001e e e good afternoon everybody um I want to welcome you to Charlottesville City School Board today is Thursday May 30th 2024 so thank you very much for joining us um and if you will please join us for a moment uh Eric for a moment of silence thank you thank you very much and if you will now stand and join us with the for the Pledge of Allegiance aliance to the flag of the United States of America the rep Justice thank you again um Madam clerk would you please call um Ro for board members yes Madam chair M Burns here M Cooper here M jly Mr moris present Mr Meer here miss Richardson here miss Tes yes thank you so now I would uh ask for a motion for approval of our proposed agenda chair
002I would like to motion that we approve the agenda any questions all in favor please say I I I any opposed thank you so now is our first um opportunity for comments for members of the community um I have a list so I'm going to read from the list um as a reminder we please ask that you approach the podium state your name address and you will be limited to three minutes so the first name on our list uh is Mr Derek cart line good evening board members Dr Gurley Derek Hardline lifelong City resident 1517 antoinet Avenue I'm here to discuss some concerns and ask a few questions be looking at the agenda for today's board meeting I noticed that the May 18th work session minutes are not listed given the public comments in-depth discussions
003that were had that Saturday morning I feel that those in attendance and listening should have had access to that information prior to this board meeting no audio or visual recording was made there was if there is a meeting that isn't closed or considered a retreat the discussion should be made available even though it was at ktech why wasn't it done the February work session was held at Walker yet it was available for public viewing most everything to support students staff and the schools requires money past years the board has often received the amount they are asking for from city council have any of you asked why this year you are left with a deficit the current mayor probably has the best idea of how important the schools rely on council's contribution after all Mr way
004spent four terms or better put 15 years on the board what is the council asking of you without telling you maybe they want or expect you to use your money more wisely and focus on deeds and less on wants you want to change the name of schools you want to bring officers back but those things are not needs when you when you spend the city's money on these things it feels that they might be less likely to support your endeavors later on when real issues arise like pay staff paying staff better especially with collective bargaining starting in 2025 at the May 18th meeting Dr Gurley said that CSA model was working if it is then why do we need officers if it is why is there multiple positions open at different times throughout the year
005a suggestion would be to take the school renaming money and put it into paying your CSA is better having officers in the school with the CSA kind of undermines why they're there the schools don't have enough money to fund the six positions outlined in the budget but will some way find the money if approvable of officers is quoted on tonight this just seems odd again it comes down to needs need to do what you outlined in your budget officers were not part of that better to support for what was put into place starting four years ago when you voted to take sro's out of our schools makes sense lastly thank you for allowing me to speak at each board member unfortunately I can't stay the whole entire meeting tonight as I want to be ready
006for f tomor all right next on our list we have Mr Peter Davis evening uh my name is Peter Davis I teacher at C CHS and uh I just want to say this has been a school year been a very big school year full of lots of Pies uh and some very very challenging times um there's a lot to be said tonight as you can tell by the people that are in me speaking uh I need to I feel like I need to share something that is on my mind and my heart going into the summer to make sure that I get a chance to say this um but I want to speak about some that's on tonight's agenda about the grading policy um I'm far from being a grading policy expert or research Guru
007but I can speak to the my 20 years in the classroom my experience especially over these last four years what I've seen um I always try to approach teaching and parenting even through a quote that was shared with me years ago that you can either prepare the child for the road or you can prepare the road for the child um and I from my viewpoint I feel like we've been doing a lot of Road fixing um and I'm a little concerned I feel like the changes we made in grading policies especially since 2020 I feel like they're actually doing more harm than good at times um with our students work ethic academic endurance and attendance right now um we have the minimum 50% for every student across the board um doesn't matter if they've missed
008five weeks of school for whatever reason or if they just don't turn in any work minimum 50 uh that policy coupled with unlimited retakes flexible due dates no real strong attendance policy I feel like we're actually setting our students up possibly for failure some of these policies work great on their own but I feel like we've got too much going on and I don't think it's doing what we hoped it would do uh of course some students need a lot of help dealing with insurmountable circumstances I'm not a heartless person at all um and of course grading practices should be Equitable and without bias I think we can all agree on that um but I think we're sending a host of young adults out in the workforce without learning some important lessons of the consequences
009of um missing deadlines or not showing up to plac is where they're supposed to be every day um and I think we're kind of um set not setting them up well there I think we're also sending kids off the college that have never even taken a midterm or a final exam um other than maybe APS or so tests and I'm I'm concerned about that um I talk continuously with my students um about their CHS experience and I would say that the majority of my students do not um agree with a lot of the policies that we've got on they really don't like the minimum 50 as well um we we're facing a lot of challenges right now where kids are able to check out because they're able to use the little what if calculator in
010canvas and see what a 50 would do to their grade and they're like hey I don't need to do this because it's not going to affect me that much and so we're having a really hard time engaging students even with projects that have been very engaging in the past um I could be wrong about this and all my colleagues that I've talked with that agree with what I'm saying we could all be wrong about this but we need to be shown why we're wrong we need to be trained we need to be we need to understand this was kind of tossed to us at the beginning of the year without a lot of help and explanation to work within the system so we need a lot of help with that if we're going to continue
011in any of these kinds of things um and since my time's up um one last Quick hot take that I just want to drop is that I also think that we should have done the Yonder pouches I don't think we've had any success with the cell phone policy this year and it's kind of a mess there too I love you all and I appreciate the work you do and I love charlott City Schools thank you thank you sir all right we have Miss John Horn hi I'm Jen horn I am also a teacher here at Charlesville High School um I would like to start with some gratitude and things I'm thankful for I'm thankful for my colleagues thank you Peter ditto everything he said um I'm thankful for the union I'm thankful for collective bargaining
012which we all are engaged in I am thankful for Dr Denise Johnson who has been integral to making CHS much better after the reset um I'm thankful to Dr Gurley for the Innovation learning groups these have been really excellent to be a part of thankful to Mr Leatherwood for stepping up and stepping in for Dr Malone for taking the job and all my colleagues and I am thankful for our students um I would like to say that before you make any decisions before you have any votes on anything you need to talk to them they are wise they are insightful and they have so much to contribute so I had this laundry list of things I wanted to talk about but then I decided to just talk about one um a colleague of mine said
013H cell phones but nobody wants to talk about it because when you and others put their necks out it went badly but uh necks are overrated so um the cell phone problem is bigger than ever it's worse because we have a policy off and away all day that is not being followed our students are being pulled away from their learning minute by minute there is endless stress endless distraction and learning is untenable and Community is unsafe I was going to do this baller move and buy everybody this book and then I realized how expensive that would be because it's not in paperback yet so I'm going to read a little section A Little Piece and hopefully Jonathan ha in his book The anxious generation will say it even better than I could he says most
014public schools in the United States say they ban phones 77% said so in a 2020 survey but that usually just means that the school forbids phone use during class time so students must hide their phones in their laps or behind a book in order to use them even if such a ban were perfectly enforced by hyperv Vigilant teachers patrolling each row of the classroom it would mean that the moment class ended most students would pull out their phones check their text and feeds and ignore the student next to them when students are allowed to keep their phones in their pockets phone policing becomes a full-time job and it is the last thing that teachers need to add to their workload many of them eventually give up and tolerate open use a phone ban limited to
015class time is nearly useless this is why schools should go phone free for the entirety of the school day Yonder pouches have been in the Wall Street Journal they've been in the Washington Post they've been in the New York Times where it said we had them what um my neighbor has on her refrigerator the document that went out last fall that said we're getting them and every time I go to her house she says like look look when and I said probably just meant this upcoming fall there's probably back order thank you so much thank you Miss Horn all right we're moving uh down let's see I believe our next uh speaker would be Katherine Jenkins jorm with the CHS csas hi yeah we're actually different speakers so yeah I there was arrows I couldn't
016maybe it was just switching places sorry yeah it's okay um so yes my name is Katherine Jenkins Jo um I'm here with my colleague Jackie Morris uh we're both restorative justice facilitators with Central Virginia Community Justice who have been working daily with students at CHS since April 15th providing restorative justice facilitation to both students and staff and restorative justice education to the community um one of the key values of restorative justice is humanization as facilitators we seek to humanize our participants and ourselves and to build relationship so when we heard about one of the proposals on the agenda this evening we figured hey we should come and present ourselves humanize ourselves as the folks doing that some of that work here in the school system um RJ restorative justice or RJ as we call it
017for short is also about finding solutions that are more creative and sometimes more helpful than typical punishments or other consequences that disempower students and often separate them from school or each other um and so when students have been in Conflict they've been referred to us and they understand why we're here we're we've supported students through fights through escalated altercations or I should say after fights um or escalated altercations rumor spreading social media conflict um and uh sometimes once we worked with students they come to us when they're uh in it in a subsequent circumstance before another uh conflict happens to get our support and we've also seen them use the skills um the communication skills eye statements um talking framing things in terms of feelings intentional communication taking space um to prevent subsequent conflicts so
018we've seen all of that um we've been here as I said since April 15th in the seven weeks we've been here we've supported over a dozen different incidences and roughly 40 students so far many many of our students are um from what would be considered vulnerable populations students whose ancestors have worked this land families and um or from families and their communities that are disproportionately impacted by incarceration or Child Services involvement uh some of our students is are English language Learners and or navigating immigration um and I think we would consider them all cherished young people um and if the indication of how they they respond to us in the community is any sign of that um we get we get we get waves we get acknowledged the car slows down the window rolls down
019so um we're very thankful for them um and it's uh so far our uh family and Community engagement uh Bianca Johnson and our co- directors at CBC J have gotten positive feedback from the staff about our work we would really love to continue it next year we are Grant funded um that funding is still being sought for next year um and I think one of the last things we can say is that um at its best RJ Fosters not only personal growth growth but Collective problem solving that can lead to institutional change um we know some of our students feel disconnected from that process and we've seen just in the last few days um some of those students who we've built relationships with who initially came to us in conflict trying to be part of
020um positive changes in the community and they've come to us for some guidance with that so we hope to continue the work next year and to continue building positive community in the school and Beyond thank you thank you all right let's have our CHS csas good afternoon board Dr Gurley my name's Mr buyers I'm CSA here at charford high school so I know y'all supposed to vote on having police officers in the school I'm not opposed of it but if y'all vote no that mean our CSA is gonna need additional DCJS training so if we go through this training I had a talk with the csas they feel that we should get paid more if we if y'all vote no on the police officer good afternoon uh board members my name is Reggie Anderson I'm
021almost CSA here at CHS um like Mr buer said um can anybody hear me uh yes my name is Reggie Anderson I also work here at CHS uh CSA um like Mr buer said uh me personally I feel that the police don't need to be in the building um we did everything since the transition from um the situation that we had uh we still buil good relationships with the kids we died make sure those none of the situations happen like that again um we haven't had any major situations uh also I'm hearing that they're getting some money if that's the case and y'all vote no it should be spread it out through the city schools um doing more things for for the students um helping out with the teachers pay uh just bringing things in
022for the kids um that's how I feel thank you hello board um my name is Kia Anderson I'm a CSA for Char school I would like to say I'm not opposed to school resource officers as long as we have someone who has the heart and not just the title for this environment and help brings about a positive change that is key especially in the selection process everyone here is part of a bigger team I don't want our role of CSA is downplayed or neglected and what we do and how we already add to the Daily function of care and safety for a school we don't just monitor hols break up fights confiscate items enter them in the system and check bathrooms in a sense we are First Responders we're the ones who want to kid
023is either put out of a class or walks out we are their first point of contact for whatever reason we then have the role of a mentor a counselor a nurse Etc before they even get to the person we're directing them to each of our relationships are different with students speaking from experience I've gotten a kid to a class who normally would not go to a class I've walked them down to the nurse when they claimed they were fine with tears in their eyes same as me connected in with a counselor or an AP when they did not want to go to a counselor a or AP beforehand but I did not do so by force I did it every day with genuine care and concern the kids remember that no matter what I have
024faced I still come in with a smile on my face and show them how much I care and that I'm not going to give up on them and I'm going to make sure that they make safe better choices that benefit a greater more positive outcome for them again I'm not opposed as long as recognize how hard we work we are trained in deescalation mental health first aid and restorative practices thank you am I able to share my piece as well okay thank you hello my name is Morgan Rose and I've been working as a CSA at Charlottesville High School for the past few months now um in addition I just finished my first season as the head lacrosse coach of the girls team um I have lots of stories but I'm just going to tell
025you one from this morning in particular so just this morning I went to a dentist appointment right um the dentist asked me what I was doing for work and as I was proudly wearing my Charlottesville high school t-shirt I expressed how much I love the kids at the school and how it can be very difficult at times but I genuinely care for the kids and value the relationships that I've um built with them lots of them after overhearing where I worked a young woman working there had mentioned that one of her cousins attends the school she said his name and instantly I got excited um to talk about this kid sorry I'm nervous um and I expressed how highly I thought of him regardless of his suspensions or his absences or his occasional attempt to
026sneak out of the back door um um I told her how much potential I see in him and how I've had conversations with him encouraging him to do the right things because he's such a smart and sweet kid caught up in a pattern of not so smart decisions she seemed happy as well and the most impactful part of that conversation was at the end when she said thank you for knowing him and the impact that that had on me was immense these kids want to be known and they want to have support for adults in the building that they see every day because when some of them go home they don't have mothers who cook them dinner and they don't have parents that give them hugs or say I love you and they don't live
027in safe neighborhoods or houses my point in saying all this is this was just one story from today with just one kid but as csas we're making a difference in many kids' lives and our presence has not always been easily embraced by every student but we keep them safe and we make them feel valued having six or seven of us in the Halls every day makes a big difference at Charlottesville High School and we may we may not be recognized all the time for our efforts but I personally have a genuine love for the children at this school and my heart genuinely goes out to them I would encourage anyone to walk a day in our shoes because this job is not easy and some days are even harder than others but I'm so blessed
028to have met these kids and be able to hear their stories and allow them to be and feel heard and I hope you all hear us as well today thank you very much my name is Terence Reglin I'm a CSA here at CHS unfortunately I won't be here next year for some unforeseen circumstances but uh one thing I want to say about the police I don't feel like uh police should be here one uh because of our African-American male children who don't feel comfortable around poce relases and I also I feel like uh the school situation has gotten better than what it was in previous thank you thank you Shannon gilin gotta move this down after that last guy good evening Schoolboard members and Dr Gurley my name is Shannon gilin I am president of
029the Charlottesville Education Association which is the union for teachers and staff in Charlottesville staff members if you're not already I invite you to stand our Union has over 200 members and is growing daily this year every school had the opportunity to elect a union member to represent them in our representative assembly the representative assembly which includes staff from every age all across the city unanimously passed the following resolution resolved that the Charlottesville Education Association the union representing the faculty and staff of Charlottesville City Schools acting through our elected representative assembly opposes the employment of police officers in our school buildings as currently proposed by Kim pal and the school board the process thus far has not included adequate feedback from the staff or community members moreover The Proposal is flawed for two primary reasons one
030evidence clearly indicates that police officers in schools do not increase school safety and lead to large increases in student arrests for trivial offenses which is counterproductive to creating a safe learning environment for all students two moreover that money that would be spent employing police officers in our schools could be used much more effectively for restorative justice and community outreach programs additional social workers and counselors we therefore call on the shville City School Board to vote against moving forward with the youth resource officer program that has been put forward by the school division staff thank you Miss Laura serani thank you um I'm coming to as a community member but also as a support staff member and as a parent of Stu two students who've attended Charlottesville City schools for a total of 13 years um
031including a CHS student who is finishing High School this year I am also an education researcher who graduated with my master's degree from UVA in 2020 just weeks after our schools were shut down due to covid and just days before the horrific murder of George Floyd my Master's thesis was on the disp proportionate punishment of students of color the inequities and injustices that were laid bare during covid and the movement for racial Justice that came the summer of 2020 challenged us to create a more Equitable and responsive Learning Community I'm disappointed that those challenges have yet to be met but my hope is continually renewed by the amazing students families and staff that I get to work with every day this board is yet again being called on to help help us meet those challenges
032school resource officers in our schools undermine the goals of building a safe and connected Learning Community Police and schools create an atmosphere of distrust and violence that threatens our students mental health and well-being police and our schools undermine the relationship between students and families and the school and quite frankly undermine the relationship between Administration and staff Charlottesville City school should be supporting staff students and fam by expanding evidence-based measures that support student mental health and build a meaningful Community measures that I brought before this board before which include expanding professional development for existing staff especially support staff who so often are handling behavior management this would strengthen the effective use of social emotional learning positive behavioral supports and culturally relevant teaching practices with training in restorative justice practices that we've already heard about family and
033Community engagement is also key secondly we need need more on-site mental health professionals these people I work with every day are saviors to our kids and our staff and we need more of them to facilitate collaboration with families and students to develop meaningful strategies for supporting students social emotional needs and third and we heard about this earlier tonight we need to expand collaboration with students themselves using a youth participatory action research model that you izes students own insights to create a safer and more supportive School environment I said it the last time I came to you and I'm saying it again it's time to me good on those promises that we made in 2020 with meaningful solutions that strengthen our school communities and not weaken them keep police out of our schools M bazo good
034evening Dr Gurley Madam chair and Schoolboard members I'm I am Christina spizo I am one of the gifted specialists at Walker and I live in the city I'm here today to ask you to say no to Bringing police officers back into our buildings CF csas have been in our buildings for not quite a year they have had a profound positive impact at Walker how are we measuring their effectiveness how can we possibly measure their impact on our students why are we talking about putting youth resource officers in our buildings without this information communities fund what's important to them the school board fought hard to fund Dr gurley's budget all of it but at the end of the day there was still a funding Gap in excess of $600,000 between what Dr gley and our principal
035said we needed and what the city was able or willing to provide the idea that we either the city or the School Division would actively try to place three police officers in our buildings at a price tag of almost $600,000 is a slap in the face to every staff member who knows how desperately we need additional math and reading Specialists mental health personnel and to keep our building set building admin had to choose which of these positions they keep and which they'd have to do without barely a minute later and the conversation is not about the many positions that went unfunded this year but instead discussing the possibility of adding three youth resource officers to our buildings for $600,000 if you think we can find the money for these positions why couldn't we find the
036money for our instructional positions until we can fully fund our desperately needed instructional positions this is not a conversation we should be entertaining while the budgetary matters are important exasperating and worth noting they are secondary to this important fact simply stated by the ca's resolution evidence clearly indicates that police officers in schools do not increase school safety and lead to large increases in student arrests for trivial offenses which is counterproductive to creating a safe learning environment for all students without a safe learning environment for all students CCS will struggle to live up to its vision statement that charlotesville City Schools will be a community of Hope growth and learning where barriers are eliminated and possibilities are Limitless thank you uh Natalie AES good afternoon uh Dr GLE and members of the school board um my
037name is Natalie Ailes I'm the parent of a second grader at Jackson vaa um and I'm also a professor theology at the University of Virginia and like many of the people am very distressed that you are considering bringing back the Y model particularly with so little time for us to talk about such a large budget item and a program that as many people have already mentioned peer review literature shows is not very effective at actually addressing or preventing violence and certainly exposes youth um to criminalization very consistently and for very trivial offenses um but I'm most concerned about putting Charlottesville PD members in our schools uh given that um charville City council's own disproportionate minority Conta task force recently found very persistent negative racial disparities in uh prosecution and arrests for both black adults and
038juveniles so we are talking about putting officers from Charlottesville PD who have demonstrable uh problems with racial equity in our schools where students are already being um disadvantaged particularly black and brown students um I see this proposal as a direct jeopardizes commitment to equity and anti-racism and I urge you to consider this fact when you consider the possibility of adding y specifically from the Charlottesville PD Community um of course this is a systemic problem um among police in the United States but being very realistic about what can potentially happen here in Charlottesville I think we need to look at the evidence that we do have that we've already collected um that tells that this is not the right model for a lot of reasons um so uh no I I also want to talk about
039the fact you know we're talking about adding y um under a particular memoranda of understanding but I I also want to stress that um no memorandum of understanding is actually going to address these basic problems of policing in the Charlottesville Police Department that's not going to be in the memorandum of understanding and um it it is going to increase the instances where we have police being called for matters where right now we already do have to call them in every once in a while um for events that educators determine uh are necessary for involving police so right now Educators have that discretion to say when an event that is going on at our high schools or our middle schools actually requires police intervention if we put CPD in our schools we are taking away that
040discretion and we are giving it to police officers that once again demonstrably are inequitable in their policing here in Charlottesville I want you to consider that fact and to consider the fact that when police make a determination that something is um up to their intervention there is very little we can do as parents as students or as Educators or staff members to actually stop them in that moment um this is by Design in American policing uh so we should invest in programs for mental health support for counseling um that do show uh in evidence-based studies some positive effect on preventing violence and creating a stronger community in our schools so please vote no on reinstating the yro program thank you for your time thank you Mr Steiner hi my name is Ian Mullen I'm a
041resident of Charlottesville I also have a child in Charlottesville City Schools I'm also a professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia um I want to thank those of you that responded to my email I know I sent an article like I can't help it but I am deeply troubled with the idea of the police coming back into these buildings like I it was such an act of progress when we got rid of them it was an act of equity it was a there's always going to be tradeoffs and why we do what we do and you know progress this is what I teach my students it's ugly it's not easy it's hard you're going to go through times where there are going to be things that you do not like the violence of this
042last fall none of us want that none of us like that but it happened and we worked through it you worked through it the teachers worked through it the people that work with these students every day showed up and we should trust them and yes we should pay them more that's a side note but I don't know why we're having this conversation I don't know what the reasons and the speed at which it's happening and I want to like just when you have your deliberation before you vote I want you to think about why are we doing this why now why this and usually when people have these conversations they talk about order social order public order and I want to just give you a conceptual distinction because once again I can't help myself there's
043a distinction between social order and Public Safety those are not two things the same I don't want to conflate them what happened with the violence was an issue of Public Safety and Security and people responded as I said they showed up order is this perception it's this ranking we give people where some have privilege over others and we make decisions in line with that order we we do it at the expense of others the police we know they have issues people are talking around it it is a racist institution the things that I value most about this school board this school I cannot wait for my daughter to be a student in this school is its focus on Equity that students get what they need not that some students get more at the expense of
044others bringing police in with the kind of jusic that we need to somehow restore order when Public Safety is being taken care of just seems wrong and I don't want to talk around it you're not going to control the police you're not going to make them not be police they do not deescalate they are trained to use violence to get compliance that is what they are we need social workers we need restorative justice we need to empower the people that work in this building to do their job the job they love to do don't cut them off allow them to do their job so please do not let cops back in this building unless you call them don't station them here they don't need to be here so thank you Mr Steiner thank you uh
045good afternoon board my name is Nick Steiner and I have two children at uh Charlottesville City Schools I'm here to urge the board to vote no on putting the SS back into the schools and this for multiple reasons uh this might be repetitive for you but first the lack of clear evidence that they will benefit our schools and in fact could harm our schools second the lack of funding for the proposal and my belief that a half million dollars would be better spent on counselors the csas administrative support teachers anything third the lack of rigorous exploration and engagement on this topic the best I can tell is there was not a diverse working group including parents staff teachers and educated viewpoints on this topic and lack lastly the lack of clear reason to do so
046um I think the problems at the high school spurred this on yet instead of naming and solving these problems and working together on those we're kind of talking around it with the issue of sro's and the parents Square message said it was administrative problems and stuff like that but I think this is really about the school and what the violence that happened instead of naming those problems working on those problems we're kind of talking around it so I think we need transparency we need trust we need leadership and I don't think this process has brought us that so I want you to work with the whole Community I love these schools we can do better and just please vote no on this thank you for giving me a chance to speak thank you uh Alex
047Hinman please my name is Alex Hein I the parent of two children in city schools and I also here to ask the board to vote against putting police back in our schools uh I've already spoken to you I'm sorry you've heard this before I've already spoken to you about the process which has not been transparent or rigorous just last night I got to talk with a parent who was part of the workg group that recommended removing SRO from schools in 2020 she said it took a coalition of 20 people including staff families and experts more than a year of work including monthly meetings and multiple surveys to change this policy we deserve at least that amount of time and effort to think about reversing it I have already spoken to about the cost which is
048prohibitive no one has yet explained to me why in a year where we can't afford more substitutes more reading and math Specialists more counselors we should pay half a million dollars for three cops rather than paying the csas who are already literally here doing that work I've also talked quite a bit about the policy itself which is both discriminatory and ineffective I've cited many many studies I've sent you more links than anyone ever wants to receive and I worry that maybe those statistics have obscured the actual human experiences that I am specifically worried about in 2014 in Green County Virginia a preschooler was put in handcuffs and leg shackles he was four in 2015 an 11-year-old with autism kicked a trash can in Lynchburg Virginia he was charged with disorderly conduct by the school's SRO
049in 2016 a 14-year-old was handcuffed and charged with disorderly conduct and Larsen for stealing a 65 Cent carton of milk in dumre Virginia that one made national news in 2018 an SRO in shenoa County was charged with assault for striking a kindergartener in the face and in 2023 an officer at Lebanon High School was charged with a misdemeanor assault and battery against a female student I truly believe that no one in this room wants any of that to happen in our schools we don't want arrests or handcuffs or criminal charges or violence against our students we don't want our racial achievement gap which is already quite bad to get worse we want our schools to be safe and inclusive and if that is true I urge you to vote against cops in schools thank you
050me me that's Patrick yes ma'am hi my name is Mimi Fitzpatrick I'm the parent of two Charlottesville City School kiddos and a Charlottesville City school kid myself from first grade at Johnson through Walker Buford and graduated from CHS I'm also a local business owner and former Elementary School teacher I taught for 12 years in various school systems and settings and I know how difficult teaching can be and how much teachers are asked to do outside of the scope of Simply teaching to the standards in our elementary schools there has been a positive shift towards focusing on social emotional learning in the last few decades but there is has been a lag in funds to support teachers and students with well-trained mental health professionals sorry let's see decades okay with well-trained mental health professionals in the
051capacity that is truly needed there's also been a disconnect between the efforts to support students emotional well-being at the elementary school level into the upper grades this is a nationwide problem that CCs is not immune to I believe that you all took a step in the right direction at the high school level with the addition of the care and Safety assistance but this is just to start allocating taxpayer dollars which may or may not be coming from the increased meals tax that will go into effect the summer it's still unclear but other business owners out there take note to add armed police to schools that would be the wrong way to support students teachers and the surrounding Community by Staffing schools with police officers people who are trained to make arrests we criminal we criminalize
052normal adolescent behavior and Usher students into the criminal legal system with devastating long-term consequences but before woke was a thing good or bad my dad cautioned those he taught to stay awake I am not an expert on the education system or the criminal justice system but my up upbringing in the Charlottesville City schools has led me to be a lifelong learner who does not sleep on potentially life-altering decisions and I have taken time to educate myself on the systemic failings of policing in America police presence in schools dispropor disproportionately harms students of color and students with disabilities and fuels the well do ented School de presis pop P pipeline do not vote to reintroduce resource offers officers to our school start with basic security infrastructure that somehow continues to be lacking such as doors that
053actually lock and can be monitored expanding resources and funding for csas counselors and social workers and others committed to restorative justice practices instead of red instead of directing funds to CPD support the students teachers and Community by directing funds towards existing programs also so who are affecting positive changes in our schools and in our community such as cultivate Charlesville and the buck Squad and others that I'm sure I don't even know about thank you um next it looks like we have David bailing Bing uh hello uh I am uh David bailing and I am here uh to at least like try to represent the student population which makes up quite a lot of um the city schools population and uh and yeah I'm a senior at CHS and I live here in Seville and uh
054soon I will graduate and I want to make sure that the school that is Left Behind is one that will work for the next generation of kids and on top of that I'm also here because I've had experience with police and schools uh when I was in Middle School we had actual officers in the building and while I did occasionally hear about anecdotal uh like experiences of students having sort of semi- good relationships with the police um there were still very many fights and the police did not have much of an impact on that and um anyways one to and I'm here to urge you to vote against having police in schools one of the most compelling reasons for not having police in schools is simply the fact that it just costs way too much
055as you all know and um uh you know when I was in class it seemed like every time our teacher needed a box of pencils or whatever there was always the accompanying needed uh ask for more funding this is a scenario I've seen that play out far too many times uh in my 13 uh years of being a cille city school student so instead of being in this situation I'm suggesting like many of others have today that the board puts the money towards things that actually uplift the student and faculty which have been listed by many people before me so far uh more so I'd like to know about how the plan will conflict with the current people that are hired to monitor the halls and it's been interesting to hear from them what their
056perspective has been on the issue um additionally a general lack of transparency and Clarity is also what motivates me to ask you to vote against this policy change uh despite it um uh despite there being a working group that was like uh deliberating on this policy change uh there were um no students no parents and no teachers in that working group additionally um for the uh back in 2020 when the police were first taken out of the school that that process took one entire year but now we're uh reversing this decision in what feels like a much smaller period of time in addition while uh the officers are supposedly there to protect students research suggests that they do the exact opposite I mean it's not a secret that if you are black that you're more
057likely to be arrested in school or in general just for things that you really uh don't deserve to be arrested for and um yeah and moreover this also affects disabled students and uh basically marginalized people as a whole and it is for these reasons that I'm taking this stance and is for these reasons that I implore you to vote against this proposal and keep cops out of our schools thank you at this point in time if there's anybody else um in in the media center here that would like to approach the podium please do so oh I see why people are having trouble hi um I'm Katherine law you've heard from me multiple times on this uh topic I am um adamantly against returning officers to the city schools um you've heard a lot about
058that year-long process that we went through I was a member of committee when we removed the um officers from City Schools as you've heard um we talked to a lot of people we heard from experts among those were um uh folks from the Toronto school system that had a model that we emulated here um and I'm not sure why we're I mean is this the Charlottesville model um we are we are basing this on the Toronto model and one of the important things we heard from the folks in Toronto is this is going to take courage right that there will be problems and that you will have to work through those problems but that their model has in fact not resulted in increased incidences of violence which was one of one of the concerns so
059I I'd like you to remember that maintaining our commitment to this model that community members staff teachers um spent a lot of time putting together is going to take courage so that the Charlottesville model can be a model for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the rest of the nation I also want to point out you've heard a lot about research you've heard it from me you've heard it from others police officers in schools don't just lead to more arrests but even when they aren't associated with more arrests they reduce the School attendance and graduation rates of students and that reduction in graduation rates in particular is almost entirely among black boys so that just the presence it does not require a rest but just the presence of police in schools is going to be harmful
060to your stated goals of improving equity in the city schools and I think one thing I've not spoken about in public and I hope my son is not too angry with me but I'm going to share here is that I can tell you anecdotally I can see how that relationship works because I watched my handsome tall strong athletic brsk skinned ninth grader come into CHS and wasn't a big fan of school to start with got here was a big school had some troubles didn't want to turn in his homework in English class one one day and for whatever reason the teacher called the SRO into the classroom now she subsequently agreed that that was inappropriate that that was she was triggered um but she did it and all of her apologies could not undo the
061harm that was done to myo my son and his feelings of connection and belonging in the school his embarrassment in front of his peers so I'll just leave you with that image and hope that you vote against returning officers to our schools welcome Miss Bryan good evening um my name is aana Bryant I am a proud CHS Alum and um I'm here to share a little bit about where we've come from because we've heard a little bit about the research we've heard a little bit about um anecdotes of where this has worked so I want to remind us of March 2019 that time is a little bit before most of you were on our school board um but in March of 2019 there was a threat sent to CHS for students of color and I
062remember the shock that many of the students felt at the time we didn't know what was going on but we do remember that there was racially coded or racially motivated language used in that threat and we felt that it was an opportunity for us to step up as a black student union which I helped start found with some of my friends in my ninth grade year um to cause or to encourage our Schoolboard in our school district to reflect on what racial Equity actually looked like in practice in ccs and so during that walk out we called on um the school board to really think about how students can Elevate their voices around the issues such as school safety um decision-making course enrollment there were so many things that we wanted to discuss all at
063once but we used that time as an activation moment um to Calla students staff parents community members to ask the important questions about what was the state of our school at the time and so I remember about 200 over 200 students and community members walking out of school and being a part of this kind of rally that we had where we also gave demands directly to the school board and two that I really want to highlight two of those demands um was racial sensitivity training for school resource officers to my knowledge that never really happened and the way that we wanted that to happen was that we wanted community members and students to be a part of creating that training so that student experiences could be used um as a part of whatever these school
064resource officers would learn prior to coming into the building I don't believe that ever happened additionally we asked for student oversight board or committee to oversee disciplinary um actions data who was getting punished for what what were those punishments actually looking like of course without disclosing you know pertinent information that would be against the law but asking with the numbers that we see what were suspensions looking like what were you know people were people getting expelled were people getting sent out of class like what were those kind of punitive measures actually looking like in the school and to my knowledge that also did not happen we did have students who were on school board and I served as one of those students during my senior year but I never really saw a bold step towards
065student voice actually being submitted in the decision-making process in our district and so this is an opportunity to actually do that of course no cops in schools I support everything that's been said before me but I also want to ask you to think about what it actually means to empower youth to step up to stand up and to be a part of decision-making processes and if you look back at the demands from the black student union and the young Libs and all of the clubs that participated in our walk out in 2019 you would know that we had really bold ideas and they had worked in other school districts we had done our research so I would ask that you really consult your students and from what I've heard from students at Lugo who are
066doing a great job over there and students who are at CHS is that they don't want Cops in schools so listen to your students thank you thank you and Emily hi my name is Emily Axel bomb and I'm a teach teacher at CCS at Clark Elementary School and I'm a Community member and I just want to Echo so many of the sentiments that have been shared by others today and focus mostly just on the process um I was here for the initial presentation by Miss Powell and the one thing that really struck me was that this was the only option that was being explored at that time as it was presented and that the question posed to the community in the survey was about whether they wanted this this option of Youth resource off officers
067in school whether they wanted that to be explored and I feel like that's giving people one choice and that's giving community members one choice and parents and staff members and there are people that are concerned about safety and there should be more than one option for those people to choose from when thinking about what changes they would like to see in the schools and I feel like by giving them one choice you're saying either hang on to your feeling and concerns about safety and keep things as is or you choose to have cops in schools and I feel like rather than investigating multiple options and exploring as thoroughly as the Cambridge model was explored multiple different and multiple different options and presenting those in the survey I wonder what we would have seen back because
068I feel like there's evidence it's been presented tonight and in other moments that cops do not have to be the only option and yet they were the only option that was surveyed in our community so thank you very much for your time thank you good evening my name is Amal gorani and I'm here to also implore you to uh vote against rein instituting um having police officers in the schools as a parent as a person of color and a parent of uh CHS student I'm really worried about this um for all the reasons I mean I'm not going to repeat all the arguments that have been said but it is terrifying that we are not investing in alternative models when there is no evidence that the securitized models have um have shown any you know
069results just recently we're looking at universities and campuses all across the country where extreme violence has been meated on students we need to invest in different alternative more constructive more peaceful ways of showing that we can have security we can help by investing in the students in the teachers in in so many different uh ways to make this school environment a safe one a place for learning a place where students feel valued so I hope that there will be you know consideration for all the good um evidence that people have uh forwarded to the school board and more importantly that there will be an inclusive and transparent process that includes and centers student voice that St centers students teachers and parents and I don't think that that has been done so I I hope that
070you will vote against this and that you will open up a process that is truly inclusive and consultative thank you so much hello School Board Dr Gurley Madam chair my name is Maggie funner I am a teacher at Walker Upper Elementary School Miss Richardson it was lovely to have you in our classroom earlier this year I was not planning to speak tonight so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not as composed as I might like to be I am a graduate student I am working on my doctorate and educational leadership I love data I love statistics I wish I had brought them to you tonight but I know that they've already been presented I would encourage you to really think and really listen to all the voices you've heard already tonight take a look
071in the back all of these staff are here in the last two weeks of school when everything is crazy because we think this is that important as a teacher my highest priority in the classroom is my student safety yes I'm there to teach them but if they can't be safe if they don't feel safe if they are not safe in my room I can't do anything I do not believe that adding youth resource officers would add to the safety of our schools I've worked at Walker both with csas and with SOS the two csas that we have at our school this year are amazing Mr Nelson and Miss Howard have built strong positive relationships with some of our most challenging students the same students who had significant conflicts with the SRO not not the same
072students they're moved on right but the SRO that was here at my first year at Walker did not have those same positive relationships and I recognize that some of that might be just the Personnel because Miss Howard and Mr Nelson are amazing and maybe it wasn't the right o but moving back to a model where we have cops in schools again with such haste in what seems to be a very rushed rushed decision and asking for $600,000 of additional funding when we couldn't fund more instructional positions as you've already heard tonight is really concerning most of what I think has already been said but I would really encourage you to listen listen to your staff listen to parents and community members listen to The csas Who already spoke tonight who are doing the work that
073you're asking to be done we need to pay them more we need to train them more we need to provide them the supports and the Staffing that is necessary to do their job to the best of their ability i' really like you to vote no on this decision tonight and really consider what it is that your goals are and how you can move forward with them in an equitable way thank you hey y'all uh my name's Nick okay you got it um let's build the Charlottesville City restorative safety model let's build the sharp phille City restorative safety model um I get it uh when we got SRO out of schools and you're doing something completely new like the CSA and restorative model that we were exploring uh it's messy it was very messy and I
074know a lot of Staff members when I started started working here felt really uncomfortable and even scared with the messiness with the disorder and sometimes with students harming each other and I think that a lot of people when they were feeling that discomfort and that fear let's let's go back to something we that at least kind of worked we felt like that's more familiar let's do that and I really want to invite people who are having those feelings to join the rest of the community and communities of Charlottesville in building the Charlottesville City restorative safety model if we're going to be a worldclass city we need to find our own way we need to listen to student Voices From the Past like Zion Bryant and all the work that they have done we need to
075listen to all the research that's out there and we need to start doing our own research and listening to student voice now but I know it's scary and it's messy but I think that's that's what we need to do we need to be brave and we need to do that messy work um I just briefly wanted to read uh these signs to you because I know as a teacher sometimes it's hard to see the Whiteboard at the back vote vote no to Yos defund CPD fully fund Charlottesville City Schools spend money on Subs that is a safety issue spend money on a community building that is a safety issue protect marginalized children that is a safety issue spend money on Mental Health Specialists and support that is a safety issue spend money on counselors instead
076that is a safety issue spend money on social workers instead that is a safety issue on restorative justice on our csas and finally I want to invite because we got hella numbers today everyone present June 3 show up City C bring these signs they have the money and we need it thank you do we have anybody online so there's several people following along if anybody um online is interested in speaking please I believe raise the hand icon there and um Mr Cuomo can open up the mic for you all right at this point in time I think we will close oh hold on there is one person okay um name is listed as Josh Scott SC TT um Josh you have three minutes I've just promoted you to speaker and you should be able to
077unmute at this time thank you can everybody hear me try try one more time can you hear me um yes I'll I'll try to pull up your volume there go ahead okay my name is Josh Scott and and since I'm not there in person I need you all to know that I'm a black father I have two sons one of which is a first grader at Jackson by Elementary and I hope to have my youngest there in 2026 when I was 19 I got a call out of the blue from Alamar County Police to come down to the station for an urgent matter they refused to share over the phone when I arrived two large officers told me they had confiscated several of my personal items and for about 90 minutes they tried to bully
078and coer me to confesso Crime I didn't commit nor did I know anything about needless to say I I left terrified and traumatized I sat in limbo for about 9 months and after the end of that my so-called case was cleared and the return my property which was worth about $2,000 but they returned it inoperable I was depending on that property to get through my college education if youth youth resource officers are introduced back to the schools I fear every year hundreds of kids will be traumatized just as I was as a father I committed to myself and my kids that I I'm going to break several generational cycles for them but if they are reintroduced it almost ensures this cycle will continue so I'm asking the board to vote against the addition of Youth
079resource officers to our schools additionally I am asking the board to do two things instead first get more data and input from everyone that needs to be there our school staff our students families this is a huge a dramatic policy reversal and it needs significant and deep Community engagement before we move forward second if you want to continue to request half a million dollars from the city uh for our schools uh pay toward our teacher and staff shortages uh increase the pay and increase the number of csas that we have in mental health professionals and services and social workers these things clearly are uh need are needed in our schools and education and safety needs to be first I have loved our experience with Jackson VA my son loves school he feels safe and he
080feels welcome and I expect the same when my youngest starts there please ensure that my kids can continue this experience as they move up and do not reintroduce y thank you for your time and thank you for all that you're trying to do to make sure our schools are safe and inclusive thank you sir if there's anybody else there online all right at this point in time just um a reminder that we have another opportunity for public comment towards the end of the meeting um the next um agenda item would be um an opportunity for comments from students we've heard from one so thank you for that um but this was a designated time for students and then the next item would be our student rep report um and we um unfortunately are missing her
081this evening but we got a nice email um from her um and I think I would like to read it yeah so let me pull that up because it was definitely a voice that we um are missing tonight from you wasn't it so this was from our Schoolboard rep she's a senior uh Raquel Allen and it said dear members of the school board and Dr Gurley I am Raquel Allen a senior at CHS as I approach GR uation I feel compelled to address the current issue of reintroducing police into schools while Chief coaches appears to be making efforts to engage with the community it's important to recognize that positive individual efforts cannot overshadow systemic issues witnessing my friend being forcefully handled by a police officer in e8th grade has left a lasting impression on me
082this and other similar experiences have led me to strongly believe that the presence of police in schools is inappropriate our community service AIDS or csas who are integral members of our community requires support it is essential to provide them with opportunities to undergo training in deescalation techniques to effectively handle conflicts they are capable of fulfilling this role in essence the professional or nonprofessional possession of of firearms within a school environment and the authority to detain children should not be permissible thank you for your attention to this matter all right it's a pretty powerful young adult we've got leaving Charlottesville graduating from Charlottesville High School we did acknowledge her email and I did share with her that selfishly I was very sad that we didn't get her up here at the Das with us for more
083meetings so we all wish her well um all right so next item on um the agenda is adoption of our consent agenda so we're going to ask for um a motion from this and then a second and then we'll talk about it I move to approve the consent agenda second okay and then we're going to open this up for questions or comments yes thank you chair I have a a question about the financial report um specifically about the remaining balance of our that we're expecting make missu good question um Dr Gurley and I have reviewed the projection report and we are proceeding with expenditures that would not normally have been done during the school year in addition we're in conversations with the city's facilities regarding Capital needs not currently scheduled in the Capital Improvements Plan
084and there's more work to be done before any details can be released on this and we'll have more specific numbers or figures on our year end as we get into uh the closing of the fiscal year after June 30th thank you any other questions yeah I guess just with some of the money that uh will potentially again not have been spent will we be able to utilize some of that to support staff retention and or increase compensation in some way um these are one-time funds that are being returned or that were looking at these aren't ongoing funding all right any other questions um and for this um Madame clerk if you will call a voice we're g to do some sh Miss Burns yes approved Miss Cooper I would like to abstain for personnel recommendations
085Miss dly yes Mr Morris yes Mr Meyer yes Miss Richardson yes and Miss Torres yes thank you all right uh next item um or agenda is action items so we have nine points .1 okay um 9.1 uh we have the um school resource officer model I'll ask Kim po to come up in case there are questions um but at the May 18th work session um there was a motion U to place the uh school resource officer model on the agenda uh for discussion and consideration in the inclusion to be included in our safety model so board do we have um a motion Miss Torres board chair I move that we postpone this motion until March 27th of 2025 at that board meeting at which time the superintendent will present his final recommendations to the board
086after a thorough process has been filed followed including but not limited to periodic progress reports at the October 19th 2024 and December 7th 2024 board meetings second do we have any comments or discussion from board members chair Miss Powell uh during this time uh would it be possible to be working on theou with would that be part of this or would it be also something that be done anyways Mr Myers I'm sorry to interrupt so we are we do have um some followup that the board is going to direct to Dr Gurley and his team and and that will be included in part of it okay I was trying to clarify a question in regards to what the motion might include that won't be part of the motion well it's so that again um was
087part of the the work that's been done building up to right I mean if you wanted to reward that as a friendly Amendment somehow and and include that in there somewhere sorry Chief sorry excuse me chair you're not Chief uh yeah sorry um I'm fine we can go okay all right so we do have a motion and a second any other questions so for um let's repeat the motion that that this is postponed go ahead repeat um so again the motion is to postpone until the March 27th 2025 board meeting at which time the superintendent will present his final recommendations to the board after a thorough process has been followed including but not limited to periodic progress reports at the October 19th 2024 and December 7th 2024 board meetings thank you so we have the
088motion we have a second all in favor please um say yes yes yes any opposed all right thank you so with permission from from the board I would like to just make a couple of comments to address those who took the time um and I do want to acknowledge um the time that individual board members have put into this to the work to the collaboration um to this process so acknowledging individual conversations that people have had phone calls that we have taken the number of emails that have come in um the time that each of you took uh to show up here tonight um to share your your thoughts and your perspectives we need you to know that that we have heard you um and I am very appreciative of of all of the different
089perspectives this this community has a wealth of knowledge a wealth of experience I want to ackn know and honor the time that that was put in by the committee previous um that that got us to our current model um and I I just want um again to say thank you to to the board the entire board for um this last week which has been a lot um but this is what we are here to do um and I want to share a little bit with with the community um just so you know that um as as Miss um Burns shared a little bit that that the board is really heard and um is um has asked Dr Gurley and his team to again I'm just going to read some bullet points of some things that
090we we are you know we'll be turning over to him to complete a and and provide a comprehensive audit review of our current school safety model um this should provide us with evidence and data to determine weaknesses successes and areas for improvement um um we'd like um budgetary implications the number of positions that comprise and support the current model versus any budgetary implications to change a model um we have asked and and are asking that part of this audit and the work that that um ensues also takes a look at any relevant ler of other Personnel departments and programs um beyond our csas that work to support the desired goal of Charlottesville City schools and prioritizing mental safety Health wellness and relationship building um we would also like more information about the intersection of the
091supports provided by um following programs such as our csas our restorative justice um in education the mental health and wellness um people that we have in the building um Behavior Support Specialists um and equity in inclusion work and we would like those people to be part of any committee that is formed moving forward um along with consideration of adding community members students um and anybody else however they feel um they want to solicit for um support in that work um we do and and as part of our ask um was specifically um to look at at what is listed as a current mou or the CC Charlottesville City schools and Charlottesville Police Department protocol which is dated uh 2021 and it is our understanding that this was put in place and was something um that
092school leadership with the Charlottesville Police Department or chief would sit down and look at and review and work together so we are asking um that the superintendent take a look at that um whether he needs to meet with the city manager or if um we as a board or I need to pursue a conversation with city council to kind of see what we can do to create a solution um specific to any communication issues that that we have talked about also um to potentially um evaluate thatou and look at uh the inefficiencies around threat assessment so um again we have heard you um and that that is um I think one of the it's been a very long week um but again that's what we're here for so I do want to again just say
093we appreciate you for showing up we appreciate your voices again your perspectives some very powerful and personal stories and experiences that people shared with us um tonight and through email and and face to face so um again thank you and um we will be moving forward and and we look forward to getting updates from you Dr Gurley sure and And to clarify uh it's understand that we're not getting rid of the csas we're not getting the rid of s of Justice program or anything like that that is going to continue on uh and continue to build like it has been this current year so yeah this had nothing to do with getting rid of the exct right we're doing we're not changing anything to basically that model that was put in place correct I mean
094if anything I think there was a a loud um cry for support for our csas there's a lot of support um for restorative justice and and looking at that I mean we've had people show up that that have been in our buildings and done that work and and I've heard great things about that work and uh yeah I look forward to maybe Mr Myers I can put you on finding a grant to fund fund those positions again so no comment needed we're good um but anyway so no we're not changing anything at this point all right next item would be um 9.2 sir yes I was going to um um see if if the board if there were any questions that if you wanted to just approve um 9.2 through 9.6 unless you I mean
095in one in one motion sure and for clarification all of those wonderful people presented to us um yes La in our last meeting for information so unless anybody had specific questions about those or for those folks who are here but it's it's y up to the board if you're you're fine and I would just be asking you to approve 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 and 9.6 so mam chair I would move that we approve 9.2 the title one application 9.3 the title two application 9.4 the title three application and 9.5 the title 4 application and six and 9.6 the local plan for the gifted second any questions or comments all in favor please say yes yes yes you have some waves back there I I see some big smiles back there gift of thank you all
096um next we um will have um Dr OD she will come back with um the approval of um the grading policy 9.7 good evening Madam chair members of the board and Dr Gurley uh good to see you um earlier this month at our May early May meeting I presented to you policy ik our new grading policy for your review at this time the superintendent recommends that you take action so I move again um that we approve policy ik the grading policy and second any questions or or discussion Mr Meyer thank you and Dr F OD sorry following up on the I think someone question I asked you during the last session topic on this regarding consequences uh let's say for again some of those that are brought up by one of the teachers today around
097timeliness and my understanding is and I read the equity model and the book about it but right if a student were not to turn an assignment they can't necessarily be lose points for not turning the assignment however there can be some kind of consequences associated with not again associated with the grading but some other kind of consequence is that included in this uh is that understood to be an option to par or sorry not parents but uh teachers in this policy certainly um as I mentioned before we don't want to grade behaviors um we certainly also want to set our kids up for Success uh in college and in the workforce so we we will have conversations with students we will set high expectations we will have conversations with parents um and talk about what
098other consequences there can be we just are not going to grade behaviors in reducing R thank you any other questions concerns So to that point Point Dr OD [Music] um I mean what what followup do you intend to have with um staff who who are struggling with this and and I mean have really concrete data of of how this is impacting students and Student Success and you know I guess I won't say accountability but I mean it seems like there are some I don't know flaws in in this system I mean because we are all here to support our students we want them to succeed but if if we're not seeing um that this is working in the classroom I mean who who is the Wii that we're following up with the students I mean
099are you calling students or so this is the PO the policy is what we are approving I think we've got an info item coming about the overview of grading expectations so my understanding is that we this policy doesn't get into the Weeds about thank you the implementation and so my recommendation would to be returned to the approval of the policy and hold off until we hear their presentation I appreciate that okay so did we have we had a motion on a second okay all in favor please say yes yes yes any opposed sorry about that no problem thank you um we will have Miss rle um come forth with the division literacy plan if you remember last month she brought forth the first reading of it it requires action per doe good evening everyone at
100the last school board meeting on May 2nd I shared the division literacy plan with you and I'm here tonight to request that you take action and approve it all right I move that we approve the CCS division literacy plan as presented that was supposed to be any discussion oh second second first okay oh I thought Miss Cooper second okay all right any questions discussion all in favor please say yes any opposed all right thank you thank you all right our first item for discussion we will have doctors Johnson and Isley good good evening everyone I'm not sure if this is one good evening Madame chair Schoolboard members and Dr Gurley it's good to be with you this evening we are here to provide a general update on our Equitable grading practices next slide please as
101part of this presentation we will provide a brief overview of equity based grading our updated grading procedures along with our transition plan as we adopt standard space grading which includes our professional learning support and communic ation plan next slide all of our Equity work including being intentional about our Equitable grading practices is rooted in our strategic plan Equitable grading practices can be found in Priority One Target six and strategy six PRI area one is increasing academic achievement and our Target mentions increasing the percentage of classes or subject areas that use Equitable grading practices our strategy to do so is completing thorough practices across the division and developing a division policy on Equitable grading practices focusing on standards-based grading standards based grading is only a portion of the work around Equitable grading practices additional work includes
102common expectations balanced assessments and consistent grading practices within content areas next slide please this is a continuation of our ongoing work within CCS we have worked towards Equitable grading practice for over 15 years this includes initial conversations around unleveling classes adopting standards based grading practices in the math department at the high school it includes um completing a book study on Joe felman's grading for equity and last spring we organized a grading committee composed of division staff principles and teachers we've also wanted to learn from others currently doing the work and a part of this learning including included committee members participating in the standards-based grading Round Table hosted by education week and I've linked that Round Table just in case you're interested in participating next slide please according to Joe Felman the and the definition we
103have adopted says that Equitable grading practice is a research-based practice of reporting only a students understanding of the course content or standards Equitable grading practices are accurate bias resistant and motivational the image in this in this presentation depicts our aspir operational goals of what we want our grading practices to be as a division one part of achieving our goals includes evaluating our grading procedures next slide ultimately we want our students grades to communicate their level of Mastery and understanding of Standards CCS believes in supporting student achievement and success and teachers should con continuously Monitor and followup with students regarding their progress to ensure students are able to demonstrate their understanding Dr will now speak a bit more about how we as a division will continue to enhance our Equitable grading practices as part excuse me
104as part of the work of the grading committee we've developed grading procedures these procedures serve as a guide to teachers and administrators for implementing the grading policy and communicating levels of Mastery and understanding the procedures promote consistency and equity in grading practices during the pre-week for each School principles will review the grading procedures in their buildings oh no that's a okay away sorry on the wrong Slide the grading procedures document provides Direction around practices related to grading including the types of Assessments and assignments as well as the percentage of each that teachers should have handling missing or incomplete assignments retaking assessments or reassessment feedback and communication around grades and student perform performance considerations for grading students with disabilities and English Learners as well as the grading scale the 10-point grading scale with common guidance and
105procedures we're looking to increase consistency and Equitable practices across classrooms one component of our Equitable grading practices will be the implementation of standards-based grading here you'll see the timeline for implementation which mirrors the years of the Strategic plan in enal implementation is following a three-year cycle and will be ongoing first teams engage in a planning year followed by the pilot implementation year which is when the team is actually doing the standards based grading for the first time and then the refinement year is the third year where the work continues and is fine-tuned for next year you'll see there are quite a few math courses that have been doing standards based grading already they're listed at the bottom under refinement they will continue to refine their work this year was a crosswalk year for Math teachers
106saw and learn their new standards while also teaching the current standards next year they will transition to the new standards this will consistently be part of the ongoing process with standards based grading as new standards arise you'll also see that our fifth grade science team will be implementing standards based grading as they have been planning for this work this year some teams will also have a planning year next year standards based grading takes a lot of work the standards have to be converted to learning outcomes rubrics and assessments are developed and aligned and work must be done to determine how to interpret student work for grading in order to do this work we must do it well and spend time preparing throughout the year in preparation for the implementation for each New Year you'll see
107that the teams that were in planning the previous year shift to implementation and then on to refinement in the following year this year the state shared new English Standard after the first of the year in a departure from what is the typical process of creating and sharing new standards in most cases we have a crosswalk year to learn the new standards while still teaching the old ones just as I described in math this is not the case for English while the state originally planned for a crosswalk year with the implementation of the Virginia literacy act the need for aligned standards was prioritized and the crosswalk year was eliminated English plc's thus next year will spend the year learning the new standards along with engaging in a significant amount of required professional learning related to literacy
108that the state is requiring then English will begin the process in 2526 the professional learning around standards based grading and support for teachers will be critical in this process we've mapped out that plan as well first we'll start with leadership training for our administrators and coordinators this summer it's crucial we're all on the same page with our Equitable grading procedure procedures additionally it's important we have consistency of understanding in the why and how around standards based grading among those who will be supporting teams and carrying out the work in plc's and in schools as I mentioned earlier administrators will also share the Equitable grading procedures in their buildings during pre-week with regard to the standards based grading component of our Equitable grading practices the support will be ongoing much of this work will happen during
109professional learning communities or plc's coordinators Department chairs instructional coaches and administrators who support the work in plc's will help support this standards based grading work the work is ongoing it's regular and frequent in the planning year teams will create the learning outcomes identify Mastery criteria and evaluation measures such as rubrics checklists and assessments as well as how to interpret the work for grading with calibration and examining student work samples in the implementation year teams will engage in ongoing work around scoring and calibration with student work refining evaluation tools and assessments and utilizing the tools for communicating grades and feedback such as Power School in refinement the work continues differentiated support can be provided and as new standards are adopted in future years teams will work to convert standards to learning outcomes during those future crosswalk
110years we will have a multi Ed approach communicating with all of our stakeholders about these updates including the roll out of Standards based grading practices beginning this summer as Dr Eisley discussed teachers and staff will receive a comprehensive training session supported by ongoing professional development development opportunities to ensure a clear understanding and consistent application of the new standards for students we will conduct interactive workshops and provide accessible resources that explain the new grading criteria and how will benefit their learning process families will be engaged through informative webinars detailed guides and regular updates via newsletters and parent teacher meetings enabling them to support their children's academic progress and community members will be informed through public fors in informational brochures and our school's website ensuring transparency and fostering a supportive learning environment by utilizing these diverse communication
111strategies we aim to create a cohesive and informed community that Embraces the new standards based grading practice thank you all for allowing us to present this information to you we will now stop for any questions or comments and although we may not be able to provide all the answers you may have you may need at this time we will work to get you the answer as quickly as possible thank you so much thank you both any questions very good questions down here comments hello I think the only thing that um jumped out for me is a parent engagement and involvement how are we updating the parents on the new transition on the scaling and how are we preparing for that we're going to start the planning around communication this summer and so we know that
112this is a mindset shift just like it's a communication shift we've all had traditional grading practices and so we going to take all that into consideration and do Forum sessions interactive workshops use our uh email parent Square communication tools to keep people in the in the communication loop around what's happening thank you both I know that this is a really big lift um I'm really excited by this work I think it really allows teachers to um be empowered to take back the professionalism that I think is lost and seeded to a calculation that a grade book spits out instead of using their real understanding of their students and content to be able to assign whether a student has a grasp of the knowledge or not and so um I think that is something that's sometimes
113lost when we get hung up on you know a 100 point scale and the elimination of a zero and a 50 and I'm excited for the work to get past that and for teachers to really reassert their professionalism in grading students um it's not going to be easy I know it's going to be a lot of work um and then just what I throw to you guys is heard from a couple of high school teachers last night in addition to the ones tonight just how attendence kind of ties into all of this as well um so no need to touch on that tonight but just as you're planning forward just know that that's out there as a concern anything else all right thank you both thank you all I'm Sorry Miss Swift thank you policy
114updates um good evening Madam chair members of the board and Dr Gurley um we have prepared the 2425 policy updates packet for the board's review the executive leadership team has examine the following policies for revision deletion and review the updated policies are provided in Redline format in which the new language is indicated by underlining and the deleted language is shown with a striketh through the attached table provides a brief description of these changes in addition to the revised policies the second section of the table includes a list of policies that were reviewed by the vsba but not revised so we ask that the board take action on the policy updates at the August 1st meeting and if you have any specific questions about these policies feel free to email your questions between now and that
115August 1 meeting but if you have any general questions now we can answer Miss Swift so we should direct those to you are you the best point of contact for those or How would how would we like this to Happ she is yes yes okay all right so this is our summer our summer work board some of it so and this is new for some you know so sometimes it's a little daunting um but reach out to each other Andor a swift or Dr Gurley or somebody thank you thank you um Madam chair I do have a procedural question yes sir if there are policies on here that um we think maybe should be reviewed how should we handle that so that weren't reviewed yeah I'm sorry that we I I'll put it this way
116I think there are a couple policies I think the board should consider in review but that are not listed here how should we handle that I think we can bring that bring It Forward I don't know if you want to we can add it to this list I mean this is a work in progress so if you see one okay um and if you think there's some language missing if you so I'm I'm assuming I mean you see something about it for our consideration if you just want to say this policy and it's missing this or is this still applicable to the work right now is this aligned to how we operate then I think just say that and we can we can add that and we can say we can look at it we
117can investigate it and say this is still happening this is not happening Etc okay yeah thank you thank you for that question I mean and and along those lines because it's policy related um and um I just did want to bring to your attention and I think we chatted a little bit about it but there is a policy reference within thatou the CPD um Charlottesville City schools that um thatou does not align with our current policy K AG I believe but I think I gave you those notes so thank you and and as you all always do just include the entire board on whatever so then all the board members know that that was one you wanted to take a look at any other questions all right thank you we have Miss Sparks up next
118with the pree summary good evening Madam chair Dr Gurley school board members my name is Sheila Sparks and I'm the the coordinator for preschool and family support I wanted to come to you tonight to talk about our amazing preschool program next slide please the Charlottesville City preschool program is critically important to the Strategic plan and our overall goals for our Charlottesville City school students one of the primary goals is to increase academic achievement particularly in literacy and math with a primary focus focus on eliminating the achievement Gap by reducing the opportunity gap for children to attend a highquality Early Childhood educational program our Charlottesville City Preschool teachers and staff provide a highquality developmentally appropriate Early Childhood Program that supports diverse Learners be it students with disabilities English Learners or children who have not had access
119to educational resources or experience es for a variety of reasons many times our children come to us with no experience with other adults outside of those in their home or their family or those who speak their primary language and our teachers and staff are able to bridge that communication gap to support the learning of English or to help them understand the learning needs that they have and to help them overcome those obstacles so this evening I'm going to be talking about the purpose of our preschool program the state and local funding that we access for our preschool program slots versus seats so that you know numbers I know people like numbers so I'm going to talk about slots versus CS is kind of the slang way we say that uh coordinated enrollment vqb 5 highlight
120some of our partners ship that we currently have and then some of our next steps next slide please the the Virginia preschool initiative is funded through a combining funds from the state and from local dollars the state funds come from the general assembly through the state Appropriations act with the state funding there are specific requirements that must be met in order for a child to be placed in one of our preschool classrooms the funding that is used to implement that preschool program has specific guidelines that we must follow and we do that very well this funding is mandated to be used for children of families that are truly residents of our locality the family cannot provide high quality Early Childhood um experience for their child for some reason and this could be due to some
121of the four the four big ones is what we call them families that are below a certain federal poverty level a parent that did not graduate high school families that are experiencing homelessness a child with a disability and then there are other local criteria that every locality can determine based on specific needs the purpose of this grant funding is to reduce the factors or barriers that generationally negatively impact a child's ability to achieve academically the Virginia preschool initiative funding is then matched locally to support the child's preschool placement next slide please so slots slots equates to funding from the state when we talk about how many slots we have that's how many slots the state has agreed in to pay for and that is determined based on the poverty level in a community versus the
122number of slots that Head Start the federal dollars would take care of so as you can see the the slots are tied to how we look at providing State funding if you look at the very bottom row that is for next school year the FY 24 is there but FY 25 is at the bottom so this shows that we have 140 slots that were originally allocated for Charlottesville City Schools I have made a request to doe to get 10 more additional slots to up that number because we know that sometimes we just have more foury olds than we do threey olds additionally couple years ago we started getting funding for our three-year-old slots they have not said okay Charlottesville City you get a set amount we request a certain amount each year and so for
123this current year I requested 90 slots next year I'm requesting 100 but remember slots are different than CS so that's just something to keep in mind on the next slide so I'm asking for that for the state to give us up to 250 slots in terms of funding but then when we get down to seats the number of Cs or chairs in a classroom sometimes is different but that gives us some flexibility if we have more four-year-olds versus more threeyear olds or vice versa so on the next slide you'll see the seats chart and at this point this is already outdated this was uh written about a week ago so uh the green um area is already out of date we've had a number of applications come in in the past week but the blue
124boxes the left side are our current numbers of of children that we have placed we have about 220 um and that could have changed because we may have had somebody leave already or come in at the last minute but we are at 220 current children um with 137 of those being four year olds and 83 of those being threey olds currently when you look over on the right side is the green is next year's numbers this is applications this is not actually children in SE but these are the children I anticipate placing in seats um and again this is outdated because I know we're over 200 at this point um but we are um looking at 250 and we will be accepting applications All Summer Long all fall year round really um until we are
125full our cots are full next slide please so a big initiative that started um really kind of during covid um we were doing some of it before that with paper applications but we now have an online application um which is go to grow um is kind of the and we were kind of Trends Setters in the area in across the state because now uh VCF um the V Virginia Early Childhood foundation and vdoe are following our model of what we've been doing for coordinated enroll enrollment um and now go to grow is where many many localities so if you go to that website you'll see everything all the way up to the top of the state down to the bottom of the state um and all through the valley um and over toward Richmond um
126they're all using our coordinated enrollment um application um and so what happens is a family will um apply and then we on the backside we see the choices that they make that we see the um requests that they're making to be placed in certain programs in certain schools um whether that's a private program or a publicly funded preschool program like Charlottesville City VPI and so we work um across these programs and to find the placement that's going to have space for that child and that's it's going to work for that child and so we work on the backside to make sure that every child um if they qualify for a free publicly funded preschool program that they are able to access that um so we are we were working on all of our threes and
127all of our foury olds in our community for that um so our number one and I I put that as number seven but it's in bold Family Choice for placement is really our priority uh we want it to work for families um and so if a family really is um wanting to be at bar at Early Learning Center for instance we work with them to be there um we we don't stand in their way if that's what they want and vice versa if a child really a family really wants them to be in our Charlottesville City preschool program um and they maybe made a mistake when they were clicking we can fix that on the backside so we really do listen to families and try to make it where it's meeting their needs um and
128they have that flexibility next slide please so when we're talking about preschool we really are working with the state on the Virginia quality birth to five um kind of Mantra or work um and we really truly believe that we are leading the way in much of that work as well because we have so many um amazing instructors teachers assistants families and supports in this community we are also working um within the system that vdoe and um the infant and toddler kind of side of things they have combined all of that into a network of uh resources that are here to support families birth to five because we know that those are such instrumental years we want families to be able to pick we want families to have information about what is quality and we know
129that the two things that are really critical for quality in an early childhood system are interactions adult to child and child to adult adult to adult child to child all of those interactions are what make a quality classroom experience so I'm going to talk in a minute about that but I want you to know that that's one of the big pieces um it's the major piece seven8 of the of the writing is about those interactions the next part is about curriculum and we follow one of the state's uh curriculums and I'll show you a slide about that shortly but these interactions are um observed by the instructional coaches Miss rasnik she went and I um there are eight of us who do um these two to thre hour um classroom observations looking at how the
130interactions are um being experienced by the typical child in that classroom um and looking for how we can uh support that those teachers to make that experience better these happen at minimum two times a year sometimes three when there's an external one as well um so the preschool teachers are getting pretty used to us being in their classrooms for a long period of time the thing that's very different about these observations compared to to others that their principles do is that these are nonevaluative these are more of a coaching perspective this is how we can help them get kind of that outside view of what's going on we are not looking at hiring firing putting someone on a plan we're just there to help and give them some advice um and so that is really
131important and we have stayed very true to that which is why the instructional coaches have been so instrumental with this go to the next one and this is just if you wanted to know we call them class observations it's different than our after school program from a few years ago just to give a comparison I've had some folks who've gotten that confused um this is through teachstone and UVA with uh Bob pont's work and Bridget Ham's work um and so this has been has been adopted by by um vdoe across the state of Virginia for um monitoring uh and observing those interactions so one part of the profile is going to look at interactions the next part is going if you can go to the next slide please then is going to look at the
132curriculum and I have talked to you before those of you who've been on the board about the curriculum we look at the we use the creative curriculum as the skeleton as what I call it kind of the framework of what we do um we have lots of um lots of resources probably too many resources are available if you want to be honest if you'd ask my teachers they'd say we've got way too much stuff Sheila but I would rather them have too much stuff too many materials so that then they can make those professional decisions and judgments for what they need for their students at that time and so they have a wealth of resources from the creative curriculum um it is not one of those curriculums that is a um scripted kind of approach
133it very much is student Le in terms of if a student is really into trees hey we're GNA go out for a walk and we're gonna do comparison about trees and and talk about what's similar and different with this tree versus this tree and and those kind of things so really is kind of a student interest um Le approach we go to the next slide we also because we feel it's really important for preschool to be as in sync but still developmentally appropriate for three and four year olds we want to make sure that our preschool program has some continuity with our kindergarten program so here are some of the resources that we use um in preschool to supplement ment the creative curriculum we use the heeres phonic awareness we have um the Handwriting Without
134tear which is very much um we're working with Play-Doh we're working with wooden pieces concentrating on big lines little lines big curves little curves Matt man all of those so it's very uh Hands-On and it's not we we don't start with the pencil that's you know we're doing all of those other Motors and the other part of that experiential learning with them we also do uh developing um math concepts uh for re as a math resource for them and so we also do second step which is a social emotional um experience kind of curriculum where we're really working with them on being able to identify emotions being able to handle conflict resolution at a developmentally appropriate level next slide one of the things that I have spent a great deal of time on and I
135think um is a lot of unseen time um is that we do a lot of Partnerships in our community um one of the things that we started with way back when um was Wild Rock we started we were one of the first school divisions um to connect with Carolyn Skyler at Wild Rock and and recognize the value of the time that our children got to spend outside in nature um then Wild Rock flexed with us when you know buses getting kids on buses to go all the way out there was just not going to happen covid times all of that we Flex they Flex they got us in uh they started coming to each of the elementary schools for each class for each preschool class to be able to have nature visits um so we
136have nature friends now that will they will come to us as well um we have coordinated enrollment which I touched on briefly I listed the partners kind of down below United Way Alba Marl County uh Department of Social Services Alba Marl County uh Public Schools Charlottesville Department of Social Services obviously Charlottesville City Head Start ready kids chip used to be chip it's Children's Health Partnership now um so we partner with all of those uh different agencies for coordinated enrollment mixed delivery we have partner Partnerships with Barrett and YMCA primarily for our Charlottesville City residents but there are others as well um and we just have other Early Education um Coalition Partners but one of my favorite new Partnerships that just started um this year we've had them on an isolated um approach um with a
137couple of classrooms but this past year was the first year that the Charlotte Ville Quilter's Guild um they started making a homemade handmade quilted blanket for every four-year-old and gave them a book that would kind of go with the theme of the of the book so that is a huge and so what do they use this blanket for for those CS remember I talked about those CS before um tell me that's not a positive literacy experience for our kiddos that cozy blanket a book that's their book on their cot to sit in read to look at um they can take it home um but they they get to pick that that blanket out that quilt out on that back to school visit um so that they know that that Blanket's what's greeting them when it's
138nap time because sometimes that can be kind of a scary time for our Littles so I just wanted to share that because that is a new partnership which I think is pretty exciting next slide so just as a um quick followup the vqb 5 the interactions and the curriculum those uh pro quality profiles will be public come probably September 2024 um it will be um attached to each School site um and so that will uh be public information I have full confidence our preschool teachers are amazing I have full confidence we are going to be very proud of those results based on the scores that I've seen up to this point we it's going to be um amazing um and our other big next step is going to be the Early Learning Center transition work
139as we are doing the Walker Buford changes um kind of in the background and waiting to be that Sixth Man in is uh the Early Childhood team ready to to get subbed in to that uh Walker Buford new early learning experience um you know that that work that will be done so we have staff who are very excited to be a part of that and just to wrap up here are the points that I talked about I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have um but I ju I did want to just take a moment and thank um miss Emily douly Miss Lisa forz Lisa has been with us for a long time now and Dr Sher craft who was with us for a number of years prior um for their support um
140Dr Gurley executive board we are we are excited to uh have all of you and your support with us I would also like to um just take one minute to thank U Miss ursine in who just retired um at the beginning of the school year uh after 31 years um with Charlottesville City schools with the preschool program um she has left a huge void uh for our preschool program so I thank her for her efforts and then miss Eleanor barice who is our third um person on our team uh she has she has done a Yen's amount of work to help me uh this school year to get all these applications registrations documents so just a shout out to those two uh ladies who have done a T of work this year for us anything
141any questions comments anybody we can follow up with Miss Sparks as we get closer to talking about our legislative priorities but there was some something to keep on our radar for when we meet with Senator deeds and delegate Coulson is the slots are awarded specifically for four-year-olds and three-year-olds and it would be helpful if we could get the general assembly to to change it so that it's a total preschool allocation it just provides more flexibility instead of my understanding is that we're kind of inflating our numbers so that we have enough seats slots CS whatever it is you're exactly right and then trying to manipulate from there so just something to keep on our radar because for mixed delivery slots they are preschool slots they're not three-year-old versus four-year-old and I think when they started
142um the three-year-old slots were um a pilot um and I think we're beyond that now I think if they went backwards um there would be a Revolt um so I think it's it's time for them to consider having preschool slots versus separation of threes and fours because that limits who I can place so I do tend to inflate so that I can get that last kiddo in uh to make sure that we get the funding to support that any other comments questions go ahead Mr Meyer yeah I I'm sorry and I'm ignorant of this but how that macka preschool closing are we I see we're bumping up our numbers a little bit but I assume there's a lot more students than 10 um that's a great question um so as you may or may not
143um be familiar U MAA has relinquished the grant for the Head Start program program and so there is an organization called CDI Community Development I'm going to say Institute I don't know that that's the right word but Community Development organization um who has come in and is running the Head Start program um and when that change happened um I was in communication with staff at headart at Maca and we were able to uh absorb the number of children that are charlottesvill City residents that are there for the rest of the school year uh so that was amazing um and it it worked out beautifully um and we are keeping that in mind and we are prioritizing those children who may not have a spot come August um so that they are connected with us for
144placement so they will not be left out in the cold for Charlottesville City that's been a huge priority of mine as well thank you um so I understand a preschool program today is 7:45 to 230 right and I'm I'm wondering what we are doing how we are partnering with other potential Community agencies to bridge that Gap from 230 until a parent gets done work a work day and what that looks like to support parents in that capacity that's a great question and one of the things that we do on the preschool application is that question about do you work longer hours than the school day you know it's worded better than that but that's the gist of the question um and so when we see that as we are placing children we are looking to
145see um if they put another option besides the Charlottesville City School on their application because they can choose up to three um and there's um mixed delivery and early learning scholarship opportunities that are available um you know that we can connect with those coordinators of those programs to get those children in a placement that has that I think when we get into an Early Learning Center we will have better options um because at this time it's more about um and i' I'm working on some data right now around um child Child Care Subsidy the number of children who are Charlottesville residents who are taking advantage of that um or who are in early learning scholarship or who are part of the mixed delivery program so we work um in connection with all of those Partners
146to find the best um placement that's going to meet that family's needs but ultimately when a family is and we were very clear around our school day is this length of time and really it boils down to the funding for early for child subsidy has to meet the DSs requirements um and that is not not every place can do that in a an elementary school for instance there are some major changes that would have to happen structurally but when we are in Just An Early Childhood Center hopefully that will be um a way that we could handle that in a different way thank you and then we talked a little bit about engagement and how we are enrolling families and I'm wondering what initiatives um and I don't know if this falls under you apologize
147my not knowing um or Dr Johnson with her Equity work how are we meeting families in the community to do the work and educating our families that this is an option for their families and children I think that's a great question and one of the big things I think is that our program's reputation precedes itself we have been very well known historically I don't claim any ownership of it it was well before my time but families know many families know that our program is connected to to the elementary school where their older children go and we have many families who are not um you know who are brand new and who are learning so one of the things that we are doing is that we are working with city of promise we are working with
148um greenstone on Fifth we are working with friendship Court Kindlewood when there are families but primarily we are working where we connect with families who are currently Charlottesville City residents and we are sending out information um about because we pull the list and say okay there are siblings that are preschool age for next year we're sending information to them one of the biggest things one of the biggest wins I think is that this is able to be translated this application can be translated into tons of languages it's digital which works for most of our families it can be done on a phone um and so I think those things are all benefits to us um but we do work with Department of Social Services um one of our Elanor barice who I mentioned earlier um
149works for the Department of Social Services as well she's a joint position between Charlottesville City and Charlottesville DSS and so she's able to connect with Benefits workers with um you know Child Care Subsidy self-sufficiency staff um in that way um but that is um some of the ways that we do that but we we do a lot of connection through our parent Square messages that are going out um and our website as well thank you any other questions I just had a quick question about like the grow to the go to grow application and then like the registration is it a way that you could C some of the information instead of it being so repetitive especially for parents where there may be language barriers or just um inability to kind of process some of
150that information um to make it easier to pull over that information so they're not having to do that twice that's a great question and that is one of the things that's on our radar we started that conversation I'm going to say last year it may have been a year and a half ago we started that conver ation um about trying to get a data download from um the go to grow application and able to upload it directly into go to grow or into Power School um and that is that is on our work list to do um we just did not feel like we had the right um support from the go to grow side not the go grow United Way local people but there were some development issues on the technology side that we
151had to get work through and I think we're we're getting there now we were just too early in the adoption of that plan so that is something that M Patrick montazuma and an Skipper and I have been meeting having zooms about um over time but we're just not quite there yet thank you I mean it's been a fun journey I know for me um tagging along and just seeing the growth of and and how the program has evolved I remember I had the opportunity a few years ago to volunteer um for an inperson when we were doing the paper applications and and people found their way and I mean the word is out there these people knew and they were lining up and had had time slots but it was really fun to be able
152to sit down with families and kids and and food and snacks to to do that and then to be part of this I mean and it was a little bumpy there through covid but you know we kind of did the zoom meetings um and then with the go to grow kind of transitioning into that um and I've just been really impressed with with all of the different partners that show up on these meetings and and she you know Miss Sparks talked about just who who she does do this work with or we do the work with I mean these people are just so dedicated and and really do collaborate um to meet the needs of these these young youngest community members and students you know to try and place them and and to to your
153question Miss Cooper you know just trying I remember when this go to grow first kind of hit and just we spent so much time talking about the bugs in it and how can we improve it and the equity pieces that were missing and language and just was really exciting to just kind of see the flexibility of that um app um and how it was designed to to meet the needs of people and I mean we can always do better but um it's been fun and uh thank you for the presentation thank you all right we have Dr Isley she will have our gifted uh plan our gifted annual review not just the plan good evening again Madam chair Schoolboard members and Dr Gurley I'm here tonight with Ashley Riley our lead gifted resource teacher and
154we're here to present the gifted program annual review for this year 2324 which we shared with the gift advisory committee earlier this month our sumon substance um includes uh the alignment of our work to the Strategic plan and then we'll follow with a share out of the goal areas um listed here our talent development gifted model aligns with Priority One increase academic achievement and our goal of all CCS students having access to rigorous inclusive and relevant learning experiences not only do we want to increase students access to rigor through critical and creative thinking but also provide professional learning and support for teachers in that area as well you'll also see a focus on differentiation in literacy and math and strategies 7even and eight as well as well well prepared diverse student enrollment in advanced placement
155and dual enroll mment courses with each goal area I'll highlight some of the accomplishments within that goal and I'll share a couple challenges as well beginning with identification you'll see the goals for this year um listed to monitor gifted identification data for Equitable representation across groups student groups and to review annually with the lens of equity the materials used for identification in each school and to monitor for consistent use of evidence and Analysis um with the new talent development model most students in ccs are now identified as gifted and there's currently Equitable representation across student membership groups we continue to have a gifted ID process that's similar across schools with procedures for the identification process this year we've added a few additional data points um as well with regard to professional learning as you know
156one of the goals of this model is to support PL with our grts providing classroom teachers with professional learning around differentiation as well as collaboration among the grts and with classroom teachers members of our GRT and coordinator team attended multiple professional learning opportunities from state to national conferences this year and meetings they engaged in a book study together and had monthly collaboration with the GRT team gifted resource teachers provided just in time support and collaboration during professional Learning Community meetings to address differentiation and supporting teachers as they work to provide rigorous learning experiences for all students in some cases scheduling constraints and coverage needs did limit this collaboration but here you'll see some of the resources grts created for classroom teachers to use in their classrooms um everything from Choice boards to hmhr reading program
157and investigations um math program lit aligned Choice menus literature Circle modeling and support to promote students and authentic texts creating Math Game Challenge bins um to support differentiated fluency and math problem solving and this are that boards at Walker align to instructional standards our gifted resource teachers also presented these 10 professional learning sessions on division PL days on differentiation at this time Miss Riley is going to talk about our services and Elementary thank you um our goals for this year included to continue to design and refine our curricula that are differentiated for a range of our Learners to assist classroom teachers with instructional planning practices that focus on appropriate extension and rigor and help students both think and understand deeply and to share information with Elementary and upper elementary students teachers and parents that articulates
158the components of our talent development framework our K4 gifted resource teachers continue to design and refine lesson and unit plans for building on our core investigations math curriculum and hmh literacy curriculum and for math gifted resource teachers continue to help design and implement low floor and high sealing experiences the promoted rigor here you'll see grts differentiating learning providing flexible grouping as part of our math pushin model to support all students in engagement and rigorous math instruction the elementary gifted resource teachers continue to refine our hmh inquiry and research projects to Encompass the five C's of creativity critical thinking communication collaboration and citizenship of learning that are connected to the VOE portrait of a graduate we have also begun to explore shared experiences aligned to the HM units of study to include extension activities such as
159as common field trips and Community expert guest speakers to enhance student learning The Walker gifted resource teachers designed lessons that aligned and extended the math and literacy SOS using embedded best practice resources and incorporating the science of reading practices to literacy enrichment lessons the challenge of Staffing somewhat impacted Elementary services this year in that two staff members were hired in the fall of 2023 and two staff members were reassigned to a classroom teacher role during the course of the school year the k6 gifted resource teachers sent quarterly gifted Gazette newsletters to families with General gifted programming information and resources as well as specific school-based service showcases including projects and collaboration communication about gifted programming is something we are continuing to refine given the unique structure of charlottesv excuse me of Charlottesville City school's gifted model
160at this at the secondary level um goals for secondary Services included designing Services based on research of effective practices that develop a talent development framework at the secondary level sharing information with Buford and CHS students teachers and parents that articulates the components of a talent development framework and assisting content teachers with planning instruction that's differentiated for a range of Learners and support Sports Talent Development so we did share that our gifted resource teachers uh presented multiple um quite a few professional learning sessions at PL days um the CCS program of studies provides opportunities for differentiated coursework for students at both eford and CHS you'll see students here presenting their independent study projects um that they did um with Mr Smith also um classroom teachers continue to provide differentiated instruction within their individual classrooms and Buford
161English teachers were able to implement best practice differentiation strategies designed in consultation with outside expert support even though they did not have a GRT on staff this year so Dr Christina dubet worked with them throughout the course of the school year and you'll even see some of um some lessons throughout these photos that we've shown um of them applying some of the work that they learned from her our CHS GRT Mr Smith maintained a website of resources and enrichment opportunities as well as services available at CHS this was highlighted at gifted advisory meetings as well as um the CCS website he provided support to the AVID program including spending time in 12th grade classes assisting students with college and financial aid applications so those are a couple um screenshots of his website the gifted Department
162did offer this year an opportunity for CCS family members to attend um a mathematics family uh virtual workshop with Joe bowler of Stanford University this year as well and um just to wrap up the goal of our presentation was to just share some of the highlights from our annual review of our 2324 goals in these following areas any questions questions comments Mr Meer thank you for that very uh I think U lots of content in there what some of the data around you said the majority of the students are now I guess recognized as gifted do you have a specific percentage you could share um so we're in the process of we're wrapping up our gifted ID we're the gifted ID processes has occurred this spring um so I don't have like the numbers after
163that yet um but going into that process when we um were looking at Fourth through 12th graders because we do the ID process in third and above so they wouldn't have been included in it yet um we were at so we looked at that in March and we were at 78% could excuse me could you provide um a little more context for the gifted advisory meetings sure um the gifted advisory committee uh meets I'm sorry maybe maybe I misunderstood so it's that what you were referring to not too long ago was the committee meetings is that right or is that for students I I think there's two two things maybe so the gifted advisory committee is a group comprised of um some of our staff uh community members Miss Torres is on it um but
164then also the gifted resource teachers meet monthly as well is that what you were talking about yes could you give a little bit more context to that yeah absolutely so um every month our gifted resource teachers come together um so we there're sort of twofold here um the first piece is um that our elementary K4 grts um come together for um an afternoon of collaboration once a month and that's really allowed us to do a lot of the work to um try to reach consistent you know more consistency across um schools and to do um work around aligning our lessons with um with standards with the core resources and the projects there um they've really worked to already dive into the new math standards for next year and um map out the the um lessons
165with regard to uh those new standards so um a lot of like the common projects you saw that they all engaged in experiences that work is planned um at that time so they're also really able to debrief how lessons and things are going so it's a really it's kind of like their own plc um and since we have you know two at every site um across the elementary that's super helpful and then after that our full um it's the program meeting time so during this year our program meeting time because we were re um drafting the new local plan that was the majority of of our time spent was working on that work um and we that's when we engaged in our book study and different um different grts presented uh chap and we we
166sort of even practice some of the strategies in there um and then uh that's where we uh engage in some collaborative uh professional learning planning also thank you so much questions down here to my right all right thank you ladies appreciate you all right we will now have miss Corbin I'll save Miss pal some steps in addition to Corbin who's the um chief operations officer we also are very fortunate to have Miss Bonita Patton who's the VP of Youth Development for the YMCA are very important partners for after school programming so I'm going to turn it over to them you'll have to move this down when sorry okay um good evening Madam chair um board members and Dr gley great to see you again as well um we're happy to be here today to kind
167of give an overview of the YMCA after school program which you probably forly knew as the class program oh so you're the driver got it okay next slide please okay um I we thought we'd start with a brief history of how um how this program and partnership came to be um for those that don't know the YMCA is the largest child care provider in the United States um um and that's just that's between Early Learning after school and summer camps um we focus on social emotional cognitive and physical activity back in 2019 the CEO Jessica and myself met with Dr Atkins about transitioning the class program to the YMCA with a preliminary plan for us to Shadow the class program for a year in 2020 and 2021 obviously that didn't happen Co happened and put
168a halt to everything um fortunately we were able to Pivot and say well what is the need and they said we virtual learning sites hybrid learning what can we do we worked with the city schools we set up a virtual Learning Center at Walker and we also transformed multiple spaces at the Brooks family YMCA in McIntyre Park to allow kids to come in have remote access and provide the support they needed to connect with their teachers to continue their learning through the co pandemic um in 2021 and 2022 we launched the YMCA after school program um due to space restrictions we prioritize full-time students um our program is licensed by the Department of Education we are a Subs provider through the Department of Social Services um and we adopted a very similar income based pricing
169structure that class had and provide additional scholarships as needed upon request um for this current year I was told to give a brief um overview of what our enrollment looks like we've served about 300 students this year we have 23 staff and there's a blend of full-time and part-time staff in that um I am happy to say that of those 297 students 42 of those students received funding through the department of social services at little to no cost of their of their own um and 238 students also paid a discounted rate based on our income scale um to give a little bit of History um the last um the last time class ran a full school year was 2019 through through 2020 they served about 337 kids obviously we were off kind of came back
170into it in 2021 and 20122 and then have maintained around 300 students that we serve each year um in regards to our wait list um we have worked really diligently over the last two years to create a system of how to handle a weight list which is due to two big factors one is Staffing one is space um Staffing is not new to us that's every industry right now as you probably know um space we is primarily accommodating we do have some restrictions at maybe two sites Green Brier and Clark obviously for lack of cafeteras and other reasons we have some space restrictions there um but what we have done is adopted kind of a continuous Communications plan where every few months we will contact every single person on the weit list to say here's
171where you are on the weit list do you still need care here's where you are in line here's where we can anticipate um having an opening for your child at that time they can then say thank you I've already found other care and we can take them off the list or we'll say we'll call you back in a month and give you another update um we started with 93 on the weit list um brought it down to about six a few months ago um as mentioned earlier we adopted a very similar um rate structure based on the class model which is based on household income we extended um a Charlottesville City School rate that was previously in place with class um set at the $40 a week tier for teachers and other School Employees um
172so anyone with proof of employment can Will qualify for that $40 a week rate fee and it goes all the way up to $150 which is what is considered the DSs market rate for the city of Charlottesville additionally we offer a sibling discount of 10% for every child yes I'm gonna bring it in a little bit sorry um so each year we tried to do a survey get a feel a post check on what our um parents are feeling our students are feeling um and so we did a survey this past year um the results that we have here um from each side overall we did an average of 4.5 of which is really going on a scale of one to five so parents are really enjoying our program uh one of the um we
173had several uh responses or feedback we I'm just going to share just one um it says the ym MCA after school program has clear policies of of inclusiveness and respect for all and not only those policies on paper but practice as daily values which has been a huge comfort and source of safety for my children and my family I cannot than the YMCA after school program enough for taking such wonderful care of my child every school day that was a walker parent and we have several other uh comments from parents who did um provide comments on that um our survey um so next slide and we uh adopted or we formed a parent advisory committee um we've had a couple of meetings this year so far and we've already planned out um this upcoming school
174year uh meetings the parents who are on the the parents who are on the uh parent advisory board have provided some really good feedback to us in terms of how and what some things that we could do uh moving forward which we one of the things we did was uh we opened up the res registration a little earlier this year for the upcoming school year so that gave the parents a little comfort from that um piece there next slide and we really want to bring an experience to the students at all of our seven elementary schools so uh we were diligently looking for different Community Partners kids acting out club that's from UVA they come to ouro after school uh site uh the Jefferson Madison Regional Library comes Madison house which a lot of organizations
175use them but they come every just about every week to all of our schools they're providing several uh college students the lighthouse Studio they're with our Walker upper Walker upper elementary students they're they actually are presenting on tomorrow if you all are free just put that plug in if you're free tomorrow at 5 o'clock at the Lighthouse Studio those students will be show chasing their short mini films that they created this past school year so that's really exciting they do that every year the rotorat club of UVA they come in excuse me and they work with our students too um the superst starter Sports come in and bring other sporting activities to the kids besides just football and basketball you know some other things that we try to incorporate our front porch uh work with
176our um the L the um the Lor elementary students and they perform um they just performed this past weekend well two weekends ago and they enjoy that learning and singing and playing different instruments and then the UVA athletics department they come over and they take time out and the kids are so amazed when they see them coming the big guys and the girls with their um UVA jerseys on so they really enjoy that and as I mentioned one of the things that we did take back from the parent advisory was to open up the registration um so we open up the registration um for our current parents first on um April for the 15th and then it was open two days later to um to to their other community other community um and we have
177now close to 300 students who have registered signed up for our after school program and it is still open um and then um so we changed that from yeah I'm sorry yeah so we have yeah that was a while ago yeah so we have close to like 290 students who are currently registered for our upcoming school year and so what is next we're really excited about yeah um so in addition to everything we just mentioned we want to continue to move that needle so right now we're excited to say we've currently launched the heroic Journey curriculum at all after school sites if you're not aware of what that is it's a social emotional learning and a bullying prevention program um that has a 32p part mental health curriculum what we've heard from parents and the
178parent advisory council is mental health is what also needs to be incorporated it's not heard enough it's not Incorporated enough um so we attended trainings um all of our site directors kind of did a train the trainer model and they're now implementing that at every single site and it's been wildly successful we're going to P we're going to um bring that into our summer camp this summer as well and extended into next year um we are hoping to expand capacity this fall to serve up to 350 kids um we've been currently been approached to reevaluate the need for out of school full day programming in 24 and 25 we did launch that two years ago we got about five or six kids at each site that wanted it but for Staffing reasons to do a
179full day program program at each site with five children was a little bit demanding so we're coming up with creative waves to maybe partner schools together um and surveying parents to see if that's a genuine need for this upcoming school year um and then kind of on the heels of Miss spks earlier um research the viability to potentially close that Gap and provide prek after school programming at Walker in Fall of 2026 to her Point um preschool and Licensing is very different from school age and Licensing ratios are very different the requirements are very different we do operate the largest subsidy preschool program so we're very familiar with it um and we want to support working parents so we're excited to potentially SE that opportunity any questions thank you and go ahead Mr Meyer yes
180uh Miss cor Miss P thank you very much and uh I am a user of your my my kids are user of your services and uh we really appreciate them I think here is a very enriching uh curriculum which we appreciate also very much uh yeah I'm really excited about what you have here is what's next I think you're a very important partner to us and that the potential for not only the after uh school program for the the prek is great uh I had our family had participated and used the classes uh teacher workday kind of thing and so I I do hope you figure out some kind of way to make that work I know my family at least I know a lot of other amilies in our neighborhood who are currently in
181the after Care Program would like to see that service offered on those days uh I'm happy here to see that you're can hopefully do 350 plus kids what's changing to be able to uh because you looked like you've been at like 300 even though at the start of a school year and you had 93 on the weight list this start of the school year what's going to change to allow you to do that 350 um so similar to registration we've moved up our hiring model um to January and February and started contacting college kids and people more often I will say a big challenge one being a licensed program is the requirements alone just to get through the door after you get your fingerprints and your TV tests and everything else and then do a
182training and then get to see with kids um we've worked really hard to kind of make that model more efficient um and reduce some of the barriers for the staff that are applying especially for like local kids who we know are coming home for the summer or coming home just for winter break and want to help out ways that we can get with them to look locally and get that done ahead of time so we hired a full-time um we hired a part-time um senior director of Employee Engagement who focuses solely on Recruitment and onboarding um so by the time they're delivered to the site they they're encompassed in all things why licensing requirements trainings they we offer free CPR first aid to every single teacher as well um and they're ready to just to
183hit the ground running great thank you very much Miss Burns I won't take up too much time I Echo Mr Meyer's sentiments on teacher work days some of those gaps that we might be able to fill there um and certainly prek after school I asked the question so very interested in that um and then just wanted to highlight um this slide of your December 2023 survey results the site directors there are several charlott City School staff members that are doing really amazing work here at our schools that then are transitioning and doing great work with you all so just wanted to point out that we've got some really great folks here um in coaching roles and other CSA model folks doing that work that are are transitioning into that role and great to see them
184taking on that responsibility as well miss Cooper D Miss dly mostly I'm just echoing Mr Meyer in that I also have a child in the after school program U Mr Payne and Mr Nico are local celebrities in my household so um thank you and I don't know if there's ways that Miss Lewis and our HR team like if we can partner to help with efficiencies with the TV testing and fingerprinting and things of that nature but happy to have you the front porch um at the River Festival was one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life somehow we like went from Bob Marley to um I forget it's fireworks what's her name fire I mean it was quite a mash up Blink 182 also yes it was Blink 182 yes um so
185thank you just thank you for all the work that you're doing and the support for the kids but I was curious just about the weight list I mean you talked a little bit about checking back with people and appreciate that excuse me um I was curious as to how many people actually do take you up on placement versus they found some some other option for the kids do you have any sense of I don't know if I have the exact numbers off top of my head do you know the exact numbers right when school right when school started um you know of course um we did have a weight list and so by the time we started calling parents back in September October a lot of them were able to find care but then there
186were some that said yes I still need child care so they we brought them on so it was about we had we started with 90 9394 something like that and of that 90 something we brought in 47 48 almost 50 of the students came in to the program and then is there's a um as far as applying to the program and getting on that list so there is a a stop date or you close applications or is that open all year long keep it we keep it open your ground yeah great how many numbers do you see I mean people reach out to after the fact I and I don't need specifics I was just curious like and I will say one of the challenges that we originally encountered at the beginning of the school
187year um class relied heavily on the IAS um to help with the class program unfortunately because we're licensed if you were not there right before the children arrive you are not counted in ratio and the IAS can't physically be in two places at once um and so the I is not being able to come until 20 or 30 minutes later basically set us back an entire huddle um we've been working with the principles some have been very lenient um and working with us and we appreciate the IAS it's a great partnership opportunity but that's probably our biggest barrier right now is we have the support about 30 minutes into the program but we don't have the heads exactly at 2:25 no comment [Laughter] anyway all right thank you any other questions thank you for the
188information appreciate it thank you for having us last but certainly not least we have Dr Denise Johnson with the 50th anniversary of Charlottesville High School good evening again Madam chair school board members and Dr Gurley Charlottesville High School onward to fame push on every forward keep our good Nam forever will sing out shout out the cry forever loyal to our school Charlottesville High with the doors opening on September 16th 1974 this is the School fight song that has rung throughout these hallways for 50 years and so it's time to celebrate all of the Golden Memories that have happened along the way 50 years of friends who became family 50 years of outstanding achievements and 50 years of creating the Everlasting Legacy that is forever engraved in our hearts of every member of the Black Knight
189Nation as we proudly approach the significant milestone in our school's history we cordially invite everyone to join us over the course of the 20242 school year throughout the year we will commemorat Charlesville High School's 50th Anniversary so whether you're a proud graduate a dedicated educator past or present or a valued member of our community your presence and participation are essential in making this celebration truly memorable from alumni Gatherings to special performances sporting events and community outreach initiatives there will be something for everyone to enjoy as we reflect on the rich Legacy and enduring Spirit of Charlottesville High School let's come together to honor the past celebrate the present and envision an even brighter future FR beloved institution so save the date spread the word and join us as we mark this remarkable M milestone in
190our school's Journey there are four ways to participate in the celebration first you can attend official CCS events which may include homecoming activities alumni art displays and alumni dinner and tours of the high school secondly community members or businesses can host official events that are publicized and added to our CCS catalog which we will create to outline anniversary events this can include alumni band or orchestra concerts which I'm excited to announce former Orchestra teacher Laura Thomas and former band instructor Vince torello have all already express interest in helping organize or alumni sports games like the one pictured in the presentation community members or businesses no matter where they're located may want to host private or unofficial events an example of this third opportunity could be a private dinner party for a specific graduate class or
191concert and anyone can participate by donating to chs's newly created sponsor or senior fund where they can support future alumni as they close out their senior year any person interested in hosting an official event is invited to complete the proposal form linked on the slide and we will begin organizing the catalog I mentioned of events and make it public facing in July so whether you graduated in 1974 or about to graduate in 2024 or anywhere in between I'm sorry whether you gradua or uh will graduate in 20125 or anywhere in between we look forward to welcoming all black knights home for a celebration that we will remember before I close I want to thank Mr Mitch Miner our newly retired basketball coach and member of the first graduating class the class in 1975 for allowing
192me to use his yearbook for this presentation and thank you all again for having me tonight and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them oh now we we need to host something guys thank you so much that's that's that's wonderful yeah thank you all right thank you so much everybody for the present ations um next item is board response to written reports and the next um item is 12.0 with um our second opportunity for comments from members of the community so we can start here if there's anybody in the media center hop on up hi uh I'm still Peter Davis and I'm still a teacher here at Charlottesville High School um and I just yeah I thank you for the presentation on the standards based grading that you all gave and um
193all the hard work that's gone into that I know it's a heavy lift I was a part of the math department here 12 13 14 years ago when that first shift into standards based grading kind of began and I I've watched losb and Matt Rosella and that team really grind through all of that and get to where they're finally like comfortable with it and I I I admire them for all that um I have a few kind of things that are just still you know questions and ideas that and um that I feel like just I publicly want to just kind of put out there um we can always continue the conversation it's not like this is a oneandone thing um but uh as a parent and as a teacher uh as a teacher um
194one thing that kind of rais a not a red flag but just something that that I want to make sure I know a lot of my colleagues would probably Echo is that um it is a big heavy lift to move to this um centers based grading um not afraid of hard work but I just want to make sure that when it's mentioned that work will be done in the plc's that that doesn't become kind of code for these the work has to be done in these quick little meetings we have during lunch once a week or you know in the off hours make sure that's like really supported um throughout the year that we get um time during our contract hours to get that work done so that teachers don't have to carry that into
195um their off time and then um you know I don't know how many plcs we have in in the building but just you know I think there's probably like at least like 20 plc's maybe how was all how are all those plc's going to be supported continually to make all that happen um and then I want to shift real quick to my parent my parent hat uh I'll have a senior here and my son will be a freshman here next year um and if I'm reading the slides right um it looks like um my son's class will not have uh the standards based grade p piled in English until his senior year and then history and science until his junior year if I'm reading that correctly it was kind of quick but I think I
196got that right um which just kind of makes me think back to my previous questions about our current models is are the current models staying in place with all of our classes until they've made that shift to standards based grader you looking at maybe shifting that because I know as a parent I know my son really well and I don't really feel like if he he if he's going to kill me for sharing this if he see this he probably won't but if he knows that he can put something off he's going to do it if he knows that there's not going to be consequences for late work um he's gonna he's going to put things off and I think that that's um that's some of the struggles that we're seeing as teachers and and
197I and I I want to make sure that we're addressing those things going forward too but again um happy to keep those conversations going but just needed to know that I could put that out there publicly so that's it's out there and we can think about it I appreci appreciate it thank you Miss Horn thank you and apologies I know we're all tired um but I did stick around um I'm also going to talk about grading I want to talk about language in the policy that we just looked at which I know pretty well because I was part of the strategic planning committee and I've read it a few times um one that I think needs a tweak in a couple that concern me one is access to a rigorous curriculum I would love for
198that to say imperative to engage in a rigorous curriculum because many of our students look at that there's it seems like there's this idea of we're going to put it out there and you get to pick and choose what you do and I don't think that's great the second is that it should be motivational I will tell you I talk to my students all the time 100% And I teach a very diverse group think that the 50 is a bad idea they use words like it is demon motivational they say that it gives you a reason to skip class and not do assignments and a couple students even said it's evidence that adults think we're dumb um so that is student perspective none of that is mine so I don't know that it's motivational seems
199like maybe it's the opposite and the most concerning and why I stuck around to say it is that the word Equitable is used and I assume that you are thinking that Equitable we all do that Equitable assessment leads to Equitable outcomes one would hope and if we all agree that as all the greats said knowledge is power that those Equitable outcomes are power yes and so we have this assessment Equitable assessment system that is leading to power a member of our community came up to me and said one of our recent graduates could not fill out a job at ation I have had students who I love very much still email me because they are struggling in college they cannot contend with the reading the writing is too much they send me things to edit
200for them these are college students who I love very much but I feel I we failed them if you want to talk about grades the number of college freshmen who are Dr and I know it's not just CA CCS I know that I know it's the country but are leaving after the first year of college I think that is a demand for more rigor rigor with supports of course rigor with supports but to say like no attendance policy and you all get a 50 for doing absolutely nothing and you can retake it until the end of the year is asking for failure RIT large and is not giving our students what they deserve and what they need thank you so much for your time thank you thank you anybody else here comment anybody online we've
201got a couple people who have hung in there and either of you want to raise that hand and say hello all right thank you closing um that and now we will offer comments from the board and I will start down to my right Miss Richardson um I just want to say I made it um I hope everybody have a great summer I am so excited to be working with the board as we navigate this new Union and figuring out how to communicate and move forward and I can't wait to um attend my son's graduation at Buford will be here at CHS so I'm excited for all the graduates and um that is it for today Miss dly I'm no I Echo those Sentiments of appreciation for colleagues on the board and in the division for
202doing this work um I think we've got some clear ideas on how to implement uh process and procedures moving forward um to have um I don't good outcomes and success for our work and um the division and um I think this these weeks are the payoff for all of this work getting to see families and students celebrate is pretty awesome so looking forward to um the Buford promotion ceremony and then especially the CHS graduation next week thank you Miss Cooper um I just want to thank everyone for coming out and um speaking um and bringing their perspectives about the youth resource officers in our schools um thanks for the all of the emails that we receive um and just like being in the community and being able to talk to folks um about their feelings
203about the school system um and what are their thoughts around um feeling safe and just um being able to get that feedback um I also um would like to say thanks um to the teacher that just spoke um about her comments because some of the same things that um she just spoke about is some of the same things that I'm seeing um with some of our youth in the community um where I live um and serve um having a hard time filling out job applications having a hard time being able to read to read and comprehend um and so as we're thinking about um the grading policy um and being Equitable making sure that we are setting our kids up for Success because I I have seen too some of our kids go to pbcc
204um and they drop out because um they'll H to a different standard that they can't um keep up with and so I just hope that we're keeping all of that in mind as we moving forward and making decisions thank you no comments down there oh Mr Meyer come on I I do want to hear from other call you sure you don't have anything because I do okay uh one thing U miss Warren I really do appreciate that uh your focus on cell phone policy is very concerning to me also and I do hope we hear a articulated plan for implementation uh sometime in the near future uh that I don't think we necessarily need to make decisions on how that is implemented but that we we do hear how it is going to be implemented
205uh because I think everybody understands the moment it is not working so uh second I think with the new principle and we have an opportunity to reset that again you might say um I agree that we also need to be setting high expectations and again my understanding of the Equitable grading policy and again that was related to my question is that that and and I agree with that again in that we shouldn't be just docking points for things and they should know what they're at but they're there needs to be those other kind of well-rounded I think what both of your teachers saying uh consequences for not you doing certain things and and those don't necessar have to be show up in grades but there should be other consequences and I think teachers should be
206able to have that flexibility to decide those two so I I hope uh at least my understanding how this policy works is that you do feel like you have that ability and can Implement some of those things um finally I want just wanted I think there was an opad that ended up in the Daily Progress and in the Virginia Mercury I was very disappointed about it it had some misinformation about our College counseling ratio and how we're not providing it also just the whole frame of it was really discouraging to me uh and I I do wonder sometimes just thinking out you know sometimes I think we have a get a lot from you a lot of teachers a lot of good things a lot of good Partnerships like our stem but there's other times
207that I do think we need to think about how UVA interacts with us what they try to get from us and then some of the UN consequences from those those actions um so I just wanted to put it out there because it's something that I've been thinking about over the last week thank you very much last chance all right um again just gratitude for everybody for for the time gratitude to my um fellow board members um for the work that that we've done and we continue to do and and we will I think um as evidence by by the hours and time talking in you know just the last week or so um we're becoming a stronger board and and can always strive to do better and and I see I see that happening so
208good work thank you Dr Gurley um I too am excited I know um some of you many of you probably have attended graduations um Buford is wonderful there is a special feeling about standing on the stage for the Charlottesville High School graduation um and it is definitely a highlight um to see the smiles and to hear the parents and and everybody as as you know people engage and and step off into the world um so um I am appreciative we've got some work to do this summer and um AR think that's all I'm going to say right now and I'll hand it off to Dr Gurley um I'll be very brief I just want to um just thank uh the school board for allowing me to serve um this is the end of the third
209school year for me um not quite three full school years but uh this is the end of the third school year so I'm just appreciative to continue to serve um and um I just want to I just want to continue to be reflective um you know I heard um a lot of I saw a lot of white faces um amplifying black voices today and I had an opportunity to walk in a black space yesterday and I don't see those black basis um and when we talk about Equity um we talk about Equity a lot in Charlesville um and the first thing I said when I came here is that Equity is a verb um it's a verb and so as we talk about grading practices and who gets to do what um Equity is not
210who benefits um it's not it's not when it's beneficial for me um and so U my pledge is to continue to do the work um that's we talked about tonight um what this work will look like over the course of the school year we have a strategic plan and um I think that we need to be in the spaces where people are asking us to be um and I'm looking forward to a restful summer that will consider consist of a lot of groundwork um but when we come back in the fall we will be rejuvenated um again thank you for allowing me to serve have a great summer I don't know if we have anything for a wrap up okay um our up our next meeting will be August 1st 2024 so we will see
211you then and um again gratitude everybody stay safe and I call a meeting adjourned