001e e e do allow for up to three minutes uh for your comment please state your name and your address before before um you start speaking um we do have or did have I believe Mr Pio signed up um online if he's still there Mr Como um right now there's just one person in the attendees Gallery if anybody does wish to provide comment they can either raise their hand or they can um put a message in the chat so that I can acknowledge them and promote them to our panelist page forceing okay great and then anybody joining us here in the media center if you'd like to um provide public comment you have the opport opportunity to do so now and if not now we have a second opportunity towards the end of the meeting
002there are no hands at uh no hands or wishes to speak at this time give it five more seconds all right thank you and a reminder that we do have another opportunity later um towards the end of the meeting um I am now um had decided to add um back board member comments and my intention for this was if anybody had announcements Andor wanted to report on any committees that we've been assigned to this could um be the opportunity to do that now so that people attending this part of the meeting could hear that and if not you may save your comments towards the end Dr craft would you like to start down there um sure yeah so um you know I think it's been a while so I think it's useful to um just
003remind everybody about the various committees that we serve on so for me um I want to mention a few of them uh first is the gifted advisory uh board and this uh which had its first meeting of the year year we have a new coordinator in jeie fs and so this was a real organizational meeting we had you know a new group of parent Representatives um and basically it was just kind of uh getting everybody on board she's getting herself on board and um you know talking a little bit about how the gifted services are working how they were working uh last year and you know sort of how how we've gotten started so that is a quarterly meeting um second is the school health Advisory board or shab um which um had its first
004meeting as well and uh covered uh areas of mental Wellness nutrition um some Co updates and uh in that meeting the main agenda item was to approve the wellness policy which we did at our last board meeting um here it came from the committee the committee approved it um and we are meeting again next Tuesday um and that is under the leadership of Jessica Brantley um also I serve on the title one Advisory Board um chaired by Patrick Harold and uh this board um um uh the you know the purpose is to really inform us about how the various uh forms of federal funds are being used in our division so these things cover literacy um math family engagement um health and PE and um mental wellness and if I've missed something I see Patrick
005is here and he'll he'll fill it in but basically just to talk about what our division is doing in each of these areas um and I think that one is a quarterly meeting um I believe um the other things that I've been doing um you know I've been somewhat involved with the uh reconfiguration and and meeting with some folks who are who are wanting to find some additional sources of funding for our reconfiguration of our division and work working to do that I've attended the um uh design uh Team meetings which have been really really interesting you know along with other board members here I've also been part of the United Way vision Keepers Group which is um it's focused on preschool you know early childhood and preschool in our community so it's not just
006our preschool program but preschool um Services uh across our our entire community and that group uh met a few months ago and I think is also very interested in our um our project of a um comprehensive preschool program at Walker School um I'm a member of the the vsba legislative advocacy committee which did have its first meeting and you know as a way to begin to look at what are the issues that we want to be advocating for um and both in our at the state level but also at the federal level that's the purpose of that committee um and gosh I was able to attend the um cultivate Charlottesville um dedication of these beautiful Sund dials to the dedication to the Charlottesville 12 um um at each of the the school-based Community Gardens and
007that was really lovely um I was able to attend the CHS orchestra concert the inperson concert at the Pavilion which was also really exciting to see everybody performing live again um and I'm working with um the group impact uh and you may know that their one of their agenda items has to do with um after care for preschool which is an issue that we and our division will need to address um and um I think that's about it thank you Dr craft Mr Wade I'm I'm not going after all of that I'll I'll pass and and I'll go later I will be respectful of our audience as well I have not met with any my communties since I last me um I'm a member of the public Education Foundation board otherwise known as PF we
008had our first meeting we meet once a month the first meet the first Wednesday of every month and so we met yesterday uh we had a conflict in September but that's okay uh and we uh do uh Mrs Paula Culver Dickerson thank the board of CF for the funding to purchase uh to assist in purchasing the picnic tables that you see outside at the elementary schools in order that the students have lunch outside do different classroom activities outside and get an opportunity to take in the fresh air I'm also a member of the prep board which is the pedmont Regional Education Program it is a regional program for our special needs students we have students at Ivy Creek which is located directly behind albamar High School our prep board meeting uh was last week Dr
009Gurley uh was there he was introduced and we received an update from our new executive director Miss NE uh of all of the things that are going on we have a new website so you may go to our website and find out anything and everything that you need to do and Miss Katrina Lee was um our special education representative from the charlott fille school the last meeting that I attended which all of us attend and I don't know if everyone understands but um kch which is the charlotteville albamar technical center has a board we meet uh every other month and then quarterly we have a joint board meeting and the joint board meeting are for the members of Charlottesville city and albamar county but in between we do meet and during the most recent meeting
010we received an update as it relates to students and our first budget request and the information will be coming forth to uh Dr Gurley in order that meet with his executive team look at what is being asked and make a determination as to how that will figure into our budget U and we do the same thing um for PR thank you I don't have any comments okay great thank you all right we will move on and I'll save my comments for later thank you um and now we are moving on to adoption of our consent agenda any questions board members comments I actually do have a question um Miss pal that is a budget development calendar has been updated but when I looked at it it seemed very similar and one of the things that
011I recall at our CIP meeting with the city is that we might have to change our development calendar given the kind of where the city is right now so I wondered if there were any changes associated with that in reflective sorry I didn't mean to but I just recall that thank you got it we're just learning how to use microphone um there we are still in conversations with um the city leadership not the elected officials but the staff trying to figure out if there will be any impact or need to look at it you know some speaks to the meeting schedule but at this time there there's no concrete recommendations so I think our best bet is to hold the course but just keeping in mind that with the city um in a little bit
012of flux right now with their leadership it it may have an impact on our calendar but we just don't have a definitive better recommendation at this point I believe that when they um when leadership situation that the city settles down a little bit then we might be able to make some meaningful recommendations if if it makes sense to shift any of our dates to give them time so that we come together with the most uh with the best information to make the most well-informed decisions I'm sorry I don't have a better answer than that right now but I think it is good to be mindful that the transitions there could affect our calendar perhaps because there's a c you know we just want to see we want to make the best decisions we can with
013the best information available I guess I'm sorry and we have been huddling with them so we and so we've been talking having those conversations doing our huddles about the the calendar and if we need to make some modifications but we do have some regular huddles with them schedule we just had one that was this week we did our second one was this our next one will be in December um with the city manager's office the two deputies that are there and Christy ham with the budget office and um that's helpful but we you know we can't um they can't they're reluctant to give a lot of definitive Direction until they have you know things more clear with their leadership picture which is understandable yeah of course I and I guess just because of the governor's
014race too I wonder how um you know again I just see all these front heavy meetings and I know how redundant it can be before the superintendent presentation of of proposed budget so given that the governor's budget is probably going to shift a little bit in the general assembly section like how useful are some of these early meetings if the the whole thing is going I I I I don't recall this specific instance it is an interesting Dynamic that we have where the outgoing Governor's budget is the first one that hits the table and that'll come out um typically it's the Friday right before winter break and so um we're going to certainly still be giving that budget a lot of attention to see where things stand because there are some things in that that
015won't change like we'll have a much clearer picture what's happening with the BRS rate that's not subject to change um so but yes you are correct it could be one of those budget Seasons where we see quite a bit of change as we move from the governor's budget to the budget from the two sides of the general assembly and then finally culminating in that budget where they come together with the general assembly budget proposal um your your guess is as good as mine as to how that will look but it is always an interesting Dynamic especially since um it's a handoff between different political parties in that in that situation in this situation than you good questions I'm sorry I don't have better answers I just feel like we're gonna this is going to change
016like the calendar is going to continue to change and I don't know that we need to approve it every time but that's right well to and good point and to be clear the session the date that I think we're looking at because we all know that work session on that Saturday is a very meaningful one that kind of sets the tone for a lot of what happens after that and so we are looking at that date but we we don't have um and so we might will we want to shift that maybe by a week or something perhaps but we're not at that point yet just keep our Saturdays open just keep them all late January no problem through the holidays no holidays on weekends at all this year all right any other questions regarding
017um adoption of consent agenda or items on that all right believe we had a motion and a second correct all right any um all in favor any opposed all right thank you all right we are moving on to items for discussion and our first Transportation Dr Gurley yes but we will bring forth Miss pal and we will bring forth uh Mr Cuomo and I know this is one of the areas we've had a lot of conversation about with regards to our transportation and we talked about last month about our student attendance so they'll bring us an update thank you Dr Gurley and Madam chair and members of the board um the transportation information that we received for this month um from Garland Williams and his team at the city um you know it's not static
018we're certainly not sitting still um but you know so I'm just going to hit some highlights here we have um you know from the from where we were in August where we had 12 regular drivers and three relief drivers with the help of Transit we're up to effectively 17 drivers plus the three relief and so that's really important as far as other drivers coming online over the past over the past 30 days five individuals entered training two completed there are another two who have completed the classroom portion of the process and they are now in the process with DMV getting ready for road tests and learner Learners tests and so that process is moving along one of the five did complete the classroom training but then um resigned from the process so we're four for
019five with making stud progress that's good um and again remember our Target if we're at 17 now we've got a solid four in the pipeline we're trying to get up to 28 or 30 for the long run right so that just gives everybody some perspective um they've interviewed and extended offers to um 13 individuals since since August um so again I won't read all of those statuses to you and I'm going to come back to their F the situation with the physicals at the very end because there are two key takeaways with the process um you know routes again we're right around 17 uh per tier we think about our transportation model we have to think about it in tiers there's that Elementry tier the middle tier serving Walker and Buford and then the high
020school tier but then those aren't the only things we're doing there's also quite a few alternative placements and special needs Transportation um needs that have to be met but we're do a lot of creativity going into Meeting those needs um the driver recruitment efforts continue they have not let up on that at all and then the two key takeaways before I turn the microphone over to Pat Cuomo is just um the DMV closure locally is going to present a little bit of a challenge and they uh you may have heard about that independent of the driver conversation but DMV is going to be closed for about 30 days here and so there is some concern about that pushing delaying the process for some of our um drivers who in the pipeline and then a bigger
021concern for the brand new hires is they were really having difficulty with getting physicals done the necessary physicals but I learned today and this is an update from what is on the report that they're hopeful that um Med Express they may be crossing a final hurdle to get them online as well as another provider and I told them if that did not work please let me know because I would bring it back to the board to see if some of you could do some of the great work that was done with D&B to help us come up with a creative solution to help expedite that because we just don't need any um any other obstacles in our path or more importantly in the path of these individuals who are stepping forward to to drive so
022um if you don't hear a cry for help from me in the next week or so you'll know that that physical situation has been resolved and with that I'll turn it over to Pat to talk about attendance thank you um Madam chair members of the board Community um we were asked to present some attendance rate by uh by our bus status whether children who were riding the bus or not riding the bus if there were significant impact on the attendance rate and I'm here tonight to present that to you uh just keep in mind this is more of a statistical analysis we know that a lot of emotion time and energy goes into making the bus routes and into uh delivering our students to school and getting them there and I know that so many
023people are working very diligently to make that happen so um my apologies if this comes across as statistical and dry but we wanted to give you an accurate comparison to um the questions we've been asking so the attendance rates um were taken we took a slice from September 20th through October 18th it represented 28 days of school and what we saw were the following pieces of information our overall attendance rate for that time period for all students was 92.8% attendance rate and that was a total of 4,326 students as we dig a little deeper into each of the categories that we're able to Define and represent we have students who were assigned to the bus those were students who were who were put on a bus assignment to be taken toe from school that represented
0241,654 students that attendance rate is 90.1% and that is a 2.6% lower rate than the district average during that period of time moving to our next group this was students who were not requesting transportation that represented on 1,887 of those students in the total pool they had an attendance rate of 94 .4% that's approximately 1.6% higher than the slice that we took for all of our students and we compare those numbers against one another you can see that uh those who were those if you look at the blue graph chart is just our entire division which is 92.8% um you can see that assigned to bus the comparison to the weight list and those not requesting Transportation all fall Within in that range of 90.1% to uh 94.4% with the the division line being 92.8%
025so I thought what we could do on top of all this I know some of the numbers um can be convoluted but we're trying to clear this up the best that we can I wanted to also just show you a historical comparison overall for the entire year and we know that 1920 was uh mixed in March with our with our learning going virtual and we know that uh 2021 um we had we have some uh struggles and challenges but our overall attendance rates um remain in the 90s 95s and 96s and um I do apologize the the current rate for 2122 which is not in there is actually 95.8% % so we have a 96.8% as the high in 201819 when we were um had full just about full bus driver capacity and full buses
026um we dipped a little in the 1922 1920 school year 2021 and here we are right around 95.8 overall so those are just some numbers that you can um digest and massage into where we are overall and again I just just want to say overall from a statistical standpoint the the attendance numbers are affirming and I think that drawing conclusions and inferences we we can certainly attribute that as a testament to our dedicated staff and our dedicated community of course we know there are circumstances and we work hard and diligently to address those circumstances and we look and we work hard to make sure that every student has what they need to get to and from school uh we're also constantly looking at this data to inform our decisions make changes make adjustments way find
027ways to become more efficient um and the division and partners are working extremely hard to hire drivers and find those Creative Solutions for our students and as we know as we've been saying over and over again right this work continues and will constantly continue until we have the Solutions in place that we know are the best for our students and that concludes um the statistical presentation for our bus and attendance rates thank you sir any questions comments board members um Leandra we'll start with you down at that end I was wondering when we were talking about the bus drivers how we're at 17 plus the three release drivers and we're aiming for 30 is 30 the number um that would give us the coverage or is 40 the number in total that would give us
028the coverage like there was an amount we needed to cover the route so 30 gives us coverage in some um additional like the relief drivers relief drivers are important just like substitute teachers are so um 30 gives us coverage I know ultimately 40 would make things much more comfortable but right now if we had 30 I don't think we'd have weight lists but 40 is the goal 40 is the goal um 40 puts us in a position where we could probably do a lot of the alternate transportation and special Transportation more coste effectively um there's a note on there about what we pay a particular vendor um per week to do alternative transportation so 40 is ideal 30 is um way more comfortable and better than we are right now so 30 30 should eliminate
029the weight list 30 30 eliminates all weight lists and has some relief drivers 40 allows probably optimal efficiency and flexibility that's a good way to explain it also want to mention on the attendance report that Pat provided we were talking just before the meeting that slice we took if you notice those days it happens to be like during the surge so keep that in mind um that was a rough time it was a rough time to take the um but that was affecting attendance rates then as well I guess is all our wanted to point out and um the weight L we're always talking about that 1,000 is it 1,887 was that the weight list or just no Transportation or don't need the bus don't need to Pi um the weight list is not that
030High um I didn't actually end up putting that in the presentation but the weight list the last number that I heard I looked at was in the 700s yeah so we're out of of the 800s right I think the last time I was here at this Podium the weight list was in the 800s we're now in the 700s um I don't forgive me I don't have the exact number but um it's because we kind of shifted and we are still using the data to help inform our decisions and understand where you know Transportation could be really significantly impacting students um remember a lot of students who are on the wait list they want transportation and that's important for us to ultimately be able to get back to providing that for everyone who wants it but
031it's not necessarily impacting their ability to access their education and attend school regularly okay um can we the when you report them at the next meeting can we include because I know some people on the wait list because their parents would like them to ride the bus but they can't but they can take them to school are there students on the wait list where we're having to find workarounds for them that number would be [Music] important so certainly yes I can see if we can um look into like providing additional information on the wait list um I think that's that's all my questions for now thank you thank you m Brer no questions Mr Bryant a quick question um the attendance those who are writing the bus is at 90.1 those who did not request
032is 94.4 so is there is there any reason why those numbers don't it's less for those who riding so keep in mind that um students who are prioritized for the bus are students that need that extra support to get to school like that's and sometimes those students have other reasons for not attending school as well um I I you know P I don't know if you'd like to elaborate on that anymore and I don't want to be too subjective but some of it and some of it also is we um talked about the ABS 19 um which is our students who were absent because of um having to quarantine so some of the students who were the high priority students were also students who were having to quarantine so during the quarantine period they were
033not we weren't giving up their spot on the um on the bus um so that also counts into some of the absenteeism as well and we've been working through that's another number that we we are also tracking the number of students who had the quarantine during that time because that number um that number was impacting attendance and thank you for reminding me some of those students actually had to be in quarantine because of the bus because through the bus they were cons they were identified as a close contact UM I wasn't I know at least three times we had to pull a video to determine all the close contacts on a bus and those students go into quarantine and then that affects their attendance Mr ke okay Mr Wade Dr CRA my only question just
034curious are we are we doing field trips is this Transportation affecting field trips at all not as many as we would in Normal circumstances there are um certain trips that are being authorized but not as many because the drivers we have are driving so much that it's um it's just very it's very straining um and there are we're running buses in the middle of the day for vaccinations and things like that too so um there just a lot of Demands on the drivers that we have so there aren't many trips at all but I can't say universally we haven't authorized any and certainly like um fine arts competitions and the sports we are you know keeping those things going some um clubs were impacted though like there's a Fencing Club at Buford I didn't know
035about till this year but it always had a bus that took it over to carare W but you know some things like that have been have been impacted okay thank you thank you for the work and the statistical analysis presentation appreciate that and as always appreciate all the efforts by everybody um to get our kids to school so thank you so much for that okay um our next item is our Equity update Dr Gurley it's Denise Johnson and Bianca Johnson and I think they are bringing a few extras with them as well thank you ladies e good evening Madam chair school board and Dr Gurley as always I want to take a moment to thank you for your ongoing support and affirmation of our Equity work as we go forward with updates I thought it
036important to incorporate those who are participating in implementing the work so today we have our family engagement coordinator members of our division level Equity committee who are also staff members and parents of CCS students and our inclusive Excellence consultant who was provided to us by Dr Kevin McDonald and uva's office of diversity equity and inclusion and she's right behind you joining us from Missouri hopefully this evening our presentation will give you a highlevel overview of our current Equity work and the recommendations submitted to Dr Gurley about the proposed inclusive Excellence framework and data dashboard both of which were charged to last year's division level Equity committee to create both a framework and a data dashboard proposal are working documents so any feedback or suggestions are welcome and we will submit them to Dr Gurley for
037review first we will have a brief update on community engagement uh good evening Madame chair of school board and Dr Gurley my name is Bianca Johnson and I'm the family engagement coordinator for CCS ongoing and focused engagement as well as Partnerships have been at the core of this school year successes um Community engagement allows us to meet families where they are to connect and provide support when needed it also allows us to come together to make a difference together we were able to identify the strengths and supports within both the families and the community that we can tap into all of these efforts are done with the intention to eliminate barriers to Student Success I also have to acknowledge the res resilience that we've seen in our students despite the many challenges that they face
038daily one example of this resilience is um how our students have been able to attend school in spite of the bus driver shortage I spent some of the summer connecting with local organizations and hope to join efforts already in place versus creating new ones those conversations led to coordinating Community meet and greets for Vision staff to see families and begin the work of building relationships we use this time to also register families for power school and schedule home visits for preschool registrations as well this summer of the building on the family school and Community Partnerships not only allowed us to establish new Partnerships within our community but also successfully execute an elementary back to school snack drive for our students where the community came together to donate over 150 bulk boxes of snacks for our
039youngest learners we coordinated a family engagement football night of games and resources and hosted a drive-through Fall Festival just last weekend our existing Community Partners allowed us to host the annual back to school bash at The Ting Pavilion in August as well as another response to essential needs drive-thru on Saturday November 20th for our family to receive coats hygiene items and food these events and supports aren't possible without our partners and so I want to say thank you to them for helping us continue this necessary work as we progress throughout the year we're working to connect with more Community organizations and continue the work of collaboration for further support our Charlottesville students and families thank you internally every school has been working to foster a culture of success as a division we have received professional
040learning on student family and Community engagement including training on our policy updates on transgender student support as required by the state we are also launching a train and trainer cohort on supporting our transgender and non-binary students we also plan on coordinating professional learning opportunities for our school board members senior level Leadership School staff and Community if if you all or our school Community have any ideas feedback or suggestions on ways to enhance our engagement efforts they can contact Bianca via email and her picture is on the screen her email is John SO2 at charlott schools.org next we will have an update on on our inclusive Excellence framework this framework will allow us to align with the state's vision for Equity it is also an opportunity to use the same language as other partner organizations who
041have adopted the framework as well internally we felt this framework gives a good infrastructure for what we want to accomplish and will be a great action plan that can be embedded into our overall strategic plan did we want to advance the slider or should I just start Denise sorry thanks um so good evening Madame chair uh school board members and Dr Gurley I'm Dr Tara wary Griggs I use she her pronouns um I'm a consultant that works with um organizations um in higher education K12 nonprofit sector uh to uh assess their current state with regard to equity diversity and inclusion and to develop um inclusive Excellence plans which are basically Dei strategic plans that Encompass the totality of the organization's functioning um I worked with Dr Janice Underwood um and the one Virginia planning committee
042to develop the one Virginia Plan and and the uh support documents for that program um and Dr McDonald um as as Denise mentioned um retained me to provide support to CCS um and other organizations within Charlottesville so I've been working with a number of organizations um in the community there um but specifically to CCS as it embarks on its inclusive Excellence journey and aligns its work with with one Virginia the committee was charged with um the committee charged with developing the CCS framework divided into five working groups one associated with each of the dimensions that you see here um and I'm just going to walk through them um other presenters are going to go through in a little bit more detail but they access and success climate and relationships training and education infrastructure and Community
043engagement um in each of these uh groups uh went through and did an assessment of the current state at CCS looked for gaps um and highlighted some areas for strategic priorities and then the working groups came back together to review and align their respective sections into a coherent plan um and throughout that process I provided feedback um guidance and assistant with developing metrics and uh feedback loops and the result is really a robust plan um that will engage all aspects of learning and working within ccs um I can't overstate actually how um wonderful it was to work with this team and what an amazing resource that you all have with this the members on this committee um and this plan spans the next three to five years usually when we think of organizational change um
044it takes about that long for things to start to gain momentum right and to really start to take hold it's a an iterative and developmental process and so I look forward to um seeing you all grow and and run with this it's been an absolute joy to work with your your team on this project I'll hand it back over Dr War wigs good evening Madame chair school board and Dr Gurley my name is Mito Clemens Nazir I'm the proud parent of a 2020 CHS grad as well as serving as your assistant director for human resources I am going to be joined alongside our colleague Alex naon who will be sharing with you the overview of the framework in CCS we believe that our School Division has to be unwavering and addressing the issues of opportunity
045and access for every learner while affirming and building on the strengths of all students and what they bring to our schools our Collective goals towards equity and achievement Drive everything that we do the inclusive Excellence framework reaffirms Charlottesville City Schools commitment to growing and sustaining a diverse and inclusive environment for living learning and working this framework expresses the plan for enacting CCS larger Mission and values the five dimensions of the framework are again access and success Planet relationships training and education infrastructure and Community engagement each Dimension incorporates a goal and is accompanied by several strategies and data metrics to hold us accountable to the work first I'll share with you access and success in educational settings access and success includes two groups employees and our students for employees access refers to activities P2 organizations use
046to recruit hire and retain individuals from a broad range of human experiences and abilities success refers to the Investments made in the development of employees and Leadership these efforts increase or maintain diversity among a district or school's employees to bring needed perspective to its operations and increase productivity and creativity for students access means that their curricular pedological and co-curricular opportunities are equitably available for all students success refers to activities designed to improve student achievement it is our goal to achieve a more diverse an inclusive employee base that strengthens CCS ability to recruit retain and Advance a skilled Workforce to provide culturally responsive inclusive relevant and rigorous learning experiences for our students our next Dimension is climate and relationships we affirm we value and Elevate the diverse identities perspectives and experiences of all of our students
047that they lead to success CC s will create an environment that is supportive safe and where students staff and families feel connected it is our goal to develop a consistent and aligned environment of safety and connection for students staff and our famili miss good evening and thank you I'm Alexis Mason I'm currently serving as an instructional coach at Charlottesville High School the next dimension of the inclusive excellence framework is training and education We Believe effective professional development is inextricably connected to the academic success social emotional development and sense of belonging and safety of every Learner in ccs to that end CCF is committed to developing a Workforce that is aligned with the diversity our students bring and holds a fundamental belief that equity and excellence in teaching and learning play an integral role in our
048efforts to achieve our mission for every learner every day everyone training and education will be provided to help the school district personnel and students develop knowledge skills and understandings to facilitate Intergroup relations educational success is achieved when diversity is effectively leveraged with the goal of engaging Charlottesville City Schools Employees and students in learning varied perspectives of domestic and international diversity equity and inclusion and social justice as well as to create a climate of inclusivity high expectations collaboration continuous Improvement and agency another aspect of the inclusive Excellence framework is organizational infrastructure CCS will develop an infrastructure that supports and fully integrates our Equity goals this includes centering inclusive excellence in the planning processes and adjusting policies and practices as needed we want to be systemic and proactive as we make positive changes and establish best practices
049the ultimate goal of the organizational infrastructure component is really to create and sustain an organizational structure that effectively supports progress in achieving and measuring our Equity goals the last aspect no less important of the inclusive Excellence framework is community engagement through the component both of inclusive excellence and dual capacity building framework we can equitably engage the community as co-creators initiators as advocates receivers providers and evaluators within our work thus growing our community engagement and relationships to support Student Success with the ultimate goal of improving student learning outcomes by deepening our division's contribution to improved inclusivity and equity in the community communities that we serve establishing ongoing sustainable Partnerships between school family and Community these five dimensions of the inclusive Excellence framework really offer a comprehensive opportunity for alignment with our strategic priorities throughout our division
050this framework will enable us to celebrate our strengths interrogate our practices for improvement and growth and develop systems that Center Equitable best practices to improve outcomes for students and staff thank you and now we'll hear from John cronstein and Miss Tony Kim related to our data dashboard recommendations thank you thank you and good evening my name is John cron Mr K I have the pleasure of serving as one of the assistant principls at Buford Middle School Charlottesville City Schools is dedicated to achieving educational equity in our district but how will we know whether we have achieved that goal data is an important aspect of understanding what has been done what is happening and what needs to happen the data dashboard subcommittee was given the specific charge by the former superintendent to determine a data dashboard
051recommendation of up to 10 data points and or metrics for Charlottesville City schools by March 31st 2021 the committee that organized this proposed dashboard was composed of community members ccsp parents organizational Partners school-based Equity Council chairs and division leadership we met bi-weekly from January 2021 to March 2021 to discuss recommendations we started by taking a deep dive into websites of other school districts both in state and out of state to see how they represent data what they chose to make public and their best practices around data we then looked through an equity lens to see what would fit for Charlottesville City Schools along the way we determined that a key commitment is that the data dashboard must focus on the opportunity Gap rather than the so-called achievement Gap the data needs to capture what the
052district is doing or needs to do with the focus on what we can change organizationally to provide the resources and opportunities for all kids to thrive good evening my name is Tony Kim and I'm a parent of a CHS student and a CHS graduate the overarching goals of the data dashboard are to present a userfriendly tool that is accessible to multiple stakeholders including parents students and teachers and we wanted to represent an assets-based approach to student thriving that centers the whole child and informs our practices and policies to support Equity across the division we therefore recommend there be a general Equity overview followed by each of the four four division approved Equity goals the general Equity overview should contain first an assets-based approach to Center the whole child including examining how we are responding to
053the needs of our students and secondly acknowledgement of gains including human re Resource Staffing and retention and curricular and assessment changes third acknowledgement of systemic issues that require ccs to have greater levels of transparency collaboration and accountability toward our Equity goals this includes inequitable access and opportunities with regard to things like d tracking advanced placement and dual enrollment courses extracurricular activities and programs as well as dealing with the persistent segregation in our schools courses and some programs for each of the four division approved Equity goals the subcommittee outlined what could be included in the goal specific data overview both quantitative and qualitative data as well as a proposed narrative explanation and description of the division's response to addressed areas of improvement here is a sample of what is proposed for go goal number two for
054diverse inclusive and rigorous learning experiences you can see that the overview would include both high stakes testing data and an asset assets based picture of our students and the process our teachers experience we would include a history of the quest gifted program and what we are doing now why and program updates with specific metrics in listed this portion would also describe our curriculum and assessments finally the committee recommends as starting points these groups of metrics number one links the school quality profile data under the appropriate Equity go goal two teacher recruitment hiring retention data and experiences three teacher climate survey and focus group feedback four Equity trainings and professional learning planning and exit data five School climate survey and student focus group feedback all of these ideas will be presented to various constituents for their
055feedback and input with the hope of implementing some version of a data dashboard next fall along with some of the other members here it's been amazing to have been part of this work from the beginning from its first idation when we first gathered together at ktech um from bringing on Miss Johnson full-time to the work that it's begun in our schools and training for staff and now to see this work and we're excited about the work we're doing the addition of the inclusive Excellence framework and data dashboard along with all of the other work has the potential to change our educational system and the lives of our students and families for the better we recognize that this is a huge responsibility and we all must take ownership of this commun commitment so that we are
056able to implement the framework and dashboard well we will be taking the time to have listening sessions and opportunities for feedback and conversations the listening time will be from December to May with the intention of rolling out both the framework and dashboard next school year the framework draft will be distributed to staff and will be posted on our Equity website if there are any questions feel free to contact Miss Denise Johnson you see her email under the zoom window up there or don't see it under the zoom window there it's uh John so D2 Charlottesville schools.org thank you for all of your time this evening a huge thank you to this amazing team this evening and a huge thank you to you all for listening um we thank you thank you team we've given you
057a um hard copy of both the framework and the data dashboard as well as the equity toolkit that's being prescribed by the booe any questions or feedback for now go ahead Mr morb um at the beginning you talked about the different dimensions the different categories can you give us some examples of what those would look like sure did you have anyone in particular that you were interested in learning more about um like the infrastructure or the access um and success and climate and relationship you all want me to do that real quick I can do that in about three minutes it's Sara go for it go for it okay um so access and success refers to those things that um deal primarily well access deals with like the composition right so what's the the composition
058of um your faculty your staff um your school leadership um and and how well is is the Vision doing around um diversifying positions of leadership teachers Etc um and and then success obviously is looking at you know how well those folks are retained um are they able to move through the through different levels of responsibility for students that looks at you know how are students represented throughout different kinds of programming so gifted programming or other kinds of things within the division um and then um going back to the discussion about the dashboards you know what do the Student Success indicators look like right um climate is about what it feels like to be a part of the CCS Community either as as an employee or as a student you know is there a sense of
059of belonging um psychological safety is it is it do folks feel like they're able to bring their full selves either to work or to school right um the Education and Training um th that also has two components when we're talking about educational institutions um there's the um the training that's provided to Educators around whether that's inclusive teaching practices um diversifying you know the representation in the curriculum for example um and then also uh training on how to be um perhaps how to create a more inclusive environment amongst within a department or within a whole school for example the um infrastructure piece is basically the nuts and bolts right of the of any organization so it's policies its practices how it's organized um and how it does Investments uh for example as well how does it
060allocate its resources um and then Community engagement is you know how is it that that CCs is showing up in the in the community of Charlottesville right um what kinds of Partnerships does it have kind of Outreach to families um are happening and so forth does that does that answer your question that was perfect thank you thanks good one more question um um along the way what feedback have you gotten if any from teachers students and families um about this framework and then what what will you do to engage them as we develop um what it looks like for Charlottesville how are we going to engage teachers and students and fam sure this is the first stage of our roll out session and so you all are the first to see the draft um we
061are posting it this evening on our website and also the staff members will receive a an email we will have listening sessions there's a Google form on the on the website as well for anyone that wants to give electronic feedback so we'll have we'll have listening sessions and we'll leverage our Equity councils to get feedback as well and so the feedback period will be from December to May and then we'll spend the summer doing the official roll out thank thank you and I really enjoyed this presentation I appreciate all the effort that went into it Miss perier thank you Miss Johnson and team for your presentation I always find your uh presentations informative and your enthusiasm for this work is remarkable because when we are talking about equity and inclusion it is very difficult work
062and I am hoping that everyone in our division recognizes that we all must participate this is an inclusive process all voices must be heard and all of us must do the heavy lifting to ensure the importance and relevant of having an inclusive community and that inclusivity is not only for students it is for staff Administration and our family without the families we would not have our students here everyone needs to feel that they are a part of the family yes we are going to have difficulties in families because their family Dynamics but we have made a commitment to have our equity and diversity Department led by Miss Johnson and her team that presented this evening to ensure that the equity that we want in our division is not only Equitable but it is inclusive we
063all deserve a seat at the table once we are at the table we all deserve to be respected and to be heard it does not mean we will always agree but we can disagree without being disagreeable and disrespect them and I applaud the work Miss Johnson of you and your team they behind you um for all that you've done through today and know that the work that you are doing is being talked about throughout the Commonwealth in a positive way from other divisions and that other divisions are looking to us to pave the way for this important challenging and difficult work and so everyone in the CCS division regardless of who you are regardless of how young you are has to get on board thanks Mr Brian first I want to say to the committee
064what an outstanding job my Mr Johnson my former student leading the charge we have come a mighty long way as a graduate of the Char of City Schools just recently I was asked to share my experience of what it was like going to segregated schools in the city and what it was like after we integrated um had the honor of speaking with uh Committee of folks on the Virginia Historical Society who interviewed me for 90 minutes on my deck and I shared with them my experience of what it was like um it will be archived so once it's up and running it'll be there long after I'm gone it's quite riveting and here we are 50 years later talking about equity and including iion in the charville city schools that all children regardless regardless of
065background social economic and color that everyone will feel Valu and included I am honored to be sitting in this chair experiencing this moment 50 years later that we have finally got to this point and we're going to include all children all children will leave here feeling value this is a great day thank you all for an outstanding job feel like an amen after that I don't know why Let the church say amen yeah this is really great work thank you so much I look forward to hearing the feedback that you receive from the community and from our staff and students on this um also look forward to more deeply delving into the very substantial work that you all have created so that you know my feedback will also to be S of meaningful instead of
066just um wordy but um yeah so thank you so much and keep up the good work um I really feel like our you know this has just been such a lengthy process um already um but it really does feel like we're getting to a point where going to have some concrete um things for the public to see that can then meaningfully demonstrate our commitment um over time because all of these things are not new none of this is new it just sounds like you know just measuring it and um being transparent with it so I appreciate your um really Sellar work thank you um I just wanted to um thank you all again for your presentation we went through this inclusive um Excellence network with um Tara with United Way um earlier this year so
067it's helped guiding Us and how we are serving the community and and Sh mentioned some of the things that we're doing with early childhood education also under the the guidance of Kevin McDonald so a lot of these things that y'all talked about I hope that we are as a division or living some of those things but as you all working on this as a committee I'm wondering as yall going through the list is any of those things you say you know what we going to put this down but this is going to be a challenge I wonder if you can share one or two of those things with us today you know because I I want this to be something that we want to achieve but I don't want you know just the low hanging
068through we need to we need to tou some people I think one of the areas that um was pointed out by several staff members families and um other members of the um working groups was that we may need to put some processes and systems in place that don't currently exist so that we can be more consistent in tracking our progress really targeting our areas that we need to work on and then really being able to execute a plan that is practical but also very future and forward facing uh to really support the work but we really need to do it Department by Department not just look at the school side but also look at the division level also even look at how we're leveraging Community Resources and the processes that we use that will help
069us be more successful in um really addressing some of the opportunities our students still need to be successful thank you we talked a little bit about the data dashboard but that in and of itself is going to be a challenge because when we looked at a bunch of different examples so many questions kept arising and we're sure divisions and other people were very intentional with how they formed theirs but we came to find that we we had more questions than answers when looking at all of this data and I think the challenge is going to be presenting this forward but then saying well what what does that mean and we we were very focused with this not just being data for consumers of data you know we had we had great consultants and UVA is
070a is a historical partner with our division but we didn't we we're not seeking to create something that's just fit for re researchers to dive into and pull apart and pick apart for their research grants it's how is this work that's going to inform and impact the work that teachers are doing every day that families are doing in their homes that our Community Partners can look at and then align their goals with serving our Charlottesville City school system with and the narrative piece of that we think is going to be really helpful and so it's not just here's a data point do with it what you will interpret it how you wish but what went into this data point what does it mean to us as a School Division what are we doing with that
071and even showing the good and the Bad and the Ugly right so this maybe this data point isn't where we want it to be what do we intend to do about that and what are the actionable steps that are happening with that so I think that in and of itself is going to create some unique challenges that are going to be exciting to tackle yeah exciting is way of put I just have one more followup question I think was part of Miss Kim's presentation she had mentioned the part of that Outreach is going to be you know to have um more um teachers of of of color and at and and I know part of that was Recruitment and I know that that's something that we have been talking about for for years do y'all
072to see anything different a different approach um to that or because I know that every school system are they're camping out of hbcus and you know waiting for them to graduate you know so uh thank you so much just wait for your question and as I have shared before in other presentations um around Staffing and recruiting and hiring um it's going to take a total division effort to really work on this very important work to create role models for all of our students but I would uh definitely charge the division with prioritizing retention over Recruitment and working through some of that those those pieces breaking down to discriminatory practices and the ways in which we treat one another in our departments as well as in our divisions and our schools um with that you create
073happy safe psychologically safe uh individuals to really hit home and do this very very important work to support our students um eventually you will have these happy employees these wonderful employees employees serving as your recruiters and sharing the good great work that we as Charlottesville City Schools can ultimately do and you will in turn get that very thing that you want out of the community and that is a diverse Cadre and uh of of employees and and again role models for all students thank you m I hear the passion in your voice and I know this is something you're passionate about thank you wow um well uh you know I'll a little bit redundant but I just want to express um my appr and gr and um just it's um you know this comprehensive model
074and it just feels like we're taking this work to a a new level you know we're really serious about it we're going to do this and we're going to figure out how to do this how to really do this and how to really measure this and then make make sure that we're all accountable um and I'm just blown away by it and and it's wonderful and thank you so much um and I also appreciate the remarks of Miss perier and Mr Bryant um on this and what they bring um in terms of the depth of understanding of some of these issues that is different than what I can bring from my own background um so thank you and I had just a couple of little questions questions um one was you know I'm curious about
075the um building the community relationships and I'm wondering I mean I I know the relationships that we currently have but I'm wondering how you're thinking about that going forward what are some new directions in terms of building these relationships I think one of the things that came out um uh in our discussions about community and relationship building was that some of our partners and some of our community relationships we have very good information and data about impact you know how is it that our relationships over time have really grown our student body grown the success and the and the um efficacy and the ability for our staff to have a great level of capacity to really impact our young people other Community Partners we don't have that information about and so one aspect of the
076inclusive Excellence framework that really is exciting is that at every point there is that level of accountability and measuring and progress monitoring and I think no different than financial allocation when we do budget we should be doing the same thing with our community relationships where are we leveraging them where do we have gaps and holes where can we look to other Partnerships not necessarily the ones we've always used but keeping nothing a strong Foundation but then let's reach out let's find out how we can use other new partners in the are that we lack I think one other thing that's important to not is as um Miss mver said a lot of this isn't new it's going back to the basics and the core of any great partnership is that relationship and so we're being
077intentional about developing and and keeping those relationships two sided and two and and finally um you know as Schoolboard members I want to make sure that we're not just receiving all of this um and approving things I want to know how we can be part of this process so tell me tell us um how how we can really be a meaningful part of this model the first thing to consider is to provide feedback I think every voice is important and so you all have a different perspective in your own perspective as board members to be able to um really continue to enhance and build out this draft framework so any youback that you can provide please um send it my way also if you find any points within the framework that you feel is a
078strength for you meet with me so we can talk about how to leverage that and use your relationship with the community to build out um the the Partnerships and the relationships that we want to build out with the framework thank you thank you Miss Johnson and team again for everything and I I won't be redundant but so appreciate all of the work the hours the meetings that you have put in um it's an honor to sit here and receive this so we look forward to your continued work and please let us know how we can continue that support for our School Division and our students thank you right we are moving now on to our social emotional learning and mental Wellness update Dr gley yes so keeping in line with that same Equity thing we
079are going to talk about our social emotional learning so members of Dr um od's team will be coming up um to give us an update as it relates to our social emotional learning Madame chair members of the board Dr Gurley good evening and tonight I would like to introduce several uh team members uh doc um Patrick frell supervisor of intervention and support and jod Murphy our mental Wellness coordinator to provide an update on the social emotional and mental Wellness supports we have in our schools they will be accompanied by principls Dr Eric ereri Dr Adam Hy ings and Mrs summer Thompson who will provide specific information regarding how this support looks in their schools Mr far thank you Dr Odin um Madame chair Dr Gurley members of the board thank you for having us come
080tonight um we're going to be talking in uh kind of three areas regarding um social emotional learning not so much social emotional learning but the broader mental Wellness aspect and also what happens when um when students need more um support than that we're going to be going over the needs um our past and current capacity to meet those needs and then some of the data and practices that we're using to address those needs so first to go ahead and to start kind of articulate some of those what those some of those needs are I'm G to turn over to Jody Murphy a little bit shorter um good evening Madam chair Schoolboard members Dr Gurley thank you for allowing me tonight um I would like to talk a little bit about the mental Wellness needs that
081we've been seeing and it does date back before we closed for covid um but really since we have returned we have been really working with students and staff um we have seen because of the prolonged social isolation because of the pandemic we've seen more needs in the mental Wellness area um for many of our students and staff um we have experienced uh racial trauma in our community there has been violence in our community uh last year our community or our schools received $50,000 in cares funding and we spent that in less than three months to meet the needs uh based on food insecurity housing insecurity there's a lack of safe and affordable housing we helped families keep their utilities on those needs continue that does impact our students and their families and it impacts their
082mental Wellness needs um this year between September 1st and October 28 we began and we will continue to track the threat assessment that our school mental health professionals do in a different way that has allowed us to see that we have conducted 35 threat assessments between uh like I said September 1st and October 28th of those 50% of the threat assessments that we completed required additional intervention meaning that our school mental health professionals either provided ongoing direct support or referred those students and their families for Community collaboration or did both I hope that you understand that takes an enormous amount of time and we are working really hard to make sure our students and their families are safe I want to highlight that we are also seeing a lot large influx of Afghan students coming
083to our community and their families obviously um overall 30% of our esol population are a are Afghan they have unique needs of our students who have arrived from Afghanistan this year they certainly are presenting with even more heightened mental health needs um we have to be culturally responsive obviously but we also have to make sure that they are getting what they need from us and they are mostly receiving those mental health services at school so we are needing to make sure that we're adapting to the unexpected needs that they might have and that we're also ready to serve them as they need so we are doing things like not only providing the needs that they may have individually but given that there are students who are already here from Afghanistan we are providing things like
084support groups because some of those students are being triggered so to give you kind of Snack shot prior to covid I mean there were 28 School mental health professional so so that what do that entailed is each Elementary School had one school counselor l m Academy had a full-time school counselor Walker and buer each had two school counselors Charlesville High School had six and then there were four social workers and SCH by psych psychologist through throughout the division who primarily served a special Ed function with special ed ability they they did provide some Direct Services for students but they also had other responsibilities and then we had two additional um student support leaon who there originally were kind of repurposed from attendance counselors and these these people came and became tier three intervention is removing
085barriers for students and families and one of those barriers particularly was mental health and so that was kind of where we stood prior to covid and so we've had an ongoing um Mentor well in this action team um that Dr KRA is a great member of and and we've this we tried to figure out different ways to address this issue but we always kind of ran up against the limitations of our capacity go to the next slide this and so for the 2021 school year last year through were Community grants um we were able to um kind of add five new school mental health um professional phans uh these were these were called clinical social workers um just given the need of a community of the time we actually had a despite our obvious need
086we had a hard time hiring these people it's because they were in such demand throughout throughout throughout our community throughout the state throughout the nation we were able to hire two um Midway through last year they started at Charlesville High School the other three were able to hire over the summer and they are currently working in addition uh our school leadership last year made the kind of very proactive choice that through the cares funding that we created these new positions called social emotional sport counselors um so those are 6.5 new positions and all those positions have been hired and curly in place so to just give you a sample of so what is the impact of the work that they're doing um each of our principles we just kind of come and speak to that
087a little bit good evening Madame chair members of the board Dr Gurley and everyone with us tonight um thank you for the opportunity to share with you a little bit about what this looks like at the elementary level um so at the elementary level our social emotional support counselors function as both counselors as well as social workers so I'll sh a little bit about what each of those roles sort of looks like and then how they can integrate to support an entire family um one thing I do want to note before I go on is that I'm G what I share um is generally across all elementary schools how they're supporting students and families it may look a little bit different from elementary school to elementary school just simply based on the student needs um
088so before I go on and share specifically about their roles I do want to say that they have already had such an incredible impact on our students on our families and on our staff um for as long as I can remember and you guys know this we've had so many great supports for children who have academic needs um this is the first time that we have a dedicated person who is able to help with mental Wellness um and support that directly the impact that they have had in only nine weeks just really gives me this incredible feeling honestly of excitement when I think about how they can support over time um so at the elementary level our social emotional support councils are an integral part of our VTS s process and that's the process by
089which we identify students who need additional support that can be in any kind of need like behavioral academic social whatever um for the purpose of this presentation they'll all focus on the behavioral piece um so first before we even gather as a btss team to brainstorm Pathways to success for a child the social emotional counselor has already been in that child's classroom observing that child getting to know that child gaining some insights on what might be going on um and how awesome that they then can come to that meeting with personal knowledge of the child and then so throughout the course of that btss meeting the social emotional support Council works with the team to look at the behaviors as an outward symptom of an unmet need she helps look at the antecedence to the
090behavior or behaviors she assists in the development of a behavior plan if that's something that the team feels like would be a helpful strategy um the team may also decide that the child May benefit from tier three counseling and this is a service because we have these people in our building which is so great they can actually provide it on a much more regular basis than we've been able to do in the past um this counseling typically takes place in a one-on-one situation several times per week and it would involve the social emotional um support counselor using a specific program that addresses that particular child specific need some of the programs that they use include zones of Regulation go then Cent intervention skill TR skill streaming and superflex and probably many other programs that I
091don't even know about those are just the ones I know um our counselors are also able to provide immediate behavioral support to students that they're counseling so for example if our counselor Works directly with Susie several times per week and she's working on a particular skill if there's a day that Susie is really having a hard time re-regulating that social emotional counselor can push in in that very moment um and assist that child in practicing the skills that they have been working on in their counseling session um so in addition to all the support that they're providing to our tier three students they're also supporting tier one which is sort of that Universal look and tier two in a variety of ways they're helping to provide scheduled breaks to some of our tier 2 students
092they're engaging small groups of students in tier 2 interventions they're supporting restorative practices across the building they're increasing the capacity of Staff in the areas of mental wellness and social emotional learning they're collaborating with all the adults in the building around all the needs that our kids have and then they're engaging classes in social emotional learning activities um and again because are in our buildings every day they can actually truly integrate into the fabric of our school Community they are at morning meetings every morning they're outside greeting children and parents as they arrive and so they're really seen as part of the school community and they really know our kids um so as I said um some of the things that they also do is focus on that social um School social worker end of
093things um so they're checking in with families regarding specific needs they're providing support around attendance and tardies supporting families who may be homeless or experiencing an unstable home situation to make sure that their students are maintaining uh enrollment in school uh working with families to support behavioral challenges at home and commu uh collaborating with Community agencies to connect families with those needed resources um and then one of the as far as the integration pie goes what we're seeing too is that a lot of times when our children do need that tier three Behavioral or mental wellness support they're often coming from family situations in which the Family itself also needs additional support and so because she's in our building she can work both s from that counselor end of things as well as the social
094work end of things to support the whole family which of course then ends up supporting the child um I want to reiterate something that was said earlier that the pandemic is not the reason that our schools need the social emotional support counselor it's actually a role that we have always needed but we just haven't had um are the needs that we're seeing right now exacerbated by the pandemic absolutely I mean there's no question about that but this role has always been needed and been needed for really really long time and then from an equity standpoint too I think it's it's important to note that this is a model that supports the needs of all of our kids um and I really feel like this is us as a division tangibly supporting the mental Wellness of
095some of our most vulnerable students um in a way that we have never been able to do before and so with that I will turn it over to Dr hon to share a little about Walker thank you m Johnson can I just ask if one at every single Elementary School yes maam okay thank thank you Dr good evening I'm gonna let Miss Thompson follow me in all future times I need to speak because she's fantastic um Madame chair members of the board Dr Gurley good evening thank you for having us here this evening um I think I'd like to talk to you a moment about the impact on our students and really from a students perspective at Walker and at Beford historically too many but many of our students have encountered behavioral challenges and it's
096the point at which our educational career goes off the track when we think about what that usually has looked like whether it's at Walker or Buford or one of the other five schools I've worked at in the last four School divisions a student has an incident in a classroom that's perceived by an adult an adult completes a discipline referral the student then either immediately or shortly thereafter is removed from instruction to go resolve that incident with someone who is not the adult in the classroom and then at a time later likely after consequence and maybe after intervention the student returns to the classroom and we carry on in that situation we track disciplined data one incident two incidence seven incidents one consequence two consequences seven consequences but we're not historically and generally able to get
097to the root of the problem Behavioral Health is intermixed and intertwined with mental health it is intermixed and intertwined with family engagement we are a vtss School Division that through these two positions at Walker and these 11.5 is that the number of positions at the division we are finally able to address the three major prongs of btss academic health behavioral health mental health and looped in with that family engagement now when the student at Walker has a conflict the student gets on to Canvas inbox sends a message to a member of oural team and that team is comprised of these counselors who are new to our team our Traditional School counselors our school administrators all of whom as a unit go through training together a message goes out to the team and and somebody responds
098to that mess message or an adult who's working with that student gets on Google Messenger and sends a message and says I need assistance in room d64 can you please come no disciplinary referral no thought of consequence it's a moment where an where an adult or child may say I need help and at that moment a member of our SE team comes to that space we work with the child either in the classroom or immediately outside of the classroom we get the student from the Red Zone to the yellow zone and the yellow zone to the green zone while the adult in the room is working on getting from the Red Zone to the yellow zone and the yellow zone to the green zone and when the student is ready we bring the student right
099back to instruction and the adult and the student the adult who's been trained and now the students who are getting trained are able to have a return conference that's quick it's inviting it's intentional and the student can be back in instruction and now the data point that we record from that interaction is no longer a stack of disciplinary referrals it is a number of data points that inform interventions on Behavioral Health mental health family engagement academic Health we're able to enter those data we're able to track those data and we're able to build case loads for students so that they can get the support that they need this is my 18th year in public education for the last 17 years we've been using behavior and discipline as a blunt tool to solve mental health issues
100family engagement issues academic health issues and behavioral health issues for the first time we have the opportunity to leverage an extensive amount of professional expertise from two new people on our team in order to absolutely in dramatically impact students in the classroom every day it's a really awesome time to be a principal and a really awesome time to be a principal in tral City Schools thank you superintendent board chair School Board how was everybody um I'm going to Echo a lot of uh what my colleagues just said we uh you know for the first time as Charlottesville High School principal I can truly say that we have Personnel in place that can actually deliver the interventions and the supports that our students need uh with our new CSA model it has dub tailed very well
101in some of the trauma informed practices or restorative practices that we're using currently our mental health team has been vital in in really building deep relationships with students going to the homes working with the families to get to those underlying issues that are really plaguing uh plaguing our students uh through the vtss model we're able to identify students early we're able to give them support in our building um we have great outside providers that are in the building but for once we're able within our own teams whether that's counselors or a mental health or a clinicians uh to give them the supports that they need to be successful to get back into the classroom to problem solve um it's been a you know with with covid coming back it's been it hasn't been an easy
102year but I can say we have more supports than we've had in the past and I don't think we'd be in the place where we are right now without those additional supports that we're seeing um our CS or our csas our mental health folks and our csas are working together to solve problems that are stemming from the community um our students for the first time in a while have been now they're in a building they're in classrooms together for the first time in a while and that takes some adjustment it's taking us some time to adjust the adults and it's taking the students and a lot of times it's learning those coping skills learning when um you know when to ask for help and and and then knowing that there are adults in the building
103that are professionals that are trained to work with those students work with those groups of students and work with the adults to make sure that those students can be successful um we're off to uh a great start on on this new model with our csas and with our mental health folks and for the first time it's really dovetailing well together at the high school and um I can't say you know jod said hey C can we quantify this and it's really hard to quantify because our Mental Health Providers are working on the folks that are in their case load that are that are we're looking at the data and we're populating their case load but they're also building relationships with students in the hallways and they're saying hey I talked to this student I think
104this is someone that could really use our services right now or someone hey I put uh you know Eric in touch with his counselor because he was really having a tough time so we're uncovering a lot more um a lot more issues that students are having and this is a a slice of Charlottesville City you know schools it's not just students that are um you know it's every demographic is benefiting from this from this new model and um and we're happy so you know my colleague said said a lot and um I just Echo what uh what they're doing I think we have a framework and I think more importantly we have the right people in place now to actually make a difference with our students so thank thank you thank you Dr well I
105mean I mean we were going to talk more about this but uh my three previous colleagues spoke very eloquently about this um what we do have at each team now and this is really truly remarkable at the elementary level is that we actually have teams now because before our our school counselors were Singletons they were on their own they were fairly isolated in our elementary schools now they have a partner and they're able to kind of again with any professional there's a Continuum of skills and and an interest and so we were able to have a much bigger capacity a much wider and deeper capacity to meet both student and staff support needs as well before we were I think every School Division has to find out what's that balance between their internal capacity and
106accessing Community Resources and I think for a long time like been said we would we lean pretty heavily on our community resources and sometimes even use them in our buildings not really ways that they're supposed to be used but it's because we were trying to address the need that we identified and so now over the last several years we've talked here before about the reduced availability of some of those services like therapeutic day treatments um that is not as available for as long and for for Less kids um and then we also know that given this the overall Mental Health crisis in our community there are long waiting lists in the community for people trying to access community services and so I think for those reasons increasing our internal capacity is more critical than ever
107next slide please okay and now I'm going to turn over to jod as we get more into the the practice and data aspect ask a guys because uh I wanted to just clarify from my own say because like I can imagine if you are one of those um Professionals in the building um and your principal saying one thing and the teacher telling you another thing and you have like a hund you know like a lot of people coming at you what's this are you all developed systems in place to kind of keep track of those things and like they have a case flad like I mean there are Sy I mean I just want to make sure they are being supported because I imagine like coming into a brand new situation that would be tricky
108sure thanks thank you for no that's okay thanks for asking that question so we we are we do have a system we're working on continuing to refine that system I will say that I think um every mental health professional and that's a a general statement but uh we are used to being asked to do lots of and adapt to what the needs are um my glasses keep clogging sorry uh so I think and I think our principles all of them even the ones not here um because it's a new we have new positions and we have lots of needs we are we adapt to what is in front of us and what we get asked to do and the principles have been really awesome at uh working with us to figure out what systems we
109need in place we're working through the Virginia tiered systems which we have so these positions are really there to serve our highest needs kids be supportive in tier one meaning available for consultation expand capacity how do we help our teachers how do we help um meet those needs in tier two so do some groups and then really meet that near need in tier three also for crisis intervention so I'm sort of covering this practice piece right um but it also means that if we come in and we have a plan for the day and it goes off the rails because some else presents itself that's what we're here for and that is really the beauty of having these positions because that is what school mental health professionals are trained to do and I think that's
110one of the things that I have consistently heard from our principles um is that instead of a instead of one of our students just totally losing the day uh the training and the flexibility of the staff that we have really help kids and our staff help everybody get back on track and be able to have the rest of their day whatever that might look like um but yes they have case loads kids are referred in a more systematic way and then there's just the ability to be flexible to to do what we need to do that makees sense um so I answered part of or talked a little bit about this slide in answering your question we we do want to be using data though to talk about how we're getting kids how we're serving
111kids and we we are using things like um nursing nurse visits things like absenteeism or or how often kids are coming to school things like rethink Ed assessments which Patrick's going to talk about um later uh so we want to use multiple points of data when we talk about who are the kids who are most in need and then we want to we're looking at using evidence-based practices which we have a lot of and summer listed a few off when she or uh when she talked about what's going on in the elementary schools and we want those evidence-based practices to match the assessed lagging skill or need that our students have um and I listed some of the current needs which you can all look at uh but our our school mental health professionals are
112also doing a variety of other activities to help build and meet the needs of our students and families things like home visits repairing relationships um talking to caretakers about what is it that you're seeing and what works for your student right that's a super easy question that we often miss but knowing that the caretaker is the expert on their child and that they know their child best goes a long way and I just keep talking to to our staff about relationship is an evidence-based practice and we should use it and that's where we should start um and so those are those are why we're really busy because often relationship is where things break down and it's where we have to start when we're working with kids and family and then talking about positive School culture
113our school mental health professionals are helping with um proactive circles so helping create community in classrooms they might be doing restorative circles so if there is an individual issue between two students or something happens between a staff member and a student working to repair that relationship so things can continue on in a positive way um and sorry I'm struggling to put my page um and then individual Positive Behavior Support so if we need to help a student work on a very specific skill that might be also something that still mental health professionals are working on want to keep following I remember we um um again the transition from Walker to being so significant I wonder if there is any talk of keeping the professional with this cohort at all but might be for a future
114discussion but I just want to put that out there as we we have not talked about that um only there we we do talk about how to make that transition and people who are serving students have consultation with the the the grades that are coming up but certainly we could talk about whether or not that would I'm I'm imagining I don't want to turn around that principal behind would correct but it doesn't mean we can't have that conversation so one of the ways that we want to really think about how to use data and I will tell you sometimes in the mental health or mental wellness world people really they hear data and they think I don't that's not in my wheelhouse right but we want to be informed and use data to make solid
115decisions about who we're serving and how we're serving them and so reink Ed is one of the social emotional curriculum platforms that we use and we're using that in our tier one in many of our schools and so they have a student self assessment and so often we will have um teacher feedback or we will have student feedback but we this is a normed student self assessment and so it's really interesting to have students anonymously we get the we get it but they can take it and to really reflect on oh wow we thought they were feeling one way but that is certainly not how they're feeling and so you'll see in the next slide there's an image from Buford but Walker did it CHS did it um it only starts in third grade so
116some of our elementaries chose to do it they have some other data they can use but we use that to triangulate with parent information information from teachers so then we can form groups and we can make good decisions about who who we're going to serve and what that will look like CHS is gearing up to start some tier two or small groups um I mentioned one about Afghan support group but things like a self-esteem confidence group a Stress Management anxiety reduction group a grief and loss group those are some examples that CHS is starting um I believe next week they are starting so and then like I said the six um elementary schools they use something called the Desa which is that's a teacher rating scale it's an eight question um mini assessment and again
117that is a um oh it's a strength based assessment thank you that was important to share it's a strength based assessment um and so again we use that the same way we use the recent head assessment so so let me kind of explain what you're seeing here so this is um it's based on the castle model on Castle the collaborator for academic and social emotional learning they've really kind of identified five core social emotional competencies um that's their self-awareness self-management social awareness responsible decision making and relationship of skills and so what so what with this particular assessment and again it's a strin things assessment and so the the what the what the questions that the students see are they're basic descriptions of the strengths I'm able to identify a when a friend is having a
118problem I'm able to manage my my emotions when I'm placed in a difficult situation and they kind of rate themselves with on a lik scale and so we have scores for each to those five competencies and we also have our overall scor so what you're seeing here is a is a kind of a snapshot of the seventh grade um and it it says spring there and fall we didn't um just because all the transition we had last spring we didn't do a spring assessment but but we did do the fall assessment and you can see I mean it's kind of based on a bell curve model and our bell curve is a little shifted as which're is kind of a data point that again it's a single data point but it's also a critical data
119point because I think one of our intentions with social emotional learning instruction is to give our students voice in agency and especially as they get older but even the young students as well it's really important that we hear how they feel they're doing not what we think they're do how they're doing which is kind of traditionally our old model so this is why this in combination with parent feedback keep your observation like Jody saying nurses visits attendance data all those things but this critical element tells us that our students are feel like they're really struggling right now and so and this is with some of these supports we put in place I like some of our colleagues said I kind of shuttered the thing what we Happ we didn't have these supports um yes sorry
120could I'm having some trouble understanding this graph yeah so could you just kind of walk us through it a little bit what these bars mean yeah and so so basically um they're on the like scale kind of rated very low low typical um and then uh strong and very strong and so what we found is that I think 50% of our students I in some of our grades this was true at Walker last year and it's and it's still a high number of this year that rate themselves either very low or low on these student strengths like that I gave you some examples of there and so basically they just asked to rate themselves was about I think a total of 43 different strengths that they had they ra themselves that what they felt their
121compeny was in there like how strong they felt they had that skill but these are um all of the questions together okay thank you you're wel next slide please so we started um collecting data we did it over a two-e period one of the days was a professional learning day so it was nine nine days um and it was for about 35 of our school mental health professionals or it was for 35 School mental health professionals and so they were asked to fill it out each day um this is one of the graphs so looking at individualized support which is our tier three support and so it averages out to about each day there were two and a half individual sessions per School mental health professional um and that would include something like a counseling
122session or an individual support session or working on a very specialized skill um that had been identified that um the school mental health profession was working on with a student um just reminding people somebody could have been out one of those n days thinking about all the other things that people are asked to do or if there was a crisis and I will share with you over those nine days there were multiple crises that happened across 10 buildings um so lots of things come up everybody has a really good plan for their day I assure you that often time nobody's day goes in the school mental health professional world as they plan um and so our our plan moving forward is to continue to collect data Dr Gurley gave us some great ideas about how
123to shift that a little bit so we are working on how to do that and we'll be collecting data um ongoing so we have uh more and better looking data and so just to close um we know that again I think principles articulated very well that this need was very pressing before Co hit but now with with learning loss and the need to kind of recover and the impact that um Co has had on our families that mental health needs are already going to increase from this point forward um especially given the fact that so many of our community mental health resources are tapped out um that folks AR long waiting with so to the extent that we can kind of proactively meet their needs in a safe setting uh with trusted adults um just
124will giv us a much more idea of a sustainable posit School culture going forward and so uh with that we welcome any other questions or comments you excuse me thank you everybody we'll start with Dr craft here um thanks to all of you uh this is of course you know very close to my heart and um really important to me and it seems like um again we've just risen to meet the needs um that are out there for the students and their families so I had just a few questions one is um would you say we have the right amount of support now uh or would you would you say we still need more or maybe we need less what would you say where are we yeah I think if you're ask the principles it's
125it it's not enough but I think it's it's better than where we were and I think it's it's a good starting point to to really figure out look at our Baseline look at our data figure out where our needs are I think this program you know it's it's only been a you know this year with everyone back in the building it's only been a few weeks so I think we're still refining the processes looking at the uh you know the frequency the duration of of of some of the issues our mental health folks are working through so I think for us um right now it's it's more than we've ever had and I think you know it's a good starting point for us to figure out how to refine some of those processes but um
126I think when you ask principles we're always going to say more so we're probably the wrong group to ask that question to well if it is more that's what you should say I think from a numerical response so Walker has 650 students historically it has two school counselors each school counselor has a case load of approximately 325 students and since kids were always coming or going because we're a few grade school you have your case load that's at Walker plus the kiddos who are either transitioning to the new school or the kiddos who are coming up to Walker right so three we'll call it 325 but it's 325 maybe times one in the um right now we're one quarter into the year a quarter in which we had to learn how to work together as
127a team so we're now finally at a level of efficiency as a team where we can understand numbers um we have just about I I think we're at 62 or 63 students identified for direct service provision by the two new Seal team members I don't know what is a normal load for somebody who provides that level of tier three support but you can imagine then that each one of those people has a caseo of children at approximately 30 people uh 30 children who are getting service provision at least once a week from one of those case managers and that does not include case management of students who do not receive direct service Prov yeah I I would just just like to concur I think we can always use more support when you think about you
128know approximately 5% of our school um population requiring tier three supports um you know at Johnson right now our enrollment is low at 300 we're usually more like 380 but at 300 that's 15 students um but when you think of the level of need of some of our children especially when you're thinking about some acute situations um you know those certainly EB and flow but we can always always use more support um so my next question um i' I've been concerned about U the mental Wellness of our staff and um yeah I would just like to hear from you about uh it sounds like none of the current resources right now are dedicated to staff who may be having mental Wellness issues or stress issues U themselves and I know they have them so um
129how can we how can we provide better service to our staff so these positions are not are not providing direct or discret service to staff I think we do end up being put in a position where we are often people that staff come to and we make ourselves as available as possible um I think if it were the will of the board or Dr that would have to be a conversation I will say um I think sometimes we get put in positions that can be difficult to navigate when we are asked to be Mental Health Providers to staff um and so that would need to be thoughtfully crafted about how that would work I think we provide a lot of support naturally to staff around mental health and then try to help get them the
130resource es or support they need um while not being direct Mental Health Providers to them to maintain boundaries and to maintain appropriate collegial relationships if that makes sense you're you're talking about like um yourself or you know but what about any of these positions any of these Social Work positions who are counseling I think do you see that as a conflict yes I think if I think it would be very hard to ask unless they were specifically hired to be for staff um and then I think that if that role were made clear that they were hired as a staff mental health provider then that's what their role was and they would be available to do that um but I think these positions were not specifically hired to do that and so I think we
131navigate um with other staff the best that we can and are always um as avail ailable as we can but then we have to carefully make sure that we get staff where they need to be so they can have confidentiality and they can get their mental health needs met in the most appropriate way so I think if there were a position specifically dedicated by the school division to serve staff mental health needs then that would be different than what these positions are for and I I do think staff needs support and and mental health needs met yeah well I you know I personally would hope that U maybe we could have these conversations um because I know what it's like out in the community and for somebody who's you know full-time working uh you know
132teacher or other staff member to find available therapists in the community is really really hard and I think it often just doesn't happen um and uh you know I would hope that we could maybe think about that a little bit more going forward and and then my last question sorry to take up so much time but there have been recent threats to I know CHS and maybe Beford um you know that we get we get the um Communications about and I'm wondering what kind of impact has that had on our students yeah the threats you know this is a nationwide nomenon you know we're dealing with our colleagues over alar as well and I think that there dramatic effects on our students especially our Charlottesville students uh you know we've had trauma here in our
133in our own uh you know in our own you know neighborhoods and I think uh and we had subsequent threats if you all remember you know right right after the uh the terrorist attack so I think for us it's it's triggering for a lot of our students it does create a wave of anxiety among the bill you know staff um staff and students alike um but again you know with with our with our school counselors with our school Mental Health Providers as a team we're more prepared to be available for students uh in those situations we're able to check on some of the students that we know uh may be triggered by by those events and we're also just there's more support visible during launch during the transitions just to identify students that may be
134in crisis to deal with those and again a lot of these um unfortunately they're they're out of our hands it's it's something that we can't control but what we can control is the climate in the building and the supports in the building for our students but they've had they've they've had major uh impacts just on on the psyche and U the overall climate for those school days thank you all you're a wonderful team really appreciate what you're doing um so um this is kind of following up on on the sh's question I want to um some of you can give us an idea of you know how I I'm thinking of if if someone's in the fourth or fifth grade starting in 2017 what happened then and if that child is still kind of dealing
135with that and then you know from 2017 2018 we had several of these type of threats where we sometimes we had to actually stay home from school and then we had the the co shutdown just it seemed like we haven't been able to really kind of get a full year without a big pickup and I'm I'm wondering you know because I think older kids you know and I know each kid is different they may be able to deal with it a little bit differently I'm wondering how a young child will dealing with this now have you seen difference over the last four or five particular in this District I don't know who I got elected to answer this question so that's a hard question to answer uh Mr Wade and I think to your point
136every child is is different so I think um some of it's depending on their age some of it's depending on their experience and I think what we are trying to do and we may not always do it well but we are really trying is to just meet kids and families where they are and um asking what their experience was and how it has impacted them and then trying to assess how we can best meet their need and certainly going back to 2017 and looking at closing for covid and we know the social isolation was it impacted our kids and families greatly and for some in a much larger way than others but just directly addressing whatever the impact was and being thoughtful about it and sometimes we can do meet those needs at at school
137whether it's with a connection or reconnecting with a teacher or staff memb that they had a really good connection with sometimes it's having them work with one of our school mental health professionals and sometimes it's really working with that kid and family to connect them with outside resources to make sure that we are adequately meeting whatever that need that we have worked with the family to identify what it is um I do think we have worked really hard as school teams to have conversations when students are presenting with difficulties or challenges to look at the whole picture and to not um to Dr Hastings point right to not just look at the behavior but look at the need behind the behavior and to really look at how we can address the need and not punish
138the behavior because we know that doesn't work and I think that has been the biggest shift and this year particular I um I'm when when Dr craft asked do we need more School mental health professionals my answer is always going to be yes because I think that's where we can make the biggest impact I also had a moment of oh I'm not sure how many more SCH mental health professionals I can support I love them all they're working so hard none of them have a moment to breathe all day um but I do think that's where we are making a huge impact and that is where we do the work and that is where uh we see Equitable work happening um so I'm not sure I answered your question very well but I think that's
139how we are seeing it and doing it thank you all so much for your work yeah I just wanted to say that um from my perspective as a parent like the way that Dr Hastings and Dr I have been working with um the school staff and um the mental Wellness of our students has been extraordinary so I appreciate it what y'all have been doing and that's just my personal experience um Dr kishner has been doing an amazing job too so I don't mean to suggest otherwise but she's just not here so I'm sure miss so thank you all I mean because there have been very it has been challenging like every single day um so I I don't know like I can't imagine what it would be like without having had these folks and I
140just feel like it is incredibly Forward Thinking even though it's something that we've long needed that we have made this investment as a community in our the wellness um mental you know Wellness of our students and um I I think as you know when we're sitting here with a future city counselor and just knowing how challenging funding is going to be this year we have to continue to make this case over and over and over again and um I am always trying to make a case about having more adults in the building but it's so helpful to have adults who are well trained and who can build capacity amongst our staff because uh that just trickles into everything um I you know my uh yeah at a parent teacher conference the other day and the
141teacher was like yeah we just have a really challenging class and you know I wouldn't know I don't know that because my student has not reported back to me and that is not what she is seeing or getting from the class and I just think that's an extraordinary thing that my child is not reporting back to me that the teacher acknowledges and so I just think that that she the teacher as a growing up in the in the leader in the room is really able to focus her students well and I I think that's showing how this investment has made a difference um so I thank you and um I appreciate you guys always coming to the um board and answering really tough questions and uh very late at night and feels much later than
142it is but thank you um and I know that uh I look forward to continuing to defend and honor this program as we move into the budget thank you all for all of the great work you're doing for our students and and our families in the community coming from the perspective of being a counselor not former I'm still license um just throwing that plug in um if you know like Dr I said this is just a start so I do concur with Jennifer we need to continue to advocate for more of this I can hear it in your voices it's working I can remember working as a counselor we didn't have that additional resource that we could bounce off so I'm sure our school counselors are happy as locks that they're able to to work
143in concert with our Mental Health Specialists um to ensure that students are able to have successful days at school and families as well Dr I you mentioned um that you going be starting groups how many right now looking at our data we're looking between five and six groups starting uh starting next week and you know and that's only going to grow um as the need and as students are are identified or or ask for group so um and that's a combination of our school counselors and our and our mental health team so and while I'm up here Ross Moore is here and she is one of our mental health folks and I didn't want to embarrass her but she is here so I did want to she's the only one sitting in the row so
144I just want to acknowledge her too but um but no we're excited to get those groups off the ground and like I said you know you've walked in the councel hallway they have over 300 you know 50 students on their case loads helping them get to College helping them work through things and it's great to have a team that they can come together meet once a week figure out where that need is identify you know what groups need to happen or even those one toone clinical sessions um and and that's what's keeping kids in the classroom in school and uh on the right path so we're excited you know that's great news I would love to been able to food now it's here I love to work um are we also having those groups in
145the elementary and middle schools that's great news very happy hear that the board is as well thank you all for the great work m p former School Board member Dr Hasting thank you for your passionate presentation dealing with students in the age group that Dr irisari serves I understand the importance of our social emotional employees although we have not been able to be fa Toof face Dr I because of the pandemic uh our program had to Pivot and we're still pivoting that being said we have um mental health workers on our staff it is done virtually um and we opened the meeting and then of course the administrator leave the room and the students have an opportunity to speak to our mental health professionals we're currently writing a new proposal where we will have someone
146virtually on staff so that as our students need them whether it's during our summer component or on an academic Saturday they will have access to the students and if there is a need for additional interventions we're working on that so that the students will be able to have those interventions locally but it is very important uh to have these people on staff to compliment your instructors but also do something that we can't do because we know the students and often we presuppose certain things about people well the mental health professionals don't know them and so there are no presupposition so that is a true seeing someone for who they are and meeting them where they are without the presumption of where they should be so I commend the team and the three administrators that are
147here this evening to express to our families but particularly our students sometimes you go on your own sometimes you're referred by an adult but just to know that they can self-refer or have someone send them somewhere has to be comforting not only to you because you do the work every day but to our families and most importantly to the students that we serve so thank you uh just real quick I wanted to say thank you to you all um when I first started I had no idea what social emotional learning was um and so it's it's really nice to hear from you all and right now it's a like a wonderful time to be in education because we can try new things and do what works and so I just want to thank you because
148having mental health supports in school and you all coming here and articulating it in such a way um it just shows how important it is because we're teaching kids at an early age to take care of their mental health we're teaching them compassion and sympathy and empathy and you know before there was this pivot and learning everything was kind of punitive and so there's punishment or there's achievement and there's no in between and so kids weren't you they didn't have a good mental health you know foundation so I just wanted to thank you for that and um if Dr craft ever ask again the answer is always yes more support you never need less and um the other thing I wanted to add was just for a followup for the next board meeting um about
149the mental health support for staff um can we report out on what because that should fall under help and benefits and what is available to staff um in this division for mental health support but thank you guys thank you team um thank you so much um you know I think this this whole U idea of the social emotional and and the mental health support um positions you know has has been exciting I know um when we got the Grant and we'll hear a little bit more about that in our next item on the agenda um it was exciting to to get those positions started we didn't know what we were we didn't know we didn't know and we didn't know what Co would bring and and you know the delay with that a little bit
150and and and looking at um and you guys brought up a little bit about data you know and what what data should we have and what does that mean and and um you start to think about as I do as a board member like how do we how many touches or how many students are impacted and how do you how do you measure that and does it have to be related to um academic growth right I mean that's kind of where you sometimes you you want to go with that like we need to justify this to be able to see that it's making a positive imp on such and such a score but this pivot to really focusing on um that unne met or the UN unmet need um I mean that's huge and and
151when you start to hear about the presentations that we've had tonight um and and the involvement of family engagement teams and how they are touching and supporting people and again the school mental health positions um and then the CSA positions and and um how they all Impact you know the academic and the behavioral um components of of our student and our staff and then ultimately it's all about relationships and and all of these people are are are helping with that and if we can make a difference and support the whole student which is what we're trying to do by looking at these other things I mean ultimately we're going to have and continue to have wonderful Scholars and people in our community and and and so it's really hard um to not just want to
152focus on you know how many students you know pass an SOS score what is this and this but this is this is really what it's all about you know and this is again what Charlottesville as a community you know wants and and and where our resources have gone and and so I'm so appreciative of of you and the team and again as everybody has said the presentation but this really is what it's about you know our kids if our kids are fed if if those emotional needs are met they'll be able to sit and receive information and and read better and and and just do better and be better but I mean really we need again thank you and I'm just so happy and pleased to be part of this and to have you all
153supporting these um positions and those positions supporting you guys in the building so thank you okay um the next item we're going to to talk about is 9.4 and that's our general fund transfer um for the social emotional support so dry so we have Kim po come up and talk to us about where the money comes from good evening again Madam chair and Dr Gurley and members of the board so um on the heels of that presentation this is the perfect time to to talk about this um this actually I'm going to refer you to your projection report that you get every month starting in October after we've got that first September payroll and we start to see you know how things are looking with projection and as and this particular first projection of the
154Year showed us that we're on track for some pretty significant vacancy savings normally at and that's good news bad news right so we've talked a lot about substit and needing substitutes and feeling those pressures in in really all areas of our operations not just in um the classrooms but we've had custodial vacancies nursing vacancies and so forth so for for as difficult as that is the good news is we're on track for some significant vacancy savings and seeing that this early in the projection report we wanted we wanted to come forward to you with a suggestion idea proposal and that is this we believe that um we would we could see up to about a half a million dollars of vacancy savings that would be available when we're facing year end and it would be
155helpful to us as a finance team to know now sooner than later certainly I mean this isn't a decision that has to be made tonight but we wanted to make go ahead and make a recommendation that um in light of what we're hearing about all the value of these positions knowing that between the private Grant uh grant funding and the arpa money these aren't at this point position that are in the budget with recurring allocations the recommendation would be that we set up um an account in the special Revenue fund so it's for designated purpose and as we approach year end and we see these vacancy uh savings materialize we would like to go ahead and um see if the board would like for the savings to go into that account so to help sustain
156these positions as you know so that we have more of a definitive way in the near future to sustain these positions and perhaps that can also buy time for local Appropriations to catch up and help sustain positions longer term if it's the will of the board so that's what that's what is before you this evening for consideration um I'm happy to take any questions ahead J Dr I was just wondering if this is like obviously this is your recommendation along with the finance department and I just wonder like how this fits into your vision of absolutely so when we talked about this um I guess it was the week last week week before last so when we first started talking about this and we know that this so the positions currently are tied to Grant
157funds um so the um there was a I guess there's an anonymous five of the positions are from an an anonymous donor and then the other so there's a total of 11 and a half I've been doing the math lately the five of the five of them are tied to the an an anonymous owner and 6.5 of them are tied to um arpa arpa funds arpa yes so we know that these are things that are long term so as I'm been meeting with the principles and so you know of course with my culture of care and making sure that our children are um the needs our the well-being of our children are met the we have to figure out a way that we can sustain this and so we know part of it is um
158in our conversation that some of these positions right now the funds within um come j February so we can't even get to the end of the school year so knowing that we do have this savings you know that was my first thought like what can we do to ensure one we can get to the end of this school year but also build something that can go into next school year because what I would hate to see is I know our our principles are wedded to it the building are wedded to it our children are wedded to these positions and they need these these things and so until we can figure out how we um and we've been having a conversation with the city about making sure that we can collaborate and put the things in
159place um to ensure the success of our students this would be one of the immediate things that we could do knowing that we have the sav so most certainly in terms of so as we go to build the budget of course the first priority is making for me is making sure that we compensate our employees and so there're going to be some competing priorities the compensation of employees the um reconfiguration of schools and so anytime that we can anytime that we can find cost savings to support our needs for me it's a win um and then we just got to figure out over time you know the recommendation could be to trans you know start slowly move these into our local budget but we know that we can't move 11 we can't move 11.5 of
160them in the budget at one time and so a gradual shift most certainly could be is a part of my vision um for our budget but most certainly this could be a quick Win For Us in terms of you know and it's a one of those good bad things right we want our positions fill but they're not so moving the funds to support our seal it it's for me it's like a no brain Dr gley I have a question um thank you for explaining um with the savings I have got that and how you are envisioning doing that are there any monies that we have received because there there's a group there's a second level of funding that we will be allowed to utilize through September of 2022 would we be able to utilize any
161of that money to help us now to get through February I mean Beyond February to the end of this year or no well I think most certainly we could I think we've been trying to prioritize we've been we've been looking very intentionally very intently at at prioritizing those funds and so I know in our most recent conversations we've been talking about um so if we can remove some hbac things so we've been really trying to prioritize how we use the so we can be good partners with the city so that we can get some things off of their list so then they can also move funds to assist us with some of the things that we're doing so I think in in an effort to be really good partners which that's why we're having our
162our monthly huddles we are trying to prioritize like what's next um first things first and so with those additional funds yes we most certainly could do that but one of the unintended cont consequences in all this could be if we could use those funds to relieve some of the things that are on the the city's CIP list to make room so that we can do some of those other things so there are some there are a lot of competing priorities right now I hope I said that correct and you did and there's another opportunity I'd like to go ahead and throw out there which is um so we are continuing to get grant opportunities not just the HVAC but there's another one that's related to unfinished learning and Dr OD let him meeting today for
163us to talk about the different options with that Grant and thankfully one of the things that is in the criteria for these grants continues to be mental Wellness supports so uh we were discussing today the strategy for this next round of applications and we have no idea how much funding we'll receive so we can't we can't pitch our tent there with any certainty but if we're successful with those grants you know they all have timelines that expire and so forth if we're able to put aside some money now that is from local appropriation because of our vacancy savings again that's a good news bad news thing but um it just helps us to be strategic and collaborative with the city in continuing to meet this need that our colleagues talked about with such great passion
164and and um Clarity of of purpose it just we saw the opportunity um discussed it Dr Gurley immediately thought of this and so we just wanted to bring It Forward because we can't make we're not going to make a move like this obviously with setting up something in the special Revenue fund and and thinking about doing a transfer like this it needs to come before you and it's helpful for us to know if we're on the same page with that thinking as we look I know the end of the year is not here yet but it'll be here before we know it well I just think anything that we can do to um assist the city is a good thing because we're asking them to do a heavy lift for reconfiguration just like we did
165this year Dr Gurley we um asked um we made the holdon list recommendation and because of some fund that we had we were able to do what we needed to do for this particular Academic Year so having the foresight to do that I just think it's commendable thank you I'm G to like to move that we I just to go this I would like to make a motion that we support this change in uh in the general fund transfer like just second that okay any other I want to give everybody else the opportunity if anybody has comments or questions Leandra do you okay Mr Bryant Mr Wade I think I don't know that I have a question but I mean are we so this amount will support all of the positions we currently have through
166the Academic Year oh certainly so really what we're looking at and you you should understand this when we give you the projection we've already baked in the payroll for the position so even though the grant runs out around February March um we already know that we have based on the projection report you have in your hand we know we've got these positions covered from other vacancy savings to the end of this year and we are projecting that there would be at least 500,000 or around 500,000 available just because you're looking at on your projection report as of October a savings projected a projected Savings of Revenue over expenses of and again it is it's not a good thing HR is working very hard to fill those vacancies they're not going to fill them all overnight
167so that means that you know next month hopefully that vacancy list is shorter but there'll still be vacancies Dr Baptist herself is covering two positions director level positions we're getting savings from that um she would tell you that's no picnic doing a a Yan's job incredible job but um you know those are the types of things that are behind this and we're seeing it very early in the year pretty clearly so we just wanted to bring It Forward because we were like whoa this is different is this what they call making lemonade out of lemons that's a good way of I think it makes us feel like we have something to look forward to that can put this this this expected savings to good use so we wanted to see if you all are thinking
168the same thing I mean I feel very confident that we're all very supportive of of what um do and Patrick presented and and the positions and what they're doing for the schools and and for our students you know I think we all knew and and we've already talked a little bit about you know the concern as far as how these positions were funded and and so um I appreciate you presenting this and I just want everybody you know to know that we are aware of that and we really as a team we'll we'll look at that um as we continue through the budget season so I appreciate that um you were able to look at this and have this as an opportunity to continue that and I would expect that if there are changes you
169know if all of a sudden we had a bunch of people come in and get hired or if there was a change you know that you would be updating us and I'm sure we will hear um more as we get closer to our our on budget you would see it on your projection report each month too on that blue box that's um near the bottom there so I have one question before we take the vote if I may what would be the implications of hiring people as it relates to the vacancies understanding that we would be using some of that money to extend question people well the savings that's here doesn't go away that's what's already accumulated so what happens is you don't dip into that savings if you this is just the fact that
170X number of payrolls have passed us by already and we had all these vacancies and that's after covering the fact that the grant ran out runs out around February March time frame that's already baked in so it's it's all of those things that come together that made um Finance director Renee Hoover she first brought this to like Kim this is a very different looking projection than what we normally see this time of year and so those savings that we have currently approved will cover us through the end of the Academic Year from February to June is what cor correct corre that's already because um the way this thing works behind under the hood is it's looking at everything that was every position that was in payroll and all those positions were there through the end
171of September and that's why you don't get this report for the first time until the end of October because we like to digest that first real payroll with all the 10-month contract people we have to snapshot that actual payroll against the budget and then we can start projecting from there any other questions all right okay we had a motion and a second all in favor I and Mr Wade is an i over there all right thank you um board I don't hold on if you don't mind I um was looking at this and and was wondering if if we um could actually move the literacy update which is 9.8 and that's um Dr OD and I believe Steph FAL here to present we could move that up to now instead of making her wait that
172be agreeable with everybody Dr Gurley all right thank you all right Madam chair members of the board Dr Gurley good evening once again uh tonight I do have uh here Steph tatal our literacy coordinator to share with you A literacy update Miss tat good evening board chair members of the board and Dr Gurley I'm pleased to be here this evening to share information updates on our literacy curriculum and professional learning and how they are serving our students I'm going to ground this presentation in our literacy mission statement um this is equity work and when we teach children how to read then they can access all grade level content and they get to decide how they want to use their literacy skills within and Beyond school go the next one I'm going to start by addressing
173the key question that you asked me to present on which is what has been the impact of covid on our beginning readers Pals is the assessment that we use currently to screen students in grades prek through three for foundational literacy skills and to identify who may be at risk so this graph shows the percentage of students ID this fall with Pals the blue is Charlottesville and the red is Virginia we want that number to be small um because ided means that the student is at risk for not meeting end ofe literacy skill benchmarks so our numbers this year are about 10% higher than they usually are and as you can see we are not alone across the state um and we're actually below the state average in most of our grades second and third grade
174cohorts Across the Nation really were particularly affected be by the closure because they were virtual for Mo most of that really formative time in first and second grade when we're learning to read and write and despite herculian work of our teachers and principles the the virtual platform is really woefully insufficient for teaching early reading so it's important to know I really want you all to understand that um while this is a reflection of interrupted school year schooling and a year of virtual learning we are not back to normal yet kids are still experiencing impact because of student and staff absences because of losses to instructional time as a result of Transportation barriers and covid mitigation procedures um and another challenge teachers navigate every day is trying to teach pheic awareness phonics and language with masks
175on and let me be clear 100% clear I'm not taking issue with masks so no no one needs to take my words out of context but learning to read requires being able to clearly hear sounds and language really challenging for a six-year-old to differentiate the the F sound and the T sound behind a mask and our English Learners who are just learning the language face the added challenge of not being able to read faces or even know who's talking because of the distortions from The Masks it's like I'm sucking my mouth my mask in my mouth right now um even with the help of the portable amplifiers that our teachers have that are really really useful um and this may sound small to you but the implications for learning to read are quite huge so
176as we're considering the impact from last year I wanted to help you understand that while we are back in school we we're not fully back to normal and it's going to take some time go to the next one so you're what what you're wondering is what are we doing well we're doing a lot we are continuing the critical and Urgent work that we started last year with Shifting the way we teach early to make sure we are using strategies and materials that are consistent with the science of reading we are in our first full year of implementing our new curricular resource in a cohesive way across the division this alignment includes teaching the foundational skills of reading grounded in the science of reading our resource gives every student access to highquality grade level text across
177genres and includes a lot of decodable texts where young readers can practice their developing decoding skills we have a casing guide that aligns writing with reading and helps us to start to connect social studies and science with English language arts and literacy finally our resource contains a robust intervention resource that classroom teachers can use to provide additional support and intervention within the classroom setting some other things that we're doing um at the elementary level well we're being careful not to overdo screen time we do have Lexia in grades prek through five and now we've added power up in grade six to give students additional differentiated practice towards Mastery with phonics pheic awareness spelling and vocabulary families can access these tools from home if they wish we are also leveraging all of our resources and that
178includes the amazing people power that we have our reading Specialists have been integral in supporting teachers with learning these new practices by co-planning modeling pushing into the classroom and analyzing data with teachers along with also at the same time providing direct tiered intervention to students who need support beyond what the classroom teacher is able to provide our instructional coaches have also been critical in providing professional learning and coaching for teachers on implementation it's really been a team effort lastly thanks to the school board our schools each got an infusion of new books for our book rooms this year we prioritize replacing those lower levels of leveled predictable texts that Foster bad reading habits um with high quality decodable text and we also provide we also prioritize books that amplify diverse voices and authorship so that
179every student has a chance to see themselves reflected in the text read at school as well as a window to other people's lived experiences the grad 6 through eight we are also in year one of full implementation of our new English language arts resource in grades six through eight teachers um have been using this resource to shift away from leveling students in text to scaffolding grade level text for all students and connecting Reading Writing discussing as an ongoing iterative process that engages kids in making meaning from challenging text teachers are also digging into the incredible offering of tradebooks and planning for literature circles and book clubs to further our Enga engage our readers and increase the their time spent Reading Writing and talking about reading and writing in fact the six through 8th grade teams
180um last Friday on our professional learning day spent time digging in and planning for book clubs and literature circles so um and this is what secondary students need most to recover learning an English language arts and we are following the guidance and expertise from the state and the experts in the field that we need to accelerate learning by scaffolding grade level content for every learn learner and giving them ample opportunity to practice purposefully practice and get and give meaningful feedback lastly at the high school level um we are in year two of implementing the writing portfolio alternative to the writing so that we typically have given in uh spring of 10th grade so this year our 10th graders will add two final writing samples to their portfolios and then April a panel will review those
181Collections and verify that credit for student for students the entire English Department has been collaborating on calibrating their scoring and the ninth and 10th grade teens have crafted very authentic writing tasks that are connected to their curriculum and give students ample opportunities to learn and practice the writing process in addition these two teams have partnered with world geography and world history teams to align um across those two content areas so that English and history geography complement one another sort of a h more of a Humanities approach I'm really proud of these teams for taking this plunge and leading this much more accurate and authentic form of assessment for our students all right so throughout all of this in covid we have continued to engage in ongoing and purposeful professional learning that's what PL stands for
182we are in our second year of offering letter training which I'll go into a little bit more detail after this slide but we also created and taught A nine-week literacy foundations course for any teacher who teaches reading in grades prek through 8 this course was co-created and facilitated by Lindsay kedi a reading specialist at Johnson Deborah Johnson a coach at Johnson and Alicia Dem a former kindergarten teacher at Burnley Moran who is now a PhD student with uh Dr Emily salari at the UVA School of Education in addition to these two big PL opportunities we also created a customizable professional learning model for K through five that includes bite-size actionable training for teachers on using our resources to implement evidence-based explicit literacy instruction in September and October we brought in trainers from heg phic awareness
183program for three sessions to all prek and first grade teachers and instructional assistants on this um pheic awareness program we use it as a warm-up for our phonics lessons and that is thanks to the United Way who gave us a donation uh to pay for that training so we're really really uh thankful to them uh moving on up to Buford last year we ran a three-part workshop for The English Department ESL teachers and special education teachers who support English on how to scaffold complex text for every learner using our new resource we brought in Dr Sarah Lupo from JMU to lead those trainings and um then she followed up with teachers and plc's um and finally all of our English teachers from grades 5 through 12 have now successfully completed the VOE training on holistically
184scoring writing so that we can create better vertical alignment on writing from uh pre through 12th grade so a lot of PL all right the next slide is about letters so I was asked to tell you a little bit what about what letters is um and it's funny that it's a misspelled acronym because letters stands for language Essentials for teachers of reading and spelling it's a professional development that provides teachers with the skills they need to master the fundamentals of reading instruction phonological awareness phonics fluency vocabulary comprehension writing and language uh letters is authored by Dr Louisa Moz and Dr Carol Tolman they're like you know huge gurus in the field the popular motto of this course is that teaching reading is rocket science there is really so much a teacher needs to know in
185order to do it well Elementary School is not all cute bulletin boards and things like that it would be ridiculous for me to try to teach chemistry or AP Calculus and by the same token our elementary teachers need to be experts in the content area of all aspects of reading and language that is a tall order so in order to support teachers with improving their knowledge of reading instruction the vdoe um has a a letters kind of um initiative and they train One Division staff member fully in both letters one and two and then also letters facilitation and then if you do if you do those steps which we did last year the VOE will fund 10 teachers per year to go through letters with the local facilitator currently 54% of Virginia school divisions are
186participating in letters um so in the next slide um I of course was not content to only be able to offer it to 10 people in time because there is just such urgency in shifting our practice to meet our students needs so on this slide you can see the names of all the teachers um who participated last last year we had 41 teachers um and we focused on uh K1 classroom teachers reading Specialists special Educators ESL teachers coaches and admin administrators um we did have uh one principal last year who took it this year we are actually running three cohorts um so we have our VOE funded cohort that is small that's 10 people and that is focused on two first grade teams at two elementary schools including the supporting Specialists and administrators we are
187also running a large Charlottesville funded cohort of 39 teachers and we preferenc teams who took it together one thing we found last year we had a few teams uh kindergarten team at Johnson kindergarten team at Venable a couple other teams who took it together and um that just accelerated their practice and they saw um they saw impact in terms of student data far more because they their their letters participation just was was part of their work together it became part of their planning and their data analysis and and they just were implementing it a lot faster so we preference teams together um and then finally we're running a small exploratory cohort of those of us who took letters one last year a small group of people who are taking letters two so we can determine
188whether we want to extend uh our letters participation into Vol it's two volumes so it takes two years so the key thing that I want to say about letters is that it really is a game Cher and teachers who are taking it are more purposeful and responsive in their planning with our new resource and they are seeing their students accelerate in their reading achievements so much faster than pre letters the other thing I want to say about letters is that while the division is generously funding the training and the trainers much of the work is done by teachers on their own time many of them are taking the course together as a team like I said so that's it's helping them be more efficient that way but this is a huge time commitment our teachers
189are making to be better reading teachers because what they want is for their students to be become skilled readers writers and communicators the amount of time this takes is significant and I want to make sure that we really honor that commitment these teachers and leaders are making so last slide in closing some next steps uh one is to continue to expand the letters offering um we have some options we can bring in additional trainers or we can train up a couple other local facil uh train up a couple other people in our division to be facilitators that could help to facilitate these um smaller cohorts um we want to continue to refine and offer our CCS pre8 literacy course we want to continue to build on the work to expand the capacity of our reading
190Specialists to continue to help improve tier one instruction because that is where the biggest investment is is we want to continue to make investments in the diversity and representation of texts that our students have access to we also are going to need to continue to look at needs for specific and targeted teacher training and coaching based on need and that obviously includes collaboration across reading Specialists instructional coaches and sometimes bringing in other expertise we would like to continue to support cross-curricular planning and the teaching at the high school to support students making and applying connections across content areas and lastly supporting the work of the division and school-based btss teams to make databased decisions about instruction and intervention so it's it's all order but thank you for giving me the opportunity to update you and
191I'm happy to take any questions yeah thank you that was a lot um we can start how about Mr Bryant we'll go that way back and go this way indeed it was a lot but it was very informative most important thing you said and I think um I'm hoping that the public heard that as well um despite the the limitations with mass and teachers trying to teach reading um and enunciating words and sounds and phonics and all that good stuff most important thing you said tonight that this L um s training has or is a game chain and not only are we um improving the skills and the reading skills of our students but also teaching them to be um great writers and communicators that goes hand in hand with reading I see it a
192lot at the community college level the kids come in and they're not great writers they're excellent readers but all of that and communicators so all of that goes hand in hand I think it's important because a lot of times we hear oh the children can't read and you know and um but yet we are doing the great work in the scha city schools um in in the name of equity to ensure that all of our kids will become all three of those things great readers writers and communicators I thank you all for the great work that you all are doing let prayer focus on your second slide where you talked about literacy is a civil right that has the power to create Equitable outcomes for for every student as they used to say many years
193ago reading is fundamental reading is fun because it takes us to places we may never have been or may never get an opportunity to go you have selected a program called letters that is going to allow all students in Charlottesville City School to have that opportunity to go places where they may have been or may never get to go and so as they become better readers writing will happen and their expressions will improve often you see people write the way they speak but if we read and we learn and we read and learn correctly everything else Falls in line so I am very excited about our children reading I am excited about our children learning but I appreciate you and your team looking at this skill from an equitable L education is a right it
194is not a privilege and I believe that CCS will continue to understand that education is a right and and all of our students are privileged because of it TR some more there thank you um I was just wondering and hopefully this question will make sense when you were talking about the reading um the pal scores and how they've gone down 10% when you look at it if I was reading below grade level and she was reading above does is it like everyone's kind of the slip affects everyone the same way or if I was already reading below grade level am I more effective do is it making sense I'm just trying to understand if you're already struggling is it like we hit a pause button and everyone's kind of we've all gone down a little
195but or is it like some people are sliding more some stud I think I understand your question um I think you're asking was the slide did everybody slide everybody slide at some point and um you know we would have to go through our Pal's data with a very fine tooth conone but the answer is no um there were definitely kids in this throughout at at every grade level I me see at the high school too who who continued to grow and progress and accelerate You know despite things and part of that is um is honestly because some some of us can afford to provide uh you know I mean you can see that the tutoring industry has just you know exploded during this um time and so there are families who had the capacity to
196continue to have kids in uh in-person learning um throughout throughout covid um so uh it definitely has not affected our students uh the same it has exacerbated our our gaps for sure I think uh Co has been uh has had a huge impact on our Equity work um and it has um definitely um impacted students who are already um sort of in those risk bands more than the students who weren't I think what we're seeing um in the upper grades uh I know Beth was going to talk about Matt scores um but just real quickly um you know in in our upper grades there seems to be less impact um from interrupted schooling on the reading scores and on the math scores because at that point if you can read it's you know you're just
197maybe like a little bit Rusty you're a little bit out of practice but once you have those foundational skills you're set um but the reason why we're seeing such an impact especially in second grade and third grade is because if you think about if you're a third grader you spent almost all of second grade virtual and you missed part of first grade and that is really really critical time if you're a second grader you spent all of most of second grade virtual and part of or first grade in kindergarten and one of the things that was really most challenging for teachers to do virtually was is getting kids to write and getting kids to work on letter formation um and there's there's a huge connection between writing and sort of solidifying the reading brain at
198the same time um so it definitely affected different groups of kids more differently yeah did I answer your question yes you did thank you and then one last question and it may be for Dr OD or Dr Gurley um as we're getting back and seeing scores and things like that what what are the longterm type of solutions like does it look like summer school does it look like after school extra does it look like individual tutoring like what what are the what do we looking into to the Future thinking about to help kids that are on that end that have splid more can I just add a couple things to that um I part of part of the long-term solution is what I just described which is we need to um bolster up our tier
199one instruction by having a highquality aligned curriculum which we have um and by having uh training and support for teachers to learn how to implement uh reading instruction based on the science of reading one thing we've learned about with the science of reading is we work kind of creating our own opportunity gaps by not paying attention to um to the to the reading brain and all that inails and with the best of intentions um you know myself included as a former teacher and reading specialist um we were uh using practices that that that were like I said creating our own gaps pigeon Hing kids into levels withholding grade level content from some for some kids and not for others skipping over a huge scope sequence of foundational skills which then creates gaps for kids um
200so part of the solution is all of these um the the the work on tier one instruction that we're doing absolutely I concur um our goal of course is to ensure children get quality tier one instruction that's first we need to provide professional learning opportunities which letters and the reading course and all of the other professional learning opportunities that uh Miss tatal mentioned uh to to arm our teachers with the skills that they need in order to be um High highly effective teachers in the classroom to accelerate learning uh certainly we we know that there are gaps uh we know that there is unfinished learning and there are areas that we've got to uh enhance our instructional practices for our students to be where we need them to be to be where they deserve but
201uh Kim did mention a grant that the doe has uh put out there for school divisions to apply to and it's an uh ARP sr3 um unfinished learning Grant and so there are three areas to that grp where School divisions can apply and one of the areas is before and after programs one is summer school and one is unfinished learning and so we've been having some conversations about you you know yeah we we have to make sure that our teachers have the skills that they need to enhance and improve tier one instruction but when there is a student that continues to need remediation and intervention what can we do to support those needs and so we're going to be applying for that uh for some areas in that grant to get some additional Monies to
202enhance possibly some summer programs and and not only remedial programs but we're looking at enrichment opportunities because all students deserve to to have some enrichment as well as uh remediation as well and and so looking at different ways um provide better and and more continual supports to our students outside of the and we did we did learn some things about after school programs and we want to be thoughtful about layering on additional programs that um that take a lot of work take a lot of capacity a lot of Staffing um and you know we have to just we have to sort of decide what is the transaction cost gonna going to make the difference one of the um barriers I think that we experienced with our former um after school program was just Staffing it
203um and because we are paying teachers um a stien to do it we they can't be doing it during the school day so it's got to happen after the school day and so finding teachers who want who at this point especially because teachers are really working hard um to put in that extra time after school is is it just gets harder and harder um the other thing that we know about you know what they're what they call highd do tutoring which is proven to be effective as opposed to the sort of a couple days a week after school which really only gives you maybe 30 to 40 minutes extra um the the approach of high does tutoring is uh four at least four days a week during the school day with a certified teacher preferably
204the teacher who actually teaches that child because we also know that you can't just layer on more supports without it being connected and integrated um and so so we would just really want to be thoughtful about about that kind of approach I know we've had some preliminary conversations um with the Ed school at UVA about perhaps some tutoring that we could do with them um so that um we're not having to to manage it and staff it as well so that's very preliminary conversation but something we've done in the past that might be a a more feasible option thank you yeah Mr Wade Dr Craft um yeah I just had a couple of things and again I really applaud the um depth of training and uh the approach the systemic approach I I really feel
205like maybe we're really getting a handle on what works well um so thank you so much for that um just I was just curious about um you know we we have both we have the gifted Specialists and I'm wondering do they fit into this at all are they getting any of the letters training are they involved in any of this so that's my first question I'm trying to think if any of our gifted Specialists are enrolled currently um I apologize to any gifted Specialists out there who are enrolled that I can't think of at the moment well I saw Melanie Johnson's name that she had taken the training right and uh I think that's what she she's one of the gifted de Johnson is an instructional coach um okay she's an instructional coach so we
206really did prioritize classroom teachers reading Specialists specialed ESL coaches and administrators for letters okay um it's we we would like to include everybody but just you know we're trying to keep it manageable yeah it's just you know I would hope that maybe the the gifted Specialists would not be doing things that were inconsistent with the model that we're trying to push there's one one of the gifted specialists at Johnson she actually um yeah she she um has been oh Melanie Melanie is yes currently a second grade teacher at oh she is Jackson bi she is the gifted specialist yes she took she took letters um and she it's like fullon implementation in her classroom um and then um one of the gifted Specialists also did has reached out to me um Christina ESP spazo and
207she has been working with her teams around how she can she support some of these sort of low floor high ceiling tasks with phonic skills I think in the past we had this idea that like not everybody needs phonics it's only for the kids who aren't doing well and actually what we know is that 95% ofs need phonics instruction and they need it to be explicit and systematic and it's really only about 5% of kids who who really just need it for five minutes but it doesn't harm them to get it um and finally I feel like I'm channeling Ned Mickey here but um are we still doing book buddies uh we have book buddies coordinators I think the program looks really different in different different places I I really can't speak to exactly how
208it looks everywhere but in some of the schools we've we moved away from um uh from the the intense work of recruiting volunteers to work with just a really a few kids yeah and they tended to work with a lot of kids who just needed a little extra push and so instead in most of our schools th those people are actually doing direct service to kids and so they're serving many many more kids than they're serving them directly and they're working within the same model that we're using yes okay yep and so it's not something extra it's not something different it aligns yeah thank you yeah but that's a good question I should look into that a little bit more at the different schools I know what it looks like in some schools but yeah
209thank you so Miss T that was great um so I'm assuming but I'm going to ask just to make sure so the program that we used to have I believe it was Grant funded the ebl program is that that's a no more program or that's on hold right now we uh so last year we was the last year that it was funded and we pivoted um and we I recruited teachers to do one-on-one instruction through Zoom a tutoring um so actually we did two things with the program one was um we we did one-on-one tutoring through Zoom we were not allowed to recruit anybody outside of ccs to be in a a digital space with kids um for safety and privacy reasons so um so we recruited as many teachers as we could find to
210provide one-on-one um like I said with with uh with our students and in those cases it was highly successful but it was it was it was hard to recruit teachers um and it was hard for them to always find the time to work with kids you know kids have been on Zoom all day long and then to have another Zoom session wasn't always that appealing we also used some of the funding um to uh to I we worked with uh last year at the high school um seniors who are at risk of not graduating and so we funded um mentors at the high school to work with um about uh oh gosh I should have brought the numbers um over 50 students over 50 seniors at risk of not graduating 99% of them then graduated
211so it was a we we sort of wrapped that into the the grant one thing about that Grant was once you're three years out of the out of the the the uh the award time then the uh the local match is quite high so it costs the division a lot more to run the program so um we decided at the end of last year not to reapply for the grant because um the local match was so high and then it was also got wrapped into this the new funds that um that are up for application now the American Rescue Grant right yeah no and I appreciate just everybody's mindfulness about not adding on or doing more at this point but I mean I'm you know I'm really excited about the Letter's um training and how
212and how that is just tied to the science of reading and and just our instructional um skills and supports that our teachers can then use um in their instruction and just wondering what we can do you know because I'm I'm sure there it's it's hard for some teachers to probably switch their practices and and instructional I mean how can we support you and supporting them and and um I mean and and then how many years do you anticipate you need before you feel like enough of our our teachers are are trained in really implementing this I think think our teachers are doing an amazing job of shifting their practice um I think we have cultivated a uh culture of we are all learning and um you know what we didn't know before what we know
213now um is what matters and what matters is what we do next and when we know better we do better and we that's really been our approach um this is not about calling people out because you didn't know um so I I think our teachers and our administrators have just done a fabulous job job of cultivating that I've had and I know that it hasn't always been easy for teachers um but they are doing it they're making the shift and it's really quite amazing um to see it happen I think it's happening relatively quickly here because I think we do have this sort of momentum right now with our new curriculum with letters with all these things sort of kind of a perfect storm you know that also I think was precipitated by the vooe
214literacy Summits in 2020 um which if you haven't had a chance to watch are recorded you can watch them they're great um and then just you know the sort of national conversations about about reading across the country um I think you know it will be important to continue to support the funding of letters um I I do think it would be good to um fund the training of a couple more facilitators locally so one one of our exemplary reading Specialists went through the facilitator training that was funded by the VD e but they'll only fund one facilitator and so if we could get a couple more people trained as fac facilitators it just gives us more capacity to lead that in our division last year we um we just paid letters to do the trainings
215and they're great but they're very expensive um and it's just a long time to be on Zoom um and so with a local facilitation we can be a little bit more creative and flexible about um making that that learning time a more purposeful and actionable for teachers I thank you I mean I've heard good things from a lot of people so I appreciate it I mean I also appreciate the fact that just literacy instruction has changed you know throughout the years and that that oh you know change is hard but again we can always learn and we can always do better um I appreciate your team I appreciate and uh remember hearing the summer a group of people working to um diversify the books and and to make sure that they were reflective of of
216everybody as far as what what the kids are receiving in the schools so I mean people stepping up in in all kinds of ways so thank you for your leadership and and the team and everybody else is who was doing this for our students the books were very appreciated especially since a lot of schools kind of just gave away a lot of books last year because they teachers wanted kids to have books in their homes and that was really important and so it was a really important infusion of books and and we do still have in our library and in our book some very old books that are very outdated that that need a need a faft so thank you great thank you thank you for the update okay Co update Dr Gurley all right
217thank you good evening Madam chair members of board Dr Gurley other the co update gets shorter each month so I'm excited about that you could go into the next slide I just want to report a little bit of what's been going on since um we were here last month uh you can see the number of cases we had in September big reduction in October um as far as the city of Charlottesville that's not CCS that's the city of Charlottesville uh our level of transmission for the city was in the red and it changed to Orange on uh Monday and my uh co-executive team members will tell you as soon as I found that out I sent everybody a meeting and then there was a debate did the orange stand for Virginia Tech uh Virginia state
218or UVA okay folks I've made a decision it's Charlottesville High School yes so we are down in the orange which is substantial that does doesn't mean we're good to go yet means it's better than we've been so I'm excited about that they do only update the um the level of transmission weekly so I'm hoping we will stay where we are and the way the numbers are going right now looks like we will within just Charlottesville City Schools back in September you can see we had 77 cases and for the month of October we only had 31 so that is um those are cases not exposures and that includes both students and adults so we're very pleased that that number went down next slide please update on testing um lots of things have been have come
219in and I can't remember if I already had all of the vinex test when I was here last month but I received over a thousand and over half of them are already in the schools I didn't put them all out in the schools because storage space it's easier to have them in my office than to have them in in schools so I have those also uh Blue Ridge gave us6 62 uh let's get checked PCR test that can be done from home or we are trying to do them as needed at school so that we will help the families by taking care of the UPS piece these are all UPS outa here to California um but uh by us doing them parents aren't having to deal with ups and UPS comes to our schools every
220day every way anyway so we're trying to do that the Vista program that you've heard so much about is finally started yay and um the program did change we're not doing the pool program any longer and I'm really sort of glad about that because what we're doing now is individual PCR tests we have a schedule and the the company next next molecular I have a hard time with that word uh will be in our division three days a week on Wednesdays right now they're going to Burnley Moran CHS and for um central office employees down in the annex next on Thursday they're going to Clark Jackson via Johnson and Buford and on Fridays they'll be going to Venable Green Brier and walker uh like I said we we started so we've gone through two days
221I was very impressed yesterday because they as I said they did um Burnley Moran CHS and Annex and nine o'clock last night I had the results so that was very exciting so um uh Beth and I right now are working on the letting the notices go when there's a negative test we get the information and we're expected to send an email if it's a positive test we get the information and we're expected to make a call first because vdh will also get or bluid will get access to that information so I'm very excited that we have gotten that started and was very happy that yesterday we had no no positive test so I hope to keep that roll in fact since November started which I realized this is only the 4th I think we've only
222had one positive in the division so I'm very pleased about that um some of the pediatricians in Blue Ridge are looking at possibly trying to do a test to stay program Jeff for Gallas who is at UVA is sort of leading the way on coming up with protocol um about how we can because we've got all of these tests in the division right now that will expire the day we go out for Christmas break so our winter breaks I would really like for us to use them so I've told Jeff Jeff that we would be glad to be a um guinea pig if he needs one as far as the program to make sure we're keeping kids in school and speaking of Jeff he has an article that was released yesterday in Time Magazine so
223if any of you read Time Magazine please look at that it's about children's vaccinations he sent it to me last tonight and I read it and um for the liner just like the microphone did uh stopping my tracks to to think about the whole issue but anyway so we're hoping to just keep continuing these different testing programs and doing everything we can to keep our children and adults in school last slide please vaccinations you we all know that now we can vaccinate children 5 through 11 and we are delighted that this is I think not knowing was part of the the issue or when are we going to finally know something we finally know it it's going to be at least starting now with fiser um and we are working with the health department to
224get all of this scheduled within our schools we we're not doing it exactly the way I thought it was going to be at first but I've been trying to negotiate to get as many um uh vials as we can and if you're following the news right now it's still pretty um hard to get nationally so we're not going to start out with a huge roll out but we're going to use what we can and as we get more vaccine we offer more clinics so when all of our clinics are announced people say oh I'm not going to be able to get my shot you might not in the very first round but we're going to keep working with clinics until we get everybody who wants a shot we will be working with one school next
225week and then we will do a bigger Clinic here at um CHS Saturday I think it's on the 13th I don't I don't think the exact times have been set one of the things about scheduling these they are drivethru so while some of our sites are great for drive-thru for testing they're not as good for vaccinations because if you when you got your shots remembered you had to sit for 15 minutes well that has to happen too so we have to have a place for the cars to be for the 15 minutes Beyond so just know that we're we're working and we're going to do as much as we can to to get as many um vaccines for families that want them and for our adults who are all eligible for boosters we're not going
226to be doing clinics here at uh Charlottesville High School in the pack like we did for the first and second shots so people are sort of on your own to get the um boosters you can get them in many different places uh I know I got M over at what they're calling big shots and what used to be Big Lots and the the process over there was just amazing so um I want to make sure that our CCS staff realizes we will not be doing those shots as a clinic like we did before but if I can help anybody uh contact and get their appointments I will certainly be glad to do that so that's where we are with Co any questions yeah thank you um so you said Jackson via next week and I
227know that um Beth Chuck sent sent out an email and an announcement went out um about 5:116 today so families please look at your emails um I'm assuming we have that also on our site um we're getting all that set now we be a a small amount there will only be 50 shots that day and then next Thursday there will only be 50 shots again at Jackson via again and now if more fine comes in we will do what we can to get more people in I I'm using every slot I can get right now I'm sorry did you just say 50 this week no 50 50 Monday and 50 Thursday at both at Jackson VI both at Jackson viia then when we have the uh site here it will be set for approxim 50
228from each of the other schools that would be eligible for or have five ages 5 through 11 and again that's two do two two shots two two shots and the way we have it scheduled now going we'll get X number their first shot be for their second shot mid December and we already have a date set for that I say mid December I think it's December 4th but um they'll be ready for the winter break to be fully vaccinated so do I dare ask how you how the 50s are being that first come first serve we're working on criteria that Blue Ridge would want us to to work with we're um working with first more economically disadvantaged or atrisk families and then for this very first round and then we will be working for others
229um working within confines of what bluid would like for us to do and to make sure we're getting as many done as we can bluid is tired of me asking can't we have more so and this again for parents and who may be listening this this is required that an adult is with you and sits with you um by appointment only yes are we addressing again um any transportation support for maybe some of those families who might not I've not spoken with Kim I don't know whether um I really just haven't seen much of the last day or two I will say that um sorry that Chuck and Denise have been working very closely together I know I said in her I know she met with both of us yesterday at different times and so
230um Beth Chuck and Denise are working very closely together on this because the the guideline is very tight with regards to who they are targeting for the first one so I know they've collaborated very extensively so a lot of the equity issues here that are caused because of the the roll out I know that that's the part that they're working on communicating now so I'm anticipating she's going to wave her wand in the next day or so and it'll we're going to get this communicated so specific families will be kind of tapped or there Jackson VI will be reaching out or somebody and we have the link that they will need to sign or to use to get the appointment so we're we're working to try to get all of this to go very smoothly
231right no I appreciate that and again please take look take a look at the email or listen to the message I'm assuming that went out you know there are um other opportunities for vac vaccinations um for that age group of kids you know UVA Health Center um you know by appointment only so keep that in mind this is not just a show up type of thing in community vaccination Center some of the Pediatric offices I know I've been seeing a lot of people who have their their kids scheduled for that as well so I mean I know I know you're working hard and we wish we' just had as many vaccines as we needed to get I do know that a friendship Court I apologize for interrupting friendship court and West Haven will also be
232getting their own allotments so that will all help within the city as well through UVA will be doing that I don't know whether it's through Blue Ridge or through UVA but they will be getting their own allotments okay and will those be on site at West Haven I think those are at West Haven in Friendship Court I'm not sure I was just told they were getting their allotments and I know Dr perello is getting a large allotment and then um uh UVA so they're they're doing it in various various groups okay thank you any other questions sorry I kind of jumped in there everybody and I asked if they needed volunteers and they don't really need volunteers to help with the vaccination clinic they said if there were any people who wanted to help with
233the traffic control because especially here at the high school it's going to be several hundred um that they could use the help with that but they don't need help with registration or things like that like we did when we did it here at the pack okay and and Jackson and I did just get a message that the Jackson VI families did get the um information tonight about the clinics please if you think about it send us an email again if you need or if they need volunteers I mean I'm trying to write the stuff on my calendar but yeah I keep going back to the question Mr Wade asked me a couple meetings ago about what about all this process bothered me or kept me from going to UVA events there's a home football game
234when we've got the big thing here so I'm sure one of you will come volunteer with parking so I can go to the game what date is that again the whatever Saturday is it the 13th and I don't know the exact times yet so I'll have to get that yeah any other questions board members on all right thank you so much appreciate it okay uh fiscal year 2023 budget priorities Dr Gurley that would be [Music] cim good evening everyone um this presentation should should be relatively brief it's really just um an opportunity Renee Hoover um thought it would be a good idea for us to confirm what we heard at the September 20 um the September um budget work session so Leslie's bringing this up now and so this is really just an opportunity for
235um for us to recap make sure that we our takeaways are the correct takeaways and set the tone for the process ahead so um really the overarching themes when we looked at our notes from September 21st were re reconfiguration focus on student programs and staff compensation and benefits and I'll briefly go a little bit lower in the the level of detail for each of those so for reconfiguration for those who um are following our process again there's a lot behind that we're addressing aging facilities issues we're reducing our student transitions during critical middle years provide modern state-of-the-art facilities to support best practices for both Early Learning and middle school education because reconfiguration is affecting both of those time periods in our students and our Learners lives and last but certainly not least improving the safety
236and reducing the um carbon footprint of these facilities so reconfiguration is vital in all these areas next slide with regard to student programs and prioritizing our student programs um we're not hearing a lot about adding new programs it's more about maintaining and optimizing the programs we have for both academic and social emotional Student Success we've heard a lot about that this evening you're you're drinking from the fire hydrant on those two topics but that's what that's our mission that's what we're all about and then next um staff compensation and benefits you hear me say it every year all businesses are people businesses but none more so than education what we do is all about people and our Focus are the our Young Learners that's what it has to be about um Above All Else and
237so um in order to to perform our mission effectively we have to be competitive in the marketplace and so wages health insurance and vrs will be other key top topics as we move forward so um it all sounds simple enough we have a lot of complexities we're navigating in the budget processes ahead with this onetime money so having kind of a laser focus on what's most important will definitely help us in navigating those other complexities um that's really all I have for you this evening um except for one more thing which is a friendly reminder that these budget priorities when you think about them they all align with our strategic plan and that's always important that too is always part of our budget process to check ourselves against that strategic plan and so this is
238just a friendly reminder of how these budget priorities um match up and they're not aligned on the horizontal because each of those budget priority areas touch multiple Focus areas in different ways but it all comes together um pretty clearly I think the the the balls if you will that we need to keep our eye on and and um where we need to be successful so happy to take questions but main thing is did we hear you correctly all right Bard this is your chance did they hear us correctly anybody I believe you did all right thank you so much next we have um again assessment update and then you can just roll right into substitute update hello again um let's see there you go uh the assessment update as we are uh thinking about it
239um Miss tle did talk about Pals and for in the fall the the three bigger division-wide assessments have been Pal's map which is measures of academic performance and the new growth assessment that the state has is done so I want to talk a little bit about map a little bit about the growth assessment and I will tell you the information that's coming out about the growth assessment continues to change and update uh even this afternoon when I was getting ready to come over here I was in another session learning more about the growth so you can't might not be able to see all of my notes I wrote All Over thing because new information came to me this afternoon so what I'm going to talk about with the growth assessments is latest and greatest as
240of almost 4:00 today next one please I know this slide has a lot of information but I just want to show you overview this is the 30,000 foot level this is looking at map in math showing our division by grade level in the various quintiles a lot of times we hear about quartiles which is every quarter percentile this is in quintile so it'd be every 20 40 608 uh red obviously is where we have some students who are not where we would want them to be but we know that those are students that we're going to focus on and then we've got the other the orange the yellow the green and the blue so again high level but each school has their own map data um and they are looking at it by student but
241wanted to just show you the overall through the um Division and this is certainly not all we focus on and we do get it down to the individual child in um in each of these so that's the map for Math and then the next slide shows reading so again same color combinations um a little bit different uh numbers or percentages in our different quiles here quintiles but just know that we are getting down to the very student this is the 30 foot 30,000 foot level next please now this is where we get into the growth I think I've shared this um graph with you but just to sort of remind you um we've got math on the left reading on the right the anything above the red line which the the red line is called
242the low proficient anything above the red line which show that students are ready for grade level material anything between the purple line in the red line would say that they will need some help some support anything below the purple line shows that they will need support in between it be may now we know that one point in time isn't going to tell us exactly what we're going to do with students so we need to just think this of this as one point and today in the meeting that I was in they were re reiterating the purposes of the whole growth assessment because a lot of people saying this much going on about the growth assessment we need to think about it as a baseline for the beginning of the 2122 school year with what will
243be the spring 22 so so that's one purpose of it and then also an estimate of how the children achieved on the previous year because the tests that they took in the fall were measuring content from the previous year if you had a seventh grade student they took a test that was called a seventh grade growth assessment but it was measuring sixth grade content the only place that was different was for third grade because third graders took a third grade test based on third grade content because we didn't have a second grade so test so the the purpose is not to say your child is doing great your child is not doing great the child the purpose is to give us Baseline and to get an estimate of how they did in the previous year
244and we all know and you've heard other people talking tonight previous year is is was different and we know we've had learning laws so we're we're using this as one measure to to go forward next slide please this basically says what I just said if you are at the red line good Baseline if you're between the two they may need support if they're below the purple they will need support so just to to let you see that this shows averages for Charlottesville um the H the lines you see in the purple column go along with the purple line you saw on the the previous um slides which which is what they say at third grade the high basic would be 138 1367 in math these are just points on a u vertical scale that goes
245from 900 the 2,000 so this is what they've said would be average for the the lower line the purple line for third grade then the red line would be at400 looking at the map 1401 so think about these these um columns this is the same as the lines going up so where were our averages you can see we had three that are in yellow so we had three grade levels across the entire School division that were below the the lower line overall averages now averages a lot of times as we know don't tell the story we can do averages of things and having an average is not not really what we need we need to look at each individual Tri which we are doing but so in math it shows that we were below the
246expectations of content from the previous year and served as a baseline for this year at three different grade levels and reading we did if you look at those numbers we did pretty well we were within the ranges of what would be expected so while we want all the numbers to be higher this just sort of tells us third grade may be a place we really need to look at seventh grade may be a place we really need to look at and eighth grade but we're going to look at all of them so this is just to show you that next slide please Dr I'm sor sorry to interrupt when you go back to that slide the high basic low proficient can you go so are you saying the high basic the purple is just like
247this is the the base level you're you're you don't need any interventions I'm just confused any any if you if you look at the um go back to where the lines were if you look at and have a hard time seeing it up there if you look at fourth grade for math the the number listed there is 1367 that is what would be expected to be where students would need most support any student below 1367 in fourth grade on fourth grade content is definitely going to need support if that student scores between 1367 and 1401 on this linear scale they might need extra support if they score be H higher than 14 1901 as a fourth grader in math it appears that they are ready to receive fourth grade content so the 1367 says they
248probably did not get all of the third grade content between the 1367 and the 1401 they still going to need some help on fourth grade content and above 1401 they are likely ready to be uh beat for 14 grade content why are the third grade numbers and the fourth grade numbers why are the third grade numbers and the fourth grade numbers the same because um the third grade had to take the third grade test fourth graders took even though it said fourth grade took a third grade test because you take it for the grade previously and for third grade they didn't have a previous grade so fourth grade and third grade took basically the same test all of this is a little Voodoo though right now I mean because what we're talking about is basically
249a year of virtual pool and then an so at the end and so this average we can find based on the growth measure like a point in time for the fall but the average doesn't reflect a Year's worth of in person instruction likely not but I'm going to tell you why this all in of this terrible as or comp it is complicated but why it might not be as bad thing in in just a second well I can see it not being a bad thing in a year but like today it looks like I just feel like Fair again this was something that was legislated that um was probably started and thought about prior or during the the pandemic and it really is looking at the Baseline I think is using the pandemic to help
250us determine a baseline with learning loss so when we're getting more back to where we want to be we're going to be able to show the growth more easily so I don't I mean it's one number learning l i mean we just want to see where our kids are at right okay and so like that's the so we're saying right now our average from math to third graders is at 1289 uh 13 well yeah 1289 and so fourth grade graders with essentially the same number the test they're at 1393 right okay and tell me how that's going to you said you I mean I understand using the pandemic as a baseline that looking at this one number really is not going to to help what will help is the information that comes from this which
251is called a student detail by question which will tell teachers and parents exactly what question students missed in the level of questions whether it was a high level question a medium level question or a lowlevel question looking at what they missed from the previous year content so if I'm a fourth grade teacher and I look at a student's s DBQ then I will see the types of questions that the student missed that were on a third grade level so I may I will figure out what I need to scaffold or support on for the third grade so that they're ready to get the fourth grade content as as more information comes out yes Steph and um Carolyn Swift attended one of the big trainings with this and have been working with the math and reading
252teachers and again new information today so I'll be sharing with Dr Gurley and Dr OD and with principles and so that we can get more information out to the teachers because like I think that's probably part part of the problem with map is that the teachers weren't necessarily trained in order to like you the same thing could be drilled down into the the the question by detail so as long as like we understand the resources available based on these eventually at least these exam these so this this is just kind of where we are but we're getting this this is the higher level just like in the map we aren't down into the the lower level by child and where we're going to make a difference is getting down to the lower level to each
253child and we know that and if you look at the um next one this is a terrible graph but what the point I wanted to show you is that in our uh data system edge of climber when this is looking at um I can't even read the thing but when you click on either of these bars it's going to tell you the exact children I didn't when I did the um graph I made sure I didn't have anything clicked because this tells you exact children that are in different places so that what's really on here is and is important is to know that teachers aren't getting just graphs they're getting graphs and clicking they know which children are fitting into different things so they can help to know how to do grouping or what um
254so or what other learning targets they need to work on so getting down into the details uh next slide so growth for this year some years it's going to be different but growth for this year um they have what's called a progress table and you can you can read that I don't need to read that to you but when they were first developed they were looking at it based on how we've done scores for so we know our scores for so go from zero to 600 so that was kind of the basis for doing this so now they're doing progress tables to use these vertical scales which go from 900 to 2,000 um key point on this is the last one growth measures are only needed when a child doesn't pass the so test so
255if a child passes the so test we don't worry about any of the growth measures at all child passes the test good we're done it's only when a child doesn't pass the so test that we go back and look at all the growth pieces to see so if we can get our students to pass the test we're not going to have as many that we are going through the calculations for the growth measure next slide please so how are they going to figure it they're going to have the progress tables that I just mentioned here's one for reading and there's also one for math I didn't put this in here what gets confusing for this and I I was glad they showed it to me again today when you look at that column where it
256says the content level that is not necessarily the grade level is the content from the test that they took so a seventh grade who took a test in the fall they would they would have their fall score on the line six because they were looking at sixth grade content um the ranges one through three are considered the ones that go along with the purple line or in that area the Range four um is where you're looking at um might need the additional support so that gap between the two lines that's where most of the kids would be range for students scoring higher than that the expectation is they should be passing the test so when again looking at the three ranges is supposed to help to decide um or not to decide but to match
257with the the linear lines or linear chart I showed you are these integrated all with btss with btss I mean this growth measure at all is it gred at all with btss no this is all based on so assessments but you would think it was like basically tier three or tier two I guess if we T and they haven't made those connections but probably if you tried to tie it in there the um the tier one is going to be Beyond Range four that's going to be they now today showed us five performal ranges five through Eight's probably going to be the tier one tier two would be Range four and tier three would probably be one through three or at least one and two what you said about this being a growth measure for
258students who do not pass the is a critical component of the question and really why we retain Maps as a tool for the children who are growing but who would pass the right I'm going to show you a couple of examples here's no test at the end and I'm going to show you a couple of examples of how this will be used okay third grade is is the different group because again they had to take a third grade test at the beginning of the year which seemed a little unfair to me because they were being tested on content they had not had so if you look at this if you've got a child in the spring who takes a third grade test you'll see that score that the box that's surrounded in blue in the
259in the fall they were still taking a third grade test and they got a score of 1300 so if you look where 1300 is that's in range two you can see that the uh where they were was to the right of where they started so that shows growth so what you're looking for is to for them to land to the right of where they started in grade three they had to be on the same roow but you're looking because the child in the spring was to the right of where they were in the fall there's grow can I just ask um it says spring 2022 yes this is good example of how we're going to figure all this out in the spring we're assuming a child if a child but a student oh I see
260so you're you're Looking Backward no we're projecting that if child in the spring of 22 takes a third grade test these are these are not set examples because spring 22 hasn't gotten here yet yeah so they're showing us what we're going to be looking at in Spring of 22 to figure growth okay okay next one Leslie okay in this one again you've got a child who in the spring of 22 taking a seventh grade test seventh grade so test so they would be in the blue mark now in the fall they took sixth grade content and scored 1383 so you would do it in line six because the content was sixth grade not the grade level so then when you look where the child landed is to the right of where he started so that
261would show growth all right and then one last example here you look you've got a seventh grader so they're on the um row seven the student scored that in the range of uh 1490 so that's the blue one mark in the fall they took the seventh grade test which was on the sixth grade content so you can see where they were they were in the box above so it was directly above so there was no growth to give one more chance at growth they go back and look where was the child the spring the year before so the spring the year before the child was in sixth grade taking sixth grade s sols scored 1400 so they on content grade six they do that green box since that green box is to the left of
262where the student was in seventh grade showed growth so we have multiple ways to show growth and you say why is this important because students who show growth count in our numerator when they're determining accrediation so students who pass the test and students who show growth whether it's from Fall to spring or spring to Spring will count as in the accreditation now if a student um shows growth that doesn't automatically say they pass the test they don't pass the test but they show growth for us so those are three examples again there is no test at the end of this but if everybody understands this they're not going to make us do this by hand but if you understand it we'll have you in to help us make sure we've done it correctly okay next
263slide and just about to the end I think this is the last one so we have a new tool for families beginning this year there's going to be a parent portal that will uh be in Pearson um and we're trying to work it out so there'll be less places of ways for parents to have to go in but what's going to happen in this portal they'll be able to see the results from this fall growth assessment and then as spring comes with so test that will also be in there so the child will have then you'll see a Continuum for the child now if you've got I'm I'm Sorry Miss mcka you've got several children but you so you're going to have to have you can have one account but you're going to have to
264have it for multiple children um in that you will see how they have scored you'll see the uh sbq that I've mentioned the student beail by question there's also going to be a video for families they're not calling these individualized they're calling them customized they're looking at some of the most common names of children and those will be in there so I'm assuming Beth might be a common name so my video might have about how Beth is doing on this and it will show how the child has done um this is supposed to open on November the 15th there will be a claim code as it's called that we will have to provide families we do not have the claim codes yet that we can provide but as soon as we get the information we
265will be providing it to families and the instructions for how to set up their account so that parents can go in and see this information Dr Baptist I'm sorry what did you just say about the common names what happens with common name they're they're making these videos individual videos so if your child takes a math growth assessment and a reading growth assessment there will be two videos one for reading one for math they're not going to put it in there for every child by every name but they're gonna try to customize as much as they can with some of the more common names like one of my sons is William that's a considered a very common name so his may be all about this is how William did they didn't really do a separate video
266for every child in Virginia but they've tried to customize it with some of the more common names I don't know what they will do for the names that are not on the top 200 but it's the same video it's same video plug in a name yes and we saw of them Mo video today it's it's a lot of information I thought it was a little long but it's got a lot of information I know that was a lot I'm sorry but that's what's happening in the world of assessment at this point any questions I have lots of questions I was very confused okay uh quick question so the where where does the math test is it is it just here that we take it in Virginia like is it everyone takes the map the map
267test it's not a required test we we use map and have used map for several years one of the reasons we use maap is for our gifted program we need to have a nationally normed test and this growth assessment that we're doing is not nationally normed it's only in Virginia so map meets the criteria for that and we have found map at the LA over the last however many years to be a good predictor of how children are performing and um we have done it different ways at different times sometimes we've done it fall and spring sometimes we've done it fall winter and spring but to really give us um uh prediction of how students are doing and where students need more help so there's a there's a separate test other than map that measures
268growth map it map is one thing growth is a sus is separate the two entirely different tests given at different times so when you were saying the map it just there was some point where you were saying in the spring you look for growth that will go for the growth we're looking at this fall growth assessment we're just talking about and the spring so testing that's where we'll look at the growth this fall test we've just done spring so map Totally separate we will do map again during the year and look to see how that has changed and we might also call it that we looking at growth but not in the same way that we are in the growth assessment tied to the standards of learning the two entirely different assessments and and looking
269at it different but if I'm a student in fourth grade I take both of those yes ma'am um so if you're a teacher and you have S sols and you have math testing which are you supposed to be looking at both of these measures to help your individual students in your class but we only started the map because it was helpful because it's nationally recognized to help with the gift of program no no no no no we we started doing the map again several years ago to help us see how our students were achieving um over various measures and also it is pretty good predictor of how they will likely do in the spring on the so test but we didn't start it just for looking at the so we've been doing M now probably
270close to 10 years if we had I mean Esther Esther took it at Burnley Brown so so we've been doing it for a long time because it really does give us good it gives us good data by individual students and also over classroom in a school so that we can look at curriculum to see if we need to be changing strategies or changing curriculum so it's it's a good predictor so it's a good assessment some school divisions have stopped giving it if if they didn't see the need but we have still seen the need for doing it feel like it's important information for our teachers so teachers like the map well I'm I'm sure maybe not everyone does but I think overall the the information that we've gotten or the feelings that we've gotten is
271that teachers feel like they get good information from that assessment and the uh principes were given the opportunity this fall to look at with it's being a different year did we want to do it and um all the schools decided that they did want to continue to map because they were getting good information from it so it gave them the choice and they selected to continue doing well they had to do it for gifted but the initial conversations were do we do maap or not and um discounting the the gifted conversation they they still wanted do it well those are all my questions it was more Thinking Out Loud how many tests do kids take how we use all the different data as there a way to kind of eliminate it just seems like a
272lot just understanding this one test um and considering all the other ones that have to be given and assessed so I agree that it's I agree that it's a lot but we did take a concerted effort this summer to look at assessments across the board we have an assessment calendar and we um have encouraged the principles and other uh content leaders not to do any assessments that we have not put on the assessment calendar and that we don't feel like are truly necessary for what we need them for so we we've actually cut back on some of the assessments that we've done and kept it to mainly Pals the growth assessments um and then uh uh math so we're doing less than we did and the VOE is going to require that we give this
273one three times yes a year next school year so we won't have a choice but to administer this three times at the beginning middle and at the end right but the but the end will be so and one thing about these they are half the length of the growth Assessments in the fall and what will be in the winter or pass the test not a full length test which also doesn't give us as much information and this is my final question I promise so on that one graph where you had the scores or the percentages going up and it was like kids in the red kids in the yellow kids in if I'm in the red that Flags me for an intervention or a support or something like that uh this one no page if
274you're in the growth assessment page three and four if any of those then you were FL or I think you're looking at the map are you looking at the map I'm looking at page three and four yeah map map that's red would show that you're achieving at the lower levels and then as you go up if you look at the bottom of of each the uh red would be low and then you got below average low average high average and above average so again that sort of says which students might be scoring at a lower level and may need more help but schools aren't going to just look at it by that sheet they're going to look at it by individual students to see their exact needs not just say oh child scored in red
275we've got to do something different they're going to look at exactly where that child's ped what types of questions the child missed so that they can work with that child individually on what needs to be done so when they go back it's just the classroom teacher there's no other supports or anything like that the what would be the team of teachers and the in principal everybody would look to see what does that child need in order to move that child from where he or she is forward thank a lot of data meetings a lot of discussions and on plc's about what needs to be done with individual students as well as groups of students thank I found it Leandra just for your information um interesting with the map because you do as a parent you'll
276get a report and it shows you know the different testing areas and and then even breaks it down a little bit as far as like what subject areas or content and how they scored in that so you can kind of and then I believe that the teachers get it drilled down even further so they can look and then really guide it guides their instruction or or interventions to help support it but it's it's interesting so when you get it for for one of your your students your Scholars yeah um it it can be useful and I think you know it has been around a while as far as the map and again I remember hearing um a PTO presentation on it and it really is if if the teachers and I hope you know we
277can support them with a tool like this to really look at their classroom and their students and see um you know where they might need to scaffold and support students better so I I think it is but I I hear you as far as the number of Assessments it can be daunting at times and especially when you know you're sending your your student to school and you know it's day seven you know of of being assessed you know in a two- we period so it can be a lot but I know that we have looked at or I know we've had conversations at looking at really what are um necessary assessments for those students but thank you any other question any other questions anybody thank you okay so we are going to continue leading forward
278because we need to have folks in our classrooms when our uh regular or ongoing staff cannot be there so we've had a lot of discussions lots of things to talk about regarding getting U more substitutes into our um classrooms and really not just in our classrooms as teachers but also thinking about substitutes for instructional assistants nutrition workers custodians all positions that we have so with this you can see the four areas that we're going to look at qualifications recruitment compensation next steps um qualifications we have gone back and and revised the uh job description several of our neighbors uh had already already done this to not require certain college credits to be a substitute so we have joined those ranks and our um job description now is for a high school diploma or GED and
279to hopefully attract and if anyone feels like we are reducing our standards no we're not we're reducing our barriers to have people come in to work with us and to help with us so I do see this as a equity U Mission too to have more people coming into work with us and especially when we've got colleges right here in our community that would have students who could come in to help us but hadn't gotten a certain number of hours um we are working with and this be the next steps too but we're working with u pbcc and also one of the contacts of UVA um asked me to speak to the uh students in Cavalier daily the magazine there so we can recruit UVA students to come in and so all right next um
280so where are we recruiting anybody who loves children I think that's what Dr Gurley said last month um anybody who loves children who passes the background checks we're not getting rid of any of our background checks that is also still very important and make sure we will do that but we're looking at a retirees we're looking at PTO you can see the list there um I have done some work with student teachers at several universities I've sent things to my contacts at those places um uh I mentioned pbcc UVA so wherever we can find people that would do good not just bodies we don't want just babysitters we want people who are going to continue the learning for our students and one position that we did add uh school-based salary substitutes these will be people
281one for each building who will serve that building all day every day he will be one sub that's already there and that will be somebody who's familiar with the staff familiar with the students familiar with the families so they'll be there to to help if for some reason there it's not a sub needed that day everybody will celebrate and that person will still be working with students at that school so we're very excited about that position and have already filled a couple of schools position for that so very very happy about that these will be um positions that they're not totally considered fulltime but they will be eligible for benefits and leave like everybody else it just they not vs compensation um you've heard from teachers that they have been subbing in classrooms for each
282other we're still continuing to do that because that's still necessary we're still paying um our teachers to do that uh principal send in monthly the the U the list that has happened we would like to with your approval would like to increase our sub rate up to $20 an hour it is currently about 13 and for a sub to be there for a full day it's $91 now it would be 140 which is well above the neighboring um School Division those of you are sitting there wondering how are they going to pay for it we've talked with Miss Powell and Miss Hoover and we believe that it probably is not going to cost us much more money than what were some of the things we're doing now we won't have to pay as many of
283our teachers to cover for each other they'll get their planning time back um we we just hope we feel like we will get more uh people interested in the subbing with the the higher rate and just think if we can you know get it done and get it done well maybe some of our teachers will be in school more often rather than being so exhausted and needing extra time off so again we are hoping that we can uh get that approved and then this will also have us competing with the the surrounding localities because the other localities do not have the same rate so we're hoping that more people will want to come to Charlottesville City Schools um last the next slide please so what are we doing uh again if we can have their
284approval for moving up to $20 an hour uh we are um Continue to update our advertisements Beth Chuck has come up with a really great flyer that we're just waiting to put in the amount for hour and then um the recruitment that I've already mentioned and any other um groups that any of you might know if you're members of uh Civic or social groups that you think might have members who would want to substitute I'll be glad to come speak to groups or whatever we can do to encourage people to come so I would ask for your recommendations because you're going to give us people that you know appreciate and love and would want to be with our students that may be the last thank you any com comments questions miss prer you want to
285jump in on any unique Outreach opportunities for Subs uh I can't think of any offand um I had several people from um our neighborhood L serve reach out they have applied and are waiting for their background checks and on days that they are not normally working they will um contact to say these are the days I'm available um to substitute based on their current work schedule so I'm excited and they applied before the um amended sub for people to be in the building sorry I I called you out on that m perer because I was just so impressed with the fact that that was through a neighborhood association and list serve and I just was really um I thought that was great as I overheard your conversation with with one of your neighbors so I
286think that was a great way to do that so thank you anybody else any other comments it doesn't say action but I assume you want action or you just are you just if I would like to move that we approve the yeah the recommended sub rate to $20 an hour to what attendent recomend okay $20 an hour any other questions concerns comments all right all in favor say I I I any opposed there you go thank you thank you thank you all right we have modifications to school calendar all right Dr Gurley is going to present from the podium absolutely I learned that at church a long time ago you never talk sitting down load and slow all right so I'm going to jump right in so good evening Madam chair Vice chair members of
287the board those are watching online and those who remain with us in the audience uh this evening I I'm going to talk with you all about U calendar revision um so tonight I want to discuss some proposed calendar revisions to the 20 uh 21222 um school calendar and so um lately I've been doing a lot of reading as it relates to our employees and as we navigate the other side of this pandemic uh So currently um our school Personnel have been tasked with um more and more um it's with regards to balancing their work and balancing their families and so recently I I asked a group of Educators um what is one thing you wish you had more of and I think they all reply time and so this presentation um so in this presentation
288I plan to ad address how we can provide our staff um with time to meet the needs of their students and their personal lives so back on October so what's been done so far so back on October the 18th um 20121 um I did communicate with our staff via email um to let them know that they had the flexibility to work in person or remotely on the professional learning days and those days are October the 20th and March the 4th and so these days were already days that are currently built into our calendar and so as we talk about time I just want to bring your attention that the Virginia Department of Education requires that school divisions provide a minimum of 180 days 990 hours and So currently um ccs does have an adopted calendar
289with 180 days and and so what that means in terms of hours is that we look at the school calendar who has the it's what they call the lowest amount of time and so really no one has the lowest amount of time and what it all means is take the high school for example the high school has a day that's essentially 9 to about 4 o'clock but you have to take you have to remove the transitions um meaning the bail changes and you have to remove lunch and so when you remove all of those things what happens is we have about 1,049 hours in our um school which means we have about 10 extra days that are built into um which are 10 days Beyond so it's about 190 days so what I'm bringing to
290you some next steps that I want to proposed um for our calendar um so from the time so I want to just say that from my time being as as a classroom teacher and a classroom and administrator um I will tell you that the longest stretch mentally is the time after the Martin Luther King holiday until spring break and so typically there are no plan days off and teachers are you know just counting down and looking for snow days and so what I wanted to do is address that fatigue that happens with employees during that time and so and in or and an effort to support our culture of care I am going I want to make the following recommendations to um you as a board um so that our employees can have more time
291to plan unencumbered time to plan for their students they can um address the needs of their families and they can care for themselves personally so the first thing I would like to do is um currently um so the first day is January the 21st 2021 that day is currently an early dismissal day um what I would like to do is make that day a full day for students um and so I'm sorry 2022 that should say 2022 uh so that first date I my my apologies that should be 2022 we're not going back in time um so January the 21st 2022 my first mistake right um so what we will do is make that day a full day for children and what that will do is add time back into um our calendar for our
292students I will tell you that I took this um these recommendations before our Tac committee which is the superintendent's advisory I also brought these dates before our principles um and I also um just and yesterday I met with the parent teacher organizations from around the school Division and I also um use them as a soundboard too because I know that the children will be with them during the times that we're recommending that they are that they're off so the first day is to make that a full day then what we will do is the uh February 20 U February 21st 2022 which is President's Day we um I am proposing that that day is off for all employees that we will close all offices and schools on um March the 18th 2022 that is currently
293a full day of classes I am recommending that it becomes a teacher work day um this will um teachers can elect to work from home um they can work remotely um or they can come in whatever their choice is but ultimately this is about providing teachers with unencumbered time to plan and so that's what this day is used as and then lastly um we have um April the um April the 1st 2022 um it's currently an early dismission missile day and what I heard from the TAC committee um which is a group of teachers what I heard from the principles is that teachers had a little bit of angst about half days they said if the kids are here we would rather just have them here the whole day and so what we did was
294we just said okay we're not going to do the half day because we didn't find it to be productive so we're going to make this a teach we're going to make this a student holiday it's the day before the um it's the last day of the nine weeks great grades were due grades are due this day so we're going to make this a student holiday we're going to make it a teacher work day and teachers can choose to work in person they can choose to work remotely um but these days would also be at the guidance of their principles I will tell you from the feedback from the tag committee that one thing that teachers were concerned about they said if you're gonna if we're going to recommend this we want these days to remain
295unencumbered we don't want you to sign us to do things and so my promise to them is that they we said the days that are work days will remain work days and so they do have the flexibility if this is approved to work um virtually or in person so what does this all mean with the proposed recommendations this would leave us with 177 days um in our 2021 2022 calendar it will leave us at about an average of 1,031 hours which still gives us about seven days seven um days built into our calendar and and so that does allow some flexibility in the event that we have some snow or in the inclement weather in our 10 square miles next slide which we may um so what is this um all mean so I really
296am I am really about this culture of um care and so so I hope that the modifications um allow us to continue to allow teachers to have unencumbered time for planning um we are really promoting a work life balance um and so this will allow the flexibility for our employees to work remotely to address the needs of their families and lastly this also supports them and um supports them taking care of themselves um and and promoting that self-care so uh so the last thing that we need in order to make this happen of course we would need um your approval um in order to make this happen so that would be the last action item that um if there are any questions I welcome them at this point um and so I just want to
297reiterate that I did the T committee did have an opportunity to review this um I did have the principles um to vet the the dates and we worked collaboratively on that and then I did use the um PTO as a just to as a sound board just to make sure that they were aware and get any feedback or concerns that they may have and I will tell you that everyone's concerned about just the health and of our employees and how we're meeting their needs and I do feel strongly that we have enough time off right now between the days we've had right here we can make it to Thanksgiving and then Christmas is right around the corner it's that stretch after that Martin Luther King holiday that typically there no days off from January to
298April well I'd like to move that we approve uh Dr gry's suggested calendar changes I like the second thank you thank you thank you any any other questions comments anybody uh I just wanted to um applaud Dr Gurley um when I've talked to employees since you started teacher staff um there seems to be like a nice sigh of relief um that you're taking their concerns and their help um that you that you can and so I appreciate the the recommendation recommended Chang but El else okay all in favor I thank you so much sir we all appreciate it okay um we have where are we any yeah any any board responses to the written report which was enrollment and class size updates that was in our packet of information okay we'll move on um and
299we are now to comments for members of the community our second opportunity if there's anybody hanging in there with us no all right uh three seconds left three two one okay we're going to move on um board member comments Leandra I'll start down there with you you have anything like to can we come back to me my my can we come back to me absolutely thank you m perier I made my comments earlier thank you Mr Bryant long the meeting I just want to thank all of the staff members administrators teachers and for the various works that they they're doing on those committees um thank you Dr gley for your culture of care I'm sure teachers and staff members will be appreciative are appreciative is appreciative of that um other than that I don't have
300any other announcement thank you m mver all right Mr Wade um I love all of the presentations today and I love to there got two meetings to enjoy Dr craft well once again I'm I uh am just so appreciative of the uh competence and quality of the staff that we have these presentations we had a lot of really important presentations and uh they were wonderful and I feel like the work that's being done here is is absolutely fantastic um so it's just you know again more gratitude to everybody who's working so hard um and then finally I'd like to wish Dr OD a happy birthday I just want to embarrass you a little bit thank you happy birthday all right mandra we're back to you I don't have any comments okay well thank you everybody
301great comments great presentations um I appreciate you all um last thing I want to say is is just um everybody for those of you have the opportunity to have family and friends and chosen family that love you make sure you remind them how much you appreciate them because we we don't know when we're not going to have that opportunity so I just wanted to leave that and we will move on to um superintendent's comment all right I will keep them quick um I just want to make a couple announcements in terms of um events that are happening um on November the 15th we do have the CHS fall concert on the November 16th we do have the um buber um orchestra concert and um on the 18th of November um the CCS Trailblazers day and
302on November 20th the response to essential needs which I think we talked a little bit about this evening and then the 24th through the 26th are student holidays um I just want to thank my I want to say my team um for their smart work um I mean they work really hard and I just want to publicly say um that they're very responsive to my needs and I appreciate that um I had the opportunity this weekend to um participate in the event for the Chris Long Foundation and I just want to publicly thank him as a community partner for meeting the essential needs of our children and our PTO yesterday that really warned me that group yesterday had my energy level so high and I appreciate that I love when people challenge me to be
303better um so I'm really appreciative of that and then just the smart work about supporting our social emotional learning and making sure that we thank you to the board for just believing in us and our vision to that when we have a gap we can find a way to make it happen and then the letters everyone knows that the literacy is my passion so when I came here and we were already doing that and I'm just already adoring Steph tat and her smart brain and and just all of the work that are going you know I mean the thing for me with that is is teachers are giving up their time and they're not being paid to do that and so these little moments I just thank you as a board for recognizing that they
304need time to be able to do these things so I just thank all of the people who are involved in the Letter's work and then lastly just everyone because we are still finding ways with grants I know Dr Odie and and and um Miss pal talked about the Grant and we're just F we're going to make a way we're going to always make a way um for the students here CCS so thank you all and that's it for me thank you um work up work session wrap up two items that I heard one was more information on the bus weight list and more information about the mental health support staff thank you all right and then we have upcoming meetings we have uh December 2nd here at 5 o'clock the yeah our vsba conference um
305in Williamsburg will be November middle of November 15th I'm looking 17th 18 19 so all right I think that's it thank you so much everybody appreciate yall have a good night stay safe and I'm going to adjourn the meeting officially