September 4, 2025 Charlottesville City School Board Meeting

001Yes, Madam Chair. >> Miss Burns, Miss Cooper, Miss Douly, Mr. Morris, Mr. Meyer, Miss Richardson, >> Miss Torres, and our student rep, Sally Schwarzman. test. >> Hello. >> We're in business. >> Thank you, Mr. Cuomo. >> Okay. Um, so moving along. Um, if we can move to approve our proposed agenda. >> So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. >> All right. uh first and the second. All in favor of approving our proposed agenda, say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right, we have an agenda. Um moving on to item six, uh student staff recognitions. I want to take a moment for another recognition. Um, so as many of you know, starting last spring, our city and the Charlottesville school leaders began dreaming big about how we can expand educational Excuse me. Um, we'll

002save that for a moment. Um, if we can instead call Beth Chuck, who's been running forward getting my attention for 6.1, our Shannon Foundation grant award winners. Um, Miss Jacker, can you bring the slide forward, please? >> Um, I am, um, I am delighted. I'm I I want to apologize to Miss Julie. I realize I was not clear. So, uh, I want to apologize for that. But I also want to recognize some of our winners of the Shannon Grant Award. Uh, these Shannon Grants support excellence in innovative teaching. And I am really proud to say that our teachers really uh were the the focus of these grants this year. Uh I'm going to recognize the teachers and uh just invite them to come up with me. I know in least one case it's sort of

003a team effort and so all who are uh affiliated with the grant are invited to step forward. Uh the first is uh Samantha Pagney from CHS. The art teachers there submitted a proposal and uh note the dollar figures. This is about $5,000. So it's a significant proposal for 3D design, pottery, and sculpture. >> Amber West and Jennifer K, my colleagues in the art department. >> And then I don't know if uh Miss Washber is here tonight. I'm not sure. I I I didn't see her when I came in, but she is recognized at Charlottesville Middle School for uh the Battle of the Books, building voices through literature. And if you follow Miss Washberg's classes, you know she's always doing something interesting and exciting. And I'm really glad that the Shannon Foundation recognized that. Lastly, I

004believe Mr. Manning is here, a physics teacher at CHS. Seeing the invisible, bringing particle physicals, partic particle physics to life through cloud chambers. The uh the Shannon grants are in memory of former UVA president Edgar Shannon and his wife Elellanor. And we just express appreciation to that family and that community of of donors for supporting. Um, that's a real legacy to leave for public education in our area. Thank you so much and uh congratulations again to our winners. [Applause] All right, congratulations. Um, and thank you for everything that you do for our students. Um, moving on uh to item 7.0, comments from members of the community. We'll start with comments from any students who are joining us this evening. All right, seeing none, uh we'll move on to those who are present here in the

005media center. Uh first up we have Mr. Moran. So if you will approach, say your name, and please limit your comments to three minutes. >> We'll do that. Hello, my name is Chuck Moran. I live at 932 Bing Lane here in the city. Dr. Gurley, Madam Chair, and members of the board. I decided to drop by for old times sake. Thank you for welcoming me to the recent Sunrise Elementary ribbon cutting. I appreciate the alert from Beth Chuck. I believe the Burnley Moran Sunrise Committee picked a really great name and it was nice to see the kids in their little yellow rimmed sunglasses along with the staff out there having having a good time. I have a simple request for you all tonight to close out the school renaming chapter properly. In my estimation, I

006would like simple flat limestone plaques that commemorate the original namesakes to be attached to the fronts of the renamed schools in order to preserve our history. Charlottesville, if known for anything, it's our history. I have a mockup that will be distributed so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. Two of the schools, Trailblazer and Tallokes, have nicely crafted historic markers that are out in the fronts of the schools. And these go into the the um integration history of those schools. And it's very important that those are there. The plaques that I'm talking about would actually be attached to the fronts of the schools and would behave very much like cornerstones that would preserve in very simple language the original names of the schools. From the Navajo to uh code talkers to the Tuskegee Airman

007and Jackie Robinson, we are witnessing the rapid eraser of our c our country's history. In these particular cases, luckily web pages that were removed from the Department of Defense website have been restored after public backlash. According to a recent uh search that I did on the web, numerous federal heritage pages and resources honoring Native Americans, Japanese Americans, black family, black military heroes, women service members, Muslim chapters, chaplain, sorry, it goes on and on. Holocaust commemoration, all of these have been removed from many websites at the federal level from DoD to the National Park Service, NASA, FDA, State Department, and the list goes on. In our case, I'm not making an argument to restore the names of the schools. That ch part of the chapter is closed and I'm I'm okay with that. What I want

008to do is um move forward and maintain a connection to the past that reminds students and staff of the once revered educators whose names were once etched on the schools. In closing, I believe strongly that our community has had enough eraser of our local and national history. And I of course would like to have the school division pay for these plaques, but if you will grant me permission to move ahead with the project, I will raise private funds if necessary. I work very closely with this board and the prior one and would very much like to proceed with this project before the upcoming school board election so that we can close out this chapter properly. I'll follow up via email. Uh so you'll hear back from me very soon. Thank you very much. >> Uh

009next up we have Jennifer Russo. Again, if you'll approach the microphone, say your name, and limit your comments to three minutes. >> Hello. Thank you for uh allowing me to come here today. Can you hear this? Okay. I'm too tall. All right, I'll bend down. How's that? That's great. Thank you. That better. Okay. Uh, so I'm Jennifer Russo. I live at 2447 Winthrop Drive here in Charlottesville. I'm a new resident. Um, I am a nurse practitioner and I'm also a board member of the National Safe Haven Alliance, which is why I'm here today. Uh, Safe Haven Alliance works to raise awareness of infant safe haven laws throughout the United States. And in case you're not aware, infant safe haven laws are in place to give a parent in crisis an option to illegal and unsafe

010infant abandonment. We've all woken up to stories about an infant that was found in a dumpster or alongside of a road. So, we're here to um prevent that from happening. And in um Virginia, the law, every every state has the law and but they all vary a little bit. In Virginia, it says that a parent may legally relinquish a newborn 30 days old or less uh with no questions asked to a hospital or fire station or other EMS facility. Since the law started in 1999 in the United States, started with Texas, over 5,000 babies have been relinquished under the law legally. Um, unfortunately, 1600 have been abandoned, twothirds of whom were found deceased. In Illinois, where I moved here from, it was part of the law to teach high school students about about the law.

011It was um we would go into um health classes and talk with them about it. We developed a toolkit that teachers could do this on their own. And I'm here today, it's not part of the law in Virginia, but I'm here today to offer uh to do that here at Charlottesville High School to go into health classes and talk with students in a 15minute presentation about safe haven law. While it may not um benefit them themselves if they don't need it, maybe they know someone who's concealing a pregnancy or whatnot and they could share information about the law. And that's it. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, next up we have Shannon Gillicanin. >> Good evening. Um, I want to address a few of the things that I heard at Tuesday night's feedback

012session about SRO's. Number one, the process. The meeting started off with Miss Chuck saying that the process to bring back SRO has been very similar to the process to remove them. This is untrue. In 2020, a working group of stakeholders was commissioned with almost 40 members. It had four teachers, nine parents, eight students. It was truly representative of stakeholders. Your current working group has 17 people, 14 of whom are administrators for the school division. zero students, zero teachers, zero CSAs, zero parents. You say that you have met with a community. You held a feedback session where you talked at us for an hour and a half and then gave us 20 minutes to answer questions that you asked of us. After two and a half hours, we finally got to answer questions or ask questions

013and most of them went unanswered. Number two, you say you have consulted staff. By staff, you clearly mean administrators. Some teachers were in focus groups at CHS back in the spring, but the staff as a whole has not been asked our opinion on bringing back SRO except by CA who passed unanimously a resolution opposing this bringing back SRO. Furthermore, why are focus groups only happening at the high school? The policy, as it is written, will impact CMS as well. Their staff have been left out of these discussions and so have Walker staff, many of whom will be employed at CMS next year. There's a huge difference between running a focus group and letting people be at the table where the actual decisions are being made. In 2020, students, parents, staff, teachers were at that table.

014Now we're not. Number three, budget. This proposal would cost $800,000 the first year and three to $400,000 every year after. Your current staff members, those of us actually in the buildings going through Alice training, working with students, have asked repeatedly for window coverings, better access to doors, and walkie-talkies and were told they were too expensive. Can you make that make sense, please? So, what should happen next? It's not too late to change course. City council actually set a great example on Tuesday night. A proposal was brought to council that also would have expanded police power. The community emailed, showed up, spoke in public comment. All of that sounds familiar. But city council listened. They changed course. They did not adopt a policy that would expand police power and cause harm to vulnerable citizens. It's not

015too late for you to do the same. There is no reason thisou and proposal needs to move forward. Make a better decision. >> Chair, can I just ask Shannon? Can you please clarify? Are you speaking as an individual or for CEA? >> Okay. All the >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. So, if there's anybody else in the audience who wishes to give public comment, again, please say your name and limit your comments to three minutes. >> Can you all hear me? Okay, great. Uh, my name is Emily Kingsley and I am here tonight as both a concerned Charlottesville teacher and as a community member. And so, I have a little story. Uh, as I was driving home from last week's SRO forum, I had the radio turn to NPR, and I wasn't

016really paying attention, but my ears perked up when I heard the podcast host mention school resource officers. The coverage turned out to be part of a special report called Falling Behind: The Miseducation of America's Boys. And it just so happened that the section I was hearing was about discipline practices in schools. And I'm actually just gonna read a section of dialogue straight from the show transcript because it was just too perfect a coincidence not to share. So here the host is interviewing Giani Owens who is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. And again this is what I heard driving home from the SRO forum. She said, "One of the biggest things that schools can do and that they do quite readily is change their discipline policies or their discipline

017codes. For a lot of school districts, they spend a tremendous budget on things like school resource officers, which are essentially police officers that are on school grounds. And increasingly, districts are spending more and more money on school resource officers. It turns out the evidence actually suggests that school resource offers officers are not that effective in actually reducing violence on school campuses. And so what they could be doing instead is taking the same money that they've been investing in school resource officers instead investing in things like restorative justice counselors, people who are able trained in how to resolve conflicts when it occurs on school grounds. So, I listened to that on the way home from the SRO forum and I just thought, there we go. Because I was starting to feel a bit insane during the

018forum as I watched school officials fully endorse a policy that I know has been widely rejected because it is ineffective and racist. And the negative perspective on SRO's is not just a fringe view held by a few concerned white parents who show up to all the meetings. It is a widespread and researchbacked idea. Widespread enough to be discussed on NPR not as a debate but as a known fact cited by a Yale professor. We know that safety at school is a huge concern for all of us. That value we share. What we are calling for now is that we slow down and actually ask everyone in the school community what they need to feel safe here. Not just a focus group, but everyone, every student, parent, teacher, staff member, administrator. Let's slow down and do

019this right. Pause the MLOU process and start again. That's the way to make actual authentic change. Thank you. >> Thank you. Come on. I always end up slouching. Um, thank you. >> My name is Alex Heinsman and I'm the parent of two kids in Charlottesville schools. I am also here to express my concerns about the SR program and my disappointment in our leadership throughout this process. When you voted to return police to the schools after assuring parents it would be another vote to delay, there was a lot of big talk about how innovative and unique theou would be, how it would address all of our concerns, how it would somehow transform an armed police officer with legal immunity into some kind of social worker/saint. Now, I knew that wasn't possible because anou is a non-actionable

020agreement. It's not a law. But the document we got, theou we got is a joke. It does nothing to protect our kids civil liberties. It does not grant schools or principles hiring or firing power. It doesn't specify how the policy will be evaluated. It doesn't provide any avenues for registering complaints. It doesn't stop police from physically restraining, arresting, prosecuting, or questioning our kids. And you were ready to rubber stamp it today. except that you finally had one single public-f facing event open to the whole community where you asked for our feedback. And even though the event was, as Miss Gillicanin described, intentionally structured to avoid hearing us, we were too loud apparently to ignore. So now you do have a choice. You can keep doing damage control for a bad policy created through a bad

021process, or you can hit the reset button. You can do a real safety review with real public engagement and develop actual innovative models with and without SRO's and talk to us about them. In this political and financial environment when our most vulnerable students are already under attack, you owe it to your community and to our kids to get this right. Thank you. >> All right. Next up, just say your name in three minutes. Good evening, Zion Bryant, Charlottesville resident. Um, so I was reviewing the packet last night in the agenda and I was really disappointed to see in your timeline of whatever the graphic was called, SRO's to SRO's. Um, I was disappointed to see that it starts in 2020 when in fact in 2019 there was a student led protest that actually called for

022reform around SRO's and that was on March 25th. Um, March 25th, 2019. And ironically, you guys voted to restore SRO's March 27th, 2025. Uh, and if that doesn't represent this larger issue we're seeing on the federal level where progress is being rescended, I think it goes to show that you guys are really out of touch. So, I was at West Haven Community Day and I think that whole we're waiting to hear the voices of the community thing is completely guys didn't set up any sort of table to actually ask about SRO's and that would have been a great opportunity. um most of the board, those who were there early, they were in and out, they weren't there for a sub substantial amount of time. And I just find it really hard to grapple with this

023idea that you guys haven't heard enough voices. I mean, yes, you haven't, but it's not to the community's fault. It's your own fault. What is your community engagement department doing? what is your DEI or whatever you're calling them now, community engagement specialists doing to get out into the community? I'm not seeing them. I'm not seeing them table about SRO's. I'm not seeing them set up individualized meetings with smaller groups in the community. And so, it's just really sad to see that you guys are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and clearly nothing is sticking. The outrage that you saw at the event that happened, was it last week or the week before, goes to show just how much people feel like you're not listening. And the process was rushed. There actually wasn't

024a board member here when you guys rushed to vote to bring SRO's back. And I just feel like it's thing after thing after thing, and you continue to show that you can't be bothered with listening. There are parents who are here tonight, who have been here in the past, who have clearly said to you that they don't want SRO's. And I just cannot continue to believe that there's this silent majority who wants SRO so bad. Why can't they show their faces? I mean, why do we continue to subscribe to and regurgitate these talking points that are highly conservative and that just feed an agenda that actually harms our students? And you know sometimes we can continue to hear um certain people on the dis continue to shut down research but how can you be a

025school division and shut down things that are thoroughly researched? It's just there are way too many contradictions here and it's really disappointing and as a person who led the walk out in 2019 I would like to see you actually listen to student voice. It was well documented and it's up to you to make a better decision. Good evening. Uh my name is Natalie Ailles. I'm a Charlottesville resident and a parent of a child in Charlottesville schools. Um I uh checked the agenda. I'm very pleased um to see that you have slowed down the process and that you're offering more opportunities for engagement. Um for Miss Brian, it sounds like there they could be a little bit more open and democratic. And I'm essentially here to say we've gotten a lot of feedback from the community

026um including a petition that uh several parents put together with discreet suggestions for how to proceed with thisou. Um we would like to see as the outcome of these engagement process some genuine attempt to hear from people and integrate that feedback into theou. I think this is a test of your willingness to take a process that was not democratic and not transparent and try to make it better. Try to make it more accountable to the public who have shown up and continually tried to show you the data, tried to express their outrage, tried to express their skepticism of local policing and their frustration um with the lack of sincere uh attempts to make the current safety model work. Um, so this is a test of your willingness to actually listen to people. And I want

027to emphasize this. This is your legacy as public servants and schoolboard members. This is what you voted yes for. And now you've got to make this work for parents and students and the community. Um, and not just for administrators. And so I'm insisting you listen to people. You incorporate this into the revisions toou. Listen to the data. There's a lot of good data and it shows that there's a lot of harm that can come from this policy as well. And we want to see this reflected in in theouou. We want to see the engagement, the genuine opportunities for feedback and the data. We want to see that in theou. And as many people who came before me um have pointed out, if you if you can't do that, it's time to scrap it and start

028again. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else in the media center wish to give public comment? All right. Anybody in the Zoom room, Mr. Cuomo, you are on Zoom. You can raise your hand and you'll be promoted. All right. Uh there is another opportunity for public comment at um towards the end of our agenda. Um so moving on to item 8.0, our student represent representative report out. Sie welcome. Can everybody hear me? What about now? All right, perfect. Hello everybody, and thank you for having me at this meeting. If you don't already know me, hi, I'm Sully, the student representative for the student body and a junior here at CHS. I'm a little sick right now, so I apologize in advance if my speech isn't clear, and I'll be wearing a mask for this meeting

029when I'm not talking. Within the past few weeks since our last meeting, I've noticed a couple things change within the school. First and foremost, the students are back now. Although everybody's still adjusting to the work and the environment, I believe that the school and the administration has been doing a great job with everything. Schedules seem to have been implemented relatively smoothly, at least from the students perspective, thanks to the hard work of the counselors. And now that everybody's back in class, almost everything seems to be going really, really well. Uh I'll all of the students I talked to feel like like although they missed the summer, this year is shaping up to be a really great one. So we are extremely grateful for everybody in the school system. The administration, the teachers, the CSAs, the

030janitors, the nutrition staff, and everybody else and everything that they've done to make this year the best year it could possibly be. The second thing that I've noticed, which is closely related to today's agenda and other people's comments and concerns, is the students opinion about school resource officers. I've heard many, many people's opinions about SRO's. And in doing so, I've realized that first and foremost, no matter what the school board does, there will always be people against their decisions due to the extreme diversity of opinions regarding SRO's. But for the sake of appeasing the most people, I compiled a list of the most commonly held beliefs about SRO's and how they fit into CHS. First, the very very common belief that most students believe is that um and want to be conveyed to the school

031board is regarding the current imperfection of the system here at CHS. The perception of many students is that there are very very large problems here and that even if they don't even if those problems don't directly prevent learning or social interaction, having literal illegal activities happening at the school and seemingly bi-weekly safety concerns at our school simply isn't working and isn't something that the kids here at CHS or at any school want to happen. The students think that for any change to be made, it is extremely important for the administration to recognize this. Because if we're trapped into perceiving CHS as a perfect place or attempting to make CHS a completely flawless school, we won't be able to think strategically about the steps that we can take to just make it better. The second belief

032that C students at CHS have regarding SRO is a form of cautious curiosity that comes in two parts. students hear all of the possible things that SRO's could contribute to the school, all of the things that we heard of in the last meeting, and they think that solving so many of the problems of our school system could actually be extremely beneficial. I haven't met anybody who thinks that SRO are an unconditionally good idea that should be implemented immediately. But at the same time, most students are optimistic about the impact that they could have on our school. People are frustrated about how many problems have gone unsolved and how we just seem to keep kicking solutions down, say, "Oh, we'll do it later. Oh, we can just delay." And they think that SRO's could be a

033possible way to solve this problem. Um, a belief that's reflected within how this board has acted around it. But this optimism is still an extremely fragile thing as many people still recognize the flaws of SRO's. Which brings me to the third and final belief held by CHS students. a very very large amount of concern having to do with the possible negative consequences of school resource officers. Despite the current problems at CHS, students are still extremely worried about the possibility that SRO's could just make things flatout worse. This is especially true when regarding SRO's bringing weapons into the school, which everybody who I talked to believe would believed would make them feel significantly more unsafe within CHS. People still have extremely large concerns about SRO's even if they think that they could be in total beneficial.

034Nobody is without some form of unease. So on behalf of the student body, I'd like to convey the necessity of very very large implementations of any possible SRO plan and specific methods of adapting the SRO to different political, economic, and whatever other climates could arise. Students feel like SRO's could be a way to change things for the better. But we also must recognize the importance of limiting the potential negative impacts of SRO. And as a quick final thing that I've noticed, this board has done a pretty good job with communication. Although there's always like room to improve, um the different meetings and attempts to reach out with both students and parents are still very important and the student body really appreciates that the board has been pretty clear within the past month or so about

035its very tough decisions. So, thank you all for having me to this meeting and for helping make this year the best that it could possibly be. >> Thank you, Mr. Schwarzman. >> Um, moving on to item 9.0, adoption of the consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda? >> I move to adopt the consent agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Is there a second? Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Morris. We've got a first and a second. Any discussion on the consent agenda? >> Yes, Mr. Horris. >> Yeah, just quickly um on the and specific to the uh business financial routine reports. So, when we're looking at that report and the percentage of the budget um that's been spent to date, let me give you specifics, Miss Hoover. Sorry, you're looking at me

036like So, the cost center sheet that that you guys put out. Okay. So, it's always like year-to- date amount expended year-to- date. It's always intriguing to me to look at the percentage to date of what's been spent. And I was just curious, and this is specific to our maintenance department, that we're at 96.36%. And I just speak to that. I'm sure there's an explanation, but I was just curious. >> There is an explanation for that. That is where we paid out to the city of Charlesville for our maintenance contract >> for the year. >> Gotcha. Okay. I knew there was an easy answer, but just looking at that. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Any further discussion around the consent agenda? All right, we have a first and a second. All in favor say

037I. >> I. Any opposed? >> All right, thank you. Um, moving on to our sole action item, Miss Swift, we've got some more policy reviews to pass. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley. At the August school board meeting, we presented the May and July VSBA VSBA update policies uh for your review. And so at this time, we request that the board take action on these policies as presented. >> Thank you. Um we need a motion to pass these updated BSBA policies. >> So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion or questions on this set of policies? All right. All in favor of passing these VSBA policies say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. >> All right. So, moving on to

038our items for discussion. First up is Miss Pal with our 10day enrollment update. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Dr. Gurley, um we have our uh annual enrollment update that we give at this time. And um the first slide here simply shows um all of our our total enrollment. And to be clear, this is what we call responsible and responsible and serving. So it also reflects students who we are responsible for, but they may not be attending in our school buildings. They may be, you know, served at another um uh program um such as some that are in the area and others that are farther away. But this reflects all of the enrollment um from preK3 all the way up to our postgrad students. And this um shows you where we are

039with our class sizes K4. So this is more of our actual serving numbers. This is just a look at what you know you would actually see if you go and visit our classes. These are the average class sizes per grade. Um the one item that was highlighted reflects where we did make an adjustment. um principal Johnson at uh summit is uh moved some staff around because there was very small class sizes in second grade and then the large they have a um because of their uh the state sets criteria the target class sizes in the right for class size reduction that's based on um student socioeconomic status um indicators and things like that and so Summit has the smallest one in the school division it's 19 it's a it's a pretty tough one to manage

040and so at 20.3 they were getting a little over that um the technical way that that's calculated brings into effect, you know, your fra fractions of PE teachers and art teachers and things like that, but we still, you know, you want to manage these class sizes as close to those numbers as possible. So that what you see highlighted there has already been addressed. Taking a look at the secondary level, um you can see where the average class sizes are for Walker, both fifth and sixth grade. And then also for the middle school and the high school. And the thing to note here is um you know, these are overall averages for the middle and high school. I did it by the major core subject areas. Um, but when you um if you're visiting like advanced

041class sections or looking at those or some of the really popular electives, for example, art at Walker is at like 24 per class because um those are very popular electives even with two teachers and your advanced classes often have fewer sections and so sometimes if there's a lot of interest in those, those two will, you know, be on the higher side. But those are all your averages. And then this is a snapshot comparing what our number okay uh what our numbers look like. Um basically almost a year to the day and you can see overall we're down by 58 students. Um I you know this to me reflect we're we're not immune we've been largely immune from the pretty drastic birth rate declines and I'll get into that here on the next slide. Um we

042were relatively immune and this chart up in the left honestly if you um Google declining birth rates in the US there's a gazillion charts out there. I just have I just grabbed one for illustrative purposes but it's a pretty um sustained and um profound trend that in the US we have this declining birth rate situation. We were fairly immune to that initially. We were actually showing growth when the declining birth rent when the declining birth rate trend started. We were tracking with growth really almost right up until the pandem pandemic and it started to level off a little bit. And we attributed that to actually we engaged Weldon Cooper to help us figure out what was going on. And it was attributed to all the large high-rise UVA student housing that went up on West

043Main Street, which freed up single family housing stock in the city. And that just goes to show the impact that housing has on these numbers and trends because that one dynamic of all those college students moving into those high-rise apartments, we were well against the trend for years. And so um but now you know there's a lot of um affordable housing projects that are e that's either in progress or planned on the books and what we see is that Walpert's work when you look under the hood it really does um account for both pieces. It accounts for the housing rate, all the housing developments that are in progress and plan that we're aware of, but it also has those declining birth rates factored into the overall recommendations that drove the resoning recommendations in that work.

044And so that's 10day enrollment. Um, happy to answer questions. >> Thank you, Miss Pal. Mr. Schwarzman, any questions about 10day enrollment? Mr. Meyer. >> Uh, thanks, Miss Powell. Uh I always find this data really interesting. Uh can it looks like right we dropped about a 100 students for the elementary schools if I'm doing my math relatively. Uh I just see fascinating swings though. We go from a loss of 50 at Tall Oaks on Sunrise and Greenbrer to a gain of 70. And this is not We didn't do resoning yet, right? >> No. I mean, how do you explain some is there I mean these unique cases or any do you have any unique explanations for some of these schools or >> Yeah. So, I was looking at that as well and I think what's interesting

045and what was keeping me up at night when we started the resoning process because I was anxious to get that going was because I could see all these developments going into the Jackson Bay Vaia and Summit neighborhoods. And ironically, even before all those developments land, some of them are starting to land like the latest phase of South First Street, but you see the dynamic that's going on in those zones. Um, it is I used to put I actually put this I think in the narrative in the budget book that's get p gets published. It is a really challenging thing to project enrollment period in the best of circumstances. But when you're trying to get it nailed down across six elementary schools within 10 square miles, it's tough. You know, you you stand a decent shot

046at getting it pretty pretty right in the aggregate. But that's one of the reasons we've needed to contract with an outside firm because we have to at this point, we have especially with the volume of significant housing shifts that are on the books and in progress. We have to do like what I call geo more of a geoloccated type work. It's not just um if you're in a pretty static environment, you can do that. As far as commentary on why I mean I guess all of this is to say it doesn't surprise me the two schools that show an uptick versus the down ticks, right? Because I knew Friendship We knew Friendship Court was opening up additional housing. You know, Friendship Court had a dip there for a little bit because of the transitions there.

047I'm I'm sorry it's now Kindlewood but back when it was Friendship Court at the waning at when that was being you know phasing out you could see it impacting our summit numbers going down for a bit. Um, so holistically it doesn't really surprise me. But yeah, I mean those are like swinging like two classrooms at a time, you know. But what I will say, I thought we were going to have to move on Jackson Bay Vaia earlier in the process and I kept asking and I kept going back to um forgive me I can't remember CRA or Pedmont that's doing South Street but tracking like individual students expected to be you know coming into the phases as they open up and we get net additional units at South First Street. But what you see in

048the work and I think you see it playing out in the actual numbers that yeah, Jackson VA had a big uptick but they're not at capacity and you see that negative birth rate trend working against some of the housing pieces that are coming online and so it's a net effect. Um you know some of our elementary schools right now are really being hit hard by the declining birth rate trends but we sort of have a plan to work through that in conjunction with the housing that as it's coming online. And that that's all that's all what that work was about really. These are some yeah these are some interesting swings. >> Uh the other thing I always try to look at is our loss in enrollment from the fourth to fifth grade because that's the

049traditional where we lost a lot of kids to the private schools. Um and and I didn't look at the previous years so I could see what where we ended up. Do you know what usually it was 10 15% looks like? And again, this could be 10% in this case if you were averaging out all the grades about the same. Do do you have a better number on your head by chance or >> I confess and because I like to watch that number as well. I need to go and look at what are how the actual cohort survival worked between the elementary cohorts going into Walker and I and it's also interesting to watch from Walker to Buford. So, um, I would need to look at that and I can follow up with it as a

050as a report out through Dr. Gurley to let you all know. >> Right. Well, what I like to see is that difference between eth and nth grade. >> Uh, and I'm also was very excited to see the CMS enrollment numbers go up by about looks like about 5% or something like that. So, uh, >> anecdotally, we did feel like we were seeing an uptick at the middle school with the opening of the new facility, but I I really want to look more closely at that numbers because I but now I would just tell you it was sort of a anecdotal thing and I'd need to compare it to the trends. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, my my assumption is especially next year when we have six, seven, eight, we'll see and again fifth grade, we're

051going to see our number go back up uh substantially. So, anyways, thank you very much. >> Um, Any questions, Mr. Torres? So I'm sorry if I missed what go back to the Jackson Vaia and you had said something about potentially maybe needing to do something there or >> so I had been concerned that with when we initiated the resoning work my was just knowing like what happened with when the beacon on fifth opened and we we had seen a p sort of a bubble at Jackson Bay Via that started to feel a little pinchy some years ago. I can't remember exactly what year it was. And so as we were monitoring South First Street, you know, I had thought perhaps in the phased resoning approach, which the phase the fact we ended up with a

052phasing appro a phased approach did not surprise me because the housing developments are all phased or not coming in at the same time. But one of the first ma significant developments to hatch is the South First Street project developing to the point where of net additional units. Because by the way, the construction work you see at these different in the different communities until they get to the point where they're actually adding additional net additional units, you know, it's not until then that you would expect to start to see, you know, an impact on the school. And so South First Street starting to get into that the first phase or so even into the second phase, it's a lot about just replacing units that were there, right? Um and I will say families that relocated within

053the city, a lot of them were at West Haven, we've continued to run a bus from West Haven to Jackson Bayas so that those students um wouldn't experience a disruption of going to a different school and then then going back to um their original school when the construction was completed. But I guess what I'm saying is that I kept looking thinking are we getting this right with the numbers and after having very deep conversations with the um and again I'm so sorry I get I worked with CRA and Pedmont the one that's doing South Street. Thank you. Um, I'm so sorry I'm confusing that in my mind in the moment, but anyway, I've had numerous conversations as did the consultant just to make sure and they actually, you know, they have they know the families

054that are expecting to come back and they know their weight lists and and the decisions that the consultant put forward I think seem to be the right decisions. Um, because it is even though yeah, Jackson Va is not losing numbers like the others, Jackson Ver summit are sort of like if you look at their elementary class sizes, they're sort of right sized instead of unders sized. I mean, if we needed to implement something quicker, a change, we we could do that if it continues to >> We have some I I don't I don't think that'll be the case, but yes, there are plans for things that can relieve capacity at Jackson Bay that are not that don't involve resoning, >> like what? >> So, for example, the LEAP program takes a lot of classrooms there.

055There's already plans that we may need to have the LEAP program shift in to have be located in other schools or parts of it. So that's just part that's separate planning but that immediately relieves you know provides more classrooms. It's an example. And then again, I apologize if I missed this in your explanation, but in looking at the um increases or decreases at at each of these schools, is it kind of across the board all grades or have you been able to dial down and say like the 49 the minus 49 at Greenbryer is that I honestly when when we watch the class sizes and we make sure that that they're okay, the elementary class sizes, I did not check to see if it like a certain grade level that had more of a loss

056than another grade level. I just haven't looked at that. >> I mean, in a year or two ago, I think we talked a little bit about just the change in um demographics of families moving out of Hearthwood and potentially down. >> That's right. >> Towards the Jackson Via. So, I don't know if that's reflecting some of that loss that we're seeing at Greenbryer and then increasing it. Yeah, we we h um again this is I'm going to be a little anecdotal, but we have had conversations is with Greenbryer's leadership about like you know what we're we're all we used to get so many kids from Mickey Drive and we we did see some change in that and um you know sometimes I think too if families I don't know if it's because they're moving or

057because they're not moving and they're aging out of the school that they're in, right? Same dynamic that's happening with the Greenbryer neighborhood overall, right? I mean, when I I've been here about 14 15 years, and before I even ended up in this role, I remember Greenbar was the school that was busting at the seams year after year. We've got two modulars out back for that reason where the where the preschool is and then here we are right 10 square miles things things shift. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Pal. Madame Chair, if I could, I am getting some feedback from the community that our Facebook live stream is down and it's important for access. It is. Thank you. I was going to ask for a brief recess to pause us, but so we'll

058post the recording for the previous portion that was missed. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> All right. So, for folks who couldn't hear Mr. Cuomo, we were confirming that our Facebook feed was up and running. he assured us that it is and that the portion that was not recorded live uh will be posted uh later this evening. Um so I think we are good to move on to item 12.2 with Miss Chuck and um an update on our SROU process. >> Thank you uh members of the board, Madame Chair, Dr. Girly. I am here really to uh just give a very brief update about the engagement to come on this topic. Um and I think many of these slides or several of the slides I'm only covering a few tonight. Several of

059them are um kind of repeats from the event on Tuesday night and others are kind of building out the engagement that people asked for. I'm going to begin briefly by just summarizing a couple of um my main takeaways from the meeting uh that evening. Um primarily uh this process this season we have asked for detailed feedback about theou via the Google form or the event that evening and I would say we have started receiving very uh useful detailed suggestions for theou and I'm pleased to think to say that I think the initial report is that we'll be able to act on most of that feedback whether it's in theou or in the accompanying standard operating procedure. Uh we have also heard that as you heard tonight some people are dissatisfied with the both the process

060and the decision. We have also heard as as I know you have from people who are pleased with the decision. So um that's another takeaway from the evening. Finally, uh probably the the biggest one for the purposes of this presentation is that people wanted more opportunities for the community, staff, students, uh and to follow and give feedback and to uh just be part of the refinement of theou and the standard operating procedure. So we have scheduled about 15 events in September and October including uh for the purposes of the general public weekly uh SRO information hours at a variety of times and locations throughout the months of September and October. So and uh those are going to be posted I believe they're already on our website. They're already on our Google calendar, but they'll also

061be part of this presentation. So this is one of the slides that I presented that night and I'm going to just jump to the um to the line September October. That's really where we are right we're in right now. We're ga continuing to gather feedback and we are finalizing theou I guess where we are exactly right now is one line up where I give an update on that meeting but um but the process we're in right now is September through October continuing to receive f feedback so we can finalize theou that's the actual kind of philosophical underpinnings of the agreement and then the standard operating procedures is about how you execute the agreement so that's that's where we are uh just to recap cap in throughout the winter. That's when the city engages in its

062budget season. The spring would be hiring and training. August we would open with four SRO's in place. Um one one point to keep in mind is um you know just as Miss Bryant mentioned that the the timeline could go back farther in time. This timeline could go future in time because this uh you you often hear Miss Powell talk about um safety as a continuous improvement operation and that's that's where this this would go. training would continue, implementation would continue of course well beyond August 2026. So, in terms of what are some of the key things we've heard that people want to see and uh learn more about in thisou or standard operating procedure, again, this is a slide that was presented that evening and uh I don't know that I'll go through every item,

063but I think the big picture is that when um when the leadership team of the schools reviewed that feedback, when the um the work group for the developing thisou and the um the SOP got together on Friday. Their initial sense was that for most of these things, we would be able to address the concern or incorporate the suggestion into theou or I think more commonly it would go into the standard operating procedure. Um I'm happy to take comments about these. Um I think I I for for the purposes of of just um getting to the chase, I will go through the ones that there may not be or there probably won't be. um uh room for adjusting the uh we've heard a lot that our committee discussed a lot the question of guns and that

064seemed uh to be a a standard practice for SRO's in the country. The consultants we hired could not think of an example uh to the contrary for clients that they had worked with. It's may be possible to find one if you were to search just nationally, but for their clients, they could not find a an example where they did not have guns. It is a police policy. I think that centers on the idea that uh you want sworn officers who are most fully trained and those sworn officers are going to carry a gun. Um, and we talked a little bit about the safety precautions they take as well, but that's that's the gist of that one. the the uh there's there's some hope that the board would or some people have expressed the hope that

065the board would approve theou but uh just uh in terms of board practice we have many manyus and the board does not approve those so that's just a matter of board practice um the third one is kind of counterintuitive to what you've heard tonight but on the Google form we have had a repeated um and all of these are things that have come in more than once in some cases many times so There is a vein of feedback within the Google form for people who wonder why we can't implement theou sooner. Uh obviously those are people who are satisfied with theou and would like to see it begin sooner. Um that's another one that we would I don't would not recommend doing because again we have a timeline laid out and I think uh we

066definitely want to be uh deliberate in hearing the feedback, deliberate in hiring the right people, deliberate in training the right people. the next steps for the work group and the community engagement. The working group met on the 29th of August to review these initial suggestions, that same slide that I was talking about to just as um kind of a vibe check to make sure that you know the central office uh administration felt like we could accommodate many of those. The work group's initial kind of thumbs up, thumbs down before Miss Powell gets to work to actually draft these things up was yes. um that working group will meet several times throughout September and October to again be a sounding board, give feedback and to continue to hear feedback as it continues to come in through

067the community. On the community engagement side, uh that feedback form remains open on our website and that is a place where people have really studied theou and have dropped in quite specific um suggestions or questions. So I invite people to continue using that. And then uh the new part of this is that uh we have scheduled as I say about 15 meetings and I'll go through those. Uh these are weekly meetings. We're calling them info hours for people to the first hour of the of of just be a one-hour session open to the public. People can come to any or all they can come to, you know, as whatever suits their schedule. It's a mix of Zoom and in person four and four. And it would just be an opportunity. We envision uh 10 minutes

068max at the beginning just a chance to update people on where we are in the process, what we're hearing, common questions we've heard that week, and then 50 minutes of just unstructured uh feedback and conversation to make sure we're mutually understanding each other. That's the kind of more public approach uh for staff engagement. Of course, staff are invited as it fits their schedule to go to any of the public meetings, but we've also scheduled two staff only meetings during September and October. I know um uh people want to make sure we've heard that people want to make sure we're folding in the feedback and perspectives our care and safety assistance and they uh participated in a focus group. the CHS ones I believe participated in a focus group in March and then in August CSAs

069from uh across the schools participated in a I think it was a half-day uh work session for training and conversation. I think it was extremely interactive a lot of back and forth and that was with an expert who helps police and SRO's uh really learn to work effectively together. So that was really the um the emphasis of the day and of course we that that's none of these are should be considered a oneanddone you know that the whole point of this back to the point of continual improvement is that we have to stay in conversation with each other. Uh people have wanted us to make sure we are attending to students, some of whom really have maybe vague memories of what it was like to have an SRO in the school. And that would be

070our older CHS students, our younger CHS students or our students at CMS probably don't uh really don't have many memories or much experience with what an SRO is or or how that program works. So uh there are a couple of opportunities for students for us to um engage with them. The student newspaper, The Nighttime Review, is planning an article on this topic that we hope will really be a useful way for students to um uh just get some basic facts, but also have their questions answered. Um then, uh in September and October, we have scheduled two kind of twin events. On a Thursday, it would be kind of um like a tableabling type event where students could come approach uh folks at a table to ask whatever questions they have about SRO's just as a

071way to start that conversation and then students can sign up to attend kind of a deeper dive during the impact session the next day uh so that we can really go a little bit deeper. And then of course I believe uh Miss Burns set up a meeting with our student schoolboard reps. You heard a good report tonight, but just making sure that our student school repups are helping us make sure that these are effective ways to hear from our students and to understand the uh hopes and concerns of our students. And so, uh, this is a slide I ended with on Tuesday night, and I think it's just worth repeating because this is a really polarizing issue, but I I want to I'll just, uh, put my hat on it that we actually have more

072consensus around what we want in a safety plan than we think, especially when you consider the fact that working with police is not an option in our schools. They're in our schools every day. Really the question is do you want um an SRO who's pre-trained, prevetted, who's building relationships with schools or the officer who's available at a given moment? And so what if you kind of just table the question of police outside and in on call or stationed in the schools. Beyond that, I think there is widespread consensus that we want a safety model that's built on a positive culture, strong relationships that leans heavily into mental health supports, that teaches the behaviors we expect to see, that uses a restorative approach whenever possible, and that connects the schools with the community. That those are

073the slides. Beyond that, I just have I I literally uh for folks who could not come on Tuesday night, I just included the slide deck from Tuesday night in case folks were interested and wanted to um thumb through beyond that. If you have questions uh particularly around uh the engagement process, I am happy to answer those. >> Thank you, Miss Chuck. Uh Miss Torres, do you have any questions or comments for Miss Chuck or the board itself? that doesn't Yeah, just anything around this. >> Um, thank you. >> Um, I think appreciate the fact that, you know, we're we're dialing this back a little bit and offering, you know, these opportunities for the different types of engagement from community, staff, and students. Um I guess some of my questions um in general um would be

074that I feel like and I I know we we've talked about this a lot that there are a lot of the the feedback that we've gotten from community and I hope to hear feedback from board members as well will play into more of the SOP and I know that that's still to be drafted. Um, but I feel like that's really important to see that and that's a that's a big part of the work and I'm I know we have workg groups scheduled out um but I really hope that we have an opportunity to um provide feedback and and to work with Miss Powell. You'll be doing that mostly. Is that correct? Okay. Because I do feel like a lot of the feedback it needs to come into there. But I think um some of the

075concerns and some of the things that I I would like to pose to board members here um to just think about and and if you feel comfortable at some point to provide some um feedback or comments on you know and I realize that and I don't know that the public realizes that at this point in time and Dr. Gurley, correct me if I'm wrong, that the budget um for this program is going to be run through the police departments, the allocation for that. Is that correct? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. And then recent and p uh in a public meeting with the chief of police in the cat, what does that stand for? community action um setting. He um spoke a little bit about the SRO process and kind of where we are at and

076stated that it would be8 to $900,000 um for the first year for the four positions. Um which is a lot of money. I mean, might as well round it up to close to a million. And I get it that it's coming, but it's coming from the same pot and there's a lot of things going on um with the city um and our community and a lot of needs. Um I also at some point in one of our work sessions had asked for data to justify the four FTEES um and trying to wrap my head around and I think it's within my purview since it's it's a budgetary um there are budgetary implications and and big picture was to be I want to be able to justify that just like when we are asked to you

077know add positions in the budget for student needs. I mean it's important and I don't feel like I've received that and I think it is important for the the board as a whole to be able to look at that and understand why the right number or the proposed number is four and to have a conversation about can that be different or or look differently um to start with once once we roll it out. So, I I do respectfully ask and we can sit and talk about that what kind of data or what what that might look like, but I don't feel like I've seen that yet. >> And I'll just ask Miss Swift if she would put that on the next steps um just from staff. And I think what I would like to see

078happen is that that come back from the workg group. um the why what data is being used um for the to justify the request for more positions. I think that's the work of the work group >> and just for for reference for board members who weren't you know there in the work group and for the public I mean so we we kind of did ask and you know how did we land on this number and and um admin principles you know just kind of said gave their justification for why they felt like that number was was ideal. um past number, you know, having one interacting and another one available. But I still felt like, you know, a lot of the purpose um and this is one area where I I I totally understand where it

079would be beneficial to have somebody who who knows the schools and is a dedicated person for the threat assessments and and push in and that I get I get that. Um and so for one of the points I said you know I know that threat assessments and the number of those vary daytoday week to week school to school but how many threat assessments um maybe as a data point would justify an FTE or the amount of time doing that type of response. So that was just one example of something that I had hoped to kind of hear and get back. Um, and then just as a question like is there room to talk about a different number? So I I'm again I'm one person who keeps asking this and I don't know how the rest

080of the board feel or if we're just hands off and going to trust that that whatever um has been proposed is the best fit. But I I would love to have conversation about that and to think about it more. And I know Miss Burns and I talk about it a little bit, but I would love to hear other people's thoughts on that. And >> I don't want to cut you off, but while you're in that thought, so for the work group, what I would like to see happen is Miss U Torres has made a request with regards to the rationale. So I think that um doing the due diligence of like creating at least some type of one-page or two-pager rationale as to how you arrived at the number and and deline some delineations the

081making sure that it does incorporate the um like the number of the trends for the number of threat assessments. All of those things I think would be helpful in with the board as you move forward with adopting theou because theou will speak to the number. Um and then I think that that becomes a talking point as to the why or why not. >> Thank you. Um also was just curious um if we are are settled or what kind of conversations you have had um Dr. Gurley with city councelor or Mr. Sanders as far as the time frame and is this definitely something that they see that they can work into their budget so that we are ready to roll this out on 2026 or is there a different time that's been discussed? >> Yes ma'am.

082So, um my conversations with the uh with my city colleagues have been that um this would they see that if this makes it into the budget that the timeline would um the timeline would be on track for um an August 2026 implementation if that's the pleasure of the board. >> Okay. And then just keeping in mind so that 800 to8 to $900,000 for the SRO's is one thing and then the chief had mentioned that he would be asking for like an urgent or emergency replacement of those four FTEEs for his police academy. So there's also that budget. And I know it's not like the school's budget, but it's still kind of the city's money. >> Yes, ma'am. And my my last conversation with him with regards to I think some of the questions that you

083all had um was that if theou if theou was adopted and they move forward that he would make some type of request of advancing forward um for officers to start training because he would like to see the um SRO come from his current staff. So because they have the foundation um they have the foundational training and then he could expand upon their current knowledge to make them um to build the capacity so that they're the employees who he puts in the school. So I didn't I don't know if there's two costs there. It's it's to me I I only got that there was one thing but yes we can clarify that as well. >> Okay. And then just for comments, I mean, I know that we all have received um the survey that was sent

084out and and the requests and those points. Um and and I know Miss Burns and I are both really dedicated to taking a look at those and making sure and and the working group as well is looking at those. And I think as as Miss Chuck's um slide represented that most of those will be reflected. But I want to um commit and I hope that you and I can figure out how to to meet with individual board members to kind of get you guys up to speed if you have questions as we're working through this or if there are things that you have seen in the survey or concerns that are coming through in emails that are really important to you, please reach out to us so that we can elevate those in our work

085um in the next groups. And I think that's all my comments for now. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Torres. Miss Richardson. Okay. So, I I was curious about the funding. Thank you, Miss Torres. We are understanding that the Charlottesville Police Department will fund the SRO's, correct? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. And then as for Dr. Garier recent statement, you just said that the police department will get to pick the four is. So how will we play a part in that process? >> Um so he would uh so in terms of and I apologize if that was my language. So he would like for us to we we will be a part of the hiring process but he would like for it to come from someone to come from his current staff so that it's

086not we're not hiring someone brand new off of the street to come and work with our students. So a part of what's being incorporated in theou and the standard operating procedures is that the school the school staff and and I would even like someone from central administration to be a part of the hiring process to select the right fit. Um, but what we do not want, and I agree with him on that, that I would not want someone white off, like someone who's never had any experience to be someone who would then be serving as an SRO in our school building. >> Okay, great. Thank you. And then, um, so during your, um, recent work session, I'm just curious, has anyone mentioned body cameras u for the SRO's? I haven't heard anything about that. >>

087I I don't believe that. Uh, and Miss Powell could speak to that. We actually put that on the as a check like that is one thing we want to clarify in either theou or the SOP. That was something we've heard from community feedback so far and people agreed that that should be clarified. >> I would I would like clarification on that as well. >> Um, that's what I have to >> Thank you. Cooper. Um I guess my first question would be from the survey from the online Google survey, how many um feedback um responses was captured. >> It is 52 so far. >> 52 so far. Okay. >> And like I said, they're quite lengthy. The people who wrote took time and um and kind of examine things. Generally speaking, there's there's a variety of

088comments, but some of the people who wrote to that really uh took some time to give some thought. >> Okay. And all of those responses were shared with the working group. Uh not yet because well yes in the sense that uh by the time of the Tuesday meeting I had gone through I think at that point we were maybe in the 30s and I had looked for repeating themes at that point and those repeating themes were on the slide that I presented even tonight to you all with the check marks and the X's >> but that will have access to all of those responses. >> Oh yeah definitely I I think um I uh there we there's a lot to go through and we are committed to doing that. >> Okay. Um um I also

089wanted to bring to the attention of the board of the um I think it was the Tuesday night uh city council meeting of the ordinance um to criminalize homelessness. Um, and I think as we are considering returning SRO's in ourou that we must keep in mind um the realities of our unhome unhoused families and um making sure that we are providing supports for housing instabilities to our families um that families could potentially if this ordinance is passed if thank god that uh the city council post postponed But it's an opportunity for us to get in front of it to be able to support our unhoused because we don't want um our children that may be sleeping in tents or may be sleeping in cars to be families to be penalized um with SRO's in our

090schools. I also want to talk about um overpolicing in some of our communities. Um so I've had some conversations with some of our um student population. Um I work in the community. I'm in the community every day. Um, and so some of the feedback that I've heard is um how often times police comes into our communities and they overp police um and they bring the big guns, the armored tanks and stuff like that. And I think that we need to keep that in mind in our current administration um while we're bringing SRO's back into our schools and making sure that our kids in our underserved communities feel safe, they feel protected, they feel heard. Um some of our kids say, "I can't sleep at night because I don't know what's going to happen." And so

091when we're bringing back them back into the school, if they feel that in the community and then they have to come into the schools, if they feel the same way, are they going to show up? And I think we need to start thinking about those things and making sure that ourou touch base on all of those things that so that our kids and our underserved communities feel protected and are going to come to school. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Cooper. Miss Burns. >> Sure. I appreciate um the feedback thus far and that we've received from the community. um in particular the items that were brought up on the change.org petition that went around um immediately was able to reach out to my colleagues on the workg group and um bring that to their attention.

092I noticed that I was tagged I think Miss Richardson and maybe Mr. Morse, but the rest of the board wasn't. So, I wanted to make sure that the entire board was aware of that and that we were having conversations about that um quickly and early. Um, and so just want to acknowledge that that was looked at and and discussed and that's where several of the points to that Miss Chuck provided tonight. Several of those items um were thoughtfully considered and I I hope I think we can adopt those and bring them in to theou. Um, something that I haven't seen addressed yet that I think I spoke on at the event, um, when Miss Rosia Parker talked about, uh, mechanisms for our students or staff to report, um, any staff concerns or interactions. And I

093I don't know that we've fully addressed that. And so that's that's important to me that our students have an avenue as well as our staff that that they have a confidential and and safe way to report any interactions that um that they would like to um separate I think from the PCOB. Uh we see that that's not working well. Um and to my knowledge does not currently have an executive director. And so, um, that's concerning to me and so I'm hoping that we can, uh, find a way to really be able to ensure that our students and staff are heard in that way. Um, another item that I I think Miss Torres and I have talked about and and it was in a previous iteration ofus that we'd looked at previously, but looking at some

094clear metrics. What are we what are we looking for um in the interactions? What what are we measuring and um what do the interactions look like? what are students being um addressed on um and really drilling down and I think understanding a little bit further um um what data we're trying to capture and what's meaningful um so that we as a board can see that but also the community it's important that that we're sharing that same data with the community as we do with our SOS and our MAP testing um data data as one spoke earlier is important and I think if we're doing this work, we need to be able to talk about that. I'd also like to see um some data about current interactions, what's been happening here. We talk about that the

095police are here. They're already here. They're already in the building. They're already interacting with our students and our staff. And I think just with some clarity, um what what are they interacting about? What what are they here to do? Um, I don't know that I don't know that we have conveyed that well to the community. I think as board members, we may know. um we're in the community, we hear conversations, our parents reach out, students share their lived experience with us, but I don't know that that translates into the community to fully realize what what we're looking at um and what we're seeing every day in our schools and what those interactions look like. And I think that helps with the why. Why do we need them here? um we have to be able to

096clearly articulate what they are doing today and yesterday and why we need them tomorrow. And I think that's how we as a division can hear from the community and and translate the work and show how they are here and what they are addressing and then what that translates when they're here. Um, I think I would, um, echo Miss Cooper's concerns about the policing in the communities that when warrants are served and tanks come into the community and police are at your door and um, it is a child in the home that did not do it, but it is a parent who is putting their child in a very difficult situation or a parent's family member or a spouse or a boyfriend or a partner who's bringing things into the home that warrant the police. We

097have to fully understand what that looks like for our students and just being able to have some capacity around that that when we know a a warrant is served or there's police activity in the community, how do we respond as a school district to make sure that we're ready to receive those students the next day at our door. And I think that looks like mental health support. I think that looks like some of the things we are doing. Um, but just to to Miss Cooper's point, just making sure that we're doing that with fidelity every time and that we're recognizing that when shots fired on South First Street and 49 shell casings are found, kids go to school the next day and that is trauma and we have to be able to receive it in

098both spaces and what that looks like as a community. And so I hope that we can just continue to have more conversation around that and how we are supporting our students as things happen in the community. >> Thank you. Die, >> I just wanted to comment to her. Is that okay? >> Sure. So just you said something that that caught me. Um, I believe you said, you know, we need to be really clear about why why we're moving this way and what what are the roles that the SRO's um are are why are they here, right? I mean, I think in in as a result of of dissolving theou and and what the board years ago was committed to was providing the the supports, the mental health supports and then the research and the work

099that that group did was to come up with this CSA model which was to um build those relationships among other things as far as their job descriptions. And so we've really invested as a school division in that model. Um and and I think it's important if we feel like there's a gap there or that model is missing something. And I think we need to clearly articulate it because I'm getting confused um when I hear we want to bring SRO's back in um for the relationship piece and and I think we need to be really clear about if it's you know what does that look like? Is it the relationship with the schools for the threat assessments or is it you know are they are we saying we need them there to build relationships with the

100students because I think that's what the CSAs are supposed to be doing and if there's a safety issue then I think we need to be clear and we need to call it that. And I don't and I don't I'm not saying you have said one or the other. I mean, I've heard you recently say something about safety for the schools, and that's the first time I And I'm not trying to call you out to make you, but I mean, it was the first time I heard you, and we were on Zoom, so I wasn't able to kind of go, "Hey, Amanda, wait." Um, but I think we as a division, I would hope, if if that's the concern and that's the reason we need them in here, then we need to say that and we

101need to be clear and transparent about that because I don't think it's it's been presented that way. >> And I would agree. Um, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. I had some comments for later, but since we're addressing it, um, I personally don't see the role of police officers in schools as friends or mentors. Police are here while they can be friendly and I think they should build positive relationships to your point, that's what our CSAs are for. That's what our educators are for. That's what the people doing the jobs every day, our mental health workers, our clinicians, those people do that work. The primary responsibility that I see speak sorry speaking only for myself is security. Their job is to prevent and address violence to intervene when threats arise and to keep

102our students and educators safe so that real learning can happen. And I think when some of these community things happen as we we saw in November of 2023, we had to shut this school down because people would our teachers didn't want to come to work. But I was newly elected and part of the community and town hall meetings that then happened. But there were people begging to bring SRO's back into the school because of the violence and the upheaval and teachers didn't come to school and we closed school for several days. I think we need to be honest about that and that what was happening in the community came into our schools right here in this library where Dr. Denise Johnson is sitting and we closed the building. I think we have to be honest

103about that. I think we have to be honest that our middle school received a threat last Friday that police up until yesterday had to be present because there was a threat made by a student. And I think we have to be honest about that. I think we have to be honest about the communication. And this is something I've brought to Dr. Gurley and and you know I I hope the board understands like I I struggle with just the Charlottesville Middle School community getting that message. I think the whole community needs to know what we're dealing with and what we're seeing every day and that there was a verbal altercation here at the high school not too long ago and students get back and forth and parents are here and I think everyone deserves to know

104what's happening in our schools so that everyone can see what we're all in our silos seeing because right now if you have an elementary school child at Jackson Vaia you don't know unless you hear by way of two or three other parents that this is what's happening at the Charlottesville Middle School. And I think to your point, this is about school safety for me. And this is about how do we add another piece to that puzzle in the community and I think the school is part of the community. And when we leave out a piece of the community, I don't know that that's a holistic approach to school safety. Thank you, Ms. Mr. Morris. >> Yeah, I just want to throw my support behind two um points that were made earlier. U one by Miss

105Burns regarding data. Um specifically for me, it's always been about measuring a program and making sure we have those metrics. Um and then in addition to that, uh Miss Richardson um mentioned the the body cameras which are on here as well. I think that's really important to clarify that piece regarding data and student data. >> Thank you, Mr. Morris. Mr. Meyer, >> uh, appreciate all your comments everybody and again uh I value this this conversation because I don't know if the public knows but we're not able to again because of meeting rules have these conversations uh except for here at the DICE or in our meetings. So, um I want to reflect and I think Miss Burns you mentioned I mean we talked about this I remember on the campaign trail it was a question

106that got asked to us about SRO's uh you know we ended up inheriting kind of I a lot of conversations about security and I was looking back at all the meetings I've been to since I've been elected starting in January 2024 we had a conversation uh about security and SRO's in February202 24 we talked about security and SRO's in May of 2024 we had two conversations about it we had a conversation info session actually we had an info session about it in May 2024 in December in another public meeting we talked about it this year in 2025 we talked about it in February we had the vote on it in March um which I think a lot of us wish would have gone differently um I encourage those people who want to say we haven't

107had a thorough process and we tried to rush it to watch to that meeting and you will see who voted to either delay the vote and make sure we have seven people here and you can see who did not. I think it's an interesting mix. Uh we had another conversation about SRO's in August just last month. So this is my entire time on the school board a year and eight months now almost nine months I've been talking a lot. I've had eight meetings about SRO's. Uh in those meetings, uh I've heard a lot of public comment. I've also gotten dozens of emails with papers, uh etc. And I want to acknowledge I think that there's a lot of concern out there in the community about their potential harm. Uh but also again, I think a

108lot of concerns are heard about the students and their safety in our schools. And not just in our schools, but in the community. um concerns that you know we would by bringing back SRO's we would be facilitating the pipeline to prison uh prisons to pipeline sorry I'm getting that wrong but there would be negative impacts on black and brown and disabled children we'd have questions about the chain of command the control reporting the hiring the training of all them um and so I want to let you all know that I've been listening to you okay I I've been actively engaged in thatou process that we've been doing. I think I just want to note that we had a different process than I think we normally do to create MLUS where we added two schoolboard members.

109I think one who voted for it, one who voted against it, one who definitely has a black child who had engaged with police also. Okay. And that was purposeful. I wanted those people on theou because they want to bring that experience and I knew they also had the connections in the community to bring in that feedback into that process. Um, so I'm also been watching what's happened in the community and what's been happening in our schools. We had a gun in one of our schools last year and that was the most scariest thing I've had to deal with so far. And I am so thankful that the officer that intervened, I think, had good training and was able to deescalate that situation and resolve it without any violence. Uh, I want to note just like

110my community, my colleague here, Amanda, that there was 49 bullets, shells, case shells, a 14-year-old that was injured from our community this week. So, when I think about all this, I think about not only our students and again being safe in our schools, but in our community in general. And I think right while there are secured doors now and we've done a lot of other just around these other things and walls in our buildings but again these students move in and out into our community and while it's not our responsibility to think about the entirety of their safety when they're at home or whatnot it is the city's council's responsibility and the police department's responsibility and that's why I'm happy to see this with them and that it's in their budget because this is their

111job to keep our children safe. It's not It's our responsibility also when they're in our buildings, but by collaborating with them, I think we facilitate that and I also want them to be safe in their homes too. Um, so all that to say and again I'm sorry for the lengthy remarks here because gotten a lot of input from a lot of people, a lot of people saying things about democracy also and say we're all democratically elected here. uh is that I feel like the concerns I've heard from folks are addressed this MLOU so far. I think they're going to be improved upon in here with some tightening in the language and I think we're ready to move forward. I'm think we need to make decision and then looking forward to getting signed and that this

112then the city council can appropriate the funds and we can get these SRO officers trained in a coherent manner and organized manner. I think this plan looks great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Miss Sullie, you're okay. Um, I just want to be mindful uh that although we don't necessarily reach the same conclusion from these discussions, that it doesn't mean that uh we don't hear the different perspectives and that we're not respectful for respectful of where they come from. Um, I think those of us that did vote for the return of SRO's share many of the concerns um that those who are not in favor of the decision do, which is why we believe there's so much importance placed in getting thisou and the subsequent SOPs um, you know, as robust as possible. Um, so

113I look forward to that work. I think there's improvement shown in what you presented tonight, Miss Chuck. Um, and I think the board looks forward to hearing more. And thank you, Miss Torres and Miss Burns, for your service on this committee on our behalf. All right. Our next item for discussion is 12.3, which is um continuing our discussion from our board member retreat about a possible change to our school board meeting time. Uh and so just opening it up to colleagues for discussion. Um what has been proposed for us to consider is shifting um our meeting times to starting at 6 pm uh as opposed to their 5:00 pm start currently uh with um uh close session then beginning an hour earlier. Um there had been some discussion about location change. I don't think we're

114there yet to be able to um you know dive into the logistics of that. So for right now it's really just a discussion about time. Um so open up to the floor if anybody has any comments that they would like to make. >> Yeah. Comment colleagues. I think we talked about this past. I'm in favor of moving this. I think it allows for better public public participation uh along with some other things we discussed to the meeting change, but I think this would be a positive uh move and it would improve again our ability to engage with the community. Thank you. >> Sure. Um, I I also would recommend um the move I think um close session moving to 5:00 pm with regular meetings at 6 pm allow for um again hopefully more community engagement,

115community feedback. Um traffic in Charlottesville is a frightful mess, frightful mess. And um maybe that gets more folks here. I'm not quite sure. I hope it does. Um, and I think it allows those of us who work uh the opportunity to at least see our children in passing between school bus, school home, car pickup, drop off. Um, and say hello before we head here. Um, make sure everyone's snug at home, if you will, and allows us to be our most engaged and present self here. And so, um, I'm asking for consideration as well. >> Thank you. Um, I think one of my concerns about change pushing the time back is just length of meetings and, you know, where we might miss some people on the front end with a 5:00 pm start time. Do we

116lose some people on the tail end if we are starting later? Um my hope is that that concern can maybe be alleviated some by our next info item which is talking about um the superintendent's recommendation to us for board priorities that that will help focus um our discussions and what's going on our agendas and then also the discussions that we had um following our um work with Dr. Hutchings about um making use of work sessions more fully um and um having more opportunities for our board governance improvements and reflections and things of that nature. So um I have not heard concerns about the meeting start time but I respect you know the uh concerns that others have raised and so I am open to it. Um, and I think that again my concerns can be

117addressed by um some of the other um changes that we're considering. >> Um, I too support the time change. Um, you know, I think that a lot of us have full-time jobs and I'm often time rushing from one job to another and having to take off one hat and turn on um another hat. So I think that it would also allow me opportunity to be able to um disengage from the position that I was in and re-engage in this position and be more present. Um and so you know I'm supportive of that and also um like Amanda shared um the opportunity for more parents to maybe to be able to show up and share their concerns because um starting so early a lot of parents are still at work. Thank you, Miss Richardson. >> Uh,

118for me personally, I feel like if it's not broken, uh, what's the need to fix it? For me, it works. Um, but I do see the light of having a later time to allow other people to make it to our meetings. So, I'm very open and transparent to see what the board comes up with. Um, but personally, I would I would love to keep it as is. This is definitely something that's been brought up throughout the years. Um, and I I I don't know before my time, maybe it had been a different time, but I'm not sure. Um, I want to say first off that I appreciate the fact that we we stream this or we do the the live, you know, option for people who are at home and can maybe pop in and

119out of rooms. And I um really hope that we continue to do that because I think that was a big big plus and something that we've held on to coming out of COVID which has hopefully allowed people to to listen in um via that medium. Um I'm I mean I'm open to it. I don't really feel one way or the other. I mean of course if it's there there's the benefit for people to be able to get here. Um I'll be excited and anxious to see that. Um so that's all I have to say. So, in reviewing our policies, there is not like this isn't something that we are going to formally vote on. It's not going to come to us as an action item because our time is not um is not in policy

120and it's not reflected on the calendar that we the board meeting calendar that we approved either. Um I think that um it seems like there is at least majority support for pushing it back. And so um I think what we'll consider um and we'll make public is um starting in January in the new year we would start with our revised um meeting times. >> Yes. So along those lines, and I didn't see it on here, but one other topic that we had talked about was the reorganiz reorganization meeting. >> Yep. >> Do we have an update about that? And and do you want to explain what that might >> Yeah. So um that we can actually touch on more probably in our legislative priorities because what we learned um so the reorganization meeting has to

121happen annually. So where we elect um our clerk um chair and vice chair um we as a board had discussion about shifting that meeting um or that uh reorganizational meeting to our June meeting. Uh what we've learned is that by law uh by state code it has to occur in January or July. We do not meet in July. um and in consultation with our attorneys, um our June meeting that takes the place of our July meeting doesn't count. And so that's going to just it's going to require further conversation uh amongst the board about um how we can achieve the goals that we seem to agree upon but still abide by law. So, do you mind sharing with the public like what the benefits why why there was an appetite to actually change the time

122for that? And I'm curious as to whether or not the board would consider just a a quick organizational meeting in July. >> Yeah, I think if you are okay, let's save it for the legislative one because it could be a priority to ask them to change it. Um, okay. So I think um we're ready to move on to 12.4. Dr. Gurley um a presentation of your recommendation of our schoolboard priorities. >> Good evening uh madame chair, members of the board and all assembled. Um so I am here um to uh present the schoolboard priorities u for the school year 2526 um for school year 2526. Um and just as a little introduction, I think the board had a really good u governance session together on um August the 23rd. And I think um you know

123along with many other things uh governance and um was one of the big topics and you know one of the things that the board um learned through that discussion is is really you know setting and setting priorities and making those priorities public um and really what's the focus um what's the work for the school division for the school year and and so as a result of that work. I mean that work had already started. It just had not been codified through the school board's actions. So um I will present the two things that really surfaced to the top and if there's something that I missed by all means um the school board can provide some feedback. The first priority area um was it relates to uh priority one of the strategic plan um as it

124relates to increasing the academic achievement and we normally have these conversations you'll hear more um with regards to um how our students are doing in the month of October um but for specifically for this conversation this evening it's about um the board really wants to focus on ensuring that all membership groups reach a 75% u proficiency in reading and and again as I stated during our um our professional learning palooa like proficiency is the baseline it's a minimal expectation and so all of our students deserve to reach that area and I think the one of the many things that our board um has done as it relates to instruction is really helping us focus on the main thing and ensuring that as we um look at the budget and as we focus our um budget

125priorities that we center these things. And so one of the things that was communicated was related to the academic achievement as it relates to all membership groups reaching a 75% um mastery for um for reading. The next priority area deals with priority area two um provide a culture of safety, wellness and belonging. And specifically there's a strategy. So we went um a little lower in terms of um and when I say a little lower, we do we dug a little deeper into our strategic plan. And strategy 13 under priority two talks about developing, implementing and monitoring our um attendance. And so um attendance intervention plans so that we can increase achievement to meet uh the Virginia Department of Education standards. And we've done a lot of work in this area, but we have a lot

126of work to do. Um the data last year showed that we made um strong strides across all of our um across all of our schools, but we know that we have more work to do. And so the board has um tasked us to work a little harder and we appreciate that. And so we've done a lot of that work already and we will continue to communicate how we are pivoting and making um more strides to work intentionally in this area as it relates to what happens next to support the um priority areas that the board has developed. uh myself along with the staff we will be updating the data dashboard which we will um talk more about in the month of October. Um and for the public the reason why I'm using October is because

127the Virginia Department of Education is still releasing um data as it relates to accreditation. there still are a lot with a lot of te's a lot of data points that have not been released um from the Virginia Department of Education and it's and it's sad that that's the case because our teachers are in the buildings working very hard supporting students and they don't have the feedback from the department of education to um to support our students. The principles don't have the data that they need because that information has not been released from the department of education. So, but hopefully by the time we um get to October, which we will present what we have, whether it's been released or not, uh we will do that public update to the community. And so, our next steps

128will we will update our data dashboard as it relates to these metrics. Um we will um also continue to provide regular updates. So as we talk about um specifically priority one, we will throughout the year have literacy updates. There will be um there will be some um briefs from there will be some written reports from our um coordinator, our literacy coordinator. So, we will continue to keep you all informed of the health of our school division as it relates to these um two um areas and we will continue to prioritize these um areas in our budget and I will take questions as it relates to your priority areas. >> Mr. Ry, I'll start down with you. Any questions or feedback? >> Yeah. No. Uh, appreciate this focus and I hope we give you the time

129to focus on them too. Uh, with that said, I appreciate the written reports that we've been getting on the attendance and I I think that's a great format and look forward to continue to receive those each month and appreciate the one that's in this month's packet, too. Thank you. >> No comments, Miss Richardson. >> All the way to you, Mr. So, I know that was fast. Sorry, I didn't look up quickly enough. So, I'm not sure if it falls here or um I know in the board written reports we have the chronic absenteeism um coming up as well, but I was just curious kind of random um we had done or the the high school had done um attendance or hallway sweeps at the end of last year, right? Is that something that's continuing on

130or like tardy sweeps, I guess, or whatever? I'm not sure, but I can have the I can get the answer for you. >> I mean, it it seemed like that was a a a good thing that happened, I think. >> Um, but I'm just curious in where we're at now and and looking at that and what the culture is within the high school as far as who's in the hallway and not. Just curious. >> I'll get that for you. >> Um, thank you. I think it's important to note that identifying these as priorities doesn't mean that all the other things don't matter to us. Um, but we've recognized that we've run you a little ragged um and your team. And so this is our sincere hope to try to funnel some of our energy um

131and really help set you up for success um in focusing on these key areas that are of utmost important to us. Um I happen to be with several CCS parents. I think it was this time last week when all of our phones started buzzing with parent square alerts about attendance. Are those going to keep happening? Did you guys get those? Hopefully you did. >> Yes. So, loved that. Loved the positive. I mean, parents were tickled. I don't know if they keep coming weekly. Maybe they'll lose some of their luster, but um you know, I did appreciate and it was noticed that there was um an effort of positive reinforcement for attendance. So, Miss Chuck or whoever did that, Miss Ras. >> Miss Ras, >> thank you. Thank you. >> Was that >> monthly? Okay. All

132right. >> And I agree. That was um really cute. Um you know, I have three kids in the school, so mine's now three. >> Did you get three? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Very good. Great job. >> Anything else, Dr. Curley? >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, next up, uh, Miss Hoover with our never- ending budget season. So, our next year's budget calendar, >> this year, >> good evening, Madame Chair, Dr. Gurley, and board members. Uh, the budget process is an allaround process all year round. But um this evening uh you have before you the budget calendar for fiscal year 26 and 27. Uh the format is the same that we have used in prior years. Um to highlight some of the dates uh on the calendar is our first uh

133joint meeting with city council will be on December 12th. that's tentative uh right now, but that's what we're looking towards. Um the superintendent will be recommending their changes to the budget on Thursday, January the 22nd. And then we will have our second uh joint meeting with the city council on Monday, February 9th. We heard back from city council and they're tenatively planning that day. And then the school board adoption of the FY27 budget is planned for February 20 19th. The budget calendar is an information item for you tonight and it'll be brought back to you next month for action. Are there any questions? start with you this time to >> um so I was just curious Dr. earlier. I don't know who this would go to, but in in looking at this and the work,

134I remember last year um as we were going through these sessions, um the team, admin team was working with CA for their first contract, right? And and so we kind of had um a figure to kind of plug in that we knew we were working towards or you guys knew that you were communicating to city council. And I was just wondering where we're at. Um, I know that it was it was harder for me personally to kind of just not know that that was finalized yet. And I know we had hoped or I had hoped um that we'd be somewhere more solid um as we roll into this next cycle. And I just didn't know if you had any updates. >> Yes, ma'am. Um, so the team did have their first meeting two Mondays ago.

135I believe it was two Mondays ago. Um and so we uh we have exchanged proposals. Um so we submitted our proposals to CA and they submitted their proposals to us. Um I think we have until the 19th >> 16th 16th um to do any um to submit any counter proposals to what was presented and then the team will begin their first um bargaining session negotiating session on September the 29th. >> So and then for clarification this is support staff right? >> Yes ma'am. that that was more for public just for clarification. Um I mean do we think we'll be somewhere close or where that we'll know what that figure you know is by the time we're kind of sitting down with council or you're meeting with Mr. Sanders or whatever that might look like because

136I know it it again it's just hard I think for me as an individual board member to not know. Um and maybe somebody else can articulate this better than than what I'm doing. But I think just the time frame, you know, of not having and I don't know how we we change that or what that looks like. Um I would say um in looking at the um in looking at this current calendar um I know that if we're keep if we if we do the process the way we did the process the last time which I mean that worked um and and keeping the confidentiality part that goes along with um collective bargaining then I would anticipate that by time we looking to Miss Lewis. I would anticipate that by time we get to where

137we we've cleaned it all up that we should be able to present it to you by the um by the December meeting so that you can have a first look at it. Okay? And if it's different, if it's sooner, um, if I've misspoken, I'll let you know. But I think when we look at the timeline, um, in terms of like once we get all the language and it's a document that I can present to you, then I I do believe that that's December by by the de hopefully at the December meeting. >> Richardson Cooper If we don't have that by December, do how do we um move forward with having that conversation with council or that's not a conversation we would have? >> Um yeah. So I know by December um just looking at this

138by the by the December board meeting um you will have our priorities and so you will have our priorities in terms of um we've surveyed principles and you know like these are the things we put in the budget to continue to enhance literacy focus on attend whatever the priority areas are. So then I I think at whenever you get it, you're going to either tell us that um yeah, it's just I'm not clear. I'm not I think we will try we will have to lean on lessons learned from the last time. Um we'll have to lean on what we did the last time and just try to make those things work. I think I mean the concern is is that we could be getting um negotiated items that have pretty significant budgetary impacts very deep

139into our budget development calendar. Is that accurate? >> Yes, ma'am. And so I think just as the board we need to be aware of that as we are having our 2 by twos on the budget um and as the bargaining with our support staff proceeds that um you know that's happening alongside principles u making requests for their school budgets departments making requests for department budgets um that it's it's going to be it's going to be tight >> and I will say that the the joint work session date is um December the 17th. So I mean I mean that that window is going to be very compressed and so I know you're going to want a level of specificity that we may not be able to provide. >> If I can add the December 17th meeting

140with city council is a very highlevel look at our budget. There won't be like any specific details like you'll see at the January 22nd meeting when the superintendent makes her recommendations. >> Miss Burns Morris, Mr. Mayor, >> uh colleagues, not on this, but uh Miss Torres and I will be uh as part of our role on the CC CIP subcommittee with the city, we will be meeting I think September 25th. So colleagues, if you have infrastructure uh items that you'd like to make sure that we are prioritizing with our city colleagues, uh you know, please let us know in order Dr. Burley. Um we'll continue to push on that though. >> I think I am actually attending. I get to attend that with you this time. So I didn't I didn't update you. I'm sorry.

141I'll be at an early learning um conference in Baltimore. So Miss Duly >> Sure. very excited to have you uh there. >> Happy to be there. Yes. uh hurting cats. Um the other thing just to for my overall knowledge, Miss Hoover, I believe it's the bianual state budget. So where we will get uh tred up and our budget might change significantly or how does it work? Again, >> this this is going to be a new bianual budget with a new uh local composite index. Um, so you'll be receiving that information when we receive it. Well, within a month or two. >> Just remember that we were unfortunately our colleagues in the state government were not as quick about approving, I think, their budget a year and a half ago and that we had to go

142up until May and back and forth with our city council colleagues. Okay. Um, we'll just have to prep them for that. Uh the yeah, other than that, you know, I think this looks good. I appreciate that we're again, it looks like we're meeting with city council early and a multiple times, so hopefully they can better understand what we're trying to do. Uh which is great and I appreciate uh the staff helping arrange that. Thank you, >> Mr. Schwarzman. Any comments? I know that you will be transitioning I think in the midst of budget cycles. So we'll rely on you to help bring our new student rep up to speed. >> Yes, Miss Dulie. Sorry. >> No, I know Miss Hoover you said at that meeting last year we had it's high level. I mean that

143first meeting, but we did have a figure that we were kind of >> we had rough figures. >> Okay. >> Very very rough figures. I mean just so folks had some anticipation on what to look at. M douly apologies. One thing that came to mind is we had talked about in the budget process last year with our council colleagues and uh Mr. Sanders a and discussion around scopes of work so like parks and wreck and facilities etc. Are we expecting that work to be included in this next budget cycle then and kind of all those clarifications happening? He has assured me that we will that he will have all that tidied up before we get started. He knows it's we every time we meet we have that discussion. I can assure you that my friend

144Sam has it covered. Sam, you hear me? Yes, he he's working on it. >> All right. >> He's committed. >> Excited to understand that because I know we get a lot of public comment from certain staff members that are >> Yes. wanting to see or ensure that our city colleagues are executing on what they should be regarding our facilities and parks etc. >> And he he has uh and his feedback to me is that they have started a lot of the conversation and work on their end and he is hopeful that he has something to bring to us um very soon. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. And as a reminder, colleagues, this will come back to us next month uh to formally approve. Um and then our last item for discussion is um

145the legislative priorities development. And it has my name next to it, but you're up, Dr. Gurley. >> All right. Um thank you everybody that I introduced earlier. All right. um we have our legislative priorities and so I do want to keep in mind that we are very early in the season and so you will see that um as I go from the beginning of this to the end of this presentation that um the theme is that this will um that this will develop. Next slide. Um just want to keep you um for those watching and those in the audience that all of our work is rooted in our strategic plan. um is is our strategic plan for 2023 through 2020 uh through 2028. And so all of these priorities um are um are backed by

146these our strategic plan. So um the first area and so some of this is taken from some data that was collected some qualitative data that you all um submitted through our Google form and then it's also related to just some of the things that um we as staff have heard you talk about and if these aren't the right things um then um just say that these aren't the right things and we can scrap this. Um but again this is just us listening to you all and and trying to put it all in one space. Um the first one is related to school construction and renovation. Um and we felt that this is we feel that this is very important because we have at least two schools that are approaching 100 years old. U we have

147a lot of other buildings that have had some just very light touches. Um but I think that we all um you know everyone sitting at the dis and in the community feel um you know as we have watched um the birth of our new middle school we all feel that our all of our students deserve a space um you know they need to they deserve to learn in that innovative learning space. Uh so our ask is just that um you know the state commit the funds to so that local so that localities can serve our students. Uh we know that there have been school divisions uh well school there have been localities who that have had the ability to um tax um through the referendums. And so we just ask the same thing. And so

148um as people read this presentation they will see um the section each slide will have why it matters and they will see why this is important. Next slide. Teacher retention. Um we know that teacher um retention is important. U we know that it directly impacts our students success. Um, you know, I think we we are currently celebrating um that, you know, for the first time in a long time, you know, I mean, we started um we are starting in a really good position. Um, I think Mr. Meyer reminded us during our personnel close session that I mean, when you talk about a thousand employees and having, you know, 13 positions open, I mean, we're not doing too bad. Um, and so I think that's a really good reminder. But specifically when we um specifically when

149we think about our um when we think about our teachers, we think about, you know, that's directly um related to the the health of our students. And so we do need policies that streamline the pathway to the um education career. um being able to um recruit and diversify our educator um our educator educator population, removing removing barriers uh removing barriers that relate to um teachers who folks who are aspiring to be um teachers. And so the big thing here is like give us more funds um give localities more funds to do those things to incentivize because you know we already are doing so much um and we have that conversation about the LCI and and our abilities to pay and so that's why this is so important to us. Uh and you'll see down there

150why it matters. Next slide. Um testing and accountability. You know, I think the first thing that we want to lead with is that we this is not about not testing. Um we understand that we need to assess our students. Um but it's only one measure. You know, so tests are only one measure. And so what we um what our thoughts here and what we hear from you and what we hear from our community is, you know, can we change the way we test assess our students? Like um and you'll see in that first line that, you know, we don't believe that there's one way to assess students. So often when we are um hearing people talk about reading levels um when we're reading those op eds and things in the newspaper that you know it's

151usually about so scores and what we as teachers when we are championing the causes for teachers you know we often have to say on their behalf is that you know so tests don't measure how well students read. Um we have so many different other things that we do. uh we have our vowels assessment um that we give we give MAP testing there's so many other things but so often what's reported is what happens with so data and so what we believe is important is that can we look at the other ways can we take into consideration the other ways we measure our student success um and so when you look at what is what when you look at what is needed just transparency uh transparency in our accountability system. Um things are changing so quickly

152at the state level and our teachers usually are the ones who don't benefit from that. Our students don't benefit from the quick changes. Like we need some time some time to do things right to get to put things in place so that our students and staff can be successful. Um I mean we just feel so in flux because every day it just feels like something is moving. And right now the thing that we're watching is that um the board of education at the state level is planning to change the cut scores for so tests. Um which we know will I mean we know what this will do for um our black and brown students. Um but this is about to touch every student regardless of what you look like. Um and so it has a

153lot of unintended consequences. And so these are conversations that we need to continue to have and you'll see why it matters. Next slide. Um so as we look at our legislative priorities, um we will continue and when I say we, um the school board, Charlottesville City Schools, we will continue to solicit feedback on um what legislative matters are impacting our families. And um you can um share your matters with the school board. You can reach use the school board at Charlottesville City Schools or you can reach out to a school board member in person. Um and then we are planning to reconvene back here on October the 23rd and we will have Senator Deeds here and Delegate Coulson um to talk about our legislative priorities. And so these things will um these may be still

154the three things or they may evolve a little bit more um based on what we hear from our community members between now um and that 23rd meeting. And I'll take questions, feedback, um if there's something that you feel like we need to miss, I mean we need to um discuss that I missed, you can give that to I didn't bring my pen, but somebody will capture it for me. >> Great. Thank you. Um, Miss Torres, did you have any comments at this time? >> Well, I did have a clarification question for the legislative session with um the senator and delegate. This says media center, but I think my calendar still says KEK. >> Oh, okay. It's supposed to be at KEK. >> Okay. >> My apologies. >> That's okay. Thank you for that. Um, and

155then just whether this was the time I want to say thank you for this whoever put this together in this format. I think this is really helpful, >> okay, >> as far as how it flows and really does capture. So I I know it's been an iteration and a process um to get here, but this is helpful. >> This is Miss Stacker. >> This miss less than 10 slides, Miss >> Thank you, Dr. Gurley and Miss Thacker. Um no, I appreciate that. And um then at at some point after everybody's done if we wanted to talk about the reorganization. Thank you. Yeah, I'd just like to make a quick comment about school construction and renovations. I think this is really important not just for us but other schools uh in the state. Um this is

156a an issue that affects uh schools whether you're urban or suburban or rural. Um whether you're, you know, more in a wealthy county or not. um whether you're conservative or progressive, this is something that really really matters and um has been playing a big effect with schools in Virginia. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Meer. >> Yeah. No, uh appreciate your uh I think consolidating a lot of observations and and adding your all's expertise. uh the teacher retention slide. I remember I think earlier this year or was it last year JARK the joint legislative you know committee came out and had a review of school funding right and I think the SOQs and basically said we're using a formula I think from 40 or 50 years ago. >> That's correct. >> All right. uh they made

157same some progress last year and I assume some like the teacher retention piece here we were talking about is reflected kind of some of those findings in that JARK study also. >> Yes. Um >> and that Jark study talked specifically to so it talked about the funding model was at um was inadequate but it also talked about um removing the support cap that's the cap on so the that antiquated model says >> you can only have the x number of support positions such as custodians uh instructional assistants so on and so forth. So there has been a little bit of there's been work with regards to um removing the the support cap but with that comes you have to dump a lot of money into schools in order to um help them to adequately get

158to the spaces that they need to be. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification and um no this looks good. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh thank you. I think especially in regards to the construction um and the local revenue generation um to the extent that we can get our local city council partners on board with advocating for that as well because like if it's not coming from the state it's going to come from the locality and so it's to their interest to get on board and be lobbying with us for those changes. And and then there was the question earlier about the um legislation regarding when school boards can um have the organizational meetings. And so we did get feedback from um Mr. Selman, our one of our schoolboard

159attorneys who gave us um who referred us to the code. And the code says that the reorganizational meeting needs to take place at either July or January. Currently, we don't have a July meeting. And so, our question was, can the June meeting, can the last meeting of the school year count as the June meeting? And his answer was no. Like, it must take place in the month of July or in the month of January. Um and I think your ask earlier was like can we explain why? Um, and so I mean if we um the board in the governance um in the governance section just really talked about having a um having the board organization um follow the school calendar year so that the chair is the um so that the chair is serving the

160entire school year versus a calendar year which is counterfragmented. Um, so that's where that all originated from. >> I think another consideration, and I don't know that we've talked about it, and I don't know that it's ever been codified, but like city council when they elect a mayor and vice mayor, they do it for two-year terms. >> That's also part of the code is that it has to happen, it's one-year term, has to happen annually, >> right? But I think in lie of like changing I mean I think formally yes we have to do do the vote and the reorganization but an understanding of I mean we I think more recently have done year terms and I think that's that's challenging. I mean, there's challenges to that to bring in a new chair and kind

161of acclimate to it and then a vice chair and then if it's an election year, you've got new board members and and it's kind of tough to I think what we found challenging is, you know, as we're kind of scrambling with people who may not even actually be serving yet to try and um explain to them or have that conversation about who who wants to be chair, why they should be chair, etc., etc. So, those are just my thoughts on it. I don't I don't know what anybody else thinks. >> Yeah, I think I appreciate the conversation happening in this space and flushing out what that could look like. Um, I did a little research on my own, speaking with some colleagues through the Virginia School Board Association just to better understand what some other

162districts are doing and and some are making this move um to July, even if it's a procedural meeting in July. So, that first meeting truly is like a structure just to meet and restructure and we go home. Um, not sure I love the idea of that, but happy to hear other folks um, consideration. Um, but I think school year to school year um, for that consistency feels a little bit better. And then I know with our cohort, the four that came on to all of the sudden have to make like a quick decision for all at the same time of like who should be chair? how does this work when we didn't even really know any of you in that capacity to make a an informed decision and just trusted what we knew best about

163each of you at the time and really it worked um but it might not work in the future and I think just being able to go to state conference in November as a newly elected um person to not have that scrambling feeling and just being able to enjoy the time, learn with new colleagues and not feel that like pressure if you will of like how do we reorganized in January when I don't know you, I don't know your leadership. Um I think that and then also um our committees like how how we are doing everything board priorities makes sense to follow board chair and vice chair. I think the student aspect of it um as we're kind of realigning what that mentor relationship looks like just for consistency again I I just would be in

164favor of some more conversation to see what that looks like and then yeah if it's if it truly is a legislative priority um you know working with Senator Deeds and Delegate Coulson to understand this is a procedural um move that we think would benefit not only our division but several others who are looking to potentially make that change as well. Any other comments on this or other items related to our legislative priorities? All right. Thank you, Dr. Gurley. Um next up we have board response to written reports. Are there any comments or questions related to those? Mr. Meyer, go ahead. >> Yeah. Uh, I think Dr. G, you covered a couple things, but I think I really appreciated the report on our staffing report and memo. And again, uh, echo some the comment that Dr.

165Curley said that, you know, I think we're looking at a very well staffed uh, organization. I think that reflects uh, great collaboration with CEA and and getting good management and administration. Uh, I think Dr. Purley, you also mentioned that just want to bring this out that we're stopping advertising for substitute teachers. What's going on with our We have so many substitute teachers that we're filling all this. >> No, we're not going to stop advertising. We um we're going to take a pause on the website for a second. Um because right now we are having an overwhelming response to our substitute posting. Um I mean our dynamic HR team. I see Dr. Hastings back there, Miss Lewis. Um, and then, um, we have Stephanie Coleman. Almost drew a blank. We have Stephanie Coleman who Miss Coleman

166is working directly with the recruitment of substitutes daily. Um, so right now we have about um, I think the number is like 80 um, substitutes in the queue. And so um, and we the fill rates um, are outstanding. So, we're going to take just a little pause on the website. Um, and then we're going to be back on October one with the posting and we're going to keep on. But, um, and we don't think that that pause will interrupt any services. So, teachers, principles, don't don't I see Mr. I see Mr. Davis back there sweating a little bit. We We're going to um we we will continue to recruit, but um we're doing really well right now. uh thanks to and I think it's more over I like I'm thanking the HR team but moreover

167I think this is about the culture of CCS that people want to come and work here um so I'm very appreciative of that >> apologies for misstating but giving you the opportunity to to correct me uh but wanted to again we had a I think a concern about that last year and and I want I hope it's being addressed and uh again colleagues if let us know if that's not the case. I guess if you feel that which I think you will but uh and another thing I wanted to address is the chronic absenteeism report. Uh Mr. Rasnik I have read it here. I will note we are down two percentage points below the average from LA into last year. So good start and I think every school except one is uh reporting lower absenteeism

168rates. So, I I want to recognize like I think some of my colleagues did, you know, I think you're doing different things. Uh and uh I hope to see those continue to yield the results. Thanks. >> Any other board member comments on the written reports? Okay. Um we'll move on to our second opportunity for comments from members of the community. If there is anyone in the auditorium, Mr. Davis is going to come talk to us about substitutes. No. Okay. Good evening. My name is Peter Davis. Uh good evening Dr. Dr. Gurley, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um subs seem like they're doing great. That wasn't even on my mind. It's because it's going good and I appreciate it. Um and we all do. Uh I just wanted to kind of make a few observations

169about the SRO discussion. um just from some conversations I've had and observations I've I've I've made over the last um this is my 17th year here at CHS. Um you're going to you're getting plenty of feedback about the you know the the rationale behind it and everything. One one thing I I was encouraged to hear a little bit at first was that the the money the $800,000 whatever was coming out of the police budget. I was comfortable about that for a minute, but then I started thinking, you know, city money is city money and the way I think about it. Um, and I just I just see this there's a political door open now when we go to ask for more money next year and like, well, we just gave you $800,000 for SRO's. And

170I just kind of that Yeah. So, I think in the messaging like there's there's a way to kind of, you know, unwrap that a little bit. Um, because it just doesn't seem as clear-cut in my mind as, hey, this the police, it's coming out of police budget. Um, the other thing I was thinking about was with our CSAs. I really want to make sure we're honoring to them. um because I don't understand how I don't I don't I don't know all the money aspects, but I do can imagine that the SRO's are going to come in at a higher salary rate than our CSAs and they're going to be doing far less work in our schools than the CSAs do. Um and so I kind of feel there's a little bit uh inequity there. Um

171and also I think we need to I'm curious how it works like if if SRO's are going to be at football games and events, are they going to be paid overtime pay like time and a half kind of overtime pay? because I know right now our CSAs are not um they're paid separately out of um athletic department money and it's actually at a lower rate than they'd make during the school day. Um so there's a lot of things in there that I think that could really create a divide and really kind of downplay the important work that our CSAs do. Um I think some of our CSAs are pretty I talk to them all the time in the hallway and that they seem pretty apprehensive about the SRO's. Um, so I think there's a lot

172of work that needs to be done there. I think they're they some of them kind of feel like they're going to have to do a lot of handholding of the SRO's and a lot of u walking them through the ropes and I think that's just another aspect of responsibility on them that has to be kind of flushed out. um you know if this goes forward I just I just really really want to make sure that that team has done so much to and come so far over the last couple years that I just want to make sure that they are respected and taken good care of. So thank you so much. >> Thank you Miss Bryant Zion Bryant. Uh, thank you for your work, but I must say you all sound defensive and confused. To

173expand on my earlier comments, Miss Chuck, obviously a timeline could go into the future if we are looking through an optimistic lens, but the point that I was making earlier is that students and community members advocated for SRO's to be removed in 2019. Starting your timeline, your beautiful timeline in 2020 when there was a decision to remove them without that critical context makes it seem as if the decision was random and unwarranted. It was not. It was advocated for by community members from different walks of life. And that's important to note. Additionally, I cannot say that I agree with the close to a million dollars being allocated to bring SRO's back into the our schools when just this past Tuesday I sat in a 4-hour long city council meeting. I'm not sure that any of

174you were there other than Miss Cooper where there were unhoused community members who spoke about the lack of affordable housing and how expensive it would be to create a low barrier shelter for unhoused community members. Just as housing is a human right, so is education. We cannot ignore the history of our local police department and the well-documented racial profiling and harassment that has happened in this community. And while knowing that the majority of our school buildings are outdated and need significant amounts of work and modernization, I truly wonder about what the priorities are here. I don't know. They appear to be misaligned with the decisions that you are making as a board. However, what I do know is that there are educators who make Amazon wish lists year after year to get the things that

175they need to properly run their classrooms and give their students a world-class educational experience that they deserve. Whose voice matters? That's a real question. Miss Cooper brought forth the concern of over policing in our community and how students are sharing their traumatic experiences with police in their neighborhoods. Do we dismiss their concerns? Is this illusion of safety for some more important than their lived experiences? That's a question that you should think about. How can you say that you want to fix issues like chronic absenteeism and improve outcomes specifically for students of color while not paying attention to their concerns about armed police presence in the schools? Frankly, there are too many contradictions. Our students deserve better than that. Mr. Meer, it doesn't matter how many meetings you talked about SRO's here when you have thousands

176of students and family members who are affected by your decisions. Yet less than 20 people usually show up to these meetings outside of staff. So that number doesn't really matter. So while we are here discussing what we are thankful for, I can say that I'm thankful that in exactly two months people will cast their ballots and there will be changes made to this board. I hope you have a great evening. >> Thank you. Anyone else in the media center wishing to give comment? All right, Mr. Cuomo will look in the Zoom. If anybody in the Zoom room would like to give comment, you may raise your hand and be promoted as speaker. All right, seeing no takers, we'll move on to uh board member comments. Uh Mr. Meyer, we'll start down on your end. Uh

177yeah, sorry I cut off guard on this. I don't really have anything to say. Thanks, >> Morris. Miss Burns, back to you. >> Okay, Miss Cooper. Nothing. Okay, Miss Richardson. Okay. Um, I just wanted to recognize, let me see, I wrote some stuff down. Okay. So, I um, it's always a joy to recognize the heart of our schools, which is our teachers. So, I wanted to thank um, those who participated in the foundation grant award winners. So, that was really great to hear from. I appreciate everyone's honesty who came up today and spoke about their concerns um in regards to the SRO's. Um I would like to say that in a perfect world I would appreciate if the candidate for SRO's was someone who graduated from Charlottesville High School or is a community member from

178Charlottesville born and raised. That would be really great, right? And um and then I had a question in regards to like yes, we're focusing on SRO's, but how are we invested in other mental health and behavioral resources for our students as we move forward with SRO's and not lose the bigger picture on other resources that we do provide for our students? >> Yep. >> Um I'm going to backtrack a little bit. something I missed as far as um that was within our financial reports. I just wanted to say thank you and I was grateful for the two grants. One from United Way for $25,000 and then another one from the Rotary Foundation for another $1,000 that both are targeting um reading development materials and low-income families for supplies that those families might not have access

179to. So, I was really excited to see those and just wanted to say thank you. Um, I don't know if Miss Johnson was who applied for them. Her name was on them, but to the division as a whole, thank you for looking for those types of funds to um supplement um and support those families. So, just I did want to give a shout out to that. Also, um I did appreciate the staffing report. Um so, I missed my little window for that. I enjoyed reading that. I liked the format. So, appreciate that. And I appreciate all of the comments um and concerns that we continue to receive and all of the work um and the willingness of the board and the division to kind of slow down and and and take those comments. Thank you.

180>> Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I have one more thing. Yes, ma'am. um as we um discuss our unhoused community members, I am curious to know the process to how we address a student that is unhoused and how we move forward with that as well. So, if we can bring that to clarification as well. Thank you. >> Thank you for coming back to me. Um, I've gone back and forth on some prepared comments and unprepared comments, what this might look like. And I think what I've heard is that people appreciate transparency the most and maybe a little bit of vulnerability and a little bit of humility. And so I've shared in some spaces my personal story and really my son's personal story um being here at Charlottesville High School um as a young black man and

181he was in a physical altercation when he was a student here in Charlottesville High School with another teacher with a teacher and there was an SRO here at the time and this was not his first um bout of bad behavior of questionable choices, but it was one of several. And I was reaching out to the community at the time as a single parent in Charlottesville asking for help. And there were men in the community that tried to help. uh many of the men who we know today that are still doing the work and they tried and for whatever reason they couldn't get through to him and neither could I and so he has this altercation with a teacher here in our building and an SRO intervened and he was charged and I think the community

182should know it's a different charge um when you assault a teacher than when you assault someone in the community. And what that did for him was put him in a diversion program with the city of Charlottesville where he had to complete hours of community service. He had to attend anger management classes. We had to attend counseling as a family. And there was several accountability measures through the Department of Human Services that he had to meet in order to do the work and in order for that not to come in front of a judge. And I understand and I acknowledge that I had the means and mobility to see that he got to those classes and that he did the work and he did what he needed to do to be successful. So I acknowledge that

183and I know that not every family has that. Um but he was successful and while the road was very difficult um I think what prompted me to share his story today in a public forum is that um Julian is now working for El Maro County Public Schools at Journey Middle School as a teaching assistant while he goes back to school to become an teacher. because the teachers in this school impacted his life and the weight of what he had to do to get him where he needed to be made an impact on his life. And so today I got a text message from one of his colleagues that he got the staff shout out certificate proudly presented to Julian Burns Early and the comments um there were Mr. Burns Early has been doing a great

184job monitoring the seventh grade corridor restroom as it makes a difference for both students and staff. His regular presence there provides much needed accountability for our seventh grade students in particular. Great job, Mr. Burns early. Shout out by Mr. Dan Smith. And I share that because that is the success. It's hard to measure and it doesn't look the same for every student and I acknowledge that. But my lived experience is not antecdotal and neither are the other experiences that are shared by email or in front of the room or in conversations in the community in parks in community celebrations. They all matter. And so I'm listening and I'm hearing and I'm taking the feedback and I'll continue to do the work to draft anou that I believe is meaningful and impactful for all of our

185students. But I think important for me and what always brings me back home is what we're doing for our kids and for kids who look like my son. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Burns, for sharing. Um, I just wanted to take a minute to share some of the concerns that I have about the dismissive comments that have been made. Um, largely towards our administrators that have shared some of their reasons and justifications for why they feel there is a need for SRO's to return to our buildings. Um, it was mentioned earlier tonight, but I was on the board when we made the decision to shut this school down because it was not safe and that teachers wouldn't come to work. We've come a long ways since then. Uh Dr. Malone has received rightfully a

186lot of praise for the work that he has done leading this building in a turnaround. And that same person that we're heaping praise on is telling us that there are gaps. There are needs that an SRO could feel that could fill, but that doesn't seem relevant to some members of our community. In the same time period, we've seen an incredible turnaround in expansion of Lugo McInness and Knight School, new pathways, these alternatives for students that Dr. Troder has largely led alongside Dr. Gurley and other staff members. But again, we've got a principal who we're tasing with doing the work who is coming to us saying that SRO's can be part of the expansion and the relationship building with our students. We had Mr. Jordan at Buford. Charlottesville Middle School is all over the news for

187the renovation that's almost completed. Um, you know, he led Buford to being accredited for the first time in several years. He shared a personal story where a swatting incident resulted in an assault rifle being pointed in his face. That was dismissed. And the question was asked by a parent last week at our community forum about why didn't that police officer get in trouble? To be clear, that police officer was doing their job in responding to an active threat at our school because they didn't have a direct line of communication to be able to talk about what the actual situation was. We've heard from our mental health workers that they are overtasked. This isn't a question about hiring more mental health supports. This is a different role. I can tell you from my experience as a

188teacher and as an administrator that none of these people went to school to do the work of a police officer to break up fights. They went to school to be instructional leaders. And for us as a board and a community, I think we need to be mindful of when we talk about eliminating the achievement gap. That only happens when our professionals are allowed to do their their job, which they're in large ways being pulled from. And so for me, again, I've talked about it. I have concerns about bringing police officers back into the building, but I think that we can do it in a way with again this robustou and standard operating procedures um that we can we can do it and do it well. And so when I hear people kind of dismiss have

189snarky comments about relieving administrative burden, that's not a bad thing. We want to relieve that administrative burden. So again, that our principles can be the instructional leaders that they went to school, trained, and the reason that they're in education. Thank you. Um I just want to uh the um HR report was there and so I just want to celebrate that we are off to a really good start. Um we are off to a very great start. Um we we're moving from good to great. Um old book there. Um but we are we're off to a really good start. And so I just I am I continue to to be proud to lead Charlesville City Schools. I lead alongside some dynamic um central office staff, some dynamic principles, teachers, custodians, nutrition workers. Um at our um

190Palooa, I share with our staff that what we face we can change and there are very hard decisions that have to be made here in Charlesville City Schools. SRO's is just one of them. Um just one um I mean there are a lot of things that we're tackling uh daily and so um you know whether it's class sizes whether it's supports I mean there are a lot of things that we tackle daily and so um I just thank everyone including our families and our parents who hang in there with us uh that I just thank you for doing the work alongside us. it it you know I know it's very cliche but it it does take a village and um in the vein of talking about uh villages I do want to give another public

191shout out to um the United Way um for their very very generous donation of uh $25,000 um to be used towards supplies. Um, I think, you know, every little every little extra dollar when you're not thinking about it or when someone just gives you something, it just makes a big impact. And so we have um put that money into our family engagement team, our face team. And so they will use that to help support our students and families with supplies. And that's it. >> All right, Miss Swift, our work session wrap up. I think we did give you a few items tonight. >> Okay. So, a few requests. Um, so the SRO work group um has been asked to review the data being used to justify the positions. Um, and within that creating um a

192one pager rationale how we arrived at that number and the trends around the number of threat assessments. Um and then within that conversation there was clarification um asked around the body cam and then a mechanism for staff and students to report incidents and um also around current data on how um CPD is interacting within our schools currently um and that the need to be able to articulate why we need them here >> and to clarify that's we're going to task that with to the U working group >> to the working. Yes. >> Um there was also just a question around um at CHS the hallway suits that we'll report back and then um around mental health supports and our unhoused students. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um we do have several upcoming meetings. Um,

193first I want to share um that on Monday, September 8th at 10 a.m. Delegate uh Coulson will present a Virginia House of Delegates uh commendation of the Charlottesville 12 to Mr. Charles Alexander at the historic marker near the Almaral County Office Building. Uh this is marking the 66th anniversary of the desegregation of Lane High in what was then Venal Elementary. We remember that nine brave elementary students and their families made possible the earliest known desegregation of an elementary school in the south. Uh this is open to the public and we hope again that you can join. It's Monday, September 8th at 10:00 a.m. Um and then subsequently uh Monday, September 29th um that week uh marks the designated schoolboard member visits to our schools. Um, Thursday, October 9th, we have our regular meeting here. Um,

194this one is still at 5:00 p.m. Um, and then, uh, on October 23rd, we are going to have our work session at 4M. Uh, that's followed by our meeting with, um, legislators, uh, thereafter, and that's at KEK. Uh, and with that, uh, this meeting is adjourned.