August 7, 2025 Charlottesville City School Board Meeting

001along with personal communication to get in-depth views of certain issues from various people. I believe that if the board and the student body can work together in an organized manner towards the same goals, we'll get to those goals in no time. And similarly to my last two goals, I'd like to ensure that the voices of the students are heard by the board the mo in the most convenient ways possible. With a slew of new policies being implemented from last year, from phone policies to social emotional learning, I'd always like to be there for for the board. um these policies have the possibility to change things in a variety of ways for the students, improving things wildly, and I'd like to be there to help that happen. So overall, I'm excited for the year to come

002and firmly believe that advising this board will be both educational and productive. I'd love to build upon the progress that has been made across the last year and am committed to understanding the opinions of the student body. Together, I believe that we can make a school system where students feel more connected to the board, more informed about its role, and more empowered to engage in shaping their experience. Thank you for your time, and thank you for allowing me to represent my peers. I'm looking forward to the rest of this year. >> Thank you so much. We share many of your goals and look forward to having you serve with us. Um, while we're at this point of the agenda, we did make a little shift on the dis here. We've got our um school board

003member who serves as the uh mentor to our student schoolboard reps. Miss Burns has moved down to be closer to our schoolboard rep um just to be able to help provide a little more clarity of what's happening in these meetings. Um, and we're voting a little bit later here on our revised um, student schoolboard uh, policy um, as we continue to work to really elevate student voice and have um, greater participation in our work. So, Mr. Schwarzman, thank you and again, welcome. Um, moving on to adoption of our consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> All right. Torres with the motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second. Thank you, Miss Cooper. Um, all in favor say I. Oh, excuse me. >> I just have a discussion and question regarding

004one of the items. Excuse me, chair. Sorry. Uh, >> I did note on 8.5 there's a Roses exemption for compulsory attendance. Uh I looked into that and just a clarifying question is even though this student uh will now be homeschooled that it sounds like do they have to do so testing or any other type of testing? >> Um students who are homeschooled and um students who have relig religious exemptions are not required to take so test. >> So is there any way that we know that these students are learning or being a master >> minimum amount of topics? So, uh, every school year, um, students who are students who are homeschooled are required to show, um, academic progress, um, at grade level, um, every every school year. So, in order to be homeschooled, they must

005submit the curriculum that is being used. And that um, and if you want to resume homeschooled instruction, you must show um, that the student um, you made progress. So, a lot of our families um while they are facilitating home instruction, they're using some third-party program um and that's giving grades, giving assessments, and that's not all. You can use a box curriculum. You don't have to do something online, but as a rep as a part of it, the code does require that um families show um that the student is making um progress at grade level. >> Okay. But all public school students have to take so tests. All public school students who are enrolled in the school, yes, they do have to um take end of the year SOS. Thank you. As mandated by that, whatever

006that grade level is. >> All right. Any other discussion on the consent agenda? All right. So, we have a motion and the second. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Thank you. Um we'll move on to our first action item. uh with Miss Swift coming back to us for approval of some policy updates that we saw in May. Um good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley. At the June board meeting, we presented the May 2025 VSBA policy updates for your review. But since that meeting, we did identify a formatting issue with the VSBA templates which affected how the redline edits were displayed. But however, we have um all content has been thoroughly reviewed and updated and it is reflected in this packet. So at this time, we're requesting

007your approval of the current policies as presented unless there are any specific policies you would like us to pull out um for further review. And if so, we can put that with the August update for action in September. All right. Um, so to get us started, is there a motion to approve the policy updates? >> So moved. >> And is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Um, any discussion or questions around the policy updates that we are voting to approve this evening? Go ahead, Mr. Rice. Hopefully, I've got my policies correct this time. So, um, looking at and again, some of this falls into I think like there was a policy and then there was a part of it that pertained to substitutes. So, I know that got pulled. Yes. >> And is

008up for discussion later review. >> Correct. >> Um, >> but regarding and I'm sorry, I don't know if I have the page, but it's policy GCE or GC. >> That's the substitute. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. GCG. So, this was regarding and I think it pertained to um the continuing contract portion and what we're requiring um to be completed. I didn't know if there was I know that in some of the work sessions that we've had um prior um with the board specific to some of the safety modules and safety training and completion of those before school started if that is something that that could go there or would go there or if that's appropriate. um because I felt like there was a majority of board members who were in favor of those types of things

009being done before school started. So, I don't know if this is something we want to talk more about and pull it to later or how you want to do that. Dr. early. >> I think um and I'm looking to Miss Pal and to um Miss Swift because I think our issue here is going to be that there is um it's code now about the um about the amount of training that can be required, >> right? Um and so only those trainings that are mandated by code will be required yearly. Is that correct team? Only those only those trainings that are required by code meaning um and that's every five years. meaning that we will we're going to need to have conversations regarding how we require such trainings such as safety trainings because they're not required

010by code. So I think what I heard you say is last school year we said by the time school starts everyone needs to complete their safety trainings. I think where our issue is um like right now we're in the midst of doing that for this school year. So principles were doing that today there implications beyond this year. >> Was it by code? Was it it was instructional training, right? Wasn't that how the code was? It was instructional versus noninstructional. >> There's time limits. >> Yeah. >> So n non-instructional learning practices. >> You got to use your cafeteria voice >> or or come closer to >> or come closer to the mic. >> Non-instructional professional learning opportunities that are not federally or statemandated have to fall within the window of three um three hours throughout three

011to five hours out of the course of the year. >> So safety response within a building doesn't fall with is not prioritized. >> I know it's not federal code out >> and that's every she's Miss Lewis said year but that's every five the code is every five years so you can only require it every five years >> and we there is a a state mandate that requires you to review your what we call the standard response protocols and that's what the state refers to them now as well which are stay put stay tuned indoor instruction those things but that can be done in a relatively short period of time when you start to get into Alice and something relatively new called the uh standard reunification method which we just rolled out with all of our

012schools today. Um it starts to become much longer like I was very thankful we were granted three hours today with breaks. We gave breaks but we it was all about safety this morning and our principles and their their leadership teams did a wonderful job delivering the curriculum. be provided included Alice scenario trainings, but we've been discussing this in ELT and and it's almost like there's conflicting um code that you know it well it's not really conflicting. it is what it is about this time limit and so it's something that we're struggling with a bit >> right so right now so right now the way we're interpreting this and correct me if I'm wrong team that we would only be able to do those types of reunification we would only be able to do that once

013within the five years yeah that's what we said too wow >> yeah and I I mean I'm sure and I hope that the numbers of people completing that safety training are are more than where we were last year when we had our retreat, right? We I mean and I so and it's on people's radars, but we also heard, you know, a year and a half ago, almost two years ago, that people didn't know what to do in emergency situations, didn't know how to protect kids or what, you know, I mean, there was a lot of we don't know what to do. >> And that's what today's training was at all the And that's what today's training was at all of the schools. was that training that specifically you're talking about, but it has implications over

014the course of the next five the next four years. >> And we are looking to take at least one component that we feel like we can make into a video, but I'm not even sure how something like watch this on your own, how that plays into that time requirement, especially in the current, you know, under a CBA. Okay, I guess I don't have a lot. I mean, you hear hear my voice and hear my concerns. So, I guess we'll stay tuned as you guys continue to dig into it and see if there's anything else that we can do, right? All right. May I just keep going? um policy IG A um which I think was again I think it was more about teaching about high-risk drugs or there was some language that changed initially in

015the policy it said that this was going to be taught in the first two weeks and I think that was struck through um and now it's just kind of wide open and it just states that it will be addressed, but it doesn't say when. And I was just curious what the thoughts were behind that. So, the previous version had that it would be >> Yes. And and it's in our curriculum between Miss Raznik and Jess Brantley. They can speak very uh specifically to that. I mean, I just didn't know if leaving it like this in the policy leaves us wide open. I mean, I trust that it's being covered, but I I would love to hear how and when. >> So, we have a standard uh we have a standard letter that gets sent at

016the beginning of the school year that includes this information to families. Um and then we incorporate these these trainings into a number of different scenarios like through health and PE. Um, and so by having it throughout the year allows us, so like when kids are on different like health and PE tracks, um, with the way our curriculums work, it allows us to get everybody, um, what they need >> through. And >> I can bring I can bring back like an actual like a schedule. >> That's okay. I was just curious. I just wanted to make sure. It just seemed like it was very specific initially and then and then that was changed. So, all right. Thank you. But you might want to stay up. I think this one might be for you. The next one

017is page 38. I did write that down. Policy IGBA. And this was specific to the um exceptional ed or special education parent family layers. And so I just was curious if you could speak a little bit about who that leaison is and then do we have it on our website? >> Stephanie Hicks is our liaison. She's with the parent resource center. Um and it should be on multiple places including our seak page. Um I will double check but she is um our designated family liaison. >> Okay, great. Thank you. That was easy, huh? I think that's it for this round. Thank you >> for this round. >> Any other questions? >> Mr. Any questions, Miss Cooper? >> No questions. >> All right. Um, so we have a motion and a second still. Okay. Um, so

018all in favor of uh approval of our 2526 policy updates from the May 2025 BSBA policy update, say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Um, next up we have Miss Chuck uh for our 2526 school board meeting schedule approval. >> Good evening. I actually don't have a formal presentation. I'm just here to answer questions if if anyone has questions about why we made some adjustments to the calendar. >> Okay. And so again, to get us started, if I can have a motion to approve our 2526 schoolboard meeting schedule as presented. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> All right. Um and I will open us up for discussion. >> Yeah. Thanks, colleagues. Um, I see that we're adjusting the schedule for some religious holidays and

019my concern is that we're adjusting we're not covering all religious holidays and that would expose us to potential problems in the future when somebody's saying, "Hey, you made an exception for this religion on this religious holiday, but you did not make an exception on my day that I practice on or my religion and my religious day and I wasn't able to come speak and and provide a comment um and or so in my mind it's like I don't think we should be giving any religious holidays to uh and moving our dates around for anything. Uh it's just when we do it. Uh I don't know if everybody shares my concerns but I mean September 4th for example is a Muslim or Islamic holiday. Uh but we're not we're at this moment we're gonna have our

020meeting. So I just I don't quite understand why we selected these two dates uh to move. >> I'm I'm happy to speak to that if if uh you're willing. Um specifically for the Muslim holidays, we have checked with uh leaders within each of these communities and it's not only religious communities. it might be cultural communities because Lunar New Year affects so many people around the world and has that has such a had such an impact. Um, so we checked again with our with two representatives and two leaders from the Muslim community and they both concurred that September 4th is not widely celebrated and that they would not ask us to adjust our schedule for that date. they were uh the one thing I will say generally speaking is that um we don't want to put

021either our students or our staff in a situation where they're having to choose from kind of a oneoff or a special event. And this is something we ask our fine arts department to do. We ask our testing coordinators to do. We ask people scheduling any sort of big oneoff event like why we don't want to make our students choose between their family, their church, their uh theater performance, that sort of thing. And so to do this, we consult with people like Jeannie Fouts to make sure we're staying in tune with where our community is and the groups that are represented in our community. And then uh Denise and I do our own work to make sure we're just being culturally sensitive to the people who live in our community. And then we reach out to

022various leaders and representatives from those communities and we ask them for dates. And honestly, I think the whole list is maybe 10 days long out of the year representing all the various communities that we've reached out to. I would say that um in every case when we have reached out to the leaders of these communities, they have expressed such appreciation. They have said they feel so seen. They they said they feel like it's one way that we can support our staff, our students in the community. And I will say on the occasions we've slipped up, we also hear from members of those communities who are asking us to do better. And so I would encourage you to heir on the side of making these slight adjustments. I think it's two days next year. And I

023would also point out that you're making a third adjustment next year. you're moving from New Year's Day to a week late and I don't think we would have any qual making that adjustment. >> Any further discussion or questions? >> I just want to say I appreciate hearing that because I know that there's a lot of work that goes on behind that with a with the calendar committee and I don't think I've ever heard that articulated to the extent that you all reach out. So, thank you. And I want to give a big shout out in particular. It it seems like um Erin IIOst has the biggest most complicated thing because his events truly are kind of oneoff concerts where we would be asking a child to either go to orchestra or to go to their

024congregation and um he is always so uh willing to make these changes and his changes often involve multiple schools, multiple directors, multiple uh situations. So, I just want to give uh him a big shout out for that work that he does for us. >> Thank you. >> Any other board members wishing comment? >> All right. Um so, we'll go ahead and vote. Uh the motion is to approve the 2526 schoolboard meeting schedule as presented. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? >> Opposed. >> Right. the uh meeting schedule passes as presented. Next up, we'll move on to items for discussion. First up is 11.1 school resource officer working group update from Miss Pal. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley. Um this presentation for this for

025tonight is uh it's just information about the workg group and the work that has been done since March to prepare the draft school resource officer that will be available for public review and comment on the CCS website starting tomorrow. Um, we started as a staff workg group actually back on March 12th and then after the board meeting action on March 27th, we shifted to become more of a superintendent advisory with two board members who worked diligently with a very large work group um to help us keep the process moving forward. After several several meetings, we actually decided we just are going to call ourselves the work group. And um you can see the the group had broad representation from across the CCS schools and departments who are really the primary stakeholders in these decisions. Um

026in addition to the folks who work for CCS full-time and are the board members, we also had Miss Vzina Howard who's one of our wonderful crossing guards and a longtime leader in the Tenth and Page community. And we were also very fortunate to have um at times Miss Wenika Howard join us uh periodically in her capacity as the youth opportunities coordinator for the city. I also want to take a moment to give a big shout out to Lieutenant Greg Greg Wade who is uh I believe with us this evening. Yep. >> Great. Well, Lieutenant Greg Wade um he's our CPD liaison under the current model. He works tires tirelessly with myself, Jody Murphy, and um all of us to solve a lot of problems, but he was also just a great contributor in this process

027and very grateful that he was in the work with us. Um I really just want to take a moment to thank everyone who participated in the group and contributed to this important work. So go to the next slide. I got you Leslie. Thank you. We'll navigate up here. Oh, thanks Nancy. Okay. Um so this slide just here you can see the dates for our work sessions. Um starting in May and concluding with our fifth and final meeting on July 23rd and we were having meetings like every week there at the end to get this across the finish line to get a draft out. Uh we were fortunate in this process to have several group members step forward to help with facilitating various meetings. So, I also just want to give a big thanks to Bianca

028Johnson, Jodie Murphy, and Denise Johnson for each lending their facilitation expertise at different points in the process. Truly grateful for that. Um, we also have been fortunate to have strategies for youth as a partner in the work, providing information, resources, and guidance from their vast experiences working with schools and law enforcement across the country. In addition to the quality resources that are readily available on their website, uh, Strategies for Youth has reviewed and provided feedback on all of ourou drafts and they will continue to provide input and support as we work through training and implementation plans. Um, so as you can see, I have a small army of my wonderful colleagues here uh, with us. They're here to just provide information firsthand to you all about their the different perspectives and considerations that really drove

029the process of developing theou. And I'll just ask my colleagues as you step to the podium for the folks at home, please just state your name and your um position at CCS. So here we go. >> Good evening everyone. and I'm Denise Johnson, the supervisor of strategic initiatives for Charlottesville City Schools. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. I'm here to speak a little bit about the focus group and perhaps answer any questions. The slides provide an overview of the focus group um opportunities that we held and the feedback that came from those focus groups. Um we um from spring and throughout the summer we conducted four CHS class focus groups uh covering grades 9 through 12 with diverse representation and with with all those classes combined there was around 100 students. We

030also held a focus group with the CHS administrative team and the CCS care and safety assistance at the high school. All of the following slides after this one I want to frame the context that overall as Dr. Dr. Gley presented to the focus groups. The initial question was one of the initial questions was do you agree or disagree um with the return of SRO's? And one of the key takeaways that frames all this is that 80% of individuals who were pled whether they were students or adults um either somewhat or definitely agreed with returning SRO's um back into the schools. And so the next slide has a high level of some of the takeaways that you can review when you're ready. Um and then the following slide which I want to note are the key

031concerns and then the key requests that we heard from the focus groups. So the top three concerns that we heard were this most significant one was the presence of firearms in schools. They wanted to make sure that we discussed that and understand that they could be intimidating and unnecessary in a school environment. They also expressed student discomfort and trauma. They also wanted to make sure we were specific in the overlap and clarification of duties and roles. They asked that we really clear out the admin role, the CSA role and the SR role and the safety model. So those were the key concerns and then overall the key requests that the focus group wanted us to focus on again they wanted clear role definitions. They wanted clarity about firearms to the school, the students, the community

032members and everyone involved. They want a student centered trauma-infor trauma informed training. They wanted authentic relationship building. One of the things that stuck out is that they wanted the the SRO to be introduced as a person first and then an SRO. And then we have conversations about the SRO role to educators and to the students. They wanted transparency and community involvement. They also wanted collaborative hiring and oversight. There was a suggestion that a student be involved in a hiring process and also perhaps a CSA. They wanted continued respect and support for CSAs. They wanted to create a welcoming presence. They didn't want to feel like the SROs were patrolling or um anything that was intimidating. They wanted training for students and staff. And they wanted clarity about location and the visibility of SRO's. >> So

033before Dr. Johnson steps away, any questions regarding um those focus groups? I don't have a question. I do want to just make it clear that that a lot of the concerns that Dr. Johnson just um shared as far as student concerns, staff concerns were definitely things that I felt um the group did a really nice job of slowing down. and I had expressed some concerns personally that I felt like we gathered that data and we kind of had an agenda and a timeline and we were able and everybody agreed to slow the process down a little bit so that we could address those and talk about them. And um from my perspective, you know, there's still um the concerns um hanging out there and and that we have a due diligence and and I hope

034and and I'm assure that we have some type of plan or are going to continue to work on a plan to address some of those concerns with the students. And and so there was a lot of talk around how we're going to do that and definitely um did not want anybody to think that we were glossing over those things or that we were gathering data and that's it. Um but I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for agreeing and giving us extra time. I know it kind of skewed the timeline a little bit, but I think that was important work and conversations that we had >> and still have to have with staff and students as as we move forward with this. So, I just wanted to highlight that. So, thank you. >>

035Absolutely. Thank you, Lisa. you know, sorry, I know we'll talk a little bit more about community engagement and next steps, but just wonder um Dr. Johnson, maybe um when do we anticipate or how do we anticipate getting some parent feedback? Is that coming >> forthcoming? If you might be able to touch on that a little bit. >> Thank you, Miss Burns. And believe in the uh next few slides there'll be some conversation about next steps. And so our goal was to um just as the community requested was to get feedback and be transparent every se step of the way. And so the first set of so focus groups was to kind of gauge where the student the school uh community was as far as agreeing how they felt about it what ideas they had about

036theou perhaps what non-negotiables they would like to see. And so as um Miss Torres mentioned, we took that information and we evaluated at every meeting and then we move forward. And so we'll continue to have focus groups and let those focus groups influence the next set of documents, theou and the SOP. And so that's where we are now, taking theou into the community and getting feedback on that. And then we'll work on the procedures, feedback on that as well. And we'll get family feedback as well as part of that. Yes, ma'am. Good evening, uh, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Gurley. Um, I want to start with, uh, Chief Cotch's, uh, queu, uh, quote, um, down at the bottom where it says, "The principal is the chief of the school, collaboratively selected and trained

037officers assigned to schools are re are resources for the schools. They work under the daily direction and leadership of school administration." um and just um talk about how uh we as principles do look forward to having the consistency of SRO's. Um I can tell you for myself um about three years ago, we had a uh swatting call at the middle school um where um I was actually I had just walked into a classroom um to uh sub because we didn't have a teacher. Um, and so as soon as I walked in, I was radioed to uh come out. And as when I walked out, there were officers moving around the building. I had no clue what was going on. Um, and at that time, the uh interim police chief uh sort of filled me in

038as quickly as he could. Uh but then um when I went down uh to the office um to put the the school on lockdown and came out of the office uh there were two um weapons uh literally pointed at me. And so I really really think that um had there been an officer in the building who could have received their colleagues um it would have made a difference um in that situation. Um, and so, um, I'm grateful that, um, my current police chief, uh, wanted to, uh, meet with us and talk to us and get our perspective. >> Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Hello, Madam Chair, Dr. Gurley, members of the board. My name is Justin Malone. I'm the principal of Charlottesville High School. Um, and I want to affirm the thought and attention and care

039that was given to the conversations that the stakeholders had, members of our school board had as it related to um, school resource officers return returning into our buildings. Some of the feedback that I think is significant from the principal perspective is is just how much interaction occurs at the building level between the school resource officer and the building level administrators. Um even in our current practices right now, the frequency that we would interact with law enforcement is primarily through building level administrators. Um and and that will that will certainly continue with the reestablishment of school resource officers in the building. We believe that they add that needed value and pragmatism to the work. Um as our many of our uh many of our expectations already include correspondence with law enforcement officers. So having somebody who

040was trained, whose work is focused on relationship building within the spaces that they are working, uh have a strong understanding of of the community in which they're working. Having that person there with with us to support that work is significant um in both supporting the success of this uh of this program, but just in the day-to-day interactions as well. Um the work group um gave considerable thought to very many things and I do think that the added value again for school resource officers is going to be continuing to support the critical situations, emergency situations that arise. um their steady presence currently and their support of our work around threat assessments will continue to be refined and add much neededed quality and perspective uh from the relationship that they will have with the school to that

041work. Um, and then to the idea of what we can craft out and continue to to grow in terms of the work that they'll be doing for lessons and training and other um, ed-based experiences that they have as it relates to the to the work and the requirements that come with this position. So, um, as the building level principal, um, where there is often high need, uh, having, uh, a strong safety program is significant and important to me. uh and I believe that the this work that that has been given consideration on behalf of school resource officers will add another level of additional value to that safety program. >> Thank you Dr. Malone. Uh Lamont Troder, principal Lugo McInness Academy. uh our particular campus is uh very unique and so uh the discussion that we

042had was around uh that resource officer just roving and stopping in from time to time at our particular campus uh as we continue to minimize the type of uh infractions that may have escalated in previous years. So just having a familiar face stop in when we have community days or welcome back opportunities so that that officer is able to be a pillar within our school community. uh the ultimate goal at our campus uh that we discussed in the working group is to allow our students equally to have a voice as relates to how that resource officer could particularly engage with us through Miss Phelps with particular groups or Miss Claire throughCal activities. So the work that we continue to do with this group is definitely very strong and I uh definitely believe that uh this

043will be a work that will continue. Thank you. Todd Cougler, coordinator of safety and security for the division. My office is tasked with most of the mandatory interfacing with the Department of Criminal Justice, our annual safety functions include our crisis management plans, our safety audit, our safety surveys. All of these things have components where we must work with our law enforcement partners. The annual safety audits um and crisis management plan currently are reviewed by our law enforcement partners after the fact. We're not h bringing them in during the construction of because it's just simply we don't have that fidelity of a relationship to bring them in on that part of it. Some of the additional mandated interfaces involve, you know, illicit products that are brought onto our campuses. We have to report them to the

044police department. Um, some of those items are simply reported because we need them to come dispose of them. But there's always a question because the law requires us to report it to them if it reaches a certain quantity. Um, the in general, if it's a felony quantity, then it must be reported to the police department. Problem is, we don't have anybody on site that knows exactly what constitutes a felony depending on what the elicit substance is. So we are all often calling our police partners. We found this. We need somebody to make a determination. Is this something you have to get involved in or is this up to our discretion? Restoring the SR O program. Having that in-house where this eliminates that phone call. It eliminates bringing in somebody that's not familiar with working with

045youth and eliminates the possibility of somebody overreacting because this is their first time meeting with our students. There's a safety training program involving seventh and eighth graders that'll a little more detail will be coming up in the next slide. But that's also mandated by the state to provide that training to our students. Having the SRO's available and assigned to our school system gives us a familiar face that they can start building that relationship at middle school level in an instructional way rather than just interfacing in a public safety manner. Some of the other key benefits, um, school safety inspections are required every three years. Um, our next safety inspection cycle falls at the end of this coming school year. Emergency preparation um will gain increased familiarity with our staff and our facilities. Currently, we have

046our police department. They will come and they will do training in our buildings usually on days when the schools are closed during Christmas break, things like that. However, if we have the SRO, that increases that familiarity, increases the point of contact with our staff so that we're not having strangers come in our building when there is an emergency. our daily crisis communications. This is probably one of the biggest things that we lost with the SRO program leaving our schools. Currently, there's about a handful, five or six people within the school division that have a good communication relationship with our law enforcement partners. How that impacts us is we know that our schools are not an island. What happens in our community transfers into our schools and what happens in our schools transfers out to our

047community. If we learn of something, typically it's because there's a news report, something says, you know, there there was a shooting on Orangeale. Okay. How or was anybody that we know directly impacted by that? Do we have any students that were involved? So, that involves us making phone calls to our law enforcement partners. They have to reach out to whoever's investigating and find out if there's any at this point. It's a very slow process and it involves only a few people. So if those few people are unaware of what happened, then we lose that Fidelian communications. We have an SRO in the building. They're more involved directly as far as they're getting updates from their department. This happened last night. This is who we believe is involved and they can carry that into the schools

048and say, let our administration know right then we think this person may have been involved. the that Mr. Jordan spoke to about the swatting incident. One of the other benefits is the SRO in the building will have the ability to be monitoring both the police radio and our inschool radios in real time. So that event would not have resulted in what happened um with our staff being presented with officers pointed at because the officer in the building could have immediately heard the call go out gotten on the radio and said this is not going on. I'm on site. we can downgrade our response and he can handle the incident without bringing additional officers onto our campuses that are armed and ready to engage an enemy. So the SRO brings more to the building than simply

049putting a presence in the school. They bring back the communications that we've lost and they bring in familiar faces so that we're not interacting with strangers on a regular basis. Good evening. Uh my name is Jessica Brantley. I'm the health PE and driver education coordinator and I really appreciate it being a part of this working group and being able to blend my perspective on the instructional side. I do think that there are lots of ways that the SRO could collaborate in facilitation of instruction. There are things that are required. Um, so by code Virginia, any uh physical education class offered to students in grades seven and eight must include at least of personal safety training per year and it should be delivered in partnership with the local law enforcement agency. So direct alignment there. I

050definitely see a benefit of having the SRO involved in the facilitation of those lessons moving forward. Also in driver education there are multiple SOS that require ana understanding of the driving related laws. So having an officer in the building that can help you know um clarify some of the things for students and share some of their experiences of what they see on the road and safety matters I think would be of great benefit to classroom instruction and driver education as well. Um, we also are required to have a 90inute parent teen driving presentation uh for all students wanting to receive their license and taking health or taking driver education. Many school districts have the SRO um or collaborate with the SRO and have them do some presentations or part of the presentation when families come

051in to kind of share out some of those things that the students have learned in class as well and with uh families when they come in. So that is another area where we have a requirement to have this presentation and it could be more robust by having that person in our building help clarify things for our students and our families as they're applicable. Also, since there are some other opportunities that I see that may not be included in the list that I have on the slides, but some things were done previously and there are some things I think we could do. So, um, we're not just focusing on the secondary level. We do have pedestrian and bicycle safety lessons from like K12. So I do see collaboration with the SRO, the teachers and safe routes

052as a possibility for making those lessons engaging and of value to our student population. Also in health and PE there are uh health SOS in every grade level that address things like safety, injury prevention, violence prevention, substance use prevention, uh bullying and harassment, internet safety and so on. So and oh and responding to emergency situations. Um so I think our natural standards of learning that we have in our health and PE and driver education curriculum would lend themselves to um the support or collaboration with the SRO in all grade levels. And then uh also previously we had an SRO that served as a club sponsor or in multiple clubs really but the one that stands out for me from a health and wellness perspective was um the sponsor of YADAP. So that's a studentled club

053that is their goal is to prevent alcohol and substance use. And so the mentor that was an SRO and um the high school students went to I think it was like a week-long training at Longwood um to learn how to facilitate things throughout the school year to try to get other students on board with um choosing an alcohol and substancefree lifestyle. And so I definitely see that as a potential opportunity. Maybe not that specific club, but things like that. And when I was on the working group, not only did I look at it from an instructional perspective, but a relationship perspective. I think if um they are ingrained in some of the school culture and the um opportunities to share expertise in the things that they, you know, know a lot about and collaboration with

054their teachers that it would help build relationships as well. So one of the things that was a feature of our discussion around theou was how um school resource officers would impact uh students with disabilities specifically. So we know that children, adolescence and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at an increased risk to be victims of violence. They're also at an increased risk in emergency situations. like I use the example of house fires, car accidents, and natural disasters due to weaknesses in communication. So, the SRO program allows us to have a regular and safe opportunity for students with disabilities to interact with police officers um so they understand what seeking and receiving support from first responders can look like. Um the other thing that we know is that children, adolesccents and adults with disabilities are

055at increased risk when they encounter police officers in the community do that do not know um the context of their behaviors. Um we know that communication differences and unexpected behaviors can lead to serious and fatal outcomes for adults and children with disabilities. Um that will that will be prevented. Um, and that is because within that school setting, the MRO theou has has set us up to have structures in which we share the context of children's behavior with our school resource officers. So, the IEP team um, drafts and writes behavior intervention plans that includes information that school administration and school resource officers need to know in order to respond effectively to student behavior. Um, prevent those misunderstandings of behavior that might occur um with a police officer who doesn't know the student or understand the student.

056Those individualized plans are what are going to keep our students safe from those misunderstandings. Um, and that adds the benefit of our school resource officers building those relationships, understanding student behavior, um, in the school building and being able to then relay that information to their counterparts in CPD, which allows us to support our whole community in a better way. Sorry. Good evening. I'm Jodie Murphy. I'm the mental wellness coordinator. Uh I really want to focus on the threat assessment process. I think the other points around mental wellness have been spoken about the opportunity for positive, safe, connected relationships between the SRO and our students and staff. Uh over the last couple years when we have not had SRO's, we have done the very best job that we can to make sure that we are meeting

057code and it has gone well. But I want to speak to the fact that we have been depending on individuals with CCS and CPD to make the threat assessment process procedure work. And having SRO and SRO programming will move us from individuals to systems. uh which will have that protocol and process go more smoothly and will really allow us to serve our students and our families and the schools in a much more safe and collaborative way. Having SRO's in our building for threat assessment, I want us to think about not just about um that there will be an SRO who know our students but also threat assessment is hard even under the best of circumstances. And when you have to go in and talk to a student and make phone calls to a family about

058a really difficult situation, having to do that with somebody who's walking through the door that does not know you at all. Having to talk to a kid about we're having a police officer come in who you have never met, even if they trust our school staff, it is incredibly difficult. It's even harder when our school staff don't know the police officer that's coming. And so part of the one of the positive things about having an SRO program will be that the SRO will be a known face to our students even while the threat assessment process will still be hard. I don't want anybody to mistake that I'm saying this is going to make it be so easy. It is not. It's incredibly difficult for everyone. Um, so I just want to remind everybody that while

059the work will be hard, knowing that we have a trusting relationship between our SRO and the CPD programming in general will really make that clinically be better and it will be safer or hopefully feel safer for all people involved. Um, I also want to talk a little bit about we have to have threat assessment trained officers come. BD has done an amazing job of ensuring that any officer who comes is threat assessment trained, but there's a big difference between being threat assessment trained and being youth trained. And so an SRO would be both. And it's different when you're talking to whether it's an eight-year-old or a 14y old um and when you're working with adults. And so from the mental health perspective, knowing that our SRO's are trained to work with our students really does

060make a difference on the mental health side. >> Uh good evening, Madame Chair, members of the board. Dr. Gurley, my name is Bianca Johnson. I am the and restorative practices or restorative justice coordinator here at CCS. Um to that point, um one of the things that we're really big restorative world is we want to do things with people, right? Not to or for them. And so when SRO's do return to the school buildings, one of the things that I would be making sure of is that they are aware of what restorative justice is at CCS and how we utilize it. Um and when I say that, I'm thinking about from our contracted facilitators at CBCJ and even how it's defined in our rights and responsibilities. um we'll make sure to provide opportunities for them to

061uh receive training and tier one practices wherever they're comfortable, right? And so while they wouldn't facilitate a full restorative conversation, if they wanted to participate in something like a community building circle or maybe be a participant in a restorative conference, if that makes sense and all the parties are okay with it, we would make a way uh for that to happen. And then on the other side, um, in the family engagement world, we did do some summer outreach that happened. And what you see to the right is a, uh, word cloud of some of the things that we collected anecdotally when we were out in the community. So, we went to Rock the Block that happened at Tonsler Park. Um, we stopped by at one of the Tonsler Park games. Um, we did the one-stop

062shop that happens at Carver Wreck. Uh, last weekend we were at West Haven Day. This Sunday we have our better together block party bash and then um there's this event that we're doing in collaboration uh the can I talk to you seville event that you'll hear about in just a little bit. um what I gathered anecdotally right and I don't want to speak on behalf of all families but the families that I connected with when they heard the idea that SROs were returning to the buildings they were okay with it right um there were some that were relieved some that were wanting to hear more but didn't necessarily disagree with the idea I think what I gathered from uh more than anything whether it was a student or just a community member that maybe didn't

063have kids at CCS or a parent when they think about an SRO what does it look like what does it sound like what Does it feel like they just want to make sure that they're connected to the community? One of the preference that I heard is that they're homegrown, right? They're a product of this uh Charlottesville community, so they understand it. They want somebody that's attentive. They want somebody that's alert. They want somebody that is wanting to make assumptions versus uh that doesn't make assumptions, excuse me. Um somebody that is that knows the the community, that knows the neighborhood, that's connected. um an officer that isn't scared to come up to somebody and have a conversation in a positive way, right? Not not when when there's an incident happening and somebody that's able to deescalate

064versus maybe elevate or escalate somebody. >> Mic switch. Uh I'm really that I think that's you've heard from the people who did the work and that that is how we got to the point where we are right now. But we we want to hear from the community. We want to make theou even better even more reflective our school values and our community values. So these next steps are how how people can engage how people can learn more. Uh tomorrow I will be posting this draftou to the website. will be providing some extra information, just some big picture ideas for people who may not want to read every word of theou, but may have some hot button questions that are top of mind for them. Even today, when Amanda and I sent out that uh kind

065of back to school newsletter, it told people about the uh can I talk to you Seville event moderated by Charles Lewis on August 26th, I think the flyer might have had a little typo in it, so uh we will continue to push that out uh to make sure people are aware. But again, we're just looking to answer questions, get feedback. We want collectively, I love that phrase Bianca said, that we want to do things with people. So, let's let's continue to get feedback. We think we've made a good start with thisou. Um, but it can get better. And so, that's the point of this process. And then in September 4th, um maybe some of these same people will be back to share how they what they've heard and what adjustments they recommend uh in light

066of what they've heard. So, so that's the work group. Um, if you have any questions, I don't know how they're they're still hanging in here. I think we still got them all. So, happy to answer questions. But thank again, huge thank you to everyone who was part of the work to get us to this point. >> Thank you. Um, to our students, rep, do you have any questions, Miss Burns? Mr. Meyer? Uh first I want to thank uh very impressive group of that put a lot of time in over the summer. Thank you all. Uh not necessarily the way you want to spend your summer. Uh but appreciate all the effort you all put in there. It was very gave us a lot of information there. I have reviewed the draft. I'm I this is

067where I wanted us to land and so I'm very happy where we're at at this moment. Um, I heard some feedback around, you know, wanting these SRO's to be part of the community. You know, I think these are community officers that are helping keep our youth safe, not only in our school buildings, but outside in their community, too. I was happy to hear from Mr. Googler that again this is going to be a source of information coming into our buildings also from what's happening out and helping increase that uh travel information you might say. Uh so I'm happy with that. I did want to clarify in here and I because I heard a lot of concerns about this um and it wasn't talked about in this quite yet or wasn't detailed in the presentations but

068uh I think it's in theou that the city will be the CPD will be taking this to the city for budget purposes and this will not be part of uh CCS's budget. Is that where we're at at the moment? That is the unanimous recommendation of the work group that the um program be funded within CPD. Um there are lots of reasons for that and Richmond City does it that way. So there is precedence. Um it's important that every grant that comes out that supports these type of programs there. The recipient is law enforcement. Even for school security officers like our CSAs, it has to run through law enforcement. Um it's that the payroll they are, you know, sworn law enforcement officers year round. So they're on city payroll. So to not do it that way

069is in a part of it. Putting my old finance director hat on. There's just so much unnecessary back and forth with the funds. And so that's a piece of why it makes a ton of sense to just do it that way. But it also speaks to your point about these are youth, especially youth trained officers that are really part of the value is serving the community 247 360 with that expertise. >> Great. And final uh I just wanted to highlight and appreciate uh principal Jordan's observation about his experience and the need for coordination and reading that I appreciate from CPD's perspective at least and the chief of CPD saying you know the principles are the chiefs of the school and will be again the chiefs of those officers when they're on their campus. So I

070appreciate that. Thank you. Um, I also too want to echo um and just thanks for all the hard work. I know a lot of work went into this um and just kind of reading over theou and being able to provide that feedback to my colleagues. Um I'm too um is happy with some of the um language that's in theou. Um I do also want to talk about like today's clim political climate and making sure that we are um putting language in ourou about accountability and transparency around um you know the power that has been given to the police in our current political climate um so that our children are being protected. If I may, when you when you look at theou tomorrow, and this was in, I believe a draft, an early draft that was

071circulated with the board, there's a um in the preamble, there is the ability to just it speaks to the fact that if circumstances beyond local control start to drive things in a direction where things are happening that don't align with with the val with our values, that theou could be terminated at any time. We certainly hope that would never be the case, but that is um I I believe that may be touching on part of what you're speaking about. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I saw that. Appreciate it, >> Miss Richardson. >> Um I would like to say um it sounds like we have a long way to go and a lot of work has been put into this. I appreciate all of the hard work and the feedback you guys have presented today.

072I personally I'm curious to hear back from the community and the parents and um to hear their feedback as we move forward and um of course I think we do need a stronger safety plan and I'm just here to see how everything will pan out. So, I just wanted to comment a little bit to Miss Cooper's point, and again, this was a conversation or a topic that came up during one of our work sessions um as far as expressing concerns um under the current political climate um specifically related to ICE. And I don't I don't know if Lieutenant Wade wants to come up because he spoke to that as far as the stance that the chief has taken um publicly. And I had even kind of pushed gently or asked that maybe there could be

073a statement from the chief on our website as far as um his position for Charlottesville Police. >> So good after or excuse me, good evening, Lieutenant Greg Wade, Charlesville Police Department. I work with the department's community services bureau and I've had the honor of working with this work group and coming up with the draftou that you have uh in front of you now. Um, in reference to those concerns specifically, in order for a local jurisdiction to interface and use uh federal jurisdions's powers or to work for a federal jurisdiction, you have to enter into an agreement with that federal uh entity. Um, the chief's been very clear on that. Uh, we have absolutely no plans to do that. um that would need to take place prior to any uh federal assistance being given by CPD.

074>> And just for the public sake, I mean, we're talking specifically about ICE pushing in or any any anything like that. So, I do want to make sure that that was clear and we did have a conversation about that. So, thank you. and I have approached him since um on on several of the recent um community events and and we've had a very clear conversation about that and his stance and his understanding of where Charlottesville as a community stands um you know as far as um him making that statement publicly but that he he there is no doubt in my mind that the community would support and definitely would draw the line a hard line there. >> Absolutely. >> Um if that was crossed >> and I can I can tell you that when I

075um think of the language that M pow referenced in theou about being able to withdraw at any point if it becomes untenable from uh local perspective. Uh that's exactly what that's speaking to. >> Thank you. Also, if you if you don't mind, Madam Chair, um >> just for the sake of kind of h this process um and and starting at the summer as far as how this transformed and and thank you Dr. Gurley for allowing Miss Burns and I to be part of this workg group. I think it was important for both of us to be um be there and to provide sometimes different points of view and and coming from different perspectives. So, I do appreciate that. Um, but I just would love if if one or both of you could kind of paint

076a picture of of what this was about and how um, you know, it it came to I want the public to know that this is work towards theou draft, what the draft theou and how that difference differs from the SOP and then also um, that this is not something that is coming back to the board for a vote that this is um, something that will be sent to the superintendent and he will bring it forward. But again, this was work and then I'll let you explain. >> Sure. >> Just the difference between the two. >> Okay. So, when the board took action in on March 27th, as I alluded to earlier, we shifted gears from the idea of having a staff workg group that was going to be developing anou that would then be brought

077forward in conjunction with board action. Since the board action has already been taken, it's not coming back to the board for action such a short period of time anyway. But um what we are doing is continuing to you know we do want public feedback on theou that's the period we're entering to starting tomorrow. So theou is not considered final yet. Um there will likely if the board um desires I think we're probably come back in September just to say it's final. Dr. girly may want to round out the presentation at that point because at that point after we received the community feedback and report back on what that's like and any subsequent um modifications to theou um the chief of police and the superintendent of the schools that's who signs theou um but the work's

078not done there and if people wonder why we're doing all this in advance and why this timing it'll need to get this all had to be done ahead of a budget cycle so that it can get into the city's budget as We as was stated earlier the hope is that it is in the police budget not in the school's budget for multiple reasons and then um this the work is just there's a lot of work to be done in identifying the candidates the selection you know selection the final selection process um there's lots of training that we have to line up not just for the SRO's but also for our own staff and our students you know this is going to be a reintroduction and we want to do it right and we want to

079make sure everyone understands clearly the roles and responsibilities, expectations, all those things. Um, so the SOP is something that goes into a greater level of detail than theou regarding all the things. It's really anything that's not in theou that we really want to have clarity about how this thing works. It could be something um like more detail about training because let's face it, training practices are constantly evolving as to what should be on the menu, right? We see that as professionals just in education. So, we want to be able things that we want to update more frequently than perhaps anou. Um, we could we can detail those in the SOP. Um, there's there's lots of pieces just procedurally things that we may want to spell out further. And so, like the FAQ, frequently asked questions

080that Miss Chuck spoke about for the folks who just look at anou and they're like, I don't want to read all that, but I just want to know about this thing. And they can jump to it in an FAQ. Um, the SOP is sort of the same way. It's it's more of a living document than anou. Although thisou is set on a pretty short cycle for review. I think it's it's annual or every two years. It's not the three years or whatever. I think it's every year. Whatever it is, it's it's going to be something that's it's not static. Um, I talk about safety all the time as a process of continuous improvement. In this case, we really need to get it right out of the gate. But as we move along together, I'm sure

081there are things we'll want to refine and better define to keep everybody's lanes clear and just make sure that this is really leveling up our safety the way we want it to. Can you speak to what what types of um ways the the community can give feedback that might either be imparted towards theou or SOPs? I'm assuming are we going to open up I guess that's a question. Are we going to open up feedback or is that another committee? >> So the when it's posted on the website there's going to be a mechanism to give feedback through the website. The events that are the can I talk to you event I think everybody's looking forward to that. Um so those are some significant ways that we're you know wanting to get feedback at this juncture

082but through the website we can always receive feedback. Um but we also are looking at from the um I believe Miss Burns brought this to us that North Pre School District in Colorado. They had some um an interesting thing you could do with a QR code which you know I know with our off and away we can think about the best way to do this but you could quick it was like just promoting if if someone has an interaction with an SRO and they want to provide comment on that and it could be positive or negative you know it could or you know something to grow from right um we want to make we're going to need to put some kind of mechanism like that in place um like I said I keep getting reminded

083that that the old days of a QR code and a phone are not necessarily the best way to handle that in school environment now but we need to do something similar and we can promote that there's always a way to give a glow or a grow right regarding an interaction with an SRO as especially as we're you know bringing the program back and it's new. So that's one way um and that could also if it's on the website of course it's available to our families to provide those kind of feedback points as well. >> Um I appreciate that. I was just curious how many SROs are we >> So there was a me go back. So we're looking at two based at CHS um one based out of CMS but that one will be one

084of the floaters and then a supervisor because there's a desire for the unit to have a sergeant and that individual will also be a floater. And so again, thank you repeating what my colleagues have said. Um, this has been a really like positive rosy overview of the potential of SRO's coming back into the buildings. I think as we move forward and I think this will come out probably in the SOP work is just the hypotheticals and the discussion about like what happens when it doesn't look as pretty as a picture that you guys presented today. Um so if there is an overstep by the SRO encroaching upon a principal's role as the chief of that school, what is the recourse? What is the conversation? Um that is, you know, that's something that's really important to

085me as this work moves forward. Thank you all and to your crew standing behind you awkwardly between the stacks. Thank you. All right, we will move on to item 112. Dr. Eley, uh, with our professional learning update. Really wanted to have some music playing that you had to dance out to, but All right, Madame Chair, Dr. Dr. Gurley, members of the board, I'm excited to share with you about our professional learning for the 2526 school year and to give you a recap of some of our um efforts from last year as well. So, um tonight I'll sort of outline the alignment to our strategic plan, our priorities for 2526. I'll give you a recap of some of what we've already done this year, this summer, and over pre-week. and then our plan um moving into

0862526. So here you'll just see the alignment with the strategic plan staff support goal two um is where you're going to see um a lot revolving around uh professional learning with regard to it being meaningful, relevant, timely and personalized. Um we do have um spe some specific specifics in strategy 4 and then a target goal of um increasing the percentage of staff who report that professional learning is effective or highly effective. Um these are some of on the little green sticky note there you'll see some of the specific mentions and highlights um that of our professional learning work that do align um or are visible in the strategic plan. Um we are continuing this work from from last year. Um so you'll some of those may be familiar. One thing I want to spend a

087little bit of time highlighting and you heard about this in um Miss Reall's update the LA update at the end of last school year, but um it really did um really was a big undertaking of our 2425 school year. So, I just wanted to to acknowledge that um as part of the Virginia Literacy Act, we had about 300 staff members complete the following um VL courses in literacy. So, um that you can see the numbers there. And again, you you've seen this in a pre presentation before from um Miss Reedall, but these teachers were in grades K to 8 and also included um not just classroom teachers, but specialists and administrators. Um and so it was just that was a significant undertaking. Um so I just wanted to highlight um how many of our staff

088members completed that training last year. This year we've had a really robust um professional learning opportunities that we offered for staff this summer. Um so I just want to take a minute to acknowledge those. Um we offered two Dibbles uh trainings for literacy um on screening students using Dibbles using that data to plan next steps instruction instructionally and to monitor students progress. So we had 20 um teachers attendees come to that. Um there were two one-day trainings. Um Virginia Studies will be moving from fifth grade to fourth grade. And so we offered a a boot camp that we called it a two-day training this summer um for instructional coaches at the elementary level and also fourth grade teachers to really learn that content. Um that continued at our professional learning day uh yesterday as well

089and will throughout the year. Um mentor training we are working with um Dr. Dr. Christian Zenov and Dr. Audrey Parker from George Mason. They've done a lot of work with mentor VA and have worked with us for a few years. They offered a two-day training for um teacher leaders and staff who are becoming a mentor um for a novice teacher this school year. We were able to partner um with Almor County Public Schools um for a newcomer training. So supporting newcomer um English learners in our school presented by the center um of for applied linguistics. Actually we had the same presenter that we did for that trained all of the instructional coaches in SCOP a couple years ago. Um so that was exciting. But we had 14 um staff members that went to that three-day

090training on supporting newcomers. We had 15 um staff members go to responsive classroom. It's a 4-day course um for elementary teachers. We had um as Miss Horn mentioned earlier, Bianca Johnson um held two two-day trainings on restorative justice this summer um with a total of 33 attendees for that PBIS training and attendance forum. Um you can see those there as well. So we were really pleased with um what all we were able to offer this summer already and also the participation from staff um which was really impressive. Last week, we held a three-day uh new educator orientation for new licensed staff. We had about 75 um new educators attend. Day one really focused on getting to know CCS and with we had a tour around the city um where they got to see all of

091our schools and the city and then a CCS fair. Day two involved um sessions on building classroom community and routines structures um MTSS and how that works in the city. Um inclusive practices and powers school. We also had um content specific sessions and curriculum instruction focus or job specific uh focus on day three. Each day staff had time in their classrooms um as well in their school working with coaches and administrators and um getting acclimated to their school as well. So it was a nice blend of about a half day or a little more than a half day with the division and then the rest of the time um in schools. Uh we did try to catch our new staff up on SCOP which I will talk about um as well in just a moment.

092Um but we were really excited and this year we actually offer differentiated PL as well. some of the sessions we we were able to group our first and second year teachers and then have our more experienced teachers just so that we were able to tailor the sessions a little more um to their experience level. So that was um really wellreceived I think as well. Yesterday was our PL Palooa. Um so it was great to have you all join us for part of that. Um it's just such a wonderful kickoff for the school year. I we had over a hundred unique sessions that we offered. Um many of those were offered multiple times, but there were over a hundred unique ones. Um today, staff engaged in their safety um PL in their schools. We have two

093more days, one in November and one in February. So, they're nicely sort of paced throughout this um school year. And again, you're going to see those same sort of um topics there that are in our strategic plan and that we've have been a focus of our work um over the LA like since last year. Um this year we're continuing our SCOP work. So that's the um sheltered um instructional observation and protocol. It is all about supporting English learners through making grade level content accessible and um kind of combining content objectives with language objectives or or having those um those objectives work together. We started this work in 2324. So this is all in our strategic plan. um our co- instructional coaches were trained that year. Um last year everyone all teachers got a intro in

094their school which was really about um the English learners in their school their school specific population and sort of building some of the background knowledge um uh on language objectives with with teachers. And then everyone had SCOP one um which was really on lesson preparation and background knowledge. And then some of our staff got sign up too because of the VALA. We had to shift gears a little bit um later last year. So those who did not get it last year either had it at the Palooa or we'll have it before the November day. Um and that SCOP 2 is all about comprehensible input, making things um compre comprehensible to all. Um and then November everyone will have SCP 3 which um really gets into strategies, practice and application. And then um in February, everyone

095will get signed up for. So by the end of this year, everyone should be totally caught up and have received um all of that that training. This year, this is a sampling. We have quite a few PL series going on um or ongoing professional learning. We know that ongoing professional learning that we keep coming back to is um effective. And so we have quite a few um series or sort of ongoing efforts this year. I just wanted this is just a sampling of them. I wanted to highlight a few things. Um the first is at CHS we're partnering with Dr. Jade Wexler and her research team um to strengthen our tier one instructional strategies um that are focused on students decoding and comprehension skills. actually um on August 12th, all CHS teachers are going to

096have an initial training on this. Um and then the intensive will be with the English language arts team um and specialists like ESL teachers and um special educators throughout the year. So that will go on um throughout the year. Also at Walker um there the ELA staff there will be engaged in a year-long professional learning series led by Dr. Tammy Williams from William and Mary. Um the primary goal of that uh professional learning is leveraging writing to support reading comprehension. Um so there's um a protocol for planning and scaffolding um for for all learners and using assessment to drive um the instructional goals. So um integrating evidence-based practices and certain literacy routines um will be a focus of that work. Dr. Dr. Christy Dubet from uh JMU is working with our gifted resource teachers this

097year on teaching up um which is practical classroom strategies for differentiated instruction. So it's the idea of we we set the bar really high and then and then support and scaffold all learners up to that on a rigorous level. So we you know our GRTs do a lot of collaboration with classroom teachers and and sharing strategies and support with differentiation. So we want to make sure their toolbox is full also. Um so the GRT team GRT team last year actually read Dr. Dubet's um one of her books and this year she's working with the team throughout the year. So that includes professional learning days but also um peer observations and feedback with Dr. Dubet in the um uh gifted resource lessons. Dr. Allison Brown, our social studies coordinator, has an ongoing series um with history

098and social studies teachers in grades 6 to 12. that's that's sort of a local um series that she's um designed to support the uh standardsbased grading work in social studies. So that's happening in PLC's also professional learning days. So it's all sort of coordinated throughout the year. Um our staff at CMS at the middle school um will continue early this year their work um with S sur um which focuses on content knowledge and pedigogy and literacy and math. So these are just a sampling. There's more than this. But um you know we we do have a lot of efforts to have these these ongoing series that the work where we keep we we're coming back to it and it's not just sort of a onein one and done session. And then these are our sort

099of embedded supports that we have um that are are certainly professional learning resources in our buildings. So we do have instructional coaches um and you can see their work outline there. um novice teacher mentors. So our um first year teachers and our first second year teachers who are new to us um have a mentor in their school working with them um in addition to instructional coach. Um our schools offer prof uh school-based professional learning sessions uh aligning with their individual school goals. And then of course we have our professional learning communities um grade level and department um teams that are working together as well. So those are um embedded supports that we have that are of course ongoing and that's all I have. Do you have any questions? >> Thank you. We'll open up for

100any questions on this side. >> All right. Thank you Dr. Eley. All right. And now, Miss Fresnik, our multi-tered system of supports overview. Good evening, Madam Chair, Dr. Girly, members of the board. So, um, same template, but new information. Um, I'm not going to go deep into the overview. I'm going to mainly focus on updates for tonight. Um so as you know we had use the multi-ter system of supports framework to support our strategic plan globally. Um we also always want to acknowledge that 100% of our Charlottesville city school staff is part of this MTSS framework. Um, no matter your role, you contribute to building relationships, fostering that joy of learning, creating growth for our students, um, and establishing and contributing to the well-being of our students and our staff. Um, so last year I

101gave you an update on how many interventions we had in place. So those tier 2 and tier three. Um what we know is that all of our students receive that tier one core instruction and then some students also receive tier 2 and tier three interventions across a number of domains. Um so in this is data from last year we had 1,117 students receive literacy intervention. We had 536 students receive math intervention. um between behavior and mental wellness. Uh we had almost 500 students receiving intervention. Those often overlap um and then we had 140 stu two students receiving that tiered targeted engagement intervention. As we think about our students who are receiving interventions and supports, we know that our tier one is delivered predominantly by our classroom teachers, our classroom instructional assistants and it whether it's

102working or not is measured by summitive assessments. Formative assessments guide our instruction and we have unit tests to tell us is that working? Um when we through screening data see that it's a student has additional needs then it might bump up into tier 2 that's delivered by it can be a classroom teacher or instructional assistant as well. It could be a specialist or interventionist a school counselor and we're regularly progress monitoring those tier 2 interventions as well. the most intensive level of intervention is um prioritized to be delivered by our most highly trained and skilled staff. So our um instructional specialists and our school mental health providers um and the pro the rate of progress monitoring is more frequent at that intensity of intervention. This time I gave you a few student examples. This is

103not real student data. Um, but it is pretty representative of what we might see um, when we're in one of those student success meetings. Um, so we know that students don't students aren't in a tier. Students receive tiered support. Um, and so this this first student we're going to look at um, they have some strengths and they have some areas of growth. I think one of the things that we always want to remember is those teams come together to make collaborative decisions. so that they can prioritize um and work towards that student progress collectively. Um so this student for example, they're um receiving a number of targeted interventions for attendance. Um but those interventions are going to address the root causes of the attendance. Um we've got a student who has a weak grade in

104reading um and a moderately strong MAP score. So that's going to require a different type of intervention than in math where they have a weak grade and a weak MAP score which shows they probably are missing some of those foundational skills. The student is typical in our social emotional screening. So they're not going to receive targeted intervention, but they're getting that social emotional learning within the classroom. Um and they don't have any office discipline referrals. So they're they're responding to that tier one positive school culture in order to meet classroom expectations. A few more students and I apologize it's small. Um I was trying to do fewer slides. Um but it ended up being very very small so I apologize. Um it's testing me up here too. Um, so our next student, we can see

105that they have um a large number of excused absences and some of those are homebound. So they're going to get a different type of attendance intervention because we know that there is something going on with that student from a medical standpoint. We might be suppressing some of our um automated attendance letters. Um, and we're going to be focused on making sure that they get the supports that they need when they return to school. Um the reason for that homebound we might be a significant mental health need and so when they're in school they're getting that intensive mental health support but the students grades are fine. This is a smart kid and so when we if we don't have screening measures to look at other things a student like this might fall through the cracks. But

106we do have screening measures. We have multiple different ways of screening students. And so we were able to identify them as needing intervention because we have the decim because we look in the aggregated how many threat assessments we're doing. Um and there's no office discipline referrals but the student has a lot of repetitive small classroom behaviors. By collecting all of this data we're able to tailor the plan to the student so that they can make progress. Any questions so far? Okay. When are these hap when are the success meetings happening? Like what at what part of a teachers day or professionals day is this occurring? >> Um they happen I'm going to say because we have you know 10 different schools they happen at all different times during the day. Um we are coordinating with

107teacher schedules, parent schedules and the provider schedules. Um so some are happening during the school day. Um some meetings happen after school. We offer them in a variety of formats. If a parent can attend by phone, we'll do it by phone. Um, so we prioritize getting getting staff and families together to have the conversations. And then what does the like continuum look like? I guess I worry about students who are identified through a screening process. They move into tier two or even tier three. They get interventions and they respond well to them. And so then we take them away and put them back in, you know, tier one for example and then they struggle again. And so like how how are we keeping kind of that whiplash from happening to students? So, if I take

108my MTSS hat on and put my special education director hat on, if students are making substantial progress while they're in intervention and when those interventions are removed, their progress slows or stops, that might be indication that a student has a disability. And so, teams monitor that because we have screening measures, right? So, you might be doing great on your progress monitoring. I'm going to use bowels for example. You your dibbles is making progress. Your rate of reading is improving. Um and then you stop getting as much intensity of structured literacy and now your progress is slowed. That's going to show up at that next screening at that winter screening and that team's going to come back together and talk about why that might be. Um, and a sign of it being related to a disability

109is that you can make progress when you're re receiving that intensive instruction. Um, but you are not making progress if you don't. There's a few more examples. I think the main things that they highlight are that we use a collective of data to make decisions. So um our third example, our student needs instruction um in social emotional in their social emotional skills as shown by the Desa mini. But when we looked at the whole class, the whole class needed some instruction. So we're not going to provide 25 individualized interventions. We're going to supplement what's happening in the classroom. Um, that's our goal is always to make sure that we're not doing something for an individual when the when the need is a collective need because we can meet more students needs by presenting it and

110supplementing it at tier one. Um, and then the last student um just highlights that we do we've increased our capacity to offer a variety of supports. Um, and I'm excited about some new things that Dr. Johnson and Dr. Troder are going to be working on as well. Um and so um our last examples talk about um how we can refer students to brief challenges which is a um short response um to addiction. That fair to say you can come talk a little bit more about that. Um, but it also shows that sometimes like teacher data and student data are different and so we have to dive into like why does the teacher have the perception that the student is struggling and the student has the perception that they're not. Um, we do that with the

111team and you know this is a high school student. So um they're coming to school but they're not going to class. Why is that? How is the school counselor involved? How is the school mental health professional um that's intervening using brief challenges involved? I'll speak just for a minute about brief challenges which we are really excited to bring both to the middle school and the high school and it's called an espert. So it is a screening brief intervention refer to treatment if necessary. So like Miss Raznik shared it is meant to be a brief intervention for students who might be struggling with substance use struggles. Um, and we're really excited. 15 school mental health professionals were trained in the spring and we're excited to be able to offer that if it's needed and we will

112be able to accept referrals starting when school opens. Uh and that would be looking at data or referrals that come to us from administrators or school mental health professionals um from either I know vaping was talked a lot about last year as a concern and so looking at the data that we have and then serving students who are needing that particular intervention. And then we also have a student that highlights how sometimes um we have to think about the ways that we extend a student's learning. And so um it's not always how we're intervening, but also how we're enriching to motivate and keep students engaged. So collaborating with the GRT might be part of how we plan for student success. Um, and then when we're thinking about students who have um, a high level of

113need in both their social emotional development um, and they're exhibiting those external behaviors, it's really essential for our teachers to implement proactive strategies in the classroom, having check-in, checkout, you know, intentionally grouping students um, to to prevent behaviors occurring. um for our school mental health professionals to be intervening in a unified and supportive way and then for our administrators to be utilizing restorative justice and be very thoughtful about discipline practices. So, a few things uh that are new this year, new or updated. Um, we heard a lot of feedback about the self assessment uh that we were using for students being too long. It wasn't giving it the good data because after so many questions, the students just kind of started clicking through. Um, well, the important thing is that we have the right information.

114Um, and so we've made an adjustment to what we're doing for self-report. Um, we're going to use the Desa Mini, which is part of, um, it's from the same company that we do our teacher rating. Um, and that also provides our teachers with a number of strategies that they could implement quickly in the classroom to address some of those classroom related needs. Um for our multi-level of prevention in mental wellness um we're implementing a new social emotional learning curriculum in our elementary schools. We're implementing the same one across all six schools which is really exciting. Our school counselors um at the elementary level, huge shout out to them. They they they took a great curriculum and they adapted it um so it was perfect for Charlottesville City Schools. Um it fits our principles have made

115time in the schedule. Um we've purchased the things that are needed and we've built in opportunities for teachers to give feedback as they give the lessons so that we can make adjustments as the year goes on. Um and then some adjustments to our DBT steps a implementation. Um, again, we had uh classroom teachers, school mental health professionals, and administrators working over the summer together to really tailor some of that work to our students, making the examples that students um are encountering in the classroom during those lessons more relevant for them. Um and then working generally on implementation, making sure that teachers are equipped with what they need in order to implement the lessons. Um and then doing much more co-eing and co-f facilitating of those lessons um throughout the beginning of the school year. Um

116we still are are really utilizing our positive behavior intervention and supports, responsive classroom and restorative justice to build positive school culture. uh Charlesville Middle School and Charlesville High School both sent comprehensive teams to a two two-day workshop with um really the national expert on secondary PBIS. Um and so they've they've drafted an action plan that they're going to implement throughout the year. Um, and then at that tier two and tier three level, we're just continuing to make sure that we're providing small groupoup interventions, brief individualized counseling for um, individual student needs. Um, our team is working with Jod this year on a comprehensive training around solution focused counseling to make that time as meaningful as possible. We have mentoring opportunities. Um, and then at that tier three, we're really also looking at schoolbased and community

117based and wraparound services for students. Any questions? Okay. Um, another area of the multi-ter system of supports is academic instruction. Um, and so we're adding some layers this year that we're excited about. We're going to be using the academic tiered fidelity inventory, uh, which is a way to measure whether we're implementing the evidence-based practices that we know to support academic achievement of students. Um, our we have some specific focuses um, at the instructional leadership level. We'll be focusing on making sure that team composition and alignment and operating procedures are there. Um so Dr. Gurley led us um in a session in June and in August on developing um that aligned those aligned systems. Um and then within the school support plan uh we've also um we're requiring schools to have a focus on formative assessment

118and instructional adjustment. Um because while I just spent a lot of time talking about intervention, uh the most impactful part of a student's learning and their and their day is that first tier one instruction that they receive. And so um we want to make sure that we're considering how our instruction is working and that um we're making adjustments at that tier one level when it when we have information that says that it's not. And lastly, we're going to continue to focus on our chronic absenteeism. Um, I shared, you know, good news, but not good enough for us yet. Um, so we did have some attendance forums over the summer, um, in which schools were able to come and we did some professional learning and then they had work time to work on what the responsibilities

119of each person in the school was. Um, and they because we had such a focus on chronic absenteeism this year, they were a we were able to disagregate a lot of data. So each school really had some unique barriers. one school the majority of students who were chronically absent were students with disabilities. That's a very different response than at a school where the majority of students who were chronically absent were um English language learners, right? So each school was able to tailor some of their responses to who in their school is actually chronically absent. Um, and it included not just what are we going to do once students are chronically absent, but what are the expectations like what are we doing from day one? Uh, and that included teachers are going to be making phone

120calls once a student has missed three days of school. Um, and principles thinking about how to make that how to make that manageable and efficient um was also part of that time. We're going to leverage some of our systems even better. So, one way to help uh teachers make some of those phone calls is just to send be able to send them a quick automated message of who they have to call, right? They don't even have to go look for the information. Um we're also going to add um we're able to contact parents about uh conferences regarding attendance automatically. Um, and then we're working with Beth Chuck to have some frequent automated positive messages and just some database messages. We know that we often underestimate how often our kids have missed school. Like we're like,

121"Oh, it's been like four or five days and it's eight or nine." Um, I do that. Y'all probably do it, too. Um, and so we want to make sure we're getting that information just out to parents in a um warm but firm way. And then the school teams at those forums were also able to say, "Hey, these are things we think y'all could be doing that we don't have to do." Um, and so we did identify some of those things that the division team would do more universally. So all schools are going to have some of the same messaging at the beginning of the year. um we include a lot of information in our divisionwide communications, but what we're trying to do is create the communications and then um allow the schools to send it

122out because that gets the most people, but we want to take the lift off creating what that communication looks like. Um I mentioned a little bit earlier that um we're really thinking about what do alternatives to suspension look like? Um, we do have students who are chronically absent and the majority of their days chronically absent or suspensions. So, we've got to tackle positive behavior, positive school culture, um, as well as we're thinking about chronic absenteeism. Um, and then, um, thankfully with that increased position, um, former CHS grad, we're really excited to have her. um she's going to be working on that really intensive tier three um student population predominantly at Charlesville High School where we have the most intensive tier three needs. Um and we're going to be leveraging our multid-disiplinary team um to consider

123what the what family what families might need um in the community to support them as well. and you'll continue to get a written report monthly. >> Yes. Thank you. I think I kept thinking of Dr. Gurley's words yesterday about what we face we can change. And I think we know and we've been putting pressure on you, sir. Um that improving literacy and decreasing absenteeism are huge folky of us this year. So I appreciate this presentation. Any other discussion or questions from the board? Miss Burns. Yeah. Uh this last slide was the one I was most interested in. A lot of good information and the ones before that. Uh glad to hear that we're doing different things it looks like and trying different things. Uh again, the rates were way too high in too many of

124our schools, and I think we all recognize that. Uh and we need to improve that, which is good. Uh I see a lot of positive carrots here. Are there any new sticks that we're going to be using, you might say? >> So, there's there's really only one stick. Um, when we think about what like are you talking about referral to court services? >> Uh, I mean I don't know if there's anything. Do you take away privileges though to different activities in the school like you can't play an after school activity or you can't go to the dance or I I don't know. Are there other sticks there that we've thought about that again that are you might say a privilege uh in our system that not aren't necessarily basically providing the basic opportunity if you're

125not attending school. >> I think we leave those decisions up to the positive school culture teams at individual schools. Um I know Dr. Malone leverages a number of activities um to encourage students to come to school. Um I think that who that reaches um are not necessarily our students who are chronically absent, >> right? >> Um the the for lack of a better word, the threat of not being able to come to Bacon is not going to reach our students who don't have a connection or an engagement with school. And so we want to have positive things, have some ex high expectations and limitations for students who aren't upholding their agreement by coming to school. Um, but we've got to get really to the root cause of why why kids aren't coming to school, >>

126right? And then and I completely agree that we should be using a lot more carrots, but each context is different with each student that you were just explaining all the examples. And I want to challenge because we're challenged by Dr. Gurley on this to say do we need some more sticks in our toolbox maybe you might say and you know what might those be again on a you use those on a contextual basis. Thank you. And a quick question. Um, way back when you began to talk about just our um different tiers and and the interventions, I was just curious from a budget Terry perspective as we are going to be entering that soon. When we're talking about our tier three kids and and the supports and staff, do we feel like we are staffed

127well enough to meet those needs? Is there any area that you can think of like at a tier three level that that we need to beef up or increase to support our kids better? I don't always think that more is better. Um, if the Moore is not really high quality and well trained, I think we still have a lot of opportunities to leverage what we do have. Um, we have a large like we can't, you know, being able to do 1,117 literacy interventions like we have a large number of staff in order to do that. Um, and so we've made requests where we saw that there was a need. We needed an attendance officer, um, a social worker with that really specific focus, um, focused on those most highintensity needs. Um, and I can assure

128you, I will bring to Dr. Gurley and he'll bring boards when we identify that the gap is that we don't have enough staff. Um, but we're still seeing where some of our gaps are is that we we've got to implement um, and do things with fidelity. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that and I I know that you do bring those those requests to us, so we receive those readily, but if you know, if there's ever anything we can do to better support >> um how things are implemented, I mean, we're here for that as well. >> Yeah, I think continuing to support our teachers and and continuing to convey that this is all of our responsibilities. Um, one of the challenges sometimes of having more staff is that it becomes who's going to do it, not

129how are we going to do it. And so just supporting us as we continue to develop that um that mindset of it takes a team for every kid. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. We're good. Um, next up 114 human resources update from Miss Lewis. So, good evening um Chair Douly, members of the board, Dr. Gurley. I'm here to provide an update on the highlights of what we have as vacancies for now for the school division. All of the work that we do in human resources is aligned to strategic plan priority goal number three. And I pulled out two goals within that strategic plan priority that focus on recruitment and retention. So first I'll speak about the elementary openings. When we look at the elementary openings, when this report was generated, there were

130nine elementary openings, one special ed teacher, one part-time reading specialist, and two ESL teachers, and a gifted specialist were our classroom related positions. And then we had three support staff positions. When you compare this to August of 2024, we had five elementary classroom openings, which included a special ed teacher at Walker Upper Elementary, a first and a fourth grade teacher, a part-time reading specialist, and a gifted specialist. So, our numbers were very similar. The difference is we didn't have any this year we don't have any home room classroom teacher openings. All the instructional teacher openings have some flexibility in their schedule and can be supported by the staff. And since the time that I built this report, we've hired an ESL teacher, a reading a part-time reading specialist, and a part-time nurse. So now as

131of today we have six openings or seven employees because we have two part-time people serving in one position. >> You wanted to call out the assistant principal hire as well. >> Correct. We did hire assistant principal. I'm so excited. We are all filled with our administrative staff and she will be joining Sunrise Elementary on Monday. secondary openings. When I compiled this report, there were 12 openings um which included three special education teachers, two math teachers, three ESL teachers, and a technology teacher. So there's quite a conglomerate of classroom support there. In August 2024, the same number, nine classroom openings, two were special education, three science teachers, one math teacher, one world language teacher, and one technology teacher. We have hired this week a math teacher, a special education teacher, and an ESL teacher in the

132secondary level. And we've also done some recalculation with the technology and engineering classes here at the high school. So we will be holding that technology position. So as of date we only have eight secondary openings. Anybody have questions on that? So this provides a visual of the comparison of last year to this year. You can see in most of the areas we've been largely successful. Elementary there's a difference in that. Last year there were eight openings and when I started this report there were nine. But since we've filled some of those positions since then we're still ahead of where we were last year. And this is in a climate where we had 11 resignations. In the month of July, we had 11 resignations. So, which included a world language teacher, a psychologist, um five instructional

133assistants, and then two of our math teachers were elevated to either an instructional coach or a math specialist. So, we've had some transition resulting in these changes. Recruitment this year looks different. So we had 77 openings and some were questioning whether they were all new teachers. 35 of them are new or about 45% of them are 0 to two years. 38% of them are 3 to 18 years and then 17% have 20 years of experience or more. One of the new things that we have added as an additional alternative pathway to lensure is we um during the course of last year became a partner with I teach and I teach is an alternative pathway to get someone licensed and endorsed to teach and they'll help them from their BA until they're fully licensed. So you'll

134see it's like three tiers. They'll start out, they'll enroll in the program. They have to show a level of success showing their official transcripts and acknowledgements and doing an introductory course. Once they complete that, I teach will enroll them in their program. After that, a requirement, the bar is set high for them to pass their practice exam first. Generally when you go through a lensure you have to pass your practice at the end but it teaches asking you to pass your practice first and then take some other courses apply for provisional license and then the last tier is they complete all the coursework. We are bringing three associate teachers on board. These people have passed their practice, have a BA, are enrolled in I teach and will be applying for provisional license this month. And

135those individuals will spend a year getting the foundational courses through I teach complete. Initially, it'll go through a two semester process, but you can go as quickly or as slow as you like. One semester is the foundational courses of understanding the learning environment and student centered learning and then the second semester is understanding your scope. So if you're a biology teacher focusing in on biology, if you're a history teacher, history questions about this program. So the work in HR is continuous. We will continue to go to college and career affairs and marketing. Just so you know, all of our postings are posted on Indeed. Um, we do raise some of them to a higher level of a posting paying for a more visible presentation, but know there's a partnership with Indeed to post our job

136postings and we're exploring other social media avenues to post openings. Um, we are integrating some incentives into the title 2 grant to support teachers with lensure and to secure additional candidates as well. We're going to expand that I teach program and we're going to support our new hires with lensure and you know we started the 306090 Dr. Hastings and Stephanie Coleman, the new member of the HR team, will be working collaboratively to get in classrooms more often to see our new teachers and what they need. So, I'm just here if you have any additional questions. Any questions for Miss Lewis? >> Thank you, Miss Lewis. uh really happy to see the improvements year-over-year and I think that's a credit to I think a lot of the programming and systems you put in place and good

137administration we're seeing and uh one question love to see all the we had an issue with substitute teachers last year and not having enough of those I guess I'm sorry I didn't preview this with you earlier but where are we at with substitute teachers >> I have to tell you they were anxious to have the substitute posting on our job board. I received a good 20 emails before we posted the position. We posted the position. It's set to go posting at 12:01 August 1st and we already have 32 applicants for substitute teaching and it's only been posted four days. >> All right. Sure. >> And I also want to remind Mr. um Meyer that we made many strides last school year with um with our substitutes um particularly at the secondary level where we were

138having um our our hiccups and so we increased the compensation and so we do anticipate that that will attract people back because I mean that's one of our higher wage jobs in the community um particularly for someone with a high school diploma or a few college credits. It's $30 an hour at the secondary level. >> So he's correct. During the second semester after posting the $30 an hour, we didn't have any openings for subs at Buford or the high school. The openings were at the elementary school where we had $20 an hour, which is still great pay. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Lewis. We appreciate you. Um, and last but not least, we have another annual policy review with Miss Swift. All right. Hello again. Um, so we have

139prepared the rest of the May BSBA policy updates along with there were a few July um, VSBA policy updates for the board's review. Um, and as you know, the updated policies, they're provided in a red line format in which the new language is indicated by underlining and then deleted language is shown with a strike through. And so since the last meeting in June, um, the following policies have been added to the packet due to board discussion and then the additional July updates. Um, so the substitute teachers GCE that was based on board discussion. Um, and that is in the packet for you to review and take action in September. And then DJF, purchasing procedures, JFC, student conduct, and then KBA requests for public records. There were some minor um updates based from the SBA in

140July. So, we've added we pulled those from the last packet and have now added it to this packet for your review. And the table, the attached table provides a brief description of all these changes. And so we ask that the board um take action on these policies at the September board meeting. >> All right. Thank you. Any questions for Miss Swift before we all engage in some late reading between now and September? >> Go ahead. >> I'm ahead of the game >> always. So I and again I apologize, but I will send you I promise because I've got like >> four pages of just typos or things that >> looked didn't read smoothly. So I will I will email or I will come in and sit because it might be easier to sit with you

141and show you so that I don't have to take up time here tonight. >> Yeah, please feel free to email me. And I know u Miss Douly sent us she saw gave us some feedback and so we have since revised and those are in the packet. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. We have um some board response written reports included. Um and then now another opportunity for comments from members of the community. Is there anybody in the media sent? Yes. >> Sorry. There was a written report on energy and water performance. Uh I don't know if my colleagues read that or not but wanted to point out that we made a slight improvement but this was for fiscal year 24. So again this was a year ago.

142>> Uh Miss Powell, I know this is not under your remitt, but if we could get something a little bit more timely from our city colleagues on this, I'd be appreciative. Uh, and we were going to be looking at this for the CIP. We have our CIP committee, uh, Miss Torres and I, with the city here in September. And it be nice to, uh, potentially have the 25 data to be able to reference as we think about that might be a little bit too soon, but um, as we think about again our CIP plans, etc. Thank you. >> All right. Now, we'll move on to comments from members of the community. if there's anybody in the media center. All right. Anybody hanging with us on Zoom who would like to speak? If you would like

143to give comment, raise your hand. All right. Um we'll move on to comments from uh board members. Um we can start with our student rep. Any comments? Right. Miss Burns, Mr. Meyer. >> Yes. uh attended the Palooa event and and want to thank the staff for putting on a great uh event there. Uh and wanted to again if you haven't seen Dr. Gurley's I think presentation there. I was it was very impactful and and one of the better I think the best presentation I've seen you give. So want to congratulate you on that. Recognize on that. I the theme of it though and and and you know was facing change and brought me back to one of my things I've been trying to change uh with us colleagues and maybe look at again is our

144schedule appropriate one and could our school schedule be changed to better uh address the achievement gap for some of our students. So um I'm going to put that out there. Uh second, uh we had a good meeting with our city council colleagues on Monday and and uh Miss Torres and I also met earlier with our city council colleagues talking on the CIP, but we're looking at and I think a needed significant increase in support to update our facilities and it was a great to see that the work that had been done about that, but it was a hund00 million just the floor to again I think as we all saw uh to replace our floors in a lot of our buildings, the ceiling tiles, etc. Um, and we talked about the FBI building, the unfortunate

145incident that happened there with UVA moving that. And I mean that's just again tens of millions of dollars that is going to be impacting uh UVA's decision to disregard uh our school board and city's request not to uh apply for that building and they just took ownership of it on August 1. And I mean I haven't seen any communication from them about how they're going to help us out in any way. And so that's just something that I'm going to be thinking about when we come on budget season and I colleagues I encourage and while we need to be looking forward but I I really do think we need to reset our relations with UVA and think about their decisions while they do a lot of great things for us but they do make decisions

146that really do impact us and our students and our ability to deliver to them a good education. Uh finally, uh not fin. Yeah, finally, Mr. Hartline, you're heard. You know, I walk by that elementary school frequently, almost every day with you. Uh keep on reminding us. Uh please, I think you're seeing that we're making some improvements there, and we will continue to discuss with our city colleagues who deliver those services how we can better deliver those services and keep our facilities uh in the state of repair that they should be and that we don't have accidents like we did last year. and that again they're adequate to meet the educational needs and in thriving environments that our children deserve. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Cooper. >> Uh I also too want to thank Dr.

147Gurley for his amazing amazing speech at the um the Palooa. Um it was very compelling. Um it brought tears to my eyes. Um and I also would like to um you know to the parents and to the students um to welcome them back um next week um as they're enter into our buildings um and that you know every one of our children um have a successful school year. um and that you know uh the teachers and the parents are working together um to make sure that our children are getting what they need. Um and so I look forward to spending some time popping in different schools. Uh I feel like I touched a lot of schools last year, but my goal is to kind of touch some of the schools that I didn't get to

148um pop into um just to kind of like, you know, see all of the amazing work. Um, I was really impressed when we did the school visits um, last year just to kind of see all of the work that's happening in the classroom. Um, and so I challenge my colleagues to do the same. um to see how much work that the teachers are pouring into our children and how excited um that our children are about um learning um and how we as a board um kind of like being able to see some of that and see why the work that we do um is so important. >> Thank you, Miss Richardson. >> I would say challenge accepted. Um I just want to welcome everyone back. I'm excited uh to be back in this building, to

149be back at this table. Um we have a lot of new things happening, a lot of changes, and I'm just happy to be at a table where my voice can be heard. So, um I just wanted to give a couple quick updates. There are a couple of things today that came across my mind. So driving here to the meeting um on the bypass happened to um be slowed in traffic but looked over towards what was Burnley Moran and the new signs for Sunrise Elementary were being put up. So that was kind of a a neat a neat thing to see. Um as I was heading here wanted to update colleagues I haven't had a chance. Dr. Gurley um got an invitation from Rodney Jordan from VSBA for um both Miss Burns and I sit on

150different tasks force task forces um with the BSBA. Um but there was an invitation kind of last minute to join a Zoom um to give feedback um to to a JAR rep. It was a focus group on the state state accountability framework. So, they had a few schoolboard members and a su superintendent rep. I don't remember her name, but um I was able to um keep my camera off and get ready for this meeting, but participate in that and there were some great questions. So, able to just give some feedback on the framework. Um you know, do we like it, do we not like it, what do we think about it? So, we all had a lot to say and so it was a nice opportunity to to jump onto that. Um and then also

151um had the opportunity to um I was provided a resource on teacher workforce housing um kind of a sheet of a re of resources here for the state of Virginia um other localities that are doing something with um workforce housing um and then some of the um our adjacent states. So, this was a resource that I shared with um board members, Dr. Gurley, and then I also did send it um to Sam Sanders um our mayor and and council. And I got a nice response from Mr. Sanders today saying he was very interested and he was going to go down that rabbit hole and look at it. So, I mean, I think it was it was a nice little um tip sheet that I had asked for and I'm glad I had the opportunity to

152share it and I think this is timely in the sense that um we've got a council and a and a city manager who are, you know, interested in just looking at those options to support our staff and and other people in the city um again with more affordable housing but workforce related. Um so, just those were that. Thank you everybody. appreciate you, appreciate your staff, and I'm looking forward and and grateful to be here. Thank you. >> I wanted to take a couple minutes just to again focus on Monday's meeting with city council. Um I think it came as no surprise to us and those in this room. Uh what the report said, I think this is what decades of deferred maintenance looks like. Um our students deserve to go to school in spaces that

153are not neglected. Um, you know, one of my fears that I have right now watching the middle school, this beautiful space be built is that we're going to just wipe our hands of it. You know, we've made this major investment in schools, so we're done. And 50 years from now, it's going to be looking the same way Buford did two years ago. And so I think as a board and as a community, we have to keep the pressure on our partners in city council to ensure that we keep investing in these spaces because we know that it matters. I know that there's still some work to do to convince uh some other policy makers that the condition of spaces matter. Um but we have to keep beating that drum. you know, seeing the presentation on

154the possibilities that can happen on the Walker site were I mean, exceptional. It is so exciting. It was, you know, all of the just depression that we had following the FBI being taken from us, you know, did kind of reinspire me that, you know, we the work continues, right? We're still going to be doing these things and there is an opportunity here. So, um, I think, you know, no doubt that you all are with me in continuing to push for this, but I think we're also going to need to have some opportunities to bring the community along with us. Um, also, um, I guess in conclusion, just want to thank teachers and staff who choose to work in Charlottesville City Schools. feel a little bit like a flight attendant saying we recognize you have a

155choice. Um but we really do appreciate that you choose CCS. Um and I think it's our job as the board to continue to work to um support Dr. Gurley and his team in making this a place where teachers um and professionals choose uh to work. So thank you. So I you sparked a memory um and I wasn't sure exactly what we were going to be hearing at that joint meeting with council and I just didn't know um Dr. Gurley if you have had an opportunity to kind of go through that punch list with Sam Sanders or if at some point we can get an update on that. >> Yep. Miss Pal's working on it and she'll be able to provide you uh she'll be able to send out what's what the work looks like. >>

156Thank you. >> We've already talked about it. >> All right. I'm going to throw it over to you, Dr. Hurley. >> All right. I just want to u start by saying to Mr. Hartline that um it's on the list. Uh we are buying all new furniture um for the LEAP program as a part of the reconfiguration process. So, we're going to give attention to some of our learners who need us the most. And also when we go through that reconfiguration process, you know, I think one thing we learned with the uh middle school project is that we don't have to hoard everything. Um, you know, I know it's nice to hold on to things in case we need it. Um, but we will work with people to what's essential to our roles and then we

157can, you know, we can pass on some things that we just really don't need and we don't have to pay storage fees. And so, um, so everything is going to be everything will work out, but it's on the list. But leap, you're getting new furniture. You heard it here first. Um, and I just want to, you know, one thing that I took away from the conversations today is that, um, you know, so often people say, I know you all had a great summer. You know, you know, you had the summer off and we are busy during the summertime. We are busy. And and when I say we, I'm going to defer to my colleagues that I mean, they really have been working um this summer and you know, I've jumped in on a lot of

158those meetings, but a lot of things have been happening this summer um as as it relates to advisory groups and teachers engaging in professional learning to develop themselves. So, we're very appreciative. And then Miss Douly and I were thinking the exact same thing. Um, you know, it is not cliche that smart and talented people can work anywhere and that we do not take for granted that people choose to work here in Charlesville City Schools for multiple reasons. Um but it is never lost on us that people choose us yearly and and to hear um and to witness at the new teacher orientation how many teachers are coming to us with over 20 years of experience and they whispered their why. um um and you know and we knew that that would be their why and

159and so we are just excited that people are coming to us and bringing talent with them um because that will translate to success for our students as well. Um so just thank you for every um for all that you know you all do the school board and um school starts back Wednesday and we'll be out and about and just looking forward to receiving our learners. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, Miss Swift, anything on our work session wrapup? >> No. Okay. Um, so finally, some upcoming meetings. We have our board advance at KEK here towards the end of the month on August 23rd. Um, and then quickly thereafter on Tuesday the 26th, the Can I Talk to You Seville SROU event that's been referenced several times tonight. Uh, and then we will be back here

160on Thursday, September 4th for our September schoolboard meeting. And with that question, >> the um come talk to me or >> uh can I talk? Can I talk to you? >> Um will that be um captured by Zoom or >> is there a remote participation or is it all in person? >> I don't think it was built in, but I mean if you want us to record it. >> Yeah. Okay. I think I was just wondering because I would be up now. >> Okay. >> I think probably recording is more feasible than a hybrid. >> Pat said he can do whatever we >> guess if it's a it's trailblazer if it's an interest but you know I'll get the update from said he can do whatever we want. >> Okay, perfect. All right, so with

161that we are adjourned.