August 1, 2019 Charlottesville City School Board Meeting

001okay I'm call this city countin what is this a school board August 1st meeting to order I think our first thing on the agenda is a moment of silence ok thank you very much and now we're going to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance madam clerk do we have the roll everybody has the agenda in front of them any questions or proposed changes turn out not amazed that we approved the agenda awesome thing Mr Bryan seconds a second it's been moved and properly seconded all those in favor all right any opposed now is the opportunity to hear from the mem from the community our the community members are asked to provide your full name and address please note that we are asking people to limit their comments to three minutes and make sure you speak

002into them microphone so that you may be heard especially for the TV audience and the first to speak I believe is Manny and I apologize I don't have a last name for you come on right up here to the all right I'm not speaking I'm just supporting them they've been really nervous so of course thank you for coming hi hi nice to meet y'all meet you too my name is Emmanuel or Manny as you all know I am going to be 11th grade 11th grader and I am a intern from from the CSG gardens and i couldíve name my name is Tamara right I'm also here representing CSG I am our community fellows advocates lead and we have been working with the youth interns this summer and they have adapted a project that they would

003like to present to you all so we're going to be supporting them with their their goals I'm a mother here in Charlottesville so I do have children who attend the shawwal City Schools so I support them in a much greater way we've had some some different types of issues that have occurred surrounding this and my own family so seeing these things move forward and in a positive way would be good so many of you want to present the first goal yeah well the first ball we have is to improve both breakfast and lunch is at the school by increasing neutral nutrients value of food choices nutritious but ok our first goal is to increase to food and breakfast lunch value like nutrition's by like 60% wait for in 3 years like 20 per year approximately

00420% per year so what we'd like to see done is improving for both the breakfast and the lunches at the schools we understand that you all are doing your job and we appreciate that as far as following the USDA guidelines but we feel like there's an opportunity to improve that and you can exceed what what they've done as far as the nutrition goes for the school and also give you all the opportunity to set a model example for nutrition in the school systems so including healthier lunches with a higher nutritional value would be more fresh foods less things that are processed with additives dyes all of those things my son falls under the autism spectrum and one of the things that we noticed with some of his behaviors manifesting was due to some of the

005foods that he was eating so as we introduced more healthier foods we're resident of Friendship Court so we have access to the community garden so by us changing the way that he ate we noticed the difference in his behavior so having his behaviors changed he also increased his academic process in school so that's why this is an important goal for us and so some examples of that are fruit and yogurt parfaits that are low in sugar and in fat as a breakfast option and kind of like a grab-and-go more things from scratch as far as like soups maybe fresh meats and burgers including kale chips and just removing some of the foods that have a higher sugar content providing more of a variety with the salads that are being offered we noticed there's like pretty

006much romaine pretty basic but maybe kale salad you know spinach salad give different options for toppings and just make things more available and give them a different opportunity to select those healthy food choices that's right it's yeah I'm sorry that the timer's not up to tell you I'm happy to give you another 30 seconds or 45 seconds because there's no timer but I wanted to give you that oh I was wondering if we were running over I'm happy to give you like another 30 to 45 seconds so if there's anything else you wanted to add like we said we do realize that you are meeting that mark but we just feel it it's really important to make these types of food changes right now with our children we're seeing a lot more obesity and children

007which is a concern we're seeing a lot of children with juvenile diabetes which is a concern so if you're dealing with those types of health issues as a child of course with technology and medication it may prolong your life but what quality of life if you've been suffering with these types of diseases from a child and if foods aren't an issue and being able to access healthy foods are causing that I think by starting in the school system would be really good a lot of the children who are eating the foods produced by the school were in the cafeteria most of those are coming from the low-income families so when you look at that and those are the breakfast and the lunch that they're getting and they may not have the opportunity to a healthy

008meal later on it's really important that they have access to those foods if we can see now that it's going to be affecting their quality of life thank you so much also to the to that and I really encourage you to consider looking at our school about health advisory board as a place for we have parent representatives on the school health advisory board that you know we're always looking for involvement and volunteers would be willing to serve thank you thank you Thank You Manuel and the next one Amaya [Applause] hello I'm Amaya I'm a rising senior at CHS and I've worked with the CSG gardens over the summer and I'm grace King I'm also a rising senior at CHS and this summer I was also a youth food justice intern with CSG city school yard

009garden and this summer was really an amazing opportunity and time to learn from my peers and the community food justice advocate to stay in support of us today and what we've learned together has motivated us to take a stance as one as we urge the school board to consider school meals as an equity issue we want to we want to commit to healthy school foods as a way to increase equity at our school quite simply we don't have an even playing field at the schools and not all the students are starting out with the same background when we come to school so three schools in our city have free and reduced eligibility of over 85% which is really high and if this many kids are dependent on schools for meals and they're most likely aren't

010getting nutritious meals at home and so it's really important that these meals are really wholesome and good and nutritious and they feed their bodies and their minds so I'm gonna be reading our second goal so its commit to healthy school foods as a way to build equity in our schools by understanding the role food and healthy eating plays and student success we encourage CCS to integrate healthy school practices throughout the curriculum so some examples of that could be enforcing better nutrition facts in the health and PE classes because we went over how they didn't really spend a lot of time on that and especially adding in long term effects on our health from the food that we're consuming and short term behavioural effects in school and how that can impact our performing in school and

011then another example could be it that could be a part of Student Orientation black night periods counseling is the long term and short term effects just to get students more what more of a more aware of what they're putting in their bodies and then also encouraging classes to use the garden here more often and to use that as a like on hands learning experience when we're adding more information about these things that could be a great way to learn about food and what you could be eating we should be thank you okay the next people on the list are Michaela and Rosa Roderigo Rebecca Chantal now those are 65 names on three different lines so I don't know they're come looking sounds good good afternoon my name is Rosa key I am a food justice

012advocate and volunteer at you ACCC farm we grow fresh food in our community and give it away for free I have gone through salsa I have with my daughter and I have a grandson that's coming to the 10th grade this year I am here today to support the youth and better school meals our food impact our health and learning ability I am happy to support the youth here because it's something important and truly need thank you thank you and I love your name Rosa I know hi I'm Michaela Howard and I'm a rising senior as well I've work who sees you for about five years now and I would like to bring for a third goal which is to encourage healthier decision making by increasing advertisements around long term effects and unhealthy foods as well

013as reasons to make healthy food choices so one of our thoughts for this going to action would be maybe putting up some advertisements on the TVs that we have out here and just showing some food facts and long-term effects of any foods that we may have like junk foods or any developmental things we may have with the foods we're also thinking about getting the art classes out to do some some portraits of themselves because I'd like to stress the fact that hunger is not what we think it is we may see hunger as like someone being hungry in a third-world country or like seeing this very skinny body but hunger it looks like you and me and we may be fed we may be eating but that food could be empty carts carbs that these

014kids are using and they're not being able to work at their full abilities at school because they already empty carbs and so because of this I think that an advertisement for that would be much needed so people understand that our friends and family are suffering through these things we may not think is a big deal but it surely is Thank You Rodrigo and Rebecca welcome thank you hi my name is Rebecca and I am a food justice advocate I'm also a mother of kids in shallows Ville City Schools I'm here today to support to support our youth in our children and with this I stand with Rodriguez to present our goal good evening my name is Rodrigo Nunez I am a graduate of Montell high school but I grew up within the sea schools this

015is quite important to me I'm currently a food justice advocate as well c-squared Curtin so one of our goals is to increase the quality of fruit preparation cooking and storage of all of our meals what we mean with that is that we want to ensure that all prepackaged fruits and vegetables also fresh from their parents plate and served to our students the freshness and additional value of these fuels of these foods are extremely important reflecting on my high school career I've taken a lot of AP class and at the end of every year we have that AP exam season which is one the most stressful and hardest times for me and my other classmates something that all of my teachers have done regardless of any subject is that they always brought in a really nice

016meal first to enjoy right before the test they always took the time and budget how their own paychecks provide news for us who would be able to focus more on tests and to make sure we could recall information but because we might just not we might be taking food for granted fruit is very important for our bodies in mind especially in the development and I can tell you that a fresh a nutritional meal will help us reach our potential or academic potential greater than any reheated frozen pizza or over sugary breakfast parfait could ever do so sorry I'm also a community gardener on the 5th Street and the IRC knew roots as a gardener I've seen the value of fresh food and that being said as I as I support the youth in Charlottesville City

017Schools I support it with confidence that if they get the healthy food in schools their performances will be better because then their minds function better and their bodies function better and with this this is my support to the youth in Charlottesville City Schools thank you thank you all for coming I appreciate your input and again I definitely would love to have the any of y'all participate in our school health advisory board and usually they come up for membership in August and September so those are on the ground ways to support your efforts shantel thank you so much I'll be quick we had originally kind of vision actually giving a presentation instead of doing the chopped up public comment which is fine so over the past summer but really over the past couple years I've been

018working with Shannon Gaffey also Peter Davison Charlottesville City Schools through the urban AG innovations class at Buford there's also a garden aid class and so we've been getting a lot of feedback from the students over the past couple years just on healthy school meals on what the garden means to them and how them being in the garden has actually made them think more about the food that they're eating and where it comes from and so this Pat in this past summer was a time for us to really kind of dig into that with the youth interns this is all stuff that they wanted to do this is all stuff that they're hearing from their peers CSG kind of gave them the framework to be able to use their voice and figure out what is it

019like present and give testimony in one of these public spaces how do you crap goals if you want to get something done so over the past couple weeks we've really been thinking about tying those goals in and also learning what's going out in the world already the CSG has already kind of had a partnership with CCS we met with dr. Atkins we've been meeting with Charleston Carlton the nutrition director there are already multiple pieces moving towards getting CCS to have healthier school meals we're excited to present a City Council in a month or so around the food equity initiative healthy school foods is one of those key components of it and with that we really want it to be able to also leverage youth voice that's been here and just because of the structure of

020the classroom it's not as easy for them to really say what what is on their minds about what's going on in school or just knowing that the school board meeting is an avenue to do that so that's one of the things that we've we've done here today we also wanted to elevate the community advocates voice Tamara write them all Rebecca and Rosa have also been working with the School of the youth interns we really created these goals together understanding that community members have things to say they also have kids in these city schools and some of them have been going through CCS for generations so I just want it to be able to let you guys know that thank you so much for having us take this time Janette do you want to add anything

021as well Janette Aviator I live at 1648 Brandywine Drive thank you dr. Atkinson thank you Miss McKeever and the school board we just wanted to thank you for supporting the city school garden through the years that we're entering into our 10th year and the youth food justice program has been one of the strongest pieces that we've cultivated that develops leadership and this year we had so many youth interns that wanted to be part of our program that we didn't have the transportation to take them in our private cars so we work with mr. Henderson to use the van which has been really amazing we put our magnet on the outside of it so that's been a wonderful collaboration we're grateful for that the students pulled together they learned a lot about leadership and they pull

022together quotes for and pictures of themselves for what leadership means to them and we have a packet four of these for each of you and thank you so much mr. McKeever could I just echo what you said follow up I'm the school board representative to the school health advisory board and if our board would be a great place for you to come and to kind of follow up with specifics as to you know your goals and how we can then move to implement the goals because we set goals like at our September meeting we will be setting a goal for the year a couple of goals for the year and perhaps we could work together on this so let me know and you know it's a really great committee it's a great group to work

023with and I hope we can work together on this we'd love to work with with you more formally on it thank you so much thank you and thank you all students for coming that was just it's always helpful when our students come and give us their perspective and I think these are really useful and important goals so thank you and I'm very grateful to hear that giant noise because hopefully is not going to be as in here but I'm off for the moment I'm gonna ask if there's anybody else you would like to speak during our public comment that was all I had on the list and there is another public comment opportunity at the end of the meeting okay set up okay so I'm going to close public comment at that's at this time

024and go to comments from the board and I'm going to start with mr. Mickey no comments at this time blow me over with a feather mr. Brian you no comments at this time well I would just like to again welcome all of you who've come tonight and and those of you who came up to speak it's not the easiest thing to do come up in front of microphones and speak when we're all behind these these tables and counters but I think that food justice is a really important equity issue and you know I support the work that you're doing and the wonderful work that CSG has done for 10 years that's amazing so I'm just glad that you're here glad you came and glad that you you know are coming to us with your goals

025and so that we can help support what you're doing it really matters it's very hard you have any comments so thank you again to all of our students that spoke I know how challenging that is and what one has to do to prepare for that so thank you to each of you for doing that I also would like to say thank you to all of our students and parents who recently participated in our second annual pef stem camp and the public education foundation is a joint partnership with the City and County Schools and these things that the foundation does are around academic endeavors not only for our students but for our staff members as well and we just had a great time it's a one-week stem camp where the students on our own grounds at

026UVA in the School of Engineering and this year we have 26 students 13 from each school division last year we had 24 and next year we hope to have 30 we will probably have to cap it at 30 because it makes it easier for us to do all of our experiments and all of the various and sundry things that have to happen but we've got a way to go from 26 to 30 and if we need to have it grow in future years it will and the project is fully funded by the public education foundation and the students seem to enjoy it asking if they can come back for year three I was able to sub in yes I was called from the bench to the vsba education round table because my colleague was unable

027to be there so I hope I represented you proudly I attended three of the roundtable sessions and one was regarding the development of an equity policy in Matthews County the other was regarding a First Amendment presentation which discussed with the board members there are various things that one must consider in regards to First Amendment what are and are not First Amendment issues and how a board would go about determining that in addition I attended a presentation by our neighbors in Albemarle County regarding their developing of their anti racism policy and so off we were very timely and I was able to take little tidbits from each and just to know that all of the things that were discussed are things that we have discussed in order to keep us well on our way so I'm

028excited and looking forward to a very positive active and fun school year that's right that's right we had the speaker from the Roanoke City Public Schools and they have already developed and adopted their equity policy and it is a policy that is being used not only throughout the Commonwealth but other educational divisions other school divisions in developing ours but of course our superintendent is always on top of these things and she has been in contact with the superintendent in Roanoke so any and everything we need to know is will be in our policy mr. s I'll quickly also want to express my gratitude for those of you who came to speak for food justice and so appreciate hearing how hard you've worked and I've been following your pictures over the summer and it's very exciting

029and really worthwhile so thank you for showing up and sharing that and I also encourage you to come and continue to share with the school board and be involved on the committee the shab committee if possible so thank you for that I want to thank miss perlier for standing in for me and attending that and i do have some other comments that i'd like to hold for later so thank you I just want to there's a couple of things announcements that I you know wanted to make sure that the students knew about one is that we are looking for a student school board representative and the application is we all should have gotten a notice via email and phone call today from dr. Irizarry regarding it is due on August 27th the application is attached

030to the email or you can contact the office for an application so that again we typically we I mean the school identifies three out of the applications that they receive to be student school board representatives for the school year and so one serves for three months and then the anyway so you serve for three months out of time and I believe it's a really effective way to bring the voice of the students to the school board table but also I think you really learn a lot about public policy and how to make an effect change so I hope that there will be a lot of applications this year and that you will consider applying it also looks good on college applications the second thing I wanted to say is our former school board reps student

031school board rep miss Bryant and now like had a couple things on her Twitter feed today that I just wanted to kind of announce here as well because they're so important I always thought her announcements were so useful to our students one is that today August 1st is the day that the Oakland open application process is it that splits called common application opens today so she's like get started on the essays fill in your personal information add your school's she's like there's gonna be plenty of stress when school starts so this is the time to kind of get a jump start on your application process if you're a rising senior so I thought that was super useful information and I thought our students should if you're not following her on Twitter this might be new

032information for you and then she also mentions that it's always a good time to start gathering your FAFSA documents for your financial aid for your college application for your college financial aid applications so these are the kinds of announcements that students can make in the future and I hope that I think miss Bryant for her voice always but specifically related to our rising seniors as they start thinking about the school year they want to get a jump start this is the thing to do I also want to thank the school yard garden and city school yard garden and the food justice interns and advocates I'd love to see such a committed group and passionate group come to our school board meeting so thank you for doing that and that's all the announcements I have for

033the moment so I'm going to go ahead and go to the next item on the agenda which is the adoption of the consent agenda we're gonna have a first movement motion from miss per year and a second form is torez any input comments okay all those in favor of supporting the adopting the consent agenda all right I any opposed right so consent agenda passes and now we are on to action item approval of the nineteen twenty policy updates miss dr. King good evening Amanda chair school board members and dr. Atkins yes tonight I'm presenting a requesting action on our 1920 1924 board policies we had a discussion at our June 13th meeting and so tonight I have bringing the information back I've made the recommended changes and asking for the board to take action great

034thank you I would like to see if there's any comments regarding the policies nothing new I know we're looking at you mr. McGee I think I said enough last time and I appreciate your work in incorporating some of those thoughts thank you given that as their I move that we approve our school board policies current year coming year a second second okay all those in favor aye any opposed thank you dr. king thank you say y'all doing that now I'm good I'm good no recap okay so the next item is facilities and security update from Miss Powell and I think other members good evening chairman of the board and the board members and dr. Atkins better okay good evening so I think we are going to start this evening with the security access control update

035and then we'll move into an update regarding the reconfiguration project right so Leslie if you'll queue up that presentation and while she's doing that I believe I see something that I'm security first I believe that'll be let me advance so to give you an update on the secure the major security project that's been going on this summer sort of a by-the-numbers summary we have started the process of implementing access control systems for all of our schools and we started with our two open campus schools this summer Walker and Buford at Walker we now have 23 doors under the access control system 13 doors are fully controlled which means the use of fob to get access to those doors or they can be locked and unlocked with the bail schedule and ten of the doors are

036what's called monitor only so those are doors that don't have a lot of traffic a monitor only doors on the system you can look on the system and see that it's closed but it's not one that you would need to access with a fob on a regular basis so 23 doors total at Walker 22 doors at Buford and then with this project I'm happy to report that we now have the video buzzin system at every main entrance for our schools you may recall we started with the elementary schools the projects this summer wrap up that process with the buzzin system now also in place at Walker Beaufort and CHS and the slide just has some pictures of the equipment so that when you walk around if you look down and you see one of those

037little boxes with the light bar on the top that's a fully access controlled door I just want that that that is a huge improvement and thank you so much and that's just been I think an ongoing concern for parents and I just want to say that even though sometimes it seems like things move really slow and maybe they do they it's not that because of the lack of commitment we you know this is this is a been a long time coming and I appreciate everybody who made sure that this happened and of course that having it at most of the elementary schools too has been great so it's just it just works its way through the system and I just really think that it's hard sometimes to see progress but this is a very significant

038thank you it's a there it's a great system and I'm happy to say we really did go through a good robust process the company we partnered with is one of the top five in the old genatech we did a thorough vetting with demonstrations of what we would consider the top three and we landed with genetic because of functionality that we thought was going to be particularly helpful for how a school operates so in case it is very unusual right I mean it's not it's not the same because we have cute we have in our hopper we have certain needs in a school system with scheduling and snow days and there's lots of things you have to think about and you have to make sure you have a system that can handle those flexibilities and that

039is quick to make changes when needed so I know that you know I was we wanted to when we present to you we like to show visual supports and sometimes it's hard to make things exciting but I wanted to just give you a feel for how the system looks and we are really at the baseline of what the genatech system can do but it's still very exciting and it's still a big big step for us we're looking forward to integrating our cameras with this genetic that genetic dashboard as we move forward so there's some great functionality and things that we can leverage with this platform so what you see here - some very simple views but the system allows us to bring whatever type of maps or visual aids that we want to we can

040load them in the system and then we can you know it makes it easier than just view on the left-hand side you see a list of all of our doors and you can see statuses with those doors if it's a brown thing that looks like a door it's fully access control that icon that's more of a white thing those are monitor only doors now this map is just the high school so the only thing we touched at the high school this summer was adding the buzzin at the front entrance but there's a door there with a little lock and if that doors and you can also Matt you know Zone in on any of those doors with the door iconic when the camera system is integrated you could actually see see the camera looking at

041the door when you select the door but you can see literally the door if it's open or not and one thing that's very helpful when you have seasonal changes in doors swell and incorrect sometimes people think the doors closed and it's not because of the way the the door frame will swell and shrink with the weather and this tells you whether that contact is made it doesn't tell you whether the lock is engaged that's a whole other level of expense I've been looking at that functionality for years and it's just cost prohibitive but it will tell you that the door is shut to the where the contact is made which I like to know and you can see all that right from the dashboard so you got a big school it's nice to be able

042to go to one place and know that at least all the doors are shut and of course if it's an access controlled or fully access controlled you know it's locked and we have somebody identify that each school who's like kind of in charge of making sure that we're training right well know we're training assistant principals principals office staff the custodial staff is going to be acquainted with the system so they can use the tool if use this as a tool in the evening if they would like but it still doesn't replace going around making sure all the doors are locked in my opinion so this is a little bit better view this is a view from Walker and in this view you can see it forgive me on my computer you know I can blow

043it up and it's a lot clearer I know it's a little challenging to see it from here but you can see the doors and then those green dots are doors that our own monitor so they're not frequently or regularly used for traffic but you can tell that they're fully closed by the green dot hmm well you know they should be locked but I'm just saying that the system doesn't they're not monitored by the sides because they're not heavily used except right so you know they should be locked because they should they not open up open very frequently at all they're not frequently used doors that's Joe thank you so this is just a view another piece of functionality that the system gives us is our event logs so we can tell how many times you

044know weathered or who how often a door is open who went through the door how often the door if it the door is left open we get alarms that are pushed by email it's called a hold open alarm we can there are lots of different things we can have the system trigger messages to be sent to certain people so there's just so much ability to even know like how frequently doors are used I mean this just opens up a whole world of data for us that we've not had before so in summary the benefits and features of this system this is access control is a much more cost-effective way to maintain the integrity of a building's perimeter or envelope it is so much more cost effective than trying to manage the number of metal keys

045that you have to manage for organization of our size and if someone loses the key you know you don't have to you're not in a position to rekey the whole building it's very quick and simple to enable or suspend these credentials these little fobs and there was a picture of the fob on the first one of the earlier slides we do have the capability to synchronize this system with our with our Bell system so that doors are only unlocked for a certain amount of time around the bell schedule the system is integrated with our new k-12 system through the Active Directory system that means that the when the own board people in HR it feeds through to technology and then they get their email address and then that information along with their role like teacher

046Buford that has a certain access profile feeds into the system so when we issue the credential it's all integrated it's really a very nice thing one of the reasons we chose genatech was because they're an open system that easily integrates with other systems so that's a some efficiency and and also then if someone is no longer with us but you know instead of worrying about collecting a key the system is automatically going to feed through and that credential will be turned off even if they don't turn it back in that's like magic it's they're gonna enjoy this functionality yeah may I just ask how does the system handle substitutes so for substitutes we have a couple of different options there some one is like a long-term sub well we will issue a credential to them

047and their expected end date in the system will automatically expire the credential on the end date for daily subs we can have a process at the front office where they check out a credential for the day and turn it in at the end of the day and another thing with these credentials in that they're only set to work certain hours for example so we could even if a sub accidentally left with the credential then that would the sub the fob will turn off after at 3 o'clock or whatever time we set it to we also can entertain holding their driver's license some schools is until they turn the fob back in so those are some procedures we're still discussing but there are many effective ways to manage that and we're excited about the options that

048this gives us secure remote system access anyone who has the authority which would be like the principal's myself we can access the system remotely and chanting oh shut it down lock all the doors monitor it remotely if needed the monitoring and alarms and the event logs and reporting I alluded to that earlier and then the integration with our camera system is going to be so nice because genatech is not just an access control system it also supports cameras and it's time to upgrade a lot of our cameras anyway so as we go through that upgrade process it'll all be integrated so we're excited about where we can go with this platform yeah one more question dr. Kraft you have questions yeah one more question so will this somehow be integrated with any kind of drills

049that we have security or safety drills in the building's you said you know we can lock down things remotely itse yes and that's something that we wouldn't drill on in a way that when we think of drills like drills including the students and staff no but our training that we do with the office staff and so forth I mean we definitely and we could make this a part of the the drill process I mean it should be that that's not a yes we can do that when I think drills I think about the student drills and I'm thinking no they will be oblivious to myths but the administrative Lee yes we could incorporate this it's a good good thought we need to be practically need to know it has to be part of the training

050regardless but they can actually practice that during the drills administer the administrative team thank you are there any other questions for mr. Powell mr. McKee so obviously Walker Buford with the campus style the kids are leaving and changing classes and going between buildings and I gather that this can have a timer that you keep the doors unlocked for a certain amount of time and right so the way we have it set up now Walker is has indicated that they are not planning to actually have the doors unlock with the best schedule they do staffing and having people at duty stations at the Bell changes they're going to handle it they want to handle it mainly at this point Buford we will use like a certain a minute allowance on each side of the bell to

051turn on and off if a student needs to leave there class to go to the nurse's office or something in it at both schools there's nothing to stop a student from leading one of the B or C buildings it's all fire you know it's fire these are all fire doors you can get out and then they just need to go to the main entrance where the buzz in is and the student would come in so there's nothing the student doesn't need to be escorted to the office it is the student for the return trip talking with both Adam and with Jesse dr. Hastings dr. Turner they are planning they have about nine administrators with walkie-talkies throughout the building that are right there the plan right now is to escort students back in case that doesn't

052work out as well as we think it will we are discussing a Hall Pass type table situation with a large something that would make it something you would not be put it in your pocket you can't physically put it in your pocket because that's going to be attached to something larger but right now that's our plan B because we think there are enough adults and folks with walkie-talkies in the building that they can escort students back from the office so getting to the offices and a problem they're not impeded getting back we're looking at a couple different options yes that there might be times where a teacher holds a student back in class to discuss it this or that and then the teacher will need to communicate with the office we have communication with the

053office from every classroom with phones and so forth there's going to have to be communications around the system for things like that they might have to call for an escort or something of that nature I feel like this is still a work in progress that you guys are still kind of working out all the systems and kind of trying to plan but and so if there is you know but that you've been in touch with the principals and building level administration to kind of do the best you can to start school you may recall so Green County has an open Middle School campus as well and I can tell you enjoy you could say the same both of our kids attended there if you have your bells if you have your doors on the time

054or with the Bell System there will be somebody who might straggle and they get lot you know they the door locks just before they get there and they have to go around to the office happen to my kid in middle school haven't heard it but you know that only happens having once I think that I know of with mine but that kind of thing may happen and we talked about that upfront with the open campus situation with the access control but yes there are some decisions that need to be made at the school level we've presented a lot of options to the leadership in each school and I'm confident that we're going to arrive at the best solutions that you know improve the the security but still allow the function and the flexibility that you

055have to have one final question the I guess said some community groups like churches rent buildings BAC and other building and Walker I think and we don't need we will be able to yeah there they can be issue to fob and that only opens that building yes yes we have you can really refine you program you can set up an access profile to work only specific doors during only specific times for a very specific date range right it's a wonderful level of girls right well that sounds like you have had a very busy summer well there's a team effort yeah Jeff's team has been great Tim Beasley and company we've it's a team effort these projects always are right it's just seems like you're always working on something so thank you and this sounds like

056a really great solution so I appreciate it and I look forward to hearing all the good things we're excite other questions about this don't go too far though next next up civilities so for the next item I'll give Leslie a few moments to switch the to the other slide we do have a visual support for this next update we have very fortunate to have Paul Oberdorfer here from Public Works along with Mike Goddard and they are going to speak to us about the reconfiguration project and where we stand with what the plan is to move forward with that thank you this Mike I welcome to the school board thank you for having me here to talk a little bit about our upcoming reconfiguration project this involves the Buford and Walker campuses I don't know if

057everyone's familiar so I'll go through a very brief synopsis of what we've what we're talking about it has been decided several times over the years that the most logical way for the school grade levels to break down would be not what we're doing but something a little different that Buford should potentially become a sixth seventh and eighth grade school that fifth grade should be sent back to the elementary level and that pre-k should get its own pre-k Center with the present fiscal year the city has given us three million dollars to begin design for just such a project so I'm here to give you a little bit of an idea of how that might work out in terms of our design process and construction process now obviously it is not a three million dollar project

058so we will be reliant on city council making a decision one way or the other and I've sort of produced a diagram of how the process will work and I'd realize it looks a little complicated but I think I can I can walk us through it the diagrams laid out so that the things in blue are things that we have funding for and we do not need any further decision-making to be made at the at the council level for the things in red and green are things that will need a little more backing to accomplish step one at the top will be to write an RFP for design services and select an architect to help us design this new school or schools now what these look like at this point some people have ventured to

059guess but I think right now we're pretty open about what this means whether it means a redevelopment of the existing Buford and Walker school buildings with some additions and renovations or completely new schools they're open to either at this point so moving from the RFP process once we've selected an architect we'll move into the programming phase and basically what that will involve is sort of figuring out how many students we need to accommodate how much space that that equals to and and what sort of spaces we need to build and an evaluation of what we currently have to see how well that the two will made up and I'll give us some idea of how to go about moving forward with the design of the new building can I just clarify it absolutely because one

060of the things that I come you know in trying to work through this it's a design but it's also a planning $3,000,000 it is so can I ask more about like because it says like it says architect which perhaps would be helpful for you to kind of explain it's not just an architect or what does an architect do that is more like also planning I mean because I know we've worked with large firms who have multiple you know abilities but shorter text seems very small compared to what we need there are there are several elements there will be a land-use element architects or of course both generalists in the sense that they can work across various disciplines and marshal other specialists but also I'm speaking in kind of a generality at this point because we're

061very early in the process and we're going to be meeting with folks from schools and other people at the city level who will help us sort of narrow down exactly what we're looking for there but I think an architect a big a architect is who we'll want to pull on board in order to sort of keep everybody going in the right direction and also they went to a contractor who is gonna hire an architect or is that probably not at this early phase okay I don't really know yeah there are a couple things that sort of one we would like to have some idea of what we propose to do before we bring a contractor into the conversation also we don't have we would need to go through a little bit of enabling conversation that

062the the City Council level so that's something we're talking through but not quite at this point so I guess what I worked with Parks and Rec and maybe when Ned can help I guess I you know we had that we had that the Parks and Rec has a very significant like master planning process for each work and so they and they like is that what we're doing right now is kind of the first step just as a conceptual matter to me yeah just to be clear I don't want to mislead anybody what we're talking about are site-specific planning efforts so a school level master planning effort yeah meaning for instance Buford is a open campus with a lot of spread out buildings do we want to keep it that way or not I think a

063lot of people have some good ideas about how we should proceed but we'll want to look into that and once we get those those ideas together we'll have to come up with ways of making that happen either using new or existing building stock what I'm not suggesting that there's a whole I know for the whole entire building doc you know CCS building stock reassessment so programming we'll get together and figure out exactly what we need from these buildings in order to accommodate the educational purpose that they're meant take on and then we'll go into a conceptual design phase that phase will deliver sort of a massing idea so at this point we'll figure out is it a new building or are they building insertions that are a little more selective and and would they be

064supported then by a renovation for the existing buildings that aren't torn down or replaced we'll move into a schematic design phase at that point which will get a little more specific it'll tell us what exactly does this look like from the street how are the you know how are the rooms laid out so we'll have floor plans an idea of how the new constructions we will be built what level of finishes were shooting for and we'll use that information to obviously we'll be communicating across with the public and also with school board City Council all along the path but at this point we'll have a pretty good idea of what this schools will look like when they're finished and that'll put us in a position to get a pretty accurate and detailed cost estimate of

065what the project will cost to build at that point we will need though we may not have exhausted all of our funding at that point we will need City Council to give us a decision both about the funding whether they're willing to fund what we've designed at that point or whether we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit and also at this point we would want to make decisions about our delivery method meaning would we bring on a contractor at this point to work through something like a PPE a process or a design-build process or do we want to go the traditional route that we've normally taken which is design-bid-build from here things get a little more vague because we're way off from there but I'm assuming as we entered the

066Green Zone on the diagram that we're going with the design-bid-build process because that's what we're all pretty familiar with we've moved into a design development phase where we start to really get down to brass tacks about what the building is made of and what sort of level of finishes we are working towards and then construction documents so we get down to the level of actually where are all the plumbing lines run where are we cutting a wall where we insert in a wall what exactly is this gonna look like at a very specific level and we'll start to do some detailing at that point we will move into contractor selection as long as we're using like I said the design-bid-build methodology we will select a contractor and move into the construction phase at that point

067and the construction phase is just that little box at the end but it's it's it's a lot so things are aligned sort of the the right column from my perspective is the things that we need design help for and we'll be sort of architect driven the things on the left or when we leave their realm and sort of move into our own Court we are planning at this point because of this sort of need for a funding and design decision in that little red box there to hire an architect to get us through the cost estimating phase with an option to either stay or leave that architect if we're really happy with how things are working and we think that their recommendations are solid and that they are fantastic and we'll have the option of

068keeping them on board through the rest of the process if if however we decide to go a different direction or there was an alternative project delivery method then we would have to select someone to take us the rest the way I know that was a lot does anyone have any questions thank you Mike I really appreciate your presentation and I just wanted to add one thing is like I thank you for your expertise and I really looking forward to working with you and the schools working with you over the next I don't know nine months to try to figure this out and then get to where we need to go I just think it's a super exciting project and I am hopeful that you see it that way as well as honor % yeah we

069couldn't be more excited for the project I mean it's it's the most exciting thing that I've seen come through our office and well ever dr. Kraft yeah I have a question and in common question is just could you give us some sense of the of the timetable for especially these first phases the ones that are in blue yes they're purposefully left a little vague but I can tell you that we will begin working on the RFP as soon as the summer building rush is over so right now it I'll be the main person working on writing the RFP from our office so I'm a little tied up at Jackson via presently but as soon as as soon as we're done there I'll be getting to work on that I think we were assuming that the

070big funding decision would be for FY 22 so that's that's what we've been shooting for we will keep you updated though as we get a little further down the road and some realities of life get involved of course there's going to be a public a public portion of this design process and those things can you know they can vary in their in their length just a comment just for the record I just wanted to mention regarding particularly the middle school process there is a group that UVA is connected with through its youth next program called remaking middle school it's actually very exciting and and they're sort of connecting with a national network of people who are who are really working on designing schools and both the physical structure and the curricular around new concepts and

071new understandings of adolescent development they are forming design teams now they're setting them up there's a lot of really great creative work going on and I would just hope that we can loop into this and just be aware of you know what the trends are and what other places are doing because I think it's really exciting and it's great that we have UVA right here that we can work with them can you clarify for dr. Crafton for the board like your team that is going to help you drop the RFP um it's kind of tangentially I think sure yeah it will be myself in our office which is facilities development that we myself with assistance from Scott Hendricks who I think you all are familiar with he's been through a lot of these larger RFP

072writing processes so he'll be assisting me we'll also be reaching out to CCS for some assistance and Kim has agreed that she'll she'll be our point person there and the RFP writing process I think we'll be pretty trim I think we'll write a draft RFP and then submit it to CCS for review as well as to folks to the City Director of Public Works for instance we'll we'll have a look at it once we get something that we're all pretty comfortable with and we'll expand the team a little bit and move through a selection process and involves reviewing submissions from all the architects who are interested as well as interviews of the shortlisted candidates so we'll get quite a few interested architects I'm sure we'll shortlist some and then we will interview the shortlisted architects

073and that is a very labor-intensive process so we want to keep the group as large as is reasonable but reasonability is is a question mark considering how much time it takes so we will have to work through how big that team can possibly be do you have admin support of course yeah our office has has a great admin person as well as we've got some help and I'm sure Public Works is happy to provide so I think somebody like doctor crafts you know person would be able to have the most value for this project I'm sorry they come like doctor crafts suggested like some people from the youth next middle middle grade project yeah be able to come and help but I think that would probably happen during the programming phase we in our office

074like to consider ourselves experts and how to put together school facilities but we're always open to any help we can get so so I think that at the in the programming phase it would be part of sort of a general public public outreach as well as pulling in help from any parties that we could get extra design assistance from so that would be Miss Powell who could it help do that bring in some other people sure yeah great thank you very much I think we're in good hands okay thank you okay so once your RFP is compiled miss Powell will know when it is compiled and when it is available for people to do the application is that correct that's correct yeah okay thanks mr. West mr. Goddard thank you and I apologize if this

075is redundant this question to dr. crafts but so the time frame I mean I understand you won't start or get to the RFP until a little bit later here but the time that we get to the cost estimate stage again is when we'll be looking at the FY 22 CIP window not to get to the cost estimate but to get that's to get to the funding is that there well that's when they would make the decision we'll get the estimate just ahead of that I would imagine yeah and so that puts construction roughly done then at what point a couple of years out from that yeah I think we were I'm sorry I'm gonna have to sit put the caveat that I don't remember right off the top but I believe it was occupied during

076for the 2324 school year okay thank you and like I said there are still some big pieces to move around so it's possible that could shift forward probably not back but depending on what efficiencies we can gain between here and there we're eager to get it done as quickly as possible because we want to avoid any construction escalation and costs year over year which are very high right now I also want to clarify for the public because just taking us a little bit of time to figure out what FY 22 is and that's actually less next summer so as an FYI as an FYI FY 22 is actually begins July 1 2021 which is it's coming at you is that right because this is FY 2020 we're in FY 20 mil in the fall when

077they start their budget that's FY 21 and then the following fall is FY 22 that's right so next July first we start fiscal year 2021 so I think what Mike is saying is that sometime after July 1st of 2021 we would have the cost estimates ready so that they are in the hopper for discussion in the spring of 2021 so in this because the major CIP discussions happen in this spring each year and win back all winter to spring winter to spring so that means that next summer we would need to be wrapping up the cost estimating the next summer to fall so that it would be ready for the next round of the budget discussions but about that fall and it's pretty I thought you said summer of twenty twenty-one so FY 22 is

078what he said FY 22 love-letters so when are the cost estimate documents by calendar year I would imagine I would imagine those would be done in probably about January of 2021 I'm sorry December 21 January 22 right around there for like 18 months December of 2021 that which is editing mental math is not doing well we're all struggling with the same thing yeah yeah so FY 22 would be the decision point that would be that that money would hit in July of 22 or sorry July of 21 right so we would need to work back from there to the pivot between preceding January and that's what I would imagine those numbers would be ready it's like in ten minutes mmm we were 19 last I heard we ran FY 20 but now we were talking

079calendar year so we're talking about December of 2021 right for the cost estimate I feel like we're getting bogged down here but we're definitely looking at 18 like 15 to 18 months that's correct yeah yeah so once the RFP is together do you anticipate that's going to happen in two months that that will be together to approximately yeah and then it it has to go out for is it 90 days or yeah but somewhere in that order and then we would take them in review and then come back with answers as quickly as we possibly can so with the three million dollars for planning in this is it really not possible to ponder fifth grade what's going to happen when we move fifth grade back to the elementary school how how are we gonna ponder

080what happens uh-huh there I think it's been pondered if I understand correctly and yeah design level I mean once you build these buildings or even during the process of building the buildings you may need to move people we may and that will be part of the process we've gotten some preliminary estimates from CCS regarding what the trade-off would entail meaning how many classes we would gain and lose by moving fifth grade back to the elementary level and then moving the pre-k out right and they're actually from what I hear they're pretty close in most cases but yeah we'll be considering or when they're not that I mean they're we're considering our study revealed that their capacity issues at the elementary schools and that that's something that we also need to address but that's can't be

081part of this it can in so much as we can affect it but it is not intended at this point and again we're very early in the process but it is not intended that we would address any of those capacity issues the elementary level with this project as we have been very clear so the RFP design process it sounds like it's great we got the people we need to write it but I wonder if you're also going to get some voices from either the board or City Council yes absolutely yeah there when you ask me who will write it it depends on what you consider writing but yeah they're absolutely be feed you guys are going to be doing the artwork I know and and we will certainly be reaching out with draft versions and

082getting any input we can get along the way yeah yeah I mean it seems like the RFP is really important because it's setting the parameters for what we're asking these people to do and I don't know how specific F to get that we want to excise middle school we want to excise preschool you can be as specific or on specific as you like and that drives outcomes a lot of the time I think we should be as specific as we possibly can but there are still some large moving pieces that we can't quite know without the help of some designer professionals but yeah I think there needs to be a certain amount of vetting of general ideas about where we're headed and we do anticipate doing that kind of right on the beginning of the

083RFU writing process and you'll be hearing more about that as we get out of the summer design it seems like for concept purposes and I'm very glad and I think it's right that we're open to the idea of building new versus just rehabbing what we have that if those two possibilities are kind of close that one might cost a little more but be better in this way in that way that it would be good that the final product perhaps present both options for decision makers to the ponder as opposed to you yeah I don't I don't personally think that we should close any doors at this early date I think there are certainly some efficiencies to be gained from using buildings that we currently have in our stock and we may be driven in that

084direction once we get a little better idea but we do own the land where those schools set and there's nothing saying that we can't build new there and there are efficiencies to be gained from that as well so you know I think we're gonna we're gonna have to take a lot of advice from a lot of sources and to hear what people would value in the new school and sort of weigh those things as we move forward I guess what I'm wondering just for RP purposes is that I wouldn't want to close the door that we're not feeling that that they would might have to come they're probably they we will want them to produce two different sets of cost estimates and two different sets of ideas yeah in the very early design phase absolutely

085I wouldn't want to ask them to design two sets of buildings but yeah it's in the preliminary phase we can get to a point where a first cost estimate is is requested and and we will do so and that will give us an idea of what direction we should take and I think we'll take it from there there also you know just for the record there are also some functional elements that will play into it as well I mean it's not like we can take all the students out of all of these schools and make them hover in space right I thought that's out of that beat that's harder the conversations were part of the planning I went on only not yet we do have access controls but I trust that part of this person

086that the farms job will be to plan the where students are going to be during construction the raising of it and I think you know that's absolutely right that's a big job thank you for all the work you've done and going to do apologies that I actually had to sit down to figure this out as everybody was throwing out their calendar years in the fiscal years I just had that take a quiet moment to answer this correctly think of it this way so the RFP work will start in earnest as soon as we finish at Jackson vaya so we're pushing that RFP out the door in the last quarter of this calendar year think of calendar year 2020 okay calendar year January to December 2020 as being all about that blue section up top and

087the goal is to get to have a cost estimate or cost estimates in place right around December 2020 that winter 2020 timeframe so that we can have those numbers available at going through the CIP discussion in the first part of 2021 which leads into by the summer time when the council acts and you know the new budget goes into effect in July of 2021 that is to school year 2022 and that's what he was referring to I had to write that down for me does that make a little clearer so think of 20 calendar year 2020 think of that is all about the blue section and the end by the end of the year it's your hope by the end of 2020 is when you hope to have this cost estimate to inform that we

088have to be ready to inform the CIP process it really starts in the sum wrapping up in the spring of 2021 for fiscal year 2022 yeah yeah right thanks Kraft oh thank you Jimmy well I know I would just like to request that we'll get maybe quarterly updates on this process this is one of the the most important things that we are going to be engaged in over the next period of time and I would just like to really make sure that we stay in the loop as a board so I know I think we need more like almost every every meeting particularly this first phase I think the RFP is really important in that the board ought to understand the scope and scale of what's being sent out the door so frequent dates frequent

089up Nick yes we will update you frequently good thanks I wanted to yeah let dr. Atkins have someone say Mike thank you so much I really appreciate the presentation just for clarity purposes when you do the RFP is it the intent to include both Walker and Buford yes yeah they they will both be involved and we don't know quite yet what the scale of either those projects will be but yeah all right the intent is that the architect that we hire will help us through the planning process of moving the students where they need to go and then engaging in both Buford and Walker and just for the the public that's listening to this discussion once Buford is completed it is contingent upon Walker also being completed so that the preschoolers can move into Walker

090fifth graders can move to the elementary level and the sixth graders would then move to Buford middle school to become a sixth seventh eighth grade school yes that's on a percent right thank you thank you Mike one other point in that I know there's been a great deal of discussion about the services that we like to offer to our students and families in the preschool center so will we have an opportunity to have some disk with some of the service departments that are located at the city to make sure that their voice is heard in the design like our social services yes any health care facilities that we may be able to include in that design any wraparound services wanting any services yes yeah we're very excited about the possibilities generally of this project but

091specifically it's been a long time since the city has done something of this scale and I think it would be a pretty major oversight if we didn't consider all those things as part of the design process so yeah we'll be considering all of that thank you thank you how is that Jackson fire project going smashingly we're so excited yeah it's looking really good over there you might not be able to quite see it all yet but it's really nothing together I'm gonna go to school isn't starting yeah woodsy out well ahead of that thing yeah thank you so much for your work and advocacy and just support of the school so you really appreciate that thank you thank you I'm happy to do it thank you so much and thank you and Paul Paul thank

092you also for being here okay we're on 210 to equity update miss Chuck and miss Johnson y'all are next thank you so much for having us here this evening and I just want to kind of reiterate a quick question about Jackson via I don't know if you all follow Twitter but if you if Twitter is any indication or my conversations with the admin a Jackson buyer in the indication this staff they are super pleased with that project so far great thank you so I where Denise and I are here to give you a little bit of an update just um touching base on some of the ideas that we brought forth at the staff retreat in May just to give you a little sense of where we are and we're going to back up and

093show even some of those same slides because it might be helpful for you all as a review and it might be helpful for folks who are watching on viii or looking on youtube to get a little sense of how we got to this point with these slides and I'm going to trade places with Denise so I can just man the slides as we go forward so as part of a process we all know that we've had almost a year's worth of community meetings with students with staff with community members we formed an equity committee to help us sift through some of that feedback to help us figure out priorities within that and then our own staff have been doing research and best practices talking with other school divisions looking at other programs that might give

094us insight about how to move forward from that we came up with four key areas that we want to focus on and we'll delve into these later as we go through the program of the presentation but that would be supportive and supported and supportive staff diverse inclusive and rigorous learning experiences growing relationships and equity foundations and one of the nice things that came out of this framework is how reflective it is of the strategic plan itself that was not done by intent but it was done I think it is reflective of the fact that both the strategic plan and this equity these equity goals really came from listening to the community and the same ideas in the same priorities that were present when we were developing the strategic plan were present when we were listening

095for these equity goals so our first goal supported and supportive staff this really includes holds in together two of the ideas that we heard from the community which is hiring and supporting teachers of color and equipping staff to meet the needs of all students so this the goals for this and Denise is going to give you the update in a minute but it include things like recruiting a diverse staff supporting teachers and particularly supporting teachers of color recognizing that our equity commitment is not only about students but it's also about staff and really providing the professional learning that our teachers need to succeed we have had a successful year of recruiting highly qualified teachers and admin of color we've revised our mentoring program for our first year and second year teachers we revised instructional coaching

096models for all of our teachers and we've continued to work to build supports for our teachers of color through networking groups like the black professionals Network and African American teaching fellows we've also done a lot of professional learning over the summer I will continue to do so all of our staff have had a Ward have implicit and institutional bias training we've had restorative justice and social emotional learning a responsive classroom training we've attended the rethinking grades workshop with dr. Ken O'Connor and we've also attended at all many educational equity conferences as well if you have questions you can jump in as we're done with the topic or you can wait till the end I don't know what your preference is you may continue all right the next goal would be diverse inclusive and rigorous learning

097experiences and this really encompasses both the idea of diversifying our classrooms through things like the strategy of unloving and rolling up the honors option classes at CHS Buford and Walker redesigning the quest gifted program and also making sure that those those learning experiences are fully there they're the curriculum is fully diverse representing a lot of different perspectives and that it is challenging our students to do their best work we focus on differentiation particularly for expanding our unleveled and honors option classes at CHS Buford and Walker we've been focused on as you know on our quest program redesign and we've continued working with groups such as Virginia humanities and the judges in school as we continue to develop a more inclusive and locally informed history curriculum can I just ask I mean one of the main

098issues that I wonder I just keep hearing about is what students are recommended for when they go so where are we with that in this framework and I mean like that is nuts and bolts here and I just I just feel like it's such a critical thing and I just want to know where we are has we changed any policies or any operations to say no we're gonna this is different one thing I want to say is Denise and I are really just touching on a few key ideas we're not being creative about what we're doing yeah so I do know from speaking with counselors across the division that they first followed CHS even last year made some changes about that process and really tried to give more agency to students in that choice so

099that if a student for instance one in a different class and the teacher had recommended the student for that the student and teacher would effectively work on a plan to prepare the student to take the class that the student had a goal headset as a goal so that's one change at CHS had in the works even last year so a student who requested like a higher level class Jack we could advocate for themselves exactly but a student who didn't maybe know to advocate for themselves I think that's just built into the process so that it's it's a cot it's a much more conversational practice practice I think that really I think it's been redesigned with giving voice to students so they can set goals for their I think what you find is not a working

100properly or continuing to revise that I wonder if it's something like in a future school board meeting we could discuss more specifically I think I think Sarah Lane and the counseling staff at CHS and I think there's been a little turnover with the Buford counseling staff but I think that's just an opportunity to really codify this way of thinking as we move forward I know them and straight the way that we are also placing high importance on that exactly and then I know in terms of like this six year plan we ask our middle schoolers to do so that they really map out their pathway through high school and set their goals for beyond high school I know that again in the last couple of years Buford has really been experimenting with that last year

101they tried an online forum that the state had developed to do that and I think they found some hits and misses with that so I think the vest has been an ongoing process at Buford for the last couple of years of trying to find the best and most meaningful way for students and families to kind of take a look not just at this year but at all of their high school years and beyond to try to take incrementally the steps that are going to prepare them to have the most choices possible and so I don't think they found the solution that they want yet but that's just a part of this process and it's just an ongoing conversation and I think like the Youth Council they had identified that as a process and the Buford

102counselors this spring we're reaching out to the Youth Council to see how they could just get student voice in what would be the most meaningful process I think I think ironically the Buford staff thought well this is good you know the state developed an online tool students like the online and atmosphere that ironically after that year I think the Buford staff came away feeling like a good old piece of paper was actually a more concrete way for students to understand their goals so I think trial and error is just part of the process but I can assure you that these conversations are robust at Buford and at CHS is the youthful and so maybe we have an update on what the youth councils goals were and like how we're moving forward on the some of

103those issues like again this is what I think we all set kind of came to a consensus that those are very important goals and maybe something we can elevate exactly it was just I don't know go ahead and destroy exactly dovetailing on that I mean we had a really nice and robust conversation at our retreat about AP courses and I would love to maybe not repeat the same conversation in some future board meeting but I think it's important that the public get an opportunity to kind of hear where we were at or where we ended up and and along those lines I feel like one thing that there was consensus on on was that we wanted to remove any barrier for any child who who expressed a desire to take an AP class and I

104think that you know that was unanimous so I mean I would love to follow up on that again if we can put that on a future as adding that to our list dr. King G and okay we can talk about it more and also part of the work that I've done this summer we've been really intentional about getting the full story and so I spent a lot of time speaking with the principals at their schools and learning the schools and with what's happening and we're setting and you'll hear about that a little bit more but we're setting priority goals at each school level to address just what you're talking about and so on next week in addition to meeting with dr. Irizarry I'm also meeting with Sarah Lane Sarah Lane about the the very conversation

105that you're having right now and so we have a plan in place I just Inc it's important for the public to know that we're definitely moving forward on on those specific concerns that he has Youth Council fried to us and that we've heard throughout so I mean exactly and I know that's what we're doing here too but exactly and I hope that the various groups whether it's student or staff or community members when they look at these overarching goals and the more specific priorities within them that were and then the concrete steps that we're taking that they will see their priorities being addressed right and also note that the staff for this while powerful and strong is limited so I really appreciate all of your efforts I know this has been a dramatic undertaking so

106thank you thank you but continue okay and I think this growing relationships community communication I think what you're talking about in terms of the six year plan and course recommendations that really fits within these larger goals of just sort of rethinking some of our processes this is a really overarching goal it might be face to face relationships it might be the formal and informal channels that we communicate with our families and it might be news items or it might be just the real the processes by which we in our student make decisions so that is a lot of kind of rethinking and reevaluating how have we been doing things are they the best things is this the most friendly format those sorts of issues so this is a very long list of items and Denise's

107going to speak more specifically about some of those but I think it's fair to say that this is a good example of while this list is long it is not inclusive of all the things in all the conversations that are unfolding across our schools - sure thank you as you heard we're being very intentional with the Community Engagement and inviting the community to join us in this work we've since the summer we've hired our second family engagement facilitator we've redesigned our attendance office officer positions to be more supportive and a proactive family support role we have spent summer are we'll continue to conduct extensive pre-registration outreach and numerous neighborhoods we've already done engagement and friendship core in Hartford and we will be in green solo 5th and first Street tomorrow we will also be at

108West Haven Community Day in the back to school bash and I think Mount Zion Baptist Church mhm that would be our location for first Street and so if you fina Walker will also be holding parent meetings about the honors option and unlevel classes and we're also building now to bringing back the village community networking program and that program is rooted in the African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child and so again that's that intentional invitation for the community to come and work and help raise our children together and also you will hear soon from Jeff we're offering Wi-Fi hotspots to help all families to be more connected how long for this work Jeff will make that presentation Indiana ten for five minutes let's let's be bold and safety chain 20 minutes

109yeah okay I'm sorry can you explain it before he comes no just to have a question miss Johnson would you talk a little bit about one of the initiatives with the food justice and the fruit trees sure so we and you may want to chime in on this but we have made a commitment to build fruit trees and go in collaborative grant with the food justice Network so we felt an important to have it have children and students and families be able to experience what fruit trees are like and so you're able to put them along the path of the school as they're walking it only it only serves as a great visual but it also is access to fresh fruits and vegetables that they may not have access to regularly but it is also

110community engagement tool and we looked at there used to be a time when there were fruit trees and in your backyard or your front yard or your neighbor's yard that you went to and got the fruit off of the tree it would be wonderful in an urban setting like ours to plant and be strategic about planting fruit trees and garner some support from our community to nurture those trees so that our students will have access to the fruit that's on those trees and they can get it at will especially in our communities where the grocery stores may not have a ready supply of fresh fruits for our students continue thank you in the last category is equity foundations and again there are a lot of ideas that sort of align with this and I don't

111need to read this slide to you but Denise is going to give you a little bit of an update about some of the steps we've taken so far this summer as you will hear we have drafted a equity policy that we hope that we can review and finalize we have had or I have had meetings with all the principals to further the groundwork in the schools and make sure that every school has school school-based goals in terms of equity we are establishing school-based equity councils we're also reconvening the division led equity committee in the fall and also dr. Atkins as a part of the racial equity Leadership Council and she had our first cohort meeting in through that meeting she was able to bring it back some some wonderful resources that we'll be implementing in

112this upcoming year so that's that's the end of our little update right here as I said I think it's just really fair to say that that there's much more than will fit in these goals but that it's indicative of the work that we're doing can I just go ahead I just wonder who the so as usual I appreciate your work thank you so much and I my question is the equity committees at the schools what is the vision for that right so the big I love that idea but I don't know like like in practice what that looks like him right and practice it looks like having a team of faculty staff that is trying to do the equity work on a school-based level and so we want to make sure that multiculturalism everyone is

113being represented they will have their own system of checks and balances to make sure their goals that each school commits to are being worked out work through and supported and then they will also report to the divisional ed committee to make sure that work is being done for accountability and action planning and so they're also going to be charged with hopefully having in the team that facilitates the courageous conversations around the work as well and so we want to have a support team within the school that that other teachers are the staff other family members feel comfortable going to for courageous conversations around race and around equity and having point people we want to have a checks and balances a hierarchy in place so every school feels comfortable doing the work within their school and

114then the leadership can support them into one to work so is there any chance because like obviously when I hear school based committee I thought parents as well so um and I think sometimes that when we are we just end up talking to each other rather and kind of being an echo chamber so I wonder if adding parents I just leave it up to you all but I definitely think the voice of parents or outside people who may not be so close to the everyday work might have a unique perspective at the building level agreed it's also been requested that there's a parent voice and a student voice represented at the higher level at the higher level like middle school and high school level maybe not so much for student voice at the elementary schooler

115level yeah thank you for that can I just um just reflect comments that some comments that I've sort of picked up and heard out there that you know amongst some parents you know I think that there's anxiety and you know sort of yeah I guess maybe mainly anxiety concern about sort of all these changes what do they all mean and you know fear that equity means just you know sort of prioritizing a different group of students at the expense of some students so there's a lot of that kind of thing going on and it seems to me that it would be that it's really important to continue to just frame the big picture you know that equity is is for all of us and we all gain we all win but I think there's a

116need to keep doing that right and maybe even at these school meetings like at Buford and Walker explaining these policies I hope that those things those meetings can be framed within the big picture of what what we want to do and what our priorities really are because otherwise there's a lot of this you know parents help you know free-floating anxiety and that kind of thing and it's out there so just you know just FYI I think it's important to keep doing that and circling back around to it as we make the changes that we're trying to make that we all believe in mr. Suarez has some questions a few so bear with me please thank you both for all of your work first off so thank you very much so a couple and this is

117kind of a request but in in your presentation and look at the research of the best practices and some of this made that be best to come back to that equity committee but but you guys decide that I was just curious I'd like and I don't know if everybody else would like to just kind of see or receive the list of what was reviewed if that's possible just out of curiosity as far our surrounding equity I believe that was listed in the presentation okay I'm sorry the various community feedback like how we prioritize it can you know I think you in the presentation you said you've done some reason we move you and best practices I think we have a Sencha like a little mini library of articles and school divisions that we've had conversations

118with I don't know that it I don't think we have notes from all the conversations that we post but just even a library of articles Micra a useful addition to move that resource Bank and you know for extra reading I'd love to just have access to that another question I was just curious because a lot of work has been done obviously and specifically surrounding recruitment and hiring and and looking at the the personnel report that came out earlier I'm excited to see some of the hires in some key spots but I was wondering if at some point we could have again and I think we do it in the previous meeting specific numbers of actual hires that relate to african-american or minority hires you mean as a total because every month the report should have

119every every every month the personnel report hat includes the demographic information okay so I guess I come with the bottom I think and when I said but I also thought we get it but I think in this presentation I mean I think we're doing an excellent job and I mean just to publicly present those numbers to which I think we did a month or two ago and if there's a significant update I just think it's nice to highlight that so that was one just I guess I don't think the figure is as high as it was a month or two ago but I think it remains probably our strongest year in recent memory or in in quite a number of years I mean I just think it's important to hear and make that public I

120think it's you know a testament to the hard work that HR is doing so that was just a comment I guess and then also the next question would can you speak more specifically to the revised instructional coaching model for all teachers that was implemented what and how that model change or you know how that will I guess effect or impact equity I think that trainee is going on right now and I might need to turn I don't see mr. Henderson here tonight but I think he would probably be the he's like oh no I'm not here I think the general idea is that formerly it was more of a come and get it sort of model and I think now it's more again it's a more of a push in or more of an expectation

121that coaching will happen on a regular basis yeah that'd be great to have again I just think it's important I mean we can put these in in a presentation but to speak a little bit more specifically so people understand how the change in the model will impact or effect equity and and then our kids optimally I don't understand thank you hello back in 2015 is when we initiated the coaching model and at that time it was approached as a confidential model and by that I mean is that teachers would go to the coaches when they're ready to have the coach come in and then that would develop a relationship between the coach and the teacher and then over a period of the next five six years we moved away we're waiting for teachers as coaches

122we are now moving to well last year what we did is that for all novice and one-year first-year teachers we actually met then right from the beginning and develop a plan to provide assistance as they grew as a teacher to provide a coaching going through coaching cycle collaborating with them observing this year we're moving to a model where coaches will be working with all our teachers and we'll prioritize their strengths and their challenges and so that we're moving to helping teachers who have limited experience need more time with a coach and those teachers who work really well master teachers they will spend less time with a coach but all of them will be seeing the coach I think that the key thing is as we move with equity is equity is that we need to

123make sure our curriculum is rigorous we have high expectations and we have learning for all and that pushing out a strategic planning time to develop lessons are pushing out the time where teachers do their work that's in professional learning communities and taking that information having great conversations and getting kids to engage in what we call productive struggles making work a little more difficult than what it really is on the surface because if we can get kids to take that risk engage and work what's a little bit more difficult it creates that rigor creates that movement to helping all kids succeed and we're going to do that with coaches working with all teachers and classrooms thank you okay it's like my favorite thing when my child is like it's too hard I'm like keep going I

124think that's what we want to hear it's too difficult but we also want to give them the support so that it doesn't create failure that's the sense that once they try something that's a little hard and they have success and we provide the necessary feedback then they'll work be willing to try things even Thank You mr. Henderson they're your leadership on the again a small but mighty team in all this work it's a pair small but mighty but this is a culture that we're creating so everyone is a part of that team right and everyone has a role to play in the work that we're doing does anybody else up mr. Bryant I have a quick question um thanks for the for the update Farrell update and thank you for all the hard work that

125you all are doing but my question is where we continue to have these updates throughout the year not only for the board but also with the community at large I think if you look back at last year's communications to families I think every every month or every time we had a newsletter we gave some sort of equity update in that way we've also we also wrote it out in a variety of ways on social media and in other ways we keep exploring because that's really part of that that third goal of communicating engaging really connecting making relationships and building trust with the community part of that is just reexamining our own communications practices in our own ways of getting these messages across as for reports to the board I think that's really up to the

126board and up to our superintendent but we're happy to come back whenever you like and also on to piggyback on Lisa I have also in the community been asked I know we've done a good job of hiring more black teachers so I think the more we get that information out to the public because if not we'll continue to we ask these questions wondering we'll have more black teachers so and easily can let the community at large you know that we we are following suit in regards to hiring more teachers of color thank you give any other this per year mr. Mickey okay quick appreciate the work you're doing you're huge I was just gonna ask dr. Atkins if you could share because I believe one of the bullets was that you attended or participated in

127something with the racial equity Leadership Network and if you could speak to that and share because that looks really exciting be happy to it's actually in my comments okay thank you you're welcome I do have one I'm sorry question well it may be that there's not an answer yet but I are we ready to give an update on the on the gifted education changes or is that still in the works and too early to say I think dr. Atkins is probably the best person to speak to that and you and MS Catlin are gonna be speaking before City Council is or she's going to be speaking before City Council is that right so I'm in the yield of Florida but um mr. Nager for that on Monday will do a presentation before City Council to

128let the public know that we requested funding for a teachers eight additional teachers to go in our classrooms putting two teachers for the gifted in each of our elementary schools and then between Walker and Buford the other two teachers the City Council passed a resolution to actually fund six of the eight teachers and the board agree that we would fund the other two teachers out of one would be open position funding in our current budget and then we'd fund the other position out of fund balance so right now so that's eight teachers currently we have hired four teachers for the elementary school that means that we still have two elementary schools who are working on their hiring and then we'll work on that right now we're working on the Buford Walker hires some really about

129the four highest that we have at the elementary school we will then start the training with our teachers at the elementary school the push in model and training and again we have michelle brighton from the university of virginia that will be working with our elementary school teachers to fill that training in the pushin model while kill Tomlinson is working with walker buford and the high school with their model with the unlevel classes so i think we have a continuum of services and a continuum of training that's going on we will continue with the hiring process until we have staffed all eight positions whether that means it goes beyond the opening of school or not we're hiring that and we've been very fortunate to be able to hire for almost all of our open instructional positions

130teacher positions six dr. Blair we have open instructional / teacher positions 8 we still have 8 teacher positions that we are hiring for but all of our principals are working on those right now it sounds like great progress they're very exciting I was just gonna say I assume that in the last month or so they've been working on what the plan is for these teachers that we have that we already have instructional materials that we have used with our students who were identified as gifted we will be using those instructional materials along with several other units and resources that we are purchasing to use in the classrooms so we will have a very rigorous curriculum that we're going to use in the classroom and training with our teachers on how to deliver that in a

131classroom rather than I'm right so the students have been getting gifted education are going to continue to get the high quality of gifted education that they got but just in the classroom and other students will also be getting additional enhanced women system additional enrichment that was promoted to their level right and that's the point of having the kind of secondary teacher are the you know support the classroom teacher is you have this additional gifted education teacher who can scaffold that appropriately for all the children in the classroom and I will say that there are several two schools that we had some pilot programs going on Clark and Venable they had some push in last year in their class there's a fourth grade teacher at one of the schools that had the gifted teacher pushing into

132this particular teacher's classroom and you know I was speaking with the principal the other day and she was telling me about the successes that the students have had with that push in model on the other school the collaboration the level of rigor was impressively increased in the classroom with the push in model will also remind our public there with our seal program which has been at Greenbrier Clark on some aspects at Venable and Jackson by in other schools now with that program we also assigned a teacher for the gifted and so Liz Petrie has been working with that program so she has been pushing into the seal classrooms now not coming up out third year that that model has been in place it's occurred to me that one of the additional benefits of the push

133in model is that there there's lost time even for the gifted students in being taken out of the classroom and move to a different classroom that there's you know whether it's five minutes on each in as 10 minutes of lost instructional time that will be recaptured by having the services provided where they are and so I'm excited about the change and really happy that you all have been able to move forward in the way that you have I will also say that I know that our methodology and our making a request to City Council was unorthodox out of the budget cycle we found ourselves in a position that we had needed to go outside of that regular cycle we're very grateful the City Council agreed to fund those positions that is not something that we

134have done in the past that's not the process that we typically use however with the changes that we're making and the time that we need it to come up and to finish discussing this model and have a plan going forward put us in a position that we need it to go to City Council to make that request but I can assure our community and our board that that's not our usual routine and that's not something that we intend to have to implement or or go before City Council outside of a budget cycle in the future and we do appreciate them agreeing to fund those positions and we'll be before them on Monday to present there's one point of clarification we want to make sure that we do and the question in reference to the equity

135council when I mentioned that elementary schools would not have a student voice that would meant that physically a student would not be at the table well we're working with the principal's in order to harness that voice and hear what the students are that at that age range have to say I am sure of that okay very level Council one of the other from the racial equity Leadership Network that we're learning is that a part of the equity work a major part of the equity work comes from the heart it comes from the interaction with our change policies we change procedures but it's dealing with people with our students our teachers with all of us understanding the value of each individual in our organization regardless of Ray regardless of sexual orientation regardless of gender all of

136those characteristics that we attach to students that a lot of the work the most important element of the work actually happens in the heart because you can change policies you can change procedures but until each of us and it it is incumbent upon all of us until we change our heart we really have not made a significant impact or lasting impact on our society at large so we will be talking about how to use a mirror and a window how to look within and to look outside at our policies but also to look inside at how we have perceived people and organizations and groups in the past and make changes they are also thank you dr. Atkins miss Johnson miss Chuck the whole division team and building level leadership and teachers all coming on board

137this month and there's just a lot of work that's going on and will continue to go on and we are deeply appreciative of your efforts thank you one last point when we met today you and I met today at mr. Mickey I shared with our board chair and mr. Mickey that with some of the changes that have happened at Walker one of the immediate benefits is that our board has talked about for years wanting to have more students and more diverse students in Orchestra and band we will be bringing before the board very soon we need to purchase more band instruments and the reason is because they're well over 100 additional students who will be in Bane Orchestra and band in the fall we also have earth of a hundred students ma'am Wow that's exciting

138there's just a lot of exciting things happening at Walker yeah wonderful a lot of exciting things and I know our parents it will be a change for them and miss miss dr. Kraft I agree and we have some anxieties about it we are working diligently to make sure that the environment that we create will be challenging for all of our students and nurturing and developing our students in the way that they need to be developed I'll put engineering program at Walker we have well over 300 students who would like to be a part of that engineering program we have very diverse classrooms that our families will see and our students will see in the fall our classrooms will look quite different from the way they may have appeared in the past and so there are

139lots of changes that are happening and very encouraging changes that are going on and will bring back to the bullit more specifics as we continue to go into the school year okay so I'm dr. King you ournament discussed the equity policy yes I've actually asked Denise Johnson and Beth Chuck to remain as I have asked them to provide an update on the policy development with you on the process as well as share an addition initial draft to gather your input and feedback on next steps thank you as dr. King mentioned this is really just a conversation starter in front of you I come this impire from looking at models like my like Roanoke like other school divisions that have different policies in place and a lot of language has been pulled from materials that you

140all have approved in the past such as strategic plan or these these are these equity goals in front of us so at the end there I think I have kind of guiding questions that we would like to get your input I think what we have proposed is that we would have a reading in some discussion for this month and then a second reading perhaps next month when we when we respond to your comments that we hear tonight and then we wouldn't come up for a vote for probably a third month is how we are envisioning this because we want to be thoughtful about this and incorporate your perspective and still other ideas that we glean from other policies and best practices so with your permission I'll just raise a few questions to kind of get

141a started on conversation and then you all can ask questions or make comments after that so the first the first is just I want the clarity about whether you all would like to codify our divisions equity definition in this policy there are different models that school divisions do but we think we see it as kind of an opportunity for us just clarify that when we say add equity and education this is what our school division means so that we want to we just want your sense of whether you would like to include a very specific definition within this policy you mean along the lines of the sort of the third fourth paragraph here or yes exactly like that but something maybe even more explicit saying you know for the purposes of this policy equity means

142and we have some language again that came in relatively late from dr. Atkins work with the equity Leadership Network the bloom ITR when I'm all to this but I just want to clarify that that is something you want to make sure again do you want to very explicitly include a definition within this work hmm I think it makes sense to say something I'd not that keen on the specific wording of this one but I I think something along those lines is make sense is it yeah I was gonna say is there is there a downside to doing that well I think I think we'd have to do the work you know as a staff or as a board to really commit to a single death that we have agreed on but I think beyond that

143if we can if we find some language that we feel good about that I think it's just helpful for everyone to have just know where to turn to and know what we mean and Beth I will remind you that each of the committees from the equity committee group they have taken a shot at having a definition the racial equity Leadership Network definition encompasses a lot of those forces in their neck in their definition but we don't always add to it exactly and I think there is some as we move forward with this policy and other practices we see some value in leaning into the definitions and the framework of the racial equity equity Leadership Network so that as we get more resources from them we'll be well-positioned to kind of follow their lead and be

144in sync with the practices that they recommend and that we learn about well I guess just in my general first reaction is yes that I think it would be good to codify our policy because this whatever we decide on will be kind of the face of equity as as the outside world understands where we are and what we mean when people ask what we mean we should have something that really explains what we mean so that's not just sort of vague exactly what you should be defined then is that what you're saying you can lay it clearly we're gonna have a policy but whether equity is defined is the question well I mean I I would think so because people are gonna say what what does it mean and I think I think so how

145about how about we insert one into the next draft either from the leadership network or from the committee's the subcommittee's that have come forth from the equity committee but we'll have something for your consideration in the next draft it's a little different than that fourth paragraph that mr. Blakey noticed okay the next is that I think you'll find that this this policy like many that we have seen is very focused on students and one of our concerns as we've been talking about it this week is then that we have heard from our staff and from the community that we want equity to be broader than our students so I think maybe the best way to do is just a lead I think what we would like to do is to add a sentence or a

146paragraph just acknowledging that we want to extend the same supports or the same framework of being supportive to our staff and not just students and we think this equity policy should should at least name that agreed okay yes the next is truly a question for you that it's pretty open-ended in some school divisions we find that they pass an equity policy alongside an anti racism policy and in some school divisions they fold in they essentially name and denounce racism within their equity policy as an example of the categories that we are trying to address so I don't know if you all want to discuss that for a moment about whether you would prefer to see two different policies or whether you want to fold both of those ideas into one policy sorry I think they

147need to be two different policies yes I think equity includes more than race and I think we need to be very clear and deliberate in what we're talking about with each policy and there may be people that see them through the same lens and that is their right but I think what we as a division are trying to show is that there are differences and we acknowledge those differences to the extent and degree that we can so that everyone knows where we are coming from and I have real concerns if the board feels that they should be - I mean you know ie component yeah I could I could not support combine and I will not I will not combined but we are going to open a support and open dialogue so if anybody has

148a different opinion well in the same opinion because I tend to agree with miss Berger but I'm happy to have anybody else's thoughts I don't have a strong opinion I think miss prayers makes a good point so I'm fine with that I think it's whatever yeah I I would I would echo that I think I hadn't thought about this before you know what does it mean for them to be together or not together and so I think the wisdom of Miss career will influence my my preferences you're so wise you're not people clarity purposes we need to have two separate policies so it depending if we have the staff capacity we might then next ones when we come back to read this we might have two policies for you to review be fantastic there was

149some there was language remember when we did the resolution about the clothing and so there's language in there that it seems like is slang with you that's a very good idea stories do you have any thoughts on the matter oh I just wanted to share that I also agree with miss premiers wisdom and your passion about that so respectfully agree and feel strongly to that thank you thank you this is all very helpful sort of the last kind of guiding thing that I noticed when I was reviewing this policy is again we were when we various staff members were putting this together we found pieces from strategic plan or from for more recent documents that you all had already reviewed you'll notice that it's got the four goals that we've been using to discuss equity

150that with that Denise and I gave an update on earlier this year do you feel like those goals are timeless enough to go in this policy or do you feel like those goals might be revised as we move forward and you want to have more general language in this policy that that it would be better so that's that's my question for you hmm I talked about the last four things mm-hmm can we we're committed to yeah I'd like to wordsmith and I don't think that's my job but can I leave it up so please others Anna I'm Esquire I'll go with that's part one yes I do have a thought um I feel like some of the policies that the equity subgroup worked or looked at and reviewed actually had some more specific language and

151guidance that I'd like to see integrated so I think some of the copies that we had looked at so I feel like I'd rather be more specific and I think there was some really strong examples of those those other policies that we looked at and I would invite mr. eyes if there's something specific that you've seen that you really that really resonated with you I would encourage you to send that on to dr. King or to me or to Denise so that we can I'm not trying to put it on you but I'm just saying if you have something you'd like to nominate any of you I would be happy to hear it no I was kind of hoping for an invitation to actually sit because this is a lot of what we had most

152recently worked on so if that would be okay thank you may I ask a question about this not what they are but are the specific such things that at some point could be addressed and it would impact our policy or are the specific such things that will that will be ongoing if if I'm being clear as it relates to generalities and I'm there but if you're talking if there are specific things that would it's discussed in your equity committee at some point in time with those things be addressed or is that something that could be in a policy because it is an ongoing type of thing from now until the end of time right mm-my recollection is their more specific there's stronger language that I think will have a long life so you can leave

153them in the kala see okay I understand now Thanks so I'm a little confused I realized just now about the various processes going on to develop equity statements or equity policies so this this is one process I guess that you guys are developing this policy then there's this committee that we're talking about that I gather is also developing a policy I don't know you have the larger equity committee right your equity committee and what's the ultimate goal of that process we reviewed different policies and provided opinions and denise's on as part of that committee so I believe she's taken some of that worked with Miss Chuck you know in kind of as providing you know a first draft first go at this but I and I think this is a great starting point so that

154that process is feeding into this process and then finally is there a process that is more citywide or community-wide are we gonna are we trying to develop a policy statement that is together with the city government or see leadership sort of like Fairfax County did or are we doing our own thing and they're doing their own thing with with an equity policy I think we we may be in different places with where we are in the development of our policy I think it ideally we would have a policy that that transcends one location over the other that would apply to both locations but obviously the city will have some areas that we don't cover in the school system like housing and some of the other areas that they have to have oversight with have input

155in but I think it would be ideal if we would have a policy that aligns and can be used in both areas I would recommend that we move continue to move forward on what we are doing not to slow down the work and I know that the city is working on theirs and that as the board and City Council come together for luncheons during the fall that might be a great opportunity to have some discussion about the alignment of the two policies miss Johnson are you involved in the equity committee for the city there I'm not sure I don't know about the equity committee in the city okay I'm not aware of it is there one maybe there is one I just looked at the kind of retreat agenda discussion yesterday and it was very

156clear that they're considering hiring an equity person for the city and so I would perhaps we can dr. Atkinson I can talk with the city leadership about their equity efforts I mean do we have city representation and we have City represent like mr. Farrelly and a mayor Walker mm-hmm perhaps the equity committee could ask about this synergy potential is that something that I could ask I'm happy to reach out and connect with them I think it's like we if there's um yeah and depending on leadership and the makeup of the committees I'm not sure who's carried over for the new committee but and when when that schedule will start up but we can definitely take that this city ahead I don't I don't know if this is the right word so let's just presuppose that

157it's the right word an ad hoc committee to look at various equity issues within the city government and a way that they move forward so I think through those discussions what we saw on their retreat agenda to bring in someone around this equity question is going to help them formulate what is actually what actually should be happening within the city's sphere that does not negate what we're doing and there may be some things that we're doing in tandem but there also may be some things that because we are one organization and they are another organization there also may be some differences yes so we have to kind of be laser focused on our schools that's mm-hmm in our students so that is I think why we have not been as like asking the city for

158all the information but to the extent that the city representatives on our equity committee find places where we can support one another I think that is something we are eager to participate in so to that end if there's anything we can do to support the that communication we'd like to do that well I think our you know our focus really needs to be you know the actual changes that we're making in our in our schools and our instructional models and all of those things in our in our hiring so I'm you know that's personally my priority is to focus on what we're doing and I think this is a it's great to have this and important to have a statement but we're we're moving ahead where we're acting and and I think that's what matters

159so this sounds like we're you know it's important for us to continue our processes and our timetable and connect with with the what the city is doing in whatever ways are useful to us can I just say I really do not like those four bullet points I just hit me wrong they feel very strategic planning and not commit and even worse than that very like pyaari and what I want is substance and metrics you know that's what I want and so this means nothing and I recognize that a lot of times policy is guiding but I want I mean and we have heard it from the public a lot we need outcomes and so I'm happy with having specific goals in our policy that we can change like you know hey we but she is

160that great let's move on you know we can we can change our policies and that's a beauty like we review all of our policies every five years we can actually say we will review this every two years or whatever so I personally find this language does not hit me well and I would like to have more specific bullets if we're gonna have bullets or specific regulations to underlie a policy and I really welcome perhaps more dialogue from the equity committee maybe if they could come to us and kind of say hey this is why we want this that would really go a long way I think for me to support the any language like this but I definitely want to have the equity committee come to us and say look this is why we're saying

161this and that's what that's struck you know and not to have a something to fall back on but thinking about this you know in one meeting two meetings three meetings is just it's just not enough like that's the work that the equity committee has been tasked with and if they came to us and said this is what we need and why then great I'd be much more likely to support it but with your policy aren't you going to have regulations I I concur with Lisa about specificity in what the board is committed to but as it relates to action and our goals would that not be in our regulation I'm just gonna be loath to to support a policy that does not have specific regulations attached to it potentially if it's not going to be

162in the policy like I don't know what that means as opposed are they okay I got you okay and again I'm one person but so if everybody said no that's ridiculous no but I was just I was just asking so I could understand I yep that's it okay so so can we see specificity where you have one two three four and then that way we can determine in my mind if that specificity needs to be further delineated in regulation but without the specificity I don't think we're able to address your concern Jennifer if I'm getting it yeah okay okay anybody else have that concern we certainly need to have some measurable metrics somewhere I agree I guess you know it also it depends on what the goal of this is what is the purpose of

163having this of having the equity policy you know what what are we trying to accomplish by having this and so are we trying to hold ourselves accountable in in certain ways to certain outcomes and maybe that's what you're getting at should those outcomes be specified here you know and to what extent should they be and I I don't know right now honestly that's my honest answer right now I'm not sure it's like cotton candy it's sweet but it's never gonna fill you up and it's not nutritious you know so it's like it's a healthy again it depends on what the purpose of this is I do not want to feel good equity policy I want like a one you can like the principal look and really you know what this policy this thing that we're

164gonna do it doesn't fit with our equity policy very clearly so we're not gonna do that we're gonna do this when you are making decisions at a building level you can look at our equity policy and say this does not meet that equity policy and I feel like that's what that lens that's literally an equity lens and that's what we need to be focused on and so this roanoke policy was that the roanoke schools that came up with this and this is some of the language from Roanoke City and Albemarle County policy before both of those Rock city's policy is much longer than this and it does have a number of it has a combination of policy regulation sort of intertwined I would like to just see it yeah it's it's a pretty long policy

165and we'll pull it up and send that to you but we want it to do is bring to you tonight a skeleton right so that you can have input into what you want it to be it can be as long as you'd like it to be or and include as many details but Leslie see if you can pull up that Roanoke City there and I want to acknowledge that this is a skeleton this is not something you're literally proposing no I just want to add it all so I acknowledge that what we didn't want to do is bring a policy to you and ask you to read through it and consider like we do all of the policies it is we knew we needed to bring something so you can work on it appreciate yes

166we labored with Commonwealth of Virginia policy last month at the king no miss backer of copy thank you I think this is like what mr. Juarez mentioned earlier about review of the best practices like it might actually be kind of helpful to kind of as much as I you know first of all if the equity committee came back and said hey we've wordsmith this we this is what we'd like and this is why and maybe they should be the ones who come like that you guys are probably the leadership of that committee so I apologize but you know maybe some people can come back to us and say this is what we think is best and and like we can have a I don't know discussion around it so that we all can have input

167in a meaningful way and maybe we can have a review of those policies of other localities in the meantime if you want to send us some of those which you may have already done I think we've already seen that via email but we just continue to have those discussions together perhaps through the next step with the guidance that we've gotten tonight if dr. King and dr. Atkins might have time to reconvene their subcommittee that was working on I believe you were on that committee miss Horace so in fact that that committee could meet again to kind of hash out a little bit more specifically about what you know to codify more specifically some of the things that they've been in conversation with that might be a good next step for your consideration and that did

168all of the subcommittee's have input in what they thought should be included in equity in an equity definition so we'll take ours and we'll all that together it will be a long one does I mean cuz I feel like the policy and I kind of want to I kind of feel like I went out on a limb a little bit by saying like what should this policy do and it's basically like if you are you know a building level administrator be able to look at the policy and if somebody is asking for x and y you could easily decide which one would be preferable based on equity potentially like there would just be guidance in that way and maybe that's too specific but I I just want to be able to provide that level of

169support around equity to our building level staff okay are there any other comments or questions for Miss Johnson and Miss Chuck okay so then I think thank you thank you thank you guys are doing great work appreciate it um mr. Faust come on down it's your turn we're really excited to hear about hot spots I'm dawn ish we're sort of seems like a good equity issue I'm very excited for that well thank you thank you for that and madam chair and for school board members dr. Atkins and the community members who have stuck with us thank you guys I'm very excited to be here this evening and talk about our student hot spot program which will be ready to roll out here as students return so I think that mrs. McKeever you said it best

170it is an equity issue we know from our surveys that somewhere around five to six poun of our kids do not have wireless access at home it's a tough question to ask them you know it's a self-selected participation in the survey so there's a lot of flaws with the survey that we do like that but we know there are kids who go home and do not have internet and so we've gone back and forth in a lot of different ways of how do we help bridge that gap as more and more teachers are using canvas and other tools online to extend their classroom to extend their curriculum to ensure that you know students who want to be you know continue to study at home remediate extend you know and expand whatever they're doing in class

171have that option so in our current times the classroom is one place we learn but the learning goes on well beyond that classroom so I think we do have an obligation to make sure that there's access and connections for all of our students and so we've made that a priority and this is really the culmination of a lot of research and a lot of work for our own infrastructure to make sure that we can support this in a safe and equitable way so our student hotspots will be available at the high school at Buford and at Walker anywhere where the student devices go home we're going to make hot spots available now can we make a hot spot available for every kid and everyone cool we cannot that would be a budgetary strain that unfortunately

172I cannot take on at this point maybe as the price of Internet and hot spots go down we'll change that but right now what we're going to do is do a targeted program where we allow students to check them out from the library and we know from our numbers we have a pretty good estimate as to how many we need we're going to start with that we're gonna monitor really closely if you know they're all gone and more kids are coming to library and say we need hotspots - and I have an internet home then we're gonna address that as well the portable hotspot devices so this is what they look like they come in a little case each one's number each one has its own unique serial number its own identifier it's pretty basic

173if you haven't seen one you turn them on they connect to the nearest cellular tower and allow the student to connect with their student with their CCS issued student device and then they will have internet wherever they go so to be fair you know I want to point out that this does not just mean for students who don't have internet at home it also could mean for students who are going to a regional playoff game and they're going to be on the bus for three or four hours so there's other opportunities here besides just students who need to take them home for not home access but instead students who maybe have a big project a big paper something they have to do a giant test the next day after a sporting event we can help

174to empower those students as well and so like I said we're going to place them in the library right now we have slotted for a hundred at the high school 50 of Buford and 25 at Walker and that's based upon those numbers that we know around that five to six percent number we know that will cover or should cover and again we're going to monitor that really closely hotspot traffic so we're going to connect the student who checks out a hotspot we will connect it to their student device it will work with their device and only their device and so we've played with different ideas about leaving the hotspot open or not and right now they're closed and that's the way we've decided that's that's how we can guarantee the security that we want out

175of the program making sure that it's being used for academic reasons making sure that's being used to continue school work and all of the traffic from the hotspot this was one of the things that we had to really build for we took our internet content filter we moved it out of our data center it is now a cloud-based filter and all of the traffic from the hotspot it connects to the tower but it goes directly to our filter from the tower no matter which tower they're connected to so it's set up to route all traffic from the hotspot through our internet content filter so the students on their device connected to our hotspot will get the exact same filter in the exact same policy as they would if they were on their device here at

176school or on their device at a coffee shop so it's exactly the same no matter what and that was one of the things for us content filtering is it is a is a challenging thing in imperfect science no matter what we do the students tell us we filled up the filter too much the teacher sells we don't filter enough and so the last thing that I and my department wanted was to have two filters or three filters or multiple filters to you know to have to manage just because we want the experience to be consistent so we've got that set up now and we're pretty excited about that obviously it is intended to support learning and access to education resources for students who are not at school of course we have talked to the principals

177and will formalize an opportunity where if we know a student a family that have a situation where they're gonna need to check it out for longer than the two-week period that a typical checkout would be from the high school the ability for the principal to just say to the IT department hey we're gonna actually assign this MiFi to that student then we're gonna support that as well and we're gonna let that those decisions happen at the local school level myself and my staff aren't going to be the ones who are going to know which students that's really going to benefit or not and I do want to point out that this all really came to fruition because of the gear up grant and gear up monies and that was Cathy chefs key and I think

178Lois Burke was involved and Sarah Groff came to me and said hey listen what do you think about and I said hey I think that's possible and so so we were able to take that money get the devices get them set up work on the configuration and get them ready to go so that we are we're in a good spot when the students return here in a couple weeks of course you know there is some responsibility the good news is so we are working through t-mobile for these and t-mobile has been extremely generous with these we're not paying for the devices t-mobile is giving us the devices we did a lot of back and forth with t-mobile and a lot of negotiation we agreed to a $10 per month for three gigs of bandwidth and

179we can upgrade that to $30 per month for unlimited so what we're going to do is watch very closely at the usage we know some kids will check them out and use them very lightly and we know some kids will check them out and use them a lot more and so we're gonna watch and we're gonna we're gonna try to move those levers as we need to the big thing for me is not paying for bandwidth we're not using um that would be foolish on our part and so right now we've got them all set up for the $10 a month tier and then we'll watch them now technically even on the $10 a month tier the students can still use them beyond it's not it's not it doesn't stop working it just slows down

180its metered usage after that point so use them up to the point up to that 3 gig limit and then they get metered after that point I just want to warn students that not every place has self service that's true absolute like when you're on that bus sometimes those hotspots don't work yeah that is absolutely true so it's a great point Ms McKeever because Albemarle is tackling this problem in a very different way than we are and that's because they don't have LTE cellular coverage you know everywhere in their County we're fortunate here in the city of Charlottesville you're you're pretty you're pretty hard-pressed to find an area in Charlottesville where you don't have a really strong cellular signal now if you're in the shadow of a building and it's just the right angle and

181the wind blowing the right way and you know certainly we've all had call drops and somebody that in the city but here in the city we're pretty fortunate so that's actually why after us looking at the ways to help bridge this gap the hotspot sent home model for us works really really well and it's a very affordable and approachable for us to do it there is a parental permission form because we just want parents to be aware there's some assumption of responsibility when you know if you check out a device no you know like I said the t-mobile is giving us the devices but if the device is lost somebody has to make a phone call we have to order a new one we have to cancel the old one there's a lot there's work

182that goes in so there's certainly a cost associated even if it's not an out of pocket cost for a replacement device so we are asking for parental permission so student wants to get a hotspot first I think that a library principal will give them a permission form I'm sorry the librarian will give them a permission form they can take home get that signed and then they can check out a hotspot and that's really the the summary of the program so any questions from you guys really great yeah as usual I really appreciate your efforts around equity especially with respect to technology I just think it cannot be overstated I think with dr. Atkins leadership and your leadership we've just really been able to make inroads here so I appreciate it thank you thank you any

183other questions mr. McKee so how long can students check them out for so we're gonna be back up to the library's I think a standard checkout is two weeks for like a book or whatever else and we're asking them do they the same thing that being said like at the local level if a principal comes to us and says we want to check this out for a remainder of the year for you know Susy then and then we'll just let the library know that check it out for the year we'll check it out for the year so we're gonna have some flexibility but whatever the standard library check out it and it does vary from the high school to Buford to Walker so I don't want to sign the librarians up for something that they're

184not that they're you know that is in conflict with what their policy is at the school level so it sounds like it'll be whoever wants one can get one it's not a matter of I got some teacher says I get this project these kids need to work on for the next two weeks it's not so much that as whoever wants one can go in and get one for whatever reason yeah so I think I think the idea of going there's gonna be abs and flows in those needs right like I said if you got a whole sports team traveling because they have a sports thing there's going to be a need there that's different than the need of you know just a student who has their regular homework and feels like they are getting behind

185because they don't have Internet and so what we want to do is I want to make sure that we're talking to the librarians we're talking to the school principals we're hearing the feedback and like I said if we're prepared to add to the inventory if it becomes necessary what I don't want to do is make assumptions about who needs or who doesn't need because I think that those needs can be very different for different reasons and I think we want to be careful about that mr. Torres so along those lines mr. Faust and you said we've had a trial program correct for the last year or two and and those units have been monitored through the library sit through a similar no not through checkout we've we've been we've been sending them home with staff

186members sending amount to special opportunities like when we do community outreach and things like that and testing them that way yep so I've been trying to figure out how to word this question is even talking is just yeah what can we do to ensure that the kids who do need this are the kids that are getting them and not you know I mean that's it that's a fine line I I don't disagree with you at all I understand you're concerned and I agree with your concern and okay and so how so in what way are you going to be rolling this out in the schools you know is this just going to be an announcement to everybody or that that was the intent the intent was to have the parent permission form have parents sign

187it send it in with a student take it to the library check out a hot spot and then we like I said we'll monitor both inventory and usage I again if there's a if there's a better way to do it I'm all ears don't have that yet but I'll keep thinking on it I got it just yeah any other thoughts questions mr. Mickey all right I think it's great and that you know I think you put it out there and see what happens and maybe you need to make changes but I you've obviously thought through a lot of things I was wondering sort of exterior to this do you know is a camera with his Comcast who ever used to have a deal for a dip of nine dollars a month or what yeah I'll

188gladly throw a plug out for that - Comcast Internet Essentials is what it's called and and if you do a Google search any of the viewers for Comcast Internet Essentials they have a portal set up in our district because our title one school status it's I want to say eight of our nine schools if your student goes to eight of those nine schools no matter what your family income level is or anything else you qualify for the Comcast Internet if you meet the criteria and they have some program specific criteria that I don't want to get into or misquote because I will you know I don't want to inadvertently throw out bad information but there are things like you can't be a current customer and things like that that are just part of their their

189policy but yes so for Comcast Internet Essentials if you do not have internet home and you want to get internet at home what that gets you $9.99 a month it gets you internet access it gets you Wireless and a wireless router and they will come and do the installation as well at the home that's great - so it is a great deal and for anybody who doesn't know about it I would I would you know advocate that it's worth looking into and and if you're a family that qualifies that's a great way to get internet in your house for everybody as well the other thing we talked about for a number of years was getting hot spot as it were at the public housing community centers so that kids could go to the community center

190if they didn't have internet and I don't know very appropriate thing to talk about at the Parks and Rec committee well I mean we used to talk about it to the city a lot of times yeah I don't know if they do it I have so I've had numerous conversations with people at the city both staff as well as he can there seems to be some interest but there has been a lack of sort of getting it going and and and I don't know why that is exactly yeah I will also tell you that the community centers at a lot of those you know a lot of the housing both the city and as well as you know friendship court they do have wireless in their community centers and for the most part but I

191don't know that it's Universal and I don't want to say it is but we called around a few years ago to find out where it was available where it wasn't available and a lot of those communities had taken it upon themselves to make that happen but I do think that's an opportunity for for a partnership and I certainly have put my name in the ring as being willing to help if the city wanted to research investigate and think about ways they might design that network let's be clear also that not just folks who are living in public housing don't have wireless there's a lot of members in our community who don't have a wireless it's just that's a group that particularly struggles and and if we have a way to put it there that's a

192an opportunity as opposed to putting it in every household yeah I think this is a great program it's a great step forward I think so yeah really excited about it thank you thank you any other comments it's great program levels the playing field thank you Jeff thank you yeah that's on the cutting edge of these things thank you okay this is a time another opportunity for members of the community to be able to speak to us and during public comments so that if you have comment you have please come up and state your name and your address and limit your comments to three minutes please hi how are you today thank you for coming I am Margareta Theodora 12:14 leader High Street I wanna thank you for all the efforts to make this school safer

193for everybody that's one has been one of my top concerns at Walker with all the doors and people moving all over the place so I'm really happy that the finally happened regarding the reconfiguration program it was said that it will take several years for these two being if this is just at the same place so I know that Walker has several things to fix in the building and I will not want that building because he's gonna be left behind maybe the male I don't know what's the plan with the building to be left to be in this repair because there are still children attending the school there are the bad rooms are horrible their students had there they had a budget session last year that they could do whatever they wanted with no writer they

194had right and that was one of the top projects to fix the bathrooms a lot of the girls really are upset that there are no doors in the stalls and that was boarded down because it's part of building in a school building that's gonna be left behind so that's one of my concerns mr. Berger thank you for coming I appreciate you saying to our meeting and giving us our comments are there any other members of the public who would like to come and speak to us thank you very much I'm going to move close the public comment and move on to board member comments and if it's okay I'll start with miss Torres thank you so just wanted to share a few things that I've done long has it been a month and a half

195they have attended a couple of the housing advisory committee meetings on July 9th and 10th I was able to attend the Virginia's for all learners that was sponsored by video II as our chair and vice chair were unable to make that so thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to do that and was there with a few of our administrative folks so that was a wonderful opportunity it was a two-day I attended two days and I believe possibly attend somebody maybe Denise Johnson attend to the third day had the opportunity to hear our Secretary of Education speak mr. Rodney Robinson who was the National Teacher of the Year was one of the keynotes so a wonderful opportunity again on equity bringing a lot of teachers and administrative people together breakout sessions so some wonderful

196updates you know and a lot of these conferences I have felt like we attend and there are wonderful topics and and it's in a sense almost a repeat or a definition of what equity is and what equity should look like in a school but this was an opportunity on some levels to see what has worked in some in some divisions so that was kind of a little refreshing I believe Miss Johnson is left but one of the things that I thought was pretty cool was that out of I believe 31 divisions I need to find my notes no 132 divisions that there are at that point in time there are only six dedicated equity coordinators throughout the state of Virginia and we happen to have one of those equity coordinators so it was really exciting

197to know that we one of the divisions that have that so hats off to dr. Atkins and and the board and everybody for being supportive of that and I think that's pretty wonderful in one of the sessions I attended there and I thank you for listening and allowing me to share this there was a new equity coordinator who shared that she felt like her job and the role was really daunting and just the amount of work that it's going to take and almost felt like and she was very excited to have that position but felt like she could work the rest of her career and and potentially not see the change or make a dent and I sat there listening to that and I was like oh my gosh that's so heavy to hear and

198for somebody to share publicly that that they felt like that and yet I was able to reflect that you know here was this was one breakout session and there was you know a hundred two hundred folks in the room several hundred people in the whole conference you know and everybody committed and showing up for a reason and that was just you know a small subset throughout the state and throughout the country of people who were doing this work and that you know I just felt like it's so important that I'm one person and I'm showing up and she's one person and she's doing her work every single day and that we need to continue to hold each other up and we're going to have highs and lows in this but collectively I think if we

199keep chipping away it in and I've said this before and I know other people have you knows that we have this opportunity right now our door here in Charlottesville is open it's been opened for the last couple of years and we cannot let the door shut to do this important work so we need to keep chipping away at it you know again kudos to dr. Atkins and everybody here and we need to continue to chew each other on and be bold in the steps that we're going to take and at the city level you know and we are so lucky when you really reflect on the different leadership and had the opportunity in the last couple of months to see and recognize so many people doing the work we have I wrote names down because

200I can't remember all the names and I had the opportunity to meet or to listen to Pamela Sutton Wallace who is the I believe the CEO at the University of Virginia's Medical Center what it just a phenomenal leader and and female leader working towards equity for healthcare so we've got people working on healthcare we've got you know mayor Walker working on lots of in justices we've got strong women working on housing equity and affordable housing like joy Johnson we've got shantel Bingham working on food justice and and we have dr. Atkins you know leading the way here on educational equity and I just wanted to say really just thank you so much for all that you've done and we are so lucky to have you and this is hard work you know it's hard work

201at the school level you know behind the scenes you're doing the work but it's it's got to be really really hard work personally to be a black person and and you know living and experiencing these in justices and Ana inequities and I just want to say and I know the board I'm going to say I know the board feels this way we support you and all the work you're doing and and I support everybody in this community and and we all have to do that to to make this change and make the differences so thank you but I felt I've just that has been building and I needed to share all of that and again really express my gratitude and I just feel so blessed and lucky to be part of this work with you

202and alongside of you and all of you board members so thank you for your supports get back to my list sorry I also was able to attend and I believe dr. Kraft attended also the standard based grading presentation by mr. Ken O'Connor which was a joint meeting with Albemarle schools and so that I thought was really worthwhile and I do have some notes and some information and I believe our division got some probably some of the same things from him but that was worthwhile to attend and then also mr. Wade being out of the country and traveling right now he hadn't extended an invitation and I was able to attend the building good Foundation and there are some people within the school division and one of the topics that kind of rose out of the

203participatory budgeting process at Walker last year was to address playground options and enhancing the playground at Walker upper elementary school and so this meeting which was the 25th of July brought together a bunch of volunteer architects and they kind of had they sat in three different groups and they had identified three different areas of Walker that potentially could be built out or or changed to address the different needs you know of fifth graders and sixth graders and so I unfortunately was unable to stay and see the final design but I know there's some pictures that are circulating and actually principal Hastings was there for the first part of it as well but I know that they're going to pursue some funding outside of I believe through Obama works and we should be hearing more about

204that so that was pretty exciting to be part of that and I think that's it for now so thank you everybody thank you Miss for us whisper here I just want to echo Miss Torres's sentiments about equity and everyone around the board is extremely appreciative of dr. Atkins and and supportive but I think that we must all recognize that in this work not only is it difficult but you will hear a lot of different voices there will be people that are supportive but there will be people that are not so supportive and there will be people that will work to bring about discordant forces and/or pushback and I think that we believe in this work and we must continue to be supportive of the work and when we recognize pushback I think we are all

205at a point where we can come together and we don't necessarily have to have our elevator speech but I think the types of things that we say will continue to resonate that this is something that is needed it is something that is wanted and it's something that's happening it's happening and we can't bury our head in the sand we can't act as if it isn't happening and we're not turning around we saw no line in the sand we've said this is important and we're doing it and for anybody that doesn't want to see us do it that that's their right but we're doing it and we are all willing to stand in front of you beside you behind you wherever you need us we are there 24/7 365 you are not you are not in

206this alone and don't you ever ever feel that you are because you are not period well dr. Kraft well one of the one of my thoughts have been thinking about sort of my own process in the last couple of years and you know and the way the things that have influenced me and helped me to see things at a deeper level and see things differently see you know what our history has brought about and the legacies of injustice and the legacies of inequality and there been you know there been a lot of wonderful events in our community that I've gone to I've gone to everything that I could go to when I'm here you know and there are some really really wonderful events going on right now as part of unity days it's really been

207fantastic some of the events that have been put together and I say this to the community who's watching it's really important to go through your own learning and growth process and get to the point of grasping why why we are where we are right now and why we're saying these things and why we're doing these things why you know why do we feel so strongly about the need to address these inequities that have been going on for a long time and so I feel like I've grown I've changed I've really appreciated learning from people in the community and you know I stand with you dr. Atkins as well in and and in great appreciation and great gratitude for your leadership and your ability to sort of say it in such an eloquent way that you

208always find the right words to say things in a way that really connects with what's most important so thank you for that mr. riot I am certainly concur with all of you in your comments when I think back I've lived through a lot of these inequities that we are dealing with today didn't read it in a book or lived it and I am so excited that we have finally come to a point that we are now beginning to deal with it to move forward so that all children will feel valued in dr. Atkins you have been out sphere leader all the way not only with you leading the charge and this strong and committed board that we have been able to move forward with this process and all the people that are working behind the

209scenes every committee and self committee you can think of they're people working hard a lot of people in the community think that we're not doing anything but we're doing a lot of stuff we just thought talk about it brag about it we're doing the work the teachers are being trained they're going to be prepared come August for the new challenge that's before them so make no mistake I'm excited that we are moving forward and I hope that the people in the community that are feeling a little jittery about this that they're going to come on board the train because if not they're gonna be left at the station so we're moving forward if you have questions or concerns you can always call feel free to reach out we here to respond to your concerns or

210questions so dr. Atkins thank you for leading the charge also I would like to think they're not here but all the other young people who came up from the food justice in their mentors who came before the board tonight to update on update us on equity in healthy foods I wish they had come before I went to New Orleans because I didn't eat healthy but but it is so you want Leahey yes they did a great job in presenting also Jeff I'm excited about the hot spots kind of levels the playing fields so that more students who have access to the internet that's great Charles is moving moving forward so I'm excited about that and I know a lot of parents out there gonna be excited about that so the our students will be able

211to do their work by having to run to the library or or to a neighbor's house and if they had internet access they can access the hotspots so I'm excited about this so great job on all the work unions they've done with that also the security updates I know a lot of parents are feel relieved that their their kids of clothing that they're gonna be feeling their kids gonna be safe and a lot of parents are sort of relieved that we finally got that in place and that will be a continuous process so congratulations to your staff Karen for all the great work you all are doing and finally I want to do a couple of shout outs the summer I didn't do a lot I kind of laid back but if summer sat retired

212folks do but anyway an opportunity to to serve or to actually to participate on a panel it was called teachers in the movement at the University of Virginia I did a video about a year or so ago and I received a call a letter from dr. Ullrich at the University of Virginia to participate on this panel it was basically about teachers and who actually taught during the civil rights movement I sort of came in on the tail internet but was myself and Miss Maxine Harlan from Charles field it was a another educator from Richmond retired and thinks she was a Virginia state I can't remember name but I'm gonna find out wonderful lady and a gentleman from South Carolina was a retired administrator and these were actually teachers who participated in this institute for a

213week at UVA so they had an opportunity we had an opportunity to answer questions about our experiences working as teachers doing that civil rights movement so that was a great experience that was at the rotunda at UVA also a reminder that West Haven will be having its 22nd annual community day or an August 3rd from 10:00 to 6:00 so if you get a chance come out support those participants and just you know just be a part of the festivities that will be going on that day so and also on August 10th we have a we're having a couple of people to make their singing debut at the cereal sing out between dr. Atkins and mrs. Lanier per year we'll be participating in the civil sing out and yours truly will be singing Charlotte's wheel again

214and that's a song that the late mrs. Evelyn Carter wrote for the action of the Delta Jabbar walk many years ago and we revived that song last year and I put a little little spin on a mountain little spin on it and so that will have been asked to do that song again on August 10 so if you have a chance it's going to be at the Pavilion on August 10th at 4 o'clock the actual concerts and it's I think it's still time to sign up if you want to be a participant in sing as well so come on out and and participate if you're like so we're doing some exciting things so I'm fired up and ready to go thank you I just like to thank other board members for their statements around equity

215tonight and I think it's great to hear that I know and have always been that the best thing I've ever done as a board member is be part of the board that hired dr. Atkins and I've been privileged to work with her for her whole tenure here and have seen the massive changes that have been taking place since she started and it hasn't just happened the last couple years believe me the system has changed in tremendous ways during her time here and and so I want to again thank you for all your hard work and we certainly have your back to continue to support your your good works so that's all thank you hi I would just wanted to mention the one thing I've done taking two things besides obviously meet with dr. Atkins regularly

216but the I represented the central region the vsba at our legislative positions committee meeting in July and that is always an honor and it was a really interesting group and I thought they're the people who were there really focused on equity and positions that promote equity which I just thought was a really great place for the vsba to be focusing on and a lot of those ideas for legislative positions come from other boards so it was good to see that other boards are really taking a lot of these issues seriously including well just taking certain criminals and alleged criminal offenses out of the code you know sort of things that might really help to support I don't know principals and students in classes in a in a more meaningful and substantive way rather than criminalizing

217certain behaviors which I just I was really surprised and grateful to see I also wanted to say thank you to mr. Cooke who was very generous and asked if I could shop around a trip to France which is where I was at the last board meeting and so I got to chaperone that choir is called Virginia voices of Virginia voices for Virginia I may be the worst public speaker for this but they they got to there's a 43 of us total and 37 children I think and they from stay Nan's from Albemarle high school and from shawwal high school and our students were amazing they performed both in Paris at the Madeleine and then at in bays and so on at the public center there which was really well attended by local community members who

218were so supportive of the sister city initiative and we also had this really beautiful impromptu concert in ox Air which is kind of on the way to Basil's home from France from Paris and I was I have never been so moved by a performance it was really stunning and our students really represented us incredibly well and I'm hopeful that next month the group will come and sing for us at least in the beginning of our in the beginning of our program or meeting because they are it was really lovely so I want to say thank you to dr. mr. cook and to all the students who participated because I thought it was really lovely exchange are lovely to do this kind of mission work of singing to our sister city and to Paris so also

219dr. Atkins I the year the floor is yours all right Thank You mr. McKeever I really appreciate it I want to say to the board thank you so much for your courageous work around equity one of the humbling things that happened for me this summer was attending the racial equity Leadership Network and I'll talk about it in just a moment but there was a timeline that was put up on the wall for all of the fellows who were in attendance and it started with Thomas Jefferson and Kay all the way up to today and some of the events that are going on today and our leader asked all of the cohort members and and almost all of the members were superintendents in the room to start at the beginning of the timeline and to walk

220around the room and and take in all that has happened in our country around race and around equity and civil rights and the civil war and all of those major events and as we walked around the room I don't know that there was a dry eye in the room as we started to confront the amount of time our country has dealt with in equities and the inequities of people of color black people and people of color and it was just humbling to me to think about not only what my mother and my grandmother and great-grandmother went through but to think about Charlottesville city the Charlottesville 12 all of the events the n-double-a-cp Rick Turner Diane MacNeil Sylvia elder all of the people who have worked tirelessly in our community to address equity every school board

221that has been seated before this board that's currently seated and all the work that has happened around equity it is difficult work it is heart-wrenching work and for each one of us as we continue on to make changes and to to support those people who have and and races that have been marginalized it is tough for us to do that but the only way we will get through it is to make sure that we support one another and make sure that we walk in this together I was in Whole Foods recently and standing at the vegetable bin I did not look like a superintendent standing me I had on a t-shirt and really looked like I was on the weekend and and I had someone to come up to me and just stand there as

222if they wanted me to move I was looking at some vegetables and the person just literally came and stir it first beside me on one side then behind me and then moved around to the other side and literally say it I need to get there and there's room for both of us here I'm sure it is and the person as they walked away literally hit me she begged me and I thought I can't believe this person has just backed me because I didn't move out of her way and and and I took off anything that resembled a superintendent at that point and I went down the aisle to confront her and say you just bumped me she said I know I know I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry no she didn't say I'm sorry she

223said I know I know I shouldn't have done that and I said you're right you shouldn't have done that that was not nice that was very unkind of you to do that and it was totally uncalled for I know I know I shouldn't have done that I shouldn't have done that but I have a vision she has a macular degeneration vision and and I said I do too and I couldn't see either that's why I was standing there and I said it was room enough for both of you both of us there that was unnecessary and she said well I felt like I was hitting a brick wall I said yeah and you need to learn that when you hit a brick wall you don't knock people that's just not acceptable so that's just a

224very tiny little bit of what people of color black people in Charlottesville they face and have faced and black people in these United States have faced over the years it is time for this to come to an end it is time for those kinds of inequity in equities and to have to whale being black every day and think about what could happen to you because you're black each day is time for that to stop and that these these inequities need to be taken away so thank you to this community you know I people accuse me of not having a lot of heart you know I don't I don't show my emotions but I can tell you one thing with the equity work there's been many humbling moments in this work and I just think everyone

225for the patients that they've had with me in getting my heart into equity and I can assure you that's where I am now so thank you and and I my prayer is that I can serve you well at Theatre tend bourbon superintendent's Academy this summer and we talked a great deal at the Academy about the equity of funding state funding of public education and there is a in Detroit Michigan there's a move underway lots of research has been done about comparisons of funding in previous years and where Detroit is now Michigan is now in funding public education they're obviously through this research they've uncovered a great deal of disparities they'll work can help inform the work that the state organizations superintendent's organization teacher organizations have talked about in Virginia about inequities in funding so it's

226very appreciative to be there and to hear that presentation and then on the racial equity Leadership Network we have been we were invited to apply to attend this is the third year of the racial equity network it comes under the social education foundation not social I'm sorry the Southern Education Foundation which has been around for about 150 years so they have sponsored the racial equity network to help school divisions as they're grappling with these issues of equity and policy to use the best research that's out there and to help guide divisions through the work it is an 18-month cohort a fellowship and we will be a part of learning together and developing and understanding how we make changes in our individual school divisions over the next 18 months and so we're really looking forward and

227what we have on the board are the participants we have members of the network who are from Mississippi Louisiana from Texas all parts of the southern states and we have quite a bit in common so I look forward to all the work that we're going to do there thank you also to miss per year and the public education foundation with the equity with the engineering program over at the University of Virginia many of our students from Beaufort were involved in collaborating and teaming with students from Albemarle County in engineering so we had a great representation of our students there and I think they learned a lot over that week and we look forward to next year they got to that students were on grounds and they got to go into the dining hall and and

228just have a bit feel it was wonderful it was great also several of our parents have asked questions about the class program and their student may be on a waiting list and they've been very concerned about whether or not their student will or will not get into the class program at their respective schools so what we have here is a big overview of where we stand right now with the enrollment at each of the schools and how many students are currently on the waitlist what is happening is as we continue to grow that program we have to hire new staff additional staff in order to be able to accommodate the requests that we have we've recently recommended for additional employees that will help us to cut down the waitlist they will be our class site

229directors and should help us to diminish the waitlist quite a bit so thank you to our parents who have been patient and we are genuinely trying to hire additional staff so if you know anyone who would like just a part-time position in class please direct them to our HR website that would be very helpful I'd also like to welcome we have hired four assistant principals for our schools and as you can see here they are beautiful assistant principals who went through several levels of interviewing and were recommended by interview panels and I interviewed and mr. Henderson interviewed some of the finalists so at Beaufort we have and I'm going to not say her name correctly CEDA what's her last name DeLaurier see the DeLaurier is coming to us from Albemarle County I believe to Beaufort

230so welcome aboard to Cedar we also have Melissa Williams and Melissa is going to be an assistant principal that Walker melissa is coming to us from Killen County Rolando Tillman will be assistant principal at Clark elementary school Rolando was coming to us from Henrico County and then we have Chantal Beverley will be our new assistant principal at Greenbrier and Chantal is coming to us from Chesterfield Chesterfield County and then we have at Venable we want to welcome aboard many of you will recognize this name dr. Tamra on the US many of you may know her as wilkinson right so welcome aboard to dr. Gaius Tamara Gaius so welcome to all five of the new assistant principals were so happy to have them thank you to that HR team again for all the work that you

231do to attract and bring in Mexico you do a great job dr. Blair you do a wonderful job thank you for attracting a very deep pool of candidates and very talented candidates so we welcome them on board for many of our community members you have noticed that the Curtis elder track has been completed and the gates are open I hope our community has been enjoying the track we are planning a formal dedication of the track in September so go to our website look at I'm sure we have it posted on the website this elders in will tell me September 12th is the former dedication of the Curtis elder track so we look forward to having that dedication and one of the goals that we have is mr. elders grandson is a track star first in

232the state we'll see number one miss elder come up and tell us about your grandson please give us his name William Trent is my grandson and he is a rising junior at Monticello high school and as a sophomore he was number one in the state in the 400 so we're very proud of him and we are all are very sure that his grandfather rides on his shoulder absolutely congratulations to your grandson and what we'd love to do is the first track meet we official track meet we'd love to have him to be run on that track so congratulations to your grandson and all of his accomplishments again thank you to all of our community for the school yard garden great work going on and also to the our food justice Network again great work going

233on to make sure that we get nutritious food in the hands and the tummies of all of our students and our families in this community we love partnering with you and many other organizations in our community to make sure that we serve our students well thank you one more slide we have a number of back-to-school events that are coming up we have open houses all over our school division open houses this year will be on Monday August 19th school will officially start on Wednesday August the 20th here are some of the dates that you may want to give attention to open house for K Tech will be on Wednesday August the 12th from 5:00 until set I'm sorry August the 14th from 5 until 7 Saturday August the 17th we'll be back to school -

234and that will be at the sprint Pavilion Center and that's from 10:30 until 12:00 on Monday as the 19th our elementary schools will hold their open house from 1:00 until 3:00 p.m. Walker upper elementary school August the 19th from 3:00 until 5:00 p.m. and Buford middle school also August the 19th from 4:00 until 6:00 on Thursday August the 20th will have CHS freshmen orientation and that will be from 9 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. on August the 20th again we'll have CHS virtual orientation for online classes that will be from 1:30 until 4:00 and then again August 20th at c8 jets open house from 5:00 until 7:00 on Wednesday August the 21st first day of school for all of our students have three-year-olds it will be from 9 until 2 and that will include three-year-olds four-year-olds

235will come in with of the elementary school students our elementary school times will be from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Buford and Walker their hours will be from 8:30 until 3:15 p.m. and then show us Ville high school their operating hours will be from 9:05 a.m. until 3:50 p.m. with one hour delay I'll just remind our families one hour delay will start on the second Thursday of the month so we look forward to having everyone at open house and these events that will be of great interest to our community thank you thank you dr. Atkins so I think we are at the end of our agenda okay so dr. King hi thank you no problem to follow up from the school board frequent updates on the RFP for Walker and Buford share the process on

236student selection of courses shared progress on the Youth Council goals share data of the summer slash recent hires are there any others that I may I add I think that's all okay thank you thank you and then our upcoming meetings we will have a meeting on September 5th here at in the media center here at the CHS at 5 o'clock that is our next regular scheduled board meeting and hearing no objections we stand adjourned you