001good afternoon everybody I'd like to call this meeting to order Welcome to our Charlottesville City school board meeting today being October 6th and if you will please join us in a moment of silence thank you very much and if you will please stand and for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you and if we can now um Madam clerk if you will call for roll call a board members please yes Madam chair Mr Bryant president Miss Bryson warsberger here miss Dooley president Dr Kraft president Mr Morris present Miss Torres yes thank you and then our student rep Mrs bird here thank you very much and I do want to extend a warm welcome to our student rap Ms Byrd thank you for being here tonight all right may I now have a motion uh for approval
002of our agenda please second any questions comments all in favor aye any opposed thank you now we're moving on to our first opportunity for comments from members of the community we do have some people here in the media center and I think we'll start with those people here and first on the list we have Mr Alex Sam please keep in mind [Music] keep your comments to three minutes okay good evening everyone I'm Charles Alexander also known as Mr Alexander one of the Charlottesville 12 students and the last time I was in this building and this space was in 20 18. when Charlottesville Toyota presented to the school board to Charlottesville 12 scholarship time and we have some of the members here on this picture uh I'm here today in support of the remaining name of
003Venable elementary school or if you choose to rename Venable Elementary School my suggestion along with others is the Venable nine that would be when first of all my preference would be to remain preventable to remain Venable but if those choose to rename secondly in support of the Venable nine on behalf of the Charlottesville 12 students parents families and community members and I want to share a couple comments from Charlottesville 12 students verse Sandra Wicks Lewis I fully support in favor of maintaining Venable and the committee's renamed suggestion Venable nine this also is in honor of my courageous parents Robert and Elizabeth Wicks and the other Charlottesville 12 parents and families and by the way uh I'm son of a Charlottesville 12 parents the last surviving parent her name is Elizabeth Alexander Taylor She's the real
004Liz Taylor next is concerning the Venable name change we support the name change Dependable nine this will continue the legacy of the 1959 desegregation of Charlottesville schools otherwise no one would remember the 1959 historic event the students and our parents made a great sacrifice to further the cause of integration in Charlottesville future Generations would also benefit from the significant time period Ronald and Roland woodfall also Charlottesville 12 students next is from Regina Howard her mother and two brothers William and Marvin Townsend with Charlottesville 12 students my mother found family Townsend and brothers Marvin and William was the vital parts of the Charlottesville 12. and in their absence I support the name Venable nine vazina Howard next we have as the former principle of Venable from 1991 to 2003 I'm very familiar with Charles Venable and
005his history Etc I totally support and endorse the committee's suggestion to change the name of the school development nine I believe it is a most appropriate appropriate name for the school Ron Broadbent next we have a gentleman from the Venable neighborhood association I share your concern about the importance of retaining a name for Venable that preserves the history of the school for students both past and present I strongly support the concept of the number nine and their families having a significant and influential voice in the school name I've completed the survey and have registered for the October 19th form as well some fellow board members who have responded thus far love the Venable nine naming idea we're sending out an email to 200 or so addresses to encourage them to complete the survey J Scott
006vulnerable neighborhood association I also have some positive comments from former NAACP icon Mr Eugene Williams he's in favor of if there were to be a name change to be Dependable nine as well as Ann Wix Carter a pass Charlottesville School educator and black historian in Charlottesville and in closing I just want to share a few of my personal comments uh keeping the name of Venable we'll continue the legacy of former students prior to 1959 and after 1959. it will also continue to share the Charlottesville 12 story hopefully years to come the number name will continue to be a beacon for the neighborhood and its surroundings speaking of the Venable neighborhood and I want to close and share this with one of my elders which I highly regard and we all hear on the shoulders of
007our illness she's told me a while back Mr Alexander if they let everything go everything goes I don't have to tell you folk in terms of how much we have let go and what we're dealing with today um and I also like to acknowledge Mr James Bryant in terms of keeping alive the lane high school reunion uh recently the 1972 class celebrated because and I'm a 1970 graduate of Lane High School and pretty soon or not if not at this moment if somewhere someone were to mention Lane High School people already said who where what is it because as you know Albemarle County purchase that building and it's no longer laying High School so it's very important to keep that name uh lastly bennable is also an extension of black history pathway which is Fourth
008Street honorary Street we have put Venable school as part of that whole uh pathway uh which we are putting together so at this time I would like to thank you for your time and consideration hopefully uh you will come to the decision to maintain Venable in its present name dispenable but if the decision were to be made to rename it preferably we suggest for many members of the community the Venable now thank you and I don't know whether there's any questions or not or in the comments not right now thank you sir we appreciate you thank you and I've just met you just a side note I mentioned to Dr Gurley as well as Beth Chuck you may have seen it around Charlottesville some yard signs that says yo Let It Go I've got a
009stack of posters which I am contributing to Charlottesville schools at no cause and many times schools wait until something happens and then you call all the brief counselors after the fact so it would be good if you take the advantage and utilize these free posters and maybe we can interrupt this culture of violence in the Charlottesville Community thank you thank you sir all right next we have Miss Jessica Taylor please hi good evening my name is Jessica Taylor as you know I'm a reading specialist at Clark and current president of the Charlottesville Education Association and I wanted to take a couple of minutes to publicly thank Dr Gurley and the board for the progress that we have made toward a collaboratively developed resolution for collective bargaining it was exciting to see city council pass theirs
010earlier this week especially knowing that they had worked with the two unions that had come to them with signed cards to make sure that the ordinance they passed worked for everyone while you are in no way obligated to follow the lead of city council regarding scope of bargaining or any other aspect of the ordinance they passed I strongly encourage you to review their ordinance language and take steps to establish a timeline to create a similar allowance for a broad scope of bargaining it has been clear over the last few years that the voice and expertise of employees is valued within this division's decision making and we want to see that commitment codified we are optimistic that we are very close to finding agreement on the details of the resolution and we will be back in
011touch as soon as we can provide more constructive feedback on the proposal we reviewed with Dr Gurley and the team earlier this week in the meantime I also want to share with you that Educators and students both have reported that while the current proposals by our governor to modify the transgender policy are causing some stress and discomfort everyone has felt that the actions taken by Dr Gurley the principles in the board have mitigated those concerns as much as possible Educators appreciate the support they have received in supporting students and are encouraged by the commitment and equity to equity and the protection of vulnerable students members of the Charlottesville Education Association stand ready and willing to work collaboratively with you on this issue as well the last couple of weeks have been extremely challenging for a
012number of reasons and we look forward to continuing to talk about ways we can support employees as they process these events thank you I also have for you um just some information about from the vea about how to support transgender Youth and so I'll just leave that with Leslie for you all thank you thank you um next we have Miss Christine Esposito recent birthday girl good evening Dr Gurley Madam chair and school board members I'm Christina Esposito the 3-4 resource teacher gifted resource teacher at Johnson and I live in the city I'm here to share some of my experiences here as a gifted teacher in the city and specifically at Johnson since the city made the decision to shift our model to be inclusive rather than exclusive I've had the privilege to watch Magic happen
013on an almost daily basis whether it is watching a student who struggles to decode delve deeply into analyzing Jabberwocky or the lyrics to the song Glory from the movie Selma or watching a student who struggles in math feel successful as they work through a series of non-linguistic logic puzzles or to try and find an equation for all the numbers between 1 and 20 but only allowed to use four fours every student has the opportunity to be challenged every student has the opportunity to feel like school is and should be hard as students walk in the door in the morning they ask me if I'm going to make their brains hurt today when the answer is invariably yes I am often greeted with greatly exaggerated groans accompanied by big smiles this has been possible not because
014I'm the challenge fairy sprinkling challenges here and there for students who need them but because at Johnson we made the fundamental shift in how we work while we have always viewed students as our students the structure of the gifted program and intervention meant that reading and math Specialists worked with their kids and I worked with my kids and sometimes in very rare moments those groups might have overlapped today they are truly our kids I work closely with our math specialist and our reading specialist to support and complement tier one instruction during my push-in lessons more importantly and in my opinion far more powerfully I am working with classroom teachers reading and math Specialists to differentiate instruction throughout the day it has always been true that students are not gifted for an hour a week it
015has always been true that students deserve to be challenged no matter where they are on their Learning Journey this new gifted model has allowed all of us to look at our students with new eyes I've learned how to better scaffold the challenges I offer and I hope that I have helped teachers and Specialists find places in the day where even the students who struggle the most are given opportunities to shine we are still very much a work in progress but in the fall of 2018 if you had told me we would be here I would not have believed you my new more amazing job is a daily reminder that some of the solutions to the challenges we Face are hampered only by the failures of our imaginations thank you all right Mr come on do
016we have yeah I do have someone Jonathan is promoted to be able to speak he's virtual tonight all right Mr tillock hello everyone can you hear me yes sir great um hello everyone um I uh have a student in the school system and I just wanted to very briefly express my concern over the proposed uh Virginia Department of Education uh published draft Provisions to the model transgender policies specifically I feel that these proposals put in real danger students who are already uh having severe issues with mental health bullying and other things so I was hoping that um uh I'd like to request a couple things um first of all I would like to have everyone if they can um suggest the revocation of these draft revisions and and to return to the existing model and
017then I would also like to uh hope that the school board can reject these new policies and and protect these vulnerable students and uh I think the best way to do that is to maintain the policies that we've been operating under that's all I have to say thank you thank you sir Mr Cuomo anybody else okay I think that but I think she's not in there yet all right but I think that's a good time um and a good segue into something that I'd like to read tonight um and this may have gone out to the community already but in response to Jenkins administration's proposed changes regarding the treatment of students who identify as transgender and non-binary the Charlottesville City School boards strongly affirms superintendent Dr gurley's commitment to continue to support our lgbtq plus
018students staff parents and Guardians and others within our school communities in this stance we are supported by federal Title IX legislation which extends School protections based on gender identity in addition our approach is in keeping with Virginia law which requires the Virginia Department of Education to issue guidance to support transgender students according to evidence-based best practices it is worth noting that a recent attempt to legislatively overturn this law in Virginia fail our approach also follows our own non-discrimination policy which since 2013 has protected students based on gender expression and identity on top of all of this protecting students is the right thing to do we are committed to maintaining our existing policy adopted earlier this fall which brings together in one place our prior practices for creating a supportive environment for gender expansive and other
019students while we continue to learn in and grow in our capacity to support transgender and non-binary students we are committed to moving forward with best practices supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others we will not Retreat to fear misunderstanding and bullying one example of how the governor's proposed new guidance fails to extend basic respect to transgender and non-binary students is the simple courtesy of calling students by their chosen name schools across the country already extend this practice to their students whether the child uses a middle name A variation of their first name or a completely different name or nickname why per this pending guidance would we exempt our gender expansive students from this basic decency we have always partnered with families and will continue to do so part of the school's role in
020every area of a child's growth is to work alongside students and families and to help them navigate new terrain and to seek their help as we also navigate new train having said that one of the values that schools offer young people is another set of trusted adults most of us can recall a time when we asked a caring teacher clergy member relative or family friend for support counsel or a lifeline rejecting such connections for young people Limits The Very resource resources that have always been available to them mentoring relationships are at the heart of a successful school and we want to nurture those relationships not police them we are proud and privileged to stand alongside our transgender and non-binary students as in so many other situations when we make changes that support one group of
021students we make our schools better for all of our students we call on Governor Younkin and the Virginia Department of Education to drop this proposed update to the guidance for transgender and non-binary students as one of many school divisions across the state and nation that are committed to affirming and supporting gender expansive students Charlottesville City Schools would be happy to engage in a more productive conversation to promote Mutual understanding with the caveat that our students respect and safety are non-negotiable as a reminder to everybody Virginia is accepting public comment on the proposed due policy through Wednesday October 26th this statement that I just read is on behalf of the entire school board thank you so we're going to close public comment at this point we do have another opportunity later in the meeting um we
022are now moving on to student and staff recognitions we will now have Dr Odie Madam chair members of the board Dr Odie good evening tonight I'm here to share our resolution first on disability history and awareness month you see it there on the screen I believe you have it before you more than a decade ago a group of youth with disabilities requested that Virginia officially recognized October as disability history and awareness month d-h-a-m these dedicated youth also developed a CREDO disability history education and awareness will promote positive attitudes in schools creating a culture of mutual respect understanding and equal opportunities for all before you you will see our resolution while I will not read every word from that resolution it is important to note all that the general assembly the Americans with Disabilities Act of
0231990 the Virginia Department of Education and Charlottesville City schools has done and is doing to ensure that students with disabilities are included do not experience discrimination are fully supported have the same high expectations as their non-disabled peers and so much more last year we served almost 600 students with disabilities here in Charlottesville City schools and our principals and teachers are committed to providing meaningful activities and Equitable opportunities for our students with disabilities our division is doing various things to celebrate disability history and awareness month posters are that have been donated by VCU will be distributed to schools to post on school bulletin boards workshops will be offered for teachers administrators and parents these workshops will be distributed to building administrators and school-based special education staff to post on their learning platforms first for parents to
024access resources provided by the vdoe will be posted in canvas staff will be trained on guidance documents on the development of IEPs on our October 26 professional learning day we are asking staff to wear yellow on October 19th to promote disability awareness for cognitive and intellectual disabilities also Dr Bracy our supervisor of exceptional Ed is looking at yellow wristbands for staff with disability awareness printed on them we're challenging all schools to do a daily announcement devoted to disability history and awareness month and forthcoming we are in the planning stages of a disability history and awareness month Harvest Festival and we're soliciting Community Partners to set up information booths to distribute to parents this may be the month assigned to disability history and awareness month but we know that this work continues all year long so
025this disability history and awareness month resolution is an action item and I do ask that you take action today but I stand ready for questions at this time did you say we're going to try and kick off that Fall Festival this year I'm sorry I don't know that it's going to happen this year Dr Bracey said that it is forthcoming so as quickly as she can get it to happen I think they'll be letting everybody know yeah I think that's a great idea and I think there's probably a lot of partners that would love to join in on that so absolutely any questions anybody else we need to make a motion yes I'd like to do that I move approval of the resolution on disability history and awareness month 2022. second all in favor um
026any opposed okay thank you so now Madam chair members of board and Dr Gurley I'd like to move on to our dyslexia awareness resolution as Miss Becker brings that up for us I'd like to share that we do have a dyslexia advisor for our School Division Steph tadle who leaves this effort our CCS Elementary curriculum now includes explicit systematic and cumulative phonics instruction for every student this Tier 1 instruction is critical for preventing reading difficulties for all students especially students with dyslexia a recent vdoe superintendent's email highlights that the vdoe is offering informational webinars designed for Virginia teachers administrators and parents Ms tatel has this information and will distribute it but just a bit of information for you Dr Tiffany Hogan is presenting recent findings on the language basis of Dyslexia that's a webinar that's
027happening in October Dr Sarah Seiko will be talking about families and schools partnering for children's literacy success also happening in October and the Virginia joint Coalition of learning disabilities and literacy presents two systematic reviews analyzing four Decades of reading intervention intervention research for elementary students who are at risk for dyslexia so that is also happening in October Miss tatel also has several links that she can and will share with staff regarding the questions three questions how can I learn more about dyslexia what is the science of reading and what does the science of reading have to do with dyslexia so our resolution resolution is there before you and again it is an action item I ask that you take action tonight and I am happy to answer questions at this time any questions anybody I
028just want to um as a as a parent of a student who is dyslexic or a young lady who's dyslexic you know this is near and dear to my heart is a big reason of why I'm sitting here and and as a big piece of my journey um as far as my involvement with the schools and I'm appreciative of where we're at with this we've come a long way and I'm grateful for the training that uh universities will be pushing out the Virginia literacy act and we'll be hearing more about that um is right around the corner it's it's never here fast enough but we are as a division incorporating a lot of already what is best for all students but especially students who who struggle with with reading and literacy so this is exciting
029and thank you thank you and lastly I will share our 2022 bullying I'm sorry on that that's right oh yes I waxed poetic there so if somebody would like to in a second second all right all in favor all right thank you all right thank you all right so now I'll share our 2022 bullying prevention Proclamation while I also won't read through this Proclamation word for word I can't say enough how important bullying prevention is to us here in Charlottesville City Schools we want each of our students to feel safe to be safe taking steps to prevent bullying is a big part of that as you can see here almost 30 percent of students in the United States are estimated to be involved in bullying each year and many students miss school each day due
030to a fear of being bullied in the United States we know that bullying can happen verbally physically and over social media so we must be prepared and Vigilant in preventing bullying at all times and we also have a policy that addresses bullying policy j f c m our schools our principals our teachers our counselors are Vigilant about preventing bullying and so they have many activities that occur in October and truly all throughout the year to combat bullying behaviors and so if Miss Thacker can bring up the chart of activities by school you'll see that there's so many wonderful activities that our schools are doing to teach about and ward off bullying for instance we have the kindest character trait as a focus counselor support conflict resolution SEL lessons lessons on the power of the upstander
031rather than the bystander so saying something about it rather than just listening to it and not doing anything lunch bunches actually defining what bullying is and having meaningful discussions about it and so much more we strive to be a bully free School Division and we want all of our schools to be bully free zones and so we will continue this important work this Proclamation is also an action item for you today at this time I'm happy to answer questions Dr Kraft yeah um you know this is one I agree with you it's so important and it I think it's something that does exist in our schools and not only our schools but you know other school divisions as well and um I'm glad to see that there are all of these activities um I guess
032I wonder how effective uh you know are we are we really being effective in the efforts that we are are taking um and I my question actually I was going to ask are Miss Byrd our student representative to share your perspective about bullying and whether there are any other kinds of actions that you feel the School Division might take on this issue sure now I know that there are uh thank you um I I know that there are numerous uh like policies and activities that uh are planned and uh have like the idea of going through but I I think there is at least at at CHS speaking for uh CHS I think there there is a block at some point um where the the sent message gets like diluted at some point and I
033think we're not quite getting as much of the communication about it as uh uh it sounds like uh is intending to be sent um also in relation to this I have drafted a survey and it's in the uh process of being a final approval from the Department chairs at CHS and uh we'll hopefully be going about out next week um it it's very short just like have uh a few questions about uh how prevalent it is at CHS and whether it affects the student or people they know and then any suggested suggestions that they have for CHS or the school system um or how the our policies or communication can be improved anecdotally do you hear about this from students about about this issue do I hear about bullying yes I mean yeah it's definitely
034a prevalent issue at any school and I think uh it's sometimes overlooked at high schools because students are assumed to be able to handle themselves a little more but I think it's definitely uh still a community where students need a lot of support from you know adult intervention and you know just trusted adults so I would say that yes I've um it's definitely a prevalent issue and a group well perhaps um you know when you get the survey results if there are any um any ideas you know that's other students or yourself that you have if you could bring those to our to the school board that would be really appreciated absolutely that's that's the idea but in conclusion I think just like communication is the most important thing because I think that's I think
035the biggest issue is that at some point I can hear the message that we're trying to send um and I think just at some point that message is getting stopped or at least slowed okay thank you yeah and I I you know I say all these things just I just want to make sure that you know the the you know that what we're doing is really having the intended impact that we want to thank you any other questions comments board members right motion please this is an action item as well let me get a second on this all right all in favor um any opposed thank you appreciate it all right next up we have um the adoption of our consent agenda um for the public just for if you don't have an agenda in
036front of you this includes Personnel recommendations or Business Financial and routine reports and approval of our 2022-2023 advisory committees to the school board anybody have any comments about that Madam chair there was um one issue in the consent agenda regarding Personnel the Personnel agenda I would like to I guess we could amend or clarify um in regards to the lead teachers if we can pull that out you can send with you drop that I'm sorry there was two areas there was just some duplication that we're expecting So based on the correction we can continue as normal then is that correct okay so I move that we approve the consent agenda with the modifications um regarding the Lead Teacher earns things thank you my my only comment about this in regards to advisory committees is to
037for the special ed advisory committee I would love to um Seymour Elementary parents being reached out to um trying to engage I mean we do have a nice list of parents there but I felt like maybe only although there is a parent that's got multiple students at each level but just to make sure that we're doing some Outreach to each of those elementary schools all right so we have a motion and a second any other comments all in favor on any opposed great thank you all right and next we move on to our action item sir all right we will start with uh we will start with Dr bet oh I'm sorry you're right we will start with Miss Hoover who will bring us the budget calendar good evening Madam chair Dr Burley and school
038board members um before you you have the uh proposed budget calendar uh for the 20 23 2024 uh budget year uh this calendar was presented to you last month there has not been any changes to it and we've already begun with our budget survey if there's any questions comments can you just remind everybody that budget survey was pushed out to everybody correct yes it was pushed out to our teachers our students our staff our community members anybody that we could reach to be and what is the deadline on that uh it was September 29th so it's over it's closed yes ma'am okay did you feel like you got sufficient input we did a report will be coming back to the the school board uh and Dr gurley's report uh next week and then we'll be
039discussing it at the uh budget work session on October 20th I believe we got about 2430 some responses yes so and and to our student rep were you aware so do we have another opportunity for students or how would you encourage Dr Gurley students to weigh in on that at this point if there's an interest well I guess we could form a lot we could formalize the we could compile the data we already had and if we need to drop it just for this if we want to drop it for the students here at CHS if they have an interest to complete it I mean that can be just so that we can make sure we compile the data we already have but I mean but if students have been interest we can we can
040show you what they think but I don't want to um I don't want to slow down yeah right and and one of our slides is the demographic group that actually responded to it so we will have those responses of students who did get it and if it's a low response we can maybe reconsider right sending it out we did have students to complete the survey it just was it wasn't at the same rate of course as parents and teachers and I guess what I would say especially yeah I'll take your comment is to take a look at this calendar um which is our budget development calendar up on the screen right now and there are lots of opportunities for community members and and always we are we will take input and and emails so even
041if you were say to add one more question to your survey that you're sending out to your classmates you know or just to encourage them if there's things that they would like to share either through you or or to show up at one of our meetings oops go ahead I just had a question how was the the survey pushed out what what the platform and where can I expect to look for surveys like this in the future and kind of spread the work on that I believe it was pushed out via email we posted it out via the email to everyone um not sure whether it was on our website um but the main course was email okay so it pushed out via email so you would have to register to receive updates from the
042schools to receive those surveys correct that would be a bit Shook on I think she's back there foreign I think the main thing I'm hearing now is uh the students are not receiving all the messages that parents do and this is something students have been telling us for a little while and one of the ways I I can't speak to how we can solve this problem exactly um there are a lot of messages that get pushed out through canvas for instance and I'm not I can't speak to other this one was or this one wasn't but even if it did get out pushed out to Canvas that's only one way to reach students we do have a committee who have been reviewing some of our Communications tools and one of the factors we are looking
043at as we look at communications tools is whether the messages can go not only to staff not only to adult family members but to the students themselves because I have noticed over the past few years that we do have a fair number of students reach out to me directly or reach out to my colleague in Communications and say my mom actually doesn't read your emails how can I get the emails and so I think that in a more lasting solution adopting a new tool that can help us speak directly to students some of whom will read our emails and some of them won't or some of whom will check the text messages and some of whom won't but I think that's the lasting solution thank you any other questions comments all right so this is
044an action item I'll move approval of the budget calendar second all in favor aye any opposed okay thank you we will now have Denise Johnson who will um come up for our second reading of the um West Haven Community assignment and this is an action item good evening Madam chair school board members and Dr Gurley at the September 1st meeting Beth Chuck share with you the request for students who live in the West Haven Neighborhood to be permanently assigned to their neighborhood School of Venable this evening I'm asking that the board vote to approve the proposal which continues the transitional work we began in 2019. once the policy is approved we will begin meeting with families who currently attend Berlin Moran and as we continue these conversations with families of community in the community we
045will proactively monitor the ways that we can support our families and schools with the transition I move the approval of this plan a second any questions or comments all right all in favor aye any opposed thank you thank you for all your work thank you everybody for your work on this all right now items for discussion we have Dr Baptist who will give us an update on the school namings committee good evening Madam chairman members of the board Dr Gurley um I'm gonna she's coming uh we have had a committee naming of facilities committee that started back in Fall of 2020 just about the same time Cova did and we did have some meetings we had some discussions we had some of some smaller Community meetings and we we didn't get very far with it
046there was a lot going on in our community since that time we have dealt with this minor thing called coded we have welcomed a new superintendent and we've also been talking a lot about reconfiguration but we want to get back on this task because this is something that a lot of people have been doing in the country and we want to at least visit and make sure we're doing what our community wants so if um if you have received in the packet and are available to the community a longer version of what the process is proposed to be for this year but I'm just going to highlight a few things on the screens tonight so we did have the committee that started back in 2020 and Phil Varner who is a Community member and a
047parent in our schools has done so much research about all the backgrounds of schools and I found it fascinating when I was reading it because I had been with the city schools for quite a few years at that time and didn't know all of the background of various schools so we've used that as a guide to get us going um sometime in 21 we decided that we would approach this based on schools phonologically as they were either last named or originally named and rather than just picking one and say we're going to start here so the first two that we have talked about and doing anything about are Venable and Clark Elementary and next slide so what we're looking at is a process to do two schools at one time and try to get through
048all of the elementary schools during this school year and then see kind of where we are at the reconfiguration or the plans for Walker Buford and anything with the high school for next year so we did have a meeting with our committee in the week I think of September 20th and then with Beth Chuck's help a survey was done are completed and that was posted on the 23rd of September on our website it's also been shared with several community members to share with their groups or their other committee members and so far as of this afternoon as of five minutes ago we've had 147 responses to the survey and the responses have been very interesting they've been all over the map and some very much want the names to stay the same some very much
049want the names to change just as Alexander had some have made recommendations both for Clark and for Venable so it's it's going to be very interesting to see where a lot of the information lands but we will have the community Forum on October the 19th from five to seven I'm Alexander mentioned that and you and Community can sign up for that on our web page it's prominently displayed about the survey and about the Forum after the Forum the committee will get back together look at all the information that we have from the survey and from The Forum and try to whittle it down to some recommendations I'm not saying it's going to be one recommendation it's going to be two recommendations of what it will be but we will be whittling it down and then
050we'll come back to you at the board meeting on November the 3rd as a um discussion item and then if you have any questions or things that the committee needs to go back and look at we will and then it would come back to you on December the 1st for as a recommendation for you to decide either to keep the name as it is or to change the name for the school so that is sort of the process and if you look at the next Slide the next two schools based on the chronological naming of this of the schools would then be Johnson and Burley Moran so we would follow a very similar process post a survey as soon as we come back from the holidays have a community Forum have the committee meet again
051Whittle it down bring it to you February 2nd for a vote of some sort on March the second and then once we finish that one we would go to the next one next slide please look at Greenbrier now Jackson via is out of order Jackson 5 would not normally be the next school but we wanted to put walker Buford in the high school together so we moved Jackson via up and this way we will be looking at all elementary schools during this year so we would start in March with the survey Community Forum the week after Spring Break um committee will meet again Whittle down bring a recommendation to you on May 4th and then hopefully the board can make a decision by June 1st so this process it's is pretty intense but it will
052keep us going and by having dates already on here and we may have to change your data to a day or two but this gives us a plan to work throughout the year and we will of course be bringing information to the board on many meetings throughout the the year to either get input or to ask for a decision so I would ask if you have any questions no thank you I mean I'm glad glad we got this I know we've had a lot of things that have interrupted it so thank you for sticking with it and getting it rolling and just as a reminder we have board members part of that committee I have two board members Dr Kraft Mr Bryant and I apologize to both of them publicly somehow when I did copy
053and paste for the names your names were not where I had them but I've gotten you back in there so you can fuss at me now or later no fussing nice to see you thank you nice to not have to have a major covid update but we again appreciate all your ongoing behind the scenes work with that so thank you thank you all right we will now have a um an equity and family engagement update by Johnson and Johnson that's so funny I love it we're going to trade market again so good evening again Madam chair school board and Dr Girling as always I want to take a moment to thank you for your ongoing support and affirmation of our Equity work we are here this evening with a few updates yeah thank you next
054slide for me first we wanted to introduce you to the new office of Johnson and Johnson no the new office of equity and engagement the office of equity and engagement is comprised of our Equity team and our families school and Community engagement team our engagement team has also adopted a new acronym face which stands for family and Community engagement you will hear and see that as part of our new engagement materials together we have four large areas of focus including equity center professional Learning and Development meaningful engagement organized and implementing a strong volunteer program and maintaining open and effective Partnerships with our community organizations secondly I wanted to tell you about our new professional learning program this year we will have three levels of equity focused professional learning all of our professional learning will align
055with the mission for Charlottesville City Schools our Equity definition and our Equity goals it will also focus on the four domains of the Virginia Department of Education standard six cultural competency our new Equity certificate program which is our highest level of equity Equity focused learning is open to all staff in order to receive the certificate in 90 professional learning points they must fully participate in all of the monthly professional learning lessons this includes the preparation attending the session completing the written homework engaging in independent practice and attending the reflection session we will also have an intermediate level and a basic level for those who have different levels of availability but still want to explore those topics our initial learning lessons began in August and we will have a quick information session on October 13th for
056those who want to participate in the equity certificate program here's the list of our topics on the slide and all about all of our sessions will be facilitated by a Content area expert good evening Madam chair school board and Dr Gurley my name is Bianca Johnson second part of Johnson and Johnson I'm the family engagement coordinator for Charlottesville City schools and within the recent name change ongoing and focused engagement as well as Partnerships is still the core of our work and our contribution to Student Success Community engagement allows us to continue to meet families where they are it also allows us to connect and provide support when needed in Partnerships with the schools and the communities we're able to identify the streets within both of the families and the communities that we can tap into
057all of these efforts are done with the intention to eliminate barriers to Student Success the face team's summer was similar to the Summers before as in we spent a lot of time connecting with many local organizations in hopes to join efforts already in place versus working to create new ones as the family engagement coordinator I also work to support families who attended summer school to help better navigate the process including PowerSchool and the YMCA power Scholars registrations during home visits of course a big piece of our Facebook is coordination of events as needed we supported the back to school bash where over a thousand backpacks and supplies were given out in less than an hour and that was in August I also attended and collaborated with the community for events such as friendship courts back
058to school event Venable's pop-up meet and greets within the West Haven Community bases also had opportunities for a community building and family empowerment for both of our CCS families and staff The First Family University on the Virginia tiered systems of support was held on September 8th we normally Brand family University as virtual Workshop series for families however in an effort to be more inclusive we open attendance to staff and Community Partners such as our YMCA staff that run our after-school programs and our buildings to learn more about our processes within the division there was another tailgate open to all CCS staff and families on September 8th to connect with Partners our new CHS principal Mr Pitt have dinner and play games they ended the evening by cheering on the Black Knights at their game against
059Spotswood we've also started our monthly morning Community meet and greets the next one will be this Tuesday over in Friendship Court one of the community engagement efforts that I felt was the most important in the last few months was the support with the transportation transitions that we've experienced this school year we're all very aware of our changes in the walk zones our bus driver shortage in an effort to make families aware of the changes and get some feedback from them we schedule talk and walk sessions with Dr Gurley and at these sessions we made families aware of other opportunities for students to get to school such as carpooling with others in the neighborhood and riding City Transit at the start of the school year we had an all hands on deck approach to make sure
060that we were all out and all as in central office staff division Annex staff all of us we were all serving as crossing guards greeters walking buses and connectors to additional information I personally walked with Buford students to and from Friendship court and Road Bus 9 many times to connect with students and families that are using public transit there were some families that I connected with that had concerns about public transit and what I found on in most cases is that they just didn't have the knowledge about how it works so I appreciate the first hand perspective as it allows me to experience what the families and the students do on a daily to get to school and as the year progresses we look forward to continuing to provide direct support as needed coordinating events
061as well as maintaining Our Community Partnerships to support our CCO students and Families we are so excited about the work that we're doing as we all know people will forget what you said people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel and our ongoing goal is to make everyone feel valued seen and heard so if anyone has any additional questions ideas we welcome them to reach out to us at any time and thank you all again for your time this evening any questions thank you both so much for everything thank you appreciate you all right next up we have a transportation update by Miss Kim Powell good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Gurley um so this evening I just want to make sure Leslie's finished
062doing her thing with oops went too far there we go so driver update for this evening as of September 29th and these numbers are still true today um for the most part we had eight pupil drivers including two lead drivers two cat drivers helping out at that time nine bus routes running per tier and our tiers are Elementary Walker Buford that middle tier and then high and so that means we have seven regular routes and we have to have two bus drivers running alternative routes during the um elementary and middle times and then when we go get to the high school by that time we have eight regular routes and then we have one route running students to Alternative placements and then we I'm very happy to report we have four drivers in training One
063driver who is now to the point where they're out with the experienced drivers sort of a behind the wheel if you will and three completed the classroom portion and we did so in record time with great efficiency and I'll talk about that in a moment and I was pleased to hear that and this is before the recent action from Council we already had uh as many as four additional drivers in various stages of the application and onboarding process so this is really great news um our new route set will start on November the 9th and to be clear this is going to be such a big change with it with route expansion that it's going to be like starting a new school year so even for students who currently have a bus assignment your bus
064stop may change your bus stop time may change um the the bus color may change because to we have routes now that are not running very efficiently in order to get our highest need highest priority students who have no other way to school as we add routes we want to make those routes as efficient as possible and um so we're really excited about this opportunity but from a routing standpoint November 9th is like a first day of school so our families will be getting a lot of communication we'll be getting the communications as we get closer to that date that's a Wednesday following that two-day break that's when the new routes will go in effect new routes set um our wait lists are Dynamic we're working them frequently doing what we call swaps for students
065who aren't using their seats other students may need it you know there's a lot of activity we're not doing nothing until November 9th as we're developing the new routes um but I can tell you that looking at the numbers um each tier elementary middle and high should have well under 100 students remaining on who are waiting for to get a seat on a bus so that's going to be um that's going to be the best situation we've had since the pandemic so um this is very exciting um I think it's going to be worth all the hard work and wait and I hope our families really experience a lot of relief from this so this is just a glimpse of the new online training that we have set up through canvas and I want to
066give a special thanks again to Jessica Brantley from our CCS coordinator team she's a health and PE coordinator and she actually teaches here at the high school as well she jumped in and just started pouring content into canvas to develop this this course share Eubanks with people Transportation it's public knowledge in general so I'm going to make sure all where she is really really retiring in December and so along with that Dave dillahunt and his team from the city have been videoing this current cohort of uh students going through training with so that's so we're capturing uh this this final chapter of Sherry's driver training and we'll we'll be polishing that and incorporating that into the online course as well so just a lot really this is a great new tool this will this is
067also going to be key for our own employees especially those who work as coaches to help them get through that classroom training part so that then we can it'll be easier just to coordinate their behind the wheel part because we do have a reasonable cohort of our own staff who want to drive to at least help out with Athletics and so forth and field trips super excited about that this tool is going to really help streamline that for us a few other quick notes because transportation is about more than buses for us now for sure um we do have two School staffed walking School Bus groups it's actually multiple groups but we are operating successful School Bus walking groups serving Clark families coming from Friendship court and serving Venable families coming from West Haven and
068those have been going very well our crossing guard coverage has more than doubled from last year special thanks to Mr Jason Lee for all of his hard work getting people and and helping to get that program taking it to a new level really and we're very grateful for our crossing guard team they're they're really there was a picture in the Johnson and Johnson presentation of one of our great crossing guards and um and then bike and pedestrian infrastructure improvements we still meet um every Thursday with Brennan Duncan from the city and a lot of work has been done and you can still see that on our website but um the work does continue the things that are remaining now are more a little more complex a little more costly but that's still a place people
069can look at you know where what's been done and where we're going continuing to work with the city to make bike and pedestrian infrastructure improvements remind everyone the mycville app is a great way to report infrastructure concerns there's also a form that's available from our website forward slash Transportation if you see a safety concern they have actually a reporting form that's on the city's website but our page can get you to all of that um this was also mentioned during the earlier presentation from the family engagement team our families our students are catching the cat um it's working it's helping um Dr Gurley was a big part of that of the family engagement team a big part of helping students and our community allies have been really just helping to bring this resource uh forward
070to make it more of an option for our families CHS is on the number nine pink route Beaufort has actually served pretty well by red and yellow routes routes four and six still fair for Fair free and so we hope that that will continue to grow and improve as a resource for all of our community and of course especially our students so to wrap up I'm always reflecting about this journey we've been on with transportation and back in September of 2020 you know it's like how do we make it work what's our least imperfect set of solutions and we move past that at the beginning of this past summer and we said can we move forward as a community with a new solution set and I'm really happy to say together we absolutely can move
071forward and we are moving forward with a different solution set that I think is going to be more sustainable for all of us for what lies ahead so thanks to everyone who supported this work the work certainly continues happy to answer questions Dr Kraft just had a couple of questions um do we have any idea how many students are taking the cat buses so we don't have any official numbers on that I know the pink bus that's going to Walker is has quite a few um students that that route in particular but I can work with cat I've asked we've asked that question I don't have any official numbers but I can certainly try to get some it just might be helpful to get a sense of that because I've heard really good things about
072how that's working yep and my one other question is about the small buses the a buses and is there an update on that yeah March April you know I hope they come in when they say they will supply chain continues to be an issue for us even with just electronics for door controls and stuff so I you know I I will continue to stay that to stay to say March April which is what we were told when we ordered um but I'm also kind of trying to manage my expectations works I will be very excited to put those into use as soon as we get them and then we'll need to be continually looking at what's our next step what's our next move how many more of those would make sense any other questions comments
073this bird um thank you as always but can I sorry you kind of slipped it in but I think it's kind of big news to kind of as far as what the city put out yes um I'll be happy to talk about so they announced just this week I believe we wanted to affect Monday um 21 an hour is the new starting base rate for full-time driver and the existing drivers all had a 12 action from where they were so um if I'm not mistaken and again I have to be careful because I don't stay right on top but 21 was is the highest rate I've heard for our area as a starting rate so we're super excited about that we still meet weekly I mean um the infrastructure work the transportation work we have
074a new uh new security safety meetings happening weekly there's a lot of things to do but the work is really um we're making progress It's all incremental but that's a big step on the city's part yeah thank you for sharing that out again and I do want to just say thank you to Dr Gurley and and you all who are having those weekly meetings and thank you to the city and um for for taking that action to help support our students and and community members so thank you thank you Miss Powell we have um Beth Chuck who I think stepped out so I can step in she stepped out I can step in you can or I can do it she's juggling today's news so as we're waiting for her um the next topic is
075our proposed legislative priorities and just I'm gonna jump ahead just a little bit that we will have our delegate and Senator meeting with us later this month to go over local priorities or what we as a school board um hold as priorities for legislation in the upcoming year so and we have this back excuse me I'm sorry I hope you haven't been waiting I was out with a member of the media uh but thank you for having me and um I think we're really just uh for for people watching this school we're meeting this is the time of year that we either monitor what's going on Statewide in terms of legislative priorities of other school divisions and we get those recommendations from agencies like the Virginia school board or the Virginia Education Association and so
076we would generally in alignment with those recommendations and I think Mrs Ms Becker tucked some of those that have come in already into the document that's posted here and it's also a time that we as staff do our own brainstorm excuse me about issues that are important to us or where we might get some legislative assistance on clearing up some log jams about some things that might might have it might have a legislative solution and so we meet with our local electeds uh Senator credides and delegate Sally Hudson and we talk about these issues and they tell us what they're hearing from other uh from their peers and they ask us how can we help in Charlottesville and we are very lucky we've always traditionally had very strong supporters of Education representing us and they've
077also been big advocates for our goals here in Charlottesville so we did share this list of items that are top of mind for us and I don't want to review them in detail here but we did give a brief summary here and they're just truly just looking as you know the the for instance the special sales tax that is going to be well known to all of you and anyone who followed the legislative sessions last year that's to give local voters not just in Charlottesville but across the state the chance to approve a one percent sales tax in favor of school construction so that that did fairly well in the legislative session last year but did not do well enough to get approved so uh entering into that process again would be a top priority
078for all of us finding uh just this is an area where our previous local electives were able to very effectively help us in the past and a very similar issue has arisen with Aftercare the transitional period of when school stops and the YMCA's Aftercare starts there's a little bit of a headache about the Staffing requirements there so again we're hoping for a sort of a legislative exemption to smooth over that another issue that we've seen and heard of is the idea of Second Chance hiring for certain felons who non-violence who might be a good fit for positions like custodians or like school bus drivers and because again we have some there's there's legislation that prevents us from even considering that policy so uh we just wanted this is a big movement nationally in a variety
079of fields and we just wonder if there's an opportunity uh within the school setting and then uh lastly on school transportation this really gets back to those um issues again that they made progress on this on the state level last year but we would like to see more progress for um for not having the CDL for driving a slightly bigger type a bus and for using a non-yellow the the expense comes in when you buy a bus that has been tricked out for school purposes so if we could use a non-yellow activity bus for greater purposes that would that would be a big cost savings not just for us but for other schools across across the state so those are some of the bigger issues and I think the other ones are sort of self-explanatory
080in many areas I don't I don't need to go through all these but the salary increases just simply that one is um when the state does salary increases we totally appreciate it but often they do it limited to the standard of quality positions and not only we but I think virtually every School Division in the State hire well beyond the standard of quality positions so those staff raises when they're tied to the exact number of positions that are generated by a formula don't actually cover all of our staff and the local schools have to come up with the extra for that and then finally the fact-finding panel for Grievances and dismissals I'm not I don't have as much Clarity around that one but I think prior to 2013 school divisions had sort of two options
081for handling this and starting in 2013 those options were narrowed down to one and so I think uh the the the request is to go back to the to a place of giving School divisions two options for addressing grievances the others I think are very they're straight out of bsba and again we have traditionally been in sync with the requests that come in from other state organizations and not only that but our local electeds have historically been very supportive of those Statewide uh requests as well so usually when we have those meetings we don't spend a lot of time on the Statewide ones they're more curious about which ones are actually emerging from Charlottesville or from Albemarle that they can take forth if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer Communications thank you
082thank you appreciate it foreign okay and the next item was board response to written reports and that's a list that board members um contribute to just to let everybody know the different committees and activities that we've been involved in and that's posted and then we are now to our next opportunity for comments from members of the community so we'll start again with anybody here in the media center if you would like to make comment please feel free to step forward to the podium please state your name your address and remember you have three minutes for your comments please good evening my name is Janet Driscoll Miller I am a resident I'm actually an out of District parent and I have two children in the Charlottesville City schools at Charlottesville High School one in ninth grade
083and one in 12th grade I'm here to speak to you tonight because I'm very concerned in part that we don't even have this on the agenda this evening that we need to speak about the recent lockdowns that were that occurred in September at CHS thankfully thankfully these were false alarms however we have not done enough as a school group as a school as parents as a community to address these issues so I want to tell you convey to you what I have heard from students and other parents about these lockdowns and what occurred and what we feel is missing so there are two main points I want to talk to you about tonight one is safety drills and the other is the safety of the facility itself so number one uh of course we want
084to keep our students safe the first issue is that students came home and told me my students and other students told me that stories about what happened on those days when I took a look at what the safety protocols were I took a look at the eceb EC ebcb safety drill information in the school board policy which stated that students and employees have to have safety procedures and drills at least once per year and then further there was a safety protocol update in May and June of this year that was approved by the school board that said there should be at least four lockdown drills per year as of this date and the court first quarter is almost done we have not had a lockdown drill to my knowledge at CHS according to my students
085that I have talked to there has not been a lockdown drill as you can imagine that's pretty difficult for kids who are new to the school and don't necessarily know all of the emergency routes the way they should so that needs to occur immediately um Additionally the documentation in the safety protocols that were adopted in May and June of this year by the school board refer to the Run hide fight from ready.gov which is the typical uh information that most people are given about active Shooters in situations where they're in a building or a community however I don't think that we're using this consistently because I heard a story of a frightened ninth grader who specifically asked to flee the school and go to the woods because he had a safe path to do so
086and he was told no by his teacher that he could not flee the school uh that does not fit with those guidelines so I do not feel we're being consistent in our guidelines and teaching which makes those drills very very important what CCs is promoting to school to teachers and students differs in some ways than what parents are hearing so we need to have consistency in what that protocol is so we as parents can make sure our children are well well prepared for this as well secondly I want to talk about the safety audits of the schools the facilities themselves so annually ccs and CPD do safety audits of our schools and they are that isn't and con in accordance with this code of Virginia so it's a state law that we have to do
087so from what I understood the last one was done in the spring and in talking with students uh again who were in the situation and other discussions with parents who talked with principal Pitt I don't believe that an audit has been done during this particular school year and what we found was that students told us there were multiple points of failure including but not limited to the fact that teachers cannot lock in some cases their own classroom during a drill they do not have a key to do so substitutes do not have a key to lock the classroom in one of those situations that is a point of failure that we can control in closing as a CHS parent I requested this the school board provide us within two weeks of today's date as parents
088the following information number one a date on which to expect a completed safety audit of CHS given that we have had three lockdowns in the past month and I'd like to know the findings where are the failures what can we do as a community to help fix them parents should expect this information in writing and available to them either by request or sent home with students second a set date for an active shooter drill at Charlottesville High School where teachers and students alike are taught how to respond in this emergency situation and to take the appropriate routes to flee the school right now according to the protocols that were set in May and June we have 11 fire drills a year and only four lockdown drills there were zero Fires at Charlottesville High School last
089year ma'am you're out of time so if you can finish but we prepare more for fires than we do for active shooters that is not okay we need to reevaluate that so let's evaluate that too and a copy of standard Acts or shooter protocol so that parents can help their students understand at home the appropriate actions to take as well thank you so much thank you very much hello hi hello so just to give a different parent perspective um I am also the parent of a Charlottesville High School student my name is Becca Saxon and I like I I think there's certainly some things that could be tightened up and I've had some conversation um with Miss Chuck and I think some of my concerns have been passed on um to the appropriate places to
090get some resolution I worry that if we send all of the protocol to parents like there has been so much information out there after the shooting that happened in Michigan last year and it and the aftermath of Parkland the more people know what the protocol is the easier it is for Bad actors to figure out how to circumvent that protocol um so it's a fine line between how much do you practice and how much do you keep to yourselves in the interest of security for the teachers and the students who will be living through that um so I don't know I I also know that there's a so many reports of staff being traumatized from some of the ways that we do active shooter drills around the country the last thing we need is because
091these most of these school shootings which are exceedingly rare are actually students who are either current students or recent students in the buildings the last thing we need is to get it deeper into teachers Minds that they should be afraid of students it will it dramatically impacts how they build relationships with the students it dramatically impacts academic achievement the more we focus on this um and so I trust that there are experts out there who know what you need to do and that you all have the ability to follow the experts and not get swayed by what parents in a moment of Crisis are asking for I think we can easily end up going too far in the other direction and actually causing more harm so we need we may need some common sense I
092think we do need some common sense um safety upgrades still but I don't want to see us swing the pendulum too far in the other direction so thank you um I I have been impressed with what we have seen this year as a parent and have tremendous confidence despite all of the bumps that we have had this year I have tremendous confidence that my son is in good hands so thank you thank you anyone else in the media center and do we have anybody online yeah we do have uh oh sorry one more person let's please state your name address in three minutes please Andrew Manning physics teacher CHS so I was there for the lockdown I think what I'm here to talk to you about very quickly I have three minutes so I'm not
093going to use all that is just to kind of give you a heads up the staff at CHS right now is kind of kind of Crossroads the last month has been a disaster another way to put it now depending who you talk to they'll put it in different lights but I'm having conversations with staff where there are two different ways you have a conversation with staff member you don't really know you look in the hallway and say Friday right and they're like thank God that's one conversation the other one is you look down your eye and you say oh my gosh and right now it is October 6 and we are all at that level that is a problem for whatever reason this year has been way more chaotic than it usually feels there has
094been a tremendous amount of lack of conversation it has felt like there's a lot of people that aren't sure what to be doing the lockdown was a really good example of that and I understand in both cases the concerns of wanting to do more drills and less drills I think what we need to make sure we're doing is we're doing consistent drills there were multiple teachers that did not know how to do a lockdown the key thing is a huge issue there are multiple teachers that can't lock their doors these are basic things that need to be met as professionals we don't ask it we expect it safety must be something we can expect when we walk in here and that does not mean that we expect that everything will be calm orderly because that's
095not how high school works but it is something where we understand that if there is a situation where we're going to walk down we know what to do if someone calls the school we are ready to answer and right now a lot of Staff members feel like that is not going to happen I'm not sure if I'm going to answer right now if I call the office and whether it is a Manpower issue it is that we have people who are very traumatized from that lockdown who have not felt safe coming back to school we need to fix that so that is the challenge that I lay for all of you right now there is a budding crisis at CHS between staff morale and confidence we know y'all can do the work but you have
096to rise the challenge here please show it to us because right now there are quite a few people that are not quite sure if they're coming back next year and after losing 20 teachers last year that is a lot of institutional knowledge just walking out the door if we let 20 more go so that's what I leave with you all today keep doing the great work you're doing but don't forget about us and all that we've been through the past month so far I appreciate it thank you Mr Como online yep so we do have two people uh ready to speak I have Katrina Cooper listed so Katrina you've been promoted to be able to speak and all you need to do is unmute and you'll have three minutes to speak um hello good afternoon
097everyone my name is Katrina Cooper and I live over on Riverside Avenue and I do have a daughter that goes to um Charlottesville High School so um I want to talk today about excuse me about the situations that has been going on at the high school with the lockdowns and all of that extra stuff um first I had to find out through social media first and I figured that was a problem um I called to school of course I probably knew that the alliance was going to be tied up because I wasn't the only parent that was calling but um I just want to say that my main concern and I guess other people concerns is the safety of their children and um like the first Speaker said I think y'all need to do more
098drills and um practice and I also called because they said that you could call to the school and um speak to a mental a mental health counselor and when I called um the number um it was someone I want to say at the superintendent office but I was redirected back to the guidance counselor they made me feel that it was actually someone in the the first person that I spoke with made me feel like it was actually someone in the mental health field to you know talk to my daughter about this situation but it was the guidance counselor that was fine but I was just thinking it was somebody more with the you know education of what was going on and um my next thing was that Miss Cooper I think we've I don't know
099if you've muted yourself on your end um I do not see her in the attendees list it looked like he has a disconnect somewhere okay so miss Cooper if you can hear us if you want to call back in or and we're happy to link you back in I'm next on the list the name listed is DD Smith Didi you've been uh promoted you should be able to unmute and speak at this time thank you um this is Dede Smith I live in the fry Springs neighborhood uh and um I would like to speak about something completely different and that was uh concerning your last meeting which I very much appreciated it was the first time I've ever heard y'all um speak in one voice about the tragedy of the achievement Gap and uh something
100that I'm well known to um be vocal about but I I'd like to actually tell you just a little bit of a personal story to emphasize what I will sort of end up with a potential solution and that is I'm from a family of five children from a relatively affluent white family outside Detroit and uh three of us did quite well in school um but my older brother and my younger brother didn't and uh back in the 50s and 60s there weren't a lot of the resources we have today there wasn't a lot of the conversation in fact it's something people didn't talk about my older brother was a great athlete he did well in high school but was dead by 40. and my younger brother who wasn't athletic but had a knack for mechanics
101has become quite a successful engineer because my parents knew how to deal with that resource my father was an engineer and um I just want to postulate that 40 of my white relatively well-off family failed to thrive in our American public education system and I don't think that's a far off from the norm but you don't see that in your schools when you see that white children are doing very well and children of color are not we attribute it to Poverty we attribute it to lack of book so we have lots and lots of reasons and I just would like to to suggest that it's because we are not set up in our American Education to deal with a relatively normal lack of thriving to achieve to academically achieve am I suggesting and I think
102the reason is you see the families in this community who are white have resources and they find resources for their private resources for their children or they take their children out of your school system am I suggesting you provide those private resources for children of color who may come from families who don't yes I am I actually am because I think it is the only way that we will address this huge gap this tragedy of children not being able to learn to read it is to go to the professionals who know how to deal with it I appreciate your time and I um thank you for everything you do thank you we have her back all right Miss Cooper you are you are back on our screen thank you sorry about that but um yeah
103like I was saying that the fact that they had um and there was the guidance counselor that my daughter spoke would I thought it was somebody else in in the better field and also it was something else that I wanted to say um over at Charlottesville High School I believe they I mean they tell that I know phones are distraction but like when you can't get in contact with nobody and nobody's getting in contact with you at a time like this I don't think they should have the children put their phones and um in a black bag before they go go into class because like I mean I know it's a distraction but things like the things that has been happening in the last past in the last month I think they should be able
104to have their phone but not you know for them to be on it but just I mean for things like that and also um I was at I went over to Charlottesville High School and I I went and I was waiting for my daughter and it and it took forever actually my daughter never came I waited there for 30 minutes the lady at the front desk I mean she said she was calling my daughter and I never found my daughter it made me want to walk through the school and try to see if I could locate my daughter but I I didn't find my daughter until um like um when school was over so I think they need to have a better connection and communication with that too and I want to thank y'all thank
105you for your comments and for calling back thanks anybody else all right anybody else here in the media center all right we will close uh comments for members of the community and now we will open it up to comments from the board so I will start down here I guess with Miss Dooley no comments okay Dr Kraft foreign just just a couple of things um one item this has to do with uh scheduling on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur which was yesterday and um you know it's for for Jewish people it's probably the you know the mo the holiest day of the year so a lot of the students are not in school and um yesterday when I was at Services uh several of them came up to me and said they scheduled the
106PSAT today and we couldn't take it and I don't know if that scheduling was done at the high school level or some is it nationally or whatever but I want to make sure that these students do have a chance to take it and that they're not penalized for that scheduling error and you know just in general to remind everybody that it's it's really only like one or maybe two days of the year that um you know the Jewish students are observing these holidays so to just try to be aware and sensitive to that um secondly again I um regarding the things that we've heard about the lockdowns at CHS um I am I don't want to put you on the spot again but maybe when it's your time for comment I'd love to hear your
107perspective on on what has happened and again what you think we might do differently that's all I noticed a little bit of a trend um even starting with our comments from members of the community Miss Esposito one of the things that she mentioned was innovation and then Kim Powell also met uh mentioned a new set of solutions I think we need to continue with our Innovation new set of solutions and then today we definitely heard from the community maybe a little bit more in our actual board meeting than recent sessions of some areas we can put some new solutions to and think creatively so thank you all and I hope we continue to do that great work thank you Mr Bryant a few things that stood out tonight um first of all I want to
108congratulate our student School Board member for leading the charge and and getting that survey started it was interesting that it came up tonight because I was speaking to a former student of mine who was currently a student at pvcc he's 49 years old and we talked about our experience together me as this teacher and he is a student and bullying was one of the things that he talked about and how it had a profound effect on him even as an adult during this time here in the city schools so this this subject never gets old you will only continue to perfect it as time go on so I applaud you for being the charge on that and I would like to um also congratulate our Equity Team Johnson for their continuous Outreach to those families
109and communities that sometimes their voices are sometimes not heard um and so I want to congratulate them on their fine work also um thank you Ken for the update on Transportation I do see the children walking to and from school and um it's encouraging to to see that we are perfecting that plan as we go along so um our children will continue to be provided transportation and they're also taking um act they haven't they are taking advantage of riding a cat bus as well so thank you all for all of your hard work um I just wanted to speak about the um you know the comments toward the end of the meeting um and to say that it is um it's disheartening and sad it's frustrating um to hear the you know I'm saddened for
110the people in the building I'm saddened for the parents dealing with the stress and the anxiety and um I see that we have work to do in that area um but for the basic things that we can take care of the key issue I feel like we've been talking about this key issue for years and so it it baffles me that there's still teachers who cannot lock their doors like it's just not acceptable at this point if we do nothing else before the next meeting these Keys need to be addressed um because we don't nobody wants anything to happen but it it can and we don't want to look back and say all these all these things that we could have done and easily addressed and I think Keys is a very easy thing to
111address um and the other the the drills when they happen how they happen I will defer to Dr Gurley and his expertise in that area but we hear you and we see that we have more work to do Miss McKeever I just wanted to note that I went to the parks and rec Advisory board meeting and they are looking for student representatives to come and be um it's really hard for me to move closer okay I'll do this how about that um Parks and Rec advisory committee is looking for student Representatives um to be on the board for The Advisory board so that's one thing that I just want to publicly state so that many of my emails can or Ned Mickey's emails because he's the one who writes all these very long emails um
112and he wants to make sure that there are students voices at the table in the Parks and Rec advisory committee I also want to note that their CIP is extraordinary and vague so um really just looking forward to digging into that in our November CIP meeting um also um not I don't have anything wise to say or offer I just am our community has really been through a lot over the past month and Mr Manning as one of my um children's favorite teachers at CHS um just have to respect everything he said and just really appreciate when Any teacher comes before us and gives us their point of view I just think it's so important um and really gives us a glimpse that we don't get even as parents um so thank you for coming
113and um saying that and for being the great teacher that you are um and that's all thank you Miss Byrd all right I will I will comment on the lockdown and Justice the lockdowns in just a second I did want to just mention go back to the beginning of the meeting when you shared the board stance on Governor youngin's transgender policies um I just wanted to emphasize on behalf of as much of the student body is as I can represent that uh we're very happy and encouraged to see that you're on our side uh and I think that there could be a little bit more increased a little bit more communication with the students as to what their rights are and um to what extent they can well to what extent they can trust the
114adults um in the school system and uh what they can trust them with so I think that would just be really important too uh get started um and then as regarding the lockdowns it's a very difficult topic for me so bear with me here um today there was an unexpected or just an unscheduled announcement at lunchtime and there was nearly like an audible gasp in the courtyard um when we hear the beep we go back to those those fifth periods and that seventh period just in the last few weeks um where we ended up you know under our desks in the pitch black um and I think it's we appreciated the day after the most after the most recent lockdown um uh Mr Pitt uh reiterated to the students that uh there were more more
115guidance available after um but you know it's it's an issue not just affecting us the day after um and I think that we need to continue that uh involvement with the student body and their mental health and the teachers absolutely and everybody in the building and my parents at home uh everybody in the building and everybody who knows someone in the building um it doesn't just make it worse the next day um it it continues for for a lifetime um and on a slightly different note related to that uh I noticed in my experiences in the last few lockdowns the the teacher the the manner in which the lockdown was uh the manner in which it happened was inconsistent between the the ways that the teachers handled it handled it um now one of the
116teachers that I had during that time is new this year and um you know I just think that was a little concerning to me uh that it was not 100 entirely clear if if someone needs to go around to every classroom and every teacher in every classroom because every classroom is different if someone needs to go around and make sure we know what's going on every client in every classroom with that teacher like that's what needs to happen then because um like I I was I was concerned by the fact that I don't know which which way was right but they were different different ways in which that was handled um and you know that this is just such a such a a grave um and serious and heavy thing to that I think is
117just I just can't say how important it is that we're consistent if anything um and so I think just reach out to the students of continuing past just the day after and make sure every classroom is addressed like every just look at this this space there were students in this space um at the time and like that was handled differently from the students in a classroom right up there which is different from the student the students in science classrooms versus they're all different and I think um I don't know what needs to happen but something does thank you so much I think she this young lady just said a lot so much appreciated um kind of what I'm taking away from what you said is just the importance um for our students to be able
118to trust the adults now you said that in relation to Governor Jenkins proposed policies but that really does apply across the board for everything and and without a doubt we have wonderful staff here at CCS but and we all need to be able to trust each other right and to hold each other up and and we know and we've heard and I do want to acknowledge um the spectrum of comments the the emotion and I want to validate the emotion of the different parents that we heard from and the teacher and the students and so we as a board do take very seriously all of that and it's our it's our job to kind of wrap our arms around that and work with our superintendent um and and everybody else to make sure that we
119we do better and there's some in my opinion um some urgency to this so I do just want to acknowledge and say thank you for that Lisa can I just say one thing I'm sorry to be out of turn here but I am hearing ongoing trauma amongst the student body and the staff at CHS and I just want to make sure that it is seen and recognized and dealt with um that's what I'm hearing from the comments and um and it really concerns me and I want to make sure that we deal with it um on an ongoing basis right and I do I thank you for that and you're absolutely spot on it's it's you know I think we we did communicate out and those resources and supports continue they're there but to just
120say it for a couple of days and and then step in line and keep on moving it's not that easy and and I do want to acknowledge that so I I do anticipate and hope that we can continue to push out the messaging and and check in with people more consistently and ongoing because you're right this you know this was heavy and scary I can't I can't imagine um so thank you again tagging on to Dr Kraft's comment regarding calendars and and honoring um religious holidays not only for the PSAT but I did hear some concerns about and we might not be able to manage this but that sporting events are also scheduled sometimes on Jewish holidays and and maybe other holidays and that may be out of our control as far as vhsl and
121and how they do that but to the extent that our committee who looks at at calendars and and if we can I don't have a conversation with those at the table who are doing that scheduling I do want to that's the first time I had heard it and seen that chatter and so I do want to elevate that and make sure that that we do take note of that please um and I think that's it for me so thank you everybody for all of your comments and now Dr Gurley well I just wanted first um recognize our student representative I think there's a lot of power and hearing the voice of our students um and so I thank you I think that there are always implications for our work and who better to tell us
122than our students and so I've jotted a lot of notes I've sent Mr Manning and a follow-up email and I think that we just have a lot of work that we can continue to to do I think the word Miss Torres used was a validate and I do want to validate the um the emotions and experiences of everyone I think there's a lot of power in how people feel and so while we are very fortunate that these things were hoax but they also were learning opportunities for us and so I do want people to know that with each experience we hope that we are improving each and every time so that we never have to face this in reality um and so I I do want to just you know affirm you and and I
123apologize that our children have to experience this because we do we love our children we love our staff we love our families um and so we do we have to figure out what that check-in looks like um on a regular on a more regular basis um I do want to also acknowledge I just am surrounded by some really smart people um our leadership team our principals our teachers they're just our custodial staff our cafeteria workers I mean everyone here is um we're we're all in we're all in it together um someone said something this evening and it made me just write down um together is better um you know we did that this summer during our leadership team meeting and someone said something and I just I had to make sure that I I captured
124that that together we are better and I I do believe that we are building a um a better CCS I am thankful and grateful for our um family and our family engagement team our family and community community engagement team there's a lot of work that happened this summer there's a lot of work that's happening right now to ensure or that we're meeting the needs of our families we're communicating information I think you heard that with Transportation I think brighter days are upon us with Transportation I'm very thankful for our community our city partner to getting the salaries up and honoring people because really people I say it all the time when I'm in buildings I am so thankful that people show up because people have options and the sheer fact that people choose CCS um
125just speaks to their level of commitment to our children and all of our stakeholders we do have homecoming come up Homecoming on tomorrow and so I'm very excited that we just are again providing these um just getting back to some normalcy for our students I see a head a head knot over there so our students are just experiencing um just what they consider normal I got to be a part of spirit week on Tuesday I think that was so it's just a lot of great things happening and um together is always better thank you sir I think there's a video I won't post it of somebody dancing as well here at the high school he's got some moves um all right work session wrap up Swift um so there were a couple requests tonight um
126from our student representative Miss Byrd possibly bringing back the results from the CHS schooling survey also if we could see more Elementary Representatives on the special education advisory committee and then lastly the um possibly reopening the budget survey for more student responses thank you and then the calendar the calendar committee to just make note of that please thank you all right um upcoming meetings we it's it's our we're getting busier it's our busier time of the year so October 12th we have um our school board meeting which will be here at five o'clock and that's when we meet with Senator deeds and and delegate Hudson again to talk over our legislative priorities for this next year October 20th is a city school board or the school board work session again here at five o'clock um
127and then the 29th is a school board retreat so school board members mark your calendars please a lot of a lot of meetings and then we have our next regular uh school board meeting on November 3rd here at five o'clock so thank you all again for everything and with that I will adjourn the meeting