001Mhm. >> The meeting is called to order. And is approval of electronic participation by school board member. I don't think anybody really Mr. Eduby >> Mr. Larry Mr. Larry >> Is there a motion to approve electronic participation? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All right. Would you please call the roll? >> Mr. Barron >> Yes. >> Mr. Allain >> Yes. >> Mr. Conner >> Yes. >> Dr. Gupta >> Yes. [clears throat] >> Mr. Gillio >> Yes. >> Dr. Farmer >> Yes. >> Mr. Poe >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Next one is pledge of allegiance, Mr. Conner. >> Please stand. >> I pledge 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, sir.
002Thank you, Mr. Conner. Next is agenda approval. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Um Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? >> Mr. Barron >> Yes. >> Mr. Allain >> Yes. >> I don't know. Mr. Larry, are you on? >> Let's go to continue and she may join in. >> Mr. Connor. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gupta. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gillio. >> Yes. >> Dr. Farmer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Poe. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> But she's still not there, so next is the chair comment and I yield my time to Dr. Dr. floor is yours. >> Yes. All right, good evening everyone. Um we one of the things that I wanted to do tonight and I recognize that the regular meeting is for not for
0032 weeks away, but wanted to make sure that this was timely. Um with the Easy Glass principal search, we put out a survey and that was one of the things that was conveyed at the last well, the day of the last meeting. We received the survey results. The survey concluded and we received the results [clears throat] on Monday. So, we have pretty quick turnaround. It should go out today or if it hasn't already, but wanted to provide you all with a copy of the Easy Glass principal search survey results. We had Communications team has done a really nice job of just pulling this together and pulling I'm sorry. >> Can you pull it up on the screen? >> Um no, I'm not sure if they can see that. Jonathan, are you able to pull that
004up or Austin, whoever's in the back? It's underneath board comments. I mean chair comments, I apologize. >> [clears throat] >> I apologize that that big >> Oh, no, perfect. I I didn't see it behind me. I wasn't looking. Um but you'll see here and I'm not going to read it all to you, but it gives the total areas of focus overall, total area of focus per group. The respondents, um uh you see we had parents, we had student staff, and community members. And the top areas of overall for focus, of course, the highest percentage was 89% at student experience, 86% safety, 84% staff culture professional development, and 80% career opportunities. And those are the focus areas of focus overall. Um for the single most important issue for the school, based on feedback, the primary issues
005that we should focus on in the next several years are safety and security, discipline and accountability, teacher retention and support, and then academic reputation. Um the feedback from the survey noted that the top strengths of E.C. Glass are the academic opportunities, performing arts and athletics, the diverse community and dedicated faculty. And then, um areas to support Glass's strengths are supporting teachers, um maintaining high expectations and accountability, and then listening to the community. And then, the opportunities for growth that were reflected in the survey were accountability and behavioral standards, academic rigor, um special education and 504 management, and then teacher retention and support. So, those are just sort of the survey pieces overall of that's what we were able to capture from the survey. And like I said, um and I'll be honest, I've been in
006meetings all day, so I have not had an opportunity to check, but I know that um the communications team either sent it out or they're in a position to send it out today, so that we can show the community we did indeed do the survey, and we are sharing those results out. So, that'll go through uh multiple mechanisms to go out to families if it has not done so already. But, just wanted to make sure that um I brought the feedback back to you all, and then when we And this is all taken into account through the process of searching for um for the next principal for E.C. Glass. and our goal is is to have all of this lined up by the end of June. We're not looking to rush this process. We want
007to make [clears throat] sure that we've taken this feedback into consideration and looking at our academic data and behavioral data and looking at everything with making a decision, but we are the goal is by the end of June to have someone in place for next academic year, which would begin July 1st. All right. Any questions? >> Any questions? >> So, is this a new policy approach or is this something that you've done in the past or what have you? >> Well, this is probably one of my earlier um surveys for principal since I've been here. Have I done it past places? Yes. Yes, a survey, but just the nature we've were asked could people give feedback. We didn't want to just meet with certain subsets of the Glass community. We want to make sure we
008gave everybody an opportunity to give some feedback on this as to what the next leader for EC Glass would look like. >> would this be applied to maybe another principal if you have to hire another one, you know, instead? >> Well, that's something we've been talking about. We've been talking about internally about what a process would would look like. It it's We haven't determined that yet. So, I can't say that for sure this time. Literally, Ms. Brown and I were just having that conversation before the meeting started. >> We did the same thing for superintendent search. We have a community [clears throat] feedback. >> So, this will be added to the criteria for hiring a new principal. In theory. >> Yes, because many of the things that were presented that came out in the survey
009were things that we were already looking at in terms of you know, for a a principal for the building. The next principal, yes. But yes, the feedback is always incorporated. >> I like where y'all did the cross section. You just didn't do teachers, you did parents, students, staff. I like that. Everybody. >> Mrs. Lowry. >> Uh no comment. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you, Dr. Nugent. >> Thank you. >> Uh that's a sign of transparency that you are pre-transparent and open in sharing information. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Uh next is uh consent agenda item. Uh is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? >> Mr. Barron. >> [clears throat] >> Yes. >>
010Mr. Alleyne. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lowry. >> Yes. >> Mr. Conner. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gupta. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gillio. >> Yes. >> Dr. Farmer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Poe. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. Next one is achievement gap opportunity data regarding early childhood K through 12 data. >> Yes, so good evening again. Um we wanted to, when I say we, Dr. Davis and I, wanted to make sure that we are capturing the concerns that come forward from the community, concerns um from individual board members, and just questions about where are we when we hear achievement gap, and I think it's been framed differently in terms of opportunity gap for our students. And so, one of the things that we looked at was using more of a during your work sessions,
011and this gives you all an opportunity to look through the data, to discuss, ask questions of us. Um [snorts] we will, of course, always try to answer things to the best of our ability, but even give us some thoughts in terms of what something that we may be missing in looking at the data and what we can do to best support our students. And so with this and response to the concerns about achievement gap or opportunity gap, we're presenting this data over the course of three work sessions. So we're going to chunk it so that we can clearly define what that gap looks like at each grade band level. So tonight you'll see K2, when we move forward you'll see 3-5 and then the third work session you'll see 6-12 because they're different data sets
012that you're going to have to look at data points you'll look at each time, but also I think sometimes as we and and Dr. Davis will get into the data more, but I think sometimes when we look at it, we look at achievement gap as only being a black-white gap, but it may be different at the different bands based on because it's not just race, it could be economics, it could be gender, it could be disabling condition, it could be any one of those things. So we want to make sure that we look at it clearly through each band. And so the frame uh the conversation a little bit more, you will get two additional updates in other work sessions. So tonight it's mostly pre-K through two and looking at those um grade levels. And
013then but the goal is not for us to have every single answer, it's just building a shared understanding of what this data looks like for us and starting to see any patterns or trends that that may formulate there. We are going to ask you some different questions, but one thing to to think about as you go along and please ask your questions cuz this is going to be just a sit and get. We want want to make sure everybody's engaged, but just thinking about your initial thoughts and takeaways as you go through this data um tonight I would appreciate it. So Dr. Davis. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, everyone. Uh again, just to recap, we're going through this pre-K through two. You're going to see some strands where um we'll talk
014through attendance. Um and if you can go ahead and go to the next slide, please. We're going to talk through some attendance and some early identifiers, and then you'll see some scoring and testing that relates to some of this correlational data as we work through. Um, the very first couple of slides we're going to talk through enrollment. Um, and it was really important to frame this to show the enrollment, how that's increased for pre-K. We've been able to open up more classrooms across the division with uh, the Virginia Preschool Initiative. If you hear VPI often, we've been able to offer more classrooms, um, for our two, three, and four-year-old, specific to our three and four-year-olds for services for that pre-K enrollment and program. So, if you notice in 2024-2025, we had over 350 pre-K students
015enrolled, and we still don't have That was still not the total number, um, and will not be the total number of kindergarten, uh, students enrolling in the fall of '26. But, one thing I wanted to highlight, if you notice in that right-hand column, you see that steady increase of economically disadvantaged students who are enrolling in pre-K. Um, our pre-K program covers a couple of different categories. It could be, uh, economically disadvantaged for an identifier. It could be special education students who receive services that fall under that. We have students who receive services that come into our pre-K programs and are not there during the day that we are funding and paying for, um, as well. But, if you notice, there has been a sharp increase in that economically disadvantaged, showing that, um, a approximately three
016quarters of our students are at least economically disadvantaged, but also may receive special education services. Next slide, please. Again, please note kindergarten enrollment. You're going to see some fluctuation there. Um, we are one of the divisions in the area who has maintained, um, or closely maintained our enrollment over the last 5 years. Our 24 and 25 enrollment showing at just over 500 [clears throat] students. Again, noting a few um of the race categories here um because there's been a lot of discussion and want to highlight that those student groups, we're not talking about just race groups when we highlight student groups. Really noticing where our trends and issues um when we're talking about breaking down categorical data, what these trends and issues lead to. So, again, noting that high percentage of economically disadvantaged were in
017the high 60s when we're talking about kindergarten enrollment and noting that these are all of our students throughout the city and throughout the community who are coming in and we're almost sitting at 70% of our students being economically disadvantaged in the city upon kindergarten enrollment. Our first grade data is showing again the same trend, approximately 600 students um through enrollment through um the last 5 years, um fluctuating ever so slightly, but noticing that again that [clears throat] economically disadvantaged trend is above and beyond any other race or subgroup category, sitting at almost 73% um over the last several years and that there has been a fluctuate uh fluctuation, it's been up, um but you notice that we have um drastically increased since the 2021 year. Um if you notice that disparity there, we're sitting at
018almost 73% within the last year of data where we were at um 60% approximately in 2021, so that is a pretty steep uh increase of 13% just within the last 5 years. Our second grade enrollment shows essentially the same thing and when [clears throat] we're talking about the bands when we talk about um gaps and getting into chronic absenteeism here shortly, you'll notice why there is a strong importance of bands [clears throat] of being enrollment as well. Sitting at just over 600 students in this last year and sitting at 67% of economically disadvantaged. Again, far higher than our subgroups of races here. So, when we talk about our enrollment, it is extremely important and we we looked at the data in a couple of different ways, but again, transparency is key and sometimes the hard
019numbers are just the hard numbers. So, when we talk about those attendance totals, we're going essentially from our October dates and showing you where we are and what an early indicator is. So, when we talk about attendance patterns patterns and we hear a lot about chronic absenteeism across the state. Chronic absentee is approximately 10% of absences. That means excused, unexcused, or a suspension. So, uh truancy is defined if it's unexcused, but chronic absenteeism per the state, it does not matter if it's excused or unexcused or a suspension, that lands in the category of chronic absenteeism. At an average of 180 days, 18 days puts us at that 10%, which is chronic absenteeism. Severely chronic, which we have several students in this category as well, is 20%. So, 36 or more days. So, 18 to 35
020is is chronically absent. 36 plus days in a year turns out to be chronic or severely chronic. That's 20% of their time. So, I want you to think about that. I want you to kind of keep that in your mind as we're going through this data, when we're looking at chronic absenteeism and severe chronic absenteeism. >> Can we ask questions later? >> Mhm. >> What's our process of responding to I guess it would be the parent relies on the parent to get the child to school. >> Yes, sir. >> Um we provide bus service um can walk to school. >> Yes, sir. >> So it's So what is our process to enforce enforce attendance? What do we do with How do we get the parents to get their children to school? >> So that's a
021great question and and we can cover this [clears throat] a little bit more in depth too as we continue to go through the chronic absenteeism, but we have truancy teams and absent um attendance coordinators alongside our school counselors, [cough] our social workers in the division, and our administrators that are tracking attendance. So we per the truancy guidelines at 3 5 7 10 [clears throat] those days, we are sending communication for consecutive days we're reaching out to families and saying, "Hey, we haven't seen your kiddo um in a few days. We are doing attendance recovery programs for families to help them get out of chronic absenteeism." But notification begins to go out at the 3-day mark once students are missing school. We work alongside um our court system when we have truancy and um at um
022our I it's called our ITRT teams and they go in alongside the school and the families with our truancy um officers to address that attendance alongside the judge. >> And and I want to add to that. One of the things that we are looking um looking at is, you know, we've talked a lot about the community partnerships and and things like that. That this is an area where we know that we desperately need support in terms of and I know Dr. Davis I'm I'm going to steal his thunder, but I know she's going to go into further [clears throat] in just a little bit because when you think about missing 18 days or 30 days in a school year and we only have 176 days this this calendar year because this academic year because that
023128 and those numbers. What was the date that you pulled that? >> October 1st. Oh, October 1st 28th, March 31st. >> So, so that's a March 31st. And so, you're looking at kids that if I'm, you know, 516 [snorts] kindergarten and 129 of those are at least 18 or more days or somewhere in that range, which is concerning in how much you lose. And so, I recognize absolutely the court system, all of those pieces, but I would love to see where um when we have that community meeting and talk about some of these things to see how the community can help us wrap around and sort of tap because I'm not sure if every parent knows how much you're missing when, you know, how much you miss of instructional time when you missing those days.
024I can't say that, you know, I don't know if they realize just the magnitude of how much time that those kids are missing. And that's early grade, those [clears throat] are critical skills to to miss them. To miss a few days is but to miss 18 [clears throat] days is is critical. >> Just a quick point of clarification. Those percentages are that is that out of current uh number of total days or is that end number of days? >> That's That's kiddos who have already hit chronic absenteeism. >> Correct. I'm saying like 36% of days to date or of the total number of days for the >> The total number of students who are considered chronically absent. >> Oh, I see. I'm saying, okay. >> Yeah, you mentioned Okay. Is she coming in a minute?
025>> Go ahead, um >> I was just saying how much of this chronic well, it it also hurts when students leave school early because their parents want to don't want to wait in the line or they're continually tardy. They're missing whatever the teacher does in the morning and they're also missing whatever the teacher does in the afternoon. So, while that doesn't affect chronic absenteeism, it definitely affects how they do in school if they miss the same subject every time. This is something we talked about in the academic success committee. >> Yeah, I was asking, how do you determine the economically disadvantaged kids? What's the criteria for making that call? >> Our criteria runs through actually our school nutrition and that report is provided to us by the by the information that is collected for um
026essentially the salary, the overall input. So, that's checked off and provided to you us through through our nutrition route. >> Okay. I have a question. >> Yes, sir. >> Is there a way we could perhaps survey parents that that fall into the chronic absenteeism? Um and then I'm also looking at the numbers. It seems like the lower are a little bit higher and as you get up to grade two, um they start to fall. I don't know if that's just um the student numbers uh or whatever, but then that way we can figure out why, you know, a little bit more and see if there certain services they need or, you know, exactly what's what's going on there. >> It's a great observation on the decline. I will tell you that when we get into
027the three through eight, you're not going to see the same There's going to be some fluctuation. So, the answer is yes, we can always do a survey. You will not continue to see the same type of decline when we get into three through eight where it continues to go down. You'll see um particular grade levels are up a little higher and some are down. This just so happened to show um a pretty steep trend from pre-K to with that decline in the number of students who are chronically absent. There's a decline in that, but you won't see the same thing. We've already started to run the numbers for 338, and you won't see the same trends for that. >> I got you. >> But it's a great opportunity to do the survey now because what's
028happening pre-K through two, why aren't you know why are the numbers there? [snorts] >> Right. And and and especially since those early years is so fundamental when it comes to reading and different things of that nature. And I know the smaller kids, you know, they they get sick, they you know, maybe you know, don't want to come to school, whatever the reasons are. And I think that survey helps to figure things out. >> Absolutely. So, I've written down the survey component. And then another thing to note for um I want to bring to you all's attention for pre-K. We just started last year, the state just started counting truancy and absenteeism for pre-K and recording and documenting that as of last year. So, that is fairly new for pre-K as well. So, it was not
029something that was counted against our pre-K students until we uh actually developed that pre-K committee when that information came in for the 2024-2025 school year. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I think that's going to be a major contributor. One of the things I I hear a lot from early childhood professionals is it's sort of the stigma is that this is sort of daycare, you know, you drop them off when you want to and then when you don't want to you don't. And so, there is some of that I think contributing to the numbers we're seeing. And so, having that enforcement in place now, I think should we should see these numbers shift, I think. >> Yes, sir. >> Just uh >> Can I add something? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um I want to um
030feed back off of what Mr. Baron said because I've heard parents say, "Oh, it's just this grade. It'll be fine, you know, they're little." So, I think that is probably the biggest reason why pre-K you have the most kids miss, I'm going to assume because and I base that on experience from just first graders. And that was at Palm and Rome, people would take vacations for a whole week and they'd say, "Well, it's just first grade." So, if pre-K is thought of more of like a daycare and you can say go or not, it doesn't matter. This is probably the mindset behind some of this. >> Thank you, Ms. Salary. Um going back to this just to provide you all a couple more notes here for the chronic absenteeism. This is wonderful discussion and and
031some of the things actually we wanted you all to see when we brought this data uh forward. But, noticing these chronic absenteeism numbers and look at how many students just pre-K through two in our division, when you think of a division that's 7,000 students total, and you look at those numbers and how high they are, and we're sitting over 500 students who are considered at minimum chronically absent in those crucial years, that it that can be very detrimental. When we're talking about chronic absenteeism, say a student misses 18 days, so the bare minimum for chronic absenteeism, what that correlates to is a full quarter, actually a little bit more than a full quarter of a school year. You do that from pre-K, K, one, you've [clears throat] essentially missed an entire school year when we
032talk about review. So, by the time you've stepped foot, you don't even get into second grade. You've at bare minimum of chronic absenteeism, you have missed almost an entire school year. If you talk about severely chronic and you're missing 108 to 110 days a year, you've lost over 300 school days by the time you get to second grade. It is hard. So, when we talk about gaps, we really, really need to pour into beyond what categories say of black and white, and we need to pour into our students for where our true gaps are, and if you're not there, you cannot learn. You're not there, you cannot learn. I asked for a packet to be put in front of you for you to see what our logs, so our learning outcomes and goals, what our
033pacing guide looks like. And we did a did a printout of kindergarten, so you can note how many units, when you're talking about days missed, how many units are missed a kindergarten student for literacy. We know literacy ties across all of our content areas. So for a kindergarten student, maybe they had pre-K, maybe they didn't, but they've missed approximately 18 to 36 days. They've missed three and a half units at minimum. Because of the way high-quality instructional material is built, we talk about spiraling. So spiraling means that I'm going to continue to go back to those foundational skills. I loop back. I loop back. There's nothing for me to loop back to. Think about it as an open stitch. If I never make the knot, there's nothing for me to stitch into. There's no foundation.
034There's no core. So if I leave the stitch open, my attendance is open, I'm not developing foundational skills for that phonological awareness, letter recognition, decoding, encoding. So we're talking about all of these detrimental skills to get to the quality of phonemic awareness where we can read fluently and understand. But we never developed what we needed, which was the core foundation, because of the amount of time we were not sitting in a seat and receiving the information. Early attendance risk is going to begin at pre-K. That could be pre-K, it could be a daycare program. All of those are social skills. So whether a student We're not saying that pre-K is the end all be all. That's not what we're here to say. What we are saying is building healthy soft skills, which are those life
035skills, showing up, being ready, being on time, finishing something. Ms. Lowry alluded to that, finishing the end of your day. Those are the detrimental Those are the important skills when we're talking about being kindergarten ready. It's beyond knowing your numbers. It is being a contributing citizen to your child's education and for the child to be a contributing citizen to their education. Missing again, I I told you the 10%. I think this is something we've all missed and we think, oh well, if they're unexcused, it's a problem. Unexcused is definitely a problem because that leads into truancy. All absences are a problem, whether it's excused, unexcused, or suspension. All of that plays a major piece. So, really here noting attendance as a driver of early achievement gaps, lower attendance in pre-K and kindergarten coincide with critical
036periods of literacy and math development. Again, when we're talking about letter recognition and identification, that is a key contributor to those gaps when we're talking about other content area. Reinforcing absenteeism as the key contributor to achievement gaps, that's your overarching. Then we start to drill down into what other subgroups or student groups look at look at right now. Next slide, please. So, when we talk about where these impacts are and you hear us talk a lot about VALs data and PALs data and why do we do these tests? Well, from up until 2023, so up until the 24-25 school year, we actually gave PALs assessment data. So, that's really difficult to do correlational data across um with this, but wanted to provide you both um because there are some skills. And there was a question
037asked previously, can we compare VALs and PALs? We can, but here's what's important about the Vowels testing data that tested tests on literacy. What's important about Vowels in the transition is that Pals focused on phonological awareness where Vowels is a much more rigorous test and it's going to focus on a broad range of alphabet knowledge, the phonological awareness, your decoding, encoding, oral reading and fluency, passage comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, and processing. So, Vowels covers a lot more. So, you see the decline, it's because there's more tested. Anytime we up rigor, high-quality instruction, you're going to see a slight decline from what was previously tested. There was a much more small subset subset of testing for Pals. And then moving into the 2024-2025 school year, we're testing on more of those literacy skills, which is why we're
038starting to see that climb. So, again, we don't want our kids to be in high risk. We want them to be We want them to be in low risk, no risk actually. >> [laughter] >> But, um even when we note that growth and that movement to medium and low, those are positive indicators that we're moving in the right direction. Please note here though when we pulled this data and you see these, that third bullet there, high poverty, is 65 to 70% of the contributor for this Pals data for absenteeism. Yes, sir. >> What was the >> all that huge jump in high risk low benchmark 2021? Is that You think that was the result of the pandemic? Also, I'm looking at 2019 >> Mhm. >> at 42% in low-risk students. >> Yes. So, that is
039Yes, it's a direct correlate because of that because of COVID. And then we went that year [clears throat] without finalizing that testing. So, there were several months in that went by without that testing without >> That's why we went from 2019 to 2021 so no 2020. >> Mhm. >> God, okay. >> Yeah. All right. >> it was Lowry, come on. >> I did too, that's why I paused. >> Okay. >> Next slide, please. >> No, it's uh Hopetown. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. All right, so again, notice this this VALLS fall data. Again, that 24-25 you see those increased numbers, but a lot more skills and subsets. [clears throat] And when we're talking about reading comprehension, we don't want you to just identify letters. We want there to be true value in what you're doing.
040And at the same time, the VALLS push came from the required um literacy act from Virginia, which also included those high-quality instructional materials. What you're going to see when we get to the back end of the year, is you're going to see um this data begin to change in a positive way, especially for our current kindergarten and first grade students, because all they know now is that high-quality instructional material that aligns to what the expectations are for VALLS and for literacy across the state. So, we're What we see here is grade two regression highlights lack of alignment. >> [clears throat] >> It uh the high risk high risk increase in grade two, so showing that increase while moderate risk dropped sharply. And it indicates a loss of gains from K to 1 and inconsistent instructional
041alignment without HQIM. Because again, specifically that high-quality instructional material aligns with the Virginia Literacy Act, aligns with the VALLS testing. Next slide, please. So, this is our readiness data and the importance of this is this is the fall data. So, when a student transitions from second grade into third grade prior to taking any SOLs. So, we're Yes, we're talking about pre-K through two, but these students who have finished that first chunk of school, those those critical years, you see if they are on track or off track right now. You notice the student groups, but you also notice that high correlation of economically disadvantaged and non- economically disadvantaged. And the fall data points we used were BALs for fall of '25 and iXL for the math portion for fall of '25. Economically disadvantaged is a primary
042driver of all of these achievement gaps. Disparities start to widen significantly in math for students. Our math outcomes are consistently stronger than reading. Let me point out for you also for math when we're talking about K through two, that is prior to us getting into multi-step equations and word problems. So, you're talking about just very concrete math problems, the simplistic math problems where 2 + 2, we maybe a double digit, a 55 + 50, but we're not getting into multi-step equation and word problems at that point. So, there there is a sharp difference, and you may not see that when we get into three and eight uh three through eight as well. So, wanted to point that out as well just in the basis of math. Um data points to literacy as a system-wide need
043with compounding socioeconomic and racial disparities particularly acute in math driving overall achievement gaps indicating a need for targeted instructional and intervention strategies. So, we're not just talking about instruction and what that means. We've got to get kiddos to the table to provide that good quality instruction. Next slide, please. This is just another view of the longitudinal data. So, I won't repeat this, but again, the longitudinal data of what is occurring and how that what the achievement trends are, the more [clears throat] gaps are increased by less attendance. So, even though Mr. Poe brought up a great point, it looks like it's improving at second grade, but by the time I've gotten there, I've potentially missed over 108 days of my of my entire academic career. Early and persistent risk indicates additional and continued risk. Recovery
044without acceleration, we spend all of our time recovery in recovery. So, people are working hard, there's no doubt in that, and when we come to the board and we say our teachers are working hard, they are, but they're working at recovery, not at acceleration because we haven't been able to be proactive. We are very much reactive when we are trying to recover. Inconsistent instructional alignment without alignment of what we're doing at every every building, we have a lot of truant students. So, what I'm learning in one building should be what I'm learning in another, and we should be about at the same point. We have made corrections to that, and we are fully aligned moving into that 2026-2027 school year, and getting off of those Chromebooks, and getting back to actual we're going to flip
045the page and look at a book. >> Amen. >> Yes. >> Yay. >> Predictable subgroup disparities. So, we can we can always point back because one of the easiest things to indicate is a racial group. One of the harder things to indicate becomes a subgroup based on economically disadvantaged, and one of the things that I want to close with before I take any questions, got to realize that a lot of our students are in more than one subgroup. So, while you may see a student who is brown, we've got to see past that. What other factors are indicative of their success? What opportunities are we providing that student? So, let's look past the one subgroup as the state does, and we really have to dial in to say, "Okay, economically disadvantaged from this shows us
046that that is a major area of concern and covers all children." How do we fix that? How do we tackle that as a community? And that requires effort on our behalf. It doesn't necessarily require us training you to tutor, but just helping us get kiddos to school. >> Mhm. Uh um question. Um this >> [clears throat] >> attendance thing. I know we do something real nice for children that have really good attendance. We give them like some type of reward, bikes or something. >> Yes. >> Um is there something we can do for children that say started off that the family started off poorly, we we we intervene, and now there's been a major improvement. How can we give a pat on the back like, "You started off bad, but you haven't missed a day
047in the last, you know, 3 months." You know. Is there something we can do to to pump that up so that so people so a kid that cuz a lot of times I think it it's not always the child's fault. >> Right. Mhm. Absolutely. >> And they want to go to school, but, you know, mom got something going on, dad's got something going on. Is there something we can do when there's a an enter year improvement, >> Yes. >> significant improvement to reward those children at a level, maybe not the same level as a perfect attendance, but at a hey, most improved. >> Yes, and you're right. We've been looking into that, and that was actually I'm not going to put Mr. Poe on the spot, but I kind of am, but that was one
048of his questions when we um last [clears throat] week, and he was just sharing like, "What can we do for attendance and you know, are there incentives and so I took that back and Dr. Davidson and I we said we're going to start. Okay. We're going to start working with the the team to look at what what can we do and with all the community partners and things because you're right. I believe the the bikes are for honor roll academic um success and what can we do to incentivize um those students that are making progress with attendant attendance and that they're doing better and not just hey I have perfect attendance but you know, I've gone from missing 10 days this month to missing 5 days this month. Recognize them [clears throat] all and let
049them know we appreciate you being here and we're happy you're here. So we are looking into that but that was one of the questions he had just asked me last week. >> Thank you for a good presentation. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> This discussion is reminding me of my first year where I read something and I recommended that one of the greatest draws for children to be consistent in their schools is having a great playground and a super playground would be something that would just wow the kids and want them to go to school every day to make sure they get their recess and then behave so that they don't miss their recess to get to that playground. >> [clears throat] >> I haven't thought about it for a long time. Uh what percentage of
050the 3/4 of economically disadvantaged students that we have are scheduled for to receive those special services you mentioned? >> Can you elaborate on what special services you mean? >> You said you said you just said the word special services today. And uh out of the 3/4 of all our children that are economically disadvantaged but you said those qualify for special services. >> So um and I should have been more clear if I was not so I apologize if I was not. Um when we're talking about pre-K enrollment it's either the economically disadvantaged or you're receiving special [clears throat] education or related services for pre-K enrollment. >> Or okay. >> Yeah and it could be a combination of both. We could be economically disadvantaged and receiving special education services for pre-K enrollment. >> Mhm. All right.
051Another thing that [clears throat] just came to mind here is we uh give uh some type of credit to to teachers to go shopping in this warehouse of supplies and whatnot. What if we had an incentive that gave credit to parents to do a similar thing based on attendance. Um the more the student is consistent the student who failed to >> [clears throat] >> be below this 20% uh makes improvements and as they make the improvements the parents earn the credits. Most improved, most improved, and then they uh get to turn those credits in for something tangible. >> I think that's something. We'll we'll make a note of it. >> Yes, I've made a note of this, ma'am. >> Oh, you did? Okay. >> Yes, ma'am, I did. I was writing as you was talking.
052Thank you. >> Um do we have any any record of to when or if they're able to catch up along the way? These students that are sort of out of the loop, can you recover them somewhere along the line? Do they ever catch up? >> I don't know that there's a To be honest, we can close it. We can minimize, but there is no true catch up. Um also, we're going to start tracking data alongside this attendance recovery and see what difference that starts to make for our students who may be chronically absent, but then they start attending after-school programs and were able to recover that. Based on our program, we're going to start tracking that as well, but the more this increases, the larger that gap gets, and then we run out of time
053to recover it. >> Right. So, I I guess you we can see then why kids, you know, cuz if you go to the second, third, fourth grade, and he's not able to do the work, >> Yes. >> then that kid is going to act up and do a lot of silly stuff. Then he has to go before the committee and it's just like a revolving door that, you know. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Um >> I got you. >> I know there used to be like like 21st Century. I don't think they have anything like that anymore, but then I think Title 1 schools had some afterschool program money. What do we have going right now for after, you know, afterschool programs that are funded federally or statewide? >> We still have that
054uh using the federally identified uh grant money that came in alongside the all-in funding that we still have left over. So, um schools have the opportunity to participate. >> every every elementary school has an afterschool program? >> all-in and between all-in and federally identified >> I used to that used to be only the schools that had the 21st Century would have, you know, and the Title 1 schools. Then the schools that didn't fit didn't have it. So, all of our elementaries are doing some type of afterschool program. >> Yes. >> That's good to know. So, >> Question. >> Go ahead. >> For the incentives, the I think it's important that the parents be aware of these incentives, not just to tell the kid that it's important to be at school, but especially for your pre-Kers,
055you're sending something home to the parents to explain all of this maybe in a small packet or pamphlet or or with all of the information as to why a student because simply because they're not even showing up for school or they're showing up tardy or they're leaving early, how it impacts their education. So, I I know we we used to tell students it's important to come to school, but when they're that young, I think that all that information needs to go straight to the parents. Just saying. >> Thank you. >> While you were asking, I have a question before. >> Uh yeah, so Let's see how can I say this? Um So all this data is great and and it's meaningful. Um but then there's always like to move towards the uh qualitative data. Things
056like um class. And when I say that, I mean like, you know, say my mom or dad's a doctor versus some other profession. Um what I've seen just from going to school here myself, it's just um just observing things is you know, the importance of education is going to be going to look different in that household versus another household. So not just economically disadvantaged, but maybe um culturally. Um and I won't say that that that's a disadvantage, but it's just culturally different. >> Mhm. >> Um and upbringing. Um so just thinking back to when I was in elementary school, um there were a lot of, you know, not just the scholastic education, um but education that introduces, you know, maybe a child who's not getting um uh seeing certain things at home to understand the
057importance of why they need to read or why they need to add or or making it more relatable. So what possibly ideas do we have in in in the instruction um to to try to implement that cultural education, um you know, whether it's um you know, showing certain professions and and and making or allowing the opportunity for a certain disadvantaged um population to to see that you know they can be more than maybe what they've seen at home. And and and and applying that into the instruction as well. That way they get that boost. That way they get that okay, now it makes sense to why I need to read and study and and do better. Just a thought. >> It's It's an excellent thought cuz you think about the preparation [clears throat] piece and
058I think sometimes it's like oh we wait till middle school when I know that a lot of our elementary schools are doing the career fairs and things like that. But then I also not a but and and I think even people in the community because you're right you don't know sometimes you don't know what you don't know. You know you you see you know I didn't grow up thinking I'd be in education but I I remember I had teachers that everything about them was wonderful and I didn't know why everything about them was wonderful but I I just did because I I saw something different that I didn't see in my neighborhood. So I I think you're absolutely right we can look at that in terms of how do we expose kids to to more?
059>> Right. >> And then also how many of these community partners cuz we do have a lot of people who want to help and support could show something different and we could kind of weave that into what we're doing every day versus not versus but sort of in addition to the tutoring and other things that people like to do but the Lynchburg is full of full of successful people and when I say successful successful in their own right good at whatever it is that they've chosen to do that those kids can be able to see and be able to emulate. So I I think that's a great idea. >> Yeah, I mean cuz it the truth of the matter is that there's a certain part of our student population that when they go home they
060could be going home and seeing things that just very unfavorable and and and trying to get through that cloudiness is also I would say part of the issue. Um, and you won't see that in the numbers up there, but but that is also a part of this affecting their ability to be successful. >> I grew up in Southern Maryland. A couple of my heroes that came through the school system in their lessons and in this dramas in place were Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Just because I was exposed to those stories much more so than other people in in our history. And it was encouraging. You know, you don't realize it as much at the time. But it just grows on you if you're exposed to different biographies and different successful people that are around
061you alive living or not then they can make a huge difference because you can compare and contrast a potential future and the past with what you're living in an environment with right now. And you can have hope that way. >> One last >> to the literature. >> And we'll move on down there. I know the symptom is the true and see the root cause and the headline becomes the students are not showing up in Lynchburg City Schools. The root cause is more of a community issue beyond the school issue. Am I correct in making that? Right? So, it requires a community involvement may it be family, church whatever you know, we define that to be. So, the headline at the macro level is the schools are not doing their job and the students are not
062showing up. The students as Mr. Connor said, we can provide the bus. But if somebody doesn't bring them to the bus stop we cannot pull their hand out and say come to the bus and sit down. I've seen bus drivers with their lights on waiting for 15, 30 seconds, 45 seconds holding the traffic. And I'm one of them behind in the car, but I said, "Okay, all right." And >> [laughter] >> you know, sometimes on a main road, but they're doing they're being trying patient, but somebody got to bring those kids out. And that's a bigger community affair. And I think somebody pointed out we need to involve that community maybe through churches, provide incentives to these kids to come out, families to do that. >> I love to tag on that because I've I've
063been processing a lot of that with the community. We talk about the community involvement in in what we're doing. >> [snorts] >> I think a lot of times the tendency of communities to come in and go, "Well, hey, we have this money. We'll give it to you if you do this thing." It's like, "We're already doing all these things." And one more thing, you know, and it's like it's not that we don't want to. It's just a lot of times it's a capacity thing. And so I just I I I love to see community members that come up with innovative ways to address some of these issues that don't put an extra burden on the school system cuz it's it's it's unnecessary. There's options. There's an organization in town that does, for example, tackles truancy
064by a program that they enroll. I think they they raise enough money to do like six kids. And they that student it comes in with an adult and both of them have to complete whatever requirements of the program, which involves going up community service, but there's attendance goals there. They have to have gone to school and attended school for a certain amount of time. And if they do that, they get a check. And the student actually hold that money for them in an account they get when they turn 18 years old. So, that's just a unique way that doesn't put anything extra on the school system that addresses and incentivizes kids to to go to school and parents as well cuz that also brought the adult into the equation. So, uh people that are willing
065to innovate to that level I think is really going to help this thing along tremendously. >> Cuz my your matches to me today is that don't be a problem finder, be a solution provider. I have pointed problems to you. Go out and find me solutions, right? Through means of the organizations you run, you know, different all of you are involved in different groups. So, go out there and get us the solutions for mitigating these problems, right? Is that the correct takeaway? >> Can I ask one question? So, just I just curious as to we talk about the pre-K enrollment. Do we see a potential to increase our pre-K enrollment over the next few years to continue to build that foundation? So, right now I think it's about half of what we see in kindergarten enrollment.
066That's also including three and four-year-olds. So, it's not everybody that's enrolled in pre-K immediately goes up to kindergarten the next year. So, I don't know where we are exactly and how our numbers look, but it would be I would love to see our pre-K enrollment start to come closer to our kindergarten enrollment and our capacity increase. >> We would as well. Yes, that would be the goal. And we're looking at some spacing things. We're we're working that out, but we'll definitely bring that back how to increase that. >> They talk about macro and micro. The micro level issue there is the potty >> [laughter] >> Is it what? >> They're not potty trained, right? Teachers are changing diapers. But, it just but that's a good problem to have. These kids are coming in. Mr. Jalil
067had a question. >> Another thing that if if if you [clears throat] didn't have the three through eight data that you mentioned, the trending down from K through two looks like the parents are getting with the program of being better [snorts] able to get their kids to school on time as they go through the years. It just looks like something that's really improvement on the parents' side of things. Whether it's a mom being handling, you know, the little kid better now that they're toddler and working with being a being a wife or being what whatever, all the things that uh work together with having a little family. Um or otherwise, it seems like that's part of it, but >> [clears throat] >> but the the data that you said it doesn't show the that trend
068in third through through eighth so there other things included. Yeah. >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> There's one more thing but it's not coming back to mind after I mentioned that so >> Thank you. Thank you Dr. Midgett. Thank you Dr. Davis. >> Thank you. >> Next to the informational items, discipline committee meeting May 7th at 3:30, finance and facilities May 12th at 3:30, discipline committee May 14th at 3:30, LACR May 19th at 3:30, next school board meeting May 19th at 5:00 p.m. Discipline committee meeting on May 21st at 3:30. Academic success is May 26th at 3:30. And discipline committee meeting on May 28th at 3:30. The reason I'm smiling is I'm looking at Mr. Conner and Mr. Baron and Mr. Paul, you're showing up every week. And people ought to know that you're working 4
0695 6 hours. >> Yeah. >> I'm pointing finger there but Dr. Midgett's >> Dr. Solomon >> Yeah, done but I think looking at her team do 4 5 sometimes 6 hours at a time. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I think everybody appreciates your service along with the board members. >> Thank you Mr. Dupree. Thank you. >> And other than that we get nothing else. Thank you very much. Meeting is adjourned. >> Thank you Lord.