Regular School Board Meeting and Closed Session beginning at 5 pm

001here. Mr. George Parker here. Mr. Bernard Monty Jr. here. Mr. Adrien Dance here. Thank you. At this time, Mr. Dance, if you read us into close. Yes, Mr. Chair. I move that the school board go into closed meeting as authorized by section 2.2-3711A1 of the code of Virginia for the purpose of discussion or consideration of prospective candidates for employment. Okay, first the motion is there. Second, Mr. Ly. All in favor? I opposed. So moved by Mr. Pierce. Is there a second? Second, Miss Proctor as required by section 2.2-37. 2-3712D of the Legal Freedom of Information Act. A roll call vote will be taken to certify that to the best of each member's knowledge. One, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the act. And two, only such public business matters as

002were identified in the motion by which the closed session was convened were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session by the board. Prior to the vote, any member of the board who believes that there was a departure from requirements of one and two as shown as read shall so state the same indicating the substance of the departure that has taken place. Does any board member wish to respond? Hearing no response, I will now take the for roll call. Mr. Steven Pier, senior. Yes. Mr. Hiles, yes. Mr. And Bridget, yes. Mr. Cy Tucker, yes. Mr. North Proctor, yes. Mr. Bernard Jr., yes. Mr. Adrian, yes. All the things. Thank you. There's a motion from the closed session. At this time, would me a motion to adjourn from the close session? So moved by Mr. M.

003Is there a second? Mr. Lundy. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Good evening once again, everyone. The time now is 6:03 p.m. and we would like to call our regular schoolboard meeting to order. Miss Davis, if you would call the role, please once again, Mr. Steven Pier, senior here. Mr. Hal Miles, Jr. here. I'm sorry, senior. Senior. Mr. Kang Pritchette here. Mr. Tucker here. Mr. Joyce Proctor here. Mr. Bernard J. Lundy Jr. here. Mr. Adrian T senior here. Thank you, Miss Davis. Board members, we move to 180, approval of the agenda. If there are no changes, is there a motion to approve? So move, Mr. Chair. Move by Mr. Pierce. Is there a second? M. Miss Tuck. Okay. All in favor? I motion carries. Thank you. Next, we move to B silence. Miss Davis.

004The following are to be remembered during a moment of silence. Miss Stacy Pin and family and the passing of her aunt Deaconist Eva V. Moore on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. Miss Lorraine Brown and family in the passing of her husband, Evangelist Ernest Brown, on Friday, March 21st, 2025. Mrs. Debbie Holloway and family in the passing of her husband, Mr. Gary W. Holloway, on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025, and the family of Mr. Jamar Johnson, Pittsburgh City Public School employee, and his passing on Saturday, March 29th, 2025. Mr. Chairman, yes, Mr. I would like to add a community named Priscilla Evans to that um that passed away recently that is a big advocate in in the community. Thank you, sir. At this time we have a moment of silence. Thank you. Next we hand Thank you, board

005chair Pritchette and school board members. I am so excited. This is always the best part of our schoolboard meetings where we get to recognize our wonderful students here in Petersburg City Public Schools. And so tonight we'll start with the recognition our recognition of our wonderful students who participated in our VSBA, our Virginia school boards association art contest. And so we have several students who did a wonderful, wonderful job and were selected and we want to recognize them for their efforts. And so we want to start with Miss Adriana Elas. Elas Valdez if she is here. Hi sweetheart. Come up. Yay. Wonderful. For her participation in Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Go see come around to you. All right. Thank you. You stand right there, sweetheart, so everybody can see you. So turn around. Thank you. All

006right. Our next student that we have, we want to recognize Miss Amani Calakut. Is she here? All right, sweetheart. Yay. Congratulations. And our next wonderful student we want to recognize for the VSBA student art contest recognition award, Emmanuela Gibson. [Applause] Yes. Yes. Congratulations to our wonderful students. We want to take a picture with you. We're so so very proud of you. Thank you for your wonderful drawings and art. You all were simply amazing. So we're going to take a picture. So stay right there. You know, I'm worried about [Applause] For those of you who who don't know, um, that art was put in competition with 18 other school districts. They did a really good job. They did outstanding job. Give them another round of [Applause] applause. All right. All right. Now for our next set

007of students. So, we are so excited for our next I think we have our second our wonderful students here in Petersburg City Public Schools who have been sele selected for the all district band Omega Sci-Fi Scholarship Competition and selected to participate in the Longwood University honors band. Woo! [Applause] All right. Are we ready? Sorry, Siri. Are we ready? Congratulations to the Longwood University Honors Band. Tuba Logan Par Pum 9inth grade. Yay. Yes. Malik Johnson, 11th grade. Tuba. Yay. For our next set of brass winners for trombone, Nevinan Parish Jr., ninth [Applause] grade. Next for trombone, our 12th grader, Aaria Gar. Yes. Our next trombone winner, Autumn Johnson, 12th [Applause] grade. Now for our next set of brass winners for trumpet. So now we have Jaden Glenn, ninth grade trumpet. Next we have Satoria Will Wheeler

008for 10th grade trumpet. We have some exciting excited family members in the in the audience. We next have Jay Jian Jayan. Sorry. Sweetheart, please tell me how to pronounce your name. Lewis, 10th grade. Gian. Gian. Thank you. Gian Lewis 10th grade trumpet. Thank you. Next for my one of my favorites is I was a clarinet player. All the woodwinds in the house. Congratulations to Naomi Green. Clarinet 11th grade. Yeah. [Applause] for our next set of woodwin players, flute players. So our fir first flute player is Cara Win, 12th grade and parents. [Applause] Yes. Next, we have a flute player, and I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly, sweetheart. Dejon Bailey, 12th grade flute. [Applause] Next, I think I have Shaniah McKver, 12th grade [Applause] flute. And last but not least for the Longwood University Honors

009Band, Janiah Johnson, 12th grade flute, take pictures here. Again, everyone in the audience, congratulate our Longwood University Honors Band members from Petersburg High [Applause] School. And if we have our comm's team to take lots of pictures before our students leave. Oh, Miss Vonair. There she is to take pictures. Our Longwood University Honors [Music] Band. Yes. Well done. All right. I'm taking pictures. That's it. All right. Thank you again. Thank you. Congratulations, students. Yes. All right. So, moving right along to our next set of fabulous students here in Petersburg City Public Schools. Congratulations to the Delta, Omega, Amocrron, Omega, and New Sai chapters of Omega Sci-Fi Fraternity Incorporated presents the Omega Talent Hunt 2025. winners. Satara Sattoriia Wheeler trumpet 10th grade. [Applause] Okay, Satoria. Thank you. Got it. Congratulations, Satoria. Our next brass winner for trombone,

010Autumn Johnson, 12th grade. Congratulations. These are our winners from the new side chapters, Omega and Newai chapters of Omega Sci-Fi Fraternity Incorporated. Congratulations to our Petersburg High School brass winners, trumpet and trombone, Satoria and Autumn. Congratulations. We have pictures. Did we get pictures of you too, Miss Vonger? She's coming in. Thank you. You're standing outside the door. Two. Congratulations. All right. All right. Thank you. So, school schoolboard members, we have yet another set of students. Congratulations to our Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association presents the 2025 District 3 All District Band winners. So to start my favorite instrument, congratulations to Naomi Green, clarinet, 11th grade. [Applause] So Naomi is not here, but we are very proud of her and cong congratulations to her on this honor. And next we have another Woodwind, Miss Carla Wind,

01112th grade flute. Congratulations, sweetheart, for your winning the Virginia Band and Orchestra direct orchestra directors association award for the 2025 District 3 all district band playing the flute. Congratulations. Well [Applause] done. Will our wonderful band director please stand? and come to the mic and introduce yourself and let's give him a round of applause for the work that he does for our school. [Applause] Cut off. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Superintendent Brown, Chairman Pritchette, board, um, everybody here today. My name is Mr. Boswell. I'm the band director here at Petersburg High School and I have the honor of teaching these phenomenal students. Can we please give it up for them one more time? So, I'll be very brief. I just want to tell you a little bit about um the three things

012that they're being recognized for. First thing, Longwood's honors band. And you might ask, how do you get in the honors band? So what happens is that Dr. Wedell, which is the professor at Longwood University, he asks all the local high school directors to nominate between 10 and 15 of your top students. Now, typically when we have top students, it's usually 11 and 12th grade, but I have the honor of having two 10th graders and three ninth graders to make the honest man this year. So it ended up being 21 different high schools with over 250 students participating in this band. So it was amazing. We had director from New York City named Mr. Wyatt. He was a guest composer and these students were able to perform his original composition for the first time. It was

013the world premiere at Long's Honors Band. Let's clap it up for these students. The next thing is the Omega Sci-Fi talent hunt. And what that is is that the fraternity has community outreach. And one thing they like to do is to highlight the talent in our area. So our area consists of Colonial Heights, Hotwell, Denwitti, Brunswick, Appamatics Regional Government School, and Thomasdale Petersburg. So these students went and they did solo work. Now, if you anything to band, you know that it's one thing to play with a group, but when you have to play by yourself, there's nowhere to hide. So, these students had to get out there by themselves, and this is something that they did in addition to their schoolwork. So, we worked on our spring concert stuff, winter concert in the classroom. So,

014this was something that they had to work on their own on. So, these students work hard and diligently. And we had two students to get second and third place get a cash prize scholarship and that was Autumn and Stori. And the last event is the all district band and what that is is like the playoffs for band students. It's like the championship. So it's the best of the best. So what happens that each band director we are the judges. We are behind a blind curtain and we pull the students out and they audition and we can't see who they are and then we get together and pick who the best students are. So this year we had two students and it is very very competitive. I mean students are having panic attacks. I mean the

015students are uh they have their personal train personal trainers and private lesson instructors there helping them to warm up. They have to do 12 major scales, site reading, chromatic scale, and prepare piece. And we had two students that actually made the band. And that is Carwin and Naomi Green. So again, I want to commend these students and I'll give you a quick story if I sit down to tell you how hard they work. Last week was my birthday last Thursday and I said, "Well, I guess I'll just go home and just relax." The students said, "Can we please have practice?" So, they actually want to be here. They want to get better. So, if they want to get better, I'll sacrifice my birthday for them. Thank you guys. Have a good night. Thank you, Mr.

016Boswell, for your work and all the sacrifice and time that I've seen you in the summers, hot days, cold days, out there with our students. And so, thank you for your leadership and support of our our young people. And thank you to Mrs. Glenn, the assistant principal, who I know supports this effort. So, we just want to just thank you for your support. Woo! Right there in the back. Thank you so so very much for your support and congratulations students and let's keep showing everyone what Petersburg is made of. So, thank you. Congratulations. [Applause] All right. So, for Oh, sorry. And thank you, of course. And so again, let's have all of our parents of these amazing students, if you're in the audience, parents and supporters, please stand. Yes. Thank you so much, parents. We

017could not do this work without you. And thank you so much for allowing your young people to be involved and engaged in something as wonderful as the band. for making us proud. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of our parents. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Miss Brown. And congratulations again to everyone on behalf of the school board. Miss Brown. Next, we'll move to 2C. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, board chair Pritchard and school board members. I'm excited tonight to yet again bring one additional U member, newest member of the senior cabinet team here, which is my direct team as superintendent. We have a new hire that's coming to Petersburg and we'll give the our students a few minutes to to um file out and then we will bring Mr. Martinez to

018the to the podium. Thank you again parents. Mr. Brown, you can ask the rest of our cabinet to come to the front as well if they're out there. Thank you. Okay. You ready? Okay. All right. Thank you again, board chair pitch and school board members. Again, I am excited to welcome to the podium our newest member of the senior cabinet team here in Petersburg City Public Schools, Mr. Jay or we call him Jay Martinez. Javanum is his first name, but we call him Jay um Martinez. He is the newest member and we're excited to have him here in Petersburg. And so I want to give him an opportunity to introduce himself, tell a little bit about his experience and why he's excited about being here in Petersburg. and we're excited to welcome him. I think

019he's been here for about 10, eight days, nine days, give or take. So, we're excited to have you on board and he has hit the ground running. So, Mr. Martinez, we will turn it over to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Pritchard, esteemed members of the school board, Superintendent Brown, our senior cabinet, valued community members, and our greatest asset, our children. It is with great humility and enthusiasm that I stand before you as a new assistant superintendent of operations. Uh this opportunity to serve to serve the Petersburg community and it school district resonates deeply with me reminding me of the values and close environment of my own upbringing in Atlanta, Georgia. My professional journey has been shaped by a foundation of leadership forged through honorable service in the United States Marine

020Corps. I have been privileged to train, mentor, and serve alongside extraordinary Marines and fellow service members in numerous campaigns and combat zones. These experiences have instilled I'm sorry, Martinez. Hold on one second for me. I want to make sure that everybody's able to hear you. Thank you. These experiences have instilled in me a solutionoriented approach and a commitment to unwavering dedication. This district need for a decisive and strategic leader aligns perfectly with my background and expertise. My educational background includes a master in civil construction engineering and management and MBA in operations and finance management and I'm currently completing my doctoral studies at San Diego State University where my research focuses on school safety and security specifically in the mitigation of active shooter threats. In my most recent role as chief operations officer for a large

021school district in California, overseeing more than 50 schools, I successfully delivered projects to include the largest elementary school in California, completed under budget and on schedule, as well as another large elementary school project completed nearly three years prior. My responsibilities encompass managing teams that address all operational needs for a district serving over 30,000 students. The warm welcome I have received from the Petersburg community has been truly remarkable. I am eager to collaborate with the subject matter experts within the senior cabinet and across all departments to ensure the operational excellence and safety of our schools and our esteemed board members, local and state officials. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm excited to serve. Thank you very much. [Music] Thank you, Mr. Martinez. We're excited that you are on board and thank you for introducing yourself to

022Petersburg. All right. So, thank you again, board members. We'll move on to our next um recognition, which is our school library month. And so, what we want to make sure if you look up at the at the screen, we have our proclamation for school library month. And so by the virtue of the authority vested by the constitution of Virginia and the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia, there is hereby officially recognized school library month this month. Whereas the quest for knowledge by the school students in Virginia is stimulated and developed using educational resources and services provided by school libraries. And whereas school libraries play a critical role in tackling unprecedented learning loss in reading. And whereas school libraries provide access to a wide variety of necessary educational materials such as books, magazines, newspapers, digital resources,

023online resources, and information databases and the technology needed to utilize these resources. And whereas school libraries open the doors to new ideas, information on our past, and provide learning activities designed to enhance reading motivation and establish the information literacy skills necessary for lifelong learning. And whereas the full potential of school libraries is dependent upon trained professional Virginia school librarians whose varied skills assist teachers and students in effectively using this wide range of information resources. And whereas it is fitting that special recognition be given to school libraries and the role of school librarians in education throughout the Commonwealth. Now therefore, Glenn Yncan, I Glenn Yncan or Governor Glenn Yncan does hereby recognize April 2025 as school library month in the Commonwealth of Virginia and call this observance to the attention of all of our citizens. So,

024thank you once again on helping us to celebrate the recognition of school library month. And do we have any school librarians in the audience? Well, thank you if you are watching. Thank you for your service and we understand the importance and the essential role the school library plays in the lives of our students. So, thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Miss Brown. Board members, we move next to number four, our superintendent and staff reports for a Miss Brown. Thank you, board chair Pitchett and school board members. We have several at this moment. We'll start with our personnel agenda. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve. Let me back up. I'm sorry. We're at the approval of the consent agenda. It's my thought. That's okay. I thought we had reports. Okay. We're at the

025consent agenda 3A personnel agenda. Thank you. Thank you, board chair and school board members. At this time, it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the final personnel agenda with item number seven as a correction, not resignation, but retirement. And so given that change for item seven from resignation to retirement, it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the final personnel agenda with those changes dated April 16, 2025 as provided. Next, we'll go to section B, approval of the minutes. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the minutes of the 218 2025 regular meeting. 3252025 school board disciplinary committee student hearings 42 472025 school board disciplinary committee student hearings and 492025 school board disciplinary committee student hearings as provided. Next for the approval of consent agenda item 3C

026donations received by Petersburg City Public Schools. If you'll take a look up at the screen, these are our March 2025 division donations from the dates. Please go back one slide. Oh, thank you. That's fine. Perfect. Thank you. For March 14th, 2025 to March 31st, 2025, these are our division donations. So, if you take a look, thank you for making it a little bit larger. A little bit larger. Mhm. Okay. Okay. I don't know if they can see them, but what you can see is we have been given if you can make it a little larger. Okay. Scroll over a little bit more. There you go. This will scroll over a little bit more. Can you scroll over just a little bit to see? Okay, there you go. So, there he is. Okay. So, if you

027can see that we are getting donations with from to different departments. Um and so we have the family engagement department. We have um Miss Glasgow, the co cosmetology teacher is getting um donations. We have um Mr. Jimmy Terry getting donations. As if you can take a look at some of the donors to the right. We see Mount Olivet Baptist Church, class of 1981, Petersburg High School, I'm assuming. Then we have PSG, Clarence E. Scott. We have Mark Matthews, chapter of the Virginia Buffalo Soldiers. We have Caracita Stewart who's providing a check. And so you see that we get lots of different donations to Petersburg. You see it in the form of inind donations and you also see it in the form of money and cash. And so these are the different departments that are beneficiaries

028of these donations and we want to make sure that we are good stewards and that we are providing information each month. So these are the donations for the time period of March 14th, 2025 until if you scroll down, Miss Yates. I know March 31st. March 31st. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you, Miss Brown. Board members, you've heard the recommendations from the superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Moved by Mr. Miles. Is there a second? Second, Miss Proctor. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. And now we move to number four, the superintendent and staff reports. 4 A, Miss Brown. Thank you, board chair and school board members. We have several guest reports for our superintendent staff tonight. So we will go with 4A which is our March 2025 monthly

029budget update given by Mr. Matias Gra Dr. Matias Greywood our chief financial officer. Good evening board Chair Pritchard, honorable members of the board, esteemed Petersburg City residents. I'm here to present the monthly update for uh the budget for March uh 2025. My name is Matias Greywood. Slide two. Okay. Um our general fund had an original budget of 12.3 million supplemented by 1.5 million in nutrition funding and 1.9 million in capital improvement funding from the city. totaling 15.7 million. As of March 31st, we have received about 12.67 million with remaining balance of 3.03 million from the city. That's the revenue piece. Next slide, please. Miss J, if you can make now you can make it a little bit smaller. I'll wait. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Um fiscal year 2024 compared to 25. Um we

030have received 40.89 million for 2025 in instruction. Uh we spent 28.92 million leaving a balance of 11.97 in instruction. Administrative and health services increased to 10.39 million with 6.9 million spent ensuring staff and student support leaving a balance of 3.4.49 million. Transportation for pupils crucial for student commutes was allocated 3.8 million with 2.86 86 million spent. Operations and maintenance saw significant investments at 11.9 million with 7.71 million used and 4.1 million remaining. In terms of technology um which is a priority for us and continues to be one. We have 2.98 million budgeted, 1.96 million utilized and 1.02 02 million remaining. Overall FY29 total budget stands at 69 uh.26 million compared to 58 mil 06 million in FY24 of which 48.34 million has been spent leaving a balance of 20.9 million in that fund. Next slide

031please. Okay. And for uh food services, grants and grants, budgets and expenses, um school food for food services was increased from 5.1 million with a 3.5 3.15 million spent so far. So the budgeted was 5.1 million 3.15 spent so far. For instruction, we received 18.18 million ensuring program expansion. Admin and health services, transportation, and maintenance budgets remain crucial for district-wide operations. With 96.53 million allocated across all funds and 64.98 million spent, we retain 31.55 million in available resources to be strategically utilized for the remainder of the fiscal year. Next slide, please. Any questions? Oh, yeah. Mr. M. Uh, can you go back to fund seven because it seemed like we have a lot left there. Are we going to be able to spend that money before before um the time period run out on there?

032That's a grant, right? Yeah. It it it done been done. It's just not on here. That's what you're saying. No. Um, we don't have to spend everything that's in that fund by We have time. Yes. Oh, we have more time. Okay. I just want to make sure time didn't run out on us if we had to return. Fund seven is not supposed to be spent by all of its entirety by the end of the fiscal year. We have opportunity to spend some in the new one for grants. So we could have until September to spend some of these dollars. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. So we're good. Yes. Any more questions? Okay, we can proceed to the next slide. The head start. uh update and the Head Start update uh program continues to provide early

033education uh support. Salaries and wages in the federal funding uh were about 939,000 allocated. We've spent 615,000. Uh fringe benefits were 411,000 allocated, 243,000 used. Um classroom supplies and other expenses are monitored to optimize spending efficiency. Total federal budget was about 1.4 million which 95,000 has been spent remaining 494,000. Next slide please. For the non-federal share contributions, People Transportation uh received 252,000 ensuring accessibility for young learners. Donated goods and volunteer services contribute significantly to the program. Our total Head Start budget stands at 1.75 million of which 1.13 million is spent leaving a balance of 6 615,000 ensuring that students receive quality early childhood education experiences. In summary, uh financial uh financial planning aligns with the mission to provide high quality education, ensuring transparency, fiscal responsibility, and strategic growth for the Pittsburgh City Public Schools. I

034invite any questions or feedback from the uh count board. Thank you. Any questions from board members? No questions. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Greywood next to B. Thank you board chair Pritchette and schoolboard members. We will now move to our next presentation of this evening which will be our MAP spring 2025 administration. As you know that we are um implementing the third um iteration of MAP testing as we rolled out brand new this year um in Petersburg. And so we will have Dr. Carter Jackson who is our director of research um planning and accountability um and research planning and accountability. So we will have her bring our spring map data. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Good evening um Chair Bridget, Vice Chair Pierce, schoolboard members, all the community members joined here today and those who

035are joining us online. I am Dr. Dartra Jackson again as um Superintendent Brown just shared. I'm here to share with you our update on our map spring data as well as to share with you our so plan for administration this spring. This presentation will cover four major topics. Of course, our briefly review what the MAP assessment um stands for and how it works. We'll analyze the MAP growth data. We will talk about how we're integrating that MAP data into so preparation and then we'll discuss our so plan for this year. As a reminder, MAP measures two things, not just um achievement. It also measures growth, which also kind of holds in line with our actual assessment for this year. Next slide. So, as a reminder, MAP is an adaptive test and um is given in

036multiple subjects, but in Petersburg City Public Schools is administered in both math and reading. So, in math for students in grades 1 through eight and reading for students in grades 2 through eight. Again, the data helps inform a data um driven instruction. It tracks students growth over time and it also predicts potentially how students will perform on the state assessment, which is the standard of learning assessment. Next slide. So, the first slide you see here is going to break down how students on each grade level performed as far as their growth um meeting our growth targets for math. Now, just want to make sure I do a disclaimer. It doesn't mean that each student didn't grow. Again, as I kind of remind you, how many actually met their growth targets? And ideally, we want at

037least 50% of the students to grow. So, you can notice in grades two through six, we kind of got close to the mark with 40% whereas grade one, we did not quite meet that mark. And we recognize that there might be some instructional gaps as well as learning as they transition to doing standardized testing for those younger grades. Also, grades seven and eight um definitely needed a little more support. So, we kind of made sure we support them with curriculum planning, student engagement, and instructional focus. Now, we're going to look at the reading for grades 2 through 8 where you notice in grade five, they definitely almost hit the mark with 50%. But we showed that some of the other grades fail between 33 to 49%. where sixth grade was um a little low as

038well as seventh grade. They highlight some potential concerns as we know we need to support them in those transitional years and also more um targeted interventions for grade 8 as it kind of came up a little bit more with 45%. Again, I'm going to remind you is it doesn't mean they didn't grow. It means they did not necessarily meet that growth target. All right, next slide. So, this slide kind of goes more into detail. Remember as um superintendent Brown just mentioned, we gave the MAP assessment in the fall, winter, and spring. The students do not take the exact same assessment. We expect students to grow. So therefore, the assessment bar moves higher each time. So just another reminder. So in the fall, this is how is predicting how students will perform if the so was

039given at that time. Then we gave it in the winter and it predicted how students would perform if the so test was given at that time. And then we gave it again recently in the spring to predict how students would fare if the so test was given at that time. The very first category that you see there to show proficiency we of course added the students who scored advanced as well as proficient. So we combined the blue and the green. So that's what you know is that gold bar at the very top. So if the test was given at this time it would show that 30% of our students which is 555 students would have showed either advanced or proficient between grades 3 through 8 on the map I mean sorry on the so again

040it's a projected proficiency and if you break that out a little further 1.4% students will show advanced 29.3% proficient 38.4% 4% will show basic, 30.9% of the students will show below basic. That gives us a total of 1,86 students. Next slide, please. We want to take a moment to really say what does that mean and actually compare that to what we know our new accountability system because I think that's very important. So, as you know with the new accountability system, we get a certain number of points for students who score advance which mean we'll get 1.25. And remember from the previous slide that was 26 students. Students who score proficient will receive one point. Students who score basic 75 and below basic um 25. And all of that data is only accounted into the portion

041where you see mastery. So in elementary school mastery counts for 65% and in middle school mastery counts for 60%. All right, next slide. We're going to look at reading at this time. So now we're going to look at a little closer similar slide and show how students fare from the fall compared to winter and spring. Again, looking at top gold bar, which kind of combines again your green and your blue, which are advanced students as well as our students who score proficient. So it's projected that right now the students um in the area of reading in grades three through five 27.5% of the students would have scored advanced or proficient. If we was to break that up 2% actually scoring advanced where 25.5% of those students would have scored proficient. 56.4% of the students will

042be scoring basic. 16.2 two below basic in the spring for reading 1,787 students completed the MAP assessment. All right, again similar slide again if we was to kind of combine that just so we can understand we want to kind of really make sure we understand the new accountability system that whole portion would count towards mastery 65% in elementary as well as 60% for middle school. Next slide, please. So, we want to take some key takeaways by looking at this data. It really does tell us where we can really form and target our instruction. We saw there was um a significant drop from some students in math for below basic. Reading has also declined, but we also noticed that the advanced group also slightly increased from the winter to spring, which is very promising. We need

043must to continue to work for our parent engagement, continue to strengthen um how to use this map data, share that with our students and families, support learning at home, especially with students as we about to approach the so assessment. So what are we doing about this? How are we taking this data? What are we doing at the central office level? Right now, the central office team has facilitated a 15-day support plan for each content area. We have also did an in-depth professional development. Believe it was on March I mean April the was it March 17th March 17th provided onboarding for the tutors to make sure they're trained on our programs that we're using Lexia and Zern supported implementation of curriculum framework offering ongoing support for our coaches as well as our consultants. provided a criterion

044guidance as you support the small group students and we shared a wealth of resources for so support with parents through family engagement university at the school level our school leaders implemented their action plan they developed targeted small groups implemented after school tutoring programs coordinating inschool program with tutoring during the instructional day organized some Saturday school supports additional staff members provided ongoing support for teacher training, also more support on administrative map and how to use that data as well as parent information sessions. And they work closely with our ELA, math science consultants to build an understanding for best practices and curriculum. Our teachers have still been working tirelessly to make sure they understand and map data and how to use that to create their small groups, provide inter um interventions based on those students individual skill

045levels. They've held conferences with parents to discuss what that means and different strategies of support. Next slide. So has this parent um has this information shared with parents to support students learning at home? And that's what I think is most important. Um of course we mentioned already that we've sent the map reports home during a parent teacher window conference window. We've also held um parent night where we share the map reports data. What does it mean? And also information is shared sent home through parent square. And currently we working closely with the public library to make sure that students also have access to these resources at home. So by Monday all the students will have received what's called a clever badge and that badge will give them access to these resources not just at school

046but also at home. These access you can see the platform here digital learning tools and that map data has been uploaded right into a sale their individual score to give them an individual plan to hone in on wherever they kind of whatever skills they may be struggling in to give them additional practice problems at home. So, as we prepare for the so test, it's very important that our students have access to materials that can help fill their learning gaps. And we know by partnering with our community um local library, they'll be able to support us and support students while they're away um while they're not at school with these digital learning resources. Oh, absolutely. So, go back. So, not only at the library, sorry. but they can also access it by phone because we know

047all our students may not have a computer. So that's one advantage of having that digital QR code. They hold it up if they have a camera access. They can get right on those same learning platforms from their iPad or from their other um tablet or from a parent's phone. If they do have a computer without a camera, we also send instructions home that can also show you how to just use the login, use your um student ID to be able to access these resources. So we want to make sure all students still have access to this whether they have a computer or not. And again, those instructions are being sent home if they have not been sent home already. Want to take a moment to look at our so schedule just to show you. Um,

048we're starting testing on May 1st, which is not far. So, that's why we really, really need to support students now, just only while they're in school, but also at home. So, for grades three through five, the Petersburg City Public School testing dates are May 1st through May 14th. For our middle school students, it's also May 1st through 14th. For our term grads, it's April 15th through May 30th. And for our high school students, um they're going to test the first week of May 1st through May 7th. Of course, this does not include any retakes or expedited um retakes or makeup testing. This is our basic testing window. You like to add anything from Mr. Brown or Miss Brown? Any questions? board members. So, thank you uh Dr. Jackson. And so, again, I just want to,

049you know, remind the board this is our first year of rolling out map um for reading and math. And it was the primary purpose was to start putting data in front of teachers, data in front of principles that they can see at different times throughout the years, of course, fall, winter, spring. And as we know, as Dr. Jackson said, the test is adaptive. So it gets more and more difficult the more you answer questions correctly the more difficult the assessment gets and of course the cutoff score for fall changes to winter to spring and so they want kids to be able to master more difficult content that is in alignment with the SOS and so you see some fluctuations but our whole purpose this year was to put data in front of and put it

050at the hand fingertips of principles and teachers so that they know where every child is performing in those windows and then put practices in place to begin to address them. So I just want to just highlight that work and to say that we still have lots of work to do but we are starting and now we are using the language of data to drive the instructional decisions that we're making and I think Dr. Jackson put in the slide what is happening at the district level division what are we doing to support kids and that was outlined. Then we wanted to talk about what principles and school level leaders are doing because ultimately this work sits um in the lap of principles in the schools to help teachers be able to to do this work and

051then what are teachers doing because the question is what are we doing about it? The data is the data at this moment, but the question is what are we doing differently with the data that we have and this is our first year of rolling it out um these three different times and next year we'll get better and better with people understanding it and making sure that parents understand because this is the first time they've seen reports and so we're going to have to go deeper. But this year we were going to throw it out there, start talking about data and putting numbers where kids are performing in front of teachers to help support where kids are. So just want to add that. Thank you. Thank you. Questions from board members. Thank you, Dr. Jackson. I'll

052move to my left first, Mr. Lindy. Well, thank you very much. I really want to get into classrooms so I can enjoy seeing how the students uh participate with it and how uh their strengths come out and they manage that pretty well. Did you want me to answer? I'll let you come answer but yes um I'll let you answer. So our question is how are students engaging with map? how what is it doing for them as we try to next year again begin setting goals. I know we started this year with kids understanding here's where I was was in the fall, here's where I'm supposed to be. I might be behind, I might be advanced, but here's where I'm supposed to be from August to January. And if I'm not there, then what are the

053goals that we're setting in front of you so that Yolanda or Bernard or Takari can know what they're trying to reach because they're competing with themselves. And so I'll let Mr. Brown take it from there. M. Brown, thank you answered it, but I will um I will add that one of the things that we're doing this year is trying to empower our students and make them owners of their learning. And so teachers have really been sharing the data with students. They've been having data talks with students. Students have been setting goals. We uh as Miss um in the presentation, you saw a couple of the platforms that we're using with students. Excel, um, Lexia, Learn, Zern, Zern, all of those platforms are in line with MAP. So, a kid knows that when they take their

054MAP score, their MAP assessment, that MAP assessment is in line with Zern. So, when they go on Zern, Zern is working on those skills that they may have been missing to build them up. And so this has been a year of really um getting our kids to own their data um at different levels. It's happening very well in some schools. I'm going to be quite honest. In some schools we still have some work. Um but that happens in the classroom and and our teachers are doing an outstanding job with it. They have been our teachers have been juggling a couple of things this year. one um the new instructional framework and so learning how instruction looks in our our classroom and and I've been in the classes and they are doing an excellent job of

055doing it where we are I will have to say I have to give my hats off to our teachers they're really trying um the use of the use of data has been a focus I've seen and um and I I can at our last parent engagement meeting I think one of the teachers in here stopped me in the um parking lot to tell me how they were using data based off their kids map data. And this was a middle school teacher in the science classroom. And so this this is it's exciting for us in Petersburg because what I've learned is that where in the beginning people were kind of nervous about what the data is saying, now people are saying, you know what, here's where we are. What can I do differently to support children?

056That's what I would say. Does that answer your question, sir? I'm sorry. It does. Okay. And I was thinking about the fact that how do our kids um how do they feel about the mastery of of what they're trying to do? Are they excited or are they conscious of it? What they're actually doing? I think that's one of the questions that we still face because it depends on the grade level. It depends on the child. There are some kids that are very excited and they already have plans. I think the the key is that we as a community have to wrap ourselves around our children and and show them and talk to them about how important testing is, how important data is. And I always go back to when I was a principal and I

057tell I used to tell my kids the data the data whatever data you give on an assessment that's what people who don't know you think about you. And so if you don't give your very best and you have and you and you give just you just bubble in then people see that data who don't even know you make assumptions about you. So for our kids, that's not a kid issue. That's an adult issue. That is a community issue. That is a schoolboard issue. That is any adult that has contact with our children building our children up about the importance of doing well on assessments. And so I would say that's where we are. We need the adults in our community. We need the adults in our schools to talk about how great our kids are

058and how we have high expectations for them because our kids only give us what we expect of them. And so when we look at our data, that data is not what our did our kids put in. It's what we as adults did with our kids. And so that is not just a teacher issue. That is not a principal issue. That is not a schoolboard issue. That is Petersburg issue. All of us together. And so as we prepare for so I would encourage every adult listening to reach out to other adults and if you interact with a child, talk about how great they are and that we need for them to give their best. That's what I would say we that's the that's where we are in in this age. And once we start doing that

059with kids consistently, our kids will start believing in themselves. If a kid don't care, it's because we have not taught them to care about it. And so that's our responsibility. I hope that helps. Pre [Laughter] [Applause] that was so good. I do have a question. Um I do know that our students recently took the mock soom. um do we have data from that to compare it to um the map or is that something that can be compared to MAP? Um and I will say this to answer your question um because I say it often, I have a sixth grade at Glamford and my kid was excited about these tests. Um and it's because his teachers prepared him for them. So I will say that if you keep it if we keep it in front of

060the kids, um they will have something to be excited about. That that's something that I did want to point out. So, I do know it's working because our kids are excited. My kid was excited and my kid is not excited about any test. I mean, literally any test. So, um I do want to share that. I did want to share that. Um but can the mock so data be compared to the MAP data? So, the mock so is a different assessment? We can compare it but it's really comparing sort of apples to oranges because the map assessment projects proficiency and the mark um so is just on that content alone on strands but we can put it up there but it might it might not portray the true story of the data. So can I

061can I add to that um Dr. Jackson? So I think that is a great question. There are two different types of data and we're measuring different things. And as she talked about the specific standards that Virginia has laid out, that's what the benchmarks are. And there what given time that what has been taught for that given time period versus MAP is assessing what a an eighth grader in Virginia should know and understand and be able to demonstrate across the content. But what you do is there are two different types of tests measuring different things. You can triangulate and create a profile of a student. They may be in conflict, but you have a student who has grades. They have a benchmark assessment and they also have a map. They have map data. So that's three

062different types of data that you say that Takari has. And so let's look at where Takari's weaknesses are. Let's look at where her strengths are because grades is a piece of data. And so is she making A's but not doing well on the assessments? Then there's a disconnect there. So what we do is we take those pieces of data and we create a profile to say here's how we got to support Takari so that she moves with those goals. So yes, as a reminder, you know, MAP is a national normed assessment and they set the benchmarks nationally and as Superintendent Brown just said with the actual so um MAP mock test is sort of Virginia standards. So we do use multiple data points to assess the students, but it won't be a true comparison. We

063will put them right next to each other. But it's a part of the data that we know on the student, but we want our students, and that's what I like about math. And what we brought is that math compares an eighth grader who's taking it in California and understands that here's what an eighth grader should know, understand, and be able to do by the time they end finish eighth grade. and where do they compare with their like peers across the country? Because that's what we're getting kids to compete across not just Petersburg, not just Virginia, but across this country. And so that's why MAP is very difficult because it changes. If you answer five questions correctly, guess how much more difficult your assessment is going to be? If I answer five incorrectly, they're going to

064drop the level of rigor because I'm not ready for it. But it still tells us where they are in reading and math. and I'll stop. Thank you. On my bed. Yeah, that's okay. It's fine. Thank you. Yes. Mine is not a question about math but but a math but an observation as a um after school tour. Um, I've had the privilege of working in um, Miss Cost and I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the the gentleman who the co-teers Wilson and um, I'm just fascinated about what the kids in second grade are doing. I mean just the math the that you know the better um bigger than or less than it was I I know I wasn't doing that in second grade. I know I was you know and I was a top

065student in in my South Carolina uh graduating class. So I'm just I'm really and I tell them how good they are. Now there are kids there who are struggling and fortunately I get to have them because I try to inspire them to let to try to get them to care about their learning and I just think I feel so strongly about that that if we can somehow for those kids who do not have the advantage of parents who have high expectations of them academically I think that it's a matter of building that caring about myself in order that I can learn and I just I want to do that every day there. Yeah. But keep going. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pet. U Thank you, Dr. Jackson. This is great. This is We

066knew it was going to be a lot and we knew it's a lot of work. um uh being a you know a product of Petersburg and um uh being married to a former educator for almost 40 years. Um, one thing she I'm I'm particularly interested in slide slide 14. Go ahead. Um, and um something that uh she taught me um uh being engaged and getting engaged with my two boys in school. She wouldn't come to the school because the conflict of interest would be that she's teaching so she wouldn't get involved in it. you're going to the school. And so I was like, what I got to offer? Not an educator. So she mapped it for me. This is what I'm expecting you to do. This is what I'm expecting you to say. This is

067what I'm I'm, you know, so she did a little role model at home and I expect you to do this and here's the ledger. You go and write all this stuff down. So I said all that to say this, what we're talking about parent communication tools. Now, um uh what is going to come back after you send this stuff home to the parent and how are they going to re-engage? Because my re-engagement was that after she gave all of this to me, I could take it to the school. My relationship uh with the teachers became were great. Uh my boys didn't like it, but our relationship got better because I knew what I was doing. I know parents taking this stuff home. is going to be tough. So what else are we going to do

068to ensure that that engagement stays intact, the followup stays intact. The next steps, uh, when I say next step, that next step might be anything from another I see you got parent data night, parent data nights. Is that going to be continuous? Is there going to be a time where they going to the parent can share some feedback? cuz it needs to be some homework cuz they're not going to get this just like that and they need there needs to be something that goes along with it. So it be a lot of feedback but parents bring it to you. Absolutely. They really do. I received an email from a parent just recently and that kind of posed me to say cuz she got the one sheet we gave them at the back to school night.

069This is great but I need a little bit more. How can I truly support? I got the report. I see the numbers but what do I do with this? So that's where what we're praying. Okay, we have these numbers. we have these great programs let's marry the two so we took all those scores from map did a bulk upload into I called that parent back said you know what we have now now they can work on these they have a special report just for that student and it's a special profile they can get more practice problems in the area your child is struggling in she was floored not only did she say okay now I can go back and share with the parents at my school so I want to call her like a parent

070ambassador but now she's going back to share with additional parents and we will have additional nights um individually at the schools to support them. Our ITRTs are on board to support our teachers with this again because this is new. It's not just new for parents. It's new for teachers. So, we have to provide the teacher with the support on how to use this because they're not going to all call me. They're going to be calling on teachers to ask them, "Hey, you sent this ID um Clever ID home. What do I do with it?" And we have to be patient and walk parents through those steps. So, can having a continuous conversation so I know that our communications person going to put on their website with detailed instructions. she going to put on our social

071media platform to make sure that all parents receive the information and it's going to go home and then it'll be a continuous relationship coming back to say hey I received the information but I do need additional support or I have it but I'm going to this meeting right here and I can explain to other parents too. So having parent ambassador support and then I um ITRT school counsel to continue to support that feedback but I do agree it needs to be ongoing. They won't get in just sending a paper home or just a parent night. I agree. I I appreciate that because the key is that the parent is able to start talking the same language. Yes. Now you really know that they're on board because the fall off is that you're not going to

072hear anything back. So, and the more we stay engaged with them, the better it's going to be on the long term because this is a lot of stuff. It is. Uh because it's it's so much, you know, we want to make sure that the parent stays on for. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's exactly right, Vice Chair. Um, Pierce, that's a great um, commentary. I also want to just I know Mr. Brown will probably double tap that as we're building the calendars that we're bringing we'll be bringing to you all soon for review um, and feedback. We're trying to build into the calendar specific parent conference parent teacher conference days into our calendar and into that agenda for those parent teacher conference days will be the ongoing piece so that we have something systematic that

073every time we meet with parents that's already planned and on the calendar not just the phone call we do that it'll be a part of every parent teacher conference day that we've scheduled in our calendar and map will be at the top of it to walk parents through individually throughout the year. I think also right now if you're a parent and you just wanted to support your child as we prepare for so it's just if you just say please get on your cell phone spend 15 minutes on your cell phone kids already know how to get to and is linked to their map scores so that will be one tool that whether you're coming to the school or not zern kids can access that at And if parents just remember two words, Il Zern, every

074time the kid pop in the car, jump on your cell phone while I'm driving, talk to me about look at what they're doing on look at what students are doing on Zern. That would be an easy way to help us build um our our students up. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Mr. D, great presentation. Thanks for the those words of direction. Now we know where we are and we know how we need what we need to do to get there. Thank you, Mr. Miles. I didn't know what to expect from MAP, but I I'm really excited about it now. Um the um my my thing is is that um um the kids know where they are, you know, and and the thing is is that a lot of times it's hard to do anything, especially get

075some direction if you don't know where they are. And uh that's very important. Um um and being able to identify what skills that they skill level they on. Um one thing I noticed in the school system that we start tutoring in the spring. Now that we know where they are, it seemed like we can identify the ones that need help at the beginning of the year and and start working with them, especially the weaker ones at the beginning of the year. One thing I can honestly say about Petersburg, cuz I was special ed and they took me to another level by the time I was in sixth grade. I was reading on level by the time I got to sixth grade. But when I finished the first grade, I wasn't even on the kindergarten level.

076And they put me in a program going to the library for a reading specialist every day for one hour. And I went Monday through Friday for one hour. Miss Morgan, you know, she married Mr. Harrison, LT Harrison. And I was I went to that lady every day for 1 hour. By the time I finished the sixth grade, she had me on level. We were doing a REA I mean was it RA reading by color and she had me on level and but the but what I'm trying to um say is um we have a lot of things tools in place. What are we doing to raise the kids um academic? We want to raise their self-esteem, but their educational esteem, knowing where they are and when they progress to feel good about that because um

077we have kids come come in front of the board for um student hearings and it shouldn't be a eighth grader on up in Petersburg don't understand where they are when it come to GPA and different things like that. I hear Mr. Piers all the time say you know your GPA. When the first thing the counselor went over with before I finished the eighth grade was where I was in my class with my GPA. When I went to the ninth grade, I knew exactly where I ranked in my class. I knew exactly where I was in each subject area. And we got kids coming in here in 11th grade. Don't know their GPA. We just sent some kids off that had scholarships to visit colleges and and and some of them um the coaches call us

078back. The colleges want them. They said, "No, they need to go to junior college." They only accepted two out of the four because they looked at academically that even though they passing, they they're not going to make it at this school, not at that level. So we need to make sure they know where they are academically and raise their academics um esteem to make it you you know so their goals can be achievable because they one thing about Peasburg kids I know they can do it's it's I know they can do what you said you just preached a sermon but I because because it going to take it going to take all of us it going to take all of us but the earlier we identify it and the earlier we address it and not

079just do it for the so but do it for the child all year long the ones that that that we can identify one thing with this map I don't thank you Dr. Jackson because we need a tool to say what skill level are our kids on individually and see that's what this does and I'm excited but I want you to explain something to me though what's basic between proficient and basic what's the difference because proficient mean they doing it based on um it's good enough so what what what does basic mean so when we say prof so I can start with advanced first I went down to advance so advanced we're referring to so comparing the so score and how it's going to be on the so advanced is 500 but the so ranges from

0800 to 600 500 to 600 will be scored advance cut score it's a cut score right so that's the range of the so right so anything that's above 500 is considered advanced anything 400 to um 499 is considered to be proficient anything from 400 I mean 399 to 350 is basic anything below 350 it's below basic. Okay. So those are the same terms they use for the standards of learning assessment and that's um the same terminology they're using in MAP so that way we can correlate it. Okay. You did that very good. Now I understand. So yeah they just correl they're doing a great correlation for us. I understand the so now it makes sense. You want to use the same language that so we use the same language they're using in map is the

081same language they use on the so yes sir. I got it. And Mr. Miles, just to address a couple of things that you mentioned in your comment. One was around um starting tutoring early. The curriculum team we have already been working and planning with having having those tutors in the building early. Um the other thing is around you question about our kids not knowing where they are. We have just finished. We're in the process of redoing our master schedule because in our division we had not used the power of powers school to support um instruction well and so we had not updated power school in 5 years. The team has the principles um our IT team has been working on updating P school. So now parents will have access to kids graduation plans which is

082a way of now I know where I am. I know what I need to do. And so the division we are creating the opportunity to share that information with parents. Again you know you can offer but people have to accept but also the people who are working with students have to do their part. So we are building infrastructure in to support that because it is our kids need to know where they are. They need to know what classes they need to take. They need to know their grade point average. They need to be a part of the process of selecting classes. They need to make sure that we are doing right by scheduling them correctly to address their needs. Um one of the things that map data does and we've I've used in a previous

083district. It also shares with you their reports that says if you plan on going to this college, this is what you need to score in order to get into that college. And so we are we're really this was a start this year. One of the things we're trying to do next year also is build a profile of a student so that that that that we can have a profile of what our kids look like as far as grades, assessments, and benchmarks. So parents will have a full picture of what our kids are. Our kids can do can produce better. Again, we still have we have to talk about how important education is and talk about how important our children are. And and what I would encourage is that we still and I and this is

084who I am. This is my heart. We have to talk about how good our kids are and stop making excuses and talking about what we didn't get as adults. We have to put our kids first. And if we put our kids first, what we do in the classroom, how we interact with them, how we speak about Petersburg City Public Schools will be different. Can I can I say one thing that talking about the four kids that we took to college visits, the reason why academically they won't there because um they have a thing called an NCAA clean house. We're not putting our kids in there in the clearing house early enough. I talked to people at the college and they said those kids need to be registered in the clearing house by the time they

085finish the ninth grade and then and then those grades will be in each year and be kept up because those two might have qualified if when the next grades come through. But the thing is is that we're not doing that part. So the thing is is that I talked to some people here. They said, "Well, the kid got to go ask the, you know, ask get, you know, get um um their counselor and everybody else and the parents to sign off and they'll do all the due diligence." But we should set it up where when a kid is in, you know, academic because you could go to school for a lot of different things. But the NCAA clearing house, if they don't clear that, they can't get a scholarship. Not not not not in those

086areas. Yes, sir. You understand? So the thing is is that we got to get ahead of the game and make well really we got to catch up with the game because the other schools already, you know, other schools are already doing it. And the thing is is and um so the thing is is that we got to have those kids by the time they finish the ninth grade register in the NCAA clearing house and and the counselors just put the information in as they as they accumulate these records. They just put it in and then they cleared. So we got to do we got to get ahead of the game right now. We're not doing it. Yes, sir. That's right. That's right. Well, Mr. Miles, we have my new assistant superintendent of operations is over

087athletics now. And of course, he um you know, he Mr. Martinez. Yep. So, he will be working with the AD and and the staff to make sure that their part is done along with the the counselors and the other team. that this going to be and we are bringing on a uh supervisor counseling to support because I agree there are some things that we can do with our kid as far as taking um the SAT prep class. We've been talking to the principal and the counselors uh the ACT. We're looking at some other ways to offer because again our kids can do we have to create the opportunity for them and so we know that as a division and we are going to work hard to do that. Mhm. Okay. My question my question would

088my my question is how because I I heard from the teachers. How are we planning and hopefully you all can work on it this summer when we start next school year. How are we planning to help teachers that have students that disrupt the learning environment and they're unable unable to teach with those students in there because the disciplinary board see them all the time. And we see the comments on the report card from the teacher that says not paying attention, leaving class, cursing, doing whatever. So, can we work on a plan on what we need to do for kids that are disrupting Sorry. Sure. I I mean, I'm going to be real honest, Mr. Miles. That's um Mr. Mr. Pritchard. I'm sorry. Boy Pritchard. You know, is I was a classroom teacher. I was also

089a principal and I was a principal of schools where it was the most challenging schools in Atlanta in in Fulton County in in Atlanta. And one of the things I've learned and I I found kids are engaged when we plan well. And I know that people don't like to hear that. That's true. But I was over at Vernon Johns Middle School. I go into a seventh grade class. There's a seventh grade um LC. I went in that LC and those kids were very engaged. Not one. The teacher had stepped out to support a um teacher that was a sub. I sat in that classroom and I just watched those kids for about 20 minutes. Not one kid got up and was misbehaving. Not one kid was disrespectful. Not one kid was out of compliance. And

090this was a new teacher classroom. But as I looked around in that classroom, what I saw was I saw student work on the board. I saw resources on the board. I saw expectations outlined. And I went over and I talked to a couple of the kids and they were like, "Oh." I said, "Where's your teacher?" Um, he stepped out. Talk to me about what you're doing. The kid could describe what they're doing. And I tell people all the time, if one group of kids can do it, they're not being shipped in from another community. They're right here from our community. If they're doing it, then what's the difference? It's adult expectation. So, we will still have kids that will misbehave. I get that. There would be no there would never be a perfect situation, but

091a lot of the things that happen in classroom could be absorbed if we were creating more engaging environments for students. And that's something that a curriculum team that we're going to be working on as we plan for next year, giving our teachers additional tools to help increase engagement in the classroom. But again, as a teacher, and I remember as a teacher having a class in an area we call Little Vietnam where I had to make sure at night I had to write a script as to how I wanted my kids to work in a group because one class could do it, one class needs some support. So I, as a teacher, had to stay and I had to do that burning midnight oil because if I'm putting children first, I'm going to have to do

092a little extra. And I had to write out a script and I would say, "Okay, if we're in group work, you're student A. Student A pass the paper to student B. Student B say thank you." Because sometimes you have to teach what you want. You have to teach what you want kids to do. And so that comes from that comes from intrinsic from each individual. As a division, we can only do so much. At the end, the power is in the teacher. So we can provide professional development. we can encourage, but the power is in front of is the adult in front of the classroom. And so, we're going to work to equip the adults with strategies. My my quest is and I and I know that's for some people is not enough, but I

093I would say this. I saw three classrooms over at Vernon John's seventh grade class. The kids did not know I was coming that day. And even the class where the sub was, the kids were not disrespectful. They were not cursing. The sub was working with them. And what I can say to you, if those groups of kids and that four pod was doing the right work and they're coming from our community, those are the same kids that represent our community. So therefore, the only thing different is the adult in front of them and their expectation. And that may not be the answer that you want to hear, but that is but the adult in front of kids matters. And I I told principles, we need to make sure that the adults in front of kids

094want to be here for our kids and believe that our kids deserve better. And when you believe something deserve better, you do more for them. So that's my answer. That may not be the best answer, but that's my answer. No, sir. And to Yes. And that when when you all decide before school open to have the training or or this um inservice for teachers um with Mr. Lundy, can we be invited to some of that? You sure can. Great to know what kind of questions teachers are asking and what responses we're giving back. Yes, sir. M Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Mayor. Um to piggy back off your question about behaviors. Well, we know 95% of the referrals come from the hallways, bathroom, cafeterias, all the other place, bus stop, stuff like that. So when they

095come in front of us, the ones that getting suspended, school buses, especially school buses, they uh but but um MAP MAP does a great job identifying the skills with the students. Now, we got about 30% long-term subs and teachers that are not certified. And we got to support them because we gave them that job. And what we need to do know where they are, the map not going to tell us where they are. They're going to tell us where the students is, right? So when we hire these people and we know that they're coming in to pro uh to to to help us with our kids and we know that um in their development, I'm not talking about just getting certified. I'm talking about helping them in the classroom to make sure that they have

096those skills and and and uh and to make sure that those skills are being developed. We can't wait just for a staff development to do it because that's not going to be enough. If if if if it takes someone from central office being in there working with them the the first couple of weeks or the first month or so or having somebody pick it back on, we just can't throw the people to the wool because some some of our kids are eat them up. And so you can say and you're right about the adult because people say, "Hey, I go in there. I can I can go in there with uh and and do workshops and forms and stuff like that." And people said, "M, you handle kids good." But that's me. That doesn't mean

097you gonna be able to go in there and do the same thing. They gonna say, "Why they listen to you?" I said, "But that's me." Now, the next person coming in there we done hired, we need to make sure that we support them in a way and back them in a way cuz we got a lot of people a lot of people that could probably do a lot better if we support them and stand behind them and give them what they need because they still need some tools though. We got some tools that's not there. Yeah. So, but the thing is that I agree with everything you said, but some of them like map show us where the kids are. We don't have a map to show us where the teachers are. So, we need

098to know who we hired and what what and and what they need help at. The only way we're going to do that, we got to get in there and do a little mapping ourselves with who what we have the ones that not certified. Well, I I just Yeah. Yeah. So, um thank you, Mr. Miles. You're absolutely correct. And I think just to add to what Mr. Brown says, "I think we also are working on our structures for how we're going to create a robust professional development, a professional learning structure here in Petersburg because we don't have that." And so part of that is the training that teachers and staff members can get throughout the year that focus on the needs of our students. So, we know classroom management for a lot of teachers is a

099struggle because kids are not following the rules everywhere across the country. But what we have to have is a professional development structure in place where we can teach teachers, whether they're certified or uncertified, how you effectively manage student behavior, how you intervene, and how you move if you have to do something else, restraint or otherwise. But we've got to provide that structure throughout the year, which is what we're also working on. Mr. Brown, I know you were going to mention, but that is part of a structure that we don't currently have in place that if you are teacher A at Cool Spring and teacher B at Pleasant's Lane, you know, you need help with professional with classroom management, we have the structure for you to get access to that training for that. So, that is

100a part of the plan as well. And we're also working with our leaders because and I'll just be very frank here and honest is that we're looking at all of our adults because if you're not here for the right reason to move this work forward then we will have different conversations because time is now for us to get people in front of our students who believe in what we're trying to do with our kids. And that may mean that some people may or may not choose to work with our students. But the people that are here working every day, they're working extremely hard as Mr. Brown says, but you always have in every organization that there are people who may not be on board with helping and supporting, but we got to support the people

101that we have. Thank you, Mr. M. What I had what I was going to say on Ed. Um I wrote down I just wanted to say this because cannot say it. I do know how important it is. um how the adults in front of the kids how important that is but we also have to be mindful about the adults that are in front of the adults. So if we are going to hold our teachers to expectation we got to hold building leadership to an expectation as well to the teacher if something is accepted and then when leadership or the executive team comes along you know and they're held to a different standard. So I just want to put that out because I would have been remiss if I didn't say it. I just think except

102um I wrote down uh expectations and accountability across the board. As Miss Brown said, if we're going to hold the teachers feet to the fire, we got to hold leadership feet to the fire as well. So, I mean, that's pretty much all I have. Agreed. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. Okay. We're moving on to 4C. Thank you, board chair and school board members. Our next presentation of the evening is our PCPS update on our summer programming that we will offer to our students for 20 summer 2025. And so we'll bring Miss Ebony Massie, our director of elementary education, and Miss Joy Lowry, our director of secondary education, to give us a summer programming update. Well, good evening, Chairman Pritchard, Vice Chair who slept. Oh, hello. Um, Superintendent Brown,

103board members, colleagues, and guests and viewers online. We would like to present the summer 2025 program for you this evening. Um, again, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Miss Massie who will start off our presentation this evening. All right. Good evening, everyone. We'll begin with the agenda. She said the best. Okay. I'm Ebony Massie. I'm the director of elementary education. Joy Lowry, director of secondary education. Okay. All right. And tonight we're going to talk about the summer academy. We're going to talk about our schedule and the timeline, dates, and locations. We're going to talk a little bit about the academic and enrichment opportunities that we are providing for students as well as our SEAL summermies and our additional summer learning opportunities. We have taken the liberty this year to start to refine how

104our summermies look, sound, and feel so that we can truly target support for certain groups of students. Next slide, please. So, we'll start off and talk about just briefly our summer academy schedule and timeline. As you can see here on our timeline, um staff applications were posted back in March and we have received um several applications. Those are required for student of excuse me of teachers um who are fully licensed or provisionally licensed for summer academy. Our summer academy website also went live last month. And then student registration actually begins this week. Um you'll also notice there that um we are we have been interviewing our teachers and for different positions for summer academy so those offers um are getting loaded up and ready for review for human resources department so that those offers can

105be extended and approved. um the student invitations, our registration, as Miss Massie said, it will look a little bit different this year than it has in previous years uh for elementary school because we have different buckets of students who have different needs. Not only would it be academic but also enrichment and then this year we will be adding SEAL, social emotional learning focus for students as well. So, elementary was will be registration by invitation and those will be extended in collaboration with the students um with leadership at the school. And then for secondary uh theirs will follow a traditional model to be able to register for either full or credit recovery courses, but we'll talk about that a little bit more. As you can see from the timeline, I won't read it all out to

106you, but we are of course collaborating with transportation to um look at the enrollment when registration begins to confirm bus ramps, bus routes, excuse me, and share those with families. When you look at the schedule, you'll notice that summer academy will be running from June 9th through July 17th this year. And there are three teacher work days built in for summer academy for elementary, two for secondary. We will also have as part of that as a summer bridge up math program for our sixth grade students, our rising sixth grade students um who are accelerated in mathematics. And then of course July 17th, as I've stated, summer academy ends along with a summer commencement ceremony at PHS. And then the following week, we will hold a sixth and ninth grade transition camp for our rising sixth

107graders and rising freshman students at the high school. But we will go a little bit more in depth for some of those programs as we move through the presentation. Okay. Now to talk a little bit about the dates and the locations and times for ourmies for the kindergarten through 12th grade academy which are really focused much more on the academics for um K5 we will have it at Pleasant's Lane 612 will occur at Vernon John's middle school those hours will be from 8:30 to between 8:30 and 2:40 we also have the full steam ahead summer camp and that camp is specifically targeting our students that are chronically absent to try to get them re-engaged back in school. And those dates are June 9th, and there is a little bit of a typo there. It will

108be July 8th. Um, and that will be for fourth and fifth grade students at Pleasant Lane. Then we also have, as Joy talked about, or Miss Lowry talked about, the summer bridge up program. Those are for um rising sixth graders based on their SO scores. And those students have demonstrated they have scored advanced on their SOS and they have de demonstrated a need to be able to um participate in those advanced courses for middle school. And then we have sixth and nth grade transition. And again, anything occurring for 6th through 12th grade will occur at Vernon John's and all K5 programs will occur at Pleasant's Lane. All right. So, as we take a look here at our academics and arrangement opportunities, um again, I'm not going to go into depth on this slide because we

109will go a little bit deeper as we move forward. But in grades K through five, um you can know you'll notice here some of the highlights of what will be offered and we'll talk about those individually in just a moment. But in grades sixth through 8th grade, we will also be offering recovery and remediation for our English language arts, history, mathematics, and science. There is also a cadre of enrichment activities that we will be offering for our middle school students. The steam summer extended learning camps. There's opportunities for that. And then we've we've we've coined our SEAL focus for our students as camp compass for students from K through 8th grade. Um in grades 9 through 12. This year we will be offering full credit courses. As you recall, we did not offer any full

110course courses last year due to the short summer and the change in the academic calendar. However, this year, I'm happy to report that we will be offering um initial credit courses again this year. And you can see there they'll be in English 9, English 12, US and Virginia government. Uh there will be electives as well, economics, personal finance, health and PE 9 and 10 with driver's ed in 10th grade. And then again, you'll see some of those enrichment activities, the STEM summer, excuse me, summer extended learning camps. And then of course we'll have all your traditional courses to be offered in credit recovery in for students in grades 9 through 12. As well as we were talking about there's going to be a little bit of a shift with our K5 programs. Traditionally um anything

111that our K5 students participate in during the summer is enrichment and it is not required. But what we did want to do is make sure that we were targeting specific needs of students. So we'll have essentially three different types of camps running during the summer. We will have one called power scholars and that will be an academically focused camp where students will participate in academic support in the morning and then enrichment activities with the YMCA in the afternoon. That is traditional. I think we've been doing something like that in Petersburg for a number of years. We also know that we have a chronic absenteeism issue in our district and so we want to make sure that we are trying to re-engage students back into school. So this year we are going to enact full steam

112ahead academy. In this academy we'll be targeting those students to try to get them re-engaged in school by um participating in hands-on real world experiences targeting STEM activities. So we will have an academic lens. However, it will be to re-engage and rebuild relationships. We just talked about how important that was for our students. And then the third one, and um we'll talk about that one in a little bit, but that is Camp Compass, the SEO component. So you're okay, Miss Yates, if you want to go. Oh, that is the slide. Okay. So for Power Scholars Academy, um thinking about who is eligible, all students who are actually we just talked about the MAP data. So, we're going to be focusing in on map data, whereas in the past, anyone could come and we weren't able

113to necessarily target specific support. So, now those students that were in the red uh level, we want to make sure that we are inviting those students first to be able to have that academic remedial support during the summer. For our full steam ahead summer academy, again, I spoke about those students that are chronically absent. Their day is going to look a lot different. They're going to have about a half day. They're going to come for 16 days and they will have hands-on enrichment and field trips. Um that and we also are going to target our rising fourth and fifth grade students. We wanted to make sure that we started small so that we could get this right and we could um duplicate this over the years. And also knowing that those students will soon be

114in middle school and we want to make sure that they have really good habits and understand the importance of going to school. And for our secondary students grades 6 through 12, our extended learning steam opportunities are as follows. Uh we collaborate with Virginia State University, Virginia Tech University, Richard Bland College, just to name a few. And of course, again, this year we will be um partnering with them to send some of our middle school and our high school students to um STEM summer camps. There is even STEM summer camps that are STEM but athletic related. Um, so our students will have a myriad of opportunities to participate in enrichment, not just the credit recovery, but also to go and have experiences where they can go to Richard Bland or Virginia Tech and stay for the

115week and really get an opportunity to experience what college is like. And so, um, we do have those. And then in addition to that, you there are field trips that are will be scheduled for our secondary students as well. Um on deck right now we have um the science museum. We have them going to Virginia Beach to the aquarium. Um so there's a lot of different things lined up and opportunities for those students that participate in our summer learning STEM for Petersburg City Public Schools. Now I will tell you just to note throughout our presentation there were certain links that you could click on. There is an active summer academy website that talks about and takes you to these opportunities where you can see more about them and that's for our families but also that's

116where same as last year where our families will be able to also go to register for the different camps. So I am excited as we get ready to talk about our newest addition camp for this year. Next slide, please. And here it is. So, um, I'm glad Mr. Miles, you spoke about the students that come before disciplinary hearings and what we have found. Um when we think about students who may have experienced ups and downs and then they might find themselves you know in a predicament where they have to look at their choices or find their way hence compass. Um we've created camp compass for our K through eight students. And so who's eligible for that would actually be our students who are in grades K through eight who meet the following criteria. Those would

117be, as we've stated, your students that have been referred by the schoolboard discipline committee um or perhaps even a school principal um and they've experienced out of school suspension time, expulsion, or even an alternative placement. And so again, I am so happy to share that this is the first year that we will truly have a camp that was set up and created that was dedicated just for those students that they'll go for a half day. While they won't necessarily focus on credit recovery, they'll be focusing on social emotional learning and then having that opportunity to find their way. So that we're really excited about that. And then for our 9th through 12th grade students, it does look a little bit different because we do know that our um high school students do have verified credits

118and things that they must have. So theirs is slightly different. their is theirs is a focus on um transitioning back to the comprehensive setting as it's required and they'll be able to um recover courses and won't have as much seal but they will have a component where they do it for a a specific amount of time. So again, we really are trying to make sure that we um provide expectations for students which you will also find on our summer academy website and you will also find what those expectations are on the registration application as students register. Parents do have to agree at the end when they submit that I have read and I agree to support these expectations which we again we've talked about is super important to engage our our families um our caretakers

119pay well their families caretakers etc will attend a parent orientation before the first day. So this is all about um having a high engagement with our families and then maintaining open communication with them as well as they work through the program. Um they will ultimately once they complete that they will participate in a reentry conference with their home school or the comprehensive school they're returning to um prior to school starting. And then ultimately that will help support with because they would have a plan in place would help them to reinforce what their expectations are, help set goals. You know, you have four more credits. So, we're really going to focus on that and look at how we're going to set you up for success. So, all right. All right. And just to reiterate, we are,

120you know, to use Miss Brown's phrase, a new day, a new way together. We are definitely looking at trying to reimagine um academic programs. So, we are starting smaller and really wanting to do that well versus opening it up to the to the whoever we open it, you know, big the big waves and um and really trying to make sure we narrow the focus. Um, also though for those students because we are trying to be really intensive and provide that support, we wanted the community to also be aware of other additional summer opportunities that they can participate in. So looking at we have the summer reading program and stream academy going on with the Petersburg Public Library. We also have opportunities for camp engagement um with lots of other opportunities, but also our boys and

121girls club as well as our parks and wreck will be providing camps as well. So, there are multiple opportunities for our students to engage in meaningful summer experiences that can help take them to the next level. Okay. Are there any questions? Yeah. Can can you tell us about the field trips they'll be taking the because I know you have three Fridays in there. So they say they going on field trip each Friday. What what uh can you tell us about the three field trips that they be going on? So actually yes. And then I am going to turn it back over to Miss Massie also. But for our secondary um STEM opportunities um I've been working in collaboration with our STEM coordinator for the division u Miss Coleman and also our science specialist our K12

122science specialist um who was working to identify field trips that are aligned with our curriculum standards to help expose students and then reinforce science because we do know even with the new accountability system. Um, science still matters and still will be a factor. So, it will help to reinforce. So, there are um and they're actually not necessarily on Fridays for the secondary. They actually will go um it could be for a week. Like for example, one of the particular camps that they're going to is at Virginia Tech and so they would actually stay there for a week. Um there was another one where they would go to Richard Bland and they also stay at Richard Bland for a week as well. So there's different there is a a myriad of different ones where they can

123go to with our partners. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now with that said, Mr. Miles, the elementary is they do field trips on Friday as part of the power scholars which is in collaboration with the YMCA and they do take their field trips on the elementary side on those Fridays. But they don't have a list of where they going to go. I'll let Miss Massie speak to that. You know, I I was just curious because um I have some little ones that I'm associated with that I was just wondering what they had planned for them. That's all. Okay. We are still working with the YMCA to finalize the Friday and then also for the steam full steam ahead, those trips will occur on Thursdays. And so we're really looking at creating a thematic approach. And so those students

124will be participating in something we're calling eco rescue and looking at the human impact on the environment. And so they'll have an opportunity to create a docu series um working with some of our um technology enhanced folks to create a media presentation um and through that they'll become scientists that are looking at how to support um and how to look at the environment. So during that time they will be taking a trip to the and please forgive me if I say it wrong but the Appamatic Appamatics Appamatics River. Yes. No, I don't there's one in Colonial Heights. So they'll be going to that river and collecting water. But they'll do that. They'll test the water and look at the environment. But then they will also have an opportunity. So forgive me. I'm I'm getting it

125together. But um also um they will have an opportunity to go over to um go in Richmond and take a look at um Maymount and have an opportunity to look at the nature center. They'll also have an opportunity to go to the um Virginia Zoo and have an opportunity to look at um things from that perspective. So we're we're in process of finalizing all of these things. Look. Um, no. The one, um, hold on, let me sec. It's the one that is, um, going out towards the Virginia zoo. Yeah, the one near Chester for you. So, um, I'm going to give you one more and the 4 the 4mm they have out there. get in contact with them because it might be a little bit safer than the app river and and uh um and

126it's and it's open to you. Okay. All you got to do is contact and then plus they got a a big um community center out there that seat like 500. So you take a you know that can serve lunch and everything else. So include them for age for in Wakefield. In Wakefield in Wakefield. Don't go to the one in the other one. go to the one cuz that's the way we do community service out there. We just did a big community service this fall. Okay. We we did a lot of work. Rebuilt fences, replace the pig pin, did a whole lot of stuff out there. Okay. So, it's Yeah, definitely use them. We're meeting tomorrow, so I'll make sure to bring that up. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. My wife. So, as

127we prepare for today's meeting, I've seen the PowerPoint. This was one of my favorite PowerPoints. I am so excited about these summer camps. I just don't know what I did. Um, I do want to highlight full steam ahead. That was an amazing idea to target our chronic absent kids and our families. Um, I think it'll be super beneficial with establishing relationships and um, it goes right back to um, teaching the language. Um, and I think, you know, it gives some consistency with um, what we're doing across the division when it comes to crimeism. So, I think um, that's great and I love the camp compass. Um, and I think to go piggy back off of what we were talking about, um, with some of our distractions in class, I think that'll be great because it

128keeps the students um, it reinforces the strategies because I wrote it down reinforces the strategy, but also it keeps their routine and I I love that. And hopefully with camp comfort, it'll compass it'll help um, with the new school year. So, I just want to say like those were so well thought out and I'm so excited to visit. So, please keep us informed because I definitely want to visit even if I just come to pass out lunch. I definitely want to come and visit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I was looking at your at the website and on there someone needs to fix it. It says PSPs summer academy, but when I click it, the 25 information is in there. Gotcha. So, we'll fix that. We'll make sure it's fixed. Okay. Also, um

129just have a question. How will community builders play a role? Are they going to be connected to you all or they're going to be separate for their summer program with Dr. Lee? Remember, she has we have the money for the community community builders program. So, do we know how that's going to run? We'll continue to work with the family. Yes, we'll absolutely. Dr. Gay, um you have that down um for family engagement, for community bills. How will we be integrating that? and we'll be doing anything specific since we do have that funding and support. And I have one more question. I also went through and I saw you had applications on here for for staff. How are staff selected for summer school? And and how are how are administrators selected? Well, great question. So, our

130administrators, we work with our assistant principles because they are 12-month employees. So, we go ahead and assign them and each year the schools rotate. So this year um for elementary Jessica Sturdivan will be our um administrator and then the other elementary principles help to support I'm sorry assistant principles help to support during that time. Then as we look at hiring our teachers they apply and then they go through an interview process and we based on their interview and based on our needs we match our teachers with the programs. So if I'm ask another question every teacher that applies do they get an interview? Yes, for elementary we have made sure that we had an equitable opportunity and if you are certified and are returning next year then we are you we will afford an opportunity

131for you to interview secondary. Yes. So for secondary it is again our 12-month associate principles and assistant principles. And so for this year for the summer academy coordinator, so that individual that is going to be responsible for ensuring that all three schools or all three programs run effectively, um that will be one of our associate principles, Miss Reic at the high school. And then for our middle school, that summer site coordinator would be um Dr. Trina Mitchner um in collaboration with Mr. Harris as well. He ran it last year. And then for the high school, it would be um assistant principal Glenn. So those would be your administrators since again since they're all 12 months. And then to answer your second question, those site coordinators for each level, they go through the applications to find

132because again, secondary is a little bit different. So you have to have if it's an English position, you have to have an English teacher. So that they're looking at them being um either fully or provisionally licensed. and then they will go through an interview process with a panel. Um once they go through and select the best candidate based on the rubric and the candidate scoring sheet that was provided to us by human resources then they'll make a recommendation for hire and then it'll go through the process to go through HR and then sent to um school board for approval. And so how are you right now as far as hire for some school? We're we are ready like so we are we I I can tell you that one of our schools um sent over

133the what we call the request for RPA. They sent them over today because they had they actually started interviewing last week. And so they spent last week up and through this week going through doing interviews um making those recommendations and then you know making the completing those RPAs to be sent to HR um to for approval for the board. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Any other questions? Yes, that's it. Okay. Thank you academics team for sharing our summer programming. Thank you so much and we will get that answer for community builders um related to that. Next we move to 4. Thank you again board chair Pritchette and school board members. We will now have our um our special education annual plan presentation 2526. And so we're excited to have Mr. Danny Castillo, our assistant director

134of special education to provide an update on our plan for special education in Petersburg City Public Schools. Mr. Casillo, uh good evening, uh Chairman Pritchard, Vice Chair Pierce, um fellow board members, uh Superintendent Brown, uh all in attendance here and and virtually. I'm Danny Costello. I'm the assistant director of special education in this and tonight I'll be presenting the 2526 uh annual plan. Next slide, please. So tonight we'll cover kind of cover there are a few points in the annual plan that we'll discuss today and we'll start with the purpose of the grant uh as well as the application pro process the allowable funds uh the allocation of funds as well as the grant supported programs and when you look at each one of these um throughout the overview this is basically uh the key

135elements in the grant um the grant the federal grant process uh for the annual plan. Next slide please. So when we look at the uh purpose of the grant, this this federal grant supports compliance in special educa special education laws and regulations as well as it ensures that uh school divisions or our school division um and SOPs maintain current policies uh procedures and documentation. Uh as well as uh the goal is to make sure that we are in alignment with federal and state regulations under the IDA. Um also uh the completion of uh certification insurance confirms that uh the school division adheres to those special education regulations. Um and then lastly this process is a part is a part of the annual plan part B flow through application. Next slide please. So when you look

136at the grant application process here it starts with our December one count and this is our uh final number of kids that we count after November 30th. So December 1, the total number of students uh with disabilities in Petersburg and then through the next step in this process is done through the finance department of thee process um which uh was submitted and approved by VOE on March 20th and then the um annual plan itself was presented to our local CA committee on the 24th and then today we're presenting this plan to the school board um this afternoon. So next slide please. So when we look at the allowable use of funds, this is these are areas or funds where we can uh support our students with disabilities. And so when we look at those um

137funds there, these are these are key supports and areas that directly impact um special education services. Um so we'll look at employee benefits and personnel services as well as purchase services, uh materials and internal services and capital outlay is there. However, we we we don't do anything with capital outlay with this uh grant per se. However, that is an option that we could look at, but tonight I'll kind of go into it a little bit more in the next two slides. So, our to our total for this award year is a little bit over $1.2 million for the year. Um, and when you break those two to two parts, we look at uh grant 611 and 619. Uh, so six um 611 flow through there is the 1.2 million as well as then the preschool

138allocated funds uh is $32,000 there. So that kind of gives you an idea of when we separate the 611 and 619 how that money is being spent. And so when we look at those major funding categories, we really concentrate on those areas of personnel services, employee benefits, materials uh and supplies and the proportion is set aside. And I kind of go I'll go into that a little bit too during the next side slide. Next slide please. As far as the supported programs, going back to what we had the previous slide, um when we we allocate um a percentage of the funds such as five $5,000 for this one specifically for child fine activities during the summer months and uh and we do this in collaboration with the preschool intake team. This is when we go

139into our community, we go into uh different wards where we have where we hold those child find events. That's where that gives it an opportunity for the community to see the faces in the school division on how we can support um support their children because oftentimes if our parents don't have transportation or can't get to events when we're there where they live and they and they come out and they see us there, that's where it's really impactful where we're able to reach those children and those families and we really can utilize our supports and kind of um provide them with the knowledge uh that we have to where we can kind of support their their students. Uh so the majority of this this grant here really does go towards our salaries and benefits for our

140teachers. And so if you can see there is a substantial uh amount that goes towards supporting our our teachers and support staff in this grant. Um and then the uh proportionate set aside is that $26,000 that you see there. That's for students that are receiving services outside of the comprehensive setting. So, we do have students that are in daycarees as well as private schools and home schools. Uh, currently we do have those two schools that are receiving um services at at the private school now here in the city of Petersburg. And when you look at that amount, that that proportionate set aside amount comes from what's calculated uh from VDOE. So, that's the money that's set aside and that goes towards those services that we provide those students. um after a period of time if

141that money is not utilized then we will just have to request it back and we can utilize it in other ways. And so that number can fluctuate depending on the students that are enrolled in our school division that may not necessarily enroll in Petersburg City Public Schools but are in uh in the city that do require those special education and related services. And just to be clear, we do provide speech services, occupational therapy and and uh physical therapy service for those students. So, we don't offer like a reading service and things of that nature. Next slide, please. Well, I guess that's it for me. Uh, but that was pretty quick. So, do any of you have any questions for me? Thank you, Mr. Klo. Any questions? Um, Mrs. Tucker, start with you. No resp. No

142questions, sir. Mr. Um, the only thing you went over was the grant. Mhm. Okay. That that's the only thing you wanted to present tonight. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So this this is our Yeah. This Yeah. This because I know what the special is. A lot of things that we could talk about. This our special annual plan. Yeah. So it's so it's it is a federal grant and so we just kind of broke it up to kind of show you exactly what what it is. Yes. This is what we do every year. Yes. All right. Okay. Leave it alone. All right. No problem. Thanks. All right. Last one. Thanks Bradley. Thank you board chair pitch. So we will pull up our policies for first read. And so again thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, we

143have our policies for first read and as you can see that there were some February 2025 updates and so we moved our um policies from our March meeting to this meeting and so um if you'll take a look at our PCPS policy number one GBA the policy title is unlawful manufacturer dist distribution dispensing possession or use of a control substance that is in alignment with the VSBA policy GBA and the purpose of this policy review because this policy requires employees to notify the school board of any criminal drug conviction occurring on school property. That is in alignment with the VSBA um day of 225. Policy number two, GBLA. Policy title is third party complaints against employees. The VSBA policy alignment is GBLA and this policy language has been updated for clarity, legal references and cross

144references updated. This revision includes language directing the superintendent to establish regulations for processing third-party complaints at the option of the school board. This is in alignment with VSBA 225. Our third policy of the evening is staff hiring procedures. This VSBA policy is GBN. This policy language has been updated because it includes omission of omission of pertinent information as a cause for dismissal or refusal to employ. This is in alignment with VSBA 225. Our fourth policy is voluntary retirement savings program. This is in alignment with VSBA policy GBR and this policy language has been updated for clarity. No substantive revisions have been made. Policy number five, GDQ, school bus drivers. This policy is in alignment with VSBA policy GDQ. This policy language has been updated for clarity. Legal references and cross references have been updated in

145alignment with VSBA 225. Our sixth policy of the evening is is pol PCPS policy KA and the policy title is goals for school community relations. This is in alignment with our VSBA policy KA and the purpose of this policy review was the policy language was being updated for cross references throughout the policy in alignment with VSBA 225. Our next policy is policy number seven LBD. The policy title is home instruction. The VSBA policy alignment is LBD. And this policy language has been updated to include cross references updated in alignment with our VSBA 225. So at this time that completes our review of our policies for first read for the April 16, 2025 school board meeting. Thank you. Any questions from board members? These will come back to us on May 7th for action. No questions.

146But one thing that we do need to do, we haven't met on changes for our policy for the student handbook. Are we going to work on that as a board? Because when we review that and approve it, we don't want to wait till the last minute to do it because we having a a lot of challenges just with the student hearing where kids is get suspended for 10 days. We don't see them for 15 20 days. So we got to correct that. So we have a lot to correct. I mean five student handbook. We need to take a look at that real quick. Absolutely. So what we'll do is I'll be working with u Mr. Brown and the student support team because we will I think Dr. um Woods was here first and I think

147there was a a school a handbook that was presented early in of last year in August. But we need to revamp that to put some new expectations in place in alignment with some of our schoolboard policies like wearing hoods and wearing hats and things of that nature that align to schoolboard expectations. So, we will bring that forward for a work session. Is that how it goes? And so, you all will get a chance to take a look at the revisions, but we're also going to be updating and creating a um employee handbook that will outline expectations and um in alignment with our board policy so that we do employees and students, but we will be working on Mr. Brown is not in here, but that team, the the student support team will have to take

148a look at our current handbook, make revisions, and I'll be working with Mr. Bridget around the date that we need to bring that for a work session so that we have enough time to and I've talked to communications about actually printing some copies for parents who need a hard copy because I think we did digital this past year but we want to make sure that I think sometimes when parents if you ask parents when you have discipline issues did you get a copy of the handle then were you aware sometimes the answer is no and so that is a part of our work so I'll work with Mr. Bridget on um when the team can get that done so we can bring that for for a read for a work session. Yeah, right there Mr.

149Pig. Yes. Um just to close that out um talk you know some of the things that we have in there. Uh it's not a problem with the policy. It's enforcing it. Yes. And see that's the you know so we want to make sure just like when you brought up the hoodies and the hats and the and the book bags because I went up to the school and we know we got the clear book bag policy and I watch them get off the bus and everybody don't have clear book bag. I'm telling you right now. So when they walk through there that's a part of security. They're not supposed to go no farther than that front door with those with with those ski masks and no book bags that you can't see through. But that's not

150on the teacher because when he get to the teacher, we don't already let him walk all the way down the hallway, all the way through the school and then you want the teacher to enforce something that we should have stopped at the door. And and and that's and and so so so we're not going to put that on the teacher because we got the policy in place and we said we're not going to lie when they should not be able to walk through that door with that nonsense. So the so some things we have a policy for. How we going to enforce it and make sure that we're consistent because we started out the school year real good because we had clear book bags. Now you go look at them book bags. That's right. It's

151it's they getting on the they getting on the bus with and we expect our bus drivers and teachers to enforce it when we should have did it right there at the front door, you know, and so we got to nip some stuff. But the what I was concerned with is the kids that the time they miss out of school the way we going to set that up cuz we definitely got to address that. you get suspended for three days, you shouldn't be out for 10. You can suspend it for 10, you shouldn't be out for 15. So that's that's um that's a really a problem because it's killing your own absenteeism. Mhm. Thank you, Mr. Yeah. Okay. Next, we'll move to number five of the comment of the comment period. Oh, I'm sorry. I did

152receive a message. Someone with a white Kia, your lights are on in the parking lot. If you drive a white, I'm speaking first, so I'd rather speak. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Do your thing. Speak on the issue for more than three minutes. Please give your name, your address, your ward, or your school. Miss L. Good evening, school board chair, superintendent Brown, school board members, community members. My name is Bianca Lampley. I am a seventh grade history teacher at Vernon John's Middle School, and I am here to remind everyone that the teachers in PCPS are still fighting for collective bargaining. I heard a lot of discussion today about situations that collective bargaining could really help fix. Uh we talked about discipline. We talked about PDs. We are your front line. We are

153in the buildings. I am a veteran teacher that works with new teachers. Um I teach teachers, provisionally licensed teachers, and I do my best to try and help them out and give them tools and tips. But collective bargaining would allow the people that are there to come to the table and tell you this is what we see these people need. This is how we can help make these people better teachers cuz we see it every day. As far as discipline, the biggest issue with discipline in the middle school has been those phones. There's not a consistent way of enforcing whether or not the kids keep the phone in the pouch on them every day. Do we collect the phones in the pouches and keep them locked up in the pouches so the kids don't break

154the pouches open? All of these are things that we who are on the front line can tell you this is what's going on. This is what we need to do. All we're asking for is a voice. That's all we want. Give us a chance to tell you as the people right there in it every day how to improve our schools. Please, please, please support us in acquiring collective bargaining in PCPS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Good afternoon. Protocol have already been established. I am Freda Curtis. I am a retired PCPS employee, but I'm also working with PA as a member organizer. I have been contemplating if I should speak tonight or not speak. That was my question. Thinking back on the last four years how this board refused to act on collective bargaining. It is

155a disappointment and a let down to me. the shameful way this board would stand behind a casino and not putting the energy behind the 692 employees speaks volumes to me. If this division likes to bleed employees each year, then you will continue to meet with the same results by not moving the resolution forward. However, if you want to maintain, grow, and attract qualified personnel across this division, then you will consider passing the resolution. The trifecta is coming. Whether you choose to be out front of it or behind it, the vote is yours to make. Let's move forward. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Good evening. As a resident of uh Petersburg, I'm here tonight. Um madame Mr. Chair, Madame Superintendent, and school board members. Of course, you know, my name is Vet Wilson. My role as a

156UNISER director. I'm here tonight once again with my boots on the ground. All right. As a retired soldier, army, I can remember that glorious day when I hung up those boots. Knowing that there would be no more road marches. Can I get an amen? Amen. All right. Little did I know then how they would prepare me for this journey. Traveled here with pea for the last four years. Our path we thought would be smooth as we met each of you in sessions and you shared your experiences as union members and express your willingness to pass our resolution on collective bargaining. I remember that. However, what we thought were smooth beginnings became rocky paths. I won't spend time going over those rocky roads we traveled since then, but I will say we are battleworn but not

157discouraged. We have lost many soldiers in this battle. We left some of them on the field. But our struggle goes on in their memory. They have moved on to greener pastures in surrounding districts. Combat pay was not enough anymore. They left seeking better working conditions and respect. Yes. Let me just say state school board members, madam superintendent, our boots are shined up and ready to go the distance again as we embrace this new administration and a future board with our desire to achieve collective bargaining. As Miss Mick stated in a previous meeting, she shared with you that collective bargaining is coming. Freda referred to the trifecta. Do your homework and you will discover what she meant by that. Miss Mickin shared with you, "Collective bargain is coming and it would happen with or without you

158and we plan to make it happen. We stand with our boots on the ground, 10 toes down, ready to continue the struggle. Collective bargaining now will be our battlecry. So we ask that you, this board, bring our resolution forward. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Yes, Mr. Wily. She was our last person to sign up. Next, we move on to our action items. Dr. M. Thank you, board chair and school board members. Our first action item is our capital improvement projects. And so, this is a continuation. And so, it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the capital investment projects as provided. And so, we'll take a look. Yeah, Mr. Chair, she did not know the protocol. May I ask that be allowed to speak? Okay, you come up, give your name and Are

159you the school or the teacher? I'm a bus driver. bus driver and I I would like to speak on behalf of the bus drivers. Okay. Like she say I'm sorry. I'm Kildred Moody and I've been a bus driver going on three years with Petersburg public schools. Oh, I'm sorry. And I've been having a lot of cons well it been a lot of concerns with all of us as amongst the bus drivers where we feel like we're at the bottom but we're really at the top because they're the children's day start with us when they get on that bus. Our job is every job in the school. We are the principles. We the nurses when they get sick. We We got to be their counselors when they going through the bullying. We got to be their

160we the custodian. We have to clean up behind them when they leave stuff on the bus. So it just seems though we don't get the recognation res am the rec recogn recognition that we deserve as bus drivers. We're not supported where when you try to deal with different situations, it's just we are the ones that get discipline over the kids being disciplined when we know we have to have the kids in school to keep the school system going and supporting the attendance that we need them to be there. So me personally, I try to take on the fact that's why I say we do the role as principles. I don't just write my kids up cuz I understand. I don't know if that child ate the night before, if that child slept being abu. We

161don't know. They have feelings to their children. So what I do personally, I sit my kids down. I talk to them far as he was talking about the grades. I have kids come to me. I'm the first person. I see their pro cards before their parents see their report cards. They be like, "Miss K, look what I got. What I did. I had some that's felling." I encourage them. Hey, go to tutoring. bring the grade up. And actually, it has worked on several of my students where they brought their report cards back and their grades went up. So, it's just that we don't have the support that we need and the people that we can go to that's going to have our back. We need them to have we need somebody or somebody we can

162go to. Like our head of transportation, he not speaking on our behalf. I we are we come down after we done worked, did all this, but It's just that we need somebody that we can that's really hearing our voice. They my coworkers been here to several meetings and then like at the end we at the end majority of the people gone. Nobody hearing what we having to say. We want to be recognized just like everybody else cuz our job is more important cuz without us they won't even be able to get to school if we don't have enough drivers. We don't have enough drivers now when we need days off. We have personal problems. we go through stuff as well and then still have to keep a professional with the children. So we just ask

163that we we be heard and we we be recognized that we are a very important part of the school system and this a whole lot more but I just thank y'all for just hearing that that much. It's further more concerns from every angle but like they said we going to keep fighting. We going to keep coming back. We going to keep letting letting it be known. It's going to be in parts cuz we work hard so we retired. But we going to get here and we going to let y'all know that we here. We here and we're important too. All right. Thank y'all. It's Mildred with a K. K I L D R E D. Well, I'm not going to talk tonight. I know you. I thank y'all for listening to me. Y'all have a

164good night. Thank you so much. Thank you, Miss J. Can you all refresh because I know that it's showing up in the it's showing up in the in the in the uh on the online. So, if we can maybe refresh, it's not showing up on the screen and we can go through those action items. Go back to action. Capital, are you looking for your No, no, the the action items. It's not showing up, but we have it here. So, yeah, we don't we don't have the attachment. It's not showing up here. Since we do not have the attachments that we have we're having a little bit of a glitch, but we'll go ahead and read those because they are part of the documents that are on the board um on the board agenda on our

165on um the website and our board website. So, our first it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the capital improvement projects as provided. As you know, this is a continuation of the items that we brought back in February that was approved by the board for us to do some capital improvements across our school division at schools and some at the central office. And so we will start with this one. Sorry, with this one. So, we are requesting board the board's approval to proceed with exhaust fan replacement at all nine of our schools, authorizing the expenditure not to exceed $260,000 to be paid to Warick Mechanical Group under our current preventive maintenance contract that we already have here in Petersburg City Public Schools. War Mechanical Group has been selected for this project. Due

166to their expertise in HVAC systems and their competitive pricing by utilizing our existing preventive maintenance contract that we have with them, we can streamline this process and potentially realize some cost savings. We procured this. We procured WAR mechanical group because we are already in a preventative contract with them. And so again, the contract spending authority is asking for authority not to exceed $260,000. The funding source will be our general funds and again the award will be if approved will be recommended to Warick Mechanical Group. Our next Okay. Take that one out. Go backwards. Thank you. Thank you. So, our second um it is the superintendent's recommendation as the as PCPS is requesting the board's approval for for a project to paint the interior environment of Cool Spring Elementary School for an amount not to exceed

167$265,000. This project aims to improve the physical learning environment for our students and staff at Cool Spring by refreshing the interior of the school with fresh paint um throughout the building. The use of this cooperative agreement comes from Chesterfield County and allows us to efficiently procure these services while ensuring competitive pricing. We procured this again through a cooperative agreement that's currently in place with Chesterfield County and the spending authority that we're requesting again is 265,000 and we're our funding source will be general funds. We're recommending that the award go to CPE Contracting LLC who currently works in Enriiko, Virginia. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Oh, sorry. It's not a Mac. Thank you. So, our third um request this evening is we are PCPS is requesting the board's approval for a project to paint the interior of

168Lakemont Elementary School for an amount not to exceed $265,000. This project aims to improve the learning environment for our students and staff by refreshing the entire interior of the school. This use of a cooperative agreement from Chesterfield County allows PCPS to efficiently procure these services while ensuring competitive pricing. So once again, we are procuring this um vendor with with our through our cooperative agreement from Chesterfield County. Again, our spending authority is $265,000, not to exceed that amount. We will be paying for it out of our general fund account and we're recommending this award to CPE Contracting LLC and in Reicho, Virginia. So at this time again it is a superintendent's recommendation. Did the school board approve the capital improvement projects as provided? Thank you Mr. Brown. Any questions from board members? No questions. Is there

169a motion to accept the recommendations? So moved by Mr. Miles. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Dance. All in favor? I I oppose. Motion carries. B 6B. Thank you, B pre and school board members. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the disposal of three vans as provided. And so we have we have several vans here. We have van number 268. That is year 2014. The mileage is 225,364. And the reason we're trying to dispose is because it's not running. has full engine failure. The next van number is 925. It year is 2016. It has 141,158 miles on it and it is of course not running and there is a full transmission failure. We have van number 809 year 2017 and the mileage is 192,787. And of course at this point it's

170not running because there is a transmission fail. We have van number 269 2014, mileage 191, miles 825, and it is running but has a cylinder failure. Then we also have an additional. So we actually have five vans it seems for disposal and not three. And so um here we have van number 511 year 2019. Mileage is 87,216 and we are currently is currently being used. So we do not need to dispose of that one. So, we only have four vans that are up for disposal. So, at this time, it is the superintendent's recommendation that school board approved the disposal of vans 268 925809. Hold on a second. Van 269 is running but has cylinder failure. Are we recommending the disposal? So, again, let's go back. It is the superintendent's recommendation that we dispose of the

171school board approve the disposal of van 268 year 2014 van 925 2016 and van 809 2017 as provided. Thank you Miss Bren. You've heard the recommendations. Any questions? Yeah. How how do you plan on disposing them? Mr. Martin, so how do we plan to dispose? Will we be um will we be selling these vans? Dr. Greywood, will we be disposing of them because they're not running? How do we plan to dispose of them? You said Dr. Okay. Procurement and operations. If we need to bring these back, we would have to go back to procurement and see what the law states. Well, yeah. The reason why I asked because we have uh um we teach mechanics up there at the high school. We'd be nice to use one or two of them up there at the

172high school if if if it's feasible. I don't know. So we can recommend I can make the recommendation. We can bring it. So we will bring these V. So we we because we don't know the clear procurement process and how we plan to dispose we will have to bring these back into the next board meeting in May. Mr. Chair, I guess I guess the question is I I guess the question is do we plan to sell them or do we plan to junk them? Yeah. That either or. Yeah. Yeah. Either way they going. Yeah. Right. Yes, I hear. So, typically in our So, in our last disposal, we outlined the procurement process because we were selling them on a we were selling them to a vendor that you asked about the last time. It was

173a vendor that we were selling them to that were going to pick them up versus doing the auction because we're not going to get enough money and they were going to charge us fees. So, that's why we explained to the board. So we'll need to bring this back in March and if it is on the table to donate them then we will bring that recommendation so that the school board can approve however we plan to dispose of the vans we'll bring them back in March I mean in May sorry and there is and chair miss also there is a policy line to this and also is the code of Virginia that we need to follow. Thank you. So I will request that we move that six. Okay. Thank you. So action item number 60 C

174are personnel job descriptions. And so at this time it is a superintendent's recommendation that the school board approved this excuse me. At this time it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approved personnel job descriptions as provided. And I want to call your attention that we did make changes based on feedback to our parent liaison final job description to remove the information related to specific oversight of PTO and PTA. So we did make those changes and so these are the finalized versions based on feedback. And so it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve personnel job descriptions as provided. Any questions on the job description? Is there a motion to accept the recommendation? Moved by Miss Pro second. Second, Mr. Miles. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. 6D. Thank you, board

175chair and school board members. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the overnight field trip for Petersburg High School students to attend the national speech and debate um competition on from June 15th to June 20th in De Moine, Iowa. So, we are excited about our students um that will compete. They had to make it through the state. Congratulations to them. And now they will be competing nationally in De Moine, Iowa. So again, it is my recommendation that the school board approve the overnight field trip request for our PHS students to attend the national speech and debate conference competition in De Mo, Iowa. So moved. Thank you, Miss Brown. Moved by Mr. Miles. Is there a second? Second. Miss Proctor. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you board chair and schoolboard

176members. will now move to our next section, our proclamation for our Virginia School Board Association or VSBA as they proclaim workforce readiness month for elementary school, middle school, and high school. And so it is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approved the proclamation which is up on the screen. And so for our workforce readiness month, workforce readiness is essential to developing skill sets for students in Petersburg city's public schools. Thank you. to be successful beyond high school graduation. In recognition of the demand for highly skilled jobs over the next decade in Virginia, the increase collaboration with business and industry. Thank you for with business and industry, the community college system, and the core school setting. The goal of the Petersburg City Public Schools Board is for the students to master core content knowledge and

177seize expanded opportunities for learning by supporting the successful development of workforce readiness and dual enrollment courses. Petersburg City Public Schools will continue to be intentional in its advocacy and awareness efforts to promote workforce development opportunities and create and implement a curriculum so that Petersburg City students are prepared to succeed globally. PCPS recognizes the Virginia School Board Association's designation for April 2025 as Workforce Readiness Month and Wednesday, April 16, 2025 as Workforce Readiness Day. We celebrate the CTE department, its teachers and staff, and the curriculum and instruction department for their dedication and hard work in ensuring the success of our students. Adopted the 16th day of April, 2025. Thank you, Miss Brown. Is there a motion to accept the proclamation? So moved by Mr. Dance. Is there a second? Second, Miss Proctor. All in favor? I

178opposed. Motion carries. F. Autism. Autism. Thank you, board. Sorry. Thank you, board chair pitch and school board members. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the PCPS recognition of National Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month as provided. And so our proclamation for National Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month, whereas the Petersburg City Public School System is a center for diverse learning where all students are educated to their fullest potential and as a center of our community around which we come together in support of the education of all students. And whereas autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder typically diagnosed during the first three years of life impacting the ability of individuals to communicate and interact with others. And whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health Statistics report approximately 1% of the

179world's population is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. And whereas autism spectrum disorder is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, but is more than four times as common in boys as in girls. And whereas early diagnosis and intervention programs lead to significantly improved outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. And whereas Petersburg City Public Schools employs qualified and caring adults who educate and work daily to improve the lives of students with an autism spectrum disorder. And whereas April 2025 is designated as National Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month to increase public awareness of the need to support individuals with autism spectrum disorders and the family members, educators, and other professionals who teach and care for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, be it resolved that the Petersburg City Public School Board of Education

180hereby celebrates National Autism Awareness Month from April 1st through April 30th, 2025. Recognizes and commends the family members of children with autism spectrum disorder for the dedication in providing for the special needs of children with autism spectrum disorder. honors the teachers, pair professionals, and other educators who possess the desire, caring, and skills necessary to teach, assist, and respond to students with special needs, including those with autism spectrum disorder, and who work tirelessly to educate and provide high-quality services for all students with special needs enrolled in Petersburg City Public Schools, adopted by the Petersburg City Public School Board this 16th day of April, 2025. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Is there a motion to accept moved by Miss Proctor? Is there a second? Second. Miss Tuck, Miss Tucker. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you,

181boarding schoolboard members. Our PCPS recognition of administrative professionals day at Petersburg City Public Schools acknowledges administrative professionals as administrative assistants, office assistants, receptionist, finance specialists, clerks, and other administrative support staff assigned within the various schools and departments when the within the division or district. Administrative professionals play an essential role in the functioning of the educational institution institution by coordinating the offices they support, tackling new challenges and exhibiting grace under pressure while assisting the employees, students, parents and community in staying connected, engaged and productive. PCPS recognizes the importance and contributions of our administrative professionals to to the success of office operations. In unity with the nation, PCPS celebrates and recognizes the hard work and dedication of every administrative professional within Petersburg City Public Schools on this administrative professionals day, Wednesday, April 16th, 2025. We take a

182moment to express our deepest gratitude to the invaluable members of our administrative professionals. We thank you for your commitment to the success of every student, employee, parent, community, and Petersburg City Public Schools mission. Announced this day, Wednesday, April 16th, 2025. A motion to accept with the correction adopted is spelled incorrectly. Wait, so we will correct the recommendation with the correction. Moved by Mr. Proctor. Is there a second? Second. to dance. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you, board chair Pitchette. School board members, we now have our proclamation for assistant principal appreciation week. Whereas the week of April 7th through the 11, 2025 is designated National Assistant Principles Appreciation Week in recognition of their steadfast commitment to ensuring that every child receives a quality education. And whereas assistant principles are responsible for supporting the

183day-to-day operations of their schools, which includes leading instructional programming, managing educational initiatives, and building relationships with students, teachers, parents, and community partners to achieve excellence. And whereas assistant principles work diligently to establish a positive culture and climate in their schools and provide a supportive and safe school environment where students learn, grow, and thrive. And whereas we are very proud of our assistant principles and sincerely appreci appreciate their ongoing efforts to prepare all children for a successful future and Petersburg City Public Schools and also to promote the importance and value of public school education in our community. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Petersburg City Public Schools Board of Education is pleased to proclaim April 7th through the 11th as National Assistant Principles Appreciation Week and encourage all school and community members to join in

184thanking all Petersburg City Public Schools assistant principles for all they do to educate and care for our students adopted the 16th day of April 2025. Do we have a presentation? Do we have a presentation? accept the res presentation the proclamation I'm sorry moved by Mr. Miles is there a second second Mr. Dance all in favor I oppose motion carries and we have a presentation um film for our assistant principles here in Petersburg City Public Schools [Music] This picture nice picture. [Music] All right. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you board chair pitch and school board members. This is our proclamation. It is a superintendent's recommendation. It is the superintendent's recommendation that the school board approve the PCPS proclamation as April is National Counseling Awareness Month as provided. So, be it resolved that the following proclamation be adopted

185that whereas professional counselors and behavior specialists are employed in the Petersburg City Public Schools to help students successfully reach their full potential. And whereas the American Counseling Association and Virginia Counseling Association have declared the month of April 2025 as counseling awareness month. And whereas professional counseling contributes to the growth and development of people across their lifespan and assists them in achieving their full human educational and career potential. And whereas citizens can utilize the services of professional counselors in schools, colleges, mental health agencies, community agencies, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, private practice, and other delivery settings. And whereas an improved understanding of counseling and how it can address student needs will be beneficial to all. Whereas professional counselors are now considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school. Now

186therefore be it resolved the April 2025 April 2025 be proclaimed National Counseling Awareness Month and ask all citizens and stakeholders to learn more about the role of counseling in our lives and recognize the essential contributions made by counseling professionals this 16th day of April 2025. Adopted the 16th day of April 2025. You heard the recommendation. Is there a motion to accept? Moved by Miss Proctor. Is there a second? Mrs. Tucker. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. One more. I'm going to go next to our information items. Miss Brown and your report. Okay. Thank you, board chair and school board members. I will do my quick superintendent report today. And so, if you draw your attention to the screen. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I wanted to provide a report to our school board

187and we'll start with slide number one which is our PCPS calendar de development planning. I wanted to provide that as you know we are working on developing our calendars for 2025 and school years 2026. So 2526 and school years 2627. Just as a update and reminder, our calendar survey was sent out to our community and our stakeholders on March 26, 2025, and it closed yesterday, April 15th. Our we have put up retractable banners. I hope that you've seen them in schools and throughout the community. Um that we put up banners with the survey with a QR code that were placed across the schools and the community to provide everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on the next two years calendars. Today we have from yesterday 897 survey responses were received on the school calendar and

188I don't know I wasn't here prior but I'm sure that that is a record for Petersburg. So we got lots of engagement and we provided we removed barriers to ensure that people got it electronically and we put banners up in schools and we put them throughout some of our churches and in some of our businesses. Is that correct? Across the city of Petersburg. And so we will hold our final calendar committee meeting on April 22nd and we will bring our proposed student and staff calendars based on the feedback and the work of the calendar committee on April 30th, 2025 during our work session. So as you can see really quickly in my report, we provided a quick um um graph that shows you who who our stakeholders were who completed the survey. So if you

189can look in blue, 45.1% of our um employees completed the survey. 44.6% were parent and guard were parents and guardians. So there was almost an equal amount of staff and parents. And what you often see in school divisions is that you have lots of staff who provide feedback but not as many parents. So kudos to our parents out there. Thank you school um secretaries and clerks for making sure. Thank you principles for making sure that when anyone walked in the door, you asked them to take the survey. Thank you to our team for providing that opportunity. Our communications team and the committee which is very crossunctional with every representation you can think of. And so I wanted to highlight those two major groups um that provided it. And that's what you want to see employees

190and parents. We wanted to have more students, but we got 5.7% were students, 3.4 were parents who actually work in the school um in the school division. But again, we're excited and we're excited to bring the iterations and draft so that we can work through the calendars on the April 30th um work session. Our next update, as you already heard in our earlier presentation with Dr. Jackson, I just want to remind everyone that we have our SO testing schedule that has been um refined. Um before we had a larger window and we wanted to make sure that parents, the academic team wanted to make sure that our parents were aware because attendance matters during our so um administration. It matters every day, but this is important. So, elementary students who are in grades 3 through

1915, you will test through from your testing window will be May 1st through May 14th. Middle school grades 6 through 8, May 1st through May 14th. parents, we need our students in place every day during this testing window. Um, so we want to make sure that the board is aware that we can spread the word. Our spring non-writing SOS for term graduates based on their terms is April 15th through May 30th. And then our semester 2 non-writing SOS in high school, grades 9 through 12, or May 1st through May 7th. And so we want to make sure again that parents remember and our school board helps to spread the word. want kids to be in bed on time, that they're in school on time and in attendance every day so that they can have the

192best opportunity to be able to do their best on the SOS that will be administered in this time window. Our ne my next report is going to talk about our PCPS schoolboard office capital improvements. As you know, we have a full plan that in that starts with our schools and the majority of improvements are happening throughout our schools. I just drove down the other day. I was visiting one of our locations and I saw them painting at Blandford. I was so excited. I stopped in the middle of the road, got out the car. I was on the phone with Dr. Lane and she said, "Are you driving just to take pictures of the painters because that shows progress and that made me excited to see that we were already underway based on the the the

193board approving the February um time. So now we are moving, we're also doing simultaneously we're doing schoolboard um capital improvements." And so I want to give you a highlevel overview of this project. And so project duration will take about 12 weeks and we started with April 7th which was the pre-work. Okay. And so now it will end June 30th, 2025. We will be complete with this building. And so Mr. Martinez, our new PCPS operations person, is overseeing this process, but we wanted to let you know that this is what's going to happen at the school board. And we'll talk a little bit more about what's going to happen because we will be shutting this building down for employees. and we want to make sure that everyone is aware of what the plan is and everyone

194on the board is clear. So again, our our schoolboard office improvements have already started with the timeline. And so as a part of this timeline, we're going to be complete by June 30th. Here is a relocation plan because this building we need to provide our vendors who will be coming in to make these improvements time to be able to get in based on the timeline of things ordered and timeline of June 30th. So let's take a look. I wanted to provide the board a high level overview of the different departments. And so as a part of our plan and the work that we are doing with our um operations um committee and we have two advisory members um board member Dance and board member Miles who serves on that advisory committee um and so we

195have discussed at link that I wanted to bring to the full board our relocation plan. So as of April 22nd we have to start moving our employees in our different departments out to different locations. We will move finance, human resources, and family engagement to Petersburg High School because they need to be on our current network. And so those um employees and their teams will be relocated and moved by our team and will be at will be housed at Petersburg High School during the duration of the timeline that I shared earlier. Homebound testing, as we have about 150 students who are homebound, they must be tested outside of Petersburg City Public Schools in a different location. And so we are excited that Gilfield Baptist Church, thank you, Miss Board Member Dance, for bringing that to the

196committee. The recommendations that we will be able to use Gilfield Baptist Church to allow our students homebound to be able to come and be tested as outlined by the VDOE and the Virginia Department of Education. And so they will begin testing at that location between May and June 30th of 2025. the next department. So any staff that's reporting to the chief academic officer and the director of technology, they will be moved and assigned to different schools throughout the division where there is space because remember students are still in school. And so between May 1st and May 31st, they will be assigned to a school and then from June 1st to June 30th, they will be assigned we will have those members assigned to Petersburg High School because at that point students will be out of

197school and there will be more space. keeping in mind that we do have the expectation that we have to have Petersburg High School ready to open for kids. And so that cleaning schedule and all of those things will be taken into account. And then for the superintendent's office and office space for some of the executive leadership, we will be housed tenatively at a space called Destiny Services. And so we have that um monthly monthly lease that we're going to be sending for review to our attorney. that we have destiny services. We have um we're working to uh procure that space from May 1st to May 31st because of course there's not enough space because school is still in session. And so we will have some office space where we will have our superintendent's office and

198our some executive leadership members because some of them will be in two places. They'll be at the high school and they'll also be in that space as well. Okay. Our next um as part of my next report, I wanted to update everyone um the school board on our Walnut Hill Elementary School news construction project. Um just to remind everyone um and update some that an FY23, so in 2022 2023, Petersburg City Public Schools had applied for a school construction grant to build a new Walnut Hill and Westview Elementary School. We were awarded at the time $27 million by the state for this particular project. And it was originally sculpted as a K8 school, but it was supposed to be a K5 school with amenities including aquatic center, gymnasium, and auditorium with an estimated total of

199$90 million overall. We are seeking an amendment at this time and approval to adjust the scope to a K5 school that is excuse me prek5 school to include Westview and to make adjustments to what amenities will be as a part of that school. Just as an update, me and our team has already talked to March Alman who is the city manager and he is aware that um and he also made the recommendation that we move forward with board board input and approval to remove some of these amenities out of this um out of this particular recommendation and that they are fully aware that they will have to um if the if there is a change in the 27 million that was awarded, if it is reduced by however much the city is prepared to cover.

200Is that correct, Mr. Martinez? To cover the difference so that we can focus on the most important parts of this particular school. And so we are now planning to meet with the state VDOE because we still have this money. And so we need to move forward sooner rather than later to begin the construction of Walnut Hill. And so we will be meeting this week. And so at this time we will talk about the scope and we will move forward to confirm the following. The city is confirming that they will be supporting the funding of local share required for Walnut Hill so that we can move forward representing the difference in the total estimated project and what the state will give us even if it's minus some money from the 27 million. And so we also

201have a loan that we got, is that correct, of 30 million. As a part of that, we were awarded a $30 million loan along with the original $27 million, which gives us a grand total of $57 million to go toward Walnut Hill. So I will be writing a letter to the VOEE to say that we are ready to accept the award now that was awarded in 2022 and we will be moving forward with a project with tenative project timelines and then we will begin to procure the design team and construction management team through the RFP process so that we can start this process immediately. I want to definitely clear up because I think there was a misnomer or miscommunication that there were plans drawn up for Walnut Hill. There are not any plans. There were

202specs that were given to the city. There were highle specs, but we will have to procure a design team and a construction company so that we can move forward quickly. Okay. I just have a question. Yes. I don't recall and maybe other board members recall. I don't recall the board ever voting to even move forward. I mean, even though the state got the application, we didn't vote on it. We We did Go ahead. I thought we did decide to move forward with the elementary school. Yeah, we talked about it, but we didn't see an application. Even I mean, but just want to make it clear. I don't think we all saw the application. No, we never did. It was It was sent in by Dr. Sterling when she was here. Thank you. But it has

203been turned in. Oh yeah, that's what she's talking about. And she signed it and accepted the funding. Okay. And so at this point, the state wants to meet with me and the leadership now, Mr. Martinez and team. Um because we've already sub we've already committed good to moving forward with Walnut Hill. Um but we need to be very clear. They want to be very clear that we are going to start this process now and not wait. and that they're going to confirm that it's through the RFP process to procure a design team and we will be bringing that to the board. We will put out our RFP. We'll be bringing to the board a recommendation based on the RFP process for a design team and for the construction management process to ensure that we're following

204all of the rules and regs related to procurement. But we now have to I have to submit a letter and I'll be submitting that letter by Friday to VDOE saying that we are moving forward with Walnut Hill and the city has confirmed their support financially for us to move forward but we are to requested to make some changes to the original grant to maybe to not include the aquatic center. So I would ask the chairman that do we need to take a vote to because I want to make sure that everyone knows and is on record that we support this. So I don't want to I don't want to come back haunting us. So you know if you can call for a vote you got my vote reation. So it is it is okay. Thank

205you po and school board members. It is the recommendation of the superintendent that the school board approve um provide approval for the Petersburg City Public Schools um administration to move forward with implementing the Walnut Hill new construction project in alignment with the VDOE requirements um in alignment with the city's commitment to move forward with supporting the Walnut Hill and with the removal of an amenity aquatic center in moving forward with implementation. So move second recommendation moved by Mr. Dan, second by Miles. All in favor? I I miss. Motion carries. Thank you very much. And so this process will move fast. So we want to begin to get started in 2025 and we will begin that process and bring back those recommendations. Thank you. So the next one, so phase two. So I wanted to bring

206to the board phase two. So that was phase one construction project that Dr. Sterling and the administration at the time that um applied to the state. Now we have the opportunity now for phase two board members to apply for additional funding for a different capital project. And so it cannot be for one second. It's showing why is it another slide supposed high school. Yeah. the same thing showed us. Yeah. So, Dr. Mr. Martinez, if we can you can come to the mic and we can talk about the but I will go ahead and start the process with talking about the school construction assistance program for phase two for Petersburg High School's overview. And so at this time we have an opportunity as a school division to apply for additional funds for phase 2, but the

207state has recommended that we focus on the improvement of a secondary building. We have chosen to move forward with Petersburg High School and apply for we've chosen to move forward with recommending Petersburg High School be the location that we focus on if we're going to submit the grant. But I want to let you all know that we are in the process. I have spoken to March Alman over at the city and what they're saying is they're going to get back to us because the deadline is Friday. They're going to get back to us to let us know if the city in fact can can commit to matching the additional cost that it's going to take for us to renovate Petersburg High School because we would then be moving forward with the recommendation to renovate Petersburg

208High School um if we receive funding, but we must have support from the city. So we are not ready to submit today but we are waiting hopefully by Friday but we are preparing the grants as if we are ready it in case the city says yes then we can move forward. So we need to get approval tonight I guess again that if approved with the city's additional support that we will move forward with applying for the grant for Petersburg High School modernization um if possible. Anything you want to add Mr. Martinez. Absolutely. No. Um, this particular grant, um, the state has about $80 million, and they want us to use it on a secondary school, which is a high school, middle school, right? So, we already had an assessment done um to renovate the school

209was about 90 million. Uh, to replace the school was astronomical. Um, a little bit less than 200 million. Um, but we have a strong chance of getting this grant. However, um the state will only cover 30%. So, lo localities will only they have to cover the rest of the 70% if you will. Um so, we spoke to Mr. Alman and you know his suggestion is you know apply for the grant and we'll and we'll go from there. But he did mention that you know the local government does have some expenditures that they have to deal with. So, we have to submit this grant by April 18th. Um, however, VDOE is not too happy with the district uh because of the the uh first um grant and we got online with them and we basically told

210them that we have a new leadership team here and please help us support that because we definitely want to have this grant and he's on board. However, he definitely want his team wants to talk to our leadership team to make sure that we're tracking. Um and um we'll have a discussion with him tomorrow. And to be honest with you, he didn't really seem too ecstatic about us going forward with this next grant, but he's he's supportive. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. So we at this moment so we are again prepared to move forward with the grant once we get additional information from the city but our but we're going to focus primarily on our Walnut Hill project but we are ready to move forward um if we are if we're given additional information from the city

211and so at this time school board members board chair Pitcher is there anything we need to um get from anything that I need at this moment from school board related to moving forward with this particular grant? Um, Mr. Master, you want to go ahead and make the motion to allow the superintendent and her staff to move forward? Yes, I would. I make a motion that that we move forward for this grant for the high school to renovate. Is there a second? Second, Mr. V. All in favor? I motion carries. Thank you. All right. And our Thank you. Our our last and f my last and final part of my report this evening is just to highlight some great work from our family engagement university work. And so this focuses on our preparing for so success.

212And so this is our curriculum and instruction team was engaged with families and information about things all related to testing attendance during testing and test taking strategies. The team also engaged the parents in an SEAL activity that involved having the parents write an SO note and well wish of wellw wishes to each one of their students. So that was wonderful. Families walked away with a booklet of information highlighting important information about each so and test taking strategies for them to review at home. Chromebooks were also made available for parents to be able to log in and access different apps to support the learning and review at home. The attendance the event was attended by 130 parents, students, division staff and community partners and business owners. We had performances from the Westview Welcome Committee, Lake M

213cheerleaders and our cool spring cheerleaders. And then we provided additional um resources to our families. Hygiene kits provided by the community builders partners HR team hygiene kit drive books donated by the community different community members. Academic manipulatives from our CNI team health and wellness information by our CVHS Crimson Clinic. So parents also receive keepsake photos provided by our O snap memories and picnic basket backpacks for raffle prizes as a part of this initiative to drive to drive participation in our family-friendly activities. So you see those pictures there. Thank you to Dr. Lee and the team and our wonderful and amazing students. And as you can see that is parent engagement. There's an example of parent engagement. That completes the superintendent's report tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Brown. Number 7B, committee reports. You

214can see them there. You can read them on your own. New business from board members. Our next meeting is next week. We have a joint meeting with city council to present our 2520 FY226 budget at city council at 5:00 p.m. at the library. And then on April 30th, we will be at Petersburg High School in the cafeteria at 5:30 for a special meeting for a work session. We will not be taking public comment. It will only be the board working on the calendar. We will have discussion on that. We read on the calendar also for new business board members because um it's something that I asked that we would think about. Let's can we have a discussion in May to talk about changing because our board meetings are too long and people are working at

215stake. Can we talk about because city council has started also changing our meetings to 5:00 in the in the evening at 5. Having a close session at 4, meetings at 5 mean that we should be out by six o'clock in no more than three hours. We should be gone. Yeah, I'm I'm good. 9:00 and after 9 is just too late. Yeah, five is good for me. Plus, I'm retired, you know. So, whoever you make, whatever you make it fine with me, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to them people. Yes, Mr. Chair. I think that's a very good idea. Great recommendation cuz eyes be tied too. [Music] So we'll discuss it in our August calendar meeting. Okay. Because we can change it then because it would need to go on the new calendar. So we'll do

216it on, you know, on August the 30th. No, I'm start. Okay. April 30th. April 30th. Thank you. Is that going to be at 5:00 also? You already got the time. We set the time for 5:30 for that one. Okay. So, after that, hopefully take a vote. We can. Okay. At this time, is there a motion to adjourn? To adjourn. I just had I just Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just had one comment I'd like to make to Mr. Brown. Uh, one of my aunts always uh gave me poems and uh I remember from poems poems poems poems yeah I'm sorry not poems poems poetry poetry thank you Mr. out. And and one of the poems was about um our life and it said it talked about a teacher and the poem stated that the

217best teacher in the world, the greatest teacher in the world is the one that makes you want to learn. Motion to move by Miss Ter. All in favor? I oppos. Motion carries off. I know y'all. I know y'all. I said that quick. We need that last day. [Music] I'll find it. Cross it will be.