001is okay i'm going to start pressing the buttons to start activating the connections just in case there's any thing that needs some tidying up okay so far so good and we are tonight also um on facebook and we're also on um channel 14 i believe foreign okay looks like we are live um on facebook and that looks like it's streaming from the um from the tv so people might just need a minute to get on there but we are we are coming up at five o'clock things are looking good on my end so much appreciate it mr promo so i'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order this is the charlottesville city school board meeting for november 5th to 2020. um we are uh meeting via zoom per the emergency uh the
002governor's emergency declaration as a result of covid this meeting is um possible to be viewed on facebook on our charlottesville city school board of charleston city schools website on facebook and on the charlottesville cities public tv in addition to the zoom registration and the first item on the agenda is a moment of silence so we're going to do that now um for a moment okay thank you so much for that and then we're going to do the um roll call miss green julie's computer cut off unexpectedly so i'm going to do the roll until she's able to join us again mr bryant president miss bryson moorsberger president dr kraft president miss mckeever yes ms purgier president miss torres yes and mr wade president thank you great um we made a slight change to the agenda
003right before the meeting um but very slight we moved one item from 7.3 to 8.2 um and but with that i need to move an approval of the agenda so moved second thank you um any comments or questions or okay and go ahead mrs thacker mr bryant yes miss bryson morrisberger yes dr kraft yes miss mckeever yes miss per year yes miss torres yes and mr wade yes thank you okay we're going to go now to the um comments from members of the community the charlottesville city school board welcomes comments from the community we ask you to limit your comments to three minutes and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments for the record um and with that i will be doing the timing and but uh mr cuomo who do
004we have so i'll just i know we get a lot of requests for pre-registration i'll just ask anybody who's an attendee to please raise their hand or put a message in the chat so i can acknowledge them and prepare them to speak okay we're gonna use going to start with angel firo and angel has the ability to unmute it this time for the comment section okay hi uh thank you this is angel fearow i am at prospect avenue good evening madam chair and board thank you so much for your time and the dedication and thoughtfulness you've put into months of meetings and plans i know this weighs heavily on many of you so thank you for all that you're doing thank you also to the teachers and administrators who are going above and beyond to
005make virtual learning work johnson elementary school in particular has done an awesome job helping abundant life provide the materials we need to support virtual learning well this process has not been easy for anyone i just wanted to take a minute to ask that as we think about the future and the plans for reopening that we also take a look at the methods for doing so it would be great to hear from even more families on their experiences with virtual learning and the education system in general because they all have such valuable perspectives one will be extremely helpful is evaluating the process by which we go about hearing from the public school board meetings take place on weekday evenings at 5 00 pm which is only accessible for certain families many working class families are not
006yet home from work at this time we see this same issue with a lot of pto meeting times committee meetings like the kovid 19 committee which took place at 4 pm on wednesdays and also school events when thinking about equity in our schools we also need to think about equity and accessibility when it comes to getting more parent involvement and feedback we want the voices we are hearing to be representative of all of the community not just portions of it let's take a good hard look at the ways we do things and make some crucial changes to be more inclusive so that things are not just geared towards middle or upper middle class families with two-parent homes on another note there is also recent data highlighted in both an npr article and a new york
007times article pointing to the possibility of schools being open not having much influence on positivity rates or the spread of the virus multiple researchers have concluded that schools have not become super spreaders of the virus with adequate safety measures and protocols in place let's be sure to look into these studies more deeply as we evaluate numbers and influential factors in december once again i'm so grateful for all the work that everyone is doing and i hope moving forward we can have an even greater sense of what all of our community is experiencing and wanting in terms of education thank you again for your time ms fierro appreciate it um are we going to go to miss tilik yes yes and i've just given kate the ability to unmute okay i think you have three minutes
008miss tillick well then i have to turn up my volume sorry um thank you for taking my comment um i am uh kate to like 1526 oxford road um i'm speaking um against in-person classes at this time in january um it seems to me that if a return in january would be right after the holidays and people are potentially traveling gathering uh coveted cases are apparently extremely high in the country and so the timing of it coming back to school and gathering right after all of these multiple risks doesn't seem like uh it doesn't doesn't give me confidence or make me feel safe so i'm i'm against it um i'd also like to ask what is being done regarding lgbtq policies for schools um dr atkins you and i are both aware that the virginia
009values act comes into effect january 1st but that does not mean that nothing can happen in the meantime the last action that was taken by charlottesville city schools was an act of discrimination when the gender identity policy was pulled and after a big community outcry and support from the school board it was apparently reinstated but i would like to know what is happening in support of lgbtq education and the and the more i understand how the school system works the more i understand it is a hierarchy so judge atkins i do have to appeal to you and to dr odie those um you know in charge of the school system and those in charge of curriculum to um please educate yourselves on the needs of lgbtq students staff community members you know the whole the
010whole list of everyone involved in the schools um it's great that we have the virginia values act it means nothing if we don't act on it if we don't understand what it is and if we don't start to put in place policies that support lgbtq students so again please look into creating policies that support lgbtq community and students the la i don't know what my time is but i i've mentioned the statistic before that you know you can look on the the trevor project website there's a national statistic that says 40 of lgbtq youth which is under 18 are at risk and that means 40 of lgbtq youth are at risk for suicidal ideation or attempted suicide um and so and all of this information you know i i want to be clear that i
011am a parent i'm not a lawyer i'm not an activist i'm not affiliated with any group you know i sit at my computer and i look up policies to share and and so anyone who can hear my voice right now is able to do the same um to look up statistics and look up what is applicable to um you know to education and to our school system to start getting ready to uh to apply the virginia values act and do more in support of lgbtq students thank you so much thank you miss tillich who's next mr cuomo um we have cara west cara has the ability to unmute it this time thank you um good evening school board members dr atkins staff members my name is kara west i am at 1105 locust avenue and
012i have a third grader at burnley moran and a sixth grader at walker upper elementary i would like to acknowledge and honor all of the difficult work and decision making you are all doing every day thank you a special shout out to the teachers and the school level administrators i've been impressed every day in this virtual adventure um tonight i am speaking as the walker buford united pto rep to the joint pto reopening fund ready to teach ready to learn and i just want to provide a short update on the progress of the fund to date it is administered through a partnership with the charlottesville area community foundation and prioritizes equity in meeting the needs of students families and teachers during these challenging times with the equity emphasis it is designed to allocate funds to
013each school based on the school's overall population of students and the percentage receiving free and reduced school lunches and then individual school committees comprised of a teacher an administrator a pto rep and a member of the ccs's equity committee make decisions based on each school's individual needs since our last report a month ago the reopening fund has received an additional thirty thousand dollars for an overall total of a hundred and sixty thousand five hundred and eighty seven dollars from 184 donors eighty thousand from the fund has already been distributed to each school according to the equity formula and the remaining 80 000 balance is in process to be distributed soon to give you an idea of how the equity formula plays out the elementary school in our district with the fewest students qualifying for free
014or reduced lunch is receiving approximately seven thousand dollars from the fund while the elementary school with the highest percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch will get almost twenty thousand dollars from the reopening fund the school-level committees have used these funds for home learning materials such as manipulatives for younger students art supplies books and more supplemental tech needs like headphones additional chromebook chargers and styluses for support of community partners running virtual learning centers and for direct family aid including food and basic necessities we would like to thank everyone community members parents local businesses and foundations who have donated to this initiative it's been more successful than we imagined and most of the donations were from individuals ranging from ten dollars all the way up to a 25 000 donation from a prominent citizen uh
015the majority of those donations came in the 100 to 500 level we received five thousand dollars from a local law firm a thousand dollars from a local fuel company a thousand dollars from the public education foundation of charlottesville albemarle and um big matching grants from obamaworks and the smith family fund so again we wanted to update you and to thank you all for your work and as uh this joint pto group can uh plans to your time is up and uh consider joint fundraising again in the future thank you thank you who's next mr former um that is everybody that is currently um had their hand raised or uh put their name or comment in the chat so i'll leave it to you for a certain amount of time and then oh we do have
016a digital person um i've got marva simpson and i've given marva the ability to unmute mrs simpson you have three minutes thank you so much thank you um i'd like to thank the board for allowing me this opportunity to share my comments my name is marva simpson i live on rugby avenue my son attends chs this is his first year at the school he's in the ninth grade my son is carrying seven classes this includes five core subjects and two electives for nearly two months i have been asking the school to allow my son to drop his electives so that he can focus his efforts on core subjects i've been told by the school staff that he can't drop the electives because the electives are required for graduation i then made an adjustment to my
017request and asked that he be allowed to drop just one elective which is commercial photo one again i was met with resistance third time i adjusted my request and asked that my son be allowed to take one elective at another time within the next four years perhaps even during the summer this request was also denied i have watched my son agonize over this class he has cried he has become angry he has lashed out he has asked me to console him he has told me mom i can't do this class there are so many steps this car this class is hard for me he is unable to process the instructions during virtual learning and independently he has only been able to turn in a few assignments the only reason he was able to turn in
018the assignments is because he received substantial help from me and a friend who happens to be a professional photographer at this moment in time he is failing the course i have a law degree and i'm unable to navigate the multiple platforms and the technical requirements of this course i have sat in on sessions with my son and his teacher i've taken notes still my notes and my assistants were of no use when it came to my son being able to independently complete an assignment what is most outrageous about this particular situation is that my son has a 504 even with a 504 chs is unable to accommodate my son in this challenging virtual educational environment i have spoken to similarly situated parents of children with 504s and ieps that are in other neighboring school districts
019the school agreed they've dropped classes even core classes i personally know of one particular child in the 10th grade who was able to drop art and geometry yet i'm not being heard at chs when i ask that my son be allowed to drop just one elective with the condition that he take the elective at a time when learning is in person i'll leave the board with this because i know my time is limited number one what educational purpose is that ms simpson i'm so sorry can you wrap it up please sure um so i'll just get to the point i'm asking assistance from the school board and from this the chs to do that which is mandated by law which is to provide access to an education that is meaningful and an education that does
020not harm my child's emotional well-being or inhibit his future success these standards are non-negotiable and this is just not my child i'm speaking for all the children of ca of the charlottesville city schools thank you for giving me this opportunity thank you mr simpson mr cuomo um i guess i'll give a one more call at this time there are no hands raised and no messages in the chat okay so i am going to close public comment and move on to the next item on the agenda there is another opportunity to comment um provide public comment and that is at the end of the meeting we have another time for public comment and of course you can always email us at schoolboard charlottesvilleschools.org so i'm going to go ahead and close it and ask that we
021move on to the con consent agenda and we have any questions on this consent agenda madam chair i moved the adoption of the consent agenda second great thank you any comments or questions okay we'll go ahead and vote then miss thacker are you the person or is miss green the person i'm back i'm sorry hey ms green welcome back okay um mr bryant yes miss bryson morrisberger yes dr craft yes miss mckeever yes miss per year yes miss torres yes and mr wade yes thank you manager um okay and then um there is not an opportunity at this um in on the agenda but i'm just going to use my prerogative to um say uh to ask miss torres um to speak about the pto miss what miss west talked about if you don't mind
022doing that no yeah not at all thank you madam chair um on behalf of the entire school board we just wanted to address miss west's comments and and thank uh the 184 donors who have stepped up to support our schools um and the pto so thank you very much we much appreciate it yeah we definitely thank you ms torres i appreciate that um and um we know there are a lot of parents who helped organize that and uh we know that this is a not an insignificant amount of time that um it takes to raise all that that sort of money so we really do appreciate it um we also have time at the end of the at the end of the agenda for board member comments which is where i suspect we'll be addressing
023some of the items that were talked about in public comment so i just wanted to make that note as well because i'm sure that some of us are itching to talk about it but we also want to get to the meat of the agenda before um i don't know it gets too dark who knows um so i'll go ahead and move on to the um proposed budget calendar dr atkins we're going to introduce him or shall i go thank you miss mckeever um we'd like to now ask that mrs renee hoover just do a quick overview of that calendar please good evening everyone hi welcome thank you the the budget calendar was presented uh at the last board meeting and it's being brought to you back to you to approve uh i will note that
024the joint school board work session with city council uh date was populated and that would be july 28th um i don't have anything else to add to this so july 28th or january i'm sorry january i was like i feel like the budget might be done by then we hope so okay yeah time is irrelevant right now i have no idea what they you know what month it is so that makes sense okay great so january 28th will be the work session with city council great anybody have any questions about our budget calendar yeah just um what time is that meeting on 28th again it looks like it would be at 5 00 pm okay thank you okay um any other questions about it oh thank you uh okay so any we're this is an
025action item and we had it last month as an information item so i'll take any motions at this time i moved the adoption of the budget calendar madam chair yes leah's on it tonight man you don't know yes i am we have a lot to cover and we're trying not to be here until midnight my understanding bachelorette starts at eight and that's what miss purrier wants to get to oh okay no i'm just joking i've already missed uh our chs alum eugene's program from 5 to 5 15 so i just want you to know that i would like to catch the podcast before his next live stream tomorrow at 5 00 pm got it okay so do i have a second mr wade yes okay any comments or questions on the budget okay so um
026go ahead and vote now i guess miss green mr bryant yes miss bryson morris berger yes dr craft yes miss bekiever yes his per year yes it's torres yes and mr wade yes thank you madam chair okay thank you what's next on the agenda is the um cares budget act by miss hoover don't get away too quick miss hoover no they they they put my items back to back um the the the city schools has received a significant amount of money and the first four months of this fiscal year and we're asking the board to amend our budget to to add this money in there let's can you go to the next slide uh this is much needed money that we have received 85 of it is cares related you uh you've already received a
027presentation on the private foundation money last month and there will be kim will talk a little later uh about 200 000 of the city's cares uh crf money that was given to us in two pots on 200 000 for facilities yes 200 000 for facilities and 50 000 for student support um there was a lot of acronyms associated with this money that i have a legend at the bottom to help identify those acronyms the next slide what's the plans for these funds these funds had specific requirements around them and each one of these bullets outlines the specific requirement that we're using the funds we're using the funds for our remote learning to support our remote learning we've purchased hot spots and additional chromebooks um the the first part of uh cares money that we receive
028has a designation of replacing any lost revenue so we're holding that out because we don't know what the remainder of this fiscal year holds for us in previous presentations you understand that we've taken a lot of mitigation actions for personal protective equipment and supplies for our students and our staff and returning onto school we've had staff do a lot of online curriculum development that that we have supported them with and then you'll again hear later about purchasing and installing air filtering equipment that this money will be used for the next slide so as i said this money has special requirements to them that especially designate so we're adding uh this two million seven hundred and eighty seven thousand five hundred sixty three dollars to our special revenue which means uh designate money that has a
029special purpose for it um by adding this money to our special revenue our overall budget will be amended to 91 680 and 600 i'm sorry 91 million 680 651 dollars next slide so tonight what we're asking the school board to do is to approve amending our budget by the two million seven hundred and eighty seven thousand five hundred sixty three dollars in addition we will also be asking the city council to amend the school board budget by this amount also is there any questions in what i've gone over miss hoover i have a question please madam chair i can you explain why the the five hundred thousand dollars from the private foundation um is included in our request to city council for amending our budget well you know i understand i think all the other
030funding was allocated or funneled through them to us is that correct anytime there is a i want to say a five percent anytime there's a large amount of money and given to us we needed to add it to our budget and that's the reason that we're asking the city to amend our budget by this so we can just recognize it if it was a small grant like 50 000 we normally would not do that but because this is a large sum of money we want to go ahead and recognize it in amending our budget okay thank you madam chair i have a question yes ma'am uh miss hoover the funds that you indicated that were cares money is there a um sunset time for these funds to be spent or will they be able to
031be with us for the entire fiscal year each each one of these uh cares funds does have a sunset expiration date on them the the cares act um essa and the asa gear set aside they have expiration dates of september 30th the uh cares crf of funds that we're receiving from the state and from the city they have expiration dates of december 31st 2020. so can we presume that those funds will be spent on or before or obligated by the 31st of december yes ma'am uh these funds uh will have will be obligated by november 30th and we will have spent them by december 31st okay these are our first priority funds to spend okay thank you dr craft you have a question miss most of you guys are not on my screen anybody have
032any questions okay um so miss hoover needs us to take action on this oh can i do that this is exciting i love making a motion to add money to our budget so this is great uh so i move that we approve the amended budget of the amount 2 million 700 whatever it is um that amount i move that we amend our budget second um great i guess any questions or comments at this time madam chair just for clarification please so some of that money that um sunsets on december 31st um so i know this is we've talked about this a little bit before in cip um so noting that that money is is being used to purchase certain things is that enough is that a guarantee that we won't lose it uh if i
033may the we're we're actually using these funds for things that not only will we have encumbered the money with purchase orders but we're also confident that the um purchase orders will be liquidated and we will be able to receive the invoice and and you know complete the full process for those funds we've been very intentional about selecting the items that go into the funds that expire on december 31st great it is our intentness um taurus that we not lose any of those funds that we make sure that we are very focused on issuing those purchase orders so that we can expend those dollars absolutely great thank you um can i ask a question with respect to this um the there must be a subs an additional like loss of revenue as a result of the
034sales tax decreases and all of this so when do we see that as a as in the budget process here as soon as we receive that information from the state as of right now they're sending us projections but those projections are have a lag on them we've just gotten a set of projections that show a decrease in sales tax revenue however we are inquiring with the state because we've received a report saying the state may be i have have been able to um generate sales tax that will cause them to make their budget so with that information we're just waiting for them to give us clarification on if this is lagging data and we can anticipate getting full funding uh or will we actually be decreased so we're still waiting for clarification on that and
035as soon as we get it ms mckeever we anticipate it'll come maybe in the next few weeks uh no later than december and we'll bring that to the board okay great thank you anyone else have a question okay we have emotions okay so sherry dr crafted the promotion did somebody second it okay mr wade did okay can we go ahead and call do the vote now miss green okay mr brian yes is bryson morrisberger yes dr craft yes mr keeber yes miss puryear yes miss torres yes mr wayne yes thank you madam chair thank you so much okay next we have um we're gonna go to items for discussion which is the student representative says school board and um dr odie's doing this yes she'll uh introduce dr arizari thank you thank you good evening
036madam chair school board members and dr atkins at this time i will invite dr eric irizarry our charlottesville high school principal to explain the process used to select our student representatives to the board and introduce them to you uh dr eurozone good evening everyone this is probably one of my favorite board meetings every every year uh introducing our school board reps so we had a lot of applications this year we did it uh via google form just because obviously we're virtual and i do want to thank mr juan diego wade for helping us select um our candidates this year our school board reps this year so um can i should i just go ahead and introduce at this point yes yes uh for the first time we have uh our ninth grader so i'm gonna
037start down with our ninth grader uh jason johnson comes to us from beaufort middle school where he was the former beaufort middle school president and a beaufort middle school mentor he is our first ninth grade student school board rep so i do want to welcome jason johnson hello hi mr johnson thank you for joining us no problem oh ambitious ninth grade we're excited to have you especially right now such an unusual transition so thank you for stepping up um are the others here too dr i yeah yeah i'm going yep i'm going down as well so okay great thank you yep we have two seniors um maddie packer is a very familiar face and name here at charlottesville high school she is in the national honor society part of the national latin society and also
038part of the national math honor society and is a state champion in track um maddie packer has been with us uh since i've been here um and we're welcome uh we're just grateful to have her aboard as well so maddie anything you'd like to to say i'm happy to be here and to listen in on the meetings thank you for joining us will she be the second one dr i yes okay great and um adiva khadari is our uh our last rep and she will be serving tonight and she will be first in the rotation and that name may sound uh familiar because nadia was one of our first school board reps as well so continuing the tradition uh adiba is our vice our sca vice president a member of bacon and also a link
039crew leader here at charlottesville high school so we want to welcome adiba to the school board reps as well hi thank you so much for having me here i'm very grateful and eager to be an active student voice for the school board thank you so much don't worry we have some questions um go ahead dr eye yep yep so i was going to say i i know we're having uh more frequent school board meetings so i will be working with the student school board reps to make sure we have the schedule so adiva will be here tonight and for the next school board meeting as well and then i'll submit their schedule all three are very active with extracurricular activities as well so we'll work out some alternative um substitutions if we have to if
040sports or clubs or honor societies conflict with the students with the school board meetings mr wade did you want to say something yes yes i i did i just want to say that um again thank dr eye for inviting me to do this and this is one of the most important things that that we do i believe we've done um as a school boy is to have this input and i look at it our representative tonight i remember her as a um eighth grade and ninth grader running around in high school and now she's ready to take i mean she's hasn't been shot to share her opinion with me you know and and now she has the platform so welcome and um maddie i mean she's a rock star she um she's going to do
041great things um i can't wait to get her input and um the young man jason i mean he he's a rock star i mean we saw his credentials we're like we we we got to have this young man um you know even in these unusual times um it's good that we still can can continue this and i wasn't sure if we were going to do it doctor i so when you contacted me i was um i was really happy and i talked to ned recently ned mickey who who was one of the ones really kind of spearheaded this and he was really happy that we're continuing this and and so i'm glad that we can do this this input is pivotal of the school boards really want to do this and asking us how we
042able to to incorporate more than just one in the year and how we really try to get a different group of students to involve so i just like the process and thank you dr eye for all the work that you do this and welcome can i just say that um i think particularly this year it's going to be so important for us to hear from all of you about what the student experience is like and you know because i think we you know we're not there and we really need to know you know what are the stress points you know what's working well what's not working well um and we really i think we you know we value your input um you know even even more than usual because of this weird environment that we're
043in so i really appreciate you being involved with us madam chair um i'd like to congratulate our members and uh dr atkins and dr irizari i would like to give you both your first uh student school board rep assignment as you know each year the virginia school board association holds its annual conference and there is a session for student board representatives and so i hope that the two of you in your busy schedules because i don't i can't even begin to imagine what your schedules are like that the two of you can find a time to text email chat or whatever and if dr odie needs to leave that charge i'm sure she can because i would very much like to have our three fine stellar representatives attend the workshop later on this month thank
044you miss prayer any of the student reps have any um comments that they would like to add to their comments already well we're really excited to have you obviously um and any other board members have any comments or questions yeah i'd just like to congratulate our new student reps and um look forward to you um participating and giving us a lot of great feedback again congrats and welcome on board so much and can i add one thing about the course i just want to say welcome and that um we're so glad you're here and that i hope you um feel comfortable asking questions and questioning policies and they're you know there are no wrong or bad questions so just make sure that you know just be comfortable and we're happy you're here ditto i might
045as well add my uh welcome to the three of you congratulations for being chosen and i really do look forward to hearing your thoughts and your input um as representatives for the the rest of the students so thank you for being here madam chair yes ma'am i also want to congratulate all three of you for being on board we're so glad to have you here and we absolutely as all of the board members have said want to hear your voice we also want you to use this as an opportunity to learn and to grow as you grow in your leadership this is another opportunity for you to understand board governance how a board operates because at some point in your life i imagine each one of you will be a part of a board or
046actually will lead a board so glad to have your board and don't be ashamed or or or shy about asking questions and lending your voice thank you okay thank you dr earziri and mr wade and the other the team at chs who helped to identify um among the applicants our chosen school board members thank you very much having said that i would like to move on to the next agenda item which is the determination and notice for emergency procurement of hepa air filters units okay miss powell um you have two um of our support team from the city who's here with you jerry and um mark so ms powell good evening madam chair members of the board and dr atkins um what i'm going to do this evening is talk about the determination and notice
047to purchase hepa air purifier units in the context of providing a brief update on how the city is supporting our covet 19 mitigation efforts and some other preparations that are underway to increase our opportunity to provide in-person learning in our schools so leslie if you'll go to the next slide um and i'm gonna i know this is a lot of words but there's been so much interest in conversation around this topic that i just i feel like this is important information to have out there so that staff and families can see the latest so as of today all building filter upgrades have been completed except for nine classrooms at clark that have the merv 13 14 filters on back order but they're still expected in december the ifb which stands for invitation for bids that
048the city put out um back in october that is the um the invitation to forbidding on the enhanced the equipment which um provides additional air disinfection measures it's uvc and bipolar ionization equipment the ifb process has been extended by one week and there are still concerns about you know product availability and lead times once the contract is awarded the school division administration myself will keep facilities maintenance um you know up to date on our return to in-person learning plans so that as equipment comes in they can prioritize where the different pieces of equipment are installed in the schools and we do still expect those installations to start in december and uh or january and be completed either during march or april that is still the expectation um this is where we get into the determination
049and notice uh piece of the agenda item given the extension in the ifb process and the uncertainty that remains around product availability and lead times and then the timeline for installation facilities maintenance is supportive of ccs moving forward with purchasing a large quantity of hepa air purifier units as an additional air handling mitigation measure so the item that's before you for your for consideration for action this evening would be to allow us to purchase 452 additional units that are sized for classrooms uh using a portion of the funds that the city set aside for coveted response measures in our schools and going forward as another important note ccs will provide facilities maintenance with an inventory of where all these hepa air filter units are deployed so that these units can be incorporated in the filter
050management program going forward along with all the other new equipment leslie you can go to the next slide so this slide just provides some more detailed information for the board and public about how we will be using the two hundred thousand dollars that the city uh generously um put aside from their cares funds to enable us to respond to miscellaneous additional coveted response measures in our schools um 142 418 would be for the purchase of the 452 hepa air purifiers 493 000 is for 140 replacement hepa filters for 68 units that are already deployed in our frequently occupied spaces primarily offices and some conference areas and cubicle areas that where we've been working non-stop um basically since march and then there are 40 water fountain bottle fill stations included in our plan for the um
051for the two hundred thousand dollars and that totals forty four thousand sixty five dollars and last but not least eight thousand five hundred and thirty four dollars will be used for the water fountain lockout caps and other mitigation measures that have already been installed in the schools this could include things like some sliding glass windows that were put in at offices and um things like that so we truly have appreciated this partnership with the city and all of their forward thinking particularly around air handling um and and you know and they positioning us to operate under these pandemic conditions so at this time we do have um mark zavikar who is the facilities maintenance manager for our public works team and then we have jerry martin and who's also in facilities maintenance he's the hvac
052manager and i really do appreciate them being willing to carve out the time to just be available on the panel tonight in case you all have questions about any of these mitigation measures around error handling or comments that you would like to make so i'd like to pause here briefly to see if you have any questions or comments i have a question if i could of course um the 452 error purifiers that you were getting as a maybe i misunderstood is it a backup that because installation or certain work won't be done i was just not really understanding um what they were a backup for they're they're an additional so when it comes to phil air filtration or purification if you will myself and jerry and mark we've all been talking about this it truly
053is sort of a more the merrier type thing you can't go wrong adding more measures and there are there could be you know delays in receiving and installing some of the um bipolar ionization equipment which has that high level of filtration with the added benefit of the bipolar ionization component and so this does enable us to um you know better weather any delays with the potential delivery and installation for those items because everything that's related to covet mitigation is in high demand and we find that we sometimes can experience longer than promised or longer than anticipated lead times so that it is a bit of a hedge but it's also a meaningful you know it's a good additional measure to have in places and jerry or mark would you like to comment on that further
054yes i would this is mark zavikar thank you to the school board and dr atkinson administration for allowing us this opportunity to present our story to you yes kim you're you're absolutely correct uh the hepa units will supplement the over 400 i have a number of 497 of which some of those are surplus units but about 450 units of the bipolar ionization portable units that will be distributed in the classroom and with that type of quantity that we're looking at we do we hope not to experience any delays but those quantities and with what's going around in the um the localities if everybody wants similar units we expect there could be some delays so these helper units will support and supplement what we will eventually have in the classrooms and i might add that the
055part of the reason for the request for the board to take action tonight on the determination and notice for an emergency procurement is we have a quote and a vendor lined up who's promised delivery in november so we have a high degree of confidence that we're going to get the hepa filter units that we have specified and so um but it is we're in competitive procurement situation we can't do competitive bids we're certainly in competitive procurement situations because we're all going after the same types of equipment and because of the quantity we're getting it is a purchase that's over a hundred thousand dollars so we wanted to bring that forward because because it's a single purchase for that for over a hundred thousand so at the next meeting you'll be able to tell us if
056you've submitted the if we approve it you'll be able to give us an update on if it was received in november absolutely yes in fact um but this vendor has already delivered a smaller quantity of these units as part of what i mentioned before where some of us we've been working and we've been in the spaces and meeting with each other non-stop since march and so we did procure a smaller quantity of the same type of unit and they were very reliable in their delivery so when i contacted them as this other situation was unfolding i i do have a fairly high degree of confidence that they will deliver on that as quoted which would put us well within the timeline for expending the funds this this particular bucket of funds archer yes thank you
057madam chair um i just wanted to clarify um on one of the slides it said the installation of some of these units might not be completed until march or april and is that because we may not get them you know we may not be able to actually get them here uh procured or is it a delay because of the installation schedule it's the installation schedule um the we're dealing with over 730 individual pieces of equipment that are going to be receiving some type of um covet mitigation effort whether it's going to be bipolar ionization which is one cis symptom or a system i should say or uv light in or mer 14s and because of the the sheer numbers that we're dealing with and and the technical expertise it's going to take us uh we
058believe until march later or mid april and and so is there any i mean i guess i understand i guess that we're getting these supplemental portable units you know to um sort of offset that but what what are the implications of not having some of those installed while students and staff are in our buildings let's say that you know students and staff are coming in january and february and these might not be installed until the end of march or april what are what are the safety and health implications of that well that's what we're anticipating reaching substantial completion and then completing installations by mid-april we will start right now we're in the ifb process we expect to receive uh next monday we will receive the bids when the bids are due and as we proceed
059through the awardings process and having the contracts reviewed we expect the contractor to win winning contractor to start ordering the material immediately for delivery in and around mid-december to early january that's when the material is going to start coming in so with the school system prioritizing classrooms and areas that we need to address first that's where we're going to start making the installation that's where we're going to start if and if i may i think this may also help i don't know that it will but it's hard to know is that when you ask what are the implications it's hard to give a a certain answer on that but what i can say with a high level of certainty is the school divisions i'm familiar with that are already doing hybrid and four and five
060day a week in person instruction they don't have equipment like this i mean this what the city is doing with this ifb and but and bipolar ionization and uvc deployment on such a broad scale is beyond anything i'm aware of from colleagues i talk with in other school districts who are already operating with a lot of face of in-person instruction um so i don't want i think this is exciting and and incredibly and just a great thing one of the reasons that i i told mark and uh jerry i wanted them here today is i i really want to publicly express my gratitude for to the city and for their efforts to really be on what i feel is the cutting edge of pushing forward um some technologies that are um beyond even the standard
061ashrae recommendations for covent mitigation so i'm sorry if i could just add real quickly to that um the schools are not without support now uh we've installed the merv 14 filters in pieces of equipment and all the schools that will accept them so the bipolar ionization and the uv lighting is supplemental to the merv 14s and the portable units are for areas that are not able to be serviced by the equipment that's already been treated i think it would be good to help everyone understand that there's a three-prong approach to the mitigation or the the air handling in our system the merv filters and then the helper uh air purifiers and then the um uv ionization so there are three different pieces of equipment two uh will be in by the end of january and
062then the third one will be installed as the equipment comes in and they are able to install that thank you it's definitely with mitigation in general it's a layered approach you do you know measure after measure after measure and even within within air handling we're doing a layered approach so um i i think it's um something that i really again commend that our city partners for um everything they're doing with us and for us and this on this front and i would say also that this is not just um covet certainly did bring about these three different layers of protection for our staff and our schools and our students but it will not end once covet we move beyond covet we will continue to have this type of air handling in our buildings um well
063beyond covey are there um any other board members who have questions yeah thank you um yes i do i do want to also express my gratitude to um mr zavikar mr martin thank you for being here in the city for supporting the schools this way um this is you know above and beyond um and i think it's great that we're able to kind of share this with the public and in this form so that they understand um [Music] you know partnering with us and your support of our students um and i did want to just ask a question about the freestanding or the the smaller air purifiers and i know we had talked about this in another setting this would be something that facilities or hvac you guys are maintaining those and changing the filters
064out on those or will that be something that that our staff is going to be trained in managing and handling facility maintenance will be responsible for changing the filters um in addition we are already we're in our budget process right now so we are already budgeting for the anticipated extra cost that these filter changes are we're going to incur yes we will be doing the filter changes okay thank you both very much no it's been i was really grateful um at the a recent cip meeting to learn that you all had um gotten a consultant to look at our air quality and to find ways to support um our air quality in our buildings not only for covid but for future uses i'm just really grateful for the partnership at the city both jerry and
065mark are obviously experts in what they do as are all of the facilities people in the city um and we're just really grateful to have their partnership and i just think it really provides a level of confidence that um we are going above and beyond what other divisions are doing but also you know what we would expect to support our students in our community here in charlottesville so thank you so much for your willingness to do that and the you know expenditure of money and resources other than money um to make sure that um our buildings have this really high level of mitigation in it so thank you any other board numbers comments and also thank you for coming to the meeting tonight hopefully we didn't keep you too late so um do we we
066need to take action on this is that okay that is the request and then there is a brief one page update on transportation but if you want to pause and take action now on the determination and notice that would be great yeah let's do that so that we can get mark and jerry off to their evenings um anyone have a motion sure i move that we approve the um emergency authorization of funds for these um units not a second okay thank you so much y'all um any questions or comments hearing none i'll have miss green do the vote okay mr brian yes miss bryson morrisberger yes dr crab yes miss beekeeper yes this is per year yes miss torres yes mr wade yes thank you madam chair thank you and then um so miss powell
067you're going to talk about transportation just a brief update so this is another area of course where we partner closely with the city um to serve the schools and uh transportation is currently transporting 58 students with special needs to and from 13 different locations or schools where they're receiving services they're using 10 vehicles nine buses and one van to provide this transportation driver turnover continues to be an issue it's something we have a weekly transportation discussion as we've been planning for increased in-person learning and one of the one of the constant updates is they're just that the driver turnover is a persistent issue um at this time the maximum students that can be transported per level is 200 and by level that means k4 and then walker and buford is a level and chs is
068a level so that would be 600 students total at this time based on capacity one of the one of the moves that we have made to help free up capacity is that preschool will operate on a compressed schedule from 10 to 130 to free up capacity so that we can transport more preschoolers and also of course have the maximum buses that we can have rolling to transport the other students due to the persistent driver shortage subcontracting with a third party for drivers would be necessary to increase capacity that is something that our city transportation has been researching and we are planning for that to be a an agenda item for the school board on november 19th so you can hear more about that option then and uh last but not least transportation will begin working
069on routes for buses based on the family and tent forms received by november 13th so that's just something that i wanted to um to remind everyone ever share because that routing process as was described to you i think back in september it's a it's an onerous process and so at some point we have to give transportation some runway to get started on that and so we november 13th deadline is an important one um after that date certainly additional applications for transportation could be considered if as capacities available and that's all i have for the board this evening i'm happy to answer any other questions regarding our partnerships with the city as it relates to covet operations this might be a question for later but for the maximum students at each level the 200 so that's
070200 for all the elementary schools is there a policy for puget's priority or you know or is it just first come first served not first come first serve um we definitely want to look at it more through a lens of equity there's going to be a process of the vision administration working with principals to help try to prioritize those applications as they come in um up through the 13th again there is a point where we've got to turn turn over our work to transportation so they can start their work but we we do we want to look at it in conjunction with the principles and look at need look at distance from schools you know really try to vet out does you know are where there are other options and where there aren't um and
071we also have been collaborating with kyle rodland in the city with safe routes to schools so when we get the forms in if we see um big areas of need one of the first things we'll look at is is there any alternative transportation solution that we could work with city safe routes to schools to get together to help address that area such as bike trains you know getting bikes to students who need them and having them organize groups to get you know to bike to school or the walking school buses you know certainly if someone is within a mile or less from a school those are those become more relevant options the further out you go those options become less viable and then we're going to need to look at need and so it's going
072to be tricky it's um i jokingly call it the hunger games of transportation but there's nothing funny about it it's it's a it's a tough conversation every week as we contemplate how we're going to face this challenge um and we're hopeful that maybe the the applications for bus transportation maybe they won't be that high because we've been talking about it for so long we're hope hoping that a lot of families have already worked out other strategies but we we just don't know until we see the intent forums what the demand is going to look like versus what our capacity can handle at this time okay so i just really need the parents to understand and advocates for parents especially those maybe who have spoken at public comment um to really tell your families how important
073it is to get your applications in for um and your family in your notice of intent by november 13th the sooner the better not that this is a first come first serve but i'm afraid we're going to miss families and i need our community to understand that november 13th is hard deadline and we need to know if you need to have a bus transport your child to school and need is very different than want and if you have infrastructure in your neighborhood like i don't know families that walk routinely walk to school maybe you can your child can walk to school with that family that's different um i think we we definitely need to focus on alternative methods of transportation as a community and we also need to make sure that our our um commuters
074understand that our children will be out there more than they normally are because we have reduced capacity in our buses um so that we're going to be you know need our commuters and our car drivers in our city to be aware of students of children walking to school or riding their bikes to school and be more aware of that at once school opens i think this will help our whole community in the long run but it is going to be a world of hurt initially because we definitely need to look at this through the through an equitable equity lens um and we we do know that unfortunately like the school board can't just create um walking buses that's really up to neighborhoods and ptos i think and school level folks to to to work with
075their neighborhoods to get kids walking to school or riding their bikes to school i remember mr wade when his child was young they had a walking bus um situation and he thinks so highly of that but again that wasn't a school-led initiative that was like a you know parents coming together so i know some schools they're much more focused on that whereas i think other schools are not and so i just want to make sure that the community understands we do not have enough space in our school buses for all the children right now we want your you know if we if we open school now we would not have that um so we need to really focus on that i'm sorry to go on a little rant there but um i just cannot emphasize
076it enough madam chair also i'll let you know that um denise johnson and bianca johnson they are going to be doing outreach in the community the first part of next week prior to that november 13th deadline so that we're hopeful that that will help um all you know reach all areas of the community just one more way to try to get out there and and help families get those intent forms in okay thank you so much um i can't see anybody so i was just really talking to this power presentation um does anybody else have any comments or questions yes dr kraft yes um miss powell i'm wondering um i'd like to understand uh the driver shortage issue i'm wondering if there are any uh aspects of that that are more unique to the pandemic
077environment that we're in or if it's kind of the same you know concerns uh that have always been there is there but is there anything different now and could that possibly improve once we are i don't know well could it possibly improve i guess yeah the answer to your question is that it is it is the driver driver shortage issue that's always existed coupled with an additional loss of drivers because of health concerns a lot of times some of your best sources for drivers are retirees folks who are in that age group that they're automatically considered at a higher risk so we have lost drivers who have been with the system for quite some time from what i understand who just simply um you know are not going to take the risk at this point
078in their lives and and that's understandable and that is not unique to charlottesville that is in the headlines elsewhere in texas pennsylvania um so you can just google bus driver shortage and you will you will see um the last time i did this back in september the there was current news from oklahoma a bunch of states headline muse in the on the evening news um so there's that and then there's also a back up at dmv uh for new drivers coming through the pipeline so we're getting squeezed at both ends you have more people leaving um you know perhaps ending their careers drivers maybe earlier than they would have otherwise and then we've had a bottleneck getting new drivers in the system because of the situation at dmv ms mckeever i'll also add that our
079community and families can go to our website and there is a form on our website to volunteer to help develop those safe routes to school and those walking routes to school so we encourage our community to go to the website and complete those forms if you'd like to help to develop a route to school for walking with our students great thank you so much for having that on our website um i understand ms kadari has a question or comment yes so how can families who do who do not have the access to like um the online form to have their voice heard of um meeting of for the bus transfer transportation so that's where the community outreach that's happening early next week hopefully will will pay off especially you know we knowing what parts of
080the community we the forums have been translated my understanding is that beth chuck has translated everything but i think it's just really important that we um that the push that's going to happen in the early part of next week to get out in person and we can also um you know we're talking with principals about reaching out to families that who they think may um have difficulty accessing the form so it's a it's a multi-pr like everything layered or multi-pronged effort i won't say that any effort is perfect but the intention and the thought the thoughts about it are certainly there and i'll also let you know that as the intent forms the responses are coming in beth chuck our communications officer is distributing that information out to our schools and to our principals so
081they're benchmarking that against their database and they're keeping track of the families who have responded and making phone calls and making contact with those families who have not and if they don't have access to the internet we'll deliver a hand um a paper copy of the survey out to them the intent form and we'll support them in any way that we can to complete those forms um colleague just reminded me one very important way that we're pushing the forms out is with the meal distribution i think um thanks to the per thank you dr odi for reminding me about that because that is a way that we reach 700 800 students a week and so forms are going out with meals so the forms that are going out are going out in both languages because
082you would have no way of knowing when when families come to pick up you because we have our forms in more than one language more than one language form is going with the meals so that when they're picked up if i'm a non-english speaking family i could still read the information in the lunch packet so i'll need to follow up with beth chuck to find out what of all the languages how many different ones are going out with the meals because i can't say with confidence that everyone is covered so that's a good question and i'll have to um follow up on that and if we have that information for you miss per year it goes out in english in five other languages okay because i i just know that often the children will come
083to pick up the lunches the older children some of them may or may not have a parent and so if you're giving out lunches i may not know whether you speak spanish french italian portuguese but if it was all in the packet when i opened the packet i could see the one that's my language i know it's a probably i hate to say this but a waste of paper but really not a waste of paper but the other thing um dr odie miss powell and dr adkins i know that you said that um denise would be going out into the communities next week do you think by them going out next week that gives them enough time to meet that friday deadline if you are comfortable with it i'm comfortable with it i don't know
084how many people you're talking about but um i know that um if they go out next week and the forms are due friday you miss announcements in your local houses of worship that may be happening saturday and sunday of this week as a gentle reminder and i know that we have um a voicemail and an email from beth i believe chuck not baptist about the importance of getting those forms in by the 13th and i know you're doing everything humanly possible but i'm just trying to make sure that we as a collective cover as many bases as possible those are good points and um we will consider that we have the 13th as the deadline we hope hopefully most of the forums will be in by that time but it's not we're going to close
085the door we'll still accept forms and we'll still work with families to make sure that we hear from all of our families okay great points okay dr atkins will they be um touching base specifically with um some of the partners community partners who are doing instruction or holding a certain learning pods yes yes we're working with our community partners boys and girls club all of their we have a list of community partners who are working with our students so we're working with them and i said five languages someone's just corrected me there's six languages and they all go in the lunch bags that are going out to our families yes great question okay can we move on from transportation anybody else have any thoughts okay great so the next um item is the return to
086learn recommendations by dr atkins thank you miss mckeever and next at the next board meeting we will bring some additional information back to you about transportation once we have more information from the survey so i want to start the presentation with a thank you to all of the covet advisory committee members and our community for all of the input that we've had around the topic of return to learn the face-to-face portion of return to learn uh thank you for your input and we all realize that we are in in the most difficult situation now our priority in the school system is to return our students to face-to-face learning in the safest of students and our staff in the safest manner possible at the most appropriate time and safety has to be our number one priority
087when considering returning to face-to-face learning so if we go to the next slide and look at a review of the guidance that we are using in order to return to uh face-to-face learning we started out with phase one march the 13th through september the 4th phase 1 put all of our students in virtual learning in july of this year our school board voted that we would open our school year with phase two which is virtual learning but also allows some of our students to come into the building for face-to-face instruction based on unique needs and iep determinations now we are considering when would be the appropriate time to move to phase three and that would be virtual learning for those families who opt to continue with the virtual learning and in-person face-to-face learning for the
088families who elect to return to the building and then later we will discuss phase four stakeholder input has been a major part of the decisions uh and uh that i will be the recommendation that i will be making tonight we convened an advisory covert 19 advisory committee made up of parents teachers administrators medical personnel community members a host of stakeholders to have input in three major areas of our return to face-to-face learning uh the elementary component secondary component and the mitigation of facilities here's an overview of some of the meetings that have occurred with the covet advisory committee three meetings two meetings in september of the whole committee september 23rd and september the 20th and then we had a meeting of the full committee to do some reporting out on october the 28th on october
089the 14th the uh work groups of that committee uh met to re give a report to me on their recommendations and then on october the 22nd we invited the co-chairs of the work groups and the entire advisory committee to present to our school board the recommendations that i'd received earlier in that week purpose of the covet advisory committee was to review the data regarding the covet 19 status in charlottesville city and they were responsible for looking at data that went back to march and brought us all the way up to the current data in october during the time that the committee was meeting they also received and considered any additional data that was coming out of the blue ridge health district from the cdc or the virginia department of health and we know that during
090september and october that there were a lot of transitions being made a lot of additional information that was being generated by cdc and by the virginia department of health and our own local health department we also asked the committee to discuss potential options for opening face-to-face bringing our students back into the building and then to recommend not only the model but a timeline for returning face-to-face and then um a process by which we would use to revisit um the timeline and any decisions that we made on a regular intentional basis recommendation from the covet committee for face-to-face learning for grades pre-k through six option one is to return to face-to-face learning four days per week with one day being virtual option two uh remain in the virtual model which is five days per week virtual
091the next recommendation was from the secondary group for grades seven through twelve option one would be two days per week face to face with three days virtual or better known as the hybrid model option two five days per week virtual as our students are currently the committee also recommended a timeline for returning to face-to-face for our pre-k through six the elementary cohort won and that would be grades pre-k through one and grade five would have a phased return during the week of january 11 on 2021 for details on that phase return we can take a look at a presentation that our principals made at the last school board meeting the elementary cohort 2 would be grades 2 through 4 and grade six they would also have a phase return week starting january 19 for our
092secondary students grades 7 through 12. we would start returning that group of students students who are new to our school division or new to the school for tours tours and orientation they would be put in groups a and group b group a would start returning to the building january 8th and that would be for tour and orientation and group b their tour and or orientation would be january 15 2021 and that would be for our um seventh grade students eighth grade students all the way through twelfth grade students who are new to our school division have not been in our schools or students who are moving from one level to the next so all of the seventh grade students would be invited to return during those tour orientation time periods and all of our 9th
093grade students the first day official first day back for our secondary students would be february 1st one of the considerations that the the advisory committee wanted to make sure that we did not lose sight of was mitigation wanted to make sure that we had all five of the cdc mitigation strategies firmly in place um and that we had um the ability to monitor the incident right uh i'm sorry just the mitigation strategies that we had all of those in place and then metrics that they wanted us to make sure that we um continued to monitor and consider was the incident rate for 1 000 citizens and then monitor the percent of positivity over a seven day period also create a covet dashboard for our school division and then make sure that the blue ridge health
094district and the virginia department of health can maintain a 90 contact tracing capacity and follow the blue ridge recommendations for closing due to transmission outbreak should that happen once we come back face to face so an update on where we are with the um cdc recommend the five major recommendations from the cdc if we look across all of our schools in the division for those five areas consistent and correct use of the mask we would be have a policy in place that would require that social distancing hand hygiene cleaning and disinfectant disinfection protocol and contact tracing we see that we have already all of those items in place either through policy or through our procedures additional strategies that we have in place for all of our schools would be the merv filters and as you
095heard ms powell's presentation um there are about um chem five hepa filters five to ten health filters um that we still need to put at clark but other than that uh ten nine nine thank you i have the filters that we're still uh needing to put in clark but all of the other school divisions have been completed um the increased ventilation uh with some of the um the hepa air purifiers all of that will be in place uh the portable monitors um and the um hepa filter units will all be in place by the end of december the uh uvc and bipolar ionization technologies we anticipate that that would be in place by the uh completion of the first quarter and the board has just given us permission to have the emergency declaration to order
096those pieces of equipment one of our recommendation also was that we create a ccs covet dashboard we currently have the community status dashboard and we can retrieve that from our blue ridge health department now and we're in the process of creating a charlottesville city schools dashboard that will show the incidence of transmission um with our employees and with students and we will give a regular update on that and that should be ready by december uh maintaining the 90 contact tracing we've been assured by the health department that that is currently in place and should remain in place for the foreseeable future i have beth baptist here today and she's going to talk about the current data as of today that we have from um cdc on our incident rate and positivity rate madam chair members
097of the board dr adkins yes this is the information that you've seen in another format earlier based on the cdc risk metrics the first column the cdc incidence this is the rate per 100 000 for the last 14 days so it's a two week factor and you can see for us today is 201 and six tenths remember this is a rate per hundred thousand charlottesville has less than fifty thousand residents so when you do the standardization this number looks higher than the actual cases we have had red means we are at the highest risk right now to move into the different areas we would have to have for the lowest area only uh four or five cases over a two week period to get into the the lowest risk so it will might be a
098while um since we do have less than a hundred thousand residents i also figure every day what are the actual number of new cases in the last 14 days for charlottesville and if you look just over the last week uh it's been pretty consistent to go down we're below 100 new cases over the past two weeks of the past two days in a row that's the first time we've been below 100 since we started really looking at this as closely in july we also look at the percent positivity for the last seven days as compared to the previous seven days so our positivity rate right now is 1.0 i look to make sure that was not a typo today 1.0 that's the lowest it's been since we've been tracking and then that last column looks
099at the percent change in our cases for the last seven days compared to the previous seven days so you can see over the last five day five six days we've had huge decreases in our overall transmission rate um in the last week as compared to the week before we had some pretty high numbers at one point but things seem to have gone down they've leveled out and so tomorrow based on what i think will happen we may get to change that incidence column from red to orange which will make me very happy to do that because it is showing that we are going down so this is what we're looking at i want to keep in mind the actual cases that we have but then also look at what cdc has for our standardization since
100that's how everybody is being looked at so that's where we offer right now be glad to take any questions if there are any thank you dr baptist we'll take the questions in just a few moments um our next slide is the incident survey uh intent survey for our families um we have sent that out that was mailed out to our families or online available to our families november 3rd and then the intense survey for staff will go out tomorrow and both of those survey intent surveys we anticipate getting those back november 13th that will give us some important data in helping the board to make decisions about when to return face to face so my recommendation to the board for returning face-to-face learning is to accept the models and the the return timeline as recommended
101by the covit 19 advisory committee i would recommend for the next steps back in july the board voted to move us into phase two um until the end of the first nine weeks the first nine weeks will end on november the 16th um and so i would uh recommend that tonight that the board take action to extend phase two learning until the board reconvenes on november the 19th i also recommend that at the convening on the 19th that the board uh take action uh discuss and take action on the recommendation of moving to phase three at the timeline recommended by the kovic committee also i recommend that the the board convene a meeting on december the 16th to review the metrics and to affirm or make adjustments to any action that you have taken with
102the phase three timeline moving to phase three timeline i'm happy to take any questions that the bullet might have thank you dr atkins i recognize and honor all of the work that you've done and convening that uh really that committee very large committee of community members and staff and parents and i just really appreciate you doing all that i know it was a lot of work and your staff and you just put a ton of time into it so thank you for all of your work around the um that committee and then coming up with these recommendations um it's it's absolutely right and thanks to staff and they've done a great job in helping to keep the data fresh and to make sure that we have all of the facts that we need in order
103to to make any decision or recommendation for returning to learn okay who would like to begin first um i see no one so i go ahead dr craft why not um yeah i'd also like to uh thank everybody who has um worked on this and the the number of moving parts is astonishing uh it really is and um anyway thank you very much i feel like this is a serious careful well thought out plan um so i feel good about it um i had a question about let's see how i can phrase this all right so it seems like the board we have the option to um if we will approve this let's say we approve it on november 19th then we have till december 16th to see if there are any any changes in
104the um in the community in the situation with the pandemic in our community and we might be able to make adjustments but it seems like both families and staff do not have that flexibility so that you know they have to return their intent forms by you know a week from tomorrow and sort of as i understand it that's sort of it for the year so if things changed and they felt differently um you know is there any flexibility there you know for them to change their preferences and i guess that would include you know staff maybe you know changing their preferences based on their comfort level but also for families um [Music] you know if let's just say that they've opted for virtual learning and then you know based on the the situation the community
105they realize that it's safer than they thought and they would like to opt in to face to face are there any options are is there any flexibility for that kind of thing built in dr craft i i appreciate you making the comment when you started asking that question about the complexity uh and all of the moving parts in in this incredibly difficult time one of the challenges that we face in receiving the information about the intent is that that information will be used to develop the master schedule and to align staffing and we have our our staff members and our teachers who are going to be sending in their intent form about whether or not they would like to remain virtual they have a medical need or they have a request to remain virtual or
106to come in face to face we're going to try to match up those requests with the intents and the requests that we're getting from our families for face-to-face and for virtual once we make those adjustments it may cause us to change teacher assignments it may cause us to change quite a bit of the operations in our building and once we do that and that's in in place because of covet we won't have the same flexibility that we would have during non-covet times so allowing families to make a switch would cause us to have to go back in and adjust all of those structures in order to accommodate that switch and that would be very disruptive very difficult for the operation of the school and the face-to-face learning so we're asking families to be very careful
107about making the decision and their intent so that we can factor that into all of our scheduling um our structures will not be as flexible as we would want them to be and most of that is due to covet so making changes in switches would be a huge challenge for us dr atkins real quickly on that same topic if you don't mind excuse me dr kraft i'm not sure if you were done um so totally makes sense as far as um locking into a decision and um you know with a family or a student choosing to go virtual and then feeling like oh i'd like to come back and do face to face is there not flexibility for a family who chooses face to face and then for some um personal reason medical reason whatever
108the family ops or decides that that they need to have their their student at home is their flexibility to go that direction um with a waiting list of students potentially that to fill a spot yeah we will always handle individual cases that's a great point what we want to try to avoid is families opting for the face to face knowing that they can make the switch to virtual at any time because we don't want to overstaff the face-to-face and then have a significant number of our students to move from face-to-face to virtual because that would then require us to move more staff into the virtual environment so we're trying to help our families to understand uh the significant hurdle that our principals and our teachers and our staff are going to have to undertake the
109complexity of developing schedules and making everyone's intent and desire um a reality in our scheduling that they carefully think about it and make a selection and and for the most part not have to switch um during this that semester from january through june but if there are emergencies that come up certainly we're going to work with our families on an individual basis for those that make that makes sense and thank you for sharing that with the public one of the concerns that our families have expressed and our teachers is that moving from virtual to face to face there's a real possibility that we might have to re-roster some of our students and if we have to do that we only want to do that once but if we allow families to make another switch later
110it could cause us to have to do a second re-roster and we want to minimize the disruption and the changes that our students and our teachers will have to encounter during this time per year um dr atkins um excellent explanation but in having everyone make their decisions by november 13th that would also help guide us on november 19th because depending on what you get on the 13th what you have presented this evening may need a little tweaking or adjustment by the 19th so i appreciate dr kraft's concern um but i saw it differently if you have this block of information on november 13th then on november 19th uh board this is the information we've gathered this is what we've put together so that when we're having those discussions on november 19th we've got as much
111information as we can in order to do what we need to do as it relates to phase three yeah phase three is that right am i right excellent appointments per year you are uh yeah yeah the intent form and we schedule it so we can get timely information um back to the board so that you can consider that as you're discussing uh the recommendation um can i ask a quick question uh for the the november 13th cut off um my concern about that and i understand you need to iron down things but a few factors that are playing into it so the transportation logistics families might need to opt like they might need to change once they find out if there's even space available on transportation so we won't know about transportation you know this
11213th is the date for transportation and for you to tell us what you want to do but you might not know about the transportation situation and also for teachers filling out their intent forms um if there's any outstanding requests for special accommodations they won't have the answer by then so they their answer might need to change based on if they do get an accommodation or they have a a medical condition that gets approved so there it seems like there needs to be some flexibility in those cases where you can't make all the choices with the information that you have and that's that's miss mosberger that's a great point that even after the 13th they're going to be individual cases that we will have to consider with our staff and with our families but when we
113receive the information on the 13th that will give us great guidance on how many seats are actually being requested with the current capacity that we have with transportation if we have to subcontract with drivers it will help us to know how many drivers might we need if we subcontracted it would also help us to know how many teachers how many staff members are requesting for medical purposes to be virtual and how many of them are requesting to be virtual because they have a someone living in their household that falls into a risk category or someone who lives outside of their household that's an immediate family member who's in a risk category those bits of information are essential to us in order to make decisions after the 13th if there's a staff member that needs to
114make an adjustment we're going to handle that on an individual basis and be able to work with them hr has already started to process some of the applications that have come in some of the requests for teaching virtually i think we've received requests as of today the vast majority of those have come during the month of october i anticipate when the board takes action if the board actually votes for us to return face-to-face the number of requests that we're going to receive will increase and we'll be processing all of those so what's the timeline for the processing if you put in your request when will you hear back a quick turnaround it depends on the documentation that comes in with the request dr hubbard do you want to answer that yes um what we've been
115communicating with um staff members that have made their request now is that we would let them know four weeks before a decision was made as to what the learning model would be so if the board takes action and chooses the learning model for the face-to-face to start in january then people who have put in requests could expect to start receiving those requests whether they're approved denied on uh roughly right around the beginning of december then as more requests come in we would then take those and and process them and sometimes we need more information sometimes we have all the information we need and then we'll be able to move forward from that point but depending on what the move is if the board adopts the january return then we would start sending out the um
116the documentation to staff members that their request was approved uh at the beginning of december which would take about four weeks so you would advise someone if you have a request pending that you're requesting accommodation that on the survey you should say that you would prefer to be virtual or not to return if you remember staff so that you're locked because you're going to be locked into what you say even though you don't know the you know if your request has been approved or denied well the people that have already placed their request in um if they fill out the survey we would probably see that be able to cross-reference and be able to then answer them individually as we were going to in any way so i don't i don't think that'll be that
117big of a of a problem for us and mr morrisberger for our staff members we just need the information back we're not saying to our staff members that whatever you put on that form that's what you're going to have to live by for the rest of the school year what that form will give us is what you are requesting we know that we will re process all of the medical requests and we will respond to that for those requests that are not medical requests we have to handle those in light of how many of our families ask for virtual learning or face-to-face learning and make the the matches between staff and the requests from our families so they're not being locked into it they're making a request and we're going to respond to that request
118okay and then on the form is there an option for them to add in like i know you're saying like they can ask they pick i don't know if it's yes no but is there a place where they can write in what the factors are or what the concern is so that you have that part going in as well we do yes there's an opportunity for them to give us specific information if they would like to the form will go directly to hr it doesn't go through anyone else's hands so that they can fill our staff can feel comfortable uh putting health information on that form if they would like to they don't have to if they're asking for medical consideration under one of the categories that's listed on the forum and there's some documentation
119that hr will will ask them to bring in and and that those documents or the documentation that will be required is listed on the form and hr will help them walk through that okay and then another question um is about the face-to-face learning um right now at least for the elementary school when you're virtual you're asynchronous time where you're face to face with the teacher versus no no no your synchronous which when you're face to face with the teacher the teacher is there and then there's your independent time and it's not a pre-recorded like it's it's not like just a recording of the classroom it's like an assignment for you to do so when we go face to face will we be recording like if you opt to stay virtual and there's a lab or
120something at the high school are are you recording the live face-to-face uh classroom sessions for later viewing or the virtual students getting like a separate like what they would get if we were all virtual versus what some people get in the classroom what i can tell you is that the quality of the face to face now many of our families have spoken about they appreciate the quality and the depth that our teachers have taken in order to develop very interesting and comprehensive lessons that's been wonderful as we move to face to face our intent is that the face to fit the quality of the face-to-face learning uh will meet a high bar of excellence and we will maintain the same quality of excellence with our virtual learning that we currently have we don't intend to
121diminish one over the other whether or not a teacher chooses who's teaching virtually chooses to record a lab and that's going to be the teacher's decision depending on how many requests we have for virtual and at each level and how many staff members we have requesting virtual as we're making making those matches uh we're hoping that a teacher will either teach virtual or teach face-to-face and they're not teaching both that's considered a hybrid model and they're not teaching both so we want to be very careful with how we lay it out uh in order not to overly burden our teachers at the high school during the non-face-to-face time much of that will be assignments much of that will be um research um that the students will be engaged in uh and then there will be
122office times that the students can schedule for meeting with their teacher okay and then i'm gonna keep going just i have a lot of questions so and then for the timing versus face to face versus virtual because right now we start a little later and that's working but if we go back face to face i know a lot of the preschools or daycare start later so will the virtual versus the face-to-face have different start times that's that's very possible as we look at transportation and the schedules we have not nailed down the times for both of those and synchronized those times but that will be our next step to work on those times okay and then will grading work the same uh virtual versus in person like if you're virtual do you have the same
123type of assign like does is there any thought going into how grading will look different for people who are virtual versus in person teachers will be working on that um they will still be meeting in their plc's and our virtual teachers and our face-to-face teachers will continue to meet and collaborate and plan together to make sure there's continuity between what's happening in the virtual model and what's happening in the face-to-face model standards are going to be the same um so we want to make sure that there's continuity back and forth between those two models okay and then this is kind of two-in-one um if you are a teacher and you are the only teacher in that subject i think they gave me some examples of a certain spanish in the high school or engineering if
124you are a teacher who teaches one of those or a kid that takes one of those classes and the teacher is virtual but you're in person what is will there be an additional person hired to teach in person does that student do virtual for that one particular class and and i'm not going to be able to give you a specific response to that question but those are the details that we will work out that's our next step of um scheduling and management once we get the information back from our families and dr odie or um [Music] i can't you want to add to that um dr atkins i can uh chime in and uh there are cases such as that where uh teachers hold certain certifications and uh and so we've been working with um
125dr arizari about how that would look uh it's possible that for instance if a a teacher that holds a specific certification is teaching in person uh then the students would be able to log in and watch the class virtually we want to make sure that we are meeting the needs of those students that need that course but without the option of another person teaching it because of the certification requirements we're going to have to be creative and make sure that we we have opportunities for that to occur but we haven't finalized any of those specific details but we know that that will be something that we need to work for okay and then let's say that ends up being an issue if you're a teacher and you end up having to do you know if
126you're a teacher teaches one subject and something like that happens or you have to help in an event of a shortage do teachers are they going to be paid for overload or overtime if they end up having to take on an extra class or anything like that or you know because of issues like that or challenges where you might need someone in person and someone virtual um last year the board passed some guidance on how we might compensate our students we had a a task force that came together made up of our teachers to talk about when teachers have to take on additional responsibilities so we have renewed that process and the procedures for how we compensate our teachers for taking on additional responsibilities kim powell has worked with hr and we have a process
127that's in place procedure that's in place to compensate our families excuse me our teachers as they have to take on additional responsibilities okay if they're teaching an additional section um that would follow the same procedures that it has followed during non-coded times okay okay that's that's those were my questions about just that those special classes where you know there's only one teacher and so you have in person and virtual i just want to make sure that we have like a approach to that that was clear for the teachers um so if we could find out i know everything's complicated but if we could get some more information on what that might look like uh uh that would be good and then i got a lot of questions about uh from people about the requests for
128the accommodations that uh to hr about the turnaround times because i know you got a lot in october but um they're ones that came in during the original or over the summer and um there's concern about when the so you're saying everyone should get a notice december 1st if they had a medical request for an accommodation yes once the board makes the decision as to what model we'll go with four weeks prior to anyone coming back we will send out letters to all of the 31 requests that we have right now um on file they will be communicating with and some teachers who put requests in early have communicated with hr and i've had individual conversations with them so that has been going on along the way so we've been keeping everyone very well informed
129when they've called and asked and but it hasn't been approved it's they're pending until december yeah we'll send out what it is in december yes mm-hmm okay thank you and then bryson morrisberger we want to be careful that we don't approve it too early because there aren't limited number of weeks with the medical um teleworking for medical reasons so we want to make sure while the teachers are teaching virtually now there's not a reason for them to receive the accommodation so we want to make sure that when we offer that accommodation it does align with a need to come back in the building face-to-face because the accommodation is allowing the teacher to teach virtually and not come back into the building so for our special education teachers who are being asked to come back now
130we are processing that for teachers who are not special education or not coming back in the building or being required to come back in the building now we want to make sure that we um consider that in sending out the approval letters to them and that their medical uh documentation takes that into consideration also okay and this is really my final question for now i think for um the the likes uh sped esl um and maybe even for the elementaries i've noticed um since albemarle announced that they are going back in person there's been a lot of openings for those types of positions i don't know if it's a turnover i don't know it's because they need more support in the classroom and so i'm just wondering for like you know special needs or english
131as a second language under under under good circumstances you know like we need lots of support in the classroom so under covet i would anticipate we need um more so is there any talk or discussion about additional support for sped classrooms that are in person or english as a second language um learners um for the you know for the classroom support for the students and the teachers when they're in person so dr lee has um you want to chime in on that right now there has not been any need for additional support in special education we've been able to support the students that have individual needs to come in for face to face um that doesn't mean that in the future that that may not arise that need may not arise right now we have
132not gotten to that point um we need additional staff but right now they're staggered like if we go face to face it would be like more people at one time or like you know during yeah right now right that we are staggering right now with this small amount of students coming in receiving face-to-face services thank you everyone thank you anymother miss prayer so dr atkins helped me understand there are a small group of people that have had to come in because of the special categories and we've done that on a case-by-case basis so they are not covered no that's not the right word they are not restricted by the guidelines you just spoke about you know you said there was a time frame so in other words if i send you a request to hr
133today and i'm in the high school and we have a tentative date to return i will be notified 30 days prior to that if my request has been granted however if i'm currently one of the people that had to come in to do this select group of students maybe one child or no more than two but now because we are talking about phase three i make a request my request goes in with the phase three request not with what's happening now am i am i making so i think i think what you're asking ms perrier is the teachers that are coming back for face-to-face instruction right now with small groups of special education students if they're making a request are we following the same four week time frame with honoring their request there you go
134i'm sorry dr atkins i just didn't understand thank you oh it's so much i say i stay so confused okay that's not fully understood what you were saying and to answer your question we are answering those on a case-by-case basis as they come in so no they are not waiting the four-week time frame the ones that we get in once we have all of the documentation we then process that request and we communicate with the staff member um immediately so we're not waiting on those okay i understand thank thank you both i it it's just a lot to try to process and we're all trying to get it right so just thank you for bearing with me absolutely and i will say uh in all of our communications that we've sent out to our staff
135the family first coronavirus act does expire december 31st however our staff can still make a request for an accommodation based on family medical leave or some other policy that we currently have in our school division but one of them will expire in december we don't know if that will be renewed but there is still there are still other opportunities for our staff members to apply for an accommodation if it expires in december does that mean if you're approved before december your request is fine or does it mean that if you were applying anything covert related under that family's first act that you need to update it if you want it in the new year well since it expires december 31st there is no we we don't have the flexibility to update that federal act so
136if if federal legislation comes down and extends it or the state extends it then we'll definitely honor that but as of right now that that act expires december 31st so really for us as a school district you could say that act expires december 18th because that's our last day at school so then coming back in january we'd be looking at if teachers had put in from that's why the survey is so important when teachers put in the information in the survey and they have medical conditions and other related um concerns we can then look to match it up with the need from the students the the support it's kind of like basic supply and demand the supply of the teachers the demand of the students and then we'll make we'll make decisions based on what
137people have asked for but the ffcra does expire december 31st which for us is december 18th because that's our last day of school which is why the students who are back face-to-face with um special education teachers we're acting on those as they come in and we have all the documentation can i just follow up on that dr hubbard from what you're saying once this act expires does that then restrict our division's ability the criteria that we can use to approve a staff request for leave are we then you know are our hands tied after that uh more than they are now well i wouldn't say our hands are they're tied to a certain extent because one of the request one of the conditions is a child care situation or covet closure so with the with
138the um act expiring covet closure would go away medical you can always apply to our fmla our family medical leave act policies so then we would also look at other mitigating circumstances and look at what the request is and what the need is and we're going to my team is ready to work as hard as we possibly need to to match those things up and put people in the right places and have have the staff feeling comfortable and protected as well as still meeting the needs of our general public i know you're going to do that thank you i would just like to add though that um like we as a board can create policies that make it like like that would would also be uh similar to the law so our board makes these
139policies too like we can we can mimic the law saying we know that for example depending on the you know what happens in the leg in the gym in the congress for the next month and a half maybe there's not a you know a a bill that passes that extends the the um corona virus relief act but we can certainly say no our policy now is that relief act and extend it as long as we want because that's what we can do as elected officials so we have that um ability to do that i just want you to be clear about that it's not just our hands are tied maybe dr hubbard's hands are tied as a board we're going to follow state and federal law and then we can um we can also our
140hands are not tied in that same way yeah i would really like us to to look at that closely and and to be forward thinking as far as having something or policies to look at that that we could you know implement rather quickly if that is not renewed um i know that the fmla is 12 weeks and that's kind of you know that's depending on um when we return face to face you know that that could not cover um the full amount of of instructional time that a teacher might you know be expected to be back in the building so i i personally would really like us to have something to to look at or lined up um to be more supportive of that or to put in place of that if possible if that
141makes sense mrs we certainly can bring a proposed policy to you i think we can probably get one ready by the december meeting it would not even if it expired it doesn't expire until the 31st of december and we can certainly continue to process uh whole responses until the board meets um to take action on anything like that but we certainly can't bring a policy before the board if everybody is like hopefully it becomes all irrelevant though i mean you know but correct yeah dr atkins mr bryant go ahead yes um doctor i had a quick question um if for an example a teacher or staff member's application for accommodations is denied um what options do they have um to appeal that decision if we go back to the supply and demand um for medical
142reasons that's pretty laid out um and and usually you you're going to get a doctor certification that you will bring in that helps to guide us in our decision making so i'll move the medical part over to the side so those are pretty clear the other accommodations would be because of a desire that a family has or that a staff member has and they're going to tell us about that they're going to tell us what they're designed so that that supply and demand comes into play there matching up our staff with what our families are requesting and we're going to really work hard to try to do as much of that matching as we possibly can what we know about this situation is that our staff members are going to have needs and there will
143be unique needs that they will have um that we will have to sit and we'll have to talk and gather information our families will also have needs so it's a a difficult situation for both groups but it's an opportunity for us to respond to both our sets of needs by making matches and that's what we will be looking to do thank you for a good question so for teachers or i guess any administrators or students who did have covered but don't have it anymore is there a restriction for them coming back to school if there is an option face-to-face learning that is a great question so the cdc has guidelines for how to quarantine how many days to be quarantined and guidelines for retesting to have a negative test prior to going about engaging in
144the general population so once a student has followed those guidelines and has tested uh negative then a student may opt to come back after they followed all of those guidelines come back face come into a face-to-face model okay thank you dr atkins are there any um requirements as it relates to students and staff once the hybrid model starts for a time frame for them to have tested negative or do they just come and you do the temperature check and if the temperature is okay they come in you know all right so are we required to have a covet test either students or staff members you know anyone in the building that includes the instructors and everybody else uh and the bus drivers yada yada or do we are we making the us presumption that everyone
145is coming in covet free and moving from there what's our benchmark it's a great question dr baptist i'm going to ask you to um she's been working on the protocol for that okay um well we can certainly do testing but testing really only tells you a point in time you know where people were at that point we have had an attestation form that has gone out to uh all of the staff we've had a form that's going out to all of the families that is a self-check that when parents sign that or staff members sign that that says that they have agreed to do the self checks about you have you had fever have you had call from all the list of symptoms that cdc and health department recommend and then when students arrive on
146school property or go to a school bus they will have temperatures checked at that point so and as people come into building we've got thermometers around our buildings now that once you come in it will be checked and then we've got certain protocol that we're writing to um take care of situations where someone starts to get sick once they're at school so we won't be doing a full self check every day but once people sign the attestation that they will do it then the faith and hope is that they are following that and we will do temperature checks at school and dr baptist is working with dr luna uh now to uh you want to go into a little bit of that detail although we don't have all of it we don't have all of
147dr luna is at uva and um is very interested in doing testing at various sites uh as we'll be working with testing within school sites here in the city and in the county and so we're trying to get some um guidelines together about how those testing events would occur how many testing events we would be able to to have who we from charlottesville city schools we would be able to have there and dr adkins i didn't get a chance to tell you this i asked what type of test it would be they are doing the pcr test and i said oh no that was terrible and he said oh did you have it nose or throat and i said i had it nose he said yeah that is pretty uncomfortable i said well what are
148the chances that we might could have the saliva test he says we'll talk about it so we are going to work to try to get a testing protocol that is recommended by uva and with the health department and will kind of follow their guidance and would like to do something in december before people get away from us for the holidays and then do something in early january when people come back in case they have been traveling um during the holiday so more to come on that we just getting started with those conversations thank you dr baptist um madam chatters had a a couple of questions or comments and um jennifer i'm glad that you mentioned earlier about transportation and then and if you have the capacity in your neighborhood to you know walk with others
149if they're doing it um then that's a good option um but um i heard it tonight and i've heard it um in reading as well i read it in reading about we're coming back at the beginning of january a lot of people would be um potentially being been doing some traveling or visiting and and then right after we're coming back into schools but i'm thinking what beth just talked about dr baptist just talked about could um address some concerns that you know they're going to sign up to say that they're going to take these kind of self-assessments and we're going to have some things in school to take temperatures and things like that but has the all of the cdc guidelines and things that y'all have been looking at has that factored in like potential
150high number of students and teachers and faculty um you know may have gone out the area if we look at doing some of the community testing like we just talked about one thing dr luna would like to be able to see is if we went to one of our schools and had people from that neighborhood come and we had a higher percentage of positivity rates there that that might show us uh how certain neighborhoods have been not behaving but how they've been interacting with others uh i also know from being in a faculty meeting at uva that they're going to be doing testing of the uva students as they leave town after thanksgiving for thanksgiving and when they come back so you know while we're concerned about the people who are right in charlottesville city
151schools we're also concerned about other people within the community who have been traveling so if students uva students are also getting tested then hopefully we'll be able to look at various neighborhoods there too and catch areas that could be higher transmission before there is a problem so ideally we would be conducting that test um immediately when we return and that would be prior to january 11 so we have a good data set to um look at prior to opening on the 11th that the board approves that just just as an fyi for the community if i may too i mean if you're paying attention to recent publications and recommendations from the american academy of pediatricians and and other medical groups i mean everybody really is strongly recommending that people limit or try not to travel
152as as tough as that is and as much as we all are missing family members and friends but that really is kind of best practice at this point in time so i think we need to we need to say that indeed we do in fact that's what they recommended the mitigation committee recommended um that we do a pr campaign basically asking people to stay in um and not travel over the holidays so at the same time until we have some federal leadership that indicates that we need to be masked and socially distant and washing our hands and um avoiding large crowds it's going to be hard on our little local level to really um expect that our community will do that but we really do hope that you will anybody else have any questions about
153this recommendation i have a few more ques oh someone else can go i don't have any okay go ahead and especially morris burger uh the question though we're talking about working with the health district and the kind of tests that they have is there any way we could set up some direct contact so that if there is an issue in a school or where we might have a pod that's been exposed where we can have some direct person that we refer people to or a direct site is there any way we can work that out with the health district and then the other question goes back i'm just getting it out so i won't forget if you're a high school student and you opt to go back in person the two days face to face
154are your other three days of virtual learning face to face like is it hold on what's the word synchronous is it live and in person or are your other three days asynchronous uh miss morrisberger let us get the the exact information and how they're going to arrange their schedules and we'll bring it to you on the 19th we'll give you more information um the high school did a presentation at a last board meeting on some of their schedule but we'll get a little more on detail on how they're going to arrange that okay and then can we find out if there's some direct contact we can make with the top or the blue ridge health district about like if we do have a case or a possible exposure is there like a direct place we
155can send people to um for testing you know like that we have a contact um of someone there so that you know there some people will have access or know where to go to get tested yes ma'am we have a contact that we use um at the health department and then a couple of backup people if we cannot reach our contact they may not recommend at that point to get someone tested we would probably recommend that they uh check with their health care provider to see if that testing is needed right then if you test too early after you've been exposed you're likely to get a negative so you really need to wait which is a problem uh need to wait a few days so that it will show up as positive so we would
156have to uh get the health department to help us with the contact tracing to see when was the exposure really what was exposure but yes we've got several people at the health department that we can call day or night and uh we meet with them weekly so we've been able to develop a relationship with people there that we could contact for any sort of outbreak or individual case thank you you're welcome can i just offer this little bit of um because you know i have a 11th grader and a 12th grader um in addition to my elementary school kids and i don't presume to know that their experience is everybody's experience by any um by any stretch um but i do have talked to other parents and it seems to be going pretty well for
157some of these children in the in the virtual high school experience um and i just wonder and would ask that we allow the high school to be as flexible and um as possible um like i understand like engineering fine arts like there are definitely classes that you want to have in person um but i wonder if we could um you know i wonder what we could build um that would because i know a lot of i don't know 10th 11th and 12th graders who are relieved not to have the social aspects of high school um and who are really working very well in this environment and so it really does provide this very difficult choice for parents um you know obviously i just i just would like the there to be some school-based flexibility um
158that like while i appreciate miss bryce and boris berger's questions because it does provide some opportunity to suggest there might be some flexibility there that we aren't thinking of and that i would just like as a board to also suggest you know if we could minimize you know have the good parts and and and have of each of virtual and um in person so anyway i just i just think there should be some flexibility there um so i know that's a nightmare scheduling wise but um i i definitely think that some high schoolers are do i mean i think ninth graders that's a real challenge and some 10th graders that's real challenge but i think once you're in 11th and 12th grade unless you have special needs or some you know like you're in charge
159of your own academic career at that point and you really you know sometimes the social aspects really undermine you academically so anyway i just want to also offer that as a voice um and that's i don't have any questions about it but go ahead well who has a question madam chair yeah just um i know so back to the situation of a student who may have to uh quarantine for a while while they're waiting and say it's a student who has opted for the face-to-face option i know in the college setting when that's happening the college has been very accommodating you know and just rolling those students right into um an online type of uh platform or format so that they don't miss classes have has that been discussed mr torres it hasn't been discussed
160per se but i can assure you uh that as we're thinking about coming back face to face we would be doing everything that we can to accommodate our students who for whatever reason or in whatever circumstance faces an illness be it from covet or anything else that causes them to have to move from face to face to online we certainly will work with that family and accommodate that family yeah great thank you students absolutely i think the the um the optimal word is flexibility with this there are some structures that we have to put in place but beyond that flexibility is going to it will be what will make this successful and help us to manage and move through january through june in the smoothest way possible flexibility with our staff and flexibility with our
161students and families from a student's perspective who has talked to um many high school students um many of them have said to me that they want a an easier transition if like they wanted to option out of like face to face learning and we lost you um miss kadari miss kadari we lost you and your voice your sound i'm thinking maybe i'm the only one in my view can you repeat what you just said because obviously we are on the edge of our seat yeah sorry um so i was saying from a student's point of view has talked to many um high school students my fellow classmates many of us are um you know stressed out about whether if like if we do go to face to face um we don't want that transition from
162like oh like what well what if like i want to go back to virtual learning like i don't want to have to worry about like the the heart transition so the flexibility like i think it's a huge um factor thank you ms kadari appreciate your comments keep that in mind for sure and i know dr i is working on that uh right now he and and his counselors um okay any other comments or questions for dr atkins okay um [Music] do you have any final words what come with dr atkins no i again just want to say thank you to all of the committee members and and teachers and staff again safety is our priority and making sure that we respond to the needs of our students and our staff and getting through this incredibly
163difficult time in the safest way possible is is certainly a priority thank you dr atkins i also want to say thank you to all of the committee members but also all of the staff who are doing the work every single day in virtual environment it's it is really humbling and inspiring to see um the great work that's happening um as you know that we have been able to do virtually so thank you to all of you as well um but moving on to um does anybody have any responses or questions about the written report um which was uh the people's pupil teacher ratio okay and now we're going to go back to comments from the community um mr cuomo do you have any buddy signed up i do i have uh beth ike who would
164like to speak and i've unmuted her or given her the ability to unmute so okay you also have ben alvar we the school board welcomes public comment we ask that you limit your comments to three welcome minutes ike thank you um thanks to everyone again for all of your hard work it's so appreciated um i want to say a couple things i really appreciate the plan put forth having the december 16th date so the board will be able to change course um should the risk feel too great to return in january should the risk be really different than than it is now because now it seems like ccs is full steam ahead to return in january i know we have kind of a chicken or the egg problem or a supply and demand problem with
165figuring out what return looks like in the absence of knowing who's returning but i worry about folks answering the surveys both the families answering the surveys or the staff answering the surveys about a binding intent form when we really have so little clue what the granularity looks like yes transmission mitigation is well it sounds like it's going to be in place and i also applaud the hard work of all of our facilities folks that's it's really exciting to hear that schultz was going above and beyond with that mitigation but i'm curious about things like when will the kids be outside during the day can we take advantage of doing things like putting up tents and creating other outside spaces i hear that i know that the intent forms inform the master scheduling but i feel
166like requiring such rigidity with the binding intent form with so little detail offered is a hard position to put both staff and parents in um i understand also that the re-rostering difficulty at which i'm assuming means kids not necessarily ending up with the same teacher they started with i get that that would be difficulty um but i would argue that this it sounds like the district is putting that choice of whether or not a kid can handle being in a different teacher's class that decision is with the district rather than with the family if the family would feel more comfortable it's springtime and it looked like i'd rather have my kid in person because risk looks lower and i know that this means they might have a different teacher i'd like the flexibility to be
167able to make those decisions right you know i think flexibility being the name of the game from multiple people um i'm grateful for those of you who've asked those granular questions i think that's really important for both faculty and family i trust that you guys are handling individual cases on their own but i would turn back to the ninth grade mother we heard from earlier who has clearly not had her son's case handled in a way that seems like it serves the best interest of the child and if i worry that the rigidity this plan is putting forth forth um is going to make that individual cases harder and harder to deal with and i think that's it sorry if my notes are all over i appreciate your help and like i said all you
168do much obliged i think it was like who's next mr promo um i do not see anybody else who has a hand up at this time or anybody who has made a comment in the chat so all is quiet on my end okay great um so yeah let's um go ahead and close public comment at this time and go to board member comments before we go to um board member comments well go ahead um i'll go with uh who would like to go first amongst the board member comment um this is one way down i have no comments excellent mr bryant um first of all i wanted to uh thank um dr atkins and her staff for the great job they've done getting us to this point i also want to thank all those who
169who spoke tonight um doing public comment do appreciate your comments and um we certainly do take them seriously and um thank you for for your continued support um the only concern that i have um we talked about a lot is the transportation piece and and it seems like i've gone dark here oh the transportation piece um i'm hoping that those intent forms um hopefully we'll come back at least as close to 100 as we can because a lot of our children do depend on transportation to school uh and um i don't know if we did any outreach to the churches so we can get that announcement out um that can be announced during our local church services um the community representatives especially in public housing um to get that information i know denise and the
170other young lady will be going out into the community but that's the only concern that i have in terms of the transportation piece making sure that we get as many forms back as we can so that we can match those children up that will enable them to to get to school thank you mr bryant um miss taurus sir thank you um so a few things some questions and some comments um in leading up to our december 16th meeting i would really like it um if we had access or me personally um to some of the data and metrics or the the rubric uh the dashboard stuff so that we can i'd like to see that daily um and not just be presented with it on the 16th so that i can kind of see those
171trends so if we could make that i don't know that everybody else feels the same way but i would like to see that personally please um a question that i've forgotten to ask several times was just in some of the mitigation options are there buildings that where we can open windows and and get fresh air are we going to be able to do that or open doors you know as related to safety and perimeter but just to try and get some outside air in any of the buildings there are some windows that can be open many cannot but unfortunately jerry and mark aren't i don't think they're still with us on the panel but um there are concerns when you leave windows open during especially extreme temperatures you can throw the hvac system out of
172balance so there can there are um it's not a universal good to just have your windows open but there are some windows that can be open many cannot beaufort in particular i know has a lot of windows that glass goes floor to ceiling but you can't open anything there um so it's really a mixed bag okay i was just curious about that and then also i didn't know if at any time soon or coming up if we were planning to get an update on literacy i noticed you know some some work that's being done on with the ebl and then also it looks like there's a new program that's rolling out or training for that the ellie the letter or latr so i'd really love to hear some more about that please so that's just
173more of a request and then also i was excited to see that it looks like a lot of the after school clubs are happening so if if we can get a comment um at some point um in the future just about how that is happening i think that's pretty exciting so um was happy to see that and then just to kind of wrap up i just wanted to also um as everybody has said you know so much gratitude but i also want to acknowledge that this is really hard all of this um and it's hard for teachers for staff um for the principles it's it's emotionally psychologically draining and taxing and i just want to acknowledge that and then also ask you know if if we are looking forward to putting in place or if
174we have any extra supports for teachers for principals or staff who who might be feeling fear or anxiety around um you know coming back into classrooms or just having to deal with this and the decision making um top to bottom i mean i feel it in my own life but do we have anything else in place that we can offer besides you know eap services or things like that um because i really want to make sure that that everybody you know feels supported and heard um and i just wanted to say that that is a concern of mine thank you miss torres mr torres we'll bring you at the next meeting some of the strategies that we have in place to make sure that we're supporting our staff eap of course is in place and
175some other strategies so rose i just wanted to jump in right quick i do know that tomorrow morning is offering yoga for the students parents and teachers um i'm planning to go i'm not doing that to scare anyone off but i'd a brother need somebody too i heard you were leading the session [Laughter] there are a lot of individual efforts going on at schools and and team building um so we'll bring you some of those that'd be great thank you dr atkins dr kraft um i would like to first uh well thank uh everybody who spoke during the public comment period it's sometimes a really hard and intimidating thing to do and i appreciate people coming forward um i'm hoping that somebody is going to reach out to ms simpson uh regarding her concerns about
176her son um just to follow up on that and i'm i'd just like to give a shout out to the people who have created and maintained the reopening fund that we heard about from miss west i think this is such a wonderful grassroots effort and um you know just an example of how the community can rise up to meet the needs of a difficult situation so i want to thank everybody involved with that i think it's awesome um i uh also i guess uh sort of echoing miss taurus is um you know concern for some of the you know emotional and wellness issues i was wondering where we are in terms of hiring the the social workers that we we have funding for the social workers and perhaps we can get an update on their
177work i you know i wonder really about the stress uh you know of our students uh the mental health of our students there and um i think this is just a horribly difficult situation for them um and i think that lots of extra support is is needed um something that we've never you know we've never been in this situation before and i hope we never will again um but i think we really need to make sure that um you know that we are aware of the stresses and um you know people who are just feeling depressed and feeling anxious i mean i know how i've been feeling you know these last weeks and months and um so um i'm hoping that you know maybe with the additional staff we can meet more of those needs
178so i'd love to hear about that maybe in an upcoming meeting um and also just um recognizing the pressures on the principles um you know to juggle the uh you know the workings of their school and and uh you know the the opening of the school and uh you know just dealing with all of the different pressure points there i hope that we are supporting our principles adequately as well and i guess i can't just uh i never can say enough about how wonderful our staff is or are i don't know what's the correct grammar there but our staff and dr atkins and i think you know i just continue every time you know i come to a school board meeting and i hear what everybody's been doing and i'm just you know so grateful
179i think we just have um you know just a degree of commitment and excellence that um amazes me all the time so uh thank you again and with that i will be quiet i want to sign up for the yoga so juan's going to have to tell me how to do that miss katari did you want to have anything to add here no ma'am thank you welcome to your first board meeting thank you um miss purrier um i would like to say to ms kadari thank you for your thoughtful questions um i think that's why i enjoy working with students they always make you think of things that you may not have spoken about um something that we're trained not to do but i think it's important to do tonight is that everyone this evening
180during public comment regardless of what your concerns were you understood the level of difficulty a pandemic presents and it has presented everyone with challenges um i know that mr wade is going to lead us in uh yo at our next board meeting so i want everyone to please come dressed appropriately disagree it's not on the agenda okay it's not on the agenda but it's happening um but we this is difficult for everybody not only for the board but everyone in the ccs community and i think that we have handled it with dignity and grace and i hear us talking about making sure that we take care of everybody and lashandra and sherry and lisa and james and juan and jennifer always talk about everybody not only the people within our community but the people within
181our building and i think that it's a wonderful thing that dr atkins and her team recognize the complete family and that's everybody that's in our family from the bottom up from the top down from left right horizontal or vertically and i hope that a particular person on the screen does not get upset with me this evening but it says a lot about a person when they have a very special day and they take that special day to spend it with us and if you all don't know who i'm talking about then i'm gonna just put it out there cuz today is a lady's name by dr rosa atkins i don't know if any of you all know her but today is her day today is her birthday and i want us all to clap and
182give her a shout out cause she came to work on her day happy birthday to you happy birthday dear rosa happy birthday to you oh that was beautiful thank you happy 39th thank you yes absolutely thank you so much mrs and thank you for that serenade that was wonderful thank you miss purrier um ms bryson morrisberger you have anything to say oh yeah i just have a few questions to see if we could have them um or follow up at the next meeting um since we'll be getting the details of the survey if we could um have just like a summary of the you know the requesting that we talked about with hr the number of medical versus the number of you know in the other category um and then i know we did map
183testing and pals and so maybe next meeting if we could get an update on where students are some type of screen snapshot um about you know where students are on grade level and things like that and um for voting you know and for parents i don't know if it's in the agenda or meeting notes from last meeting but the granular level of what the day looks like for high school or middle school or elementary school students is important and so if there's anywhere we can point them to on the website because i had questions from parents who were saying you know they're torn about more they're torn about in person versus virtual and if they're gonna send the student back in person but the other days are just going to be you know that word
184i can't think of a report yes there you go um that that would contribute to their decision so those granular granular levels are important if we could get a hot spot update i've gotten some questions about hot spot shortages maybe not sure but adding that on there and then i know that uh parents uh concerns are personal um but since the one parent did bring those concerns if we could get an update on just the process and help her so that they can drop the photography elective um and then um if you can at least on the staff survey include a question about child care and child care times and if that affects their arrival time or scheduling for when we go back and i guess in both december our meeting later this month and
185in december um later this month you're going to tell us about the survey results and then at our december meeting can you update us on uh the approvals for uh accommodations and you know the percentage of staff that'll be virtual versus in person the percentage of students that will be virtual at that time what we have so it was just some more questions thank you okay um so i don't i appreciate all the public comments um was there any other word i may have missed somebody i don't think i did but i really appreciate and i um i was um i'm sorry that i i didn't give to my emails until today so um that miss simpsons did not get responded to today i had thought i i look forward to that being followed up
186on um and so and thank you for the committee's work the community's work i'm so grateful for the numbers right now being so low it really does show that the community's efforts are working and we want to maintain and continue that so thank you to everybody for that um i don't have anything i'm sure i have things but i have forgotten them and um but i do appreciate everybody um who who commented but also to the great work that our staff has been doing um and of course the pto uh raising all of that money it's very it's extraordinary and i know how hard it is to raise money and uh it is it's exciting um that we've been able to do so much that you all have been able to do such good work
187with that with that money it's great um so i don't have any other comments so i'm gonna lead it to miss dr atkins and i'm so sorry i didn't recognize know that it was your birthday and happy birthday thank you it's been a fun day thank you so much um i also i want to do a little responding to um dr craft's question about supporting our staff there is a community network and so often when board members ask questions we think about answering it from our school division perspective and internally and what's happening internally but we have a whole network of community supports that we're so grateful for so there is dr craft a community network of counselors that have been working with our teachers made themselves available to our staff to provide the support
188that they need and the counseling that they might need during this difficult time and beth chuck has sent that information out to our staff to let them know that that's available to them so great question thank you for asking us that also thank you also for all of the um comments that we were seeing tonight in public comment and the fun to support our students i'm just so excited about that and it it will go a long way in helping our students to be prepared and to respond to their needs in the virtual setting or just in the day-to-day living that they have to do thank you to bianca and denise johnson and all of a whole host of volunteers for the our first brand event that was response to essential needs of our students
189on that distribution and where we handed out just clothing be it outer clothing or under clothing and and personal items to our community members as they needed it it was a great event ms torres was there helping to hand down and other board members and staff members so thank you so much to the whole team for making that happen and we do have another event that will be coming up in december to continue to respond to the needs of our community public comment about when the board we will be bringing back information to the board on our lgbt community and lessons and and curriculum the state department of education is scheduled to give all school divisions guidance in that area by december 31st what we'd like to do is take that guidance and align it
190with any of the efforts that are going on in our school division and bring that back to our board we want to make sure that we present to our families and to our community any curricula that we have or lessons that we have in that area in order to give our community a chance to review those we oftentimes highlight during my comments we highlight the great work that's going on in our school division with our staff and with our teachers and this year just because we're teaching in a virtual environment does not mean that we don't have great examples of excellence going on so we have started um recognizing teachers for the vip award the virtual instruction pro award um so now we're going to ask dr odie to recognize some of our shining stars
191who have already received the vip award dr odi explain the award a little and then let's recognize our staff thank you dr atkins uh this is really a great opportunity for colleagues for for ccs staff members to recognize their colleagues for their uh excellent instruction during this very challenging and different time of virtual instruction and so we've we started this in early october um shared it out with staff with uh just a little uh short survey of of listing who they would like to nominate uh why they would like to nominate them we've asked them to share their school their grade level and then just a short narrative of what they have done to support students and staff and sometimes they submit a video or an image of of their nominees with their nomination we've
192had over 70 nominations in just three weeks so and here you see well i'll tell you the three weeks we've we have um narrowed it down to five uh winners for each of those weeks all the each of those weeks although all of the nominees are winners but we have a committee that works together to to look at the nominations and then to narrow it down to a few uh we'll continue this process as we continue in virtual instruction so here you see some of our nomin our nominees um here lindley price first grade at burleigh moran maggie thunder 5th grade at walker shannon wilson wilson a spit teacher at walker christine thalwick's a spanish teacher at beaufort and lexi marini one of our ap's over at walker and we also have janine daly a
193gifted resource teacher in sixth grade math at walker meg greenwood a first grade teacher at venable melanie johnson gifted resource at jacksonville andy jones one of our instructional coaches over at beaufort catherine salem lead teacher at jacksonville and our latest ones christy hartwell kindergarten teacher johnson noelle mitchell kindergarten instructional assistant at johnson jessica scott second grade at bernie moran laura shea first grade at bernie moran and emily waters an orchestra director at walker and so the nominations are due every thursday and we we receive them constantly we we uh share out the winners every monday uh or the the selected nominees on mondays uh so the um all of the charlottesville teachers receive the email and it has these uh these folks there and as well as the statement that their nominator shared about their
194practice so everyone gets to see and celebrate our veps we know that we have many many as i said we have over 70 nominations so far we know that we'll continue to receive those as we continue in virtual instruction we're very proud of the work that our teachers are doing uh as ms torres says this is hard it is hard and we have teachers that are doing outstanding work uh because we all have students first that we we're doing it for kids so we thank you for all that are nominating and these nominations come from teachers from coaches from coordinators from principals from assistant principals we're getting nominations from so many different people and we appreciate it we'll continue to celebrate greatness here in charlottesville city schools thank you dr odie and if you look
195at those pictures of our teachers every one of them have such a bright smile on it it just makes you reassures you that even in this difficult time there is great work going on there's wonderful work going on um and we love watching our teachers get the work done so um thank you to our school board representative um we're so glad to have you here with us ms kadari we we just love hearing your voice so thank you for being here and we look forward to having you next week and thank you to all our board members you have difficult decisions to make for all of your work for what you have done we appreciate you so very much um thank you madam chair dr atkins um work session wrap up dr baptist i guess
196you got something from that list uh well we didn't have much until near the end that changed um mrs price morseburger asked us some tough questions that about details regarding start times various start times uh what happens with singleton teachers in virtual and face-to-face uh the synchronous and asynchronous looking at high school students schedules um having school-based flexibility looking at having a covus virus relief act policy for the school division um access to the data on the metrics and dashboard and i wanted to ask ms torres are you talking about the charlottesville city schools dashboard when that is developed or data like you received tonight or what sort of ongoing data are you interested in um all of it um well i guess what what you're looking at and tracking um you know even if
197there's something that that may not be displayed necessarily on our school dashboard just kind of leading up to that okay that helps thank you an update on literacy some comments about the after-school clubs um dr atkins uh addressed the question about extra support for teachers and staff but we'll see if there's anything else to be added there information about hiring of the social workers and that work how it's going a summary of the request for the hr with the medical and other reasons information about map and pals testing where students are at this point granular level for what uh the day will look like when um where it will be on the website so that parents can find that uh to know as they're answering questions hot spot update um an update on that parental
198request from earlier this evening a question from the survey about child care and how that might affect staffing decisions for their return [Music] information about the approval of the accommodations at the december meeting looking at the percentage of students and staff who will be virtual and those who will be face to face thank you dr this i really do appreciate the way you do that um our next meetings are thursday november 19th at five o'clock um via zoom and then thursday december third via zoom at five o'clock we'll have us another school board meeting and then wednesday december 16th we will have four accession slash um uh meeting at five o'clock no at four o'clock via zoom on december 16th so those are the next three meetings that we have and hearing no objection we
199stand adjourned thank you everybody have a good night thank you happy birthday dr atkins thank you [Music] thank you so much bye-bye bye thank you you