001so we're gonna start with a moment of silence thank you great now we're going to do the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you madam clerk do we have the roll this is the time that we have a approval of the proposed agenda move for approval madam chair second it's been moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor of approving of the agenda okay any opposed now we get to do the comments from the public Amy Ogden is first on the list welcome let me say that the Charlottesville City School Board welcomes comments from the members of the community speakers are encouraged to keep their comments to three
002minutes state your name and address for the record thank you my name is Amy Ogden and my address is 214 camellia Drive good evening dr. Atkins and members of the school board and fellow citizens my name is Amy Ogden and I'm an associate professor of French at the University of Virginia and the mother of a fourth grader at Jackson Byron a sixth grader at Walker upper elementary as a member of email I've written and encouraged others to write to oppose the elimination of Spanish as a requirement for all fifth and sixth graders dr. Hosting's has shared with Walker parents and the board information about the pressure from some students and their families for varied programs and for choice and interest in stem he's also shared a survey conducted among students that showed extremely low interest
003in Spanish I'm not here to oppose increased choices for the expansion of options and certainly I'm not here to oppose making school more exciting and fun for the students I am here to push back against the idea that if Spanish isn't exciting and fun right now that's because it can't be it can and I'm here to push back against creation of a false choice between Spanish and stem that will invariably lead to the further deterioration of the Spanish program reusing Spanish is not good for our children now it's not good for the future and it's not good for our community the scientific research is clear that learning a foreign language increases all kinds of cognitive abilities it increases test scores and it increases cultural sensitivity sending Spanish in particular can show students the value of
004Hispanic cultures cultures that I believe are extremely important to our community as well as to our nation the current plan for welker is based on the assumption that in order to create options and choice and the possibility for STEM education we have to sacrifice something and the bad sacrifice that Spanish is that thing that can be sacrificed but if there's a moment to invest in Spanish and not sell it out that moment is now dr. Hastings server tells you about the rough spot that the courses in Spanish are in now we both lack of resources and poor scheduling are damaging them the survey does not reflect where Spanish could be if the school systems the invalid school systems conscientious support this year's fellowship Walker's being treated as a pork from mouth not even made adults
005so families have the impression that their children's math education is being sacrificed to Spanish that's no way to increase enthusiasm for it when Spanish is scheduled in its own time stop as I understand it will be I think a lot of the dissatisfaction will disappear and if Spanish water could be spread across the 5th and 6th roads so that kids could get into a level of Spanish where they're actually learning to put groups of sentences together meaningfully and I think we'll see a lot more enthusiasm the question has been raised about how developmentally appropriate a high school class could be for fifth graders but let's talk about what they're really learning shouldn't we expect fourth graders to be able to introduce themselves and to make a basic cartoon about meeting the firmest spanish-speaking person and
006what about stem how do we keep it in the Spanish requirement well why not hire a bilingual Spanish teacher in the stem teacher and teach stem in Spanish together for the who want choice miss Eiken your time is up okay if we're serious about equity and cultural sensitivity then we have to care about Spanish and we have to build it up not chop it away I urge you to reverse the decision to eliminate Spanish requirement from ethics codes and instead to show your commitment to equity and diversity by investing mineral resources in the elementary Spanish program thank you dr. shields good evening I just wanted to make a quick comment about how excited I am about the fact I just heard that we're thinking about continuing to push engineering down to lower levels down to
007the fifth and sixth grade I am selfishly I I think that's a pretty amazing thing for us to be doing as a school system for a couple of reasons one five years ago we started our program here and we started something called engineering and it was engineering one five years ago and I think I had about thirty students in that first class and as you guys know it's grown a ton over the last five years we're just starting to get our numbers in for who's enrolled in engineering for next year we're looking at about 210 probably once out of district kids sign up we're looking at about 220 230 kids signed up for engineering just here at CHS and that doesn't include Buford so it's a it's an exciting program that a lot of students
008are getting a lot out of you can see the video over there we just got back from a trip to CERN and when you go to CERN the reason we take that trip is it is the mecca of science and engineering and it's and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge so it's an exciting field to be a part of so what we're doing here in our school system has been I think remarkable for the last five years and I've been lucky to be a part of it and as a as a parent of a five-year-old who's going to be going to Clarks next year if we can keep pushing this down I'm really excited about that and one of the things I've seen as we continue to try to make our engineering program available to
009younger and younger students I don't see a limit to how far we can push that down because what our students are learning our students are learning problem-solving and learning collaboration and learning familiarity with some important 21st century tools and I don't know of an age where that's not an important thing to be teaching our children so if we can start getting our fifth and sixth graders and even younger than that familiar with some of the tools like computer programming just the concepts that undergird a computer programming at education that'll be better prepare our students for to be successful here at CHS and obviously to be successful in college and in the workforce and beyond every year we have students leave our engineering program and become amazing success stories all over the world and I'm excited
010to make those available to more and more kids as I'm hearing about what my students are planning on doing next year well we've got our second Jeff Scholar in two years we've got kids just doing amazing stuff a lot of the world it's exciting so the more broad we can make those opportunities it's exciting to me and I think we should all be excited about that thank you go who's okay Kara Weston Avery's here hi good evening I'm Kara West and this is my son Avery Shearer what grade are you in or what school fourth grade at Burnley Moran we came last month when the energy performance resolution was introduced to express our support and we want to come back and reaffirm that support and encourage you to pass that resolution tonight and Avery has
011something to give to Miss McKeever it is you can you can tell her how many signatures okay it's a and basing this thanks Avery those signatures are collected for online and in-person by generation 180 in support of this resolution and it shows much wider community support than people who are perhaps able to come to this school board meeting to speak in person so we want to share those with you and thank you for your consideration of this resolution thanks Ron Campbell do drawing how do you see your name go German sorry before I began over to say that I'll be talking about climate change and the environment but I participated in the stroke for equity in CCS and I support the CHS PS year and reactions hi my name is Scott remember I am 11
012years old I am a student at well-core elementary school and our master school strike for climate justice emerge fifteenth I organized the start to make my voice heard and the voices of children who would like futures similar to the lungs order generations have the luxury of taking for granted because children should not have to choose between an education and a future because according to the UN we have 11 years to act because we're in the midst of a crisis yet the rad moves on we go to school every day learn about cells not climate change reverse their time short slow city schools needs that climate change to the curriculum for science in grades kindergarten through eighth so kids grow up understanding this crisis Susan it's our campuses into the schools and recycling to reduce waste
013drastically and to conserve resources CCS needs to the schools to renewable energy and to switch out the fluorescent light bulbs with LEDs thank you for your time I hope shouts for city schools can work on a more sustainable and better future thank you this that was all the folks who signed up if you would like to make a comment feel free this is the time please state your name and your address and keep your comments to three minutes thank you dee dee Smith 26:52 Jefferson Park Circle alum parent of Jackson firewalker Buford and CHS and I too would like to say kudos to the Black Student Union for their 10 demands for a racial justice in our school system I'm in total support but as well as you all know it's simply not enough to
014wait until high school I don't think that's actually what they're saying but to make a difference in children's lives you know the research if a child is not reading at grade level by the third grade it is very unlikely that they'll ever catch up and you can even graduate them I mean you're actually quite good at that but that doesn't mean that they'll have the skills they need to have a chance to break the cycle so I'd like to propose an additional demand on to you all that every child under your care by the third grade is reading at grade level even if that means one-on-one private tutoring which is as we all know how parents with economic choices assure that their children do not fall behind or catch up when they do and they
015do it's reasonable it's reasonable to ask at this point whether that's going to make a difference at high school or our high school children the same children as are in third grade I sent the data to you actually a while ago and I will send it again to you tonight but in your current eighth grade going to high school next year 63 students failed their last English Sol all of those 63 children who feared the English Sol only 15 of them actually enrolled after the third grade so only 15 of the 63 were not in third grade in this system of those 63 children have failed the English Sol more than half of them have been enrolled in the Charlottesville City Schools since at least kindergarten so we're including preschool and to link back to
016the BSU as demands of those 63 children who've failed their English Sol in the eighth grade 80% are african-american and remember this is 63 children in one grade do the math it's horrifying how many children are being left behind under your watch there is a reason at one time in Virginia law that it was deemed unlawful to teach a Negro as it was said in the law to read or write because literacy is power literacy is freedom to make choices you'd think we would have made more progress in 200 years thank you thank you Miss Smith is there any other someone else who would like to comment okay we're going to move the next item on the agenda which is board responses or board comments I'll start with mr. Mickey I went to the Parks
017and Rec Advisory Committee last month and it didn't really have any any specific school related things other than the the exciting opening of the skate park which is just a quarter-mile away from here and I hope that our high school will take advantage of it with a club or a sport or that sort of thing it's a it's an amazing facility and it's right here at the doorstep of both Walker E and CHS and it seems like we ought to more formally take advantage of that in some way that's that's it also if you have a student who's going to take advantage of Parks and Rec summer camp now is the time to enroll it's going to be a three of our elementary school summer and they fill up quick and it's the best deal
018in town great deal and the county students will be able to come register starting May so it's important to get your city child into the summer camp as soon as possible so you don't get on a waitlist you just go to the website the Parks and Rec website or you can go to the Parks and Recreation office downtown for to register also there's scholarships available mr. Bryant hey happy birthday thank you Kraft okay well I would like to thank everybody who is here tonight and those of you who came up to speak and tell us what you think and and also lots of parents who have emailed us about matters that they're concerned about it's really important for us as school board members to hear from you whether you know you disagree with something that
019we've done or it's it's a different issue so I just want to thank you for that and thank you for showing up so what I'd like to do at the moment I would just like to give a shout out to Charlottesville high school who the high school is the recipient of a mental a pilot mental health first aid program and this is a really big deal we were I guess there were eight schools across the country that got chosen to participate in this pilot program and so Charlottesville high is one of them so this program and and this is going to be implemented like right away this spring this program will provide direct instruction to students on how to recognize signs of a mental health crisis or drug addiction and also how to respond and
020you know it's you know as we all know you know we've been our schools have been through a lot and I think the students have been through a lot too but the statistics are very alarming in terms of the mental health issues experienced by middle and high school students according to the 2017 virginia youth survey one in five female and one in ten males students in middle school have seriously contemplated suicide over the past twelve months and you know this is a real concern so then there's there's a real need to have more hands-on approaches to actually have some actions that students can take to you know whether it's themselves who are experiencing this or a friend and i will say you know as a psychologist who has worked in the community for many years
021there are a lot of kids who are very concerned about one of their friends and how their friends doing and they don't know what to do about it they don't know who to talk to about it they don't you know they just don't know how to cope with this it's a big burden for them so I think this program is a very important essential attempt to do something about this here and hopefully we'll be hearing more about the they're going to be collecting data and we'll hear a little bit more about that and the effectiveness of this program but it's important that we we were chosen to do this and I think it's a great opportunity for for our Charlotte Ville High School thank you so happy birthday for the 50th time to our board
022member to my left I hope you are having a wonderful day and thank you for there consenting to be with us this evening I want to give a special thanks to dr. Atkins and her administrative team for once again allowing me to represent the school division I am a member of Q which is the Council of urban board educators which is one of the four subcommittees for the National School Board Association and we had a very important role at our most recent meeting and I'm sure other people will speak to you about that but everyone has recognized what our school division has been through but we are constantly receiving kudos for what we are trying to do one if you don't know dr. Atkins happens to teach with one of the areas within the National
023School Board Association for incoming superintendents and one of her former students did a capstone project on diversity and some of the things that we're doing in diversity and with our Diversity Committee she reminded me we've done that before I said oh we have she says well I had to do it for an assignment so at least we know that we are attempting to do the right thing I also had an opportunity to meet with various people from other places around this country that are also dealing with the equity issue we are not alone in this we are not the first people to ever undertake this and we need to all remember that it's something that happens gradually it doesn't happen overnight and that this is an effort that everyone must participate in whether you are
024the students the people on the ground or the school board members it's we all have a part to play in this and I'm just very pleased that people are beginning to roll up their sleeves regardless of how difficult maybe but saying that we are Charlottesville we are one and we're going to get through this together and still we rise mr. Waide okay and mr. Juarez yes of course thank you thank you everybody for attending also thank you for those who shared their comments and came up to speak earlier a couple of things I've done are to participate and attend the equity committee our subgroup which is looking at the equity foundations and policy so we held a nice first meeting and had a lot of really productive time the opportunity to talk and share ideas
025and come together and again building relationships with a lot of different people but some good work and some ongoing hard work that is just beginning about equity so I believe dr. Atkins will we'll have an update about that later but that was a really worthwhile 2 or 3 hours of time I think so for okay maybe four hours I also attended a preschool steering committee meeting with dr. Kraft always a wonderful opportunity and the preschool group is doing a lot of great work and we hope to hear from them at some point during during the year just because they're doing a lot of wonderful things working in the community doing several pilots in different schools and I just wanted to remind everybody that the registration for three-year-olds interviews for the three year old spots are
026happening April 25th at Carver rec so if you know of anybody who is interested in a three-year-old spot in our preschool please share that and there's information on the website for that also was able to attend and maybe mr. Waide will talk about it later but you the UVA task force held a presentation here at CHS two weeks ago I believe where they were to share they in a public setting shared the information and the work that they've done coming together up until this point to kind of narrow down there they're top four topics I believe so that was again another wonderful opportunity to hear what that group is doing and I look forward to seeing and hearing how president Ryan moves forward with some of those those topics attended our housing Advisory Committee meeting
027which meets once a month and that's coming up again I attended a Burnley Moran PTO meeting had the opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the equity and budget things as the ongoing budget work sessions were happening before City Council finalized the budget so that was a nice opportunity to meet with some local families there this week was able to attend an event on Tuesday I believe that the downtown mall and I guess it's associated with the tomtom but it was the African American teaching fellows city of promise and abundant life the three of those nonprofits were co-sponsors and black panther was was shown at the Paramount as a free movie for the community but what I appreciated was getting to spend some time talking to the folks at abundant life who I
028hadn't real didn't have a whole lot of knowledge about but it was just really refreshing to see and hear the work that city of promise is doing African American teaching fellows are doing an abundant life and just the overlap and meeting some community members that were invited who all really are so so devoted and motivated to make a difference and be involved but just those three different groups coming together so that was nice and then just a reminder that our next special advisory or yes C act special advisory drawn a blank special thank you special Advisory Committee the next meeting is April 24th at 5:30 so that's also where is that that will be downstairs division annex thank you great and that's it for now thank you yeah hi everyone thanks for coming so I
029was thinking about my comments but I was actually watching the video up there from bacon so if you have a chance to watch that you should watch it because it's pretty cool oh this week had the opportunity to participate in the tomtom festival and we had some black knights present on stage and at the Paramount in like the expo portion of the youth innovation conference so I served as a social impact judge but the there was a group that went on stage I think they're called stand with me and they're talking about sexual assault and sexual violence so I think that the avid program is doing a lot of work to make sure that students are being innovative in thinking about solving social justice issues through like projects and stem type of concepts and ideas
030so that was pretty cool then on Tuesday I went to the african-american teaching fellows panel that had an Albemarle County educator duan Isha Evans from Teach for America and Lauren dr. Lauren Eames from UVA Curry along with dr. Diaz the director so that was about like retaining african-american teachers and keeping them supported so I thought that that was a really good panel and I think it was recorded so hopefully if you have the chance to look it up on the tomtom website I think it would be good to look at and that's all great I'm gonna reserve my comments until the end as well so we're now at the portion of the agenda where every the consent agenda move for approval of the consent agenda as stated all those in favor pass a consent agenda
031aye any opposed okay next we have the energy and water performance resolution Miss Powell good evening madam chair dr. Atkins and members of the board this resolution was presented for your consideration at the last board meeting and we have kurt Vizier here with us from the city he oversees the initiatives around energy and water energy management water on conservation and so forth so if you have other questions that you would like addressed before you take action he is here to provide responses great does anybody have any questions about the resolution I'll move its approval any second second any discussion around the resolution say that I'm glad that that our student this is something that they really took hold of I think that they see that this is that this is a planet that they are
032going to inherit and they want it to be the cleanest and the basic could be so I'm glad that they kind of took hold of this and and moved it forward so it's it's worth I mentioned and this really is a it was planned before the resolution was even introduced to you but starting this month actually was it this past week or the week before we started to include Nigel Standish from the STEM program in our monthly meetings so we are actively working on some of the curriculum elements that the students spoke about and you didn't know that I don't even know if I think I mentioned that I was like good thank you is there any any other questions or discussion yes madam chair so thank you everybody for all the work on this
033also very much in support of this and I was just curious um I mean dr. Atkins I believe you mentioned last time we all looked up at the lights so I'm curious if there's a committee or if there are little things that we can do right now to start reducing energy and maybe I you guys have something that's going to come on and mr. Powell if you have an example of one of the reports that we're starting to generate now about our consumption so no clerk might address it we we didn't bring any examples of the reports but when we have our principles meeting on Monday we are going to be introducing to them the dashboards that we've developed that they'll be reviewing quarterly with us and we have a quite a bit going on
034in this area regarding the larger question about replacing lights I thought maybe Kirk would like to speak briefly about energy performance contracting which is a something the city has done before I did it in a previous school district and I think the technology has advanced enough with new light fixtures and so forth that the city is determining that it's worth doing another round of that and there's obviously plenty of opportunity around throughout all of our schools right now we're trying to determine how we would approach an energy performance contract and we are actively actually discussing sort of our next steps we've been in discussions with the Department of mines and minerals and energy which is a state department actually helps cities to go through the energy performance contract process and right now we are actually
035trying to determine just sort of just our next steps and trying to move that forward but it is is absolutely an active consideration right now I think it's one of our best opportunities to do sort of a a wholesale upgrade of all of our buildings and wholesale has not meant to say that it's going to be just a complete change out without any you know without respect to unique situations we doesn't want to go through make sure all our comfort all specific issues are addressed we go through this process but it is sort of the best way to really do full of creative all of our facilities such as going HVAC as well as lighting in other areas and just as I'm listening to Kirk talk I feel like it's probably worth I mentioned an
036energy performance contract and if I put you this you correct me but an energy performance contract is where you look at investing in a lot of upgrades for your facilities to implement more efficient technology and the savings from that investment helps to pay for the project and so it's this kind of somewhat uniquely structured project and in conjunction with the city preparing for this type of a project it it is sort of falls under that P P a public-private partnership type models so they are looking at the enabling ordinances to allow for that and those of you who went to Harrisonburg are familiar with that those types of projects are a little bit different it's not a strict low bill environment these are different types of capital projects and so different vehicles are put in
037place to enable them but they're really it's exciting work but energy performance contract that's the gist of what that is when we talk about undertaking another round of that and that's that's a city initiative not ours but very exciting and just to note the energy performance contract is definitely a way to do this but if for some reason that is it a tool that we can go through with or something stops that process we're actually looking to do at least enough wholesale go through every facility and make upgrades as we can and try to at least keep moving us inch by inch forward to trying to improve our lighting improve HVAC our operations anywhere we can make those changes you want to do that so thank you so along with those things I mean I
038had done some reading other things that other schools and campuses and cities had looked at but specifically schools I mean even the next time we're looking at replacing devices I mean there's different types of chromebook devices that are Energy Star devices looking at things like when or if we need to replace dishwashers or vending machines or water coolers or mean looking at the amount of money that they saved in that and then the impact it had on the co2 I mean it was pretty impressive so I'm hoping that we're looking at all of those things as things come up and need to be replaced equipment and appliances play a big role in this too so WaterSense qualified energy star-qualified we're looking at all those things and want to try to incorporate that into future decisions
039for purchasing - thank you I also just just with respect to I'm not sure if the board would be want would be willing but I think an annual report to the board regarding the energy performance like if you're having quarterly reports - principals and with this group that it might be a reasonable thing in the summer to kind of do end of year or beginning of your wrap up kind of where we want where we've been and where we are and what our goals are if that's appropriate I think that's something that would be I mean all of us need to know where we stand and the performance I'd like to keep you updated on that and so that we're actually looking into and as long as we're sort of transparent about that everyone knows
040where we are we can collectively see how we're improving and we'll definitely incorporate that annual report yes yeah well that just gave me a thought that I guess what I had wanted to say was that how proud I am of our students echoing mr. Wade how proud I am of our students for really standing up for organizing for writing what they wanted to say and getting up in front of us for getting petitions signed for really leading the way and showing us that you know yes these this is an important thing but it's also connected to something a lot larger which is climate change and their worries about that you know lots of worries about that so I'm really proud of them for the leadership that they've shown and I'm just wanted in parentheses say
041I'm also proud of our older students who have modeled leadership including the ones sitting right down there with dianna but modeling leadership to our younger students and helping them really realize that they can do this they can get up and they can you know make things happen so it's a long winded way to say also that I wonder if we could find a way to share an annual report with students and make it a learning opportunity since these so many of our students are invested in this and I think they want to know what does this mean and what what's actually happening so maybe maybe we can find a way to do that and involve them so in our first meeting with Nigel who's over is the STEM program he was when he started to
042look at the data that Kirk has and what we're going to be presenting to principals he went exactly there with sharing that data with students as part of the engagement so that I think our vision is coming together quickly that's going to be a central part of that effort to integrate climate concerns and the things that the students spoke about with the curriculum so we're just ahead a tiny step ahead of you thank you that's great are there any other questions or discussion around this resolution okay all those in favor of the energy and water performance resolution say aye aye any opposed great the resolution has passed congratulations and thank you to the students in here and the staff worked hard the next item on the agenda is the Career and Technical Education local plan
043mr. Henderson madam chair members of board dr. Atkins last month staff provided information to you regarding the CTE local plan tonight superintendent superintendent recommends the board take action on the plan thank you is there any questions or discussions or motions around the CTE plan does anybody maybe think we could pass the plan mr. McKee has made a motion who's like the second but maybe after we finish the read the motion and then the most second okay so go ahead it's the the like remember the demographics that they identified last time is that what is in the plan like - it's a plan to continue to measure those okay mr. Henderson is that that's accurate yeah it is that we measure based on our goals and based on what we the state provides us as benchmarks
044to meet our goals okay and I was wondering if we as or if y'all as a division could add a race as something to measure as we know that black students are underrepresented in STEM my understanding is that will be measured that it was a local plan okay so is that I don't I don't think it is yeah the state does not use that as a part of a quality indicator it uses it looks at non for example women in a in a program that's not expected for a woman to be in or for mailed to be in a program that's not expected for a male to be in but other than that it does not but that's not that's something locally we could do right that's my question to provide guidance yes dr. Hawkins
045I'll also say some of the demographics that we get is after the student has graduated so we probably may be able to add a question on for ethnicity making it optional of course we could go back in our records and find that but as we surveyed them we could add that on as a an option does the I think it's a great idea I'm sorry that we aren't already doing that so thank you for bringing that up is there anybody else but I go back and it would if we collect it because personal finance is part of its going to be effort of CTE everybody takes it so it would not it would skew the collection of race because everybody takes personal finance so we'd have to look at specific programs to to look at
046I think we could use our k-tec data in one area in which we could look at you do that but at the high school is now a requirement so it would include everyone so to the extent that we have a report on this in the future we'd love the individual programs I think to the extent that it's appropriate it's not skewing the results to have a racial breakdown okay is that accurate is that what the board would like to see if we can do that yeah it sure do it okay yeah Thank You mr. Henderson have we passed this any other questions any other questions or discussion items so is there um I'm gonna go ahead and call it a question and to the extent all those in favor of the resolution of the local
047plan all right all those opposed the political plan is passed thank you it's a good thing then we can get our money okay so in the wrap-up that would be a good time to indicate how we would like that report to reflect the demographic breakdown yeah so now we're at discussion items the school program of study mr. Henderson hi dr. Hastings [Laughter] not me no madam chair members of board dr. Atkins tonight well actually last month we actually several months ago we approved the 2019 2020 program of study tonight we would like to address additions to the 2019 2020 program a study regarding Walker school dr. Hastings is here to share with you information on those additions and for information we can vote on it next month thank you good evening everyone mr. Brian happy
048birthday my 4 year olds birthday is on Saturday so some kindred spirits good evening there's a lot of areas in our mix I come before you as a principal of Walker but I think it bears relevance in this conversation I'm also a former sixth grade Spanish teacher I have some experience in this as a classroom teacher and now as the school administrator when I joined the the team at Walker it was a real privilege to have community feedback about challenges that the community saw going on in Walker and in places that were doing a really good job at Walker also through the strategic plan process we got a lot of community feedback about how Walker might grow and update and then over the last school year you've probably heard about our participatory budgeting project in
049which we engage all of our sixth-grade students and some analysis of how we could make Walker a better school two things came out in all of those and as you may not be surprised there counter to one another one of those is please protect the programs of greatest value in our school division and you know what those are fine arts academics iced them foreign language but they also said please give our students more options a walker in the school that currently has one elective option and so as we've been working on our master schedule on our courses for next year this has been a growing and learning process it's been a pleasure to talk to dr. Ogden in this process and and get some real perspective on where we are right now and and how
050we can grow and improve I'm really happy about what we're proposing to you tonight and while I'm the person speaking this has been a big team effort I'm going to begin with sort of the nitty gritty which may not be where we think we would begin but I want to get this part maybe out of the way this is the specific course information about two new classes to be offered at Walker next year as electives one is called for engineering one it would be offered to fifth graders and one it's called pre engineering - it would be offered to sixth graders you'll notice that the course descriptions are pretty similar these are exploratory courses that is to say that we will not be developing biomedical engineers or computer scientists out of this program what I'm
051hoping that we will do is ignite the fire inside many of our students who thrive within stem classes through an elective process as I have often said and perhaps you've heard me say all of our students need something to which to belong while they're at Walker and while I love our students in their orchestra shirts well I love our students in the stem activities i I need every child to have something that makes them want to come to school and I believe electives are one of the ways that we light a fire within our students I think probably more than those technical details are the rationale impact so we started with a very clear focus on maintaining access for all students to the current programs that we offer right now this proposal is that we
052would continue Fine Arts for every child at Walker it would continue for those students who are interested in taking Spanish either as an elective course or for high school credit that they still have the opportunity to do that however currently in the sixth grade at Walker every single student in sixth grade began the year in our Spanish program today 60% of sixth graders remain in Spanish which is another way of saying that nearly 40% of our sixth grade has opted out of world language instruction at Walker we know that we have a population of students and families at Walker who are looking for that thing that elective option I've discussed a little bit about our community feedback one thing I've heard loud and clear is that our students want more choice I hear it from
053our students on a day-to-day basis I heard it from our students when we made visits to every fourth-grade classroom within our school division and I heard from our parents as we talked about requests for more things more wonderful ways that our students can learn in our school right now as I've told you every student at Walker has one elective option one forty six minute period in their day every other day to do something other than Core education this is an opportunity to give a child every single day an opportunity to get into an exploratory elective program that allows them to do something other than literacy and numeracy something other than reading math science and social studies as a way to ignite the fire inside of our students now we did not explore a litany of
054elective options in this division I was fortunate to have dr. shields and his expertise we know we have an amazing program here in the signal lab we know that Beaufort has the Alpha lab and a walker we have the Delta lab but that I stem program is an integrated program within our science and math classes and not an everyday experience to experience them when we surveyed our students about those topics in which they might be interested there was a significantly large response for students who are interested in taking a stem like course and conveniently we have expertise in this division to be able to offer that kind of elective funnily and I've talked about this a few times I'm telling you as the principal of six hundred and fifty eight students that the program of
055studies as it stands right now while wonderful is not meeting the needs of every one of the children within my care and I need other opportunities to light my children absolutely on fire for learning and we believe that a stem class an option to take two electives is the best way that we can do that moving forward this next slide is fairly technical and I'm sorry but as you know sometimes we got to get it all on one page so we start at the top and the yellow section and the current the current state of affairs at Walker is this every student selects one elective those electives come from our Fine Arts program our fine arts program includes art band general music which is a morphing of vocal music and some blue mr. Bryant are
056called off instruments is that correct and orphans permits and orchestra those programs thrive and I expect those student those programs to continue to thrive by now every student in Walker in the fifth grade has Spanish on an every other day scheduled for 30 minutes every other day and every student in sixth grade has it for 46 minutes every other day with the option of completing the course for high school credit for Spanish one as we're looking at looking forward at language we might think about that as an honors option course where a student is sitting in a normal Spanish 6 class a non high school credit class but they have the option to work for a higher level of mastery and demonstrate mastery for high school credit finally as you know all of our students
057are part of the ICM program the proposal for next year is in blue students would select two electives first because we value the Fine Arts in this division every child would be required to continue to take one fine arts elective second a child could continue excuse me a child could elect to do one of the following three options a student could select a second fine arts elective we have a lot of students right now our math teacher excuse me our art teacher teaches 276 children and if I had more seats in that room we'd have 286 296 and there are children who are absolutely waiting in line to get into Miss Peggy's classroom every day because she's an exceptional teacher and I expect that some students may say I want to do Orchestra an art
058and I'll tell you that I'm okay with that however some of our students are going to say I want to take Spanish in fact I think a large number of our children are going to say I want to continue Spanish because those children and their families understand the value of getting a head start but it is a head start on world language instruction so that they can be ahead of the game by the time that gets high school next year at Walker the proposal would be that students in fifth grade could continue to take Spanish five as they do now except it would be an increase to a more the new master schedule for me I would allow them to take a few more minutes of instruction on the other day basis and sixth graders
059would continue to complete the program as they do now in a Spanish explorer 'm with the option of demonstrating mastery of spanish one for high school credit all students would continue to have the I stem program however fifth grade students may select to be in pre-engineering one as an elective sixth grade students may select to be in for engineering two as an elective in both the cases of Spanish and pre-engineering taking it or not taking it in fifth grade neither requires more precludes a student from enrolling in the subsequent course in the sixth grade this is a change in perspective this is allowing elective courses at walker to be exploratory in nature which is to say I tried it out I liked it I want to keep doing it or I tried it out not
060for me I'm ready to try something else at the bottom you'll see a student interest survey that we gave out in the middle of the year and dr. argument I agree with dr. Ogden's comment about some of this is a bit of an unfair choice right now at Walker Spanish comes out of math it's a true statement and many of our students who are struggling in the half may prefer to get extra math instruction actually I don't know how many of you know a lot of 10 11 and 12 year olds most of them are not asking me for extra math class however I think it's what I would in this server must be taking within the context of the current experience of students at Walker so we know that based on I can surmise
061based on these numbers that fine arts will continue to be strong I can surmise based on these numbers that I would have enough enrollment to offer a stem class be it in a full-time or part-time capacity and I expect that Spanish will continue we have some dynamite Spanish teachers at Walker when I'm in our Spanish classrooms our students love it when I'm in our Spanish classrooms they're conjugating irregular verbs there's great work going on in Spanish but not all of our students are interested in that as somebody who is a language arts teacher as someone who is a Spanish teacher I understand and appreciate the liberal arts but as someone who is also an elective teacher I thought home act for a little while it was a blast as somebody was an elective teacher as
062the director of an elective based center and as the principal of Walker I can tell you that we have a large number of students who are looking for another elective option finally if you recall at the last board meeting during which we spoke I've requested that you remove Spanish one from the program of study for Walker after communicating with parents and family members and considering that the honors option program as we have moving forward I think we can include Spanish one again and maintain the current program where sixth graders would be able to complete Spanish one for high school credit should they so choose the reason why I bring this back to you is because we took it out and now we need to put it back in yeah I've been talking a lot that
063was my last slide okay great thank you dr. Hastings thank you yes who would like to start mr. Mickey I need your mic to be on so I'm sure you've thought of this but if you do an engineering two years potentially two years of engineering at Walker those kids are going to be more advanced by the time they get to view for it and so there seems like there needs to be changes at Buford sit in at the same thing with Spanish that if you have kids who currently who don't take Spanish in either year and then they landed at Buford that there might be some needs for changes to that program at Buford so the Spanish one changes are less consequential and that we currently have students who are leaving Walker with with some
064a lot or no Spanish instruction and arriving at Beaufort so students are arriving at Beaufort at level zero all the way up to ready for Spanish to the the stem question is probably more of a concern however keep in mind these are exploratory courses so as exploratory courses it's about giving students exposure to what's going on in those courses there is mastery of tools there is learning of systems but this isn't in a sort of plotting path to obtain credit to sort of eat away at the requirements in high school this is an opportunity to just give exposure and certainly some of our students may end up in Beaufort in the Alpha lab ready with a higher degree of readiness and that is something that Buford will have to consider but these are conversations that
065are going on now between Walker bf written CHS of an alignment about continued alignment Kirk because the issue will be some students some students are that advanced and some won't so some will have taken two years of engineering and some won't and so you just need to continue to meet the higher exit or II guess what he's saying is that they're not necessarily building I get that yeah but but still you're gonna have some kids that are more advanced in engineering than the other ones and so it's not that everybody's going to be going to in two years and so you can goose up the all the classes but that you're going to need to meet different levels at Spanish and I mean in engineering it's the making I think you make a good point
066what we have currently is that we have our goal for our engineering program was to at Beaufort offer an exploratory program in the seventh grade at the seventh grade level in preparation for the students being ready to take engineering one at the eighth grade level and we wanted a program that would speak to the needs of a diverse group of students and although we have some diversity in the engineering program at eighth grade as we've built the program we realize that there's some prerequisites and prerequisite exploratory experiences that would benefit all of our students to have in preparation for going to Beaufort and being ready to go into an engineering program currently we have some likes to do some Brown students in the engineering program but we'd like to build that and we see one
067of the ways that we can build those opportunities for our students is to offer this option at Walker and encourage a very diverse group of students to be a part of this experience to give them the foundation that's necessary in order to be able to perform well in engineering one at eight grade I might add if I may it may be a perspective shift suggesting you need to shift your perspective mr. McKee but that we don't do a lot of learning for the sake of cornering learning for the sake of joy learning for the sake of experience we often think about if I do this then I do that then I do that then I do that and this is an opportunity for for kids just a it's like we don't have to always be
068forward thinking as we're thinking about our experiences this is a time to just roll up our sleeves and get involved in the content and find out is this a place where I can be me as a learner and and well yeah it may put a child ahead of another child when we get to the next level it's not about a race it's about building expertise so that our student can be successful as they pursue their own educational priorities one of the beauties of this is that dr. shields actually developed the program at the high school and worked with Brendan Martin at Beaufort to design the program at Buford so knowing that he's going to be a part of the design of the pre-engineering 1 & 2 gives us a great deal of confidence in the
069continuity of the program and the understanding what we want it will be very much like the bacon program very hands-on very interactive and engaging for our students so right you know it sounds like it'll be a very attractive program what if all the students choose that do you have space for we could yes based on current moment we're and current staffing we can make we can make stem more Spanish or based on these electives would we can make all those work and where is it gonna be in the library's a great question I don't know yet I I wanted to wait until the course was approved before we started moving rooms around my suspicion is that we would put it in the place that's best equipped in our Delta lab is a place it isn't
070as utilized as some of our all-day everyday classrooms mr. Chamberlain may not want to hear me say that out loud but I'm not sure what the place will be yet and what additional equipment do we need we need I think we can rent and we're gonna be we have we were and we're in good stead for that right now I mean I'm sure as we build the program and we're dr. shields and you're one we'll be finding out things that we just don't know but throughout is we we we have a very good eye stem program and we have a very good battery of equipment and tools and resources mr. me may I ask one more question then you're gonna be done with me what the can you describe the ice Tim what what is
071the ice Tim program now how much do the kids get of that during the week so I Sims integrated into our science and math classes predominantly that's what you might expect and it happens on a rotation basis I mean it to some degree varies we have a baseline of the amount of time that they get and it's not time dependent so much as it is project dependent but then we have other classes we have limited arts classes we have Virginia studies classes history classes that also want to think about how stem interacts with their world and they work on interdisciplinary projects I don't know the number of minutes that they get off the top of the head and I don't I don't know that we would even be able to boil it down okay yes
072Brian all right my question is mainly about high school credits because as a student looking at the path can we go back to that slide with the this one yes so I like I loved engineering it was great I did it in eighth grade and then here at the high school but how do we make sure that students who do choose that engineering class can also come out of Walker with an high school credit right because like if you can do Spanish like me as a student who's now a senior I want the high school credit like I don't I don't care about you know exploring because when I get to high school my electives are so limited so where I have to get as many as I can like before I get to high
073school so for me I would of course to use Spanish that route because I can get the high school credit so how can we make sure that our sixth graders still have that option in engineering so from the program design standpoint in year one we're thinking that our current fourth graders and our current fifth graders don't have any experience with an pre-engineering elective so the reality is that next year both fifth graders and six shaders would likely be in a pretty similar class because we'd be in the year 1 of implementation all it's new to all of our students and as a result we'd be developing probably the same experience with some greater depth based on what they're learning in sixth grade math and science but in year one I don't I don't expect that
074we would have anything available for high school credit in year two however I think that we would begin exploring that but developing both years of curriculum concurrently doesn't make a from an effort standpoint doesn't make a whole ton of sense we want to know what the standards are and what the outcomes are for that year to program but develop flushing those out entirely in year one doesn't make well may not be the best usage of our effort because we won't have anybody in that class in the first year great yeah I just was thinking as far as like I mean I got a high school credit with doing a hat one semester and then one full year so I did second semester eighth grade and then ninth grade or something like that and had the
075high school credit so I'm just thinking that how could we make that possible for sixth graders because I mean ensure that engineering you just do Arduino like and I like I mean it's not unless it's changed since I've done it but like we just we build stuff and then we do our do we know and then you get the high school credit so you're actually kind of opening a part of my mind right now I had not thought about and you're one of us considering this for high school credit but it's certainly a worthwhile conversation without the curriculum fully defined at this point I think as we work with dr. shields and dr. Martin Brendan dr. Martin and then our teacher mr. Chamberlain I think we'll get some better clear down thank you Thank You
076mr. mr. Morrison I have a question a question about the Spanish one you ask to reinstate to reinstate their course could you describe me what that what the class is going to look like in regards to diversity I don't know today I know that I go into work I don't know what we look like next year because we haven't asked our students what courses they'd want to take I know that right now I go into our classrooms and even with 40% of our sixth grade no longer taking their classes they're actually still quite diverse we don't know yet how many of our students will obtain Spanish one for high school credit this year it's one of those things kind of like an AP class we don't know who passes the test until they take the
077test based on enrollment this year and in a year different than previous years in which we allowed every single sixth grader to have that experience I expect that the numbers will be higher I don't have an empirical figure for you today I would like to continue that format moving forward next year I will not know until we start getting student course requests as to diversity figures in any of our electives but it's something that we keep front and center the goal here is to give all students access to the thing that makes them want to be at school and frankly I think that by offering additional electives it gives our students a chance all of our students to find that thing that works for them so in developing this course and you already have a
078curriculum terms as I'm putting on my counseling yet I'm trying to visualize sixth-graders taking a Spanish one course for high school credit would that be the same curriculum that they're using here this one so yeah well it's a little bit modified just from a from the fact that our coming back up when we developed Court when the video he develops courses they develop those within the context of the other courses that are offered right so if we develop a high school class when that curtain was developed its developed with the assumption that students are in high school so we make some adjustments to make it perhaps more relevant to sixth graders however the assessments the mastery levels that are expected at the conclusion of the course are the same so what we're what we're seeing
079this year or Walker is that the students all get first instruction but in many cases because even though we don't have seat time requirements in a warrant historically high school courses were built on a one hundred and forty hour framework at Walker students get sixty nine hours of instruction in Spanish so they get about half of their instruction happens in the classroom the other half happens with the support of the teacher but very much independently and so I lost my train of thought that answer your question or am I missing a piece I'm sorry Mr Bryan I kind of lost it also but I guess I'm not against ahead in Spanish as an option but I just I'm just gonna just want to make sure that if it is that it as an option that
080it will be a diverse pool of students taking this course or given that opportunity to take Spanish and also that it is going to be taught as a high school course that it be rigorous just the Spanish one has been a part of the Walker not prior to this he only recommended that we take it out for next year but it has been a part of Walker for a number of years that they earned high school credit in the special our Spanish one class at Walker so we're restoring it instead of just putting it in as a brand new course and we've worked with the Spanish teachers at Walker Spanish teachers that Buford over the years in developing the model that we have in place although we've tweaked that model several times trying to find
081the best balance and where to offer those crap classes the Spanish one class has been offered previously at Walker at sixth grade I would like to to make sure that I am understanding sort of the bigger picture of this issue what you're hearing from students and what we're hearing from parents and how they fit together and so I think what you're saying basically is that students are excited about their fine arts opportunities and they're excited about their the stem opportunities and that they're less excited about Spanish is that accurate based on the percentages that I don't think the student survey is that's just a one-time glimpse in time about what we're seeing on that day we have a we have a lot of students 60% of our of our sixth grade is still in Spanish
082and it's thriving in the spanish program so we have a large number of students who are currently enjoying spanish their teachers are great they love that you can see them as interacting in the classes I'm in those classes all the time and what's going on in their students loving Spanish class so we have that group will tell you that I've visited I went to I missed Greenbrier because one of my children was homesick but I was going to every single other fourth grade class in the city and I got the same two questions first and second from every single class question number one was do I get to bring my Chromebook home and question number two was are we taking Spanish next year really okay so they're engaged in it right nope I should have
083worded that differently do we have to take Spanish next year we have oh oh really do we have to take Spanish well we're hearing a lot from parents who are very very passionate about making sure that their kids have Spanish as part of their development and their academic development and you know they're concerned you know about anything that would diminish the you know the opportunities there yes so this point as it stands would allow for any any student or family who's interested in taking Spanish to continue taking Spanish and they would continue to get STEM enrichment through the I stem program okay I will say that although they're not represented in communications that have come to me recently I think with 60% of our sixth grade families remaining in the Spanish program to a certain
084extent a large number of our sixth grade families have voted with their feet so to speak about not remaining in the program I thought it was required is my question you said it was a required class so it's very confusing to me that children have been opting out students have been opting out how is that possible students and parents come and we evaluate this on a case-by-case basis and they say I do I want to stay in this class or what I would I'd like to get additional math instruction because Spanish currently comes out of our math class yeah the way this program was designed to this year was that students it's a fluid program and students were pulled for math intervention and many of our students have said I really need to work on
085math yeah and actually most surprisingly is I think a large number of the students have come out of our students in the accelerated math program who have said I've made a conscious decision to be in an advanced math pathway and I'm missing out on math time in order to go to Spanish and while Spanish is important I'd rather be in math unfortunately when we have a limited number of minutes and a limited amount of resources at some point people end up having to make choices and this is about giving people more choices will that continue well Spanish continue to be pull out from math no I'm okay so that should remove that problem yes okay and is there anything you're saying that the actual quality of the Spanish program is really great and engaging the
086students is there anything that could be done or should be done to tweak that I hesitate to make much commentary on the quality of the Spanish program k4 our students come to us some of them really enthused about Spanish and we have a range of speakers from can't speak to can't speak and everything in between we're still doing Spanish one and so Spanish one at the end of the day is still numbers and colors and months and greetings and so none of my children unless they're native speakers are coming and are able to speak to me in Spanish we don't have those kind of conversations but I think they're I think they're making growth and what's important I think to keep in mind from our from our current home enter Spanish program is I think
087it's as much about culture and community as it is about language and written and verbal communication thank you I would like to make sure that everybody else has are you deferring so that's right I was just curious historically and I'm not sure if you have this but out of the sixty percent that remain in the Spanish one what is the past's rate or how many get that credit and what historically so I don't have the historical data for current group what I can tell you is that since we started the program in 1314 we've awarded up just over five hundred high school credits in Spanish one however as we look back at that program over the years there has not been a consistent assessment at the end of the course by which students demonstrate mastery
088of Spanish want so if I put on sort of a school accreditation hat we would say that any student who completes a class every student who completes Spanish one mechatronics one Algebra three they all should be going over the same bar to demonstrate mastery of that course historically a walker that has not always been the case and so students have earned spanish one credit probably through great instruction however the assessment that they took at the end of that class was not the assessment that's taken in Spanish one at the high school dr. Hastings this year they will take an assessment yes ma'am thank you I'll get to you yeah I just well it's you know don't is don't have too much to add I just think that this is a a wonderful compromise it's really
089some tough decisions to have to be made whether at the school level where you you know moving around schedules and at home because the parents of my mentees that I talk with they you know I think they're the kind of neutral about foreign language and not that they don't like it but their parents felt that they wanted more time to get help in math and reading and so they just had to make a decision just like you're making with the schedules I think we have to meet our students where they are and we have to make some tough decisions and I think that what you're proposing is a great compromise we you know we after next year we may look at it and see some things we have to change again and we we may
090make those may make some changes but up I'm happy that we can take the Comets that we've had over the last week or so and try to reach a compromise because I've been in this for a long time I know that a lot of times we hear from we don't hear from we just hear in one side when we get letters and things I know that there's other sides that we we don't hear we just can't judge and rule based on just what we get through the email we have to we have to take everything into consideration dr. Hastings I would like to say thank you for understanding the word compromise but more importantly as an administrator of students thank you for allowing our students to have choices and options and thank you for having
091the vision to understand that we all learn differently we all come to the table with different different backgrounds different cultures and that you want every one of your 658 students to feel vested in Walker upper elementary school and I'm faced right now with coming up with some choices and options that I'm calling electives and I don't have 658 students but I want them all to be vested in Upward Bound and to hear that you are willing to take that on because you're the one that still and you're willing to ensure that every child every child in that building is proud of being a walker student means more to me and more to those students than any discussions we're going to have this evening thank you so this is a little bit about the engineering program
092idea but you said like almost 40% of students are opting out of the required class and so I feel like there needs to be some type of examining of the process of opting out of things and in getting to create your own little schedule because I feel like that's how we get the inequity that we have now when people can say oh I don't want to take this I want to get an extra math that's how we get like math geniuses in ninth grade and then students are taking AP AP AP triple AP AP to the fourth so I feel like we need to really think about how our students who aren't as I guess like well versed in our program of study how we can get those parents involved to know that oh your
093child can opt out opt out of a required course it's like I've never heard of such before but I think that that brings back to the point of the program of study that we need to do a little bit better with making sure that parents are absolutely aware of the longer trajectory of what classes look like in the coming years when they're selecting I agree I think that's a very fair comment I think in the updated schedule the opting out process wouldn't exist because the Spanish program currently comes out of a math class students have a place to go however in an updated schedule if they said I don't want my elective I'd I don't have another class for them to go to but I I think has a spot-on comment thank you what miss
094makeva one of the what we're trying to strike in offering the two electives the way the classes will be structured we will have dedicated time for Spanish and dedicated for our pre-engineering class and Spanish will not be a part of math or connected with any other course it will be a standalone and I think that's one of the balances we're trying to strike here with stand alone and it's not married with another subject area and I think that's incredibly important so that will address your comment and your concern that it will not be opting out it's a standalone okay so um I guess the concern I have is multi-layered but first you did mention like because we value Fine Arts we're going to continue to require Fine Arts and I would just like to step
095back and say we value foreign language as well because we know that the evidence supports that foreign language as early as possible supports all sorts of growth academically and personally for children and I just think the evidence is just so clear on that and so I when I became a school board member in 2012 it was it was became very clear to me that Spanish is a value that here in our division we value foreign language and I have fought for the past seven years to improve our Spanish program to make it accessible and engaging and important because I saw how difficult it was for our students to really know how learn Spanish and learn it in a meaningful way start you know the way we have the way we have created the program I
096again I've had two children go through this program I have a current child in the program in second grade so I feel like I can speak from experience I have no problems with the pre engineering class I think it's great I love it I love 80% of what you're saying and I really support the program study change with respect to adding of course the Spanish one but so with the pre-engineering and even the choice but I think it is the first choice like dr. act I can said and I think we have to do a better job of creating curriculum in our foreign language program that supports all of our children and then gauges them in a way that says yes I want to continue to pursue foreign language because it's such an important part
097of being a citizen in our global community I just don't think it's okay to step back from that commitment that we made a decade ago to Spanish and so while I'm comfortable with Spanish not being required I think so that children can have these choices I think we need to do a better job with foreign language so that children so it won't be a false choice that we've set out like you have this option of going to the engineering lab look at all these great computer screens we're like oh let's diagram a sentence and conjugate verbs like and honestly I think it will create further inequities in our division rather than support equity that's my opinion that is not what that is not me as chair that's just my personal opinion I think we need
098to do a better job in our foreign language program and the evidence supports that the earlier and stronger programs that you have with foreign language the better students are overall in in their literacy and numeracy just supportive just like a kid just like our fine arts program does so to that end I would really request two things one is that we split Spanish one and we stop saying Spanish one it's frankly it's not about high school credit to me it is about learning a foreign language and learning how to be a global citizen and I feel like the high school credit is this kind of I would like a Spanish exploratory class what does it mean to be a global citizen and learn a foreign language so but I would like if since we're not
099there yet as a division I think a splitting the Spanish one class into fifth and sixth grade it sounds like that's what we're doing with the pre-engineering we could do that very like Oh Spanish five is superfluous we all know that it's superfluous it is not some place where meaningful learning is happening that supports children going into Spanish one because so many kids are opting out of Spanish one if it was supportive then they wouldn't opt out so split the Spanish one in so that you don't have to do half of your time independently that is how can you say expect that that's absolutely undeveloped mentally appropriate its developmentally inappropriate for children in sixth grade to be doing half of their high school class independently and it's just a lot to ask for our students
100so if we split that up in in their class rather than outside of cost maybe they get a the high school credit maybe they actually get the bug of learning foreign language and what it means to be a global citizen and then maybe also they learn more about their own language and it's just it it it's just that we're creating a whole nother program when we can just really support this program and I'm you know I support your efforts to engage more children in education and thank you for your efforts to do that I just think it's a false choice and I would love to see additional foreign language curriculum examination so that is where I want to emphasize is that what we're is to change on Spanish five and and and then and then
101we can work on the cane or the 1st through 4th grade because that is not engaging our children either as well as it can be so that's all I have to say that was all me personally not as a representative chair yes it's making yeah so I you know it's hard to say having more choices is a worse thing and so you know I think it makes sense to have more choices and you're still offering the same options for kids to take Spanish so I get all that and and and limited time and compromise and all that I it all makes sense but I it is my recollection that that the idea of doing Spanish in Walker part of it was to help kids who have struggled to get advanced diplomas get advanced diplomas and
102I don't know whether that's panned out maybe it hasn't panned out but if you know it was a big part of the idea was that we wanted to push kids forward who don't get advanced diplomas so that they have a better chance to get advanced diplomas and it seems like another part of it was that kids weren't having because of the need for remediation at Buford they weren't having a choice of having electives at Buford and so that this was a way to help free kids up to have elective Buford's and now or maybe they're gonna have fewer electives at at Buford because they won't have had Spanish at Walker I it it feels like I support this and I'm going to vote for it I think because of the compromise thing and more choices
103are good but I do feel like that that spanish program that this is kind of being driven not by the spanish teachers or have gotten together and design what's best for for the kids to learn spanish but it's because of this other good very good reasons of keeping kids engaged and and we have such a strong engineering program and stem is so very important to careers and that kind of thing and and and we ought to continue to push that and all good but it i do feel like that may be assuming we go down this this path that the state spanish team needs to get back together and to reevaluate what we're doing and the best way to do it and whether it's what Ms McKeever suggests or something else whether we need to
104really move towards an immersion program in elementary schools or elsewhere but it seems like that team ought to get back together and and rethink about how to best teach Spanish and move kids forward in that so anyway yes I would agree with you I think one of one of the constraints that since we have implemented our Spanish program our world language program we originally implemented it starting at kindergarten and of course during the downturn of the economy we pulled back from kindergarten and I saw it's at first grade but one of the constraints that we have worked with in the elementary schools and at Walker is our school hours we have implemented the Spanish program in our elementary school and at Walker with the same school hours that we had prior to putting the Spanish
105program in we had same number of hours same number of hours the same number of school hours and there was a discussion when we were putting the program in about extending our school hours and we made the decision not to extend the school hours and to put the program in so we integrated the program with our core areas so the Spanish teaches at the elementary school they do a push in model at the elementary school at Walker we have had hybrid models since the inception of our Spanish program we've had habit models at the at fifth and sixth grade since we've started the program and Spanish one I believe our first year all students took Spanish one at the sixth grade level as we moved it up second year we found out that that was
106not the mark of best model so we went to the hybrid model and our Spanish teachers came back together and tweaked that and I know mrs. McKeever helped us and gave us lots of feedback on that model and we've ended up with the model that we have currently we are seeing more students go into Buford taking Spanish I'm not sure that we see more diverse students taking Spanish at the middle school level would remind everyone that when students get to seventh grade they do have an option what we're doing is starting that option earlier we are not stepping away from our commitment to world languages we think it's very important and I would love to come back to the board and have a discussion about how do we make our elementary program more robust an
107immersion program would be ideal in our school division and having a dedicated time for Spanish in the elementary schools would be certainly a benefit to our students so that would be I'd love to have that discussion next year as we're developing schedules about the Spanish program but we are committed to world language and we are committed to the development of our students we do know the importance and the value of world language but also we know the value of choice for our students and hooking all of our students if I could just add one thing on I'm not coming to you with any suggestion that the Spanish program as it sits now is not of quality and I don't want my students to do that anymore what I'm suggesting to you is that I have
108a group of students in my building that we need to reach in a different way yeah and I think stem is the opportunity to reach those students and to have two quality options for children to really move into secondary education to me is a game-changer for the success of Walker moving forward right yes dr. kramm yeah I support these changes that you're making and I really appreciate the hard fought that's gone into this process I know it hasn't been easy and I'd also appreciate the discussion that we're having and you know it's I wasn't on the board you know when some of these things came up before and I'm thinking that maybe this is the time because we're you know we have our equity lens now more and you know out front so maybe we
109do need to take the foreign language program through that lens and try to understand maybe why that program is not as diverse as we would like you know is there a reason why some students aren't wanting to do that you know can we can we understand this better so you know I would like to do that I would like that process to happen as part of our broader equity efforts but I I think this is a really good compromise and I support it are there any other comments my understanding is that this is an information and action item so what I'm sure dr. Hastings would like to have some clarity moving forward so his students can make choices so I accept any motions I move that we approve the recommended course additions to the Walker
110program of studies to the extent that we have an examination of our world languages program before Beauford for example I would like to include I don't want to necessarily include that in this program of study resolution but I want to ensure that it happens so I'm not sure the best vehicle for that will edit - I'll follow up and we will um we have board retreat coming up we can talk about might be a good time to discuss it okay fantastic okay are there any other questions or comments for dr. Hastings all of those in favor of the changes to the program study aye aye any opposed thank you dr. Hastings thank you Thank You dr. Hastings okay the next item on the agenda is dr. Atkins is going to give us an update on
111the equity committee thank you it's a pleasure to ask Beth Chuck to come up to the podium to give us an overview of where we are now on equity committee and to also include in that presentation some of the areas in which the Black Student Union has raised Beth Chuck we'll cover those in the presentation also thank you well thank you thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight so yes I'm here do you have an update I'm just going to slip through the first thing I want to do I don't think we've ever named the members of the equity committee and so I'm not going to read these names person by person but you'll find that they represent our teachers they represent our administrators they represent the board city employees community members from
112various nonprofits who intersect with our students teachers and you'll also find that they in many cases are folks who learn multiple hats they are alum who also are employees they are alumni who also parents or whatever whatever it might be and they wanted that multiple perspective so that people could bring different strands of thought to this work there are four work teams and they're listed there institutional structures covers things along the lines of how do we work to promote diversity within classrooms how do we maintain consistency from school to school so that parents and students know how to navigate schools and our community and the resources we have at our schools whether they are in the elementary school whether they're at Walker whether they're Buford whether they're at CHS so that's one of those items
113the next team is working on instructional and professional learning that would be making sure that if what what changes do we need to make in how we teach students and how do we equip our teachers to really meet all those different needs the third team is community engagement things like communications partnership looking at how we can really make sure that we're coming maximizing and empowering our chief partners which are the students themselves and their families the last one is is really foundational work with things like an equity policy definitions and metrics so we're asking big questions and really thinking through how what does success look like what our chief goals so that's those are the four teams in italics and this this prohibition is is up on the school board site and we'll put it
114on some of the equity pages on the website as well but in ital except for each work group are the staff members who are the points of contact for each work group you'll notice that there were no student names on that first slide so we have taken pains to make sure that student voice is being included when daniel Fairley was asked to be on this committee he was asked in part because as a liaison to students through mechanisms such as a shell school Youth Council same thing with Erica Cerie all the principals really but primarily Eric Jose as he's worked with students I'm seeing some skepticism at least one students face so this is something we can discuss and you all can discuss but I will also just say that students we have I think
115as with all groups and all stakeholder groups we have provided multiple ways for students to engage on this topic and I've listed some of them there and some of them are student created and that we welcome as well so I think those are some we feel like we would try to reach out for students in addition to that they were about say 12 to 15 other groups in the communities that we were reached out to we went to congregations we went to community centers we held meetings in our schools and I think students were present at virtually always or at least a good number of those so those are some of the ways we've tried to reach out and like I said I hope the posture that we're taking on all this is that we
116do want to listen that we do want to empower our students I think anybody who's been watching CHS and last couple years anybody who's been watching our country in the last couple of years knows that we need to keep students alongside us and listening to student voice and empower students to make changes in the world I the work of the committee just briefly very surprised four big ideas on here this is an advisory committee they will help us review the feedback we're hearing from the community they will help us make some of the foundational decisions about what how exactly we want to measure equity and what what goals are important is it to to compare our local students against national standards is it to erase achievement gaps or opportunity gaps between black and white students
117is it to compare there's lots of different ways of framing this and I want to I need to lean into the community that committee to help us figure out what our approach is going to be that committee is actually each other's work is going to be making recommendations for what they would like to see our efforts go to and hoping as I said they're chiefly guided by the feedback were receiving from the community so we're just looking for a tool to help us make sure that we're listening to the community fully and reflecting the the shared power and the shared expertise of the people inside the building and the people outside the building in the community one final idea on this slide that you'll see later in the presentation too is that we're not looking
118to build a new equity program we're really just hoping to make sure that equity is pervading all of our programs and that we're really using as the lens in an evaluative tool for how we consider our programs and how we make decisions about our programs for foundational ideas that our committee agreed to are here on the slide and I don't know that I need to read every single one of them but one is to embrace discomfort because this is difficult work it's complex work this the next is to consider that we're all in the same team I think that's one thing that so far as we've listened people may have different strategies or different particular ideas about the best ways to move forward but we have very very similar values and goals for this work
119and really even in terms of the bigger ideas about if you look at the minutiae there are differences but if you look at big themes there's incredible commonality in the community and so we all just need to recognize that whether it's someone who's the committee or whether it's a parent at home or whether it was a student in the classroom that were on the same team for prioritizing the needs of our children similarly we're assuming good intention and and related to that we're asking clarifying questions if we seen something that doesn't seem to have good intention so that we can get to the bottom of the matter those are those are ideas that our committee has agreed to but I hope their idea is to that the community as a whole would come alongside with
120the work so far dr. Atkins last month gave a pretty substantive update in her newsletter to the community and also I think she read those and commented on those last month so I won't go into them but I think there are there substantive things that are worth noting in the update other equity updates and commitments again this is just a sampling but the previous slide would be a good start I think our continued rollout of social emotional learning and mental wellness multi-tiered supports in areas of academics behavior mental health attendance last year's new math and writing curricula the new reading curriculum that is under discussion for this year professional learning to support our commitment to unlevel in classes further at CHS and it Buford Walker I'm not going to read this whole list but you
121can see that it's a very substantive list and these are all many of these build on prior year's work but these are all things that we are actively working on right now I saw one might ask with all this effort two slides were fine print right when are we going to see improvement and I don't know I should have mentioned by Colleen Charlie doing as she actually is a member of my own community engagement and this idea these ideas on this particular slide are ones that our group had had an honest conversation about just on Monday is that right I think on Monday so I don't know if Charlene if you care to jump in on these ideas are just all right yeah we do want to just acknowledge some sobering realities that we find
122both in our work here in the schools locally but more importantly these are common themes that communities across the country we can learn lessons from around the country number one there is no magic wands and I'm just going to read word for word here as we review models and practices from peer divisions and national organizations we see signs of hope but we do not find a community where these challenges have been so-called fixed number two there will be no quick fixes equity work is complex and often appears slow-moving critical foundation work may not be easily visible progress will be measured in years not months number three change is hard schools across the state and nation that are committed to equity find themselves criticized both for doing too much and for doing too little and both
123mistakes happen our schools have made mistakes in the past and despite our best efforts we will make more in the future we need to plan now to respond appropriately and to use mistakes as learning opportunities good evening thank you I think in thinking about all of us in the conversations that we're having with the Community Engagement subcommittee of this equity team it's really making connections with some of the other conversations that are also going on throughout the community I think about the one that I just had last night with the universities working committee commissioned by President Ryan and how in having our culminating conversation recognizing the fact that all of these things up here are the major banners at which we need to pay close attention to because you're talking about creating trust and relationship
124building with the community and if they don't trust us because we send them at the wrong message that this is going to happen quickly that that oh we got this kind of thing and we don't acknowledge and be humble with the fact that things are not going to be perfect then it is gonna make this work that I know we all are committed to that much more difficult and so thinking about the trust that we need from the staff the trust that we need from the students the trust that we need from the community is going to require us to be very real with how we approach this work and to encourage and and in fact the Penn expect that everybody is watching everything that we do and so for us to just be ready
125to slap ourselves upside the head with those reality checks that all those things are really important I think that's going to be a really big step and telling the community that the way in which we're approaching this work this time is going to be different that was a big part of the conversation last night because I know all of us especially myself because I've been in this community now almost 30 years and I've been a part of way too many committees that have come together to create to address an issue often in relationship to equity and diversity and then a beautiful report is created and then we stick it up on the shelf and we pat ourselves on the back and say well done until the next thing happens and we can't do that I'm
126tired of doing that and I know our community is tired of us doing that the students who come before us in every capacity in the work that I do the school's out in the community they're tired of it they see it every day and they're trying to tell us look we have to do this differently so I think it is our responsibility to listen to them and and so we've got a lot of folks who are having some very honest conversations under the leadership and guidance of dr. Atkins to make this happen so thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this commute and I know for me my commitment especially as a parent not just as a community member that I want this focus on equity to be different and
127to put us on the right path thank you thank you thank you Charlie so uh again the work of this committee primarily is continued listening it's prioritizing it's evaluating what we're already doing it's recommending next action steps the community priorities we've heard so far I think you all know this process has been more than 15 meetings with staff members with community members with students at schools at community centers at houses of worship that that data it's a big old spreadsheet of data and it's been presented to the committee it's on our website has been up for a couple of weeks now I've four are primarily African American respondents the top five priorities from that exercise way it's no surprise they've been pretty fixed and they've been pretty fixed among virtually every group you know there's
128some variation from group to group but there's a lot of commonality hiring and supporting teachers of color equipping teachers to meet the needs of all students making supports like tutoring easily available promoting student diversity within classrooms supporting and maintaining effective teachers and principals as I say from from group to group there might be some variation all of these players there might be some that pop in and out of a top five I think if you were to look well in another piece to keep in mind when you think about those 32 top priorities they up on the list because they came up over and over again and so when I was at various churches when I was that can you base community centers a common refrain was where do I vote for all of the
129above so just because an idea is listed as number 20 or number 32 on that list doesn't mean that it doesn't have community support but we can't in some ways we are tackling all 42 of those ideas but if we're really going to throw our energy we can't throw our energy into 32 ideas all at once especially because many of those 32 ideas are bad ideas that have a lot of moving pieces even within them I we have heard other community input from groups such as the CHS Black Student Union the n-double-a-cp Education Committee the Charlottesville Youth Council and so that's another piece in many cases that community that that feedback like their feedback that the BSU gave us in the fall was folded into the original 32 ideas other pieces sometimes we've just passed
130it along as a discrete section for the equity committee to review I'd like to just take a moment to look at the ideas from the Black Student Union from they were presented about a week and a half ago this is the first side of - and I'm not going to touch on each one of these right now there is a letter from the school world and from dr. Atkins that is on the website and I don't know so right now I'll give a link in a moment that and that even later tonight I can make it more accessible but for the moment for instance and for people who are looking at this online on the school board website if there's one of these topics that they are particularly interested in what is what have the
131school's been doing around this or what what do the school's think about this idea there's an extended there's a paragraph or two in there spots of the ten ideas the squirrels have been working very actively on each of those ten ideas maybe not in every detail of the time idea but in terms of a larger issue that the ten ideas represent so I don't know if any of you wants to call out a recommendation or ask for a click on any one of those ideas but I'm happy to do that now or to give a little bit of explanation about any of these ideas now or we can just leave it to you to read the letters and to follow up on things later I put a really effective discipline so I we can read
132it from there you know I think the big picture there is that we were happy with some of the work we've done on this suspensions have drafted our schools 80 percent in a decade which is astonishing but the bad news is that it's still disproportionately impacting our low income and our black and brown students so I need the idea of having a disciplinary committee to kind of oversee the work I think that's the kind of thing with this equity committee we'll be making a recommendation for but on the other hand we've been working very vigorously on this issue from the other end the prevention end in many ways and so that's really been where effort has been going with social-emotional learning with positive behaviors with multi-tiered supports and those are the kind of areas that
133we've gotten state and national recognition for I think even I think dr. Kraft was the one who mentioned earlier tonight the mental health first aid program that we you know were one of two schools in Virginia or one of eight schools nationwide to be selected as that pilot it's really reflective of this larger really comprehensive push starting with social-emotional learning in kindergarten on up to mental health first aid in high school to to really be proactive and more positive in the approach so that we're not so we're hopefully not going to be seeing the discipline problems to begin with any others that any other topics that you want to talk about while we're in this presentation I really do appreciate the way you've set it up I think that once we make it more publicly
134available like going through ESP is a challenge so if it's on our website it'll be more accessible but I think it the the list is right there and easy to click on so thank you so much for setting it up like that thank you so this is page 2 of the items and then the last the last slide is really just a link to where you can find it all they're already but also he's got to be down there that I hope convey assembly school divisions posture that we are proud to be a school division that has such a vibrant student leadership we want to listen to not only our students but our staff our parents our community members and honestly listening is I think I hope Charlene would say it's one other ways that
135we hope that this movement will be different than some of the other movements that we've had known school system that we've had in community that we've seen across the state in the nation I hope that we'll be able to maintain that posture so as we had to obtain this presentation I'm going to mention three big ideas but I think are important for us to keep in mind and again I'm just going to go ahead and read from this slide one is that I think if you read through the board and Doctor Who's response to the VSU statement you're going to see that it's an example of how the community's desires and feedback and values are reflective of the board and the staffs goals as well in this in this way in many ways the community's
136input has been affirming of the school's past and current work but that raises a question because under persistent challenges the similarities that we find between what the community asks us to do and what we have been doing really raises the question why aren't we consistently seeing better results as we answer this question together let's remember that these are persistent challenges for our nation and again I wish there were a magic wand where we could say our earthly only difference a little harder a little faster a little better we would make these things go away we can may find isolated pockets where people have led the way and we are certainly trying to learn from them but this is I I just feel like Shirley was saying unless we are keeping it real we're only gonna
137be setting up ourselves and other people for disappointment so view the questions I think the key words under persistent challenge is asking the question if we're working and doing the right things why don't we consistently seeing better results we need to answer this question together at thirty once that's back to the idea that I mentioned at the beginning while new approaches arise and some changes are already being rolled out our intent is not to create a special program called equity or to add one more thing to what we're doing instead the idea is to use equity is there a lens for evaluating and refining all of our programs so this really this question is honestly to some even more for the community than for us but I will ask you also if you have questions
138or feedback or if you want to co-host a discussion the contacts there are for the for me as that is a person who's been facility in the equity community up to this point you may also feel free to reach out to any specific member of that committee in for school specific questions of course there your school principals is a good place to start if our overarching interns I feel you guys are robust the school board or central office admin because I really do believe that we just need to keep listening in pinpointing what where are we missing the mark if we if we're generally speaking on the right Road with some of the intents and the the priorities that the community has asked us to have why what's not right what are we not doing
139right and we're only going to learn that by listening to students by listening to teachers by listening to parents by listening to alum etc thank you so much for all of your work with respect to going to these forums and being a member active member of the committee and also supporting dr. Atkins and me and this effort and I thank you and I would now like to open it up to any questions or comments that the board might have of Beth yes dr. Kraft well I think this is an incredible effort that's being launched by our division and you know it I think it shows a real commitment and a lot of leadership on our part to try to do something comprehensive and real and so what I'm wondering about I mean we're doing all
140this but I think embedded in you know one of the challenges is that what you know we're doing great things but why aren't we having always having the best results it involves the rest of the community so a morning is the city of Charlottesville doing equity work are they is is there a parallel process somehow going on you know because I think you know I'm thinking as we just came through our budget cycle I guess I would like to understand where those issues fit for you know those who have to approve our funding I'm just my name is Charlene is definitely the better person answer this question but I mean they say one quick idea that kind of fits into our group with the community engagement work is a pretty common theme that people submitted
141from the website or at community forums was the idea of community efficacy of having shared goals throughout the community for nonprofits for the city for the schools etc so that is one approach that our working group is exploring in fact I'm going to a conference in May in Chicago on community active efficacy so that's one small piece but I think Charlene there's nobody better equipped to answer that question than charlie thank you so the city is doing mainly two things so there's an internal equity assessment that is happening right now there's a team of people I'm a part of that team that meets on a regular basis trying to figure out what do we need to do with within our departments with city employees with our process better that addresses all of the concerns that
142we have in in terms of expectations of other groups such as the nonprofit's or the different agencies that we deal with so we need to make sure our our house is in order and so that's a conversation that we're having and we're trying to figure out what does that look like how do we measure it how do we make sure that all of our employees just like with a conversation we're having with the the school community how do we make sure we have complete buy-in from folks and and the second way in which we're trying to address the equity issue is looking at some sort of social impact assessment so with the policies and procedures that are put in place you know the decision-making that goes on from the City Council's perspective any of the
143boards and commissions that have a whistle excuse me a responsibility for sending recommendations to City Council for them to address what are those filters that we use to make sure that taken into consideration how those decisions and those policies impact the community and so I think those right now are the two primary ways in which the city is trying to figure out how to address equity concerns from the employee side and from the community side thank you yes let's pray so I found the sobering reality slide to be pretty ironic considering no one's really asking the board to have a magic run I mean I think a sobering reality would be the fact that this is a generational problem so many of the students at CHS have had parents who have gone through CHS who
144have faced the exact same problems so I think that it's giving a bit of a weird illusion to suggest that perhaps we're asking for there to be an overnight turnaround when in fact this conversation has been going on since the 90s the 80s so I want us to be very clear about that another area of concern is the fact that in response to our discipline concerns there is a responsive we won this award and I think that that doesn't quite show parents and other students who are bearing the the bad end of the silic who are being excessively disciplined I don't think they want to hear that we won this award right so I think as far as the tone of the presentation it's very self congratulatory and it's a bit dismissive and so if
145we want to be real since that's what's been on the floor tonight we need to be real about the numbers and be real about the suspensions because BSU didn't just pull that out of thin air and so I think in response it would be more adequate for us to see numbers of how many black and round students are being disciplined those numbers should be kept and if they're not they should be next year and I've been asking for those numbers and I haven't been able to find them so perhaps a foyer needs to happen from many different people in the community so that we can get that information but I just hope that moving forward our response to people bringing very real concerns for it is it we went missing word where things won't change
146overnight or were just one the whole nation because your response can't always be it's a national problem we know that like no one's doubting that but we what we do have control over is our division so if we want to see change we can start with our division that I agreed I don't think anything in this presentation says anything other than we are trying we are working on it also I think if you want to get those numbers they are actually part of a report I think we get in October and so it's certainly available on our ESB and if it's not on ESB then the video e keeps track of that and you know it the thing is is like we're always happy to work to try to get information that you need or
147you want and so I appreciate that that is something that you want and I think we can be happy to get it for you no I think that it's the first time I've heard of it it's not an unusual like I you know the business I'll talk to me I'm sorry it is on on to our ESB we get the report in October and that is where it would be no you have to sorry maybe you should attach those numbers to that slide so that no one has to be confused about where it is III would like to apologize for any further self congratulatory tone that certainly was not the intent I do think on the other hand that we have to acknowledge what we have been doing because I think like I said the
148real crux of this issue is we have been doing work and there on this issue yet we have not consistently seen the results that we want to so we need to - we need to acknowledge what we've done and we always need to keep our eye on where we need to be and that's meant making sure that we're all aware of what's been going on and where we want to go that's I hope the approach that's going to get us further okay thank you and and I appreciate all the comments that have been made and I think one of the areas in which we have highlighted as foundational is going to be this work is it's difficult and I agree with Diana it didn't start today nor yesterday actually it has been a part of
149our country in this community dating back to the first day that Africans were brought to this country and so it's a long-standing systemic issue that we have faced and we're finding that as we go into this work that some of the structures that are in place that we just take for granted that that's the way we do it are structures that have been put in place with the intent many many years ago 50 years ago 100 years ago with the intent to keep the races separate so it is our intent to face these issues head-on it will not be easy we've had a discussion tonight about courses offered at Buford our discussion of our courses offered at Buford is another way in which we're using equity in order to make decisions when we start making
150those type of decisions it will require us to have a great deal of dialogue interaction as we're making those decisions because we are now looking at decision making through a different lens not the way we've always done it but how do we do it in a way in which and make decisions that we can include all students and benefit all students at the same time so that means that we must change and change is not easy and we're going to be having many many discussions over the next few months that will challenge some of our programs some of our practices and help to push us in a direction in which we reassess and adjust so that we can make sure that we're responding to the needs of all of our students it will be a
151long process I'm sorry welcome not beautiful thank you miss per year there are biases we've been talking about implicit biases that we as human beings have one of the other areas that we must start talking about also are the implicit biases that we find in testing I don't think we can leave that out of this conversation was that one of our schools during the week and we had an incredibly beautiful telling example of biases that we find in testing the question it was in a reading passage and this was an Sol question in a reading passage a student a young girl in the passage and I think this was either at the 3rd grade or 4th grade level the young girl lost her shoe so therefore the question was how does she feel that's them
152sure it was more complex than that but the essence of the question is how do you think the girl feels who lost her shoe maybe her name was Mary how do you think Mary feel because she lost her shoe when we went back and disaggregated data to look at which students got that question correct which students got that question incorrect we were very happy to see that all of our students really scratched off the one that really didn't connect the answer that didn't connect to the story however the two most probable answers we found a different story with our students we fell that our students of color our black students answered the question how did the girl feel scared she was afraid our students who are our white students answer to the question who was
153the girl was concerned one was right and one was wrong the answer concerned was right the answer afraid was wrong it depends on your perspective however when the test is being graded there's only one right answer and the perspective on that right answer isn't perspective in which you would be concerned because you have multiple pairs of shoes or we can get another one however from a student's perspective who may only have one pair of shoes and I can tell you that was when I was growing up if that last one of my shoes my answer on that was scared because mom would say you needed to be more responsible and why did you lose that shoe so I think we have to talk about our own personal implicit biases but we cannot leave out the
154biases that we find in standardized testing regardless of the level at which is being tested so thank thank you Beth and thank you everyone Thank You Diana and all of our school board now community the work is hard it will not be quick for what we have dedicated ourselves to is we are going to make changes and I'm proud of the changes that we have made so far and some of the structures that we have put in place I am so excited about the program of study for Walker for next year that represents a lens of equity looking at the courses that we're offering for our students to make sure we engage all students so thank you on to the board thank you to all community for your comments we will continue to work on
155our language program our world language program and strengthen there so that all students can be engaged in that also so thank you very much there is a statement that I'd like to read that we have included in one of our letters and the question is why is equity so important some of us will speak of righting wrongs and some of us will speak of the beauty and the value of diversity as a black woman and a human I invested in justice and I'm inspired by diversity I also focus on dr. Martin Luther King's statement and his reminder that we are all interrelated and tied in a single garment of destiny what happens to one of us will affect all of us the future health and prosperity of charlottesville not just show us real City Schools
156but the entire community depends on all of us all of the members of our community I'm struck by the words that the Australian artist lilo Whitmore Watson expressed on behalf of the Aboriginal community if you could come here to help me you're wasting your time but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together Charlotte's will let us all work together on this issue thank you for your efforts thank you dr. Atkins and thank you mr. Chuck is there any other comments special education annual plan I'm sorry I you are up and I don't know your nature Katrina Katrina I don't want to call you Katrina though okay madam chair members of the board dr. Atkins good evening miss Lee so in your packets you have the
157actual anecdotal pieces of the special education annual plan with the data and the numbers but I wanted to look at this a little bit differently and it's a short slide in this department of special education in student services our 2019 2020 special education and annual plan I'm looking at every learner every day everyone working with all of our students even though we represent the special education department looking at all of our students okay education funding as you can see above is based on our December one child count and how many students we have identified as students with disabilities our allocations are broken down for the next upcoming FY 2008 and personnel services which are teachers instructional assistants to serve our students directly in the schools purchase services which serves to me some of the needs
158of our students who may have interpreting needs who may have needs for other services that we don't provide in the school setting and materials and supplies and other charges to support our students in the classrooms with materials supplies assistant assistive technology devices and other items that are specialized for our students so that is a break down and the next slide this guy captures this with the pictorial view of looking at how those funds are allocated I mean just kind of shows you visually that those four are funds that come into shots well city schools are largely with personnel in our employees and benefits are there any questions benefits is is missing from the apology yes oh okay benefits okay but if it's disappeared so that is employee benefits thank you absolutely any other comments or
159questions miss Li thank you so much is there any other that's just a last slide oracle yeah so this is just an information item this month my understanding is next month you would be coming back for approval of this plan yes will request action next month okay Kirk we bring you back again next month great thank you thank you Miss Lee looking at miss Lee thank you thank you the next item on the agenda is another opportunity for members of the community to make a public comment and so what I would like especially since we haven't had that an opportunity to sign up if you do come up can you say your name slowly and that your address Lily for the record purposes so I'm also it's gonna be limited to three minutes and anybody
160would like to come up and speak for our second public comment dr. Ogden I'm Amy Ogden and my address is 214 camellia Drive I am Nate Ogden amp'd and I have the same address and I just wanted to echo dr. Hastings and his McKeever's comment about how important it is that we show what we value in our curriculum and I want to make it clear that tonight you cut the Spanish requirement and the cultural studies requirement by 1/3 in doing this charts will city schools has fallen further behind Fairfax County which requires five year through fifth grade of foreign language study if not sixth grade it's we've also fallen further behind all of the private schools or nearly all of the private schools in our area who require foreign language study in through their middle
161school or starting in their middle school if that's where they start so I urge you not to lose the commitment that you all express tonight to improve what remains in the 1st through 4th grades by investigating immersion options seriously which is a lot of work how long will work than just keeping the requirements in fifth and sixth grades but go for it and increased innovation and rigor in the spanish program that exists this is important work that needs to be done I strongly agree that foreign language education should be strengthened thank you thank you appreciate y'all coming out are there any other public comments hello everybody my name is Ken horn I actually live in the county but I work in the city and I just wanted to come tonight in support of Santa Bryant
162and the Black Student Union's demands and just to say that you know given the long history of racism and segregation in this community as well as the more recent history of what's been going on the last couple of years since August 12th I know you all or I've been it's been really nice to hear but the way you all talk versus I've been I've been going to the County School Board meetings and they they go a lot differently than this but I know you're all committed to these issues but I just I'm here to support the demands because as people have been saying tonight it really does need to be done differently these things have been you know folks have been trying to address these issues across the nation forever and I think not forever
163but for quite a while and we're not getting the outcomes and results that we need and I think Arabiya has to do with not really addressing the institutional racism that a few of you have mentioned tonight not really addressing what supremacy and the way that it is embedded in all of these systems and that somehow we need to be talking about that with students at a very young age I one of the demands of the black student union that I particularly think is they're all important but one that I really think is especially important is around the african-american history course and the emphasis that should be placed on that for all students to really understand that history and to really understand the history of racism in this country and light supremacy and using the language
164and really talking about it because I know everyone it's true it's hard but we I think we can come out from another angle if yes it's hard but it's so important and what a better society we're going to have when we all you know live these values and and really emphasize them at a young age in the public school system and so I just am here from the county to say that I think this needs to be a county and city effort and I hope that you all continue to take it really seriously and support the students demands thank you thank you mr. Horne is there are there any other comments hi my name is Andrea Massey I'm a city resident I just wanted to thank thank the board for their handling of the threat
165a couple of weeks ago I think that was handled just really really well and I just want to say thank you I'd appreciate it for me and our community and my daughter and all of our residents I want to thank Diana and BSU for organizing the walk out the Monday following and with the list of the ten demands I thought the walkout was so needed and well attended and again I think dr. Atkins I saw you got there and the principal for supporting the students in that effort I thought that made a lot of impact has anyone led the demands tonight were they they were read okay sorry I missed that I was gonna do that they went out of them they were not ready not really loud okay and I know I actually had
166a telephone meeting scheduled with dr. Atkins on the day the threat was made so we haven't gotten back to that but one of my questions was on the equity committees how many I want to know I'm just curious like how many committees there are who was on them can community members come if they're not on them and just listen then to know what's going on and how was the outreach done to make sure students and parents of the communities of color that are affected by the inequities are they on the committee's with a voice that is being listened to the decision-makers I just wanted to to know how to get that information and with this award that has been recently granted to the Charlottesville high school I'm not sure if that was the high school
167or the school district as a whole than the award the mental health or the Lady Gaga thing and that was being sort of integrated and looked at through the lens of equity and making sure that that award is typed in to all the other work that's going on who is running that is there a person being hired for that is it being are we doing everything possible that if someone is running that that that is a person of color who is running that so that was one question so I have a lot of questions than anything else and then I just thank you dr. Atkins for bringing up the testing bias again which I think like as we are looking at the quest program and who is in it I think looking at that testing
168biases I obviously extremely extremely important thank you thank you thank you miss Massey is there any other member of the public who would like to speak okay I'm gonna go back to the board member comments and I'll start on this side of it if Diana miss Bryant those were all great questions raised by like both public comments and I just hope that we can like I was looking at the people on the equity committee and I wonder a lot about the selection process and so I would like to know if those are open meetings and how the outreach is going because I am definitely concerned about that but at any rate I hope that it turns out well thank you and congratulations to you on your decision about your future very excited for you mister
169s again just wanted to thank public comment towards the end of the meeting and the issues that you brought up also again want to thank Charlene green always for your wisdom in the comments that you make agree that listening is a huge piece of this and awareness and acknowledgement that that this has been a long-standing ongoing discussion I hope personally and I feel like this is a time and this is a place where where it can be different it should be different based on on what the city has been faced with and the energy going into this feels different I speak for myself individually that I am committed to doing everything I can to make this feel different and I feel like all of my colleagues and dr. Atkins feel the same way I feel
170like the changes that will be proposed and will be happening maybe small initially and and again through that that different equity lens and that we as a community need to be braced for what that feels like we as a board you know supporting those changes I think communication and discussions and some of these things that may be happening on our not going to be popular to some parts of our community and they may be uncomfortable but I think to really look at racial equity and to address that it requires proactive and continuous work to dismantle this since the systemic oppression the long-standing racism that like dr. Atkins spoke of it's it's embedded in in almost every single system that we are part of and we aren't even aware of it unless we're doing the work
171so I think a lot of people in this community are doing the work and to dismantle it it's it's going to be hard work but you know we need to also be okay with looking at and and I'm gonna speak for myself right now at any subtle biases or racism that that I may have that are creeping up but we need to do this at white privilege that that is within our schools and for years and years and years I mean it is it is part of the system and and we need to do the work and stick together so thank you for for your comments and questions and thank you to everybody for doing all of this work together thank you guys wanna go up a couple of things one is that James and
172I guess we're going to be on a panel next week at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and I think dr. Azaria is going to be on it as well so looking forward to that and the budget the city has approved the budget they've done that so that that's good and I just wanted to be going quickly what Lisa talked about with the university community working group we did meet here maybe a couple of weeks ago because one of the things that we decided to that we say that we would do when we got public input was that we were lat the community to know what the results were so we wanted to have essentially a report and so we met here and talked with those who came and think was about 40 or 50 people
173and and we got some good feedback and one of the things that we heard clearly is that they wanted the effort to move on to president you know course quickly moved and supported a $15 living wage and and Charlene mentioned it but the group met with the President and senior level staff yes last night went much longer than we expected looking to see you know what we can do about the other recommendations that we came up with and we and a lot of discussion this is the same kind of tone that we heard in this room today about institutional racism and ingrained in our society not community and what can we do to overcome that and I think that it will take more than us around this table though zone group is going to take
174a community-wide effort and I think that that you know I've been in this community I wasn't born here but I've been here nearly 30 years and I'm committed to making a difference in it but I feel different about this because it seems to be miss Charlie McGann said is that I've done a lot of committees in the years and and and I think it's more action that we're going to see with this and I really feel but I'm not you know it's going to take more than one committee more more than one recommendations for me to say okay we have we have arrived we have we still have a lot of work to do but I I feel that I don't you know I would want to go into battle with anyone no one else
175around this table because I know that we're we're committed to doing and I've talked with each of your individually we've talked with it as a group I know dr. Atkins is committed and her staff I think that we we can do it and we very involved the youth group you know we're committed and and you know I know that you know that Charlotte's feel we're on the front line I mean it's in my mind maybe I'm just kind of cynical it seemed like every other subdivision in the state can get away with doing anything but we're you know we have to do everything tomorrow and and and we're going to we this is not going to change overnight and I think that as long as we're in the front line and with the bull's eye
176or whatever then I think that you know because a lot of our children they go from district to district a brown student that's discriminated against they don't say okay where's school district you live in where you come from it impacts us all so I think that we really have to you know put some of our resources not just sone city Charlottesville but you know the entire community you know because there are a lot of brown students in album oh there's a lot of brown students in green and and Nelson in other places as well and so I think that we need to look at those districts as well so that we all about all of our brown students can achieve as well thank you mister rape that's prettier I've listened to everything that everyone has
177had to say this evening change is hard and change is difficult but anyone that is in this community that says they're committed then they're going to have to take some very serious hits because you're not going to be the favorite people in the community if you stand for equity I'm going to talk about justice talking about equity because they're various types of justice they're social justice there's food justice this housing justice but I'm talking about equity I don't think anyone around this table takes foreign language lightly I don't think anyone around this table thinks that foreign language is not important but I think what the people around this table feel is that we need to do a better job in instruction for all children one of the things that this country does that has brought
178about a lot of problems has nothing to do with the color of one's skin it has to do with the developmental level of children in general and if you read several studies you'll look at how we in this country instruct math and why children have difficulty often in math and it's not because you can't do math because of your zip code or your skin color it has to do with your brain development and your ability to grasp certain subjects no graphs certain techniques yes and so if we're talking about foreign language being important and we're talking about foreign language immersion what does that look like and what is that going to mean and how are we going to do that I have a friend who is not from this country that is scared to death
179to death of taking the citizenship exam we've gone over the flashcards and oh my lord are there a lot but there are certain things that they're going to have to write and they are afraid if they write it and one cannot read it or it that makes sense or the answer to the question is not the right answer that they will not become a US citizen and I think what the division wants we understand that there's not always a right or wrong but we want our children to be able to perform and it's going to be incremental we will revisit all of the issues that have come up this evening at Walker we will revisit other issues in the other eight buildings because we have nine academic buildings but we also must understand that this
180is a group effort it's not just your your children it's not just the parents and it's not whether you have a child in the division because they've graduated or because you've never had a child in the division there's right and there's wrong and because of the color of some people's skin it has always been right and if you say that you're committed to equity regardless of the color of your skin your socio economics or your zip code you're going to stand up so when these things begin to happen you've got a group of people that are sitting in front of you that are willing to stand up are willing to be called names are willing to be threatened because we believe that that's what your children deserve my question is who else will be standing
181dr. Kraft and how do I follow that I would like to applaud the eloquence of my colleagues fellow board members tonight I don't think that I can really add to that I agree with it and I feel very honored and privileged to be a part of this important process in Charlottesville at this time I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this I wanted to mention one other thing it's sort of connected but we just got done our division just got done with their annual art show and it is a remarkable thing to see the talent of our students and our division from pre-k through 12 and you know I was sitting here thinking that that is a place where I think all children have a chance to shine and the talent
182of all of our children has an opportunity to be expressed so it's something we can look at in our division it's it's just amazing you know you look at this work you don't know you know who's this and who's that and who's privileged and who's poor and who they just make beautiful art and I think it's something that division can be very proud of Thank You mr. Brian I'd like to thank each of all the board members for your birthday greetings and again Zion I'd like to publicly congratulate you on your future endeavors Wow oh yes what somebody reason oh yes also I'd like to thank all of you all who came forward tonight to speak to the board with your concerns and certainly we do not take them lightly and as a board we
183will can we'll continue to forge on as I was sitting here listening to the other board members I was thinking about my journey as a student in this school system I'm going from a segregated school system and as we - an integrated school system and how as a student of color first generation how we were treated and all the inequities that we had to endure but that didn't dampen my my ability to to work hard and to make a difference and as a former educator all of that played a role in how I taught in the classroom in terms of my experiences that I had and I I am so happy a year ago I was appointed to this board and elected to this board in November and I could not think of a better
184place I am so blessed and grateful that we have a superintendent dr. Atkins was leading the charge to ensure along with this board the commitment I could not think of being in a better place committed to ensuring that all of our children in the school system is given a fair shake regardless of their skin color or zip code and I am committed along with the others to ensure that that is going to happen I'm very passionate about it and have been passionate about it for many many years and I can't think of a better place to be than on this board and the commitment that each one of these board members have an ensuring that we want to make that happen and like we say it it's not going to happen overnight but we're going
185to continue to work hard to ensure equity University in a school system for all children mr. Ricky I won't repeat what everybody said but I've been enjoying listening to you and enjoying the energy around this issue both in the community and and the board and the and the staff and it's just really important that we continue to fight and continue to find answers and continue to make changes however uncomfortable they may be and so I look forward to that that's one of the reasons I wanted to get back on the board and I appreciate you all reappointing me so that I had an opportunity to be continuing to be involved in this in this struggle and on those lines not everything's going to be a brass tacks issue but we did have some brass tacks
186items that didn't make the cut in our budget and I hope that maybe at our next meeting we can we talk about if there's a way to define funding for those things because those were some of the critical equity items in the budget didn't didn't make it and I know that there was some talk of some potential different ways to find funding and I hope we can have that conversation it's when I say thank you to the staff and dr. Atkins for their leadership here with respect to our equity discussions and really appreciate the community's input I yeah I've just been really busy month and looking forward to continuing the discussion as we move forward and I really appreciate that parents and community members comments to us I think it's I always appreciate it when
187our community is engaged in the issues you know that we I just appreciate the engagement and so I continue to let us know what concerns you have of course and I will I'll move on from my cut from the board members comments to the superintendent's comments thank you Miss McKeever I'd also like to hand out some thank yous and and and the first one goes to miss McKeever I just appreciate her so much miss McKeever and I meet once a week or more we talk a lot numerous times over the phone and each time that she comes in for us to meet a different board member comes with a miss per year or or miss Tori as a board member comes in with her and we sit and we meet and these are the kinds
188of issues that we talk about and we talk about what the direction that we're going in so thank you mr. McKeever for your leadership and thank you for the great and courageous conversations we've been having lately they are meaningful Thank You mr. Reyes thank you to all the board members also public comment thank you for your comments I worked to mr. horn ken horn thank you for what you've said mr. McKeever miss Perry and I had the pleasure of meeting with representatives from Alba mall today and we are starting to talk about how we might partner around these issues equity is important to both Albemarle and Charlottesville and racism to stop racism in both our school divisions and communities so we are starting to talk now how we might partner together to do that and
189that's really a step forward for us all also with the our equity Committee on our presentation tonight we do have the names of the members of our equity committee and I think miss Massey we're going to be meeting very soon so we can talk about that when we meet thank you so much also thank you and congratulations to miss Bryer she's made her decision I know she's very excited and will continue to talk with her she will be in her group the Youth Council will be presenting to us in May I've met with them and Gretchen Ellis has been meeting with them doing surveys and there's a wealth of information that they have gathered that she'll be bringing to the board in May so thank you for that also on March the 15th we want
190to send a special thank you to some of our school counselors Sarah Hart and dip Ashby they organized a mock interview day for our seniors and some of the division administrators served as interviewers with the students and it was really nice the students came in and practice their interview skills with us and also congratulations and thank you to miss Hart in this Ashba for organizing that into the students thank you for doing a great job on March the 21st and March the 22nd we want to send a special thank you to our community and I'll name some of those community members in just a moment that during the time that our schools were closed due to the internet threat the shadow city school community organized the neighborhood by neighborhood parade to share Pizza snacks books
191games and lots of love to our students it was our principals our teachers our parents the children of our teachers it was every segment of our community represented so if you and thank you to our community members city of promise Piedmont Housing Alliance show us through a police department the city of Charlottesville the Virginia government the Boys & Girls Club of central Virginia and all of the other agencies who donated food or supplies during that time thank you for loving our students and thank you for being a part of helping our community on those days then on March the 25th when our schools reopened here's an example of some of the activity that was going on we had signs outside welcoming our students back as they got off of the bus lots of balloons high
192fives the high school our board members were out in our schools standing at the buses to welcome our students back to school so thank you to everyone for helping our students to know how important they are to us also this week welcome upper elementary school had 5th grade orientation and they deputized 60 peer leaders they were the peer leaders and peer mentors who welcomed the fourth graders to Walker and it was a fun time for everyone so congratulations to all of the Walker peer mentors they did a superb job in welcoming and making our fourth graders feel as if not only is their elementary school their home but Walker is also one of their homes a big congratulations you've heard us talk about in the past of renovations that took place during the summer at
193Clarke we were notified today that Clark elementary school has been selected as the best elementary school renovation project in the Commonwealth of Virginia so congratulations to all of the teams who work to make that renovation happen and thank you to Anna Isley and all of her teachers who so patiently participated in that renovation and patiently waited for everything to get ready for them to open school we really appreciate that also I had the opportunity to attend a luncheon the Global Health Bureau luncheon which was held in one of the hotels downtown and we met with a whole host of representatives from the University of Virginia from the medical community and the educational community to talk about how we might engage with our global community around educational issues and health issues that not only affect other
194countries but in turn affect us so we thank you to that Global Health Bureau the u.s. global leadership coalition I appreciate it being at the luncheon and we'll look forward to working with them our African American Teaching Fellows the executive director was there with us and I'm gonna call her name in just a few minutes Tamara Wilkinson she was there also so we had an opportunity to meet after that meeting to talk about what it might look like if we partnered with the representatives from the University of Virginia with ATF and our school system to perhaps create some opportunities for our teachers to get to better understand other cultures and other issues in those cultures and bring it back into our school as we teach those students so I think that partnership might be beneficial
195for us all and the last shout out is for our University of Virginia congratulations to the men's basketball team national championships national championship and I knows Ayanna was there just cheering them on so congratulations to everyone as a community that basketball team has pulled us together in a way that we really needed to be pulled together so thank you to the basketball team and congratulations to them happy birthday to mr. Bryant and Talia per year her birthday was on April the 2nd thank you thank you mrs. McKeever thank you dr. Atkins we have the work session wrap up now thank you Miss Powell so there was a request to check on an interest in feasibility for a skate Club at CHS to take advantage of the new skate park there's annual energy management report to
196the board that we will put into the rotation look at reporting vocational program participation by race and ethnicity but that would need to exclude the personal finance requirement and examination of world languages program k12 any other okay you didn't miss anything misspelled it makes next month we will be coming to the board for proposed textbook adoptions in reading and in geography and I would just like to let the public know that those books are available for review in the annex lobby all next week and mr. Henderson they are also in the individual elementary schools yes ma'am I noticed Jeanette Avenida was here earlier there's the route celebration coming up and I believe you all got an invitation to that but a number of our own CCS staff will be recognized at that celebration so be
197sure to look out for that invite thank you yeah okay so our upcoming meetings is May 2nd 20 2019 is our next school board meeting at 5 p.m. and I think that's all hmm that's after hearing no objections we stand adjourned