School Board Regular Meeting - July 16, 2025

001Test it. Test it. cuz we're running behind. You ready to come on? Let's go. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. At this time, board members, we would need a motion to come out of close. So move >> moved by Miss Proctor. Is there >> second Mr. Dance 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. Two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed session were convened were heard, discussed, or considered in the close session by the board. Prior to the vote, any member of the board who believes that there was a departure from the

002requirements of one and two as read shall so state the same, indicating the substance of the departure that in his or her judgment has taken place. Does any board member wish to respond? Hearing no response, I will now take the freedom of information roll call. Mr. Steven L. Pierce, Senior. >> Yes. >> Mr. Halby Mau, Senior. >> Mr. Kenneth El Pritchette >> here. >> Yes. >> Mr. Takari Tucker. >> Yes. >> Miss Joyce Proctor. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bernard J. Lundy Jr. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Adrien T. Dance, Senior. >> Yes. >> Okay. We do not have any action from close. Is there a motion to adjurnn from close? >> So moved by Mr. Lundy. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Good evening

003once again everyone. The time now is 5:15 p.m. Yeah. 5 what is it? 15 5:19 p.m. Do apologize and want to welcome you to our regular board meeting. At this time, we'll have Miss Tucker to call the role once again. Lord have mercy. Miss Davis, >> Mr. Steven L. Pierce, Senior >> here, >> Mr. Halby B Mile Senior >> here, >> Mr. Kenneth El Pritchette >> here, >> Mr. Carrie Tucker >> here, >> Miss Joyce Proctor >> here, >> Mr. Bernard J. Lundy Jr. >> and Mr. Aent T Dance Senior >> here. >> Thank you, Miss Davis. Board members, as at this time we'll move to 1A, approval of the agenda. If there are no changes, is there a motion to approve the agenda? Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? >> Second, >>

004Mr. Dance. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. We move to 1B. Moment of silence. Miss Davis. >> The following are to be remembered during the moment of silence. The family of Miss Bafra R. Sydney, former Petersburg City Public School employee in her passing on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. The family of Miss Marie H. Green, former Petersburg City Public School employee in her passing on Saturday, July 5th, 2025. And Miss Tiffany Bird and family in the passing of her mother, Miss Cynthia L. Johnson Bird on Wednesday, July 9th, 2025. >> Thank you. At this time, we have a moment of silence. Thank you. Next, we ask that you stand for the pledge of allegiance and we be led by Miss Proctor. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

005the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] >> Thank you. Next, we move to 1D, correspondence. Any correspondence, Miss Davis? Okay. Number two, recognitions. Uh, do you have any recognitions, Miss Brent? Not tonight. Okay, we'll move to number three, approval of the consent agenda. 3 A personnel, 3B, approval of minutes, and 3 C, donation. Thank you, board chair pitch and school board members. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the final personnel agenda dated for July 16th, 2025 as provided for 3B, approval of minutes. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the minutes of the 31925 special meeting. The 31925 regular meeting, the 41625 special meeting, the 41625 regular meeting, the 43025 special meeting, the 5525 special student disciplinary

006hearings meeting, the 5725 regular meeting, the 521-25 special meeting, the 5212021-25 regular meeting, the 6425 special meeting, the 6425 regular meeting, the 6182 25 special and regular meeting. The 62325 special student disciplinary hearings meeting, the 62525 special student disciplinary hearings meeting, the 62625 special meeting, the 7225 special meeting, and the 7225 regular meeting as provided for 3C donations received by PCPS. If you'll take a look at the screen, it is a superintendent's recommendation that the school board accepts the donations received by PCPS as provided on the screen. And so, thank you to all of our um wonderful donors who have donated and we have just two this time. So, thank you to Mr. Corey um Mr. Corey Harris and thank you to u Mr. Herbert Coloulton Jr. at Richard Bland College. Thank you to both

007of our um donors for supporting the work here in Petersburg City Public Schools. So once again, this is the superintendent's recommendation. The school board accepts 3A, 3B, 3C um as as provided. >> Thank you, Miss Brown. Board members, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? >> Second, >> Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you. Next, we move to number four. our student um our superintendent staff and guest reports 4A Miss Brown. Thank you board chair and schoolboard members. Our first presentation of this afternoon is a family services inc mental health program that will be given by Courtney Curtis and Canara Curtis. So if you could please come to the podium and thank you for being here

008this evening to present for family services inc a mental health program. Good evening board members, chair, vice chair, um, and superintendent. We are Family Services Incorporated. Um, we are located here in Petersburg on Sycamore Street. Um, a little bit about us, we were started in 2014. Um, my mother, Bernetta Quinn, started this company. Um, she has since passed and she left the company to, uh, myself, Courtney Curtis, and my husband, Canard Curtis. Um, and we have took it on and kind of pivoted and, um, made it our passion, um, which is the children in this community. and we really have focused on um really helping them and their families. So um through this presentation, I'm sure you'll have questions later, but we will um present to you a program that we have called uh therapeutic

009day treatment. That's mostly what we'll be talking about today. Um and you will hear from Canard Curtis as well. You'll hear from our clinical director, Chantel Cooper, and you'll also hear from um one of our uh children that we have in our programs. you can go to the next slide. Um so again just uh our mission and vision um our vision for the company is really to be a pillar in the Tri Cities area. So yes we do have a really big focus on Petersburg but we also would like to uh focus on the uh uh Tri Cities Hopewell uh Colonia Heights and surrounding counties as well. Um we want to be a safe place for our children. Uh we want to be able to encourage and empower them as well. Um and we strive

010to create a community where every child is understood, valued, and really heard. And you can go to the next one. Um so this is our services. So we have um our main service is really intensive inhome that is a one-on-one counseling service that we have. Um we have our QMHPS that actually go into the community and um help children um five to 18. Um, and with these services, we really strive to help them with their behaviors. We set goals. We set um different interventions in place to help them with behaviors specifically in the home. Um, and at this time, I would like to recognize some of our intensive inhome counselors that are here. So, we have Cameron. Just you can just wave your hand. Cameron, Naomi, Priya. Um, which and some of these are products

011of Petersburg. Um, so, um, we also have Isaiah over here as well. Um, and I'll just introduce you right now. So, Amber is our office manager. She's the brains of everything. So, um, she helps us out so much. But, uh, then we have our after school and summer therapeutic day treatment. So, we'll talk a little bit of more about what the therapeutic day treatment is, but right now we've been doing it for about four years. We do um right now we're doing summer program and then after summer we move into our afterchool program as well. Um the outpatient therapy um the outpatient therapy we've had for about a year now. We have about four therapists um that are on staff and those all of those therapists see the current clients that we have in intensive

012and TDT um and they also see some of um some of the community children as well. We have parent groups and coaching, mobile crisis and community stabilization and then we have FAP services which is through social services and we have contracts with um Petersburg Hopewell um and we're in the process of getting Chesterfield as well and that's uh with therapeutic mentoring which is very simil similar as intensive inh home. Go to the next slide. Um so TDT specifically it is a school and community based mental health service. Um it is designed to help children um emotionally also with their behaviors in the school system. Um it is a program where the our actual QMHPs would be coming into the building and helping children with their behaviors. So um what it provides is individual sessions also

013we provide group sessions in the school as well. um the crisis intervention. So if a student is having a behavior, we are able to inter intervene with those different behaviors that are happening um in the school system. It's so much easier for us to be here and be present with the children um instead of, you know, the children having their behaviors and then us having to address it once they get to after school. you know, if we're in the school system, we're able to address the behavior right then and there, deescalate the situation and then we can come back and actually process it. Um, see what happened, what were the triggers, um, you know, was it something we could have prevented, what can we do next time to make sure this doesn't happen again. So,

014that's kind of the job that we would have. Um, the behavioral support throughout the school day. So, a really big part of what we want to bring into the school system is not just helping them with their behaviors, but also making sure they can stay in this the classroom. So, stand in the classroom, which means, you know, collaborating with the teachers, collaborate, collaborating with the counselors. Everybody really has their own responsibility job um that they are doing in the school system and we have a very specific one. So, we don't want to step on anybody's toes. we really want to collaborate with all of the different roles and make sure that we're all working together for this one child. Um, and then skill building in areas such as emotional regulation, social interpersonal skills and coping

015mechanisms. A really big part of um coming in the school system is also building the rapport with the kids as well. So we want to make sure that we can come in here the case loads that we have we want to make sure that we can really build a rapport with each child um so that if there is an issue we can possibly um eliminate it before anything happens where it's you know fights or uh detention suspension we want to eliminate all of that. So our duty really is to build rapport and I think we do a great job of that at family services. Um, also families, we want to make sure that we're connecting with our families as well. So, that's a really big part of what we do in intensive, but we want

016to do it within school TDT, too. We want to make sure that we are talking to the parents, keeping a relationship with them, um, making sure that, you know, they know the right things to do at home, making sure that they know the the coping skills of their children, making sure they're responding correctly as well. Um and then medication and education and management as well. So that's part of the service too. Um you can go to the next slide. Um and who we help. So just to give you an idea of the the children that we would help in TDT would be children who have been suspended a lot. Um detention, a lot of detentions, fighting, skipping class, uh being disruptive in the classroom. um you know so those are some of the kids that

017we will be uh targeting with this service and again we will be able to help them through those emotional behaviors um and that is all I have I'm going to pass it to the next person >> you can go to the next slide >> so good afternoon everyone all right so obviously why TDT is needed Um 70% of the teachers report increases in disruptive behaviors u obviously since 2019. Um the classroom management training um research center shows in 2024 68% say that preparation should have focused more on behavior management. Um this program is needed because obviously the teacher's job is to teach. Um but however when we have um disruptive behaviors in the classroom it makes it a challenge um for the classroom for the other students um and so just to have another counselor

018there a agency like us there in the room to assist these children u with these challenges that they may face um whether it's trauma um that they've dealt with um whether it's just um challenges from home that have went on and led into the school um academically things of that nature So that's just one area where we come into play to kind of really support the children in those ways. Um we definitely want to decrease suspensions. Um we know oftent times where um children may uh have these negative behaviors within the classroom and you know oftent times the first result may be suspension. How can we decrease that u for that child to return back to the classroom to work together um so we don't have as many kids outside of the school system outside

019of the classroom. Um you can next slide. Um so how do we support you um reduce teachers burnout by managing challenging behaviors? Um once again provide those strategies and um improve classroom improvements um with working alongside with the teachers with the behavior aids with working with the counselors and the specialists. How can we all work together to collaborate on the role to help this kid these children to be successful within the classroom? Um enhance academic engagement and attendance. We all know attendance is huge here in the city of Petersburg. We want to just continue that that's the forefront of these kids u when they leave home that they're going to school, they're getting there, they're arriving on time. Um create effective communication structure with the staff and the administration. Um we have worked hard to

020build relationships um with several um administrators within the school um CIS under Mr. Jamal Ellison um his his counselors and coordinators at Cool Springs who's Mr. R.J. Sturdivan, Miss Dominique, who's here at the high school um under CIS. Um and so, you know, why do we support you guys? Because we show up in the classroom. If if we get a call um regarding one of the children that's in our program, we don't wait until it's after school to address it. We got our boots on the ground. We're showing up to the school system, meeting these kids right where they are, making sure that they have the support that they need. and we're here to just to communicate amongst each other to figure out what can be done to help this kid get through the next

021day. Um, working with, you know, everyone around the school staff, enhancing academics, and um, providing classroom strategies. Next slide, please. >> Good evening again, everyone. Again, my name is Chantel Cooper and I'm the clinical director of family services. Um, what I handle is a lot of the clinical side of things. So, we're very heavy clinical clinically. Um, I am a licensed therapist in the state of Virginia. A lot of our staff are residents in therapy as well as other LPCs. Um, we also have our again our QMHPS and most of them are also in school becoming licensed professionals. Um, another important member of our staff that we have are teachers. We have a lot of teachers that are all that also hold licenses as QMHPs. And so they give us a lot of feedback on

022what's happening in the classroom and how we can be supportive and what what we need to do clinically to be able to support the education program. So we want to one work with daily behavior. That's one of our biggest things is their daily behavior in the class. We're already doing the work but we're doing it after school right now for u most of our schools. And so when we do it after school again we're kind of being reactive to what's happening. We're not able to really meet them where the behavior happened. So, we're kind of finding out what went on during the day and then we are clinically um appropriately addressing that behavior after the fact. What we're proposing is actually being able to deal with that behavior in real time. Again, as um Canar

023stated and Courtney, our main goal is to keep them in school um through assessments. I do a lot of assessments where I have children come in, I clinically assess them, and I'm finding that there's a lot of absences due to behavioral issues. Um, I've heard all absences between five and 10 days to 30 days and that is time outside the classroom. That's misinstruction and their report cards are reflective of that missed instruction. So, what we're trying to do is keep them in the classroom. So, through that, we use individualized treatment planning where we come up, we partner with the child and their family and the student and the staff at the school to find out what does this child need, what does it look like to support this individual child because everybody is not the

024same. So, this is not a cookie cutter um treatment plan. This is not something that John Doe and Sarid do has the same thing because they don't have the same behaviors. Um one-on-one counsel and small groups. Again, we're clinically heavy. So, we we have the ability to offer that. We have the ability to um work with the child in a group setting. We also have the ability to provide one-on-one to them as well. And then positive reinforcement and crisis management. One of the other services that we're trained in is crisis stabilization and mobile crisis. And so we're trained, we use that in a different service, but we're trained on how to deal with these crisis situations. We have actually responded to different children that have been in our program that have experienced crises while in

025school and the families, we were the phone call that they made to be able to help them um deal with the situation with the child. But again, showing them positive reinforcements. A lot of the times we meet children where we negatively um deal with them as far as their behaviors, but we're trying to pivot, move into a more positive reinforcement model. Also, family engagement and progress updates. So, I know um teachers, you're here all day, you're teaching, but also having to reach out to parents to talk about behaviors. That's a big a big chunk of the day that's used there after school, after hours. That's where we would come in for these these identified children as well. We're the people that keep in contact with the parent to let them know like, hey, this behavior

026happened today. This is what we did within the situation. They were able to remain in class, but this is what we're working on. We need to let you know what's happening and see how you can support us at home to be able to change this behavior. Again, collaboration with the teachers. So, being able to see how can we support the teacher in the classroom. We are not the educators. So how can we create an environment where they where they can educate without having to deal with the behavioral um issues all the time training and coaching work environment we train a lot um we have meetings all the time where I lead a lot of the trainings where we're training on just different trends changes in trends in 2025 things are different a lot of things

027are different social media is in play the terminology that everyone uses everything is different so we're constantly changing and navigating that to figure out how we can meet the children where they are and not in an outdated um practice. Um closing close close oversight of staff. We work very closely together as you can see who's out here tonight. We stay in contact. We have several chains of communication that we use and we constantly come back as a team, as a treatment team to figure out what's going on, what are we missing, how can we improve? We constantly send out surveys. How can we as a company improve? How can we improve clinically? So we're constantly changing and navigating and adjusting based on what's happening around us. Familiarity with the families and students. So also just

028we've become very familiar with our parents. We become very familiar with our families. We get to the point where we're actually servicing the whole family. Again, we have different levels of care which we use that term a lot in mental health. So you have TDT and intensive, but like we say outpatient and mobile crisis. We've had several families to come through where we've had the family adult members of the family in a crisis and they've gotten crisis services and we've had the children come through and they were having behavior issues and we would um offer other services such as TDT and intensive. So being able to service the whole family and then just a will willingness to work with the schools for care coordination to become a village for the child where we can deal

029with everything. we can do what's called wraparound services for the child while again the main goal is keeping them in the classroom. You can go to the next slide. Again, I can't stress enough how qualified our staff is. We are very um again clinically heavy. We are very um high on education. So, we we encourage people to go back to school and get those trainings. We do a lot of trainings. We have people now that in mobile crisis training. We have people that um that are in school and getting that training. And again, we keep in contact with our teacher staff that helps us navigate what's going on and changes in the school because again, we're not educators, but we we look to our educators to tell us what's happening, what's changing, how can we

030adjust. And then we also, we know IEP meetings is a big thing that happens with children, and it can be very confusing, intimidating to the families. We meet a lot of families that kind of don't understand what's happening. So being even a part of that process, coming in and helping them to understand and even having those after conversations of did you understand how can how can we help you understand what does what does these terms mean and things of that nature. And again we progress track everything. So we do paperwork, we do quarterly reports, we do daily notes, we do everything to track what is it that we're doing for that individual child. You can go to the next one. And again, our approach is we are one trauma-informed care, which which is one of

031the biggest things because I being a product of Petersburg and a graduate of Petersburg High School, I understand I've walked these halls and I'm understanding things happen outside of here that comes to the school. Our families go through things. A lot of things happen and they come here. So, we have to work with children that have been through a lot of trauma. And we are able to do that. We are able to meet that need because we are clinically trained in that way. We constantly do trainings to make sure we are trauma informed. We are evidence-based. We know what's going on. These are not things that we are kind of just pulling together. This is stuff that we are um educated on. We are doing research on and we're figuring out how can these things

032appropriately treat our children, treat the children that are in Petersburg or even the surrounding jurisdictions, but on their individual and specific situations that they're going through. Also being culturally responsive. Every child is not the same culturally. Their households are different. Um, and culture we know spans way past race, goes into socio, economic, everything. How do we deal with this child that may have these specific issues that may not look like another child that we're dealing with? So, we're able to meet that need. Academic schedule integration. Again, this is all done around their school day. Our primary goal is to keep them in the classroom. It's not to remove them from the classroom. is not to um suspend them out of school. It's to deal with the behavior and reintegrate them back into the class, excuse

033me, into the classroom so they can get the instruction that they need. Because again, our absences that we're seeing are reflective in those grades on the report cards. And it's very important that we keep bodies in the chairs in the class so they can get that education ultimately to be successful and go on about them lives. And then again, we're to collaborate and not be disruptive. Our goal is not to come in and undo what the educator is doing because they are the leader in that classroom. The educator is in charge in that classroom. We're simply there as a support to figure out how we can fill in the gaps for where there are some gaps in services because that child needs a little bit additional that is hard for a teacher to meet that

034need while trying to educate and prepare them for testing and things of that nature. You can go to the next slide. Hi, my name is Kiana Graham. I currently began my services began my journey with family services September the 15th. At the time, I wasn't sure what was going what I would be expecting, how things would go. When I first started family services, I could be honest. I it was really hard for me because I didn't want to open up didn't communicate had be was pushing everybody away from me my p because of my past experience. Oh my god. It be it made beginning Yeah. In the beginning, it made my process very uncomfortable and overwhelming and over time things began to change for the better. I started to open up and allow myself to

035trust people around me and I realized I was in a safe space in an environment. The staff, especially Miss Courtourtney, Mr. Canard and Miss Bazelle played a huge role by helping me and be seen, heard, and understood. They never gave up on me, and it kept on pushing me to the things I didn't know how to fit in. I was struggling to believe myself, but then I had supportive behind me. Their consistency and patient and encouragement helped me stay on track. stayed on track in school. Yeah, stay on track in school. Miss Viselle in particular had a big impact on me. At first, I was very unsure about our huge relationship because of my history. I was worried that she might judge me and eventually give up on me how everybody else did in the

036future. She began to sew up for me and be Yeah. began to sew up for me and kept showing up for me even when I didn't want the help. worked through personal challenges together and she helped me face heal difficult emotions and helped me communicate better and take accountability for my growth. She taught me more coping skills that I could still use through this year and as I get older throughout the day. She helped me recognize the strength that I didn't see in myself whole time. With family services support, I made a lot of progress emotionally, mentally, and physically and socially. I learned how to manage my emotions emotions in a healthy way and how to trust the process and advocate for myself. I eventually completed the program and accomplish every single goals I had

037for myself and they had for me by looking back. I I am truly grateful for the experience and the hard parts that I became in family service. And I am con yeah continually grateful for them to have me by my side as I'm continually in school and working hard with them because now they have helped me become the person I am today. The shape I am today. The person I never thought I would be today and the confidence and a self-aware I have for today and prepared for life. Yeah. to prepare myself for like full life challenges that always come my way. One quote that Miss Canard told me when I was in the program to never give up myself. Keep pushing no matter what people tell me. Another quote that Miss Bazelle had encouraged

038for me was to not let people get to me because people want to see their emotions and they will always win against me no matter what. I will continue to keep these affirmations by my side and help me graduate this school year in class of 2027. Family services I will always be yeah I will always be grateful to always carry all the lessons the support and the guidance I received from family services and within me. [Applause] >> Good job Kiana. Um it's quite a bit that she left off, but this young lady has made a a complete 360 um since being in services with us. Um you know, she comes back every day to work with the younger children and she started her job a couple weeks ago. So, we just want to congratulate her

039at the moment. That's all we have. Anybody have any questions? Any comments? >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis. And I believe Miss Cooper. Is that That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Great presentation. We're going to move now to the board members. If there are any questions, I'll start with Mr. Lundy. Um I think it was great. I I know that gentleman who is working hard to make sure that this program continues to be a success along with his wife. And I uh really appreciated the young lady who spoke about herself and how she would intends to continue to push herself forward to be even better. That means a lot that you understand what you have inside of you. >> Miss Tucker, >> to Mr. to Lundy's point. Um,

040amazing presentation and I did want to say um, from one product of Petersburg to another, I am so excited and I am so grateful for the things that you all are doing in the community. I'm not sure if anybody else follow you all on social media, but it's more than just a program to them. And um, the things that they're giving back to the community is what we embody in this city. It's what we need in this city. We need more of our youth to come back. Um, and I can just appreciate, you know, what you all are doing for our communities. Um, I did have one question. Is there a specific target age or target like school that you all are um looking to target? Well, I have two questions. I'm sorry that was

041just >> Yes. So, we were looking at the elementary schools, um, specifically Cool Springs. Um, we do have quite a few kids that are in our current TDT program from Cool Springs. So, and and Lakemont, I'm sorry. So, we're targeting both co cool springs and Lakemont. Perfect. Um, and I know you all did say that you all have students that's already there that you all are working with. So I know you all are well aware of some of our you know triumphs that we have there some of ours there. Okay we are >> one other thing. >> So what is it that you would need from PCPS from Petersburg City Public Schools in order for you all to start? >> Yes. Thank you for asking. So, um we would need anouou from the um school

042system stating that we can come into the school. Um and we also um we there's no, you know, charge for our services from you all. There's nothing that you need to put in the budget. It's it's literally we um everything's through Medicaid. So, we're fully funded through Medicaid. Uh we are credentialed with all of the insurance companies. So we will be able to service every single child that has Medicaid that would need the services. >> Perfect. Thank you so much, >> Miss Proctor. Any questions, comments? >> I nothing. >> Okay, Mr. peers. >> I can only say that the services are greatly appreciated serving on a disciplinary committee because we had very we do know that we have to u um assign some of those kids for those services. So I I can only say

043that I'm you know it's appreciative and thank you guys. It's good to know that you know homegrown and have decided to come back to provide the service. So, thank you all. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Dance. >> Good evening, everybody. Um, excellent presentation. I'm I'm really glad to see that you're willing to come into our school system and help our kids out. These types of services are very much needed and hope we can partner with you all to make our school system better and improve the quality of our students. >> Thank you, >> Miss M. >> Um, first of all, thank you. Um, those recommendations when a child is recommended, how does that process work? Where where does it come from? Does it come from a counselor, teacher, principal, or what? So the referrals come

044from a lot of our community resources whether it was district 19 um the counselors the uh teachers or whatnot and so it's a process to it. Um first of all they would call us and say hey uh we recommend this service for this child. Then assessment will be done um primarily by Miss Chantel Cooper. Um assessment will be done um it would get sent off to the insurance company and they have the um they they're able to either approve it or deny it. Um, but just be clear, even kids that have been denied, we've noticed that the service is still needed. So, we still worked with them because we know it will make a, you know, impact. >> Okay. And theou is important because you'll be able to come into the school system. >> Yes,

045sir. >> So, right now, you're not able to do that? >> No, not at the moment. >> Okay. So, that would be a big step forward. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Miss Brown. >> Thank you. Thank you. It was a wonderful presentation. It's great to learn about all of the resources that we have at our fingertips and our kids. Absolutely. Um I I ditto what all the board members have said thus far about this being a great um resource. It's so great to see a Petersburg City Public Schools Petersburg High School graduate um Crimson Wave over there. So that makes it even more special that you're giving back to um kids that um that I know you love and will support forever and ever. Um so my question is and so theou process

046to piggyback on um board member Miles so what is the expectation when once you come into the school who are you working with is the counselor is the social worker the principal the assistant principal what is that what does that chain of support look like once theou is in place then what happens what does the school have to do on a kind of a daily weekly basis can you talk a little bit about what that is >> so once in once we're in the school. What that would look like is the clinical staff such as like myself or other clinical staff that will be um primarily in this program, we will make our first contact will be with the teachers of these students. So, whatever whatever students that we identify and they are um getting

047the services, we would stay in contact with those teachers um to see what's going on in the behaviors. As far as reports, what we would propose to do is to be able to create data and reports to be able to really for you all's benefit to be able to see what's going on, what are the changes in behaviors, how is this program working. We will also stay in contact with the counselors as well. Um because they will also probably be involved and be a part of that village for the children um mostly before we even got there. they would more than likely um have had contact with that child and community um in schools, social services, whatever is a part of that child's village, we will be a part of it. But the main parts

048that we will go through with the school, our first line of communication will be with the teachers, then the counselors. um the when it would escalate up to administrative staff such as the principles um principal, assistant principles and so on would be more so when we're presenting that statistical data if things are happening that have escalated where we need additional supports but on a daily basis our primary um focus will be they will report primarily to me the staff will report to me on what's going on and then if there's additional conversations that need to get had or escalated they will come from one of the clinical staff such as myself or one of the CEOs. >> Great. So, thank you for that. Um, one quick question. Can you give an example of a goal?

049I know the young lady talked about the fact that she met a lot of her goals, which I love. Congratulations, sweetheart. Can you give an example, one or two examples of goals that you've set for kids in the program that got your support so we can kind of understand what that looks like? >> Yes. So, a um just off the top of my head um a specific goal would be um decreasing disruptive behaviors in the school and decrease decrease in levels of suspension. So, let's say we get a child that has been suspended four or five times um within the first six months of school and typically they exit the classroom without permission. Um they typically are um verbally aggressive to adults and um they receive their diagnosis based on their clinical criteria. We would

050build a goal based off that. So, if their primary um behaviors were disruptive and physical and verbal aggression, all of their goals would be geared towards that. and we will build the goals from there. And then we also always include a family goal. So a goal to also work with the parents and to how to support these behaviors and how to um take what's going on, what's happening in school, but also translate that over to the household because I think one thing we didn't mention before is a lot of our students that are also getting um TDT services in this well after school right now are also getting intensive inh home services. So we're able to care coordinate. We may have the staff working with them for CDT, but we have another QMHP that is

051working with them in the home and intensive and they care coordinate together to be able to figure out what's happening to be able to translate that over to the parenting as well. >> Nice. Thank you. >> And just want to piggyback on what Mr. Pierce and Mr. M said the three of us serve on the disciplinary board and I like the family piece because the students come before us but also we we actually listen and we can tell when family members come also the mother comes and and the mother is also crying out for service as well and basically the entire household is looking for service. So I like the family piece you know so hopefully um we can as Mr. Miles was saying also we can take this a little step further and have

052Miss Brown to um set up something with you all and Dr. Manson to see what we need to do to move forward and hopefully we can get something in place before the school year starts because you all will be helping us because you would not believe how many disciplinary meetings we have per year. How many Mr. Pierce? Right. It's it's it's way over a hundred. I know that. with over a 100 cases. >> Last >> Yeah, >> we've been to a few. >> You exactly right. You sure >> that's that's to support our children. Absolutely. >> Yes. >> Appreciate it. Okay. We do appreciate it and we look forward to um speaking with you you all. Thank you. [Applause] And I'm not sure how how young you all are, but I'm pretty sure that many

053of you probably Miss Fields probably was your principal or assistant principal. Okay. Okay. Yeah, >> that's first lady of Petersburg High School. There she is in the back. >> Okay, Miss Brown, we're going to move to 4B. Thank you. Thank you, budget pitch and schoolboard members. We will now have our July 2025 human resources recruitment update that'll be given by Dr. Shemica Long Lane, our assistant superintendent of human resources and Mr. Dewan Brown. If you all could come to the podium. Thank you. And I think that is the human resources team back there. I can't see from the glare. So, if you all could just stand and raise your hand so everybody can kind of wave and see the the team in the back. Thank you. >> Good evening, Chair Pritchard, Vice Chair Pierce, Superintendent

054Brown, board members, colleagues, and community. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update from the Office of Human Resources on recruitment initiatives and vacancy data within the division. Next slide, please. Tonight we will be focusing on our PCPS recruitment initiatives, sourcing and talent pipeline development, workforce development, current school and division vacancies, and next steps as we look forward. To begin our presentation, I will turn it over to Mr. Dwan Brown, personnel specialist, to review our recruitment initiatives. >> Good evening. Next slide, please. So some of the recruitment efforts we're going to be making this year are going to be employee branding which is going to be huge for us. Uh really taking a big step in rebranding ourselves to attract more talent here in the area. Uh the second is going to be sourcing

055and tight um talent pipeline development which simply means we're going to be reaching out to other ancillary sources to help build a pool of candidates. So that way when we do have positions come available we have a source of candidates to choose from rather than starting from ground zero looking for candidates. And then we also have workforce planning uh which simply means that we're going to be using data year-over-year to help us determine uh where we need to start in recruiting early on in the process and being more proactive rather than reactive when it comes to the recruiting process. Next slide, please. So, one of the biggest things we're going to be doing is social media engagement. Um it's been a big push this year to to really um really focus on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,

056and some other places uh advertising there. Uh one of the big things that uh our ask is is that when you do see us post something, if you can please share because that helps spread our web. Um recruiting is going to be be uh a collective effort from everyone to help us uh get the word out that we are hiring for certain positions. Uh as you can see a lot of our ads now are more innovative, more direct um and have things on there such as the QR code that allows people to directly apply. Uh next slide, please. So, one of the things that we found out is that um as we dig a little bit deeper into the data uh which again is going to help us do a little bit more recruiting in

057a more intensive manner um we're going to be doubling down again on some of these analytics. As you can see this one, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Um this particular ad for principles has a big reach when it comes to Facebook. So, this helps us recognize where we need to advertise depending on the position itself. um Instagram did not have as much reach and of course LinkedIn did not have as much reach on this particular one but again it lets us know that where we're advertising for particular positions works or it doesn't work. So when we go into do it again uh we can decide on where we need to go. Next slide please. Same thing on this one. This is the ad for the uh media specialist. As we can see on this particular one

058the reach to Instagram was was a little bit more than Facebook. Um, and one of the things we're really trying to focus on is really building our our brand within some of these social media platforms. Uh, the average person spends more than five hours on their phone and more than three hours of those hour uh, three of those hours are spent in social media. So, we do know we're in the right place when it comes to um, advertising for talent and attracting talent. We just need to get a little bit more granular in the details to figure out what's our impressions versus our engagement. And impression simply means the the amount of time someone viewed a particular ad. And engagement is what did they do with that ad? Did they they interact with it? Did

059they click on it? Did they share it? Did they like it? Um so with those things, it allows us to again really define what's next for um our marketing strategies when it comes to attracting talent. Next slide, please. So this particular uh two two three weeks ago I had the opportunity of visiting the Richmond airport returning from a trip and we were down at the baggage claim. I was there for about 20 minutes and I seen our ad circulate u on the on the screen probably about six or seven times. Uh so we're going to be uh aggressively trying to uh find more ways to uh brand and get our name out there. that this particular one uh gets almost a million uh impressions per month, which is which is huge. So, one of the

060things we're going to focus on is other things within an airport area to figure out what we can do to um help promote and help do something different, be innovative when it comes to recruiting. Um and I'll talk about on the next slide when it comes to the apply now but um also we're going to be talking about boosted ads and uh on Facebook and Instagram and also some other places like Tik Tok um that people are getting uh more traction where we can actually post some of our ads. Next slide please. So a boosted ad is simply a paid ad which simply means that we are paying to get that ad uh in front of more people. So on this particular ad here, uh, one of the differences is it has the apply now

061button. So instead of just having an ad just sitting on the social media platform, these new ads will allow someone to actually click on them and interact and apply directly from their phone from that particular website or from that particular site they're on. Uh, on this one we have views, reach, and clicks. So views means the amount of times that ad has been seen. Reach means the unique view of unique viewers of that ad. Um, based on this particular analytics on this, this means that we have almost 11,000 views and our reach was about a little bit over 6,000, which tells us that these people are seeing and viewing the ad more than once, which is exactly where we need to be. And then we have our clicks uh at about 15% per click. So,

062and this is off of just one ad, but our goal is to be more aggressive in this way when it comes to advertising and have a lot of more people click and again get more granular in the details and figure out where we are with we yes we have the impressions that we need but what are people actually doing with these particular ads and that'll help us again gauge where we need to be. Next slide please. So one of the things we had the opportunity of doing was we went to the huge conference in San Antonio, Texas uh the association of supervision of curriculum and development and also at the international society of technical technology and education. Um very great very great program very event that we went to. Uh we had over 40 visitors

063visit our booth that talked about um everything when it comes to teaching. Had some of the big box names there such as Google um Canva, Cahoot, uh Best Buy. There's a lot of big names there um that supported education and what's upcoming in education which AI is big is huge thing in education right now. So over 40 plus visitors, we had them do surveys to ask, you know, what uh to kind of gauge where we are and also to figure out whether or not we need to continue to go this route. We actually had people stop by from other divisions that were there. Richmond was there. Um uh we had a couple other people there. Brunswick was there, but we had them actually come back and take pictures of us. um and they were sent

064to their HR team to to be more innovative and and do a little bit more untraditional recruiting, which is what we're really trying to accomplish. Um over 80% of the 80% of the actual surveys that we took all said that we should continue to come to those expos. But the overwhelming of the people who did not fill out the surveys, they were still on board with us, continue to go out to events um and promoting nontraditional ways and trying to recruit and attract talent. Um, again, this is all about about a part of rebranding ourselves and making sure we're doing some something a little bit different um than some of the other people are doing. We really have to double down on what we do. We have to do double what most divisions are doing

065to make sure we're getting the right talent here. Next slide. So, just an example of talent pipeline, some of the things we're doing differently. Uh, we're trying to be as innovative and creative as possible. Uh, we did uh some career popups. Um, we did two at Vantage John's and two at the Petersburg Public Library. And in these pop-ups, the first few ones, we we kind of got a a normal attendance. Uh, but we decided to do more of a direct marketing where we're sending and doing invitations to people to have them come out. In this particular event, we had 44 attendees come out and we actually hired five candidates from that particular uh particular session. So, it was a huge turnout for us. It's a really big win for us. um and doing a lot

066of these events you don't see as that many people uh and to do 45 interviews in a matter of two or three hours um is is an amazing amazing task. So um job well done to the human resources team over there. You did well. Um but it was really good. Next slide please. So we are looking to more um digging into more our ancillary uh sources such as Handshake, Ed Join, Virginia employment commission, uh Virginia for veterans, uh state associations, and Indeed has been a great help u of helping us kind of source a lot of the applicants that we need. Um that that's going to be the the true true testament of us being able to really expand our web and and really reach out to people who we normally wouldn't reach. Um just

067in in Indeed alone, we got some some jobs to be put up um that are are just rolling over with applicants. You know, one of the jobs we put up over uh less than 30 days ago has over 60 or so applicants in it for a very particular job. So, uh we're really excited to see what we can do with Indeed um and also get get into the analytics of some other things uh and do some building within uh LinkedIn as well. Next slide. Thank you, Mr. Brown. On May 1st, 2025, we launched our frontline applicant tracking system. One of the many benefits of Frontline is the ability to review the average number of applicants that we receive weekly. As you see before you, in our first month of implementation, we received 32.3 applications per

068week. And within our second month, we saw an increase of 34.6 applicants per week. Our current average for the month of July is around 35 applicants per week. Next slide, please. We're also able to review the sources applicants most frequently use to learn about our vacancies. By an overwhelming margin, most applicants are learned about our vacancies by going to our website, which in two clicks takes you to the applicant dashboard, where vacancies can be viewed and applications can be submitted. Our second most popular source is through division employees sharing their positive experience and encouraging others to join us. Next slide please. We are hiring. Yes, we are hiring for the 2025 2026 school year and we are offering sign bonuses for fully licensed teachers. Next slide please. And for those hired at our comprehensive support

069and targeted support improvement schools. The snapshot highlights our bonus data thus far. As you see, for fully licensed, we're at nine. For targeted support intervention, we're at five. And for comprehensive support, we're at eight. Next slide, please. As we work to recruit and hire for vacancies, we are constantly reviewing our data and continuing the position control data cleansing project. During this process, vacancy numbers are subject to change as we partner with principles, hiring managers, and finance to accurately review vacancy numbers to comply with the standards of quality, support school master schedules, and align departmental structures. On the next few slides, you will see snapshots that capture vacancies as a part of the data cleansing project. As data is validated, candidates are approved for hire, or employees leave the division, updates are made to the data.

070Before you you see the early childhood and elementary school-based vacancies. We begin by starting with Head Start and the Virginia Preschool Initiative VPI program. Then drill down to grade levels. And then next slide please. We look at additional key areas within the school including special education, library, uh ESL, English as a second language, instructional assistance, and nurses. Next slide, please. Next are the data points for our middle school. Again, we continue our data cleansing process that we're using to validate our vacancies and the information is subject to change due to the affformentioned factors where we we've created this snapshot based on content areas because we want to correlate that with our certification requirements. We then follow the same structure used for early childhood and elementary reviewing additional key areas within the school. So before you

071are core content areas including encore which are elective courses. Next slide please. And then our other key areas again special education ESL, English as a second language, library instructional assistance and nurses. Next slide please. We transition now to the high school snapshot where we again focus on the content areas to align with our certification requirements. And then we move to our next slide please. Additional key areas within the school again special education ESL English as a second language library instructional assistance and nurses. Next slide please. Lastly, for our school-based vacancies, we have administrative positions. So, you see we have two turnaround elementary principles, one supervisor for alternative program, one elementary assistant principal, one middle school associate principal, and one dena students position, which is being repurposed. Next slide, please. Overall, based on our current data

072set, we're totaling 44 early childhood and elementary school positions, 16 middle and high school positions, and six schoolbased administrative vacancies for a total of 82 school-based positions. Again, this data is subject to change as we continue the data cleansing project. Next slide, please. Our next set of slides highlights school board office administrative vacancies where we have a total of six. Assistant Director of Budget, Coordinator of Mental Health, SEAL, Social Emotional Learning, Behavior Support, School Nutrition Program Administrator, Director of Special Education, Supervisor School Counseling, and Special Education League Compliance Specialists. Next slide, please. Our final snapshot here shows a number of vacancies within the schoolboard office that we have labeled other. So, these are non-administrative opportunities available at the schoolboard office. This slide before you has a total of eight. Uh you'll see there the asterisk

073represents uh job descriptions that have to be approved. Once they are approved, then those uh vacancies will be posted. Next slide, please. We're continuing with the vacancies we have that are in the other category for school board. Again, the asterisk represents those that have to be approved before they are posted. We have a total of 18. Next slide, please. And then lastly, we have a total of nine falling under the category of other administrative vacancies at the schoolboard office. Next slide, please. Our total board, school board, excuse me, office vacancies, department view is here before you. And this has given us a total of six uh administrative vacancies and then 35 under the other category. So, what we've done is we've broken this down by division as you see before you. So you can see

074the number of vacancies per department uh breaking it down into eight categories. Business and finance, human resources, communications, family engagement, student services, academics, data assessment, accountability, and then operations, which encompasses uh technology, security, athletics, maintenance, nutrition, and transportation. Again, the 35 other vacancies plus the six administrative vacancies gives us a total of 41 vacancies within the school board office. This data is subject to change as we continue the data cleansing project. Next slide, please. As we continue to move forward, next slide. We will continue to partner to attract the best talent for Petersburg City Public Schools. We are excited about the upcoming collaboration with the communications department to create a school division pro promotional video to highlight the amazing people in Petersburg. continue to tell our story and encourage people to come and transform with

075us. We will review opportunities for paid media to increase our brand awareness and continue maximizing social media as you saw earlier with boosted ads to increase engagement. We are directing our efforts towards strategic channels such as the Virginia Library and School Nurses Association to drill down into specific organizations that focus on specific vacancy types. attending education conferences is already presented and niche job boards like edjoin.com which is a nationwide job board for K12 education and handshake.com which is a platform used on many college and university campuses through their career services departments. We are developing our walk-in interview initiatives at our schools where we'll be partnering with principles to allow candidates an opportunity to walk in and be interviewed on the spot for the vacancies that we have available. We're expanding our postings by casting our

076wider net. We're optimizing k12 jobsspot.com which is automatically linked to our appli frontline system. And then we are also using indeed.com as mentioned by Mr. Brown. We're also excited about the new initiative recently approved for university instructors who will be supporting us in recruiting talent for classrooms as well as continuing our partnership with Proximity, which is a company that utilizes virtual certified teachers to help support instruction in our classrooms. Next slide, please. We are excited to build a strong employer brand and key talent pools as we recruit the best to Petersburg to transform with us. Thank you again for allowing us to share this information. At this time, we invite your questions. Next slide, please. >> Thank you, Dr. Lane and Mr. Brown. Mr. Miles, any question? >> Thank you for the presentation. Um, I

077just want to make sure I heard this correct. um those five new hires that you got from those going around you doing um you was that at the public library where where where was that >> the career pop-ups we had two at Vernon Johns Middle School and two at the Petersburg public library. >> Okay. And those five new hires were how how many of those five were certified teachers? I mean were were um licensed teachers? >> One. Okay. And you said you had how many vacancies at central office? >> There's a total of 41. 35 under other and six under administrator. >> Okay. Um 41 vacancies at central office. How many people do we have at central office? >> We we'll have to look at that and give you a specific. >> You don't know

078your HR? >> No sir. I don't know the exact number because again we're working on a data cleansing project. So we're still looking at the numbers. That's a that's that's Wow. If I was to ask the superintendent how many students we had in Petersburg City Public Schools, she could tell me that to the end. If I was to ask a principal how many assistant principal, teachers, and what they had, they would tell me that to the nth. If I I I would think if I asked HR how many people are employed at central office, you can tell me that to the nth. I would imagine that where you wouldn't have to come back to me and give me an answer. If we had 41 vacancies at central office and I asked how many people do

079we have how many jobs do we have at central office? I'm quite sure HR would be the entity that would give me that answer. So I'm I'm I'm I'm amazed at at at that answer. The other thing is we got 41 vacancies at central office. The reason why people take a job, what's the number one reason why people take a job? for their livelihood, right? For to get paid. If we take that same money and give it to certified licensed teachers, I'm quite sure we get get some people in here and we raise that salary and we can pay these teachers what they deserve and get some people in here. People are not going to come here because we advertise. They're going to come here because of what we have to offer and we have

080to make a difference in that. So, as a board and as superintendent, we we got to look at those salaries. If we got 41 vacancies at central office, how do you have any clue what that what those total salaries would be? >> Salaries are based on the salary scale and the years of experience that the person comes in and also their degree >> but we also project when we do when we do things. >> So the thing is is that we got 41 vacancy. We should have an idea basically of of of those salary ranges. So we should at least should have a range because you do do salary ranges. Correct. >> Correct. We do have a salary. >> That's what I'm That's what I'm saying. So, the thing is is that we have a

081lot of waste. That's what I'm getting to. And we could take that waste and turn it into a positive by putting it in the right place. And the thing is is that I I guarantee you social media is great, but at the same time, it's not going to get them to change change from from one local to the next. A licensed teacher is u a l a licensed teacher is so important. We are in the educational business and I want to see things look good on social media but the bottom line is results when it come to education because that's the business that we in. And um and um so um how many licensed teachers have you hired this year? >> Um by school or you want an overall number just so I'm clear? >>

082Seven. Go back to us. new. >> I'm I'm sorry. What are you talking to me, Mr. Brown? >> No, I'm asking the team to please go back to those slides so that we can answer the questions and so that we can go back to the slides that show. Um, if we could go back first to the vacancies at the central office, please, if we could go because I think we outlined those positions specifically so that we could let the board know. Um, but this is our attempt to provide some transparent data. And so here are the schoolbased those are schoolbased vacancies. Go to the next one for me please. Keep continue. Thank you. Go to uh it'll it'll say schoolboard office. So here are the positions at the schoolboard office that are vacant again that

083are outlined. The assistant director budget which is a part of the assessment that we got from um Alvarez and Marcel. We have coordinative mental health. These positions had people >> I apologize. I apologize. I didn't mean for you to do all of that over again. I was just asking a question. And I was just trying to point out that if we had 41 vacancies at central office and and we got to take a take time to go back and look how are we getting things done and where's the waste. That's what I was trying to point out. I wasn't trying to justify any of those positions up there. I wasn't trying to knock down any of those positions. I'm just trying to point out if we got 41 vacancies in Petersburg at a small school

084system like Petersburg at central office and you need those 41 position. How are you getting anything done? What are we doing? So the thing is are are we just creating positions doing things and not getting anything done? So the thing is that we got to go back and do a um it's not just pro um proficiency but efficiency to to see whether or not we even need some of those positions because because if it's not affecting the kids in the educational system and supporting the schools in a way where we're being more beneficial to the public that we serve, we got a lot of waste. We have a lot of waste and we need to get rid of it. And my big thing in industry was to remove waste and be more productive. So I

085don't I don't need another answer that's not going to satisfy anything. I just need to for everybody to take a look at it and see if we could be more proficient and efficient. >> Thank you, M. Thank you, Mr. Miles. Mr. Dan, I think this is >> no question, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Mr. Dans. Mr. Pierce, >> thank you for the presentation. I don't particularly have a question. I do know it's my understanding that uh the superintendent and the HR staff is in the process of reassessing and realigning. And uh it is our hope and uh our expectation that after that's done that we hope to see in the very very near future the results of all of that with with uh in accordance to some of the information on the comments that uh

086board member Miles had had indicated and hopefully we can see that uh relatively expeditiously. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Pierce. Mr. Proctor. >> Nothing. >> Miss Tucker. M. Tucker, >> thank you so much for the presentation. I do have one question. Um, what is the turnaround time or the turnaround correspondence for um when a person applies for a position on front line? So, if they apply um today, how soon would they hear back? um whether or not it be that they were selected to move on for a screening process or um a regular interview or if they weren't selected at all. What is that process? So the system is designed that as soon as they complete the application, they get an instantaneous response letting them know that their application has been received. The turnaround

087time is going to be based on the hiring process based on the specific manager. So the timeline that they utilize to interview candidates is going to have an impact on that. and then the time from the candidate actually being approved for a position. Once we're able to take that down, then there's another automatic message that goes out to let them know that the position has been filled. >> Perfect. Thank you, >> Mr. Lundy. Um, one thing I noticed that was very important when we were at Breitpoint for commencement, and that was there were a number of uh of people of students that were early childhood specialists. Had I been that person, I would have immediately moved to let people know that we have a interest for you in Petersburg and being that being an early

088childhood specialist, we could then move in another direction to create more teachers so that we can get them to become cert certified and work with us to move them on forward. Now, that was just my idea of thinking about it because we had so many people at that time that we could have had some conversations. So, you have to be on top when you want to get things done. you have to get use your opportunity to get things done. And that was a clear way of us being able to get people to Westview early childhood and to get people to become teachers. And I think that would have been a successful idea for us to have done because we had the people right in our hand. Thank you, Mr. Lundy. I I just have one

089question. I know that you all are going out and you're recruiting for teachers, but tell us how you are recruiting for the other departments like operation. Yeah, you have 20 vacancies there. So, tell me because I have not seen I have not seen a posting where you're advertising just for those jobs. I've only seen teachers. >> Yeah. But the idea is for us to begin to start uh creating some target marketing ads for some of those positions. Uh we do find that uh when we do post for those positions, we do get a lot more applicants. So the applicant pool is larger. Uh so we do have to do a lot more sourcing u to make sure that they'll qualify for some of those positions. But we are going to do the pretty much the

090same thing and let's create more targeting ads towards those positions. >> Thank you, Mr. Lenny. So, so how long have you been in this position? >> Um, almost two years now. >> Almost two years now. >> Okay. And, and have we made a great deal of progress in bringing a lot of new individuals on? >> Yeah, we have made a great deal of progress in bringing new individuals on. I think our biggest thing is keeping our individuals that we have bring on. uh making sure that we retain a lot of the individuals that we do bring. Um but we can definitely um have seen uh progress in bringing people here. >> Okay, >> this is Tucker. >> So I know you said retention um is the issue. um bringing them on is easy, but retention.

091Do you do you have a solution or do you know of a solution that would potentially keep these teachers here or not just teachers cuz we have a lot of vacancies. So, I mean, cuz I'm pretty sure it's more than just the money. The money is a big thing. The money is definitely a big thing, but it's more than the money. So, has HR come to the table about solutions on how to retain these teachers? Because, and I asked that because um we actually just lost a teacher um based off of she had it was one day. It was a one day difference. Um I got a call. It was a one day difference on her taking a position in another division or her staying here. and she got the call for a position here

092one day after she took a position and she applied four weeks. It was four weeks. It was a four-week difference in her applying for a position here where she's been for over 10 years. So, have we come to the table to think about solutions on how to keep these teachers? Because we have a lot of great teachers. We have a lot of great staff, period. But we're not going to them to try to keep them here. We're we're just bringing on new people. We're bringing on a lot of new people that's coming and they're getting all the money, but they're not staying. So, what are we doing to combat that? So, one of the things that we are focusing on is when people do decide to uh separate from Petburg City Public Schools is we're

093going to be doing surveys, exit surveys, interviews to figure out why they left, what they could have done, what we could have done to make them stay. Uh but it is a collective effort from everyone uh to help out with retention uh efforts just to make sure that uh we're on the right right page and and doing the right things to uh keep the the amazing talent that we do or not only have but they are that we also are getting. So um that'll be in my opinion the first step is to do some surveys and really figure out the deep of why and hear from them why why they're leaving. >> Thank you PA. I want to just answer um um board member Tucker's question. I want to bring Dr. Lane in as assistant

094superintendent of human resources because I I'll say that retention is the key for everyone. What I'll be honest with you about in Petersburg is that we have wonderful teachers, but we've gotten a lot of teachers lately that they send to us, if you all remember, we have a matching system. anyone who comes from outside the school division. I brought that to the board that if they work in another district, let's just say Fairfax, we put in place a matching system up to a certain percentage. I think it's 15%. Is that correct, Dr. Lane? And anything over that, it comes to me and then I sign off on it and we're able to recruit those people. But we also even on the last um agenda, we had teachers right here in the in the division where

095they were being courted by another school division. Is that correct? We raise their salaries high. So they could be at 70, they might have gone to 80. So we have a process that for teachers that are inside because first of all I think I need to commend the board that before I came on board. I think you all raised salaries before I even sat in this seat. You all did teachers first from what I learned in 23 24. You all looked at teachers who were in the school division and you all voted to raise the salaries up so that people who were not where others who came in you did that. Then this past year you also voted for the operation side of it. Is that correct? And so we looked at people and the

096board we gave people great raises just off of that. Then we also gave a 3% raise. And so that is one way I can say that I've seen coming into this role that you all already started working on fixing money issues for people and you've done that for certified staff and for non-licensed staff which is operations. So, we have done some things before I got here and when I came on board, there are teachers who, like I said, that have come and said, "Hey, Prince George is hiring me. Here's a here is a here's my salary." We don't bulk at them. We're giving people a lot of money, and I want to be honest about that. And that's a lot of money. We have great teachers, but we're matching them and then some. Is that

097correct, Dr. Lane? So, that's one way to keep them, but we're also looking at for pay. We're about to embark, as um vice chair, vice vice chair Pierce said, we're about to embark on a full comp and class. I know you were referencing the the assessment, but we're having a comp and class study for every single position in Petersburg. Every job description, the fair market value, we're putting that in place. And I think that company, I think it's in my report, but that company, I think it's Evergreen, >> Evergreen, is about to embark on a full compensation and classification um process so that we can take out the the the money piece and have a clear transparent everything related to pay and they'll have recommendations. I think the other thing is we have to as

098a culture is that we've got to create a culture that people want to stay. We got to respect people. We got to treat people well. We got to do those things because at the end of the day, how people are treated, how they're made to feel, those things matter because nobody wants to work in an environment where they're not appreciated, they're not respected. And we're not saying not being accountable. We have to be accountable. But it's different being accountable than being in an environment that's threatening, that's all these things where you feel like, you know, it's it's a negative. Thank you. And I'm just saying that if I may for a point of privilege that that's what we're trying to create and that starts from everybody. So I think that retention is that that we

099have a lot of work to do in our culture that we it doesn't happen overnight but we've got to take steps but we're trying to help work on the money part but we got other things we got to work on and everybody in this room everybody that works in Petersburg is a part of us building that kind of culture where people want to stay but if they have a money issue we've been addressing them and you all addressed it before I got here so I just want to be fair to the work that's already been done around that. Thank you. >> And I would also add we've had done two retention bonuses, one that was in March and one that was just completed this week. We're also re-imagining our orientation and onboarding process. So, we're

100separating orientation from our new teacher academy so that we can start our employees offright. we move to an electronic format for them to complete their onboarding documentation to make it a much easier, more seamless process, welcoming them into the environment and frontloading them with information so that they feel welcome right from the beginning. Um, in addition, we rolled out our first mini climate survey at the end of the year and so we have that data that we're looking at to see where our employees value, what that they feel they need and how can we respond to those needs. Um, subsequently we are going to be working on recognition and rewards uh, programs. We had our first one together back in May where we combined the teacher of the year and the retirement celebration at uh,

101Virginia State University as one of our first efforts to help to recognize and reward our staff as well as begin having employee engagement initiatives at the schoolboard office to set an example that it is okay to have just a few minutes of break to collaborate with each other and enjoy the workspace. >> Thank you, Dr. Lane. I think also we have to we have a lot of work to do and I'm going to be very trans. We have a lot of work to do. We're working on our processes. People also want to be able to engage with processes that work. And so we have work to do in that area in a lot of different spaces, but I just want everyone to hear that we are working on those processes in human resources. And so

102again, this assessment is going to help us. And then we'll start implementing some of the recommendations and we'll be able to bring back to the board the report. Here's what they found. here's where we're going to start. So, we're going to start with those processes. And so, I ask people as they walk on this journey with us, understand that we are absolutely going to be working on it. We are absolutely going to address it. And it's not perfect. Nothing is. That is not an excuse, but we are going to be looking at our processes and procedures because people leave sometimes because they're frustrated because they don't get information and all those things. But, we are absolutely working on it. And I appreciate um everyone who is walking with us as we try to improve our

103process and enhance those processes that are that are well because we've done some good things in HR and then we have lots of things that we're still working on. But I appreciate everyone's support as we're trying to refine get information and start addressing those things that we need to address. >> Thank you, Miss Bri, Miss Proctor. Um this is not to take away from the importance of keeping on keeping on but having a human resources background I can tell you and I think um all of us know probably that there's something called the marketplace and um teachers are in demand throughout throughout this country. So, we can't, you know, be too um too accusatory, if you will, about our human resources. We value you, but we want you to keep on keeping on. Okay. >>

104Thank you. >> Question, >> Mr. London. >> Um, two things. Uh, one is do we ever use any type of spreadsheet to um find out about exit interviews? Uh, those things are very important to uh they they really help to they help other persons that will come aboard also. Um, and I wondered how we might go about that because sometimes that really helps other people figure out how we how are we going to go about this in a different direction so that we can keep individuals and that's by sharing because we're not trying to be against each other. We're supposed to be a team and being a team there are various things that we all can talk about but we can all better at the same time and you use that information to see what

105has been going on what takes place almost as if you you shared how we treat people. We definitely have to show how we treat people and that's a way we might be able to keep up with what's really happening in in our HR department. >> Yes, we do have an online exit survey that we send to employees once they have officially submitted their resignation or retirement. And in that survey, they have the option to uh select having an in-person exit interview as well if they want to have a actual conversation with the HR team member so that we can collect qualitative and quantitative data from those staff. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chair. Mr. Dance, >> over the years, we have had some challenges. Uh over the 12 years that I've been on the board,

106we've had some challenges. Um, we've had some challenges with HR, had some challenges with teaching and learning, had some challenges with finance. However, we we have new people in finance, new people in teaching and learning, new people in HR, and we all need to work together and be patient with each other and understand that a lot of these issues that's been going on in Petersburg for a long time, it's going to take a while to correct. It's going to take a while to correct. And nobody's going to come in here and snap their fingers and these issues are going to go away. So, we've got to be patient with each other. We've got to respect each other. We've got to put integrity in what we do. And we've got to trust each other. We've got

107to have trust. We've got to trust the people that we hired to do the job that to do the job that they were hired to do. And when they're not here, whoever's taking their place, then we got to trust them to do what they supposed to do because they're getting paid to take somebody else's place. So, we've come a long ways in Petersburg and I'm proud of the progress that we have made and we're doing great things in Petersburg. And you can't tell me that we're not. So, don't talk about my city. Don't talk about my schools. Don't talk about my school board cuz I get offended. Amen. >> So, just take a look around. Keep your ears open. We're doing great things in Peasburg and we all got to work together. We got to

108trust each other and we got to be patient with each other. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Dan. Don't forget. Great. You said don't forget. Go ahead. >> I like what Dan did cuz I love Petersburg. Somebody asked me the other day, you said, um, you worked in a environment that diversity was, um, you were the diversity, which I was the only one that looked like me. And said, how could you deal with that? You know, first of all, you got to be a professional and you got to be you got to be able to do your job in a way and and and one thing that I loved about all the different entities where in in places that I worked was that HR was intact. And it that's what supported me the most. And

109an employee that's that's that's working in an environment where HR is intact. If they have a problem, they have somewhere to go. They need they they need to ask a question. They have somebody they can ask that question to. If they need support, employee assistant program, they have that and it's going to support them in during the good times, the bad times, and and and the development times. We get complaints all the time. What what what what the um um the superintendent just said, we had people that they get disillusioned because they don't get that support. When a person is working a job and they feel like they're supported and they're back, that's how you build a team because everyone is not going to be a superstar. A lot of employees, they need that. They

110need that. We get I'm not even going to open up my phone, but I just read some things to the superintendent a while back where people was asking me and and they're not getting that support. They're not getting that feedback. and what you said Miss um Tucker in a timely manner where that they had to make a decision and they couldn't make that decision in a timely manner so they went with the other what they did get a um a choice from. So life is a choice but at the same time Petersburg as a team I love Petersburg. All my kids went to went through Petersburg. All them doing great. My family. But the thing is is that we can do when Hey, like Dan said, we can do better. We're doing better, but we

111can do better. And especially when it come to our employees. I don't want nobody working at Peasburg public school to leave here with a bad taste in their mouth. Whether or not they going to a something bigger and better or whether or not they retire. I had friends that retired this year that refused to come to the retirement because they left with a bad taste in their mouth. I said I felt so bad that I I felt bad about it. And Mr. Chairman, you know I'm telling the truth. So the thing is that I'm not calling no names, but it ain't had nothing not a reflection on you because you won't hear the whole time. But what I'm saying is best hurt me to know somebody that worked here for 40 years decided that they

112not going to go to their own retirement because they didn't like the way they was talked to or treated, you know, in that final, you know, in the final few years, the way they was treated. That's not good. and for them to ask and and that that tells me that support wasn't there. Somebody should be able to notice that to make sure that if one of our family members are hurting, we all hurting. If one of our teachers are hurting, we should know that they're hurting. Or one of the staff members are hurting, we should know that they're hurting. If somebody needs some help, we know they need some help. And I don't care in what capacity they in. They could be a bus driver, some somebody crowd for help. We need to pay attention.

113We need to pay attention. And the thing is that that means something to us because something as simple as that that we think is simple support the whole school system. Just getting the kids from point A to point B, bringing them back and forth to school. That's important. And it involved lives and safety. We shouldn't take none of this nothing for granted. And when people tell me that, I'm I'm I I am I am concerned because I look at Petersburg as a family. This is my family. I love y'all whether or not I like you or not. I love you anyway. I might not like some of the things you do, but I love you. I want the best for you. I want the best health for you. I want the best the best traveling

114mercies for you. But at the same time, we other people need to know that people that's here need to know that we love them, too. And if they leave here and they they're not feeling that love, we did something wrong. That's all I'm saying. We can do better. >> Thank you, M. Miles. Thank you, Dr. Lane and Mr. Brown. We appreciate it. We'll move to 4 C. Thank you, Bo, and schoolboard members. Uh we'll now have our third presentation of the evening which will be our communications department update which will be given by Miss Chelsea Vongere our chief communications officer along with her team Mr. Frank Akens and Mr. Jakor Coleman our communications specialist. >> Thank you board chair vice chair members of the board superintendent Brown and members of the community. The communications team

115is pleased to provide you with the communications department update this evening. My name is Chelsea Vong Vongir and I am the chief communications officer here at PCPS and I'm joined by my colleagues in the communications department who will introduce themselves shortly. Next slide please. Our agenda this evening is to introduce ourselves. We want you to get to know the names and the faces behind the communications work that takes place in our school division. We will go over the roles and responsibilities of the communications department. We will highlight some of the work that we've accomplished together as a brand new communications team since March of 2025. and we will share our vision for communications moving forward. Next slide, please. With that, I will hand it over to my colleagues to introduce themselves. They'll share a little

116bit more about their backgrounds in communications and their work here at PCPS. >> Good afternoon, board chair, vice chair, superintendent, board members, and community. My name is Frank Akens. I am the communication specialist, photographer, and videographer for the division. Um, I have a degree in digital cinematography. I have over 15 years of experience in with photography, video, and digital marketing. During that time, I've provided services for Fortune 500 companies, Fortune 1000 companies, uh, colleges, universities, um, government agencies, as well as emerging businesses. I have been in the division, Petersburg City Public Schools, um, in some capacity since 2015. Good evening everyone. My name is Jaory Coleman. I'm the other communication specialist with our department. I've been with PCPS since November 2023. Um I'm primarily responsible for managing our social media platforms. But in addition to

117that, I also help with creating a lot of our communications material such as writing articles, writing press releases, managing the website, managing the newsletter, um creating flyers, things of that nature. As far as my previous experience, in 2018 I graduated from Old Dominion University with a major in communications and a minor in marketing. And in 2021, I received my master's degree from John's Hopkins advanced academic programs with a major in public and media relations. >> And again, my name is Chelsea Vongir and I'm the chief communications officer here at PCPS. I am new to the team. I've been here since March of 2025. Prior to that, I served as a director of communications and the public information officer for a large urban school district in Lodi, California, where we had 47 schools and 27,000 students.

118And prior to that, I worked in government affairs and lobbying where I advocated on behalf of the legislative agendas in Sacramento, Washington DC of my K12 school district clients and my community college district clients. Next slide, please. So, we might have to scroll in a little bit on the icons there, but this provides a broad overview of the work and responsibilities of the communications department. These are in alphabetical order, not areas of priority. And I want to say that we're a unique department in that we provide support across the school division to all of the departments and to all the school sites within our school division. We create and implement communication plans that might be related to such things as immunizations, attendance, enrollment, and and recruitment. We help provide crisis response as we know that

119communication during a crisis incident is critical. We provide again communication support to all of our schools and all of our departments across PCPS. We respond to Freedom of Information Act requests as received by our school division in the time required by state law. We also provide graphic design support. We create flyers and infographics, banners, and other materials for our departments and school sites. We manage Hootswuite, which is a social media scheduling tool that allows us to track our analytics behind our social media efforts. We also are the brand ambassadors for our logo and our branding. We make sure that the correct version of our logo and colors are used. We support marketing advertisement, which could be print and digital marketing efforts. We respond to media inquiries on behalf of the school division and serve as

120a primary spokespeople for the school division. We manage Maltwater, which is a social and media monitoring tool that alerts us when we're mentioned in the news or online and it helps us track the sentiments behind those mentions. We write news releases and news stories about our school division. We provide photography support and we build relationships here locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally because we want to collaborate with our counterparts and other local organizations when communications issues may arise. We manage parent square which is our mass notification system. You might have gotten a few alerts from us this week regarding in inclement weather. We provide communication support to our schoolboard. We manage which is a digital newsletter distribution system. We provide support for special events anything from logistics to promotion to marketing of the events. We manage

121all of our school division social media accounts for which we now have nine accounts and we'll share a little bit more information about that later on the presentation. We're storytellers and we write and share the good work that's happening within our school division. We provide videography services and we create promotional videos for our school division. And we also manage the content on our school division website as well as our school websites. Next slide, please. Next, I'll hand it back over to my colleagues to begin sharing some of the work that we've done together as a brand new team since March of 2025. Okay. Uh between March and June, the communications department has developed several marketing campaigns. The first was the calendar survey where we uh the goal was to get feedback from parents and and

122staff regarding the academic calendar. We have developed a campaign for Westview to help bolster enrollment. That campaign included various marketing materials including flyers, banners, uh social media posts, as well as a um a video designed to highlight the benefits of being enrolled in a uh preschool uh program. We also worked very closely with HR in their recruitment efforts. Again, we created various marketing materials including flyers, banners, social media posts, and a digital ad that ran at the Richmond International Airport on these screens next to baggage claim. Currently, we are in the middle of an immunization campaign. In years past, students have um not necessarily always had their uh proper vaccinations by the start of school. So, we wanted to bring awareness to parents to try to encourage them to kind of um take care of

123some of those issues over the summer so that students can when they return they're ready to go. Uh this campaign consists of a series of social media posts and videos that we're using to uh bring awareness to this. Also, uh some of the things that we're uh making parents aware of are where they can go to get these vaccinations, when those vaccinations are needed, and um also uh the importance of being u vaccinated. >> Next slide, please. As we mentioned, communication during crisis event is critical and since March of 2025, we have established new internal media response processes as well as crisis response processes. We'll continue to refine these process. the brand colors for the division. Next slide. We do believe in serving as our new our own newsroom and we want to push out

124as much positive information about our school division from ourselves on our website and our social media platforms. But we also know that the media has a large re reach and it's important for us to collaborate with them and have a symbiotic relationship with media here. We have sat down with reporters from the Richmond media market. We've even gone up to Richmond and checked out their newsrooms and we've from that we've built a media contact list that we email with proactive media stories and upcoming events within our school division as well as important updates. Some of the proactive stories that we have seen result in new stories include the national speech debate tournament, the expansion of our athletic department, and the new medical classroom at Vernon John's Middle School. We've active actively participated in 202 to

125total news stories since March or approximately five news stories per month. And when we say actively, that means we provided some kind of news pitch that resulted in a news story or we provided a statement or B-roll or photography that were included in the news story. This is not inclusive of all the times in which PCPS was mentioned in the news. And we will track this information so we can see how often our proactive pitches or our proactive information results in new stories. And we can compare that month by month and year by year for analytical purposes. Next slide, please. >> These are just a few additional examples of some of the communications work we do on a daily basis. Um, this includes supporting family engagement with flyers and communication, sending important notices and event

126information to families, which is primarily done via parent square and social media, sending crucial internet updates to employees, sending crisis communications to impacted communities, and we've sent 61 messages so far via parent square, which is approximately 15.25 messages per month. Uh the communications department was recognized nationally um by INSPRA, the National School Public Relations Association. We received four awards for our videos, uh three video awards of excellence and one video award of merit. [Applause] Um, since we started more closely monitoring our social media analytics, we've seen a significant spike in engagement on all of our platforms, especially Facebook. Facebook reaches a large majority of our target audience, and families and community members respond well to the content that's posted. Our content has also been wellreceived on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Since March, on Facebook, we've

127gone from 98 9,865 followers to 10,543 followers. On Instagram, we've gone from 2,334 followers to 2448. On LinkedIn, we've gone from 1,26 followers to 1,272. And on YouTube, we've gone from 490 subscribers to 566. Next slide, please. In an effort to expand our reach on social media, we've also created new accounts on Blue Sky, Threads, and Tik Tok. Blue Sky and Threads are alternative um platforms to Twitter and Instagram. And we created these accounts to have ownership of these handles should we decide to use them in the future. Um Blue Sky currently only has four followers. Um but with threads being directly connected to Instagram, this platform already has 331 followers. Tik Tok is currently an extremely popular platform and we saw this as a great opportunity to reach more of our students as well

128as keep our social media presence more current. Tik Tok is the fastest social network to hit 1 billion active users and the largest demographic on Tik Tok are users age 18 to 35. Since March, we have gained over a thousand followers on Tik Tok and we're steadily increasing. Next slide, please. Oh, not yet. Okay. A few of our posts have also gone relatively viral. A recent example is the 2025 Petersburg NAACP No Limits Fashion Show. This event received a significant amount of engagement with 58,373 views, reaching 45,961 people and receiving 2,200 interactions. Views are the total number of times the video has been watched. Reach is the total number of time total number of accounts reached. And interactions refer to the total amount of likes, comments, and shares. [Applause] Beat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey, heat.

129Hey, heat. [Music] Yay! Petersburg. Woo! Thank you to the NAACP. [Applause] >> Next slide, please. >> Aren't our students amazing? The communications team also supports special events within our school division. The three photos before you on this slide are just some of the events that we've helped support. We often write scripts, runs of show, media advisories, we create flyers, marketing materials, and and help support photography and videography during those events. This slide highlights the medical classroom ribbon cutting that was held at Vernon John's Middle School. We worked we worked closely with CSI Petersburg as well as HCA to plan the event from start to finish and we had a great turnout of media and coverage thereafter. We also helped support the announcement of our new assistant athletic director and we help support the media coverage

130and the photography during that event. And then we also help work with the human resources department during their teachers of the year and retirement reception. Next slide please. One of the more important things that we do in the communications department is uh storytelling. And we know uh that it's very important for us to tell our own story to control the narrative as much as possible. And some of the ways that we tell our story are through highlighting the good news um important updates, division projects like projects like the capital improvement projects that are going on right now. Also highlighting student and employee achievements. uh recognizing days, weeks, and months of cultural, historical, and religious relevance. >> You may have noticed a refreshed look on our division website. We have updated our website so that it

131aligns with our brand style guidelines. Our correct logo is on there. Our school division colors are on our website. We've also updated our website photos so that they are fresh and include recent events such as the graduation for PHS and summer academy photos. We have updated our social media icons. We've also streamlined our content on the front page of our website and on the dropown menu so it's a little bit easier for our community to find things. And we've also updated the news under our website and we're going to continue to update our website with back to school activities and things to prepare for with the new school year. Next slide. We're really proud of the work together that we've done together as a brand new communications team since March of 2025. And we also

132know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and we really look forward to this new school year and having a full school year of working together. Next slide. These are some of the items that we plan to tackle this year as a communications team. The first is we've already created a year-long planning document and a year-long social media content calendar. We know that the school year has a similar cadence or events that take place every single year. And so with that in mind, we can already project the times in which we may need to communicate. We also can project the days in which we might need to celebrate employees or students. And so we already have these year-long content calendar and year-long communication planning documents so we can plan ahead for those

133items. We've also prepared a three-year communication plan. We think it's important to have a mission and vision aligned communication plan so that we have a road work so that we have a road so that we have a roadmap for our work. And we'll kick off this process with a communications department audit and a communications audit and then begin the research and development of our communications plan. As mentioned, communication is absolutely critical during crisis situation and Mr. Trianka has done an exceptional job with ensuring that our crisis management plans for our school division and our school sites are updated and aligned with requisite laws. So, as a component of that, we want to create a crisis communication plan that aligns with the crisis management plans. This crisis communication plan will clearly outline how to respond during

134crisis situations, when to communicate, how to communicate roles and responsibilities, and how to communicate before, during, and after a crisis incident. And we also want to make sure that it's aligned with other standardized approaches to incident management such as the FEMA incident command system. We'll continue to build relationships locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally. It's important that we know and have a rapport with our communication counterparts at different agencies. So, when something happens, if we need to jointly communicate, we already have those relationships established. And we have met with City of Petersburg communications team, including the spokesperson for the police department. We have met with the communications and connected with communications professionals at Breitpoint Community College as well as Richard Bland College. We've also met with state level communications professionals and we've joined regional and national

135school communications associations so that we have relationships that span the nation. We will implement a new digital fire distribution system this year. We want to make it easier for our families employee and employees to receive review and retrieve information about upcoming events within our school division as well as our community. And we will unveil this process very soon. We plan to implement clear social media guidelines for our school division and for our school sites that manage social media platforms that align with best practices. And we want and we also think it's important for us to have a social media guidance for those that use our platforms comment on our pages and our accounts. We will implement a new communications request process so it's easier for our school sites and our departments to request support from

136our team and it'll make it easier for us to track the status of projects for them. We will look for professional development opportunities for us to continue to hone and sharpen our skills. Communications is always changing so we must continue to build upon our current skill sets. We will help provide and support media training for our school division leadership administrators. We know that sometimes the best messenger for a message might be a principal or a department leader and so we want to help support those media trainings and provide them with the toolkit and the skills necessary to go on camera. Obviously working in collaboration with the communications team. And finally, we're going to continue to update our school division website and our school site websites. We have back to school coming up and we've already

137established a back to school landing page. So, we're going to continue to make sure that the website information is fresh and up to date for families and the community seeking information from us. And next slide. And with that, thank you. And we're welcoming any questions you may have. >> Thank you, Miss Vonger and team. Appreciate it. Any questions from anyone? Great job. Like Mr. Lundy said, great great job. Thank you for what you're doing. >> Great job. >> Just one comment, Mr. Chair. >> Just one comment, >> Miss Proctor. I got one, too. That is what we're working on right now. We previously had a Google form that was used for requests and that wasn't necessarily the easiest process for us to divvy up the workload and track progress. So, we're looking at other tools

138that actually we would use divisionwide for for workflow management purposes. >> Mr. Peters, >> just just one comment. First of all, it was super presentation. I wish I could talk as fast as you guys. However, I missed that part. U um I guess my question um uh you guys uh I remember Miss Brown mentioning uh Superintendent Brown mentioned that uh we have a presentation board at the airport. >> Oh yeah. >> Talks about Peasburg City Public Schools. So, anybody coming in the country, coming in the state, whatever, that's the first thing that they see. I'm curious to know um is it possible for you all to find a means of reaching out to the Virginia Department of of uh I would say VOTE because those digital boards that are on the interstate bang and they

139sit right around Petersburg we've got one before you when you leave Hopewell coming into Petersburg we got one leaving Colonial Heights coming into Petersburg. We got one coming 8 85. So, uh is it possible for those persons who are coming and we are a hub? We get on those digitals. As a matter of fact, one is sitting right at uh right on uh Temple Avenue and Puddle Road. Uh with all of these direct lines of because you guys seem to be rather extreme. on to see how extreme you can get. >> We welcome any and all ideas and we won't say no. >> If that is if that's a possibility, that'll be another uh that'll be another avenue for persons who, you know, interested in and want to be a part of Peasburg City Public

140Schools to see it right there >> as as a bang, just a snapshot. So, >> absolutely. Thank you. >> Comment and want to make thank you guys for the presentation. >> Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Um, Miss Vongar, um, that information is available through Miss Davis, Ebony Davis. She shared that with us. I believe that digital board is over $10,000 to advertise. That's why we didn't go that route. >> Um, also, if you go with a digital board where they had multiple advertisements, it's only like $400 a month, but you going to be in a rotation with other advertisements. So yours show up for about like 15 20 seconds and then it goes to someone else. Then that one is different. But one that's just for you is going to be very expensive and you know

141and like you said that $10,000 not for the year that probably for the whole month because it's just yours up there. So, so uh um but I I I did first of all I want to thank you because this is the one department and I want to thank the superintendent and the and and the board for supporting it that I've seen the most growth and uh and I just want to give you a round of applause because I seen the difference and uh and not just in but I talking about in the community you know with the awareness that you have created. Uh let me ask you a question. Um the um HR brought up branding and different things and uh and and uh link LinkedIn and all that stuff. Are y'all doing that for

142them? >> We're working collaboratively with the HR department. We >> then you're doing it for them. >> We No, we're working together. We're working together. They provide information. >> I just wanted to make sure we had the right people doing the work. That's all I just That's all. I just wanted to make sure that that we did we we weren't subbing it out to someone else. That we had our professionals working on it. Right. >> We work together internally. >> Okay. That's right. We work together. It's a team. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. That's what I'm trying to get to. Okay. Um um do you see um because communication is very important, but it's a two-way street creating some type of chat or something where that we can go good um create better communication

143with our students and staff and feedback getting back to them. they're asking questions or some some type of thing. You know, you go online and YouTube, you get answers. AI gonna give you something. Okay. Well, when people have problem in Pe City Public School, we should be able to give them something to be supportive, to give them some some direction. And because that's where we get our biggest complaint about not getting back with people, you know, when it comes to when when when they have a challenge or a problem in a timely manner. So is there something you can do to help with that with the students and the staff? >> Sure. So I have a two component answer to that one is that there are ways to have embeds on a website for example

144that allow them to ask questions that has a live bot that can get automatic responses. So there are avenues like that so that people can get automatic responses to things that can be easily found our website. The second component of my answer is that as part of our communications plan we will be doing research. First, we will start with a communications audit to review our communications structures and and how we communicate internally and externally. And then we will also conduct research and we'll ask different questions about how they feel about our communications. Do they feel we're trustworthy? Do they feel like we're consistently communicating? How um how how often do we communicate? What's the frequency? How do they want to receive communication from us? So, that'll be a part of our planning process. >> Well,

145well, let me ask you this. Is it any way to set it up where they can have in a ministry where that uh some people uh won't ask questions if they put on you know if that name gonna be thrown out there? You see what I'm saying? So the thing is and and get an answer get a you know ask an honest question get an honest answer but the thing is but they don't want that name out there. Do we have can we create something where somebody can so where the employees and students can do that because a lot of times they you know people won't open up and be and and and and be forefront. Is it a way to do that? >> There are anonymous survey mechanisms. Yes. Okay. Can I also can

146I thank you um board member Miles for that question. There absolutely is a part of our community engagement. One of the things we're looking at is the different tools that are out there. So I have experience with different tools that allows it sits on you've heard of let's talk some other mechanisms that are really used in school systems and what it is it allows you to go and click on any department allows you to click on anyone and you get a chance to put a comment and you don't have to put your name you don't have to put information if you want us to return to return your call or to respond you put that information in there and it has analytics to say this email was sent on this day, it's been sitting there

147for two days and it it links itself to the supervisor to the next person. So that's a system that um we're looking at for engagement um that we can potentially bring on and I think you're shaking your head that process because that's a way in my experience that everybody becomes accountable because that system tells you if it sits there for too long for a certain like a day or two days it immediately goes to up the chain and everybody from the superintendent down has a a um a paper trail of this email was sent. this is how long it took for it to be responded to. So that is a system that we're looking at um as we're as we're talking about engagement, but that is definitely in our plan as a part of the

148assessment and audit. So you're absolutely right, Mr. Mouse. There are some systems out there and some that I think would be great for Petersburg, but that is a part of our deep dive and research for us to be able to implement something like that, though. >> Yep. >> Thank you again. >> Okay. I just have one question and I know that Mr. Coleman um you may know or um but next request I went online to look for that. Did you all remove that? >> Yes, next request was the previous online tool that we used for foyer requests. We have now established a new process for foyer requests. We have a PCPS foyer email. Thanks to Miss Yates and Dr. Gay and Miss Davis, we all have access to that email and it's been published on

149our website and we have received foyer requests since implementing this new email address. >> Oh, good. Okay. The next Okay. The only thing I use the next request at work because I'm the foyer officer also at at the hospital. The next request allows citizens to see who have requested the information. But the what we're doing now, no one knows who's requesting the information. It's the public has a right to know who requests the information. So removing the next request doesn't give us that that privilege to see who has requested what. Like if somebody requested and say um I want to know Mr. pre salary then I can go on there and I can see okay somebody requested my salary because it's public information >> but the process that you all have changed to now it

150limits the information from the public >> right you be right transparency is a key >> so how much were we paying for next request do we know >> I don't remember offhand I know it was fairly cost prohibitive based on the number of foyer requests that we do receive and I will say that we have received a foyer request asking for all the foyer request that we have gotten related to one individual and we have supplied that without doing it through next request but we're happy to look into using that program as well. >> Okay. >> It's still in place I think in through I think it was through June 30th but I think the contract is now ceased. >> Okay. All right. Appreciate it. Yeah. If you could bring that back to us to

151see how much it costs because we have to have some type of accounting system that's available. >> Thank you. >> Good information. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you. appreciate it. We move next to 4 D. Thank you board chair Richard and schoolboard members. We will now have our next presentation of this evening which will be our monthly division um update, financial update, head start and grants update given by Dr. Matias Greywood, our chief financial officer. >> Thank you, M. Thank you, Miss Brown. Good evening, board chair Pritchard, Vice Chair Pierce, Superintendent Brown, Board Members, and Petersburg community. I am Matias Greywood, chief financial officer, and I'll be presenting the monthly budget update as of June 30th, 2025. Please note that many figures presented today are preliminary as we are still actively processing year-end encumbrances

152and final adjustments. Next slide, please. For our agenda this evening, we'll review the Petersburg city transfer budget and actuals, the general fund performance, food service and grants activity, Head Start expend expenditures, and breakdown of both federal and non-federal funding. Again, these numbers may shift as we finalize year end closeouts. Next slide, please. city transfer budget and actuals for our general fund. Our fiscal year 25 revenue budget totaled 15.76 million which included 12.3 million in general fund transfers, 1.5 million in nutrition funding and 1.9 million in CIP support. All expected transfers have been received including 12 1.03 million installments. This reflects full revenue recognition for fiscal year 25. Although final categorization may be updated with year end closeup. Next slide please. General fund budget and expense by state category. Now we compare fisc year 24 and

153fiscal year 25 performance across key functions. Instruction saw a modest increase in budget with a improved expense margin. Administration funding nearly doubled year-over-year driven by expanded support services. Transportation in fiscal year 25 exceeded budget slightly while operations and maintenance absorbed nearly double the funding with a healthy surplus. Technology spending aged over budget likely due to audent upgrades. Overall fund one closed fiscal year 25 with 4.6 million balance. These figures may be refined pending final incumbrance reconciliations. Next slide please. Budget and expense by state category for food service and grants. Looking at fund two and fund seven, food services increased to 5.1 million in fiscal year 25 and we've spent roughly 62% to date. Grants under fund two show instructional funding rising to 20.6 million with expenditures at 13.7 million. While some categories like operations and

154facilities spent above budget in fiscal year 24, fiscal year 25 has shown greater constraint. Notably, technology reflects a net credit due to adjustments and reimbursements when consolidating all funds including the general fund, food services, and grants. Fiscal year 25's uh 25's current budget stands at 99.3 million. We've spent approximately 84.6 6 million leaving a balance of 14.7 million. This indicates strong fiscal stewardship and room for strategic investments. The remaining 14.7 million will be reconciled during close out accounting for open purchase orders and lateear transactions. As part of year-end procedures, we're still verifying expenditure categorization which may impact final reporting. As we finalize year end closeout and complete encumbrance processing, updated figures will be shared as part of our August reporting cycle. Next slide, please. Federal Head Start budget and expense by category for our Head

155Start programs. federal budget. The total the total allocation is 1.4 million. Most line items are on target, but we saw slight overages in fringe benefits and classroom supplies. These reflect necessary support for our youngest learners and staff. Child plus remains unused and will be reviewed for activation. Next slide, please. Nonfederal funding head start budget and expenses by category. Non-federal contributions totaled 350,000 with about 31,000 remaining. Donated services and goods exceeded projections, a testament to community involvement. Volunteer services remain untapped and represent an opportunity for growth in engagement. Combining both federal and non-federal sources, the Head Start program shows a total budget of 1.75 million with actual expenditures slightly below that. We're aligned with grant expectations and compliance. Next slide, please. That concludes today's update. I will welcome any questions or feedback, please. >> Thank you,

156Dr. Greywood. Any questions, board members for Dr. Greywood? >> Question. Oh, >> I've been asking for beginning of the year finance. What did we spend in finance last year? Because we had a lot of people that was working that was that we had that's not normal employees. What was the cost of finance for the past school year? >> That's the same question I've been asking the whole time. >> Can I never got answered? Can I please get some clarity on the question? >> I mean, how much money have we spent in the in finance this year >> because we had people that were not regular employees. >> I have it right here for you. >> Oh, you have it? >> I have it. >> So, what So, can you give me an answer? >> So,

157I'll have Dr. Greywood so I can give you an answer. We have the >> Because we had people that was that that we had we were curing that's not regular employees. That was very expensive. I was just wondering what was the cause of finance this year the finance department because we carried a lot of people. >> Mr. >> Are you talking? >> She she had it. What what happened was >> she had it and she forgot to share it in close. It's personnel. It has personnel names on it. >> I don't need the names. I just need the total cost. >> She was giving you all of it. >> Oh, you giving me the the total? What was the total? >> Dr. Greywood. Um you can pull up the information as well. So I think

158our total cost was the grand total for everyone was $593 um2593 $200.92. Is that correct Dr. Greywood? >> Those are employees other are the ones that we were curing also cuz we know we were curing some people that was two people we knew we were curring two that they alone would have came to almost $300 $400,000. So I was just wondering what was the total cost of that doing business in finance this year with the employees because because we were paying one guy $176 29 cent an hour and we paid another another lady um hundred and some dollars an hour >> you know so the thing is that and they they they were contract in that they should have been in the cost of the total total So nowhere, you know. So you're saying 500,000

159people that include I mean $500,000 that include all the employees that work for us, right? >> No. Um the figures she's providing you are just for consultants. If >> that's just for consultants. So we spent $500,000 this year. That's what I wanted to know on consultants. I I need clarity on your question and the data that she has is not uh time specific. It's everything that's been uh paid for last year. Um >> some over the course of several years. I think it depends on who the who the employee is because we >> I just need to know for the past school year. Okay. >> What was what was the cost of those of those consultants? That'll be good enough for me. Of those consultants for the past school year. Okay. Do you have that

160number? Was that 500,000? I will ask. >> So that does not that does not include Dr. Grey was hold on a second. That does not some of the information that you had requested before. It included I think the request was since they've been here. So we've had some vendors that have been here since 2022. And so that's included in the number. So Dr. Greywood broke it out by year, um, date, and the amounts. And so that's what the information. So you're asking for last year >> for the cost of particular vendors just for last year. And so Dr. Greywood, we can get that information. Go ahead, Dr. Grim. >> Oh, you got it. >> That the the data I gave you, you will not be able to provide that number to Mr. Miles right now.

161I would have to re uh re um reformat that data to reflect the fiscal year. That is just actual detail based on the uh calendar year. So >> okay that's what I want the calendar year not just the calendar year. >> I will get you that very easily from that detail. >> So I just want to be clear the So what you have is a physical year. >> I have all the years. I think your original request was every year that they have supported Petersburg. I had that broken down by the amounts and the costs that we've paid which is I think that was the very first. >> So that was a co they covered two years then. >> So some places it might have covered more than three because some people were here in

1622022 2023 2024 and 2025. And so these are the vendor supports specifically for our financial processes >> I'm talking about. >> And so these are >> so it's more than two people that supported us. >> Yes. It's been three people total. Is that correct Dr. Greywood? There's been three people that >> came to 500,000. >> Three people over the course of and it's not by one year. It's over the course of >> You know what I'm saying? That's what came through. But that's the information I needed. >> I have Well, that's good enough over the period of time whether it's one year or three years because I know we started like in the middle of year. So those three people we spent $500,000. Thank you. >> Okay, that answered my question. Thank >> Mr. Mouse.

163Anyone else? >> Mr. Lendy Kim $500,000 are going at this time. How how do we sit with our our federal programs? Like if if if two, three, and four get away from us, we'll be in bad shape. So how do we manage that situation? To the extent that some programs have been frozen for the fiscal year 26 funds, we in finance are watching very closely. What it does to our budget is that it creates uncertainty. We don't know when we will receive funds or whether it's going to be reduced and our planning needs to revolve around that uncertainty. What we need to do is to um create reserves and opportunities for savings so that um when there's a shock we can absorb it on the um on the general fund side. That's what we're doing.

164And um based on the grant position, we have we have funding that is from the FY24 and FY24 fiscal years that we can use as a buffer for some of the uh uncertainty that we're currently facing on that front. >> Yes, sir. Miss Proctor, >> you know, I'm sure everyone's aware of of the lack of um of dependable dependability for federal dollars. Okay. >> Yes. And um as we develop agreements with um I'll say nonprofit organizations uh contracted situations are are we putting in lang in that language that will protect us in so far as if those dollars are there. as an example of the group that was here today, the Medicare or Medicaid. >> Um we know that what is it $1 trillion dollar is being um reduced from Medicaid um starting and I

165think it's in 2027 is what I've heard is when that will go into effect. But our our contracts will protect us right in will protect us from obligations for whatever entity we're in a contractual situation with. >> Um >> if if we're totally dependent on that, >> we we have a contract review process that starts with procurement. I think what you're alluding to is based on the current um environment. I think our recommendation is to pass some of those or agreements that we have with other entities through uh legal or compliance so that we know we're covered with language that um that restricts or ties funding to programs being funded through uh the federal uh funds that we receive. so that if that doesn't um doesn't come through, we can terminate or pause certain relationships

166that would uh make us save some money and not get us to uh turn to uh general funds. >> Precisely. Thank you. >> We got got one more, >> Mr. M. Looking in the future, we know the um law for the c um that deal with the revenue coming off from the casino is right around 10 to 11% that's supposed to go towards education. Have we set up anything to be able to monitor and make sure that goes towards our uh educational system because we don't want someone else to dip into what we need to do for our for our constituents. Um so have we do you know how that's going to work so effectively? Well, the city has announced some type of commitment to uh to pass on revenue from the casino to the

167school system. They've recently released some analytics around what that future revenue is projected to be and I thank Mr. Preett for sharing that with me. with those with that type of analytics there's some um there are some assumptions in there and uh plans for how that money is going to be spent. So what we're doing in finance is to monitor actual revenue coming into the city so that if the actual revenue that comes into the city exceeds those projections, we wouldn't just be expecting what's projected in that report. We will be expecting additional revenue over and beyond what they projected so that we can also do some planning for the future on uh things like CIP uh capital improvements. A lot of our schools need some uplift. We also need significant investments in teaching and

168learning to get us up to par so that we can get out of theou that we've been under for several years. So >> I understand that what I was saying is I use we need to make sure that the check and balance system is going to is something that we can monitor and make sure that we demand that we get every dime we supposed to get. That's all I was saying. >> Mr. Miles, I am watching that like a hawk. >> That's what I wanted to hear. That's what I want to hear. >> They all their all their reports, all their numbers, projections, all their financials are public and we can have access to it. I am individually, personally responsible for that. >> You got the right hook. We got you. We got you. Thank

169you very much. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions from board members? >> Thank you, Dr. Greywood. >> Thank you. Have a good evening. You do the same. We move to 4E. Thank you, board school board members. We have our policies for first read for this evening and so they are on the screen. So please ask the audience to please reference. So we have policy for first read this evening policy number one our Petersburg city public schools policy policy EB. The policy title is school crisis emergency management and medical emer medical medical emergency response plan that is in alignment with our VSBA policy EB and the purpose of the review is this policy language and legal references have been updated to reflect amendments of the Virginia code 22.1-279.8 8 by House Bill 2051 and House

170Bill 26 2640 and Sen sorry Senate Bill Senate Bill 1380 and additions of the Virginia code 22.1-271.9 by House Bill 1695 and Senate Bill 817 also 22.1-274.7 by House Bill 1700 and 22.1-206.01 01 and 22.1-274.4 and one by H House Bill 732 and Senate bills Senate Bill 726 for 2024. These cross references have been updated in align with our VSBA 2525. Our PCPS policy number two, policy EBB. The title of this policy is threat assessment teams. This VS VSBA policy alignment is EBB and the purpose of this policy review was the policy language and legal references have been updated to reflect amendments of the Virginia code 22.1-79.4 by House Bill 2679. The cross references have been updated in alignment with our VSBA 525. Policy number three is policy EBBA in Petersburg City Public Schools and

171the title of this policy is emergency first aid CPR and AED certified personnel. This is in alignment with our VSBA policy EBBA and the purpose of this policy review is that this policy language and legal references have been updated to reflect the amendments of Virginia Code 22.1-2279.8 8 by House Bill 2051 and House Bill 2640 and Senate Bill 1380 and additions of the Virginia code 22.1-271.9 by House Bill 1695 Senate and Senate Bill 817 and Virginia Code 22.1-206.01 and 22.1-274.4 4 colon 1 by House Bill 732 and Senate Bill 726 for 2024. These cross references have been updated in alignment with our VSBA at 525. Our policy number four for Petersburg City Public Schools is a new policy and this policy EBBC and the PCPS policy title is opioid antagonist. This VSBA policy is new

172and it's policy EBBC. And this policy has been created to reflect the amendments of Virginia Code 54.1-3408 and additions of Virginia Code 22.1-206.01 and 22.1-274.4 col1 by House Bill 732/Senate Bill 726 for 2024. Petersburg City Public Schools has adopted required regulations JHCD-R3 and the date is 717204 in alignment with our VSBA at 525. Our PCPS policy number five is EBCB. This policy title is safety drills. This VSBA policy alignment is policy EBCB. This policy language and legal references have been updated to reflect the addition of the Virginia Code 22.1-271.9 by House Bill 1695 and Senate Bill 817 and Virginia Code 22.1-274.7 by House Bill 1700. Petersburg City Public Schools specific procedures removed to align with the VSBA policy VSBA at 2025. Was your mention of school board members that completes the policies for first read?

173>> Thank you, Miss Brown. Any questions, board member? >> No, ma'am. We appreciate it. Okay. Next, we move to number five, our public comment period. Each speaker has three minutes and we have one. Miss Evette Wilson. Good evening, Evette Wilson, 234 High Street. Now, I wasn't going to speak, but some things have been said that I want to address. Um, I am a uh resident of Petersburg, but I want to tell you that my father was stationed at Fort Fort Lee for years, 12 years, and I used to visit him on a regular. So, I I have a a second kindred kin relationship with Petersburg. And I think the superintendent mentioned something that I want to address. You you spoke of the efforts of the board to deal with some of the in inequities in

174the salary. Well, that's been going on a very long time. When I came on board 10 years ago, there were teachers coming to me questioning where they were placed on the salary scale. And they they were promised over time that it would be resolved. And as you all are aware, your top revolves, you know, every three to four years. So those issues were never addressed. Now, when you came in, that probably was an effort on the board's part to address those issues, but there are still many people within your school district who have been here and they question whether they are placed where they need to be based on their years of experience. And I brought that to you before when you talked about bringing consultants in. Um be be very mindful of how you

175spend money on consultants because if you're not going to get a final pro product to implement then work within your own your own data your own information to you know get the information that you need. uh you spoke of people work well I I share my own experience. I worked in a school system in school system next door Petersburg in Richmond and one of the the school that I worked in is similar in population to Petersburg's city schools. I worked there 17 years and didn't think of walking away because I had a team that worked with me. I had an administrator. We had some ups and downs, but we all were there for the common goal of educating and because my colleagues believed it's not just the money, it's the career, it's it's the dedication

176to these kids. Now, we had some challenging kids, but when I look at the retention rate of that school, we didn't have the revolving door that I'm hearing. And I know teachers have changed over the years, but we're not also addressing the nature of the the teacher that comes in the classroom now and what's there to support them. I had support. I had people around me who knew more and they we came to the table and we worked together. I'm not seeing that here. I'm seeing all of these programs coming in. I'm going to talk. I see all these programs coming in, offering these opportunities, but nobody is there helping that young person who comes from a different experience to adjust to the working environment. I've seen some who are scarred because they talk to

177me and they tell me how they were treated and how their resource their resources weren't available to them and they've moved on to other places and I hope they do well there as well. But that stuck with me. We're not doing what is necessary to meet their needs. And so that's why they go out the door because they're struggling. You have tenure teachers who are trying to carry load. Now you have a legislator who put in a a document that says, "Okay, anybody with a high school diploma can come in." Well, those teachers who who's going to help them? Those same overburdened teachers who are here trying to help their colleagues adjust to this new work experience. Um, I have been here 10 10 years. I've experienced eight HR directors. Okay. So, I don't see

178it as an HR thing only. I think it it's a system thing because our system of operation is dysfunctional and we need to address that. You can put rainbows and bows on it if you like, but that's where the issue lies. And in Richmond, we did that through our retreats. We got in a room. We didn't paint all pretty pictures. We put the data on the wall and we addressed it at every level at the board level on down. What are our goals? What are our objectives? What are the missions? Let's look at our stats. Let's look at our data. Is this where we want to be as a school system? Is this where our children should be as students in our school system? and we had help from the University of Virginia's um executive

179board training program, but we were honest with ourselves that we had a role. Some of the board members were what we called going in the weeds, messing with stuff they shouldn't have been messing with because they pay we were paying a superintendent to get that job done. And so all of those things were ironed out. Everybody knew their role when we left that. It was a whole week and we would al often come back. We were monitored in our board meetings where we were held accountable as board members to run the meeting to do. We were there before this training till 1 and 2:00 in the morning because we were that dysfunctional. But we were out of there by nine after this training because that data helped us focus on everybody's mission and it was

180the same. It wasn't I'm trying to sew so and so better than I can do this and that. None of that. >> I'm going to need you to wrap it up cuz we want to be out of here too by 9. >> Well sir. >> Okay. >> It's fine. >> Okay. you can continue doing all the same things and not addressing the issues that in front of you and you'll be back here again to dealing with the same challenges that I'm hearing every year and it's very frustrating to not only uh the teachers but everybody who's trying to work with you outside in the community and until you're you can put that I I hear it all the time oh everything is wonderful no it's not face it but it can be if we all

181identify what our challenges are and face them. I've heard more energy in a sports program than I am in an academic mission and goal. >> Thank you. >> So, I just wanted to say that. >> Okay. Next, we're going to move on board members to our action item 6A. Thank you virtual and school board members. It is for our action item A. It is our 2025 2026 student fee schedule. And so if we can bring that fee schedule up for the action report. And so these are our new fees for this new coming school this upcoming school year. So it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the school year 2025 2026 student fee schedule as provided. >> Are there any questions? Is there a motion to accept the new student student fee

182schedule? >> You got a question? Okay, go ahead. >> Miss Tucker has a question. >> You go ahead. >> How did How did we come up with these these particular numbers? >> Mr. Brown, if you could come to the What? >> Miss Fields is back. I'm >> sorry. Miss Fields is back there. Sorry. Miss Fields back. Okay. Thank you. Hey, Miss Field. Thank you for stepping forward. and Mr. Brown as well if we have any additional information as you all worked on the student fee schedule. Thank you for coming to the podium. >> Good evening. Um school board chairman, vice chair, superintendent, school board members and audience. The sponsors of these particular clubs gave the pricing. >> Oh. >> Um yeah, they did like for cosmetology and barbering. That was the cosmetology teacher and the

183barbin teacher. Mr. Boswell gave the fees for band. So those all came from the sponsors. >> Yeah, >> Tucker. >> If by chance a student can't afford the fees, what does that look like for >> normally? Um, we have some in-house fees that I will use if a if a student cannot pay for them. We don't just not let them participate. We want them to participate. And we do understand it can be challenging for families. >> Mhm. >> So we rely on some funds in house. >> Motion >> student funds. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Okay. Is there a motion to approve? >> So second >> by Mr. Dan, second by Mr. Miles. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. >> 6B. >> Thank you for chair Bridget and school board

184members for 6B. These are our policies for second read. And so it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the policies for second read from July 2nd, 2025 as provided. >> Any questions? Is there a motion to accept? >> So move. >> Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Miss Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion carries. 6C. >> Thank you po schoolboard members. This is our purchase approval request and we'll start with our university instructors. And so we will jump to our big purchase request. And so it is the superintendent's recommendation. If we could bring that up. Thank you very much. And so this is ourformational purchase request for 71625. This is a followup to our last board meeting. This is university instructors. And so as

185we talked about before, this is to address many of our vacancies. And so if we could scroll through, of course, we are requesting Petersburg City Public Schools is requesting $285,000 to address the critical teacher shortage currently impacting our district. And this is specifically in the realm of our special education. At present, we have approximately 54 vacancies across our schools, a number that would rise as many as 94 by the by the start of the school year due to challenges with contingent licenses and verification. So again, to mitigate this issue, I'm seeking board approval for us to partner with university instructors to um recruit, train, and support two additional special education teachers for the 2526 school year. If you recall from our last board meeting, you approved the um purchase authority to be able to have

186university instructors to recruit 13 teachers, which will be our content level teachers from elementary, middle to high school. Um but more specifically, elementary and middle. And so we're asking for additional authority for $285,000 for us to utilize funding to support university instructors to recruit and support and train two additional educators who are special education. As a reminder, our university instructors AC work currently across this the the Commonwealth at Manasses, Lowden County, Newport News, and Virginia Beach, just to name a few. Um and so they previously partnered with St. Petersburg City Public Schools this year to deliver tutoring services. So, at this time, we are asking authority to spend $285,000 to um to procure university instructors to help recruit, train, and support two additional special education teachers. So, with that, it is the superintendent's recommendation that

187the school board approve the PCPSformational large purchase request as provided, >> Miss Brown. So, that's a total of I think at the bottom is a total of four. >> It's a total of two. So, I'm looking Dr. Greywood, this is your piece. should be funding for two >> and so it's two at the top. So Dr. Greywood, is there something with this document? It should be two and I read the two earlier but it's saying four in the total. >> Is it four? >> It's it's two. So what happens was originally was four and so in looking at funding as we're looking at our funding for federal dollars for special education, we were able to identify for two. So we reduced it from four to two so that we don't go over our federal funding.

188And so we reduce that in this and I think we reduced it earlier today. Is that correct, Dr. Greywood? And so this should actually say two. We're looking to support two additional. So it shouldn't be four in the bottom. So I guess when you updated the document, it was two when we changed it, but it still said four in the total. But I'm asking the board for authorization for $285,000 to recruit for university instructors to recruit, train, and support two additional educators which are special education. >> Thank you. Any other question, >> Mr. Chairman? >> Mr. Ms. >> is that money include the training and the salary? >> Okay. >> Yeah. And and also, Mr. M, you were not here at the last board meeting. They also send individuals to the schools. Yeah, >> that

189came off of your head. >> I knew. >> That's exactly right. >> I was throw I was throwing you some of my throwing you some of my brain. >> Well, you can keep that part. >> Any other questions? >> I'm talking about what flew off your head. >> A motion. >> I move that. Is there a second? Second >> the mouth. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. 6D. >> Thank you, Prejud and school board members. We will now move to our Petersburg City Public Schools contract for INM shuttle and transport. And so, if you have that brought up really quickly, this is our IM. This is for supporting our students. So, if you could um open that one up so the board is aware of what we're asking. And so, we are asking

190to enter into our standard contract for from beginning July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026 by INM Shuttle and Transport. This is a contract that will provide us with additional support um for our special needs students. Is that correct, Dr. Greywood? For INM shuttle and transportation and that is a part of so we want to approve that. So we're asking the board to approve the contract for INM shuttle and transport that we've been using to support our students with disabilities. So it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the contract with INM shuttle and transport as provided. >> And I believe this comes out this comes out of Dr. Manson budget. >> Special. Correct. Out of out of student services budget. That's correct. >> So that's a grant >> comes out of grant.

191>> So we have special ed. So we have students with disabilities and we have um lots of different funding sources. Dr. Greywood, this would come. It's not a grant. It's out of his normal budget. Is that correct? >> I move that we accept this. >> Thank you. >> Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? Second, >> Mr. Lundy. All in favor? >> Oppos? Motion carries. Thank you, Miss Proctor. All right. practice it. It's getting late. >> Um 6 >> 6E. >> Thank you both your pitch and school board members. We're moving to 6E. This is the PCPS contract for therapy connections. It's something we've done you've done every year. So it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the contract with therapy connection as provided. >> This is all through special >>

192This is also through special education. This is the support that we have for physical therapy services contract and I think we've had it in Petersburg for several years now. So >> no questions. Is there a motion to accept? So moved >> moved by Mr. Miles, second by Mr. Pierce. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion carries. F. >> 6F. Thank you, Bo. This is now the Virginia Department of Education authorization in the absence of division superintendent form. This is a form that Petersburg superintendents have done each year. If you could click on it for us, please everybody's aware. And so the Virginia Department of Education has anytime the superintendent is away for vacation, sick, anything for um you know specific days or length of time there we must have an immediate designate. So when I

193am out of the division, the Virginia Department of Education has to ident we have to identify superintendents who is the documents, reports, requisitions, and if there are things that have to be signed off in the um Commonwealth system, we have to have I have to have a designate. And so my first design when I am not here and he is the second in command is our Mr. Paul Brown, our chief academic officer. and he's been identified for the state for them to send send information get things approved when I am away from the division. If Mr. Brown and I for whatever the reason are gone at the same time, you must have a second designate. And so that is Dr. Yasmin Gay, chief of staff who will they will send correspondence to her on my

194for me to address. And so we're working very closely together with I'm working very closely with Mr. Brown and Dr. Gay, but Mr. Brown is the second in command when I am not away from the school division. But this form is primarily for correspondence. If they need to call someone in the school division and I am away from the division, Mr. Brown is the first point of contact. And if he happens to be gone and I am gone, then Dr. Gay is the person that they will follow up with to get information and to send information. So at that time at this time it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the VDOE authorization in the absence of the division superintendent form as provided. >> Question Mr. Dance. >> Yes. Um the designate

195if um a problem arises while you're on vacation or out sick or whatever um is it their responsibility to try to solve the problem within the division of they're getting paid to take your place. So it's their responsibility when you're not here to run the division and handle any problems that we may have. And they should only call you if we get a building that's been bombed or burned or something of that nature. Is that correct? >> That is in the perfect role. Absolutely, Mr. Dance. It is. Absolutely. The people that have been designated, they are in those positions to be able to make those decisions and they are the ones that should be addressing those. Of course, being in this instance, um there's always close contact. Of course, the perfect world is that you

196wouldn't have to contact the superintendent, but typically because of information, people are still learning. they have to be in close contact with me just to make sure that um that things are moving in the way that they're supposed to and especially when you have a team like ours where people have just people have come on board. I've been here the longest as a part of the team and so ultimately we should be getting to that fa space where if I'm gone those people those that design my first designate and then the second design can then do exactly what you described. But initially um once everybody is here together and the team is even more cohesive um there's still that that that communication with me. But correct you would you >> usually thank you. >> Yes

197sir. >> Usually Mr. Brown >> can I correct you? >> It's she only has when issues like that arrive. She corrected me today. She only has one designate and that is Mr. Brown. Dr. Gay is on this form here. Mr. Brown and Dr. Gay is on this form only to sign in her absent documents and requisition. But when there are emergencies or issues when she's out of the division, Mr. Brown is the contact person. >> Only one person. >> Yeah, I understand that. I just wanted to make sure I was clear. >> I wanted to make sure you understood because she made a mistake and said either one. >> Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that um I had a clear understanding what a designate does. And so our employees when they're on vacation,

198they're on vacation. they have time earned as a part of their contract and um that's one of their benefits is being employed. So they should not be called unless there's an absolute emergency if that designate cannot solve the situation >> employ us usually uh Mr. chair, Miss uh these this is absolutely necessary. The protocol is not necessary to also let us know that out of y'all three, one of y'all going to be here. So everybody can't be off at the same time. >> That's exactly right. That's what we do for to make sure that someone is here. >> That's exactly right. And here are the >> same thing we do in in this absolutely same way. >> Absolutely. >> I used to be on call at work sometime on the weekends. Um, and I didn't

199get paid for it, but that was at my contract. But I didn't like being disturbed on the weekends unless I was on call. >> Mr. Chair, I move acceptance of the requirement of the Virginia Department of Education. >> Yes. >> I am loving you tonight, Miss Proctor. Miss Proctor has made the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Miss Tucker can handle. >> All in favor? I >> I have two wet rugs I have to haul tonight. >> Motion carries. Thank you, Miss Proctor. Okay, Miss um Brown. 6G. >> Thank you. Thank you, Pro School member. 6G. Job descriptions. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the job descriptions of the manager for fiscal and state and federal grants program and the program manager of state and federal grants program as

200provided. And again, these are the two positions that we have separated so that we have a programmatic view of our federal dollars and we have a fiscal view and they're not one in the same position. So we split those two so that we can make sure that someone is focusing on the money side of it and someone's focusing on the programmatic side so that we can make sure that we have those checks and balances that we've talked about before. So this is there will no longer be a director of state and federal programs. It will be these two positions and these people will be responsible for those um those job descriptions as provided. >> So that's just for the grant. >> Did all three? Oh yeah. Did you say >> this is for every >>

201state the state? >> That's for everything. >> Oh just for the federal grants. >> So this is for state local sorry for local state and federal. Absolutely. Any local state or federal grants um programs that we get funding and then it'll also be the programmatic side as well. >> And so also thank you for catching that. We also have our teacher and staff development coordinator. >> Would this be in the finance the added to the finance department? >> So these so we already have it. So we have one position. We already have the director level currently that was already in the finance department. And so we split those two because remember some of the funding for the position comes out of federal dollars. And so these will sit in finance. Is that correct Dr. Greywood?

202They will sit in finance but we have separated them so that one person doesn't do all of it. One person does the fiscal side and one person does the programmatic side. So we reduced the the the title of the director and made it manager but it does sit in finance >> create. So we just created one more job. >> So actually we split >> you said you split it. So we just brought bringing in one more person. >> Yes. So we split that job so that we didn't necessarily need a level of director. Dr. Waywood you can go to the but that was um go ahead you can speak to that. Instead of having the director level, we now just have um we reduced the the um level of the position to be able to

203focus in on physical and programmatic. We we downgraded the role to manager and split it across functional units so that we would have a unit focused on the fiscal part of uh um grants and then there would be a programmatic uh unit just focus on programs. We would do that to reorganize the team so that we wouldn't have uh um co-mingling of functions. Part of the fiscal and the program side of uh grants need to do things that would um be a check and balance on the other one. In the past, we had it in one role doing dual things, right? >> And I'll give you an example. because of that dual role, their funding or their pay needed to come from two different sources. Some of their pay would come from grants and some

204would come from general funds. So with this split, it's clean. Whoever's on the fiscal side would be paid on from general and then whoever's on the programmatic side would be paid from grants. Would >> will this help us when it comes to ordering the ordering and making sure that we're in compliance? So somebody going to be responsible for compliance? >> Absolutely. It's going to be check and balance, right? >> Absolutely. That's what we're shooting for. And with this restructuring, it would make us more effective and uh um proactive and uh not being reactionary. We are going to be uh doing different things. We're going to do splits and job descriptions that would allow us to uh adapt and be able to manage our grants in a more compliant manner going forward. >> Okay. Thank you.

205Thank you. >> Any other questions? You okay? >> No, I'm good. I just want to make sure. >> Did you give your recommendation? >> You need a motion? >> She said you didn't. >> Absolutely. And so the third job description. So on my paper, I'm sorry, it was run up. So we have our third job description, which is our teacher and staff development coordinator. And this is the final draft this of this position. And so this person this position um is it still sits in um academics. And so we updated the job description so that it focused on our staff development which will go in alignment with our with our calendar for professional learning. And so it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approved the job descriptions of manager of physical and local,

206state, and federal grants program and program manager of state, federal, and grants program which is local as well. In addition, teacher and staff development coordinator as provided. >> Any other questions? >> You heard the recommendation. Is a motion to accept this? >> Is this additional or this is the staff coordinator? >> Yeah, this is this is we didn't have a we didn't have a a job description. >> Um and so we needed to refine the job description. So this is what's I think it's been sitting in the um it's been sitting vacant. I think it has. Exactly. It's been sitting vacant in in teaching. >> We haven't been doing staff development. >> You remember? Nope. We didn't have anyone in that position. >> So what what I thought we did staff development on a monthly

207on a regular basis. Oh yeah, we had have a there was not been a coordinator. So yes, so that's been so the staff development has been working through the content person for Dr. Massie, maybe Miss Massie, Miss um Lowry at that point. Is that correct, Mr. Brown? And then the coaches and the Yeah, it was nobody for the central office that kind of oversaw professional development, just the individual. So we've not had that. And so this position we needed to um align with the time that you all allow for the calendar for us to now focus on teacher and staff. And you notice staff is on there. So we're not just talking about instructional people. We're also talking about the fact that we'll be working with our operations because we know that operations was something

208that came up. >> So this one position would be part of those 41 vacancies that be >> exactly correct. Absolutely. That's exactly right. And those other two are part as well. >> Okay. I move for motion. >> I move u to accept the motion. >> Thank you, Mr. Proctor. Is there a second? >> Second, >> Mr. Dance. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion carries. Next, we move to information item, Miss Brown. >> Yes, I have a very quick report. >> Thank you, Pro. I have a quick superintendent report. Want to make the board aware. Thank you. Next slide, please. And so, I just want to make sure that we see that um just bring to everyone's attention. And I know you probably know that Petersburg has been featured in our summer Petersburg summer issue.

209So Petersburg High and Vernon Johns Mill were featured in the summer issue and so you can see the pictures there. The issue included a section regarding the announcement of the athletics department expansion and the ribbon cutting of the new medical classroom at Vernon John. So this is just to show you that we are of course in the um being highlighted. So we're always excited to see Petersburg City Public Schools highlighted for some great things that are happening as you said uh Mr. Dance. Next slide please. really quickly just our full steam ahead program closing ceremony. So on Tuesday, July 8th, we celebrated our students during the full steam ahead program and we had closing ceremonies at Pleasant Lane Elementary School. The full steam ahead summer academy immersed our students with attendance challenges in hands-on real

210world steam learning to spark cur curiosity and build confidence. And of course this has been funded this was funded by our extended learning grant that we brought to the board several months ago. So we're really excited. We think our kids had a wonderful, wonderful time and you can see our student superheroes in the slides in the photos. Thank you. Next slide. So, we had of course our positive athlete awards ceremony. So, Petersburg High varsity soccer coach Ashley Martin was recognized at the positive athlete awards ceremony on Friday, July the 11th for her award as one of the most positive female coaches in Virginia by the 2025 positive athlete program. She will be coming to the board meeting in August so that we can formally recognize and congratulate her. So, thank you to Ashley Martin for

211a job well done and for the work you do on behalf of the students in Petersburg City Public Schools. Thank you. Next slide. And so, we want to highlight our PCPS entrepreneur student highlighted at Soul Youth Business Fair. Over the weekend, our young entrepreneurs raised funds for foster children at the Soul Stur Youth Business Fair. Our rising seventh grade student, Ally Jones, received the best youth business award. Ally is an entrepreneur who started her clothing brand one versus a million this year by Alli's Creations. So, our students again are amazing and congratulations to Ally for a job well done in her highlight. Absolutely. Go Ally. Next slide, please. Just a couple of our maintenance um updates I want to bring to the board. The scope of work that includes ceramic tiling for approximately 12,425 ft

212of wall surfaces at Lakemon Elementary School with an estimated cost of $35,83.51 that was quoted by our CPE contractors at Cool Spring. The project will cover 7,512 square feet with an estimated cost of 20,000. Although we know that so that together will exceed the so we wanted to just bring information so that you all are aware that we are at this point making sure that we bring anything that is above the 50,000. Just want to let you know that we've procured services. So we are in the process now of um updating the ceramic tiling with paint. And so if you've walked through the building and seen it, it looks starting to look amazing in there for our students. I just wanted to bring to the board that we have the contractor CPE contractors and that

213we spent 35,83 um as quoted by CPE with an addition of 20,6492 which then exceeds the 50,000. So we wanted to make sure that I bring that that that's um what we're paying for for ceramic tiling related to Lake and Cool Spring. The next one is these updates are essential for maintaining environments that are both safe and welcoming for our students and staff and thank you to the facilities department for your coordinating closely with the contractor to ensure that the work schedule minimizes any disruptions to the school's instructional activities. I know that um I've gotten questions about the completion of schoolboard office. And so we will just really quickly um I think Mr. um Martinez our goal is to be done by August the 6th through the 8th. Is that correct? For the schoolboard office

214for us to move back in. Is that correct? Thank you. All right, next slide. And thank you so very much for and that concludes the superintendent's report for this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Brown. Board members, we move to B. Any committee reports? And I don't I don't believe a lot of our committees are not meeting during the summer. We move to number eight, new business from board members. Remember, our next meeting, our retreat is July the 31st at Breitpoint Community College and Nicholas Student Center. We will be meeting from 9:00 to 4:00. It is open to the public, but we will not be taking public comment. Public is welcome to attend, but you cannot speak. >> And don't we have something on the 25th? That's uh >> Yes. The 25th.

215That's next. Is that next Friday? Next Friday is the education conference at in is it short? Shut >> in Richmond. >> You mean the thing? >> Yes, we can do that. Mr. Pierce is not attending, right? >> Mr. Dan, are you able to drive the van if we wanted to take the van? Are you going? >> Yeah, I'm going. Yeah, I can drive the back. >> You sure? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I got my license from Sears and Robux, but I think I can drive. >> Thank you, sir. And our regular in our regular schoolboard meeting will be August the 6th back here in the cafeteria. >> I think that's it. >> Okay. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? >> Miss Mrs. Tucker.

216All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you everyone. Have a good night. >> He missed that. He missed that. >> We goted. >> Oh no.