001I keep pushing this. I forgot this is you're ready. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. The time now is 46 p.m. We would like to call our special meeting to order. M. Reals, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Steven Pierce here, >> Mr. Hal Miles, >> Mr. Kenneth Bridget >> here, >> Mr. Corey Tucker >> here, >> Miss Joyce Proctor, Mr. Bernard Lundy, Mr. Adrien Dance >> here. I move that the school board go into close meeting as authorized by section 2.2-3711A one of the code of Virginia for the purpose of discussion or consideration for prospective candidates for employment. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Probably move second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. We're now entering to close. Thank you. motion to come out of close. >> So move. >> Oh,
002that was kind of you on it. Is it Who said so move? >> I said second. >> Who said so move? Okay. as required by section 2.2-3712D of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. A roll call vote will be taken to certify that to the best of each member's knowledge. One, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the act. And two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which closed session was convened or heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session by the board. Prior to the vote, any member of the board who believes that there was a departure from the requirements of one and two as read shall so state the same indicating the substance of the departure that in his or her judgment has
003taken place. Does any board member wish to respond? Hearing no response, I will now take the Freedom of Information Act roll call. Mr. Pierce, >> yes. Mr. Hal Miles. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kenneth Bridget. >> Yes. >> Mr. Corey Tucker. >> Yes. >> Miss Joyce Proctor. Mr. Bernard Lundy. >> Mr. Adrien Dance. >> Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Re. Is >> there any motion, sir? >> No motion from close. Is there a motion to adjourn from closing? >> So move. >> Second. >> Mr. M. All in favor? I oppos. Motion carries. >> Good evening. Once. Good evening. What's testing. Okay. Good evening once again everyone. The time now is 5:17 p.m. and we would like to call our regular meeting to order. Mr. Mario, if you would call the role, please. >> Mr. Steven Pierce,
004>> Mr. Hal Miles, >> here. >> Mr. Kitchen >> here. >> Mr. Corey Tucker >> here. Miss Joyce Proctor, Mr. Bernard Lundy, Mr. Adrien Dance. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. Buros. Board members, we move to 1A, approval of the agenda. There are no corrections. Is there a motion agenda? >> So move. >> Moved by Mr. Miles. Is there a second? Mr. Pierce. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Motion carries. Next, we move to 1B. Moment of silence. Miss Mar, >> we would like to remember the following during the moment of silence. The family of Mr. Mark A. Chamblas, former PCPS employee, and his passing on Monday, May 18, 2026. The family of Miss Sylvia May, former PCPS employee, and her passing on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, and Mr. Kenneth L. Pritchette and family
005and the passing of his cousin and former PCPS employee, Mrs. Wanita Edmunds, on Thursday, May 28, 2026. >> We now have a moment of silence. Thank you. Ask that you would stand next for the pledge of allegiance. Mr. Cheers. >> I pledge allegiance to the >> flag 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. Next, we move to 1 C correspondence. Mios, >> there is no correspondence, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you. 2 A. We'll move next to recognition. 2 A. Miss Brown. >> Thank you, Bo Chair Pritchette and school board members. Um we're excited this afternoon to bring our first recognition. And so, of course, this is the the culmination of our work this year in Petersburg
006City Public Schools as we focus on our board goal, which is to reduce the percentage of students who are chronically absent from school by 3%. And so, as you all remember, um we have been recognizing schools throughout the year. We have been taking the data from last school year 2425 and we have been comparing each month the chronic absenteeism rate. And so we have been really focused with all of our um attendance initiatives and strategies around focusing our work at each schools with our attendance teams with our principles leading this work around working with um teachers and students and parents and all of our initiatives in the work of our attendance task force um supported by Dr. Yasmin Gay, our chief of staff and of course our assistant superintendent of student services, Dr. Tori Manson.
007And so today, of course, May was our final month of school for the 2526 school year. And so each month, we've come to you and we've awarded the traveling trophy. And so, of course, school is over now. So, we want to now talk about the school that will receive the traveling trophy and be able to keep that trophy for a month. um because they reduced the percentage of students the most for the month of May as compared to the 24-25 school year in May. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Yasmin Gay, our chief of staff to tell us who is our winner for May. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Um good afternoon, board chair Pritchard, Vice Chair Tucker, and all of our honorable board members, um our staff members and community. Um just
008reiterating what our superintendent just discussed. Um attendance has definitely been our priority this year. Um I want to briefly talk about our school that won uh for May. Um Pleasant Lane was definitely on our radar this year. Pleasant Lane had highest chronic absenteeism last year in all the division. If you know anything about sport, if you ever heard of a Cinderella story, that's Pleasant Lane. I am so happy uh to celebrate Pleasant Lane for being the winner of May's attendance award. Please come on up, Dr. Rodriguez. I'll also add just briefly um I had an opportunity with others uh Dr. Lee our coordinator of uh family community engagement and others from student support. We joined their meetings periodically and what we learned about Pleasant Lane is that they were able to recalibrate and look at
009data uh to inform their decision- making and that is the outcome of that. So I'll hand it over to Dr. Rodriguez. Congratulations. Good evening, Superintendent Brown and uh Petersburg City Public Board. I'd like to announce also that you may not be aware that uh Pleasant Stain Elementary will exceed the 3% reduction in chronic absentism this year. In our raw numbers that we ran the other day, we are going to be below 40% this school year. Um and that's not we haven't calculated the credit recovery for our approximately 70 students that did after school um tutorial for third through fifth grade and our K through 2 grade that came in the morning. So very proud of the hard work. Of course this is not this is a team effort and we couldn't do it without them.
010So I bought we br bought a couple of members from our team our counselor Miss Carter, our math coach, Mr. Scott. Don't hide back there, Miss Smith. Of course, Petersburg City Public School teacher of the year and part of our attendance team, Miss Smith. And so, and of course, our assistant principal, Mr. Osborne. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Congratulations to the entire Pleasants Lane Elementary School team for your hard work this year because we know that this is not just about a trophy. It's about more kids being in school every day so that we can make sure that they have access to all of the great things that we have in place so that they can exceed our expectations. So, thank you for your focus. Thank you for your work and we can't
011work wait to see what happens next year. Congratulations. Okay, next we'll move to 2B. Thank you board chair Christian pitch and school board members again. So our second recognition of this afternoon is going to be our fully licensed teachers and SO absolutely I love that applause and you should be applauding. You should be giving yourselves a round of applause. Of course at the last board meeting if you remember we recognized teachers who have been working on their certifications or their lensure. You know that one of our goals in Petersburg City Public Schools is to increase the percentage of teachers that are fully licensed. And we know that it takes hard work. It takes focus. And many of you have come into the profession from many different pathways. And so we just want to congratulate you
012today and say thank you for your work because it is hard work. And so we want to bring to the podium um our assistant superintendent of human resources, Dr. Shemica Long Lane so she can call you all up so that we can celebrate you for your hard work and your tenacity to go all the way to get yourselves to be fully licensed on behalf of kids. So thank you so much for your work and Dr. Lane, we can't wait to celebrate them. >> Good evening, board chair, vice chair, members of the board, superintendent, colleagues and community. Tonight I have joining me Miss Kay Curry who came to us in July of 2025 as our HR coordinator who does an extremely amazing, extraordinary, awesome job supporting our teachers and she will be giving them their certificates
013this evening. >> Delane, if I may just add, I want to remind the board and thank them for um approving. If you all remember in our budget from last school year, the 26 budget, we added as one of the positions was a support position to support teachers during the lensure process. This is uh Miss Curry who actually filled that position. So you see it in action and the work that they've been doing to support that work. So I just want to thank you all again for approving that position to help support our teachers along this lensure road. >> Right. So for teachers, if you are present, if you will please come up and stand in the middle so that Miss Curry can give you your certificate and then Chelsea can get your picture. So we'll
014be calling you your name and your school. So Ebony Allen, Petersburg High School. >> Michaela Burrus, Pleasant Lane Elementary School. >> Gabriel Cabillo, Cool Spring Elementary School. Courtney Davis, Vernon Johns Middle School. >> Ariana Dial, Vernon John's Middle School. >> Briana Elder Sewart, Petersburg High School. >> Felicia Farmer, Cool Spring Elementary School. Jayla Gilmore, Pleasant Lane Elementary School. Destiny Hunt, Petersburg High School. James Johnson, Petersburg High School. Joyce Jr., Petersburg High School. Kirstston Kenbach, Vernon Johns Middle School. Sher Lewis, Vernon John's Middle School. Gloria Madrinan, Petersburg High School. Shante Mason, Walnut Hill Elementary School. Eureka Mitchner, Walnut Hill Elementary School. Devanni Parker, Petersburg High School. Kira Patterson, Cool Spring Elementary School. Janelle Perkins, Cool Spring Elementary School. Jada Robinson, Pleasant Lane Elementary School. Jabriel Scott, Pleasant Lane Elementary School. Edward Spratley, Pleasant Lane Elementary School.
015Monica Taylor, Cool Spring Elementary School. Richard Toro, Vernon John Middle School. Jennifer Trimble King, Petersburg High School. Tanner White, Petersburg High School. Sierra Woodson, formerly Hinton Wyatt, West View Early Childcare Elementary Center. Ramonia Wright Pierre Charles, Pleasant Lane Elementary School. and Tayana Zachary from Blandford. Congratulations to all the teachers who have achieved full certification from the Virginia Department of Education during the 2526 school year. We are very proud of you for your hard work and this amazing accomplishment. Thank you, Dr. Lane. If I may, I just want to congratulate the teachers again and I want to call out Miss Farmer. She knows she's walking away. I want to call out Miss Farmer from Cool Spring Elementary School. I just want to put her on the spot really quickly and thank her um on behalf of
016the superintendent's office and the school board for your work, not just with yourself, but as I understand it, you actually brought others along with you. And that's what this is about. Not just us individually, that you also helped other teachers get to certification. I just want to thank you. Thank you, Miss Brown. Congratulations again to all of the teachers. Next board members, we move to 3A, approval of the consent agenda, which includes the approval of the personnel agenda, approval of minutes, and donations received. Mr. Brown, >> thank you, And school board members, uh, approval of personnel agenda. So, it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the final personnel agenda documents dated 63 2026 as provided. 3B. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the minutes of the May 18th,
0172026 student disciplinary hearings meeting, May 20th, 2026 special meeting, and May 20th, 2026 regular meeting as provided. 3C our donations received. If you'll take a look, our donations for the time frame of May 16th through May 31st, 2026. Next slide, please. So, again, here are our divisionwide donations that we've received. We want to thank our our donors for investing in Petersburg City Public Schools. As you can see, we get lots of different things. If you can scroll just back one more. Thank you. lots of different items that have been very supportive our our work around attendance and chronic absenteeism. We've gotten um gift cards and we've gotten items for our students, for our schools, you know, snacks, all types of different um donations and we just appreciate all of our donors each month who give
018to Petersburg City Public Schools. Whether it's um funding, whether it's inind donations, we really appreciate it. And so with that, it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the donations received as provided. >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Brown. Board members, you've heard the recommendation. Is there a motion to accept? >> Move by Mr. M. Sec. Mr. Pierce. All in favor? I >> oppose. Motion carries. Thank you, M. Brown. Next, we move to board members and Miss Brown. Next, we move to four. Superintendent and staff reports 4 A. >> Thank you. Thank you, board chair and school board members. Our first presentation of this afternoon is our summer is a followup to our last schoolboard meetings summer 2026 programming. And so we are bringing back the family engagement team to talk about summer
0192026 which is our a part of our community builders grant that we received through the work of Senator Lasharit Erd. And so we have with us our coordinator of family engagement um Dr. Brandy Lee to come bring us um a update on what we're doing this summer around our builders hub exposure experience. Dr. Lee, >> greetings board chair, vice chair, um superintendent, board members, our audience here and watching home from our virtual audience. Today I'll be presenting the community builders builders hub summer exposure experience. Next slide, please. So today I'll be providing updates specifically on the vision of the program, learning objectives, program structure and highlights, the summer budget, intended impact, and measurement tools. Next slide, please. So the vision for the summer program was to create an 8day immersive experience that had our students
020out in the community experiencing real conversations, being engaged in real experiences while at the same time sharpening their decision-making skills, shoring up some of the way they think about themselves, expanding their social capital, and thinking about their future differently and in some cases more intentionally. And so you see there on the slide it says if they can see it. Oh, can you go back for me real quick please? If they can see it, they can pursue it. And that was really important for us. We didn't want to just bring students together to sit in a classroom and hear about what their future could be. We wanted them to see it. And so that was the vision for this program. Next slide. And so here you see our core learning objectives. And I'll give you a
021second to read through those. As you look over those objectives, um those objectives not only align with the grant requirements around workforce development, around post-secondary pathways, around um social emotional learning and mentorship. Um those those learning objectives also align with our VDOE portrait of a graduate that is also a part of our strategic plan. Next slide, please. So, getting to the good part, the experience highlights. And so, as you may know, um, our summer program has already started. Actually, we started on Monday. And so, so far, you will see from this slide some of the opportunities our students have had been able to engage in. And so, on day one, they engaged in an orientation. They had conversations about their identity. if you know anything about adolescence at this time, who they are is something
022that um many of our young people are still working through. Um so we introduced a vision board project, a future me exercise and I have to be very honest, I was blown away. Our students have really strong opinions about their community. They have really strong opinions about the way they're engaged in school, about the opportunities that are presented after school that connect to their future, about the reaction time of police officers in in the community about mental health and about wellness. They have a lot of opinions, but more so than that, they have really great ideas about potential solutions and the way youth can be involved. And so, you know, being a central office employee staff, I don't always get to work hands-on with students in this way. And I was amazed at the ideas
023that our young people have. So, on day two, um, taking the decision-m even further, we went out into the community with Dime Mentoring. Uh, Mr. Giles with dying mentoring talked to our students not only about entrepreneurship but about decision making about the way to make decisions at home but also in the community so that they can return home safely. Um and really just telling our students the impact of good choices and what happens when they don't make good choices. Today for day three we were joined by Collegiate Connections, another local business. Our students pitched a brand. They engaged in a Shark Tank activity. They made logos for their brand and the logos are amazing. They won gift cards for their their best pitch and they really had the idea to think about how they can
024take an idea and start a business with almost nothing and make it something. And one of the things that stood out for me from that experience is that the presenter shared with them, you don't have to have a lot to start your business, but you do just need to start. And that is where our students were today. Tomorrow, we will be outside um engaging in an outdoor equity activity where our students will be learning um backyard bass fishing because you apparently do not need water to teach students how to fish, literally. and they will be engaged in archery. And the opportunity to bring those kinds of those kinds of opportunities to students in Petersburg who may not otherwise have those experiences is amazing. So, we're really looking forward to that. We've also been told that
025some of our students will be left with fishing rods to be able to move further along um if that is something that they like. So, um that is week one. Next slide, please. So, next week we will be traveling to the Virginia State. Is that what I how we call it? The Virginia State, right? The Virginia State University. We'll be traveling to the Virginia State University where our students will tour. They will also have lunch on campus. Day six, we'll be traveling to People's Federal People's Advantage Federal Credit Union. really excited about this opportunity because our students um CJ really brought me up to speed. Our students will get to tour the bank. They'll talk to the staff. Um they'll learn more about credit and banking. But perhaps the most exciting part is that our
026teens are going to open teen accounts. Um we have invited our parents to join us at the branch. And with the teen accounts, if the teens have $25 to open the the account, then the credit union will match that $25 opening. So, our students will start off um with bank accounts um the opportunity again to create financial literacy and to support financial literacy and lifelong financial goals. Right now, um coming from a a school division, amazing. I'm I am I know I am presented but I am also almost at a loss of words for how impactful um something like this is. And so we know our teen account start at 13. I did get confirmation today that even for our students who are not 13, there are products that even our 12 year olds can
027make use of so that none of our students will be left out of this opportunity. Um, moving forward on day seven, we will have a partner coming in to do mental health and wellness, Thrive Collective, um, to talk about coping skills, stress management. We'll then move out into the community to visit a new business plus HQ. It is a phoneree wellness spot. So, I'm really interested to see how our students navigate that. And then our students will come back and make take-home mental health um, wellness kits that has like fidget spinners and sensory stickers. um essential oil, a book for how to um navigate some of the stresses of teen life. We'll wrap the immersive experience with a trip to the museum to talk more about civic engagement. Again, we want our students to see
028it and believe it. We want them to know that this is not something we're just telling you. We want you to see what it looks like in action. And then on next Friday, we'll culminate with the showcase day. Next slide, please. And so here you see our schedule. Um the students come in, they have arrival and breakfast. We have a community service where we're talking about restorative justice practices. Um sometimes we're talking we're taking incidents and conversations and turning them into real life teachable moments. Like for example today being able to just share with our students how important it is not to drag negative messages to your peers but to adults so that we can ensure everyone is safe and everyone gets home to their parents safely. And so every moment is a teachable moment.
029We then move to our field trip or our exposure experience. We have lunch. Our group comes back. They journal about their day. They do a group debrief and then we work on our project. And even though Dr. Long Lane and Miss Curry didn't call my name today for being a licensed teacher, um I am and I am a teacher at heart. And so our teacher, our students are working on a project. So imagine if this is a big poster trifold. It is their future me. And there are parts of each part of the panel that speak to who who am I? What are the decisions I'm making? How does it connect to my future? What are my future goals? and they will finish this project by writing a letter to themselves reminding them of what
030they experienced, what they said they would do. And then we will mail these off at the beginning of the school year so that even though the students are no longer in our program, they don't lose sight of what it is this program um has hopefully done for them. Next slide, please. So, here you see a budget overview. This is a um approximate budget at this time. Um, I will tell you that our students love to eat. Um, they they bring their appetites and one of the things that we noticed is that in addition to feeding them during um our summer program, this is something that we may need to continue to do on a bi-weekly basis until school starts back up. Um and so here you see uh total allocated budget but I would say
031say it is slightly tentative could go up a little bit more but I will of course bring that back to the board in our September presentation. Next slide please. So here we have our intended impact and measurement. And so you can see that in terms of impact we want students to think differently about their future. We want them to be able to identify at least two career interests to increase their confidence, to increase their decision-making and conflict resolution skills. We also want them to experience expanded social capital through relationships with professionals and mentors. How will we know whether or not we've done that? Well, absolutely looking at our attendance data. We're monitoring any behavioral infractions and we are looking at pre and post survey data. and I had the opportunity to look at some of
032that data before coming here and I would won't share every question but I'll share some of the questions that we ask our young people. One of the questions is I believe I have a bright future. I can name at least one career or career pathway I am interested in exploring. I understand how my daily choices can impact my future. I know healthy ways to manage stress, anger, and difficult emotions. And lastly, I feel comfortable asking trusted adults for support when I need help. And I am sad to say that we have students who don't feel sure about some of these things, which is why again why again important uh programs such as this are so important. And so we'll of course give our students a post survey and then we will use qualitative data as
033well for students to be able to share out about the program. We do realize that while we will be collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, we may not be able to see all of the results of this experience um just in a two-e session. We are planting seeds in our young people and we believe the value of the opportunity to expose the students to these experiences um that it is valuable and and an important part of the larger system of support. Next slide. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Lee. Any questions from board members? Mr. Miles. So, we have rising well, they're se rising seventh and eighth graders. And then we had three ninth graders who I guess parents signed them up as eighth graders who we did not turn away. Yes, they meet the requirements.
034So, we have a we have a couple of 12 year olds, but they will also be able to benefit from the other product. >> Sure. We have 16 students participating this summer. >> You couldn't hear me? Okay. I'm sorry. >> Okay. So, you had 16 >> participating. >> That's a good That's a good number. So, you was able to use the wave bus to take them around? So, we use, you know, the way the way bus is set up, they can't like get on it and just like ride around, but we have PCPS transportation. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. Good. Good job. U one thing I would like to contribute >> um um one thing is um to help not just the students, but the whole staff, every everyone. We
035um we we got away from teaching Petersburg history years ago when they integrated. There's a lot of great things to know about the graduates of Petersburg High and the things that took place in Petersburg and a lot of thing. I had the opportunity with Martin uh Dr. Martinez and Dr. Gay. Uh we visit a few places the other day and uh we didn't get to the house that Martin Luther King stayed in, but we got to visit the cemetery and different things like that in the park and and passed out some flyers. They had a fly on some of the great things that took place in Petersburg. Black Peasburg was the first city 10 years before they approved Mon King holiday. We approved it as a paid holiday. >> Okay. >> The first black mayor
036graduate of Peasburg City Public School, Hermaine uh Font Laoy, the first black mayor in the Commonwealth of Virginia is a graduate of Peasburg City Public School. We have so many first the communities. The first black town in the south that was actually a town was started in Petersburg. So when these kids come here and Petersburg first black high school, but the thing is is that when they come to Petersburg, they're standing on and going through these schools. They they they on hologram and we got to teach them where they are so we can help raise their self-esteem about where they are because we have so many greats that came through here um um US judges, generals, um um on the president on on um president of United States cabinet members that had came through Petersburg
037City Public Schools and people don't know that we had u had a mayor even though it way long time ago. That was Cameron Foundation. That was a mayor born and raised in Petersburg became um the governor of Virginia. So those type of things we have a lot of stuff that we can teach these kids that Petersburg public schools always have produced outstanding graduates and they are outstanding graduates also, but they got to go out there and make their way in the world. But we got away from teaching Petersburg history when they integrated the school and they did it because they wanted us to teach Virginia Virginia history. I don't even know if they teach Virginia history the way they used to because they try to make it global. I mean nationwide >> and that everybody
038would learn the same thing because of these tests that they want to compare each local by. But you cannot compare Petersburg to anywhere else in this country because we had so many firsts. And the and the thing is is that somewhere down the line, even though it's outside the curriculum like what you're doing, we got to teach them who they are and where they are so we can raise them up because um I'm I'm I'm telling you that Peace Pride got to come back in order of us to achieve what we want to achieve. And we got to get them to be able to socialize with each other in a wellness type environment, >> you know. So So >> I I I I commend what you're doing, but we got so much more work to
039do. >> Thank you, Mr. Miles, for that. And so what I think I'm hearing is that you are volunteer maybe to come and speak is in the Absolutely. I will volunteer in Thank you so much. I think that's important. So I appreciate that. >> Yeah, I will volunteer. >> You and I like to start with the staff where we can go around and the staff can learn all the things that had taken place here so we can >> help you feel better about where you are and what you're dealing with. So we can do some tours if you like that. Would y'all like that? >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. M. Miss Tucker. >> I do. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um why I know u because this is a lot
040of great information and I actually I was telling Mr. Pritchette earlier I got a chance to go and meet with the kids today. Um, I cannot wait for them to be able to come and sit in a board meeting. I am excited. Um, because they are literally the next generation. And when I say um, just their brains alone, they are so intelligent. Um, and the questions that they have and their awareness to the community and their awareness to the things that are going on in their community and in the schools. Um, it's it's simply amazing. And, you know, I told them the day before I left, I said, you know, I just want you all to know that you all have a seat at this table as well. And so, I think that is important.
041And I think with all the things that are being offered to them, um just giving them that extra reassurance that they have a voice at the table, um I just want to say thank you for all that you and your staff do. Um you know, and ensuring that they have all that they need. I did want to ask a question though. I did read an article about um Roy. I know they're the other schools, the Pal School. Can you give us a little bit of the collaboration between um Petersburg City Public Schools and the the Royal Oak community when it comes to the community builders? >> Yes, absolutely. So, I do want to first thank you board um Vice Chair Tucker for coming and speaking with our kids and I also want to take this
042opportunity to shout out Miss Janesca Jefferson, Miss Ebony Patterson, and Miss Crystal McDaniel because that is the team supporting me in leading this work. I do not do this work alone. To answer your question specifically, um, Rowan Oak wrote the draft that became the legislation. So, one day they were asked, "Hey, put something together and what they put together became the legislation." Um, when it went back before the general assembly, they were chosen as the demonstration site. Even with Rowan Oak being chosen as the demonstration site, Rowan Oak leans on us to be able to support what it is they're doing. So we have been asked to be part of their demonstration process. Um we we get on calls, we we share ideas. Um and so even though they are the site, we are still
043a part of the demonstration process. And that was at the request of Rowan Oak. Um and even meeting with uh Virginia Department of Education education just this morning, they are very pleased with the robust program that we have put together for our young people and again reiterated the importance of Petersburg being a part of that demonstration pro process. And so I know that maybe the way the article was written um highlights Rowan Oak in that way, but it does not at all um diminish the role that Petersburg will play in this process moving forward. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, Dr. Lee. You appreciate you. >> Thank you. Next, we'll move to 4B. >> Thank you, Bo Pritchette and school board members. This afternoon, we have our second presentation, which will
044be an update for the board on our 2026 2027 plans for our elementary athletics pipeline program update that will be given by our athletic director, uh, Mr. Bill Lawson, and with support and presentation from our assistant athletic director, uh, Mr. Tyrell White. Good evening, Chair Pritchard, Vice Chair, Superintendent, school board members. Uh I come to you all tonight to and myself, Coach White. Uh tonight to talk about something new for us. Uh we are building youth sports for from the ground up starting in our elementary schools. We'll keep this short tonight and we'll uh tell us tell you all a little bit about our first year of elementary sports. Good evening everyone. Tonight we're going to our plan for tonight is to explain to you why we start in elementary. Then what we actually did
045this year and who helped us pull it off, what the members say, what where we still come up short and what comes next. And we will move quickly while doing this idea here. You build a strong program from the bottom up, not the top down. We start with our youngest kids. Four rules. Every kid who wants to play plays no plays no cuts. Uh we teach the basics first. No fees and no barriers to entry. Safety in every event. The key playing in elementary today is your varsity players and your college players tomorrow. Here is what we ran this year. A flag football day in November. Three of our four schools came out. A basketball day in April. All four of our schools showed up. We had a track meet set for May, but state
046testing knocked it out. Only two schools could make it. So, we pulled it off. We We didn't pull it off. One more thing, our high school boys and girls went into every elementary school and read with the kids for Read Across America. The little ones loved it. Slide five. In full transparency, we do not have the staff or the budget to do this big on our own. Not yet. So, we lean on partners Virginia State uh who brought their lacrosse team to our school and gave clinics, parks and recreation, share fields and gyms with us. Our communication team gets the word out. None of that cost us money. That is how year one happened. About 188 kids took part across the two events, including players and cheer. We grew from three schools to all four
047schools. We were aiming for 250 kids and we came up short. That was due because we cancelled the track meet which we would have exceeded to 250. Our girls came out strong and cheer but were light in actual sports about five per school. We had zero safety problems. These numbers tell us exactly what we need to fix for next year. I want to be honest with you, the board and our community. We do not have the people, the money, or the infrastructure to run large year round youth sports right now. So, year one is intensely small. We run clinics and one-day events, not full leagues. We lean on our partners, our coaches and staff are stretched thin. This is a starting point, not a finishing product. We want to be transparent so we build it
048right achieving realistic goals. Here's the plan for the road ahead. Get the track me back on and away from testing week. Add more sports over time. build real teams for our girls, not just cheer. Bring in more partners and connect the dots from elementary through middle school to high school. We will use this year's number to show show you what we need. The goal is not just varsity jersey. It is for kids who are eligible to be eligible and ready for college and that starts in elementary. >> Thank you. So, thank you um Coach Lawson and um Coach White. Before you end, I just want to make sure that everybody in the audience and everyone listening kind of understands this presentation. Thank you all. And so, if you all remember last year, Petersburg City Public
049Schools added an additional position, which is um we're glad to have Coach White here as our assistant athletic director. And so, we needed that role. We're excited that Coach White decided to come back home and come serve in that role, as well as the um high school basketball coach. And so one a part of that vision um was that we would begin to start building a pipeline of sports from students starting in elementary school to middle school to high school because we want our flagship school which is Petersburg High School to have students participating in robust teams that will help with attendance, chronic absenteeism, academics. That was the goal. And so tonight's presentation is an update for the board to understand where we've been for a full year now that we've gotten coach White on
050board. We have the position in place, thinking things that he's learned over the first year with co with um coach Lawson, kind of what they've understood and what you learn because the first year is all about looking at an assessment. What do you need? What have we done? Where have we been? And so both Coach White and Coach Lawson um have been in Petersburg at different times, at the same time, but for years, and understand what it once looked like. And so now we're trying to move into the future and building that pipeline from elementary to middle to high school. And so, thank you all for your um initial work. I know that we still have a road to go as we build the program because it didn't happen in one year, but this is
051um a start of reflection. So, I just want to make sure that everybody in the audience and everybody listening understands that this was a part of the bigger plan for us to build a pipeline because at the end of it all, we want to have a robust um robust high school programs with our little uh youngest learners being excited about being involved in at a minimum athletics um as a start. And so with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Coach Lawson and Coach White. We're basically our presentation, but so we're definitely welcome any questions, comments, or concerns. >> Thank you, Coach Lawson. >> Is that you? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you, Coach Lawson and Coach White. >> Go ahead, Miss Smiles. >> Yes. Um um good presentation, good start to the program.
052Um, I have a suggestion because um, when I was in elementary school in Petersburg, we competed against all the different elementary schools and our PE teacher was the one that put those teams together to compete against each other. And we played um, uh, different grade levels and basketball and baseball and softball and and they put and they from the U PE president physical fitness test, he selected the kids that was going to go to the track meet and they uh competed in a citywide track meet the 1 of May. Um and uh those PE teachers played a very pivotal role in in um teaching us how to play as a team, teaching us how to the the sportsmanship. We just didn't go out for uh recess. we was out there actually playing games that was
053um team games and individual games where we could develop and do the things that you're trying to do right now. So those PE teachers was obligated to teach us and put those teams together. We had a team for each grade level, but only the older grades were the ones that competed against the um different schools. And then in the um and then in the track meet they had all grades levels you know where they go out there according to their age what year they was born just like AEU they born in that year they competed against each other people for the year but we got to get the PE teachers involved if you want to develop an elementary school program it has to be in the PE program. So they have to be the ones
054that's saying, "Hey, who's who and who can do what?" And they done done this because we I do they still test the kids in PE because that's the way I selected my track team when I coached AU track. I went to the elementary school. They showed me their the the uh pres president of physical fitness and I picked the kids to try out and some of them wanted to run track some of them didn't want to run track but the ones that did took us to a national level because every year I had some to make it to the nationals and place and become all-American age group nine and under 10 11 12 13 >> and actually I I remember everything you're talking about because the Dr. progressive heron ran at Virginia State University on
055Saturday that tracked me. My father was a member of Dr. >> We did one there and we did one at Jones Field, >> right? I remember those and actually that's where the my idea came from >> and that's what the way was supposed to run. And when you talk about uh PE teachers back then uh one difference I do want to uh sort of comment on coach Miles back then you had a person in charge of all PE teachers for the division. >> We don't have that now. >> No sir >> because they held them >> the last the last person was when I was teaching Miss Wheaten. Miss Wheat Miss Wheat was the last person that we had as a PE teacher over top of all PE teachers. And so you you like I
056said, I was teaching PE and that was my first year here as a PE teacher. So you're talking about 25 years a No, 27 years ago because I'm getting ready to get out of here in a couple years. So I can remember exactly uh when Miss Wheat was here as the last person over top of all the PE teacher and that's that was the idea to run it through the PE teachers. of first the first uh initial um commitment was from the principles. We had to get the principles on board and for them to because we don't have that PE teacher to relay it to the PE teachers in the school. But but now that we have someone over top of elementary to develop this like the assistant athletic director, would it be possible to
057coordinate that through him? really you really still need uh somebody in the school itself. >> Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. >> You see what I'm saying? Because yeah, we we can get a information out, but if you don't have that initial person inside the school, it's sort of hard from the outside to uh set the standard with the kids in the building. >> Okay. Did Did y'all hear what he suggested? >> There was some wins this year also, too. I want to make sure we highlight those as well. Each home game we we utilized our elementary and middle school kids to be serve as ball boys and towel boys and they actually cleaned the floor when there was a wet spot. They got a chance to get to all the games for free.
058Um they had a chance to go inside the locker rooms. As a result of our elementary basketball tournament, we were able to form a fifth grade Petersburg only travel team. So we that is another highlight and another win that we had as a result of the elementary basketball tournament. So there was some great wins this year as well. Even on today um in our offseason um conditioning, we had elementary and middle school kids participate. They literally they go Monday through Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. We had 26 kids today participate. Elementary through middle school kids as well. >> Free. That's so is it possible for us to create an intramural program just for elementary with the PE teachers because that will help them greatly. >> Well, you know, and that's sort of what we're
059trying to do. But it all takes money. Let's call it spade to spade. Bottom line, >> you know, if we don't if we don't have the funds to run the programs, it's hard for us to work to organize to do it. You know, you have to have the funds. I mean uh I I submitted uh late last night I submitted some information to Dr. Martinez on program for different sports and once I finished tabulating everything and this was on the top of my head. I mean, I went from flag football to basketball to baseball to soccer to uh wrestling. Um all these sports on having just home games and competing within just the schools itself. When you incorporate the amount it costs for equipment, uh, um, uniforms, officials, security, police, the people to run the
060games as far as staffing, I did all this. And when I worked the numbers, you're talking about a quarter of a million dollars for one year. For one year and I still get started. So, you know, the second year will go down. And this is just on the top of my head. I didn't use large numbers because you you just take you you you take some sports. Let's take a high school football team, right? Do you know if for one player from head to toe it costs over $1,000 for one player? And on our varsity, we're almost at 50 players. On our JV, it's 35 or 40, 40, 40. And then on the middle school, it's 35. when you do the math, the money is being spent, you know, and it it it it takes
061money to be able to uh do some of the things, you know, back when you were growing up, when I was growing up, it wasn't as much as it is now. And then you like now, you have to have more security. We can't just run events now with no security. And security is not cheap. Y'all know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, M. I apologize. I apologize. >> Sorry. >> I'm sorry. >> Thank you, Co Lawson. I do want to make sure that I I just want to, you know, because we are when we talk we're talking about money and I know we're bringing up money and we've not had a chance to really dig deep into all of the numbers and better understanding. I think getting a clear understanding on the vision so that we don't
062have our community and everyone in the audience walking away with there is an absolute number. We have it all figured out. I think it's the vision of what we want to see in an elementary program and getting really clear about that and saying that's what it is and then tying what is it going to take to just that because we cannot do it all. And so I just don't want people in the community or anyone else listening to know that hey we've come up with this number like you said quarter of a million all these things and you know that people take that away and they run with it. Um and I know you've dug deep into some numbers just on the surface. We've got to go back and dig deep around first of all
063what is the vision of what we're trying to do. What do we want to accomplish in a pipeline? Because you know in all honesty having all the sports might be lofty right versus starting with one sport two sports and you break it down because people can understand small bits. We're going to Petersburg city public schools we're going to have exin inter murals for elementary school all around basketball all around football all around uh baseball. It doesn't have to be one of the it can be another one and we just focus on that and build from there so that we can go from there. I think and I appreciate the team's work and trying to come up with a number and do all of that. But I think we're going to have to go back to
064the drawing board and just talk about what can we accomplish? What are our plans for year one, year two, year three and be realistic but still be innovative. Right? That's what I would say. So I hear all the numbers um you know we don't have the money. We don't Everybody knows that that that budgets are tight. Everybody knows that. But I think us getting together again to talk about what are we trying to accomplish so that everybody doesn't think we're trying to do five different sports in elementary school all at the same time because that's not doable. And we don't have an endless pot of money, right? But I don't I want people to know we haven't figured it all out yet. That's as honest as I can be. We haven't figured it out. But
065what we do know is we are going to build a pipeline program and we're still working out the details. This is just a first thought and a reflection of what we've done so far. >> Thank you, Mr. Brown. >> Mr. Mr. >> Pierce, >> I think you said it all, Miss Brown. My my com first of all, great presentation. Second of all, we've been talking about this now for several years because we wanted to Well, back in the day, uh, when you guys were, you know, 50 years back, something like that, it was punt, pass, kick. >> I don't know if anybody remembers. >> Yeah. >> But it started somewhere around punt, pass, and kick. And then it developed to one. So, there was an early program back in the day in elementary school. You
066guys picked a lot of your players from those earlier programs. Um I think either coach White or one or two of you called it the bench at one time in earlier conversation, but uh I'm interested as Miss Brown was talking about talking about uh how the budget planning will be for because we actually need it. It was a great It was a great presentation and we actually needed and somehow set up um at when that time comes a work session. So, we're talking about just about that once you get it all together and once it really lands, once it really is hits is the ground because we're going to know we we need to know what it looks like. And the back part of your presentation indicated that from beginning to end, we need to
067know what it looks like. So once uh we develop a budget for it out of conversation and set up a work session for it then we'll have a clear present uh mindset of what we want to do with it. >> Yes sir. Thank you. >> I think it'll be great and that's true. Miss Wheaten was the last one because all of it went was set up through PE PE coaches PE teachers. >> Thank you. That's all I have. >> Thank you. M Miss Mr. Tuck, I mean Miss Tuck, Miss >> Okay, I want to start by saying thank you so much for the presentation. I appreciate the fact that you y'all said one huge thing that I think a lot of our parents need to hear. What this will look like today or tomorrow is
068not what it looked like yesterday. So, what I do understand is the cost of yesterday is not the cost of today. and it surely won't be the cost of tomorrow. So even with the figures that we already see, it could be different next week. It could be different next month. So what I will offer is this, if I could, I would love for us to be able to come together in a cohesive way with parks and recck, right? Because I I understand that we've already had conversations with them. I would love for us to be able to come together with them and see how we can better enhance what they have right now and let that be the start of our pipeline because what I know is we as a city, as a community, we
069have to start working together. And what we don't want is we don't want we we don't want division. It's been so much division in this city for so many different things. This does not have to be one of those things. if we can literally because I've watched and a lot of you all know I coach almost every sport. I've watched how the numbers have literally dwindled down and it is merely because of things that are going on in the community. You know, some parents see one sport greater than the next. Everybody is not a basketball player. Everybody is not a football player. And so, how can we come together and sit down at the table and establish one vision for our city, for our kids when it comes to athletics? That that that's simply what
070I want to see. Um, I think, you know, when it comes to the funding side, they have the funding. They have the funding. We can bring forth the vision. So, if we can just come together and that then puts accountability in the schools. I've said it several times. That's what I want to see. I want to see that our kids are not in school and not being held accountable for the things that they're doing in school and they can still walk out of school and go to a football field or go to a basketball field or go to a baseball field. I mean a basketball court or a baseball field. I want to see some form of accountability so that the students will first of all love coming to school because now they have something
071to work towards and it gives us a sense of pride. It gives us a different sense of pride. I mean, I've been playing sports. I played sports since I was in second grade. So, I know what it could look like, but I know what it looked like then, it won't look like now. So, the only ask that I have is that we can somehow bridge that gap, pull it together, not so much as put all the sports in our schools, but how can we help them help us >> for for the sake of our kids? That's it. >> I get it. And and you're talking about two guys that started recreation. Yeah. As you know, I was the program coordinator and coach was still in college working recreation. So >> before we came in the
072school's buildings, that's where we were. So we remember the good times at the parks and recreation during the summer and whatnot. Um so I get it and we have been in contact with uh Maris Allen. Um I the one thing I might want to question what you just said. I don't know if they have the funds that are totally needed either. >> So they may not have the complete package, right? >> But I will say if we if we're together and we go forward and we make the request, I think that'll look better than one of us going and the other one >> one pot. >> Agreed. Agree. >> One house. Let's have one vision for these kids and move this pipeline forward. That's it. But I I I also have one other thing. But
073you can go ahead, coach White. >> I actually met with Maris Allen on Thursday and we talked about collab and how we're going to move forward. So you're actually in line to what we're talking about how we can partner and pull off some of these sports together. I know Coach Lawson met Coach Massenberg last week as well. Same day, different time. We were on the same vision once we knew what the assignment was. >> Absolutely. because I mean they literally I just don't want to see us reinvent the wheel, right? I don't want to see us reinvent the wheel. Let's iron shop and iron. Let's help each other out. But the other thing that I had, I wanted to know as far as the funding for athletics, how is that housed? And how is that
074is it a collective for Petersburg athletics or is that where it will be dis dispersed to like the school? So like Vernon Johns have athletics. So if they need something then they can you know that pot of money or how is that >> now? Uh because I'm in charge of Bernard John sports everything's house here at the high school. Uh we have separate accounts. Um it's all labeled. But the one thing people have u I think uh misperception of how money is come in as far as you take a football game. Let's just take a football game. You see a large crowd, correct? Before we kick off, I spent $3,000 before we kick the ball off. So that means you have to at least have 300 people in the stands to break even, right? So
075when we play a district school, uh, Moka, let's just use Moka. When we play Moka, if it's our home game, right? Because in football you only can play five home games. The rest is on the road. So you only play that school one time. The way the district rule is is split 5050 after expenses. So that whole gate does not come to Petersburg. It goes to that school when it's a district game. Then basketball. Now when you're home, you keep your home. When you go on the road, they keep their gate. But the other thing that people don't understand, basketball and football pays for every sport in the school division and not just high school. Now you take when we uh play have Vernon John's games just for officials. Let's take football. Officials are $700
076a game. And if you only have 20 parents in the stands for a middle school game, that's only $120. Then you have to take in how much you have to pay for security. Then how much you have to take in for police and the other workers. So you're spending a lot of money at other games, but you still have to pay these people. And knock on wood, I haven't had to call the school board since I've been AD in 15 years saying, "Hey, we don't have enough money to pay for this or pay for that." And I can tell you in past it had it was different. I know for a fact. So you you you have all these other sports and it's great to have these sports, but somebody has to pay for officials.
077There's officials almost for every sport. And you talking about from middle school, JV and varsity. And if we don't have the crowds just to pay for the sports, your football crowds and your basketball crowds, that's what's taking care of those bills. >> Okay. Now, this is not for y'all. Mr. Chair, >> are you finished? >> No. >> She said she not. So my my last question and then we can move on is um how close are we to becoming fully electronic when it comes to our concessions? >> Uh so one of the issues and actually this year we're switching up um is great and it's unfortunate. I've retired Miss Jones who has helped me um with everything dealing with concession both football and basketball. And I've retired her. I feel not her. She's getting older.
078I love Miss Jones. That's like a second mom, but I need to pass it on. I don't have anybody to pass it on to. So for football and basketball games, what I've done uh a lot of people uh like them, but Hot Rods will be in charge of our concessions for football and basketball games and we will split the profits from that. So we still will retain money from those. And in doing so, um, some of the other sports I might have to just get some other clubs or organizations to run those. So, Miss Jones will be helping me in a different capacity. I'm letting her oversee some things because I still need her presence, but I don't want to run her down too much. Got a question? >> No, she was asking is that
079are they going to be electronic? But I know that they are. >> And and so Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't get to that. And I have talked uh part of the problem with our football field is what's it called? Miss uh M help me out. The triangle for the the Yeah. the Wi-Fi on getting to the concession stand was sort of a problem. like we had talked about the uh on the corner of the south wing being able to send the signal over to be able to do that. that that's one of the main focuses. And then the other thing in the gymnasium, it's small. And by having it small, because when you do that, you really need one po one person just in charge of not the cons but the ticket, I mean the
080iPad for the funds. >> So it's small. Now, somebody wants to build us uh addition and I got plans for it. Uh addition to the gymnasium, >> I we can talk about it later. >> Heard that. >> Thank you so much. That's all I got. >> Mr. M. >> Okay. Um I'm not talking about in a school inter murals. What I wanted to do address the board about inhouse with each elementary school. We we we went forward and made sure every elementary school had a had a PE I mean had a gymnasium because when at first all of them didn't have a gymnasium so but the board been over back and pushed for that and what I'm talking about PE teachers which like you said don't fall under you I know we can do when
081we was in school different classes played against each other we had enters against each other and and they taught us sports we just you came to a lock in and spoke to the kids at the with concerned black men at the lock in at Warner Hill. We played dodgeball. We played basketball. We played flag football. All in that little gym and was up all night doing it. The thing is, what I'm saying is in PE classes, we're not doing that anymore. They're not playing each other anymore. They're not teaching them team sports and how to deal with sportsmanship through type of those type of play. We played when we couldn't. We learned how to play baseball by playing kickball. We started out with kickball and we played the different classes in there. So in the
082fifth grade, we look forward to, hey, we're gonna play Miss so and so class today. We're going to play this class today. Those type of things are not taking place there. That's why I when I brought up the PE teachers, it has to start in elementary. So this whole address is about elementary athletics. So the thing is even though they don't fall under you, we got to have a curriculum to do the thing. We played we when we played um when the younger kids played um baseball against each other, they had a like a rubber ball where you couldn't get hurt. Remember that? So they give them the rubber ball, let them go out there and play, but the classes played against each other or they picked teams to teach them how to play cuz
083they not going to learn if they don't learn in elementary school. When they get to high school, y'all work is cut out for you when they get to the middle school. So they got to learn these these different things there. flag football. You know, we played flag football in elementary school and we look forward to the fall coming because everybody played flag football and we learned the rules and stuff like that. And the PE coaches led this effort. And see what I'm telling you, it's I I visit these schools and they out there doing recess and they just running around playing, throwing the ball, doing whatever, and they not learning these things, you know? They not. So the thing is that we got to do in-house before we go um um from um inter murals
084between inner schools. We got to do it in the school in the PE class. So that's where we got to start. We got to start in the PE class again because we done got away from all of that because I know even when we was at Peabody, we played the classes played each other and the PE classes played each other. So the thing is is that and we play organized just like y'all did when they get to the high school. So the thing is is that you don't have to have all this money if we doing it in the classroom during PE because we was racing each other and learning who was the fastest. We knew when we left elementary school everybody knew who was the fastest, who could jump the highest, who could do
085everything because we competed in elementary school. We need to get back to that. And I know that's not you already explained it to me. So I'm telling the board if we need that person that you were talking about to head that then we need to take a look at it because we don't put the gyms and everything up there. We got places for them to play but we need organized stuff in elementary school intram mural between just between in-house. So we got to get there and that doesn't cost money because they go to PE anyway. So so all we got to do is get the flags and all you know and they got things balls and stuff like I can appreciate that, Coach Miles. Anybody got anything else? >> Say, >> I say I can
086appreciate that. >> Okay. >> Anybody got anything else? >> Miss Brown. >> Thank you. Um, thank you board members for your um your um comments and thoughts and feedback. I just want to make sure that we clarify that and we're talking about I think there are two different two different um opportunities for kids. And so, of course, we know that our our vision in Petersburg public schools is to transform and expand opportunities for learning. Um, so that all that every student graduates with a life filled with choices. And so, when we're talking about expanding opportunities, I think you're talking about during the school day as it relates to this. And we're also talking about after school. Am I correct? Because I think some of the work is both of those. And so, I just want
087to clarify, you're talking about while they're with us during the school day, you want us to leverage that space, right? And so as we come to the table and look at what the deeper plans are now that we have more information kind of better understand now that um Trella has been here and coach um Lawson have had a chance to look at it what happens during the school day and then we have to look at what happens after school because that's after the hours and we have to do something different. So thank you for that clarification. That's helpful. Mr. Brown, next we move to 4C. >> Thank you, board of preaching and schoolboard members. I'm excited to bring to the podium and I'll have Chelsea introduce Brendan. And so I'm excited. We have been doing
088this work for the last year. And so as a part of our work, we are um of course we just um the board just approved our five-year strategic plan. And of course, we have been working on drafting our draft three-year communications plan. And so um this effort has been led by our chief communications officer, Miss Chelsea Vonger. And so she has been working very closely and she'll introduce um um who's not a stranger to Petersburg, Brendan. she'll introduce Brendan and they'll talk about the work that they've done around um our communications plan and this is the draft that they've come up with and this will be our focus Keef from the ILO group this evening to share our draft communications plan. Next slide please. Our agenda for this evening is as follows. We'll share some
089brief introductions. We'll share the purpose of having a long-term communication plan in place. We'll review the process we've undertaken this school year to create the draft communications plan before you this evening. We'll review and discuss the results of the communications audit that was done by the ILO group. We will review and discuss the results of the communications survey that was sent to our community. We will review and discuss the results of the communications focus groups. and then we will actually review the communications document itself along with the proposed seven communications goals. Then of course there'll be time for questions and answers. Next slide, please. Again, my name is Chelsea Vonger. I serve as a chief communications officer here at Petersburg City Public Peter Petersburg City Public Schools, excuse me. I have been here since March
090of 2025. And prior to that, I worked in the public and private sectors working on business development, communications, marketing, and government affairs. And now I will hand it over to Brenda to introduce himself. Good evening. You can go on to the next slide. Uh, as Chelsea said, um, uh, my name is Brendan Williams Keefe, uh, Port members of the, um, school board. It's wonderful to be here with you. Uh, a little bit about me. I am, uh, the proud father of three public school children. Uh, I live in Washington DC with them and my wife Cara, who's in charge of all of us. Uh, I was a former journalist. uh worked at NBC Washington for a number of years, worked in politics and campaigns uh in Washington and have been working in education communications and
091advocacy uh for a number of years. Um work out of my public affairs firm, Georgetown Public Affairs with the ILO group. Um I've been supporting uh Petersburg City Public Schools for a number of years now. It's been a a great honor to work with you. You have a remarkable community here. Uh and it's a real p privilege to contribute to the great work that um Superintendent Brown uh Chelsea and the communications team and the whole division is doing. Uh we'll go on to uh the next slide then to talk a bit about the purpose of the long-term communications plan. Chelsea, >> so akin to the five-year strategic plan, this communications plan will help drive our communications for the next three years. It'll serve as the clearer and focused roadmap for our for our school communications
092through 2029. This proposed plan is align aligned to our five-year strategic plan. It also speaks directly to the feedback that we received from the communications survey, the audit that was done by the ILO group and the communications focus focus groups. Again, this communications plan will help drive our communications efforts and it'll help us prioritize requests and projects as a communications team. Next slide, please. This is the process that we've undertaken this school year to develop this communication plan that's before you this evening. We kicked off this process at the beginning of this school year with a communications audit. In October of 2025, the ILO group conducted a comprehensive communications audit of three key areas of our school district communications. First, they reviewed our internal and external communications. They reviewed our earn media. And they reviewed
093our social media content from last school year as well as the beginning of this school year. In reviewing our internal and external communications, they assessed our divisionwide email communications to staff, Superintendent Brown's communications, our previous internal newsletters that we would send out on Fridays, parent square communications to families, and our news releases. Secondly, they conducted a review of our social media presence, including what we were posting to our Facebook, our Instagram, our X, and our LinkedIn. They looked at our posts, our captions, and our digital content to see how we were branding ourselves and what kind of content we were pushing out to our broader community. Finally, they reviewed our own media, including how we were featured and what the sentiment was in the digital and print media stories we were featured in as a
094school division. Once that communication audit was completed, they sent out we sent out a divisionwide communication survey in English and Spanish. We'll review the results and the details regarding the communication survey in subsequent slides, but we wanted to make sure that all of our community partners and all our community stakeholders had the opportunity to share their feedback regarding our communications. Following the closure of the communication survey, we conducted communications focus groups. We had four communications focus groups with our parents, I'm excuse me, with our principles, our assistant principles and vice principles, our superintendent's cabinet and with school board leadership. Again, the results of the communications focus groups will be shared in a later slide as well. With that review in hand, we took the the feedback that we had from the communications audit, the communications
095survey, and the communications focus group, and we took it all together to develop a communication plan that spoke directly to the feedback that we received from those different feedback uh from the feedback we received from the communication survey, communications, and the communications focus group. We also developed a plan that was in direct alignment to our strategic plan. So, it had the feedback included in it as well as making sure that each one of our proposed communications goals spoke to at least one of the strategic priorities in our strategic plan. That draft plan was was um was presented to our superintendent's cabinet last month. Feedback was provided by the cabinet and then it was incorporated into a draft communications plan that's before you this evening. We'll take your feedback this evening, incorporate into a final final
096communications plan that will come to you at the second meeting in June. And then if that communications plan is approved and adopted by the school board, it'll go into effect on July 1 along with our strategic plan. I'll hand it back over to Brendon to share the results of our communications audit. Uh the communications audit was a really important starting point as Chelsea described. It helped us get a lay of the land, understand how the district, how the division communicates and where potential strengths are already and where there are areas for improvement. Off the top, it is um a really positive picture in a lot of ways. Uh the division has made really clear and measurable progress toward a more modern, transparent, and people- centered communication. What that means is that we're communicating effectively, and
097we're doing it by highlighting the stories of the people in the division that make our division great. And that's a real strength. Our family-f facing communications are generally clear. They're timely. They're professional. They're reliable. And they communicate around key incidents, issues like weather, safety in a very uh timely and reliable fashion. Superintendent Brown's voice is also a major strength. It comes through. It's warm, student centered, and credible. Our social media presence is already a core strength. We have strong followers. Uh good reach. The quality of the content is high with strong visuals and good storytelling. And our earned media reflects a emerging strength as well. The press is covering us in positive ways on a fairly regular basis. It's more constructive and progressoriented which are the characteristics that you really want to see in media.
098Uh the division is also increasingly able to pair that transparency that is emerging and strong with action. And so areas like finance, nutrition, facilities, partnerships and student success are not only being um seen and shared um but they are reflecting action and progress taking place in real terms. We can go to the next slide. Excuse me. uh there are always room for improvement, right? Uh and so we want to take a really cleareyed look at those areas for improvement. Uh one of the things is creating a more unified divisionwide voice so that school communications and central office communications sound like the same thing, right? So that parents, members of the community, family members understand that this is one voice, one system, one chorus singing from the same hymbook. Right? We want to move communications from
099informational only to more inspirational. That helps build a sense of belonging in our community, but it also helps build confidence, a sense of pride and energy behind division priorities. adding more uh human- centered reassurance to our crisis and safety messages while also preserving speed, accuracy, and clarity. We want to not only communicate information, but we also want to be able to communicate uh that we are uh taking serious incidents seriously, that we are in control, that we have authority on these issues. Improving readability for families uh by using planer language. Sometimes we in education like to use our jargon and we need to make sure that we're keeping it simple that we're keeping it clear because the point is for uh folks to understand everything that we communicate. So a couple of sort of tactical
100ways to do that including what you need to know headers and just making things a little bit more easily comprehensible and then anchor positive stories and media moments and data whenever possible. So it's not enough to tell people a story, you got to show them, too. So, so data can be a really powerful way to do that. And um and so we'll, you know, talk about how we can uh continue to improve on that front. Would you like to talk about the communications? >> As mentioned, the communication survey was sent out in English and Spanish to our staff, our parents, guardians, students, residents, and the city of Petersburg staff and council members. It was open for three weeks because we wanted as many commu community partners as possible to have the opportunity to respond. The
101survey was sent out via parent square. It was sent directly to city leadership and staff. It was placed on our social media pages as well as in community forums on Facebook and it was placed in hightraic areas physically in hightraic areas throughout the community such as the library, our schools, municipal buildings, churches, grocery stores, and local businesses. And then on this slide, we've provided a breakdown of our respondents. We had 258 respondents from that communication survey. Our largest respondent group was our staff members and then our parents and guardians and then it descends from there. In that communication survey, we asked our respondents a series of questions. We asked them how they prefer to receive information from us where they go to information about our school division and which social media platforms that they use
102most readily. We also asked them to rank various areas of our communications on a scale of one to four from ineffective to very effective. and then I'll have Brendan come back up to share the details regarding the communication survey results. >> By and large, the results reflect a real uh sense of satisfaction and positive impression uh that people hold about our communications. More than 75% uh of respondents said that the division's communications are effective or very effective. That's a remarkable number. We'll get into how that compares to some national averages a little later, but more than three and four respondents said that we're communicating effectively or very effectively. That's excellent. Um respondents generally feel that communication is accessible. So, um that pairs with the notion that everyone, you know, is is giving us pretty high
103marks across the board. respondents also believed that they heard from the division enough. Uh very often, as we'll discuss a little further down, that isn't the case. Uh in terms of preferred channels, ways to receive information, uh email was a top choice with over 30% of respondents saying that's how they preferred to get information. Parent Square also high, almost three and 10. And then about one in four found that text messages were best. What that tells us is that we have to use all of the channels that there are significant portions of our population that prefer the various means of communication with them. And so making use of all of those channels is really important in order to ensure that we're reaching it. Website and social media are the main places that people go for
104updated information. So 40% said they first go to the PCPS website, which is a great thing that we have uh that high a percentage of folks in our community who are making use of our website as their first place that they go. And then uh about 30% said that they rely on social media. Um again reflecting our our strong uh presence there. School level communications were also rated positively a little less strongly than uh our divisionwide communications. And uh again the the topline thing here is that the division communications are viewed more strongly than many public systems typically see. And so let's get into that a little bit. um a national survey in 2024 which uh surveyed some thousands of parents and family members in school districts across the country. 45% reported that school communications
105were not frequent enough. You contrast that with the fact that um more than half of our folks said that we communicate often enough. 42% indicated insufficient information is provided by schools and 53% said that information shared by their schools is not always easy to access and understand. Uh that paints a picture of the national sort of average being one where parents are dissatisfied, family members are dissatisfied with their school communications. more than three and four of our family, community members, staff say that our communications are effective or very effective. So, this is a really strong indication that our communications are really being received well. 84.1% said they receive communication from the division often enough. And the same number 84.1% indicated that the information that they receive from the division is helpful. So it's not just
106that we you know they hear from us enough actually what we're sending them is useful to their lives. So that's great. We'll go on to the next slide. Now we'll talk about the results of the focus group. So as Chelsea said the focus groups included principles, assistant principles, super the superintendent's cabinet and board leadership. uh we got some terrific insights. Pairing a survey which is more sort of quantitative data with the focus groups which are a qualitative um set of data really gives us a full picture of these strengths and areas for improvement. There's a general sense across the board that communication has improved significantly and is generally viewed more positively than in the past. Uh social media presence is something that got a lot of shoutouts. Uh it's visually coherent, people centered, and again
107increasingly professional. Families uh report to our folks that division communications are generally clear, helpful, and detailed and that they trust them, which is essential. And that our owned communication channels, that's our, you know, website, our our social media, the communications that we send out by by uh newsletter, those uh have grown in professionalism, consistency, and responsiveness. Uh the focus groups say that leadership is visible, especially Superintendent Brown, and that's a differentiator, and that our um that the division is already generating stronger positive stories. That's something that we saw in the uh in the media audit or in the communications audit that positive storytelling is increasing. But it's one thing for us to, you know, search it up and look at it from our lens. It's another thing for people to tell us that they're seeing
108that, right? So people are perceiving the positive storytelling, which that really is the goal. It's not, you know, we had 15 positive stories, you know, last semester and we want to have 25 next semester. That that sure goals are important, but what we really want to see is people understanding that there are more positive stories out there and that's what the focus groups indicate to us. Uh we can go on to the next slide. In terms of improvements, uh internal communication was the most consistent weakness raised in groups. Um, and this wasn't something catastrophic or or you know um like a hindrance to people's ability to actually perform their duties and and do it well. It was just noted as the place where we could improve. Uh families shouldn't have to check multiple apps to
109determine what's official, what's classroom level, and what's urgent. There are multiple technologies being used. There are parent square, class dojo, Canvas. All of these tools have an important role, but what as we'll see in the uh in the communications plan, having a clear differentiation between each one of those so that parents understand if I want to know what's going on at the division level, I look here, at the school level, I look here, and at the classroom level, I look here. So that's understood. So there isn't, you know, um, uh, confusion over having to check multiple apps. As a parent myself who has to do that, I really identified with that. Um, it's not a it's not just a a challenge here. It's it's it's everywhere uh with the spread of technology. Stakeholders consistently asked
110for more positive stories. So that despite the fact that they are seeing more, they want to see even more um which is great. And uh our respondents repeatedly noted the need for more physical presence, community dialogue and communication in hightra locations. So, you know, our social media is doing great, our digital communications are doing great, our press coverage is doing great. Obviously, all of them can be improved still, but being out in the community in a physical way, making sure that we're reaching audiences that may not be as online is really something that stood out. Uh, and then the respondents also noted the need for quick internal communications during incidences and challenging moments. uh working through a crisis communications plan is one of the ways that we can do that really effectively and that's top
111of mind I know for Chelsea. Uh we can go on to the next slide. So all of that input we used as the foundation for building a communications plan that can help guide the work for the next several years. We talked we we took a look at the baseline. We evaluated how communications look now. We talked to staff, parents and community members in the form of the survey. And then we got in depth with our focus groups to get that qualitative that that real texture um behind those numbers. And the point of this entire exercise is really to ensure that division communications serve as an implementation engine for the Petersburg forward 2031 strategic plan. This is intended to be a a means of accelerating the implementation to help support the implementation to be a vehicle
112through which that implementation can really thrive. It directly aligns uh the school division communications with the strategic plan's mission, vision, core beliefs, and strategic priorities. And um it's organized around seven division communication goals and corresponding key initiatives. So implementation is really the focus here. It's not just about putting some words on paper, setting some lofty goals. It's about also creating the work plan to make this thing happen. Ultimately, the goal of all of this is to keep people informed, to build trust, to build public understanding and confidence, to strengthen school family relationships, and to make division progress more visible. And that last one is really important, right? It is it is obviously the work for all of us to make progress but we have got to make that progress visible so that we can have
113the assurance from our the members of our communities the belief from the members of our communities in what we're doing and the support for our uh work going forward. And I will hand it over to Chelsea to run us through the actual communications goals. So, now we're going to take a look at the communications plan itself. And I'm going to give it a moment to bring it up on the screen and flip to page 12. And I'm going to give you a moment to bring it out from I believe it's a handout for you on the table. We're going to start on page 12, which is where the first of our seven communication goals begin. And as you get there, again, I'll just reiterate that this plan was developed in direct response to the feedback
114we received from the communications audit, the communications survey, and the focus groups. And each one of these goals correspond with at least at least one of the five strategic priorities from the strategic plan, if not more. So page 12. Great. So our first goal is to make Petersburg forward 2031 clear, visible, and actionable. So this whole plan again is to help support the strategic plan. But this goal first and foremost is to make sure that our plan is visible to our entire community and that they're able to track the progress associated with with the strategic plan. So that includes a number of key initiatives that are outlined there as well as success indicators that will help measure how we're meeting that goal statement. Our second communications goal is to strengthen internal communications processes and schoolboard
115and leadership information flow. Internal communications as mentioned was one of the areas of improvement that was mentioned during the communications focus groups with leadership. So our goal here is to build dependable and consistent internal communications processes and protocols so there's less confusion and less inconsistency across the school division when it comes to internal communications. We want our staff to be able to trust our communications and we want them to depend on us for consistent communications and that will help us to bu to build that internal trust pipeline. Our third communications goal is to build a strong crisis issues and trust management system. One of the major themes and takeaways from the communication survey and focus groups was timely communication during crisis situations. We want to make sure that our community receives timely and accurate information
116during crisis situations. It's important they can depend on us for information, quick information when something is happening within our school division. And then this goal will focus on strengthening internal processes such as a crisis communication plan so that we have that support for those crisis situations. Our fourth communications goal is to establish a clear family centered channel strategy and school communication standard. Families and school site leadership noted that there are multiple communications channels and that each school site handles communications differently. Some schools send weekly newsletters whereas others might do a daily bulletin. So we want to ensure consistency across all school site all school sites so that if someone has a child in different PCPS schools they can expect the same level of communication and can find the same information the same places. Our fifth
117communication goal is to tell a more positive and proactive story of student success. Our focus group participants asked for more positive stories and to share more video of our students and staff as well as more classroom coverage. So, we want to continue to move from sharing information to building momentum in our community and across the region of Richmond about the positive stories that are happening within our school division. We also want to continue to strengthen our rapport with the local media market so that they can have more positive coverage of our school division. Our sixth communications goal is to deepen family engagement, community dialogue, and strategic partnerships. We want to strengthen that two-way engagement with our community. some of the feedback that we received from the communication survey that we are reaching our active engaged
118audiences, those that are in our parent square mass notification system, but we're not necessarily reaching our broad broader community members such as residences such as residents, excuse me, businesses, churches, or city council members. So, we want to proactively reach out to our broader community and interface with them more often so they can know what's happening within our school division. And then our seventh communications goal is to refresh and enhance our school division and schools visual identities and logos. We want to refresh the school divisions and schools logos and visual identity so that we have fresh 21st century vector image logos for each of our schools so that we have appropriate contrasting and ADA accessible colors and definitive brand style guidelines for each school site. This will help unify and bring bring pride to our school
119division as well as our school sites because a number of our schools right now have very pixelated logos that cannot be put on shirts or school swag. So this would help bring unity and school pride to those school communities. And then now we're going to talk about the road map ahead which is the next slide going back to the presentation on slide 15. There we are. So all of that is is a lot. Um I can you know our our intention here is to make this uh substantial and wholesome you know but but also understandable and so uh to take sort of a step back to look at it at a bit of a higher level. We can think of this as a three-year road map. The first is really building the system. We're already
120in the middle of it. We're already doing things in more effective and more effective ways every day. But we have identified the real areas where we can focus on building the systems, the processes, the procedures that help us to take that next step. So that's really what year one is about. Let's build that system out. Let's get it up to the next level. Two is to deepen engagement and visibility. in our second year, school year 2728, it's about activating that new system. Now, all of these things are kind of running along parallel tracks. So, we're going to be, you know, sailing the boat while we're building it. But that second year is when we really ought to be able to hit the hit the ground running from there. Year three is about institutionalizing and sustaining.
121So this isn't good enough to just do a couple of things across several years and then have a couple of good years, right? We are trying to make this the new norm. So that new and improved work uh plan, the new and improved system, the new and improved way of doing what we do becomes the floor rather than the ceiling. And so that in year three we then begin to build on that as the foundation and go even higher. Uh really this is this is I think a a terrific demonstration of the talent of the capability of the potential that this division has both with respect to school level communications with respect to the division level communications and just with respect to how this organization functions. Um, we we feel really good about this three-year
122roadmap and believe that this can take us into a phase where we are accelerating the strategic plan and we're actually reaching even higher heights of effectiveness from it. Um, back to you. >> And then just finally, the communications team will own this communications plan for the next three years. We will be the lead implement of this plan, but it will require significant collaboration across our school division. So, we'll be partnering with the superintendent. We'll be partnering with division leadership. We'll be partnering with department heads as well as school site leadership. So, it'll be a collaboration across the school division. And then with that, we are happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Thank you all. Great presentation. Can tell a lot of work was put into it. Mr. Ms and Mr. Pierce. >>
123Okay. Excellent presentation, excellent plan. Uh, and you stated that it was a lot of room. One of the things that I always tell people in surveys. Uh, the survey is only as good as you can get the people to respond. And that tells us you had 120 staff members. How many staff members do we have at Petersburg? How many? >> I believe it's 672 on our website. >> So you're looking at that percentage. If we can get our staff committed >> to responding to what you're doing, this initiative, this is great initiative, but we got to get people. That's what I talk about building the team. Everybody's not on board with supporting what it is that you're doing because if they don't participate, that's not supported. So we get we got to change that mindset.
124You looked at the parents, we had, you know, thousands of parents, but and and guardians, but we only had 103 to respond. How do we improve on that? Those are the type of things we're going to have to look at. And um and then six students. Now, I remember I taught for three years, so we did a survey and they said, "Well, how did you get 100% of the parents to respond and 100% of the students to respond in your class, Mr. Mau?" I said, "Well, uh, I gave them credit for it." So, they went home and got their parents to do it and then they, um, did theirs because they got credit for that. It was part of their grade. Everything you do in the school system is a learning opportunity. And the only
125way you going to learn, you going to have to participate. And we got to find out ways to for as individuals, as staff members, to get our students and parents and community to participate. you know, we as staff members and board members don't buy into it. We didn't even have all the board members participate. So, we're just as fed as everyone else. But the thing is that we got to commit to what we're here for. And this information is excellent. But the only way we going to get to excellence performance and response is that everyone buy into it. And we got to we got to do that. and whatever we got to do to to get them to do it. You said something that was very important. Um being out in the community in a
126physical way, that's the key. And and and I know our superintendent do that all the time. I see her out there just as much as I'm out there. So the thing is I don't know how she does. I don't know how she find time to do all of that and all the games and everything else that she goes to and the activities. I mean, it's just outstanding. But at the same time, we got people that staff members as a 100% I'm I'm pleading with everybody that work for Peasburg High. I mean, not Peasburg High, Peasburg City Public School, the next survey, let's have a 100% staff support of the survey. Can we do that? We should be able to do that. Everybody that work here, don't you think so? And 100% of the board, too,
127cuz you get Yeah. And so I would just like to start right there challenging us to be what we're supposed to to do what we're supposed to do as a sample, as an example because that's very important. We want other people to do it, but we ain't doing it ourselves. So I'm not I'm going to leave that alone. So, um, and a lot of other things as I put down, I'm not going to go over it because I think if we start with ourselves to improve as individuals, as staff members of Petersburg and employees of Petersburg, that'll be a great place to start. >> Mr. Peters, >> I got one supporter. Appreciate that. That's how Michael Jackson started up. It was Joe Jackson that started and Joe Jackson was his main supporter. >> Thank you
128all. We appreciate Yeah, it was a great presentation. Uh just a couple of takeaways. Uh even when you started, you talked about assessment. You did that. assessment and audits are are are immeasurable because you need to see which which direction you want to go in and you connected it to the strategic plan and I do like your your slide on the uh road map and what caught my attention out of out of it the most is the third year because none of us will be here in the future. So it has to be institutionalized and it has to be sustained so that somebody coming behind us will have that base to walk on. So I appreciate uh the fact that you took the time to build on such a presentation so everybody can see it
129and uh they'll have a place to start. So thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Pierce. just have um you were talking about reaching the community and I I think I shared it with you Miss Vonger and it's and it may be too expensive. I don't know as as someone said money you know money is the issue but remember I mentioned to you we used to have a newsletter and it would be delivered to churches to the libraries and everyone was able to read what was happening in Petersburg city public schools and I'm sure that Leslie probably had some copies in your office miss but I mean it it reached a lot of people printed it yes because we had a yeah we had a print shop at the time
130I don't know if we we still have a print We do. >> We do. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> But it was but we were able to reach a lot of individuals in the community. >> I appreciate that that feedback. Thank you, board chair. And that is listed >> and we did not mail it. We delivered it to places. Yeah. Because the city mails theirs and I I heard it's expensive. >> Direct mail can be costly depending. Yes. >> Miss Tucker. So my question actually was a lot related to that. Um so I want I just wanted to know when our surveys go out, do we have a communications list for our community partners um and the organizations in our community to so that they can receive the survey as well because that's
131another form of reaching. I know you know like Mr. Mau said we we're trying to get 100%. Um, but I did get a few messages from people in the community that said, you know, their organizations didn't receive it. And I do know that um um the um Alpha Omega Zeta chapter of the Zeta Feta Sorority Incorporated is now doing a survey. They are now doing a survey um for the community as well. And I just, you know, I feel like if they were on the communications list, maybe they wouldn't be doing their survey because it's kind of sort of related. It it all um goes together um hand in hand. So if we don't, is that something possible? Because I know um Dr. Lee has the she has community partners and I know CIS also
132has community partners. So, is there a way we can put together those lists so that we can have one list that can go out when communications does send out surveys? >> Yeah, absolutely. Yes, for that. >> Thank you so much. >> I I would just add that that's exactly the kind of thing that we're talking about when we're talking about building the system, right? Is is, you know, it's building a list. It's creating an ongoing communication to the community in a physical form, right? like like uh the board chair suggested, I think those are the kinds of systems and processes that we would look to build across the early parts of this and so that then you know in future surveys we've got a great list of community partners that we can just you know
133uh copy and paste into an email essentially um that that's that's that kind of systems building that we're talking about. So those are exactly those sorts of activities >> and amazing presentation. I mean thought very thoughtful colorful it spot on. I loved everything about it. Thank you. >> Appreciate it, Miss Da. Good. Good. Okay. Thank you all. Great job. >> Great job. Thank you. >> Next we move to 4 D. Miss Brown. Thank you, board chair pitch. School board members will now move to our um student attendance policy regulation update. And so I'll bring Dr. Yasmin Gay, our chief of staff, to the to the podium. Of course, tonight we don't have Dr. um Tori Manson, who was out. Um and so we wish Dr. Manson lots of rest. Um and so at this time,
134we'll talk about our attendance policy update. Just as you are aware board members before we brought an original um original draft of a regulation update and received lots of feedback and I know um vice chair Tuck is a part of that team that's been working on updating the regulation so that we can support our students through this regulation around chronic absenteeism. So this is the update based on your original feedback and any feedback that's been happening through the attendance and chronic absenteeism work. I'll turn it over to Dr. Gay. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Brown. Uh again, good afternoon, uh Board Chair Pritchette, Vice Chair Tucker, and our wonderful board members, uh staff and community. Um I will be talking you through um our updates on our attendance policy and again just want to acknowledge
135Vice Chair Tucker who's been very very active uh with the task force in helping us to uh make some really critical decisions as the uh superintendent said and an incorporation of your feedback. This has been definitely a work in progress. Um just want to acknowledge again our task force members which um is a configuration um of uh teachers uh administrators um uh um losing words um uh we had students we had parents uh so again this was a robust uh community um and representation of our superintendent. Next slide. Uh so two things. Our agenda is really easy tonight. Um we will review the policy but really focus in on the updates um for tonight, June 3rd. Could you uh make it just a little bit larger? Just a little bit. Yep. Scroll. Yep. Thank you
136so much. Thank you so much. Um so just first I just want to kind of level set in how we are presenting the policy. So if you look on your left um that is what we have presently as our policy regulations. So you see here on the left are our current PCPS regulation guidelines. This is what we have presently. On the right are the recommendations. You can just see from first glance that uh we've added a lot more language uh to what we have presently um uh to our policy regulations. So I will walk through each regulation um and then uh we'll open it up for feedback. All righty. So, for the first one, um it says, uh students who are absent must bring a parental note. Um whether it's a paper note or email.
137We wanted to make that really specific. Um at first it said electronic. Um but we wanted to make sure that we wanted communication and email within 48 hours or 2 days after the student's absence and of the students return to school stating the reason for the absence. So, we wanted to be more specific with that. And also let me update that the um wording that's in red was the update for June. The wording that's in blue was uh from the updates in March. Okay. Um recommendation again uh more language for that first regulation is we added that students that are absent five consecutive or non-consecutive days. Wanted to make sure that we add added that that it was consecutive or non-consecutive. Must be added to the school attendance team case load to address attendance concerns,
138establish attendance goals, strategies, and provide relevant supports. And I also want to share here that there was a recommendation for us to be more specific around what the attendance team looked like. Um however in the task force discussion and Dr. Manson um shared that he also um got counsel from uh special education lawyers that we kind of want to stay away from the specificity um of uh the configuration of the school teams and their recommendation was that we wanted to make sure that each school was individualized based on the need of that particular school. Again, that was a recommendation from uh special ed lawyers. Um so we kept that out of the policy. The task force agreed um that we would keep that out that we would again leave it open for more creativity. Um
139and I just want to just specify too um in my previous work as an assistant superintendent who oversaw policy and studied policy a lot is that policy regulations um shouldn't be overly specific. They should be specific but not overly specific as it can stifle innovation and create bottlenecks. So we wanted to just leave a little bit of opportunity for individualized attention for each school. Now I will say that we do model best practice. We do um there are um a specific um uh group of people that we want at each uh team each school. However, we again each school may look different and want to add some more members to the particular team. Number two, um this is what we have presently for our regulations and this is around uh missed work. Work missed shall
140be made up and all makeup work is the students responsibility. Again, that's what we presently have um in our policy regulations. You can see over here uh in the right we've added a lot more language uh to what that will look like and sound like um for our students. So we did add recovery time um and that was based on VDOE um expectations. Schools must implement an attendance recovery strategy to improve student attendance and maintain academic achievement. So again, each school must have a strategy for recovery in our regulations. Now, how schools do that? We want to again leave it open to uh innovation, leave it open to the needs of the school. This is based on uh VDOE, VDOE uh expectations for elementary school. Three hours of recovery would recoup one day of absence.
141Also, middle school and high school, three hours of recovery again would recruit one day of absence. We did add some more language here. Schools must calculate recruitment of time throughout the school year. And the reason why we did that is because we did not want to wait until the end of the year to predict um what our attendance would look like. Um each school would pay attention on who they are recouping, what students are recouping time um so they can keep keep a track on that improvement. Again, recruitment time is calculated at the end of the year. However, it keeps each school uh focused on their progress. Suspension days can be recouped. Students must be in school or at an approved partner location to recruit days of absence. This was a robust conversation in the
142task force. Uh we wanted to open up other opportunities um where uh uh there will be certified teachers such as the YMCA um in other uh locations where our students can recoup time. You look here, there was a recommendation um to add early learning because although um our prek students are not counted in our attendance count, however, we want to make sure that we uh start that pattern of good attendance. So here it says although there is no legal requirement uh for four-year-old children to go to school, it is important that prek students meet the same expectation as older children. PCPS will adhere to early childhood education guidelines. Please refer to the preK handbook for attendance. When preK students are absent or arrive late, they miss key academic instruction. Crucial to building the foundational skills
143needed to uh needed for success in kindergarten. And again, um Dr. PM was uh critical in making sure that we added uh this note here. I think we're awesome. Thank you so much. Um, our third regulation here, again, this is what we have presently. Uh, students who are tardy to school must bring a parental note stating the reason for the tardiness. This note must be received no later than the day following the tardiness. Tardiness is defined as arriving after the published start time for school and or class. Um again, this was a robust conversation in the task force. Um being tardy on a continuous basis can look just like an absence, right? We have students coming in really late um uh or leaving early um can hinder um uh instructional uh uh progress. This is
144what we added here over to the right. Um, we made some changes here. It says, "Students who are tardy and or leave early from school must bring a parental note stating the reason for the tardiness or early release. This note must be received no later than the day following the tardiness or early release. We wanted to make sure we defined what tardiness is. Tardiness is defined as arriving after the published start time for school and or class. And the definition for early release is defined as leaving school two hours before the published dismissal time. Okay, we added some more language here. If a student is tardy or leaving early, 5 days within a month, then they must be added to the school attendance team case load to address attendance concerns. Again, uh just reiterating how
145uh critical tardiness is. It can look again just like a absence. um establish attendance goals, strategies and provide relevant support. So students that have been tardy five days within a month uh must uh be a part of the attendance case load. Okay. Um and also our policy have uh general provisions here. Um, it says here, "Student out of school for the observance of a religious holiday, on a field trip, or uh representing the school at a special activity should not be charged within an absence. The student's record must show that the student was not present, but that I'm sorry, there's a um a typo there, will not count as an absence and shall not appear on the student's record, nor shall the student be deprived of any award or eligibility or opportunity to compete for
146any award or the right to take an alternative test or examination. Makeup work is required. So, the recommendation on to the right here, we added some more language. Um, I know it's a lot of um uh wording, so bear with me. With proper documentation, a student must be excused from school for the purpose of observing a recognized religious holiday, ceremony, or practice. The absent will not count against the student's attendance record when proper documentation is provided. The school will not question the legitimacy of the students religious beliefs and will not discriminate based on religion. All requests will be treated respectfully and confidentially. And you can see here um we also added um specificity around the required documentation and what it must include. We also added uh some uh language around submission process. Thank you for
147scrolling down. Okay, thank you. Scroll over to the left. There we go. So, here this is our current uh general provisions. Again, this is what we currently have in our policy. It says, uh, "Regular student attendance is important. Parents are encouraged to provide the appropriate documentation for student absences. Students are expected to attend each class meeting. Regular class attendance affords the student the opportunity to complete requirements of the course satisfactorily. Excessive absenteeism, including the lack of pro proper documentation, may result in poor or unsatisfactory grades due to the students inability to uh compensate fully for the class assignment which were missed. Second paragraph, a student absent 15 consecutive days will be withdrawn from the enrollment in Petersburg City Public Schools. This provision does not apply to students approved and assigned to homebound instruction and students
148with illness substantiated by appropriate documentation. Any absence for disciplinary reasons such as suspension will be counted under this regulation. If you look over to the right here, uh we've made some changes and also some addition. So the first change is some change to wording. It says parents are responsible right for providing the appropriate documentation and this is that triangularization of accountability school students and families. So we wanted to make sure that that was emphasized. Um here it says I'm sorry going back parents are responsible for providing the appropriate documentation and adhere to the school's recovery structure for student absences. Again, we are reiterating the recovery process. Regular class attendance is required in order for the student to achieve satisfactory course completion. Excessive absenteeism, especially without proper documentation, can lead to poor or unsatisfactory grades because
149a student may be unable to make up missed class assignments and coursework effectively. So, that has already been in there. Here is here is the ad. Um, and this is specifically for high school and I know this was a critical discussion at our last board meeting. Um, we've made some changes because we knew that the term failure was of concern of some of our uh, board members. So, we made some changes here for denial of credit for excessive absences. It says during a grading period 9 weeks, a student who misses 10% of the semester uh that meets daily or more um and that what was that was added in March. This is what was added uh for tonight uh will be in jeopardy of not meeting the requirements to pass the course unless he or
150she can document that the absence is justifiable or has recouped the time. So it's just an emphasis on um be in jeopardy. So it's not an automatic failure. We know that our students has uh specific circumstances. A student may not miss more than 10% of the semester days of that meets on a daily basis or more than nine days of the class that meets on alternative days. uh a student may not miss more than five days of class for nine weeks that meets daily for a semester or 10 days of class per semester. The following procedures will be implemented when any absence except those for reasons which could cause the students to be exempt from sanctions of the standards of student conduct handbook. Um this was thoroughly reviewed um by Miss Fields um our high
151school principal and also our academic team. And there are the uh updates for June. And um welcome. Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Gay. Any questions? Miss Tucker? >> You good? Good. >> You're good. Okay. I only I only have a couple. >> Okay. >> On page number three. Well, slide three, I think. Yes. Slide three. Is there any way that we can put in there for students who are recouping time that they be taught only by a licensed teacher? >> Oh, taught by licensed teacher. Absolutely. >> Because I heard you say it also >> to a licensed teacher. It must be >> for uh for recovery, >> right? Got it. Okay. >> Recovery only. Now also my question for recovery I noticed that some of the other schools do this they have
152before and after either Saturday. Are we only doing it during the school after school? Are we given options or just they only have the one choice? >> From my understanding just having conversations with schools uh recovery time sometimes happen um it's established in the morning or the afternoon. Um so it it does exist for both. Yes. Okay. >> So, are we able to put that in there so parents would know is available in early morning before and after school? So the only thing with that is and I know um I know for sure Lakemon is the school that actually kicked that off and what they did was they seen that so majority of the schools were offering recovery after school but what they seen was that they had a low um attendance rate for after
153school because parents didn't want to be over there late. >> So what they would do is they would >> they use the YMCA time. So the students would go to the YMCA and what they did was they just utilize that time which was great and I think once you know one school got a hold of it the word just it was just passed. So, I think it depends on the school and if I'm not mistaken, they started it off at the middle of the school because it was something that I guess they had to gauge the data. And so, I think um honestly with putting it in there, I think it would kind of be at the discretion of the school because while I know Lake has an amazing turn for turnout for before school,
154all schools don't. So, I think um if we can do it so that it definitely says after school because I know all schools offer it after school. >> I think that'll be great, but I don't know if putting it because that kind of holds the school to the fire, but the parents aren't bringing the kids. >> Um thank you, um board preacher and vice chair Tucker. I just have a clarif clarify and care question, Dr. Gay. I know that I don't know if you can answer it. When the state released it, which was new because Dr. Manson did a presentation for the board. They changed the state changed at first. I think it was two days. I think it was three days. They changed some requirements with the recruitment this year, right? So, I just
155don't know how often the recruitment changes >> 18 to 15. And I know that um and I I remember Dr. Manson talking I don't want to misquote. I could have sworn it was that it was before the system they had before was it was a certain number of days that they had to stay and then it changed. Right. So um and putting in my question is putting in um recruitment that's may be available. I don't know per school. I don't know if that's if the state designates that or do we designate that? I don't know the answer to that question. I I don't remember Dr. Manson's presentation. Does the state say you have to do recruitment time and it has to be at least after school? >> No. >> Okay. That's not what it says.
156Okay. >> Not at all. I I just want to uh Thank you, uh, Superintendent Brown. I I just want to double tap on Vice Chair Tucker. We just have to be really careful about um making um things too specific because it's the example that vice chair Tucker mentioned is that Lakemont analyze their data to understand where is the best time to do recovery. So Lakemont may do after uh uh morning because they were getting low turnouts in the afternoon. that may be different for Pleasant Lane uh where they may have more of a turnout um in the morning in the afternoon or in the morning. So, that's a perfect example of like really um walking that fine line with regulations and being too specific because if you be too specific with every school, you sometimes
157can draw um uh uh schools to not be successful because it depends on what the school needs. >> Yeah, absolutely. Hold them into >> hold them, right? it it creates that bottleneck and also oh I'm sorry go ahead superintend >> okay so I I understand you know what Mr. Pritchette is saying so and I do agree so to put in so not to be as specific as to say um the high school will offer after school or all schools will offer so basically um what Mr. Bridget is asking is that we put in that there's an option for when it's for when it's offered and that should be um and I agree we can't put that in there. So um just so that parents know that there is a variety of times that it is
158offered whether it be before school, after school or even on Saturdays because that then tells you right there when it's offered. I mean it's in black and white now so parents can't say they didn't know because it's in policy. >> Can we double tap? Can so is there a way to put in the wording that individual schools may offer >> may offer right which doesn't say will right individual schools may offer rec attendance recruitment recruitment sessions before school after school or or on Saturdays so that they know that there are three different ways but your school will give you more information on what they're going to offer based on what works for that community. So, individual schools may offer, you know, opportunities for students to recoup lost attendance time. Right. Right. Uh and so that
159if you could put something like that, I think does that meet what you all are asking? Okay, perfect. Thank you. >> Absolutely. We'll make sure that happens. Okay. I believe it's well I wrote it on page six. I believe it goes with page six. The part where you talk about students who exceed 10 absences. I think they may lose course credit, right? Can we can we also >> 10% if they miss 10%. It'll be fixed. >> Can we also put in there that they're able that they're able to attend summer school to recover credit? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> That's a great observation. >> Yep. You know, students who yeah um you know have are faced with you know condition what you know whatever Dr. just to say that they will be offered you know those
160students who um h you know experience high absenteeism right we could say that experience high absenteeisms that are whatever however you describe the conditions right will be offered the opportunity to attend summer school to recover class credit will be you know will be offered the opportunity to attend summer school because it's still their option to attend summer school it's not required Okay. And then one more thing and Mr. Miles is gone, but um I had agreed with him when it came up in this. I thought we were going to bring back some type of incentive because I um I I did share with Dr. Manson the incentive that Hampton City School uses for their students, for the especially their high school students when it comes to exams. Yeah. Uh they're able to exempt the exams
161as an incentive. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> It says that student incentives for good attendance for credit bearing courses for final exams with parents and guardians approval. A student who maintains a 80% or higher average Uhhuh. and who misses no more than two days during a semester or 90% or higher average misses no more than three days a semester may exempt from the semester exam. That's an incentive. >> Okay. >> So, I'm I'm actually glad that um you brought that up. So, we did have conversation um when we met with Dr. Johnson about it. And I remember I'm not sure who uh um who said it, but we were advised to kind of stay away from listing incentives um because it should be at the discretion of the principles um as to how they want
162to award incentives for attendance. But I love the way that that is worded. >> Me too. >> No, I'm saying I love because I had not seen it. So we were thinking Well, I can tell you what I was saying. I can't tell you the matter. I was thinking we talking about giving TVs and some for I mean in real life that's what I was thinking but I think that is an amazing idea um because also I've seen where school divisions and I know um you know even in the school division I work in they literally incentivize for you know and it's a a policy where they give the kids an incentive if they pass their so I think it's worded perfectly she said that's Hampton and I would love if we could get that
163insert and and add that you know to what we got going on. >> Okay, >> that's great. >> And and just one more. I know you said that I'm sorry. I know you said that that Dr. Manson had checked with the attorney. >> Yes. >> Um on listing, what was it? Listing. What is it? >> The members of the attendance team. >> The attendance team. And I do believe I know what attorney I was sharing with Dr. and what Miss Brown, what attorney he called, but the board attorney is Stacy Haney. And I've asked that Miss Brown reach out to Stacy Haney on behalf of the board to find out if we can put this in here or not. >> So, we did uh share uh the policy with Stacy. We did um and there
164were no discrepancies in alignment to code. Um, so again, it goes back to >> the school's discretion. If if the attorney mentioned something, it didn't get to me. So, uh, >> you shared something else. >> You shared it when you opened up cuz I reached over and I told Miss Brown, I was like, well, I wonder what attorney did he talk to because I wondered did he talk to our attorney because you said that we could not list them. >> No, he spoke to special education attorneys, not >> Stacy. That's not the board's attorney. >> I understand. However, we did share the policy with Stacy Haney, >> right? But without >> But without the recommendation to add the team, Stacy has not seen the policy if the team was added because we talked about this
165when we when you first when you brought this to us the last time about asking who is a part of the team so everyone would know. So parents would know who represents on the team. But you all did not have that on here when you showed states the policy because he asked another attorney. >> So what I think so I think at this point what I'm so what I'm hearing is basically so Dr. Manson who's not here so and he we can follow up with him. So Dr. Manson spoke like you said to the special ed attorneys who he who they traditionally work with. As I understand Stacy looked at the policy from what I'm hearing. She looked at the policy and said the way it was set up, we didn't ask her the direct
166question as to whether or not we could list it there is what I'm hearing that we could list it there and if there were any concerns with us listing the attendance um um members team members around specificity. I think that's what it is. So what I'm hearing >> did not ask that >> that's what I'm saying. I think what it is is a request is to go back to the attorney and ask her ask her because Manson did ask an attorney. Um but Stacy Haney looked at it like you said she she didn't lift anything but I think asking the specific question if you know and getting her opinion on you know whether we could list the school school attendance team um and be very specific in this in this regulation. That's what I think
167just asking her the pointed question and having her give us a some information so that we also have the board's attorney and also from Dr. Manson's um the special education teacher. Yeah. >> I have a question about that. >> So this is my question about listing the attendance team. So for my knowledge we had one elementary school that did not have a counselor all year, right? So if we list an attendance team and we say that it is the principal or the assistant principal, the guidance counselor um the yeah the guidance counselor let's say the custodian let's say the social work we have to have those people a part of the team and it holds us to the fire but we went a whole year it holds us to the fire but we went a
168whole year without a counselor. So, I think that's my qu my question is how then do we combat that? Because when the parents meet with an attendance team and then they're told that their child has missed over 10% of the school year and now they want to fight the policy, according to policy, all of these people had to be in their attendance team, but they weren't. So, now this child is now, you get what I'm saying? Like, how do we combat that? But that just means we have to have we have to >> So no. So my qu >> how do we word that? Do we say a principal or assistant principal or representative? Like how you get what I'm saying? Like how would that be worded? >> Right? Because if someone's missing, >> so
169would it be more beneficial to not list the attendance team versus listing all or should we say um at least the principal, the guidance counselor, and the social worker or something like that versus the entirety because all attendance team don't look the same. And then my question is, I mean, is it fair to the parent who doesn't know that we're not providing them with everyone that Warner Hill may be receiving? >> Right. Right. Table it. >> Go back to the attorney. >> So that's what So can we can we see? Let's just get, you know, the opinion from the attorney and see because that's sticky. >> That's very sticky. And Dr. Manson already talked to a different attorney that gave a different he gave a that gave a different direction that said do not list
170it and be that specific, which is why I think we're going back to Stacy to ask Stacy explicitly that information. >> Yep. Um also want to mention that um uh Dr. Johnson also agreed um that we should refrain from using specificity around members of the attendance team to give schools an opportunity to be creative. Um I just also want to reiterate that there is best practice um if uh uh the recommendation is adding um uh those that are required maybe like the school principal, assistant principal, counselor, uh you know just trying to you know compromise and if a school wants to build it more they definitely can. That's something to think about as well. Um but again just wanted to make sure that uh we shared that we've reviewed it with uh Dr. Manson did
171review it with special ed lawyers and also Dr. Johnson myself uh Vice Chair Tucker and also Dr. Manson uh met with Dr. Johnson our policy consultant around the format and also the language around the policy as well >> forward attorney. >> Yeah, she's going to move forward with the board attorney. >> The board has one attorney. >> Yes. Yes. And and let me reiterate, >> we are going to speak to the attorney. >> I just wanted to >> the board attorney. I just wanted to share that we did get feedback from others as well just to triangulate uh information. Right. I think the task force has done an amazing job with making sure that we're getting well-rounded feedback from people with different perspectives. We will go back to talk to the board attorney about the
172specificity around the attendance teams, but I want to acknowledge that we have been getting a lot of great feedback from others that are qualified to make decisions um or qualified to give good suggestions around this policy. I have been working with policy for a very long time. Um and so we have some also great experts on the task force as well, but we will make sure we talk to the board attorney um about the attendance teams. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> We'll move we'll move next to 4 E. Miss Brown, policies. >> Thank you. We'll bring up our policies for first read. Thank you. Can make it a little bit larger for me. So, our school so our policies for first read on June 3rd, 2026. We'll start with policy number
173one. Thank you. Um that's PCPS policy BBBA. PCPS policy title qualifications of schoolboard members that is in alignment with the VSBA policy BBBA. That purpose of reviewing this policy was to pro provide updated language for clarity and that's in alignment with VSBA 226. Our second policy BBBC in Petersburg City Public Schools option one. This policy title is board member oath of office elected boards. It's in alignment with the VSBA policy BBC option one and the purpose of this review was a policy language updated for clarity and state statutory exemption in align with VSBA 226. Policy number three of this evening PCPS policy BDD. PCPS policy title is electronic participation in schoolboard meetings and remote locations. That is in align with VSBA policy BDD. And our purpose of our policy review is that the language is
174going to be updated for clarity in accordance with Virginia code 2.2-3708.3. This policy must be adopted annually and it's in alignment with VSBA 226. Policy number four for PCPS is policy BDDL and it's optional and this is a PCPS policy title. It's called electronic participation in committee meetings from remote locations. that is in alignment with our VSBA policy BDDL and it's optional. The purpose of this policy review was to update the language for clarity. In accordance with the Virginia code 2.2-3708.3, the policy must be updated annually in align with VSBA 226. Our fifth policy of the afternoon is policy um title for PCPS is policy CA and the policy title is administrative goals that is in alignment with um VSBA policy CA and the policy um policy language has been up has been unchanged and
175it's only a cross reference that's been updated in alignment with our VSBA policy number six Petersburg City Public Schools policy DIA. The title of this policy is reporting per pupil cost. That is in alignment with the VSBA policy DIA. And this policy language has been um has excuse me, policy has been unchanged. It's in alignment with the VSBA format changes only in alignment with VSBA 226. Policy number seven, policy EBCBA. The title of our policy is electronic room partitions. that is in alignment with the VSBA policy EBBA and this policy language remains the same and the only thing that has changed is the legal and cross references have been updated in alignment with VSBA 226 policy number eight Petersburg City Public Schools policy is AH and it is brand new that policy title is digital
176accessibility that is in alignment with the VSBA policy AH and it is also new and this policy review because this policy has been developed vel to meet legal requirements to ensure persons with disabilities have access to information and communication technology in accordance with 2.2-35000 through 2.2-3505 that is in alignment with VSBA 426. Policy number nine for Petersburg City Public Schools is policy KBE. That title of that policy is called internet privacy. It is aligned with VSBA policy KBE and that policy language has been updated. Public bodies including school boards are required to make their internet pro privacy policy available on the website in a conspicuous manner that is in alignment with VSBA policy 524. >> Thank you M. >> Thank you. >> Any questions from board members? >> Okay, this will come back to us
177on the 17th. Okay, next we move to public comment period. Public comment period. No person may speak on an issue for more than three minutes. Please give your name, your address, or your ward number. It's Mr. Joei. >> Joe, is it Dr. >> Ladies and gentlemen, uh the superintendent and the school board members. Um I joined Petersburg public school in 2017 and since 2017 I have had four superintendent, one acting superintendent. In the middle school that I work at I have five principles. The only entity that's been constant is this person standing in front of you. Last year we discussed uh issues about compensation and I remember one of the school board meeting the superintendent made mention that if any staff will get a contract from other places they are going to match that contract.
178So I'm here today to say I have contract from other districts, not one, not two, not three, and I would like to take the board on that. >> Thank you, sir. Anything else? >> That's it. >> Okay. Appreciate it. >> That's it. We can't discuss this on the floor. >> Okay. I tried to uh do it in house but I was given a runaround and that's why I came. >> Okay. So you haven't met with anyone? >> I I met with I sent an email with a copy of the uh contract that I got to the HR director. I was told there was nothing. >> Can you wait around until after the board meeting? Yes sir. Thank you. Is there anyone? Anyone else? He's stand. Yeah, he's standing back. Okay, we're going to move next
179to our action items. M. Brown 6A. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, board chair. Thank you, board chair, vice chair Tucker, and board members. We have our first action item, our field trips for our VGAM, VJ for Virginia Tech University. Imagination drone camp on June 14th through the 20th, 2026. And imagination computer science camp on June June 21st to the 27th, 2026. And our PHS field trip to the University of Mary Washington STEM camp on July 20th through the 24th. >> Kate can't pull up this first one. This one's right. That's it. You've heard the superintendent's recommendations and motion to accept. Oh, wait a minute. Mr. Dance is not here. >> Let me go get it. >> Where did he go? >> I need to get >> Yes. You want to read your recommendation back? Mr.
180Dance is back. Thank you, Mr. Dan. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the field trips for PHS field trip to Northfor State. Is it Norfolk? Northolk State University for girls basketball camp on June 12th through the 14th, 2026 and VH VJMS students of Virginia Tech University, Imagination Drone Camp on June 14th through the 20th, 2026 and STEM imagination computer science camp on June 21st through the 27th, 2026. And for VJMS and PHS students to the University of Mary Washington's STEM camp on July 20th through the 24th, 2026 as provided. >> Thank you. You've heard the superintendent's recommendation. Is that motion to accept? So move >> moved by Mr. Pierce. >> Second Mr. Dance. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Motion carries.
181>> 6B. Thank you, board picture, and school board members. Individual student alternative education plans grant and we brought that to the last board meeting. So these are the follow-up action items for approval. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approved the individual student alternative education plans grant is AAP as provided. You heard the superintendent's recommendations. Motion to accept. >> So move, Mr. Chair. >> Mr. Dance, is there a second? >> Second. >> Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carry. 6C. >> Thank you. Our 2027 gear up grant. It is the superintendent's recommendation. The school board approve the 2027 gear up grant as provided. You >> heard the recommendation by the superintendent. Is that a motion to accept? >> So move. Moved by Miss Tucker, second by Mr. Pierce. All in
182favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Last action item 6D. >> It is the superintendent's recommendation. This is our new courses. The superintendent's recommendation. The school board approved the 2026 2027 new CTE new courses as provided. >> Heard the superintendent's recommendation. Is there a motion to accept? >> So move. >> Moved by Mr. Pierce. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Dance. All in favor? >> I motion carries. Next we move to number seven. Thank you preaching. I just have a quick update. Another Thank you very much. Next slide, please. Thank you. So, I just want to of course um la the end last day of school was our last day of school and I just want to just highlight our promotions and moving on ceremonies. We celebrated our rising first grade, fifth grade and
183eighth grade students and moving on and promotion ceremonies across the school division. As you can see, our students from Lake M Elementary School in kindergarten, our Pleasants Lane Elementary School, fifth grade promotion ceremony, and our eighth grade promotion ceremony for Vernon John's Middle School. We are indeed proud of our students for moving on to the next grade level, and we know that our students futures will be bright. Next slide, please. Of course, we had an absolutely wonderful PHS graduation ceremony. Last week, we celebrated 233 Petersburg High School seniors as they walked across the stage at the Virginia State University um to get their diplomas. We are so proud of our graduates and we can't wait to see what the future holds for each of them. I just want to highlight again our PCPS students continue
184to be recognized everywhere and especially in the Congressional Art Competition. So recently, Congressman Jennifer Mlelen honored Congresswoman, excuse me, Jennifer Mlen honored our talented Petersburg High School students for their outstanding work in the 2026 Congressional Art Competition. Congratulations to Jasine Nichols Pierce in first place. Jimmy Medina third place, Kiana Keani Donahghue, honorable mention. Kamaya Artist, Jennifer Campbell, Jan Krenel Bird, and Makaju James. Congratulations to our fabulous students. It was fantastic to be in the place with Congresswoman Jennifer Mlelen to celebrate our Petersburg High School students. That concludes the superintendent's report for this evening. Are there any questions? >> Thank you, Board Chair Pitcher and board members. Schoolboard members. >> Thank you for the report. 7B committee reports. There's a special education advisory committee meeting minutes attached to the report for your review. Number eight, new
185business from board members. Any new business? board meeting where tomorrow is a law no tomorrow's not Friday is the law conference it's virtual or either it is in person um next board meeting is June 17th July 1st and July the 15th and let me see do we have any announcements there no is there are any announcements there no announcements No upcoming announcements. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved >> by Mr. Pierce. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion carries. This meeting is now journed. Have a great evening everyone.