the participation rate in some of the title one schools i was very concerned because i've been a title 1 principal and i know if you want to get those kids in you've got to
114get out there and get them in i i know that i looked at data which showed that the participation rate in some of those schools in some schools there are very few kids actually participating so i think it's a separate report that needs to be addressed in relationship to the pandemic does that make sense dr latif yes miss jesse and again if if my question was very similar to the one you left with when we did the um the question at the end of the night you asked and i don't know how to determine exactly when miss maria burgos gave us a report late at night that night you said this is all great but what is how are we going to measure our ability to make an improvement in this and so my question
115today is along those lines of how are we measuring what we know to be a continued problem and now it's continuing and made much worse with the pandemic and what are we going to do about it and are we doing the right things and are we being as aggressive as proactive as are we you know are we doing the best we can to get the get the students the the the help they need um uh are we getting on the phones calling those families engaging them and and saying can we can we get in there but uh that that's enough for me i'll go to mrs wall and then whoever's next after that all right thank you this was very um interesting to see this presentation about the equity scorecard i i really liked it
116um and i appreciated the opportunity to kind of get a walk through of what data is available on the website and where i can go to find additional information you know if i want to get down in the in the weeds i really appreciate it so thank you um i just had a question um one um is is there anywhere on on the website where we define for folks who might not know definitions like what is equity versus equality what is considered um a disability or what how do we define you know english language learner you know the categories or anything i i just know like we kind of all know it we know the lingo and we know the categories and we understand you know what what all of these definitions are but if
117a member of the public were to go looking for this information do we have anywhere on the on there that we have maybe a section on definitions that's my first question we can pause there before i get to my second question if you would uh dr latif um what i could do as i could ask mr guilfoyle if he knows off hand in terms of what's available on the web in that regard but if not um we are we can certainly do some follow-up and close the loop back with you ms wall and the rest of the school board okay mr evan i can speak to the data the school data profiles that we publish we also have um there's a definition of terms there it's more in terms of what the different data elements
118are but miss wall we can look at that and on the equity scorecard page we've talked about adding a glossary for some of that too so um that's something we're looking into um yeah so sorry mr amount to jump in but that's what we we do have some data definitions and we're we'll we'll work on expanding that also okay great i think oh thank you that answers the question and uh i also am aware that there's uh bdoe resources uh and they have a tool and a glossary that we could link to that would assist with that that would be awesome because i know you know as as data gets out folks will be looking around and it would just make it easier for everybody especially somebody looking at it for the very first time
119who might not quite understand you know what terms we're talking about as we put you know we make categories and things like that my second question is kind of related to what we were talking about before but um so the data that we received in that information item you know that dr latif was referring to um it does relate to equity especially if we were to take that data and break it down using the equity lens and so my question is um what is the timeline for taking that data and doing that and breaking it down for through that equity lens um looking um um you know how when we take this new data are we going to put it through that equity lens so we get a better picture of what we're you know
120the consequences of the choices that we've made this year in dealing with the pandemic right we've all done what we we thought was best but obviously this data is going to be able to show us some things and we'll be able to refine and focus our efforts to see where there are there are gaps are we i'm assuming we have plans to do that am i correct um yes miss wall and so in in one piece you're going to get one piece of information in a board information item on friday and then in terms of the the grades and stuff that dr latifah and you were just referencing um with the third quarter ending we're going to be able to pull in um third quarter to include some of the same things you were asking
121about not only with the equity lens but in terms of also the enrollment status in person and virtual which for secondary school we couldn't do before the third quarter but we're in the process of doing that exact thing so you're going to get some information that break thing breaks things down in this friday's packet and then um as quickly as we can get that third those third quarter grades um and get all of that done that's the next step for you so it's coming very soon i appreciate that very much and thank you for um putting together this report and i look forward to the discussion that we have um the next steps what do we do next with this data what does this data tell us that we should do and need to do
122to help all of our students all of our students achieve so thanks very much mr wilk thank you i'll be brief thanks for all the comments and the original requests from my colleagues in the woodbridge in the akkaquan district uh thank you dr quesada and the entire complete team and the equity committee and our associate superintendents and such just some things that we're thinking and especially to maybe a more urgent need and something that you know again i'm not looking for answers right now just considerations and it kind of goes along the lines of some of the stuff that's been brought up is we know that there's you know i'm going to call it a catastrophic learning loss not just in our county but all over the country as a result of covet 19 and
123so we're all and when i say we're all districts all over the country collectively are looking at ways of extending learning and tackling learning loss so from that lens you know it looks like you know we're saying we're looking for support and mental health we're looking for more support of allocating resources and school operations but just something i'd like to see possibly considered more urgently i guess what the timeline is how is that being factored into the resources we're putting together for students at the conclusion of the school year in june as we look at ways of extended ell extending your services esy excuse me i'm trying to think what it was called just different things in summer school programs and the allocation of resources are we you know making it more accessible especially if
124we're looking at this data more programs available for these different groups of students especially ones that you know as we've heard referenced by dr latif and such of some of the more challenging areas that we're trying to improve so are we going to have the resources available to better support those students another thing i just wanted to look into and again down the road this can be a topic for the committee and potentially the new administration is you know factoring equity when it comes to what you know i believe is when we develop a unique profile of prince william county graduates and i think our school system does a great job of trying to make as many programs especially at the high school level for students with the busing and the different ways we get
125students there but i'd love to kind of look into that more and see if they're really you know if if we look into kind of the student growth and some of the data in the research you know do the students all actually have the equal opportunity and that goes in line also with looking at possibly the feasibility of getting a governor's school in the east and having one in the west so each side of the county can have one in my opinion that's what i would like to see or the possibility of looking into that and also given the different socio-economic populations i'd like to see potentially looking at the feasibility of a more robust dual enrollment program especially since we have a large high school right across the street from one of the largest
126community college systems in this country so that would definitely be uh something to factor and look at with the equity another thing to consider also if we're looking at like you know ms wall was talking about a glossary in a sense of key terms and stuff like that i'd almost like to see kind of i don't know with mr kim or the student senate or student reps is how do students define equity and from a student lens of what do they feel and factor into their everyday lives as equity in prince william county schools do our students feel like they have the same opportunities depending on where they go to school or their neighborhoods when it comes to the different pathways and programs that we have available to them i think that would be something
127to kind of factor into the committee discussions and looking at scorecards and such but those are just some ideas i don't like i said don't need answers or anything but just thoughts that i had and again i want to thank for all the presentation tonight on what we have when it comes to the equity scorecard thank you mr report um just would like to add that um maybe for future meetings um because equity is such a big topic and a big umbrella it might be nice to sort of just break it down because it is a lot of information we don't want to have a 10 hour meeting so maybe one night talking about equity in terms of staffing and and maybe some of the training and things that are required of our staff another
128another evening maybe presenting to us some of the findings for uh elementary um and and and the things that like miss jesse was talking about and then um and then to go on into middle and another evening maybe to go on into high school um maybe even a sub-topic of just how mr wilk was talking because this is a huge huge um continuum and there's so many things underneath it that i i think just breaking it down might be a you know it's more digestible and we can take it in and gives you guys time to take questions from us and consider how maybe best to answer those so it's just a thought jackson then i want to just take a moment and thank those members of the superintendent advisory committee on equity for their
129time and collaboration and the presentation today and thank the staff for putting it together and the discussion that the board members had i look forward to further updates on how we continue to look at the data through the equity lens both as it relates to long-term and short-term goals and i echo what ms zagapoor just said about breaking things down per agenda and maybe the goals could be agenda topics uh i looked over the equity scorecard really quickly and the graduation data for special education students appears to be disaggregated the same way that we last talked about it so i just want to make sure that i understand correctly um this is a living document correct the the equity school card online is is a living document you see yes yes it is okay and
130um so one thing i would like to suggest is that i would love to continue um to discuss the scorecard and then after you meet with individual board members maybe just so that the public knows what we're talking about maybe a general theme of like any general concerns that each in the consensus of concerns for board members maybe we could have that as part of the agenda discussion so that the public can be aware of our board members concerns and like discussions and overall transparency but thank you again for the presentation tonight miss william thank you um just one last follow-up on this um for a formalized question in addition to all the other questions i asked when it comes to the equity score card if we could look at the umbrella into which what
131it is that we are doing differently than the state has mandated us to do in regards to equity for our students through all of the lenses to which we view equity um what is it that we are doing um that is mandated and what is it that we aren't doing that is coming down the pike that we know will be mandated for example we started the discussion about um as dr latif was saying for summer school having a more robust summer school we know that's going to be in effect july 1 as a law we know that we we started a discussion about planning for return and learning fall five days a week making that equitable for virtual and in-person learners um but that's also now going to be a law so i also want
132i want to be sure that we continue to be progressive as a school division so i want to know what we're doing that's not only in compliance with the law and the laws that are upcoming but what is it we're doing differently um to try to add another sort of viewpoint for these discussions thank you miss ralston um let me ask you how many parents do you think understand the words that you were using and how do they think to help their children what is it that they need to do these aren't people that graduated from you know some some university these may just be regular people and they don't understand what you're talking about i've listened to them and listened to them and they don't know can we do that first and then come
133back and try to explain it you you've got other people's children at stake here thank you quite heard okay thank you miss ralston um did you have anything to administer him on well we've taken in the comments and as i say because this is a very large topic we've got some starting points from the comments made tonight and uh as a team we'll talk about uh the suggestions that came from board members thank you okay great um we'll wrap up that discussion and move on to board matters i think we start with miss jesse this evening i have nothing i was on vacation and i took vacation outstanding miss jesse miss williams um i just want to say again i um appreciate the discussion this evening on the equity um scorecard and the superintendent's advisory
134council and um you know sometimes i do get passionate but i think i want to remind the public that we do sometimes get passionate about our subject matters but we all do work collaboratively here on the board and we do represent a diverse perspective and that's important um and i'm not usually one for for outbursts of that nature so i just want to apologize if anyone took offense to that but i did get a little excited but i am passionate about it and in other news um oh lost my train of thought there for a second um i am excited about our fourth quarter um i know that we'll have some more students coming in in buildings and some will continue to remain virtual but we're heading here on the end of the year one
135of the things that we have not done this year as we do traditionally um most years is this board often adopts resolutions per month and mr iman deputy superintendent iman spoke a little bit about um like library month and library week and um i know i could safely i think speak for many of my colleagues and saying that's one of the things that we have missed um and it has been you know we've i've received some constituents asking you know how come you haven't done library month or we haven't celebrated this as we normally do and i just want to remind the public that they're we're limited in our capabilities due to our electronic meeting requirements and it doesn't mean that we're not mindful of those things or we wouldn't wish to do those things
136but i just i don't think we've ever addressed that publicly so i just wanted to throw that out there and under the lens of equity since we've talked a lot about it tonight i am excited and i hope the sport is excited that once we move into maybe the summer months or here at the end of the school year we can start talking about some of the exciting things at least from my perspective coming down the state and do some policies in relation to what the state has been talking about with anti-racism policies the new transgender student policies um things of that nature because that definitely falls under equity for all students and the sport did make some very strong stances when we were first seeded last year i think it's been a year and
137and i would be excited to um get back to working on some of those things um and i know that we've been very very busy with the pandemic and rightfully so um but i look forward to addressing those things and writing some policies and for in relation to those state mandated mandated items so thank you miss um what will do miss ralston me okay i will let me just say that um i appreciate everybody's help to educate our kids here and so i i hope you're not offended by anything anybody is saying and that's all i'm going to say thank you thank you miss ralston ms wall thank you mr chairman i hope everybody had a great spring break i know i did i for the first time in forever that's a frozen reference i
138was able to disconnect a little bit from pandemic related issues and it was wonderful it was nice and i hope everybody had a chance to do that for at least a little bit of time during this spring break and if you were not able to do that i highly recommend it it's very good for the soul this april is much better than it was than april of last year i can say it's there's a lot more hope we have great times ahead so i would just urge everybody to work hard teachers students everybody we're the home stretch um we're in hopefully hopefully we'll see better days in light of our very important equity discussion i would encourage the division to consider the need for or consider recommending to the board a plan for more extensive
139return during fourth quarter i appreciate ben kim's data from unity read giving us that snapshot data for the student perspective on how in-person learning is going i just want to say thank you to all the teachers who are working so hard and to the students who are also working very hard to adapt to a learning environment that is very different i know many students would like to return more days many are happy with how what they've got and many are happy with you know the virtual situation but i would just encourage us to keep in mind the impact of the pandemic on our families and on our children the data is is important and it does show that we have that we have needs that we are not meeting under our current plan so i
140would encourage that and i otherwise would say carry forward and thank you everybody for your hard work we really do appreciate it miss jackson i just want to take a moment and thank the prince william county staff for putting out the pinwheels out front it was a great reminder that april is national child abuse prevention month and it's a visual reminder of the importance to recognize the impact of child abuse on families i also want to thank the school librarians this month and i know that a school librarian it was always a trusted resource for myself when trying to find a way to reach a kid on their interest or reading level another vital resource i want to thank is assistant principals i'm thankful for your consistent advocacy for the students happy assistant principals week
141and thank you also to occupational therapists for their work is vital in helping students access learning in addition to thanking all those staff members i want to thank um military um families of military oh i'm having a good time talking right now april was the month of the military child and i know that prince william county staff is participating in purple up i want to take a moment and thank all veterans and their families specifically children for their continued service to our country and community and april is also autism acceptance month and during this month we celebrate and embrace neurodiversity we use this time to remind us to learn that all voices to listen to all voices and celebrate the different gifts that everyone brings and to simply be proud and accept neurodiversity i would
142be neglectful as a special educator if i didn't take the time for all parents to educate their students on opportunities to address and embrace all differences and disabilities specifically because we've been talking about the equity scorecard students with autism experience a disproportionate amount of bullying and i also want to thank the school division staff for their specialized vaccine for students who qualify and the support staff the special education support staff to make it accessible to students who qualify and um thank you mr wilk thank you mr chairman following off that and ms jackson's comment about autism awareness and acceptance month i want to thank um as a parent of special needs student um i want to thank all of our teachers our tas and our administrators recognizing a lot of our special education teachers were
143back in school right after labor day this year in servicing our kids with their disability level and support so i want to definitely recognize them that kind of leads me to just making sure we keep on our radar the radar that when those easter funds do arrive that we do have a serious conversation about those bonus compensations and keep that still at the forefront um with military families i'm excited to see my push for that 9 11 remembrance committee moving forward i would recommend recommend if my colleagues haven't put anyone on that committee yet i think we probably still have time the first meeting we don't have time anymore they were due well maybe i can talk to ms goss and see if we can extend that i don't know how many okay okay well
144i'm excited about that formation in that committee starting to meet on april 12th and working on remembering the 20th anniversary of 9 11 and then finally i do want to recognize um i did you know strangely this way the way the winner the fall sports were played in the winter i did go to four different friday night football games it was a good way to get out of my house and run and i want to thank recognize my two teams potomac football ended up four and two and forest park ended up three and three so good seasons so anyways i yield my time thank you miss zarya porter thank you dr latifah i'm going to be very short tonight um we just got back from spring break i hope everyone did get to enjoy their
145break i want to thank the continue to thank our teachers and staff for all the work they've been doing last night we had a board of county supervisors meeting where we presented the budget to them and there was a little bit of talk about how great prince william county is at pinching a penny and getting a good good bang for their buck but i want to remind you that that comes on the backs of the employees who do work here and as we are making budget decisions and we've gone through a very very difficult year um yeah if we can find that money for a bonus for teachers and staff that would be fantastic but um just it's been really rough and you know a lot of people are making decisions about what they're going
146to do for next year in terms of their careers i happen to think that teaching is the most noble thing you could possibly do ever you are the reason that there are careers of other careers right there's you're the reason you show up to school and you inspire children and you help them foster their interests i don't care if you're the bus driver i don't care if you're the assistant principal i don't care if you're their teacher for just a few weeks or for several years you make an impact on them so it's really important that we remember that this year's been hard and we need to make sure that i know at some point teacher appreciation week is going to come up i don't know when it is i know it's coming soon please
147please we're at the last bit of the the school year um just thank those those people who have been guiding our students virtually and in person remember to wear your mask wash your hands keep your distance and if you do not feel well go to the doctor stay home thank you have a good evening outstanding miss argipur i was worried you were going to forget we are um miss evner i didn't get an update on the metrics but uh i think we had a bad week last week a little bit of a bump up are we bumping down now again are we still sort of in that upper category okay all right so so uh miss report can you say it again you can take my minute just just please wear your masks wash your
148hands keep your distance and if you are not feeling well please stay home consult with your doctor outstanding outstanding yes and and and and get vaccinated we'll add that please get vaccinated the vaccinations are being open for um broader community more groups students um i think 16 and older starting a week or two so please get vaccinated it is very important if you have any questions about getting vaccinated you know the the virginia department of health website's fantastic the vaccine virginia has a lot of great information about that please take that seriously thank you ms argipur for reminding the community that we did go to the board of county supervisors last night and it is on our agenda item tonight for final markup we approved our final markup for the budget we did present the
149budget to the board of county supervisors we asked the public that if you love your schools which we do and we've given our heart and soul for by being up here for hours and hours and hours we love our schools if i don't say that enough and if people presume that because i talk about scores that i i think there's something wrong with our schools i want everyone to know we have the best damn school system in the united states of america i am very proud of our school system i'm proud of all of our folks who teach in it who work in it i'm proud of our outstanding hr department who's made us one of the number one places to work for in the state of virginia for school divisions uh 11th overall i'm
150proud of our finance team who's done an outstanding job with our budget and we delivered another great budget that dr waltz prepared and helped promote to the board of county supervisors i asked the public to to lobby the board of county supervisors to to give the schools full funding that it requires and and and continue to make our school system great that the property values don't go up by accident here people want to come and live here they want to come to our schools and i have four children in the school system i've never been more proud to keep them in our school system i've never been more proud about the the the quality of learning they have received any discussion we have here that may be tense obnoxious on all parts um will will
151um just reflect the love we have for this school division and and and it is it is an emotional time for all of us this year schools matter um it matters for my four kids it matters for all the 90 000 children we have out here and all the parents who care deeply about it we are among the best school systems in the united states of america that doesn't mean we don't have our problems and doesn't mean we don't want to try to get better we have to do that we're going to continue to do that and sometimes we'll air our concerns and and maybe things that may not be as attractive as we wish they'd like them to be but if we don't talk about them we're not going to address them we're not
152going to fix them and so i thank this board for um being kind enough to to hear my remarks as we go through and talk about these sort of very tough tough tough issues from time to time i want to congratulate all of our sports that have been going on for all the year not just our football teams we we have wrestling had gone on in a number of our sports we've done well we have our students coming back to schools feeling great we have our virtual program going better and better and every day it gets a little bit better and i most want to congratulate our seniors those of you who've made decisions to join the military those of you who've made decisions to go to college community college those of you who've been
153accepted to your schools those of you who are making those decisions about what you're going to do next year please reach out to your counselors they're there for you these decisions don't have to be made all by you and yourself you have parents and great counselors and great principals and great teachers over the years who are rooting for you as we all are with all of that this school board meeting is adjourned thank you