RPS School Board Work Session - May 11, 2026

001Good evening, everyone. Woo. The mic is hot. We would like to welcome everyone to our May 11th uh school board work session. Um we'd like to call this meeting into order. Madam Clerk. Mr. Percival. Here. Ms. Ricard. Here. Mr. Farooq. Here. Mr. Hedgepeth. Here. Ms. Holton. Ms. Rizzi. Here. Ms. Burke. Present. Ms. Jafari. Present. Ms. Fernandez. Here. Madam Chair, we have a quorum. Is there a reason why they were flipped in the order? Can we make sure that it's I know it's just it's a little bit crazy for me just for my LCD. Yeah, just to make sure that it's in order. I think it should be Rizzi since she is fifth and then Ann since she is sixth. Right? And then seventh and eighth. Yes. Yeah. I know I hadn't either, but I'm just

002It's all good. It's nobody's fault. It's just It's fine. Everything's fine. We're Everything's wonderful. Thank you. All right. And now we will do our um um pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence to be led by Mr. Percival. I will share that in recent days and weeks and months we've had several losses in our RPS family. And as we take our moment of silence today, we just want to honor those uh RPS students and faculty and families that have lost a loved one that is close to us. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now we'll have our translation services announcement. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of

003the language justice team, we welcome you. If you need interpretation from English to Spanish, please come see me. I will be at the table in the back with the interpreters. We have interpretation headsets for anyone who needs one. Interpretation in Spanish is also available for those watching this meeting through Zoom. I will now make the same announcement in Spanish. >> Thank you. Thank you. Now for the adoption of the agenda, Mr. Percival. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the school board of the city of Richmond adopt the agenda for Monday, May 11th, 2026 as published. It's been moved by Mr. Percival and seconded by Mr. Jafari, Madam Clerk. Mr. Percival. Yes. Ms. Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farouk. Yes. Mr. Hedgepeth. Yes. Ms. Rizzi. Ms. Holton. Yes. Ms. Burke. Yes. Mr. Jafari. Yes. Ms. Fernandez. Yes.

004Motion passes. Thank you so much. And before we get started with the agenda, happy Mother's Day to all the mothers who are in here and also viewing online. I hope that you were celebrated as you deserve and if you weren't, just know that we are celebrating you. You are the heroes of us all. Thank you and I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. All right, moving along to 2.01, receive an update on Dreams for RPS Goal 7 enrollment. Hello, Mr. Hostetter. Good evening, Madam Chair, Superintendent Kamras, members of the board. My name is Lucas Hostetter and I'm here to share an update on Goal 7 enrollment this evening. So, Goal 7 is increasing student enrollment overall and for each subgroup. I'm going to share data quickly that we've seen already this year, so this

005is a refresher on the December update we provided on Goal 7 and then we'll share an update on our current work around supporting students and families with K-12 enrollment, with preschool applications and then an update around school applications. So, as we shared earlier this year, our enrollment for school year 25-26 is up. Um if we looked at the enrollment today, it's actually only three students different than this, so we've stayed stable since the fall student record collection count of 21,554. So, we continue to enroll throughout the year, but we've we've seen that stability. We are seeing kind of a growing trend around reporting of enrollment decreases nationwide and in Virginia as well. So, we're excited to see that our enrollment post-pandemic has been slightly increasing since 23-24. This is demographic data that we shared earlier

006this year, so I'll just move forward. That information has not changed. We do want to share an update about our enrollment projections process, which is timely for this point in the year. So, these projections are used for a variety of purposes in the school division. We use them for our staff allocation process as we determine year-to-year staffing for our facilities planning both short and long-term and making sure that we have small things like resources for students as we order books, as we do our backpack drive, things like that. So, we use them for operational reasons and for kind of long-term planning as well. The methodology that we use we've we've been using for several years now. It's considered best practice within school divisions and we're excited to share that we've made updates in partnership with

007the city to incorporate new data. So, we're now using our birth rate data from the Department of Health to inform our kindergarten enrollment projections. We're actually able to map the births by the residence and the school zone of the family and then project forward in time and use that data point as a part of our kindergarten enrollment projection. We're also excited to share that we've been working with the city to get information about oncoming development and construction and starting to work towards developing a student generating rate for various areas of the city as it pertains to that development. We'll have an update when we share our fall goal seven update around that process as we're still working through the data. Our 2026-27 projection is on this slide here. We shared this the last time we

008updated the board um with regards to our previous enrollment projection and we want to continue that transparency around data sharing as we use this data point for the aforementioned purposes. So, you can see here um we're projecting and this is just for K-12 a slight increase again. When we include our preschool enrollment and we're assuming full enrollment of our preschool slots, that would bring our projection to slightly under 22,000. Then the actual number would be 21,867 is our 2026-27 projection including preschool. Um we did have a 99% accuracy rate last year, which we were excited to have. We do think that might be a little high for year-to-year. So, we want to temper expectations there, but we've talked with a variety of planning teams across the country and 98% seems to be generally the kind

009of accepted like mark you should hit. So, we're hopeful that we continue to have that accuracy as far as our division-wide projections go. This table shows the projection for 2026-27 by grade as well as the enrollment K-12 for the past four years. We're continuing enrollment process improvements. There's a couple bullet points that I want to speak to here. We do a survey each year around the end of the summer or the beginning of the school year to ask families, how is your enrollment experience and what can we do to improve that for you? One of the things that we learned last year was that folks who enrolled closer to or even after the first day of school just said that they needed more in-person support. So we're working on a variety of in-person supports this

010year. For example, we're going to do three rate three days in a row at the beginning of August at the Hull Street Library to just provide in-person support all day for anybody who needs it. Additionally on the fourth point here, we we have continued to try to refine the way we escalate enrollment and speed up the process for families who start the enrollment form but then don't finish it. So we're working with a variety of data sets and folks in other agencies to kind of check data to make sure if a student starts enrollment we can look for them elsewhere so that we're not letting any family fall through the gaps and that students are found to be in school as soon as possible. Want to share a couple points related to our enrollment. So

011we do track home instruction in Richmond City and that lives within the enrollment and planning team. This just shows the number of students that have been identified as receiving home instruction each year per our fall student record collection. And you can also see since this is an ongoing process we track it throughout the year that we have seen a slight increase from fall to spring though we've seen that generally each year as it's an ongoing process. And I want to clarify that these are students who are receiving home school as we think about it in that traditional nomenclature. So this isn't an RPS student receiving virtual instruction. These are the fam the students who are receiving home instruction via their family or an an provider. We also have an update on McKinney-Vento enrollment. You can

012see here the number of students who have been identified as McKinney-Vento. I will share that the McKinney-Vento process is an annual certification process, and so this number for 25-26 and each year reflects where it was as of the collection. The number of students as of May 1st is much higher because we continue to identify students and certify them as eligible for that, which is why you'll see that 821 where we are now versus 440 in the fall. I'll pivot here and share a little bit about preschool. I'm not sure if this will play. It won't, but we'll make sure that video is accessible online for an advertisement about our youngest kiddos application process. The preschool application process is open. We opened on February 14th. Families who have children who are turning three or four by

013September 30th and live in Richmond City are eligible, and there's additional eligibility provided here. We have a variety of ways with which we communicate to families throughout the process at each step of the way, basically. There's an in-person phone or email kind of single point of contact by a family service worker and Head Start or a member of our early childhood education team, but then also electronic and text message communications to inform families throughout. So, you'll see here this is an example of the communication that comes to a family once they've received a seat, information about their school Blackwell in this example, or other relevant information. Just want to share an update as well on where we are with regards to our current preschool fill rate for next year. So, you can see these are

014our total seats, the number of students we know are returning. We do an intent to return every year. We have about a 95 or 90% um, return rate and about um, excuse [clears throat] me. Um, 5% of folks who haven't uh, yet told us they're returning uh, or not and then only a handful of folks told us they're not coming back. All but one of them are moving out. So, we feel really good about folks' um, voting with their feet and returning to RPS. Um, as of right now, these numbers are actually I was checking before I came up here. Um, we've actually received a total of 605 submitted applications as of today uh, with another 228 applications that are submitted but are started but not completed. So, um, even since we pulled this data

015and uploaded the slides, we continue to have families apply to preschool. So, there just some uh, images of the variety of engagement efforts we do. Just a huge shout-out to uh, the early childhood education team, um, the Welcome Center, C-Fit, uh, the engagement office as a whole for all of the work they do in support of the enrollment department to support families with this work. >> [snorts] >> And before I close for questions, I'll share a little bit about the school applications process. So, the school applications process um, is in the final stages in terms of families receiving uh, information about where they're going um, for next school year. Um, we had a variety of application events over the course of the year um, and a variety of ways in which families could receive information

016and learn about the selective admission schools, open enrollment schools and programs for which their child may be eligible. So, just some stills of the kind of information that we shared though not meant to be comprehensive. >> [snorts] >> I'll share the here we can see um, the application update for this year and want to point out that um, new to this team's work is the Early College Academy. That work um previously existed um under the management of um a different RPS team. We still collaborate closely with that team. The change I want to note here is that we brought that application into the Enroll RPS platform this year. We didn't make changes to the content of the application, but made it easier for families to submit those applications um and for that team to not

017worry about the administrative work of standing up the process uh and we found that uh it was a a great collaboration and we're excited to um see the uh the results in terms of the numbers of um families that participated this year. Just want to um share really quickly the notes our notes around which families and students can apply to which grades at which schools. So, you can see here for this year um what was eligible for students based on the grade level next year. And as far as the application process is concerned, there are some components that are universal uh for selective admission schools. Uh there are process elements that are shared by the enrollment team to centralize the process, to streamline it, to take the administrative burden off of schools, and also to

018provide that um checks and balance um on the school teams to ensure that they don't have to um carry all of that work. >> [snorts] >> There's structural similarities for the the application process um as well, um but there are some differences um based on uh each school uh per the um needs and um programmatic, you know, kind of um differences between each of those schools. So, the interviews, portfolio reviews, and assessments um may vary by school. The grade levels, as we shared uh in the previous slide, do also vary by schools. Um and then, of course, we have our seat selection for uh Maggie Walker open in Richmond Community per um previous adoption by this board, which is unique to other schools as well. We have preliminary uh selection data. I will note here

019that this shows last year's applications, offers, and acceptances, and this year's applications and offers or acceptances are still ongoing, and so we're excited to share that data in the fall once that process is complete. And with that, I will turn it over for questions. Thank you, Ms. Burke. >> [snorts] >> Thank you, ma'am. Thank you for your report. Would you be so kind to go back to the slide regarding the early college academy? Okay. My question is this, for this school year, upcoming school year then, will the numbers be changed? For instance, at Armstrong this year, we only had three students that will be seniors this coming year. But other school Schools are getting how many slots? And I'm going back to what I've been asking for a while. Is it 10 slots or five?

020I think it's 10 slots per school. I believe Huguenot took up some of our slots because of Armstrong students not having the support that they needed to move forward. So, but what my question is now, going for the 2026-2027 school year, you said not anything had changed. So, will everyone get the same amount of slots as was previously approved or that has changed? Because three to 10 to three to five is quite different, and I know students um got out of the program, which is most unfortunate. Thank you. Yep, thank you for the question. So, um I apologize, let me clarify um what I meant when I shared that the application content hadn't changed, um, meant that like the application form, the things that were asked of students hadn't changed. We just moved it into

021a new platform. As far as the number of slots that were, um, allocated to each school, um, I don't have that off the top of my head, so I'll need to follow up with you on that. So, will your depart- with what department then would select students? It would come from the enrollment and your department, correct? The selection was still run by the Secondary Success Pathways Department within the Academics Office. The technical aspects of the ECA process were facilitated by the Enrollment Department. But, the selection was still run entirely by that former team. That So, it's different. Yes. >> [clears throat] >> Mr. Farooq? Thank you, Mr. Hofstetter. What is the total universe of children that could attend RPS? And can you give us a sense of what are our goals, sort of iterative goals?

022Uh, I know that it's probably not possible for us to get 100% of all of them. Um, but can you give us some context for these numbers? Thank you. Yep. So, I don't want to misspeak against what is in the current American Community Survey. My understanding is that we carry about 2/3 of the school-age children, uh, in Richmond City, though I'd be happy to pull additional numbers for you. Um, I do know that, um, the share of when we think about, um, when I'm thinking about our birth rates, I do know that the share of residents under the age of five fell, um, by a little less than two percentage points from 2005 to 2024, um, from a total of 7% to 5.3%. Um, do have that state of which is our stat which is

023in line with trends we've seen regionally and nationally but I'd be happy to follow up on the the broader point and to see how it's shifted in that same time span. Is the proof? As I went through the data one of the things I noticed is that while we have made some progress in improving and increasing our enrollment and in some cases improving our retention and increasing retention I couldn't help but notice that when you look at slide Go back up. Yes. Yes, slide eight. For the last four or three years school years we've been losing between 400 to 500 students between kindergarten and 12th grade. And I'm curious if you could give us whatever analysis or thoughts you and your team have on what's happening there. I mean I can guess right anecdotally but

024would love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I'm sorry. Would you mind repeating the question about what Sure. So >> I have data for your first question as well. So Yes. So slide eight page eight on the PDF if you look at the 2022-2023 school year we start kindergarten at about 1,700 kids by senior year we're down to 1,300. We've lost roughly 400 kids. And that trend continues year after year even as sometimes our enrollment goes up we're losing 400 to 500 kids through the sort of lifespan of K through 12. I can tell you anecdotally you know in in my district our elementary schools are full and our around middle school a lot of our folks get nervous and they choose other options or that's around the time that people buy a different

025house or change jobs and move. So life things happen but I'm curious any analysis or thoughts or any from surveys or research that you've discovered or what's really happening and why we're consistently losing that many kids. I can't speak to survey data for example that um looks at you know, why families elected to leave. I do think that um there's a case to be made about programming options that we're excited to be working on with regards to you know, secondary education and passion for learning for example that would attract people to stay or to return. Um and I wouldn't want to speculate about people's individual motivations for leaving though I'm sure that you know, there's um that's warranted you know, the anecdotes that you have though I'd be happy to um talk with our engagement

026office and others and see if there's data that we can mine to circle back on that. And if I may just want to share um one of my team members just sent me. So the population estimate uh for 2025 for Richmond City of ages 5 through 19 uh just under 31,000. So if you think about that 20 21,000 uh about 2/3. We have exact numbers for you. Thank you, Mr. Farooq. Mr. Jafari. Thanks, Madam Chair. While we are on the topic we could we really didn't highlight anything about this, but I'm continuing to be I continue to face an issue in eight uh we're all dealing with overcrowding issues. I just don't want us as a board or as administration to forget what's going on in terms of our RPS students our preschoolers who happen

027to be at private education providers. For one, I don't want it forgotten that uh we need to do something. I know we closed Ruffner Road a little while ago, but we can't just let them languish was Uh case in point, I I really don't have the access to them. I don't have the ability to help and serve them. Recently, I don't have that much money, but I was able to give a contribution to Summerhill for that pre-K prom. I'm blocked from doing that kind of thing with with uh private providers because it's not a RPS site. I do continue to say that that's something that we need to look at. I need to be able to serve them just like any other youngsters in the district are being served. But I just didn't want to

028leave that point without making sure that it has not lost any importance. It remains very important that all of the kids get served. Thank you. >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> Ms. Rizzi and then Ms. Holton. Um Madam Chair, uh and thank you, Mr. Hostetler, for this report. Um you mentioned that you all have been looking at birth records. Um so I'm assuming the children who are born like last year will be here what 2031, 2032? What do those I mean, I know that there are other factors that influence our enrollment, but what do those numbers look like? I do not have the 2031 projections off the top of my head, but I can share that um we we do long-term projections. We project the next year, then 5 and 10 years out. Um so we'd

029be happy to pull that data for you. Um I just don't have that number right now. Ms. Rizzi. Uh I'm assuming it looks like that um ice activity is not impacting our enrollment. It That's what it appears that the numbers are not changing that much. Um and then I'm kind of squeezing two questions in here. Um I know a few years ago the board voted to have parents or allow parents to access to um the results of their children's like testing um if they happen to not get into a specialty school, is that still a practice? Yes, thank you for the question. So, families, if they submit an appeal and make a request of the results report, um members of the team that supports application will provide that. And if it's with a regional school

030that is in question, they'll coordinate with the regional school team to get that data. I can't speak to, you know, whether or not that has had an impact. I can say that our enrollment continues to be stable, so I think you know, um for whatever that's worth, that's a good thing that we haven't seen um a depression of enrollment generally and and not also in um certain areas of the city or communities where we might anticipate. Thank you, Ms. Holton. Thank you, Mr. Hostetter. Uh um I've three questions if I can get them all in, but I'll start with on preschool. Uh thank you for all this data helping me compare uh not having been in the seat last year, can you tell us how the data on applications and seats filled, et cetera, how

031does this compare on where to where we were last year on filling our preschool seats last year this time? Yes. Um well, it might take me a second to pull up the numbers. We did look at this recently, though, so I can share generally where we're on trend. Um I do believe it's slightly lower um than where we were last year in terms of the application uptick when I looked at it a month ago. Now, we saw a big surge within the last couple of weeks of a couple hundred applications, so um we'd be happy to pull it again. And it's something that we're um, regularly pulling and reporting in terms of how are we trending in submissions, conversions of submissions to um, seat offers, and then seat offers converting to actual enrollments. And then

032of course, the most important thing, those approved enrollments with students showing up the first day of school. Um, so that'll be data that we're um, monitoring and sending um, to leadership throughout the summer. So, just to clarify, we are last you checked, we are slightly behind trend from where we were at this time last year, or at the comparable time A comparable time in terms of the span of weeks, though it was a a matter of maybe like a dozen applications, so I wouldn't say that it was like anything. >> we were on trend. Uh, so I I will just I proffer that that being on trend from last year, to me is I would hope that we would be ahead of that. Because last year, as you know, we had an awful lot of

033folks not seats not filled when the school year started. And that's not good for anybody. Um, and I would I guess to add a question to that, are we coordinating as fully as we can with Thrive by Five and the other entities that are engaged in filling early childhood seats? Yes. So, there's a um, regular meeting between early childhood regional partners, Thrive by Five, um, folks in the city as well. Um, we of course attend their regional coordinated enrollment meetings as well. Um, I'll say to um, and we just have uh, I think um, relative to 2 years prior, and then building off of last year, a much better relationship with those partners in terms of communication, um, and collaboration. I'll say that the the point uh, around tracking the data as to where we

034were previously, um, is so that we can drive action in terms of where we're seeing things differently, which I think is a positive development for the enrollment team to be digging in and looking at that preschool data in that way. So, I'll just say that the fact that we've pulled that and know that means that we're working on addressing it. Do one more if I have time. Sure. The on the selective schools placement process saw that we had a question from a parent about the waitlist process. Can you just for for my benefit and the benefit of folks watching, tell us how the waitlist process works and where we are in that process now? Of course. Excuse me if you said so already. No, thank you for the question. So, the waitlist process will feel

035a little different depending on the school that a family applied to. So, if a family applied to >> [clears throat] >> excuse me, an open enrollment school, they'll see a waitlist number because that process is run through a lottery that places everyone at the beginning in ranked order, they'll see I look I'm waitlist number two. I may see that number change and then if if someone above me accepts or declines a seat and moves the seat up for me, I might move to waitlist number one. And then if I receive a seat offer off of the waitlist, I'll receive an automated message either email or and or text depending on the family preferences that they indicated when they created their account that will say you have a seat offer, you have X number of days

036to accept or decline. They'll receive then reminders around that as well. For some selective admission schools, the waitlist looks a little different in that it's not accompanied by that number because of the way the process runs in terms of multiple rounds. So, they'll still see the waitlist position but not that same number that an open enrollment family would see. We're nearly done with that process for all of the schools, but there are still waitlist movements happening. And so for any family listening right now, if you do see the waitlist information, we would just remind folks to check your email and email enroll RPS at rvaschools.net if you have any questions or need to talk through what that might mean for you and your child. Mr. Hichback, we'll come back to you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

037Thank you, Mr. House. Thank you for the presentation. I wanted to pick up where my colleague, Mr. Jafari, I I think he he left off was that we're we're looking at the demographic changes and I think it's important for us to understand where those changes are happening and so perhaps this is a next step, but um do we have the data for the different districts and how the populations are shifting between them because I anticipate us on the Southside might uh see some pretty big jumps. So, thank Yes, thank you for that and we would be happy to um circulate the we've conducted or completed enrollment memos with demographic breakdowns for each district and we'll make sure that you have that information. Mr. Camera. I just wanted to note that in the appendix, there are

038district by district enrollment projections that include every school in each district. Thank you, Superintendent Camera. >> [snorts] >> Did you have any other thoughts? Mr. Percival, myself, and then I'll come back to you, Mr. Jafari. Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, we were on slide eight and now we moved and I'm going to go back to slide eight. Um a lot of what I read these days uh and and you alluded to it were national trends and I I see a number of school districts um for lack of a better description getting competitive uh branding uh you know, outcompeting for students. So, if we follow this chart diagonally across some of the grades, uh I can I can see some drops between fifth and sixth. I can see between nine and 10, maybe 10 and 11.

039There could be other stories there. Have we done any surveys in those years? I'm sort of extending Mr. Farooq's question. Have we done any or have we thought about doing any surveys to say "Hey, how is the RPS brand treating you? What are some of the reasons? What can we do better?" There's nothing that comes to mind in terms of specific within those those targeted grades. I think we could pull from family satisfaction data, but I don't think that would tell the full story and get at what y'all are asking, which is a really important question. I'd be happy to connect with our communications team and the engagement department more broadly to see what we can um put together in terms of suggestions for unpacking that question. Thank you. Um I have single-handedly seen the

040the work that you've done um in terms of enrollment for Head Start and so I do want to start off by saying thank you to you and your team for the amazing effort that you've put into the enrollment numbers. I mean, this time last year we were trying to come up with a game plan and we found success. So, I um certainly want to start on a positive note. Um I have several questions, so I'll try to make them as brief as possible to give you opportunity to answer. You first talked about um a request that I have specifically asked, I feel like till exhaustion, in terms of um development, uh particularly in the Ninth District. We have have asked based upon the development that has happened in the area and the amount of units

041that we find over time that are being built with the already over exasperated uh population with plenty of schools in the Ninth already in trailers, how can we um be more intentional about uh and proactive about the approach? I heard you talk about it for a second, but I would love to hear in more detail where are we with that? Is there a plan in place or are we still scratching the surface there? Cuz this is something I've been asking for for over a year now. Of course. So, um we are not just scratching the surface, but I want to just uh I guess um be clear and forthright, candid about where we are with the the road in terms of developing that work and the capacity that we have to do it. Um and

042uh just want to shout out my colleague Melissa Tracy, who's really the engine behind our projections work and has been doing the the lion's share of thinking about how can RPS be in a more proactive stance, uh you know, in part due to your advocacy for this issue. Um we are at a point where we are testing child-generating rates, which is what we we call it. Um for individual types of developments, whether they're a multi-family unit, whether it's a single-family home. Um but there's a lot of testing that we need to do before we would incorporate that data into our projections. So, for example, we have a map of developments in the city. Um I've been um grateful for the collaboration with the city to help us like unpack that data and actually get at

043how many people live there, how many students might live there, so that we can understand for a similar type of development in a similar area of the city, let's say in 2 years or 5 years, how many students might that generate? Because a uh large apartment complex in Scott's Addition um might not generate the same um number of students as a large apartment complex in the you know, um on Hull Street. Not sure. Um so, we're in the testing phase of it. To your question, we're not scratching the surface, we're actively testing like what might this mean and how does it compare to how our enrollment actually lands, which is something we'll be doing um over this enrollment season um so that we'll be able to incorporate that into future projection processes. I will say

044in the meantime though, because I understand the immediate concern around this and how it might impact individual schools in the day. It's I know a principal, when we have these conversations with all of them, says, "Yeah, that sounds lovely and academic, but I've really concerned about the building that's opened and those kids are walking across the street." Um so, we uh have met with each principal about their staff allocation for next year, had all of those meetings in person, and as a part of it talked about enrollment. They each have a document that shows the map of their zone and the new developments coming online. Um we're monitoring their enrollment weekly and you know, have asked them just for the for the time being, please keep us posted. We'll be monitoring, but you let us

045know as well. It's more of an analog solution, it doesn't get to the kind of a long-term process that you're suggesting, um but that is to say, we are aware of it um and we are trying to be more uh intentional about how we think about new development and its impact on enrollment and staff. Thank you. And not just long-term, but like in like in real life, what's happening right now? If you drive up and down Hull Street, you'll see, I mean, they are we are bursting out of the seams. If you look at page 52 of the document and and as compared to some of the other districts, you see how you know, we're in the 4000s for the ninth district as some you know, who are very similar in the increase in in

046population and so I would consider this a measure a matter of urgency as we really think through how we are going to set an environment that's successful for both the kiddos and for teachers. So I appreciate more information about that. If we could go to page five. This is all over the place. Just bear with me. Don't time me in the pause, please. Um this kind of goes back to some what my colleagues have already asked. If you've noticed that you know, the change for the prior year for particularly black students is down economically disadvantaged is 435, right? That is extreme and um we need to start finding out why that is and I don't know if the answers are surveys or but we can't just simply say oh, you know, we don't know and

047we need to start to dig into the data so that we can be competitive as a as a division and if we're losing black and brown children, it might be because of re-gentrification. It might be because prices are being increased in the city. We don't know that, but I think it's our responsibility to find out. >> [snorts] >> Okay, one second. Also, I'd just like to note, same thing in terms of ICE. And those are things we have a responsibility to find out our children's concern. Are they not coming to school even though we have an increase in Hispanic population? What is the fear? What what can we do to support them? And lastly, um children that are homeless is 440 too many. I know that's not you know, I just want to call that

048out. Mr. Jafari. Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to perhaps segue to something that I think my colleagues Holden was speaking to and that's the application process. A couple of months ago we heard some concerns about parents. I know particularly we saw one of them. A couple of the families were were having problems with the application process. And I know we kind of looked into it and earlier on we really didn't identify anything or any glitches. And I was just wondering, have we heard anything else? Did we find out that there was a prob- problem there? And how is that process going? Are parents readily able to apply and where is the process going to apply to >> apply to high school? Sure. So, um I'm not sure if there's a specific case that we

049need to follow up on, but if families do reach out, um we'd certainly do everything we can to answer their questions um and resolve their issues. There's no glitch as far as the application system that I'm aware of to date. Um but if there's a specific situation we need to follow up on, I'd be happy to address that. But um the application process is um nearing the end. It's uh unfolded as the the data shared uh or the data shared there reflects. Um, and we're um, happy to take any feedback in terms of how we can improve it in future cycles. Thank you. Just want to bring some closure to it. Of course. Mr. Farooq. One quick comment I'll just make is that there are so many things that you as you've said that go

050into why a student leaves or stays. I know anecdotally I've met families that have chosen to stay in RPS for very specific reasons and families that have chosen to leave. Sometimes it's bullying, sometimes it's a need for services. But there is one big thing that I just have to publicly call out, which is that we've seen glaringly in the data that this city is becoming more and more expensive. The city is growing. People are moving in, but it's [snorts] becoming more expensive. Just in my district alone, in my little bubble, I know three families that had to withdraw their kids from RPS cuz they couldn't afford to live here anymore. They had to go move further away where they could afford houses or they had to move in with family. So, that doesn't mean that

051we don't have work to do, but I do just want to call out that one, making this city making it easier to build more housing and more types of housing will help >> pull some of the pressure that Southside is feeling. Right now, all the growth is going in one place cuz that's kind of the only place that's allowed, and it's not fair cuz it's putting all the burden in those parts of our city and those parts of our system. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I received some feedback from someone viewing online. If you all could go as close to the mic when you speak as possible, they're having some trouble hearing some of us. Thank you. Okay, moving right along to uh, 3.01 discuss uh, the 2027 budget. Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam

052Chair, and good evening, everyone. Just wanted to provide a brief update on our fiscal year '27 budget. As we speak, the City Council is meeting downstairs to vote and adopt the city's budget for next year. The ordinance that they are considering would increase the RPS operating budget by 8,214,253. That is the exact amount that the mayor's introduced budget increased the RPS operating budget. So, to summarize, what City Council is likely to approve tonight is exactly the same as what was introduced by the mayor. Uh I do want to note, the City Council did appropriate or they are appropriating tonight $483,000 for middle school after-school transportation and security. Those funds will go to Next Up, and they will either provide the transportation and security themselves or in essence, they would pay us to provide that service.

053But, I did want to note that that was restored, just won't show up on our budget, it will show up on the Next Up budget. On the up I'm sorry, on the capital side, City Council also added $500,000 towards the Westover Hills Elementary School parking lot and bus loop project, and $100,000 towards new stadium lights for Thomas Jefferson High School. unfortunately, no additional funds uh were allocated. Um most notably, no additional funds for the Richmond Virtual Academy. Um so, we are uh back to the position of uh not being able to fund that program, unfortunately. I did want to state publicly and clearly that every single student at RVA uh will be welcomed back to an in-person environment or a remote environment as required by their IEP. I also want to note that every single

054staff member is guaranteed a position principal to teacher to office associate, we are guaranteeing a placement uh into a vacancy uh of a comparable position, assuming a vacancy does exist, and we do have as last I checked, vacancies available for all of those positions. I do want to note, however, that the further we get into uh the summer, it becomes much more difficult to uh make those placements, and so it would be helpful both in terms of helping families transition and in terms of helping staff transition for there to be clarity for the RVA community uh about how we are proceeding. With that, I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Ms. Burke, Ms. Holton, Mr. Hedgepath, Mr. Jafari. Ms. Burke. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am so glad elated. Thank you very

055much to city council for the transportation for middle school programs. My question is middle school after school programs. My question is that after for elementary and high for after school programs is there any coverage with that or was that in the budget? Please call them on. I'm going to ask Miss Chang if she wouldn't mind coming up and speaking to that. And while she's coming up my and congratulations to Westover Hills and TJ. Then I have a follow-up question when she's done if I may. Thank you. Good evening, Miss Chang. Good evening. For high school that is covered by a grant right now, so that will continue as is and for elementary um that was not included in city council's budget. For transport is this for transportation services, is that correct? My question, Madam Chair,

056was number one my statement was thank you to city council for providing funds for next up. I am concerned about where the money's being placed, though. But um guess we'll talk about that later. So, my question was what's being provided for high school for after school programs and elementary. So, what I'm hearing right now that Mrs. Chang is Mrs. Chang is saying Chang, excuse me. Uh is stating that we will not If we have any after school programs for elementary, parents have to provide their own transportation or we're not having any after school programs. And I'm speaking also of SOL test prepping prepping um in the past we've had YMCA, we've had tutorial programs. Because if we don't take care of the little ones, it's going to come back to us in the middle and

057high. So, it just doesn't start happening in middle school. So, my question to the administration is what's the plan for elementary? Yes, so it's my understanding that the after-school programming will continue for elementary, but the funding piece around transportation was not something that was included. So, if you a parent and you don't have transportation, unless you take the city bus, so if you live in Fulton, at the bottom of the hill and you have to get to the top of the hill to Bellevue or or Chimborazo, those are the two schools that serve the Fulton area. You can't be in after-school program cuz many of our persons there don't have transportation and the public transportation doesn't run through there as it would in some other areas. And I'm not pointing any fingers per se, but

058those are our children who need the support. I hope we can with the money you just stated that we could get what was there is no extra money. Well, maybe by the time um we need to address that. I'm I'm not pointing fingers, but at the end of the day, when we look at our data, our children that live in that's not walking distance. I wouldn't pull that hill on a good day, when the sun is shining and at night when school is closed in the fall and the winter, it's dark by 5:00. So, I hope moving forward we can get a grant. Since you stated high school has a grant, is there a possibility that we're going to look out for a grant to support after-school programs? Question with that. Is that being considered?

059I don't want to put it all on you. It's It's okay, if I may, Madam Chair. >> Sure. It's my I know that the out-of-school partners and the city have been working on different solutions. I will follow up with them and um and look into what are other options that they have discussed and will provide an update. Thank you so much. I hope we'll get that soon so people can prepare. Even if Okay, that's another thought. We'll We'll talk later in regards to having supports and covering in the in the neighborhoods. Cuz there are churches and other organizations that we may be able to 1 minute. >> pay the teachers per se to go to those places to tutor children for after-school programs. Doesn't always have to be at the school. All right, my other

060question is and I just have a minute left, but at some point um, the virtual academy one week we say we're going to keep it, the next week we're not going to keep it. Last month thought we were going to keep it, then the money didn't come through, we're not keeping it. At some point is there any consideration and I have a reason for asking this? Thinking about some of our children that will be coming back in the regular classroom setting. 30 seconds. That, um, it's going to be a challenge for the families. It's going to be a challenge for the students and it's going to be a challenge upon the teachers and administration. Some of our children do need that support. So, let's get ready. Let's get ready. It's going to be challenging. I've

061been on the phone all day today and I understand and know the situations. So, I'm not talking just talking about students with special needs, either. Time. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Holton. Thank you. Uh uh I also want to join in thanking the mayor and city council for increasing our funds up to the 8.2 million, which will enable us, we hope, uh uh to uh restore the raises and health insurance pieces that we had hoped to do and restore summer school. Uh my question is, am I right that those funds were not quite what we I think we had asked for 9 million and that's 8.2 million. So, there's still a gap to do all of those pieces that we're going to have to figure out how to fill once we know what we're getting

062from the state, etc. Mr. Cameras. Yes, there is a a small gra- sorry, gap. Um Ms. Braga, I believe she's here, might be able to speak to the exact And while she's coming up, I'll just PS onto that question. Am I right that we don't yet know what the state funds are going to be, but that it could well be as late as the end of June before we know what the state funds are going to be if you or Ms. Braga has tea leaves on that. Good evening, Ms. Braga. >> Good evening. Um, true statement, we're still waiting for the state to do its piece. Um, when we a- our budget was approved, we were asking the city for a little over 12 million and the city's going to give us 8.2. So, we

063need to trim a little more than four out of our budget out of our approved budget. So, that's where we are at this point in time. Yes, so of that four um based upon on the ranking that the school board had done, uh, 3.2 of that uh, would come from RBA and then there's about 800,000 that we would still need to come up with to uh, be fully in balance. Any other questions? Mr. Hichbach and then Mr. Farooq. Thank you. I will stay close, though. I have a feeling we might be calling you back. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Ms. Bragg, for for uh letting us know the the 12 million is what we asked for. Um my my question is for the superintendent is to uh Can you Can you talk us

064through your advocacy for a fully funded RPS at 12 million over um including visits to City Council, to the mayor, etc. I'd like to understand um since the board voted uh 6 to 2 in favor of asking the city for uh for 12 million more. Please let us know how you advocated for that. Thank you. Mr. Kamras. I've been very clear uh since the board's vote in all of my statements and um advocacy that um we seek the full funding of the RPS budget, which was the 12 million dollar increase. And I've been consistent on that. Thank you, Superintendent. Madam Chair, I'll find another Um so, at the City Council meeting on April 22nd, um the uh I I had a chance to watch the the video. I wasn't able to be there. Um and

065um so, I appreciate you representing us there um in front of Council. Uh but, there was a there were a lot of questions from council members that uh were seeking ways to help fund RVA. Um seeking ways to fully fund. There were a number of amendments that councilors had uh proposed. Um and we're we're seeking ways to uh to to fill that gap. And there was a a of concern from quite a few counselors. Um and and I would love to be wrong, but I would love an explanation as to why the answer was we don't need RVA. The kids will be fine in the buildings. Um when the school board voted six to two in favor of keeping RVA. Thank you. Mr. Kamaras. Respectfully, that is a mischaracterization of what I said at that

066meeting, and I would welcome anyone to watch the video. I was requested to come to council to answer questions. And that is what I did. I answered the council's questions. I was asked, "Will RPS be able to support these students if RVA goes away?" And I responded, "Absolutely. It is our moral and legal obligation to do so, and I take that very seriously." And so, that is how I answered. I think that was an appropriate answer, and I stand by my comments. Mr. Hedgepeth. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I I just noticed that, you know, Councilor Jones asked about the reimagined plan uh that uh we had talked a lot about if we couldn't really if we couldn't fully fund RVA uh at its at its current iteration uh that there were other plans. And

067um I understand that those plans were in the works, uh but you you weren't able to answer those questions because you said you hadn't talked to us about it yet. Uh but those plans had been in the works uh and they weren't shared with us. And so, I'm just I just want to uh share my disappointment um in that. Um now those plans have been shared with the board. Um and I I see there are a number of of ways that we can we can save this program. Back to my to my colleagues, Ms. Burke's comment, it's a going to be a really, really difficult transition. And we really need to again be most thoughtful in reimagining RVA in some form or fashion, even if it is a truncated version. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

068Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um respectfully again, um I try not to discuss matters with City Council or other bodies before they are discussed with the school board. And we had not yet had an opportunity to discuss those items. Um that is something that we would have done if there were additional funding allocated when it looked like there might be $1 million allocated after one of the council's meetings. I immediately instructed the team to work with the RVA principal to come up with a possible plan for $1 million. Uh she did so. And I would happily have discussed that with the board today and gotten your feedback had council approved the $1 million amendment. Council did not. And so um unfortunately we are in the position of simply not having the funding necessary to move

069forward as just noted by Ms. Holton, we're actually 800,000 in the hole. We have to come up with 800,000 of additional funds. Uh and so um I didn't want us to be here. I have tried with every fiber in my being to get as many possible dollars as we possibly can. I have done that every single year I have been superintendent and I will continue to do that. I also am duty bound to advise this body about how we have to manage with the money that we do have. And that is where we are at this moment. Mr. Jafari. Thanks again, Madam Chair. I uh I'm on record where I stand with this and totally recognize the need for funding and everything. But I hear again that the staff and personnel at RBA are being

070guaranteed jobs and they're sure they're listening intently. And I'm glad that once again they are being guaranteed because that is something that we have dropped since Feb- uh January or February of this year. Uh I think it was untenable and and for me I'm on record as saying it's just unacceptable. Sadly, the optics here are that once it was not something that the administration wanted to pursue, it was not as intently be pursued. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the perception remains and it carries over to how staff were treated in this situation. It just appears that those who did not go along We had one person. This report says that one person has been hired. While this report does make other have give other reasons, personal, etc., as I read it, I'm just wondering did those

071individuals who resigned in this report say personal? What does personal mean in that in its tone as in this report right here? In terms of the the resignations and and those who have left, there's other information in the report that I'm not understanding. Did they say that they wouldn't give us a reason why they resigned, or was that something that we put there? How do we arrive at personal? Are we talking about RVA? I want to make sure we're tracking. >> We're talking about RVA. Okay. >> excuse me. We're talking about the other portions of the report that speak to uh the resignations. Oh, I see. >> I I was curious about some of them who have basically reported that they were not talked they were not reached out to at all. But that's not

072in this report. Again, I won't belabor that. I'm glad to hear you say in front of everybody in the public that they are guaranteed jobs. So, I'll accept that at this moment, and we'll move on to the next point. Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. I'm I'm happy to discuss specifics in closed. Obviously, it's personnel information, but um I can say with certainty that every single RVA employee uh was communicated with. Um and so, again, we can talk specifics uh in closed, but again, they are all guaranteed positions, but again, I think the sooner there's clarity, uh the better it is going to be for those individuals and for the family. We're going to circle back to those once we've gotten everybody opportunity to speak. So, up next, we have Mr.

073Farouk. Thank you, Madam Chair. Question for Mr. Cameras or staff, Ms. Braga. I know that for the public it can be a little confusing since we have revenue coming in from so many sources. Do you mind explaining if we have an idea roughly of how much we might get from the state and if that will provide us any cushion to meet some of these other needs. Obviously, it won't be enough to like fund our VA, but will it be in will we have an extra thousand, a couple thousand here or there to cushion some of these difficult choices? Mr. Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Farouk for the question. Um you know, we have made, I think, optimistic um assumptions about what we'll be receiving from the state. It would be folly on

074my part to try to predict where things will land ultimately. All I can say is that in our current economic environment, um given global affairs, um everything is getting more expensive and um that is causing downward pressure on the economy and as a result, that could impact revenue for the state, so not an economist, but I don't think things are getting better. Um but again, we won't um have have that clarity from what I have been told from folks across the street, frankly, until the end of June. And I can't imagine that it would be materially better than the already fairly rosy assumptions that we Ms. Record. Thank you, um Madam Chair. Um I think just a quick follow-up on it cuz that was one of my questions that in essentially the 2 months since

075we've last looked at this um cuz it was March, are there any additional budget pressures that you feel have come to light since that we're going to just have to deal with because we've already passed a proposed Mr. Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. My biggest concern at the moment is fuel. Uh that we spend quite a bit of money on every year and as everybody knows, the costs are rising uh precipitously. Of course, the budget doesn't take effect until July 1, but given that we're already into May, it's very likely that fuel prices will be elevated then and well into next year, um which is likely to produce cost overruns. So, we are to put it plainly, under budgeted almost certainly for fuel for next year, which would likely cost us hundreds of thousands, if

076not a million or more, of overruns. Ms. Rickard. All right, one last follow up. Um I know when we were discussing after-school programs, you pointed out that the high school programs were funded currently by a grant. Um and I you know, kudos to Dr. Ramsey and all our coaches, the sports that and activities that we offer now at the high school are growing every year and are tremendous. But once again, we're using a grant to support it and I know we've asked for kind of a list of things that are from one time and we got something, but I feel like it needs to just be a little more detailed for us cuz I don't know if I remember this being listed. It was probably in a category. Um, but I think it's just really

077helpful for us once again going forward into a future budget year. If we are creating a budget that best represents our needs, we really should start calculating that stuff in because eventually those funds are going to run out. Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Card. Uh, yes, we will make sure to have a complete list uh for you all going into the next season. I do want to note the high school after school is funded by 21st Century Grant, um which we typically have been able to renew. So, yes, it's one time, but we've been able to have it be recurring, uh which is a little bit different from some of the other funding sources like all in tutoring, which really did just go. Thank you, Ms. Rizzi. Uh, thank you, Madam

078Chair. Yeah, I was concerned about fuel and energy costs. Um, do we have contracts with Dominion that you know, stabilize our costs? Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you for the question, Ms. Rizzi. Um, as I understand it, though I would ask Mr. Harold to investigate further, uh we are part of a larger energy contract with the state, and I don't know if you have additional data that you can share on that or information. Good evening, Madam Chair. I don't have enormous information on that, but we do uh participate in a group purchasing project, and so that the purchase price of our fuel specifically is pegged to that rate. It is slightly different and slightly lower than the market rate, and so that does help us, but because of the volume of gasoline

079increases, just to give some context, in the last couple months of school, we saw in the neighborhood of $900,000 of additional fuel costs. And Dominion? Oh, I'm sorry, for power and light, you mean? Similar sort of setup. We've not seen the same rate of increase that we have for fuel prices, and we do similarly participate in a bulk buying program. I don't have off the top of my head how much that has gone up, though. I can figure that out. One other. Ms. Rizzi. Uh, you know, I've been aware of, um, you know, electric school bus initiatives. You know, I mean, particularly in DC, do those still exist? Have we looked into them? Um, is that something our team has researched? Mr. Campos. Um, I Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Rizzi. I do

080know that we did explore those, uh, a year or 2 years ago. Um, they ended up requiring a large upfront cost that we were not in a position to be able to put forward. I imagine as time goes on, things will become much more affordable. Um, but we just were not in a position. I will also say, as I understand it, several federal grant programs that would have enabled us to defray some of those costs have either been put on hold or eliminated. And so that has also impacted, uh, the rollout of electric buses more broadly. Thank you. Mr. Percival. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just for some context around the budget, just to remind myself. So, and it I'm with everyone on this board even though the vote was 6 to 2 for RVA.

081I really wanted to see RVA stay as a program. I think it's a wonderful program. My vote against keeping RVA was more of a practical approach. Um but I was still pulling for RVA. I was still pulling for the budget money to be there. As I recall during that vote, RVA was prioritized below such things as honoring collective bargaining agreements, um summer school programs, keeping the staff that we could. So, for context, in the in that priority list, and you can just nod if you want, Superintendent Carraway, we are still furloughing 46 central office staff. Sorry, reduction of force. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Percival. Uh we're not furloughing. We are eliminating. Yes, sorry, wrong word. Yes, it's elimination. Um that was going to be it was on my mind. So, and we

082still have furloughs in place for central office staff that we are keeping. Um thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, there is still a 2-day furlough in place for uh the senior leadership uh cadre of of RP. Great. Thank you. And when it came to honoring collective bargaining agreements, I do believe we did our best and we are paying as much as we can to honor those collective bargaining agreements even if they are not at the full agreed-upon amount. Mr. Carraway. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um No, we are fully meeting the obligations of our collective bargaining agreement. Okay. So, from a prioritization standpoint, when when you're advocating to City Council, even without the RVA portion, we still were looking at a $9 million budget increase. So, what we got from the City Council was still slightly

083reduced from that amount. Mr. Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. That is correct. Yeah. So, from a prioritization standpoint and looking forward even into next year's budget cycle, uh we may be facing some of the same headwinds. So, I just wanted to make sure that in my mind, I'm keeping the context for where RVA was in that budget process and where we are now and what we had anticipated. I'd love to see the program, but from a priority standpoint, there's still things on the table that we have to close the gap for. And it is it it's it's unfortunate, but it is where it is. Thank you. Um so much to unpack in so little time. Um you know, I certainly do appreciate the collaboration between us and the city. I also think we have a

084a great working collaboration with the state. Um but it still falls short of the needs of what we requested and that's just where we are. I think it's a sad day when we still have to eliminate 46 positions. We are talking about now, which I did not realize um that the programs, transportation will not be provided, which will almost single-handedly um help to minimize the amount of participation in the summer, which to me is just it's like apples and oranges. Um you know, I did get a opportunity. I I was given concerns about um the City Hall meeting where um Mr. Cameras was asked about RBA. I did not hear that anything about a consensus from the board to move forward. And so I do empathize with Mr. Hedgepeth's concerns. With that regard, I also

085have received feedback about the 200-day program that we have not even circle back with the parents to get their thoughts about the 200-day program before we decided to move forward. And so there's all these things that are happening at the same time and I just think that we really need to ground ourselves in the why of why we're doing what we're doing. And you know, at the end of the day, we are very dependent upon the relationship that we have with both city and state and for some things federal, but certainly from a city's perspective, that's the primary source of increase that we receive, which I am grateful. However, it still falls short. And so while I'm thankful for what has been provided, I just want to make sure that that message is heard loud

086and clear. >> That's all I'll say for now. Ms. Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm glad to that you just shared a couple of statements that which I'm trying to catch up with things. And as we all know, math is not my area of special. English language is. All right? So help me to understand. If we have a $800,000 hole if that if I heard that correctly for the 2026-2027 school year plus in the past few months, we've paid $900,000 for bus fuel. Plus the 200-day program was included, but we're not sure where we're getting the money. Plus I thought we had we did have quite a few electric buses that were bought some years ago through a special program. Those buses are gone. So, my question is Madam Chair, just so I can

087be able to tell my constituency and be able to share it with them in a manner which they should respectfully receive it. The 200-day program, that is in the budget, yes or no? Yes, it is. The Okay, but the 200-day program, we we have funding for it, yes or no? Can you elaborate on where we're receiving the funding for it, Mr. Chambers? Yes, it it is in the budget. That we approved. Yes, it's largely funded by philanthropic. That's what I thought. >> Yes. So, what what is the hold-up now? What's the What's the issue? >> There's There's no hold-up. Okay, I misunderstood. >> To clarify, there are some concerns parents that because of don't take this against my time, I'm just explaining to her. There was some feedback received by parents as relates to the

088200-day program. They were told that it was going to be a 3-year uh trial run. Um but that we never circled back with them to get their feedback about whether or not the 200-day program should remain and that there are some feedback about teacher fatigue and no one ever reached back out to the teachers to ask them would they like to continue with the 200-day program. So, that is what I was just calling out. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I hope they don't take my minutes away, either. It's It's truly an explanation. Thank you for that. So, that's really a a topic to be added. And that goes back to our being accountable for what's on the table. 30 seconds. >> But I'm still Mhm. I'm still trying to figure out the 900,000 which we

089couldn't I understand that we have no control over that. Cuz the buses the children have to get around to where they need to go. So, I'm thinking also how is this going to affect field trips? How is this going to affect after school Well, sports is as Mr. Carr just stated. How how is that at the end of the day? We're already starting I'm still not clear on the $800,000 in the hole. We're starting a year with $800,000 in the hole. Mr. Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Burke. So, let me roll back for a second. The budget that the school board approved had a roughly $12 million increase in funding from the city. The budget that the city council is approving tonight has about an $8 million. So, $4 million left. So,

090how do we make up that gap? Well, 3.2 million of that, as we've discussed, is RBA. And then there's an additional 800,000 that I need to bring back to you a proposal for what we will additionally cut. That is separate from next year that we're talking This is all about July 1st going forward. There will also likely be higher fuel prices that will create expenses that we have not budgeted. And so, we are going to need to be even more judicious about how we spend next year. The 900,000 Mr. Harold was speaking about is in this fiscal year. So, we're figuring out how we're going to be able to cover that because obviously we have to get kids to school and and home every day. Um so, again, to summarize, it's a $4 million shortfall.

0913.2 comes from RVA, and then we have to find another 800,000, which we will work to figure out and bring a proposal to the board so that you can vote and adopt a final budget that is in balance at your meeting in June. I don't think you do. No more time. Ms. Holton. Well, I I I'd just like to express my gratitude to all, obviously on the board, but also to the public who've engaged vigorously with us over these last many months now about the RVA budget. And I know emotions ran high and feelings ran high. Uh I I I I I I I I I I I I my vote, when we voted previously, was in large part based on the the what I perceived as the need for families and staff to have

092plenty of time to make other arrangements. And now we are 2 months further along in that process, and it will be another month before we vote on a final budget, but I hope people understand that unless something happens different in the city city hall city council chambers tonight than what is expected, i.e. no new money for RVA, that the families and the faculty and other staff at RVA understand that sadly this debate has come to an end, and it is time to start making your other arrangements for next year. And if folks >> 1 minute. >> think I'm I'm mischaracterizing that I I hope you will help clarify, but I think we're done on this. And I want to be really clear on that because I do believe I if I understand correctly many of

093the teachers to whom uh the administration has promised other slots uh have not accepted the opportunity yet to engage in those that placement process. And if they wait too long, those slot the guarantee does not exist if there aren't positions left when they engage. So, this is just a plea to everybody, parents and and staff, to start making your plans for next year now. Mr. Ms. Rizzi. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I just recently saw a piece in um VCU's Commonwealth Times um that you know, I'll that actually described how a prospective teacher is feeling about entering the field of education um especially when looking at our situation and circumstances at RPS. Um I think that's extremely um sad. And um you know, correct me if I'm wrong. Um it really feels to me

094that the state and the federal government have got to um come to terms with the fact that that education has been public education has been underfunded and something needs to be done. Um and correct me, Mr. Stanley, if I'm wrong about that, but it just appears to me at this point that we've kind of hit a wall. Um and you know, the city is not willing to raise taxes. Um and and and rightfully so. I don't want my taxes to go up. Um but I mean it's very clear. We have all this evidence that the state and federal government have not been necessarily doing their part um for years. It it just seems to me that we've got to push harder to get them to see that. Would you mind coming up? This is one

095of the questions that I had asked um our legislative committee chair offline about um where we are in terms of the state and what type of uh understanding we have as it relates and I know we've had some positive conversation uh you know, particularly around the delegation. And so I think this might be helpful right now to share Matthew Stanley, if you could just uh a legislative update about where we are, where the state will land, when that funding might come in and that type of thing. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, Civic Affairs Board members, Ms. Rizzi. Uh as you know, uh we've been discussing the budget situation. Um the General Assembly is currently waiting for Governor Spanberger to act on the bills that they sent back to her in their reconvened session. So, topics

096like collective bargaining, marijuana legalization, I'm sorry? Yes. Uh and so uh she had proposed amending a lot of those bills with some pretty significant amendments. The General Assembly rejected a lot of those amendments. So, that gives the legislation back to the governor to say yes or no to and it's important for the General Assembly to know what she's going to do before they pass their budget because some of those uh pieces of legislation had serious financial implications. For example, marijuana legalization uh would have started to bring new tax revenue to the state on January 1st, 2027. But if she ultimately vetoes that, then that's less money that's available for the General Assembly over the full two-year biennium. So, the General Assembly is currently waiting for her to do her final actions on those bills. We

097expect that to happen in the next 2 weeks. I believe the 30-day deadline is May 22nd. So, yep, next week. So, after she does that, we expect that the the budget conferees are the budget leaders at the General Assembly will hopefully pretty quickly be able to start narrowing down what their spending choices are going to be. We have heard that there is some kind of agreement on the revenue side with data centers. We think that that topic is somewhat resolved. We don't know what they have decided yet. It's being kept very hush-hush, but we do understand there's some agreement there. So, that just leaves them to decide, "Okay, how much revenue will we have in total? And then what will our new spending plan be?" So, we don't expect that to happen until a week

098or two after Memorial Day, hopefully the first week of June. We might hear that a budget agreement has been reached, and they will come back to Richmond in 48 hours to vote on that. So, hopefully by the mid middle of June, we will have that um localities across the state will start bearing significant pressure on General Assembly members if it extends any time beyond that. And so, that's where we are in the current session. Within the two budget proposals that the General Assembly did release in February, there was funding in each of those budget proposals, House and Senate, to fund the joint subcommittee on elementary and secondary education funding. That is the subcommittee that will be helping to write the new funding formula, and we understand that the money that was being proposed to be

099appropriated to that subcommittee was specifically to pay for consultants or other analysts to help write that new funding formula. It hadn't actually been written yet. So, that work will happen over the course of this year, and then we will essentially have the 2027 and 2028 sessions for the General Assembly to decide what to do with this new funding formula. The 2027 session will be the second year of the state budget. So it's slightly more complicated moment to try to amend the budget with a big new funding formula. What I think many advocates are hoping for and and what I'm reading the tea leaves to to think is that Governor Spanberger may write the new funding formula into her 2028 budget. That would be a new full two-year budget cycle and that would be something that

100the General Assembly would consider and approve in the 2028 session. We have heard directly from members of the Spanberger administration that they understand Richmond's situation with LCI and the historic underfunding that has happened here. There is very wide recognition of the situation that we find ourselves in. And there is also very wide recognition that we need more revenue to fund these K-12 investments across the state because these are things that are not only going to help Richmond, but they're going to lift up public school divisions across the entire Commonwealth. And we know that that's going to take some additional robust investment in the form of some kind of new revenue. And we've heard this year one one way that they can generate new revenue, but there are many other ways as well. And we know

101that the Secretary of Finance and the Spanberger administration is is very aware of this and they'll be working towards some solutions for the next two sessions. Thank you. That's very helpful. You're welcome. Thank you. Let me know if you have any other questions. Any other thoughts? The last thing Mr. Hitchcock. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just I just wanted to say that you know, this this is a tough conversation that we've been having and it's because it's a school. It's because it's people. I just looked in we at the last report that Mr. Hotz said he gave us 26 students elected to go to RVA next year. And they're not going to be able to do that. Another food for thought is that that's a sustainable model. It doesn't cost fuel to get to RBA.

102Um right, so just another consideration for the future. Thank you. Thank you. Um I wanted to give uh the administration opportunity to share what steps have been taken thus far for RBA associates um in transitioning into um a you know, into a um conventional setting. What what can you give a little bit more insight into that? Good evening. Better? Good evening, Madam Chair, Superintendent Cameras, Board members. Um I'm sorry. What I have like four things that I'm supposed to be talking to you all about tonight. What are we Could you speak Can you please speak to the efforts that the talent office has made to reach out to RBA staff uh to help them secure employment? Absolutely. Thank you. So, the uh initial effort that we made to reach out was an email that came

103from me earlier in the calendar year that explained to them all of the resources that were available to them in order to secure a new position with RPS. That included career services where they could contact our recruiters and get their resumes updated, they could get coaching on how to interview for jobs, and these were for um if they wanted to kind of be selective about the schools that they wanted to go to specifically as opposed to just being placed somewhere if they were interested in in the placement. Um it included things like um having conversations with our recruiters about the different positions that were open and based on their specific endorsements or their experience and um their education, certifications for like non-licensed team members um to match them with jobs that we had open at

104that time. So, that was the first thing that we did was we sent out that specific email. After that, what we did was we assigned each of our RVA team members, in addition to the other 46 impacted individuals, across RPS that were going to be losing their jobs at the end of June, and we matched them with the recruiters. And we asked the recruiters to reach out specifically to all impacted team members and say, "Hey, we have job openings. Let's have a conversation so that we can match you." The instruction that I gave was three attempts at outreach. Three. We email, we email, we call, we leave a message. If people are not interested or they opt out, you we gave, you know, we don't want to like harass people. We said if if they

105tell you, "Stop calling me" or "I've got other plans" or something like that, document it and move on. Um but I instructed them three three efforts to try to reach out to people. We also, if you all recall, we had a hiring fair in February. We opened up the hiring fair an hour early exclusive for our RVA licensed team members. And we did that. And um I think only two or three people actually came to the job fair. Then after that, as our teams were working with people, um we kept track of everybody that we reached out to. And then recently, about gosh. We sent out contracts. I believe it was at the end of April. It was the April 15th. We sent out the contracts cuz it was right after our board meeting when

106the contracts got approved. We sent out contracts. The day that we sent out the contracts, I personally sent out another email directly from me to all of our RVA folks saying, "Hey, if you made a previous decision" And then I'm I'm paraphrasing, please. Uh but kind of like, "If you made a previous decision not to engage with us or you're still interested in doing some work with us, please email our benefits team and tell them you want a contract." And just a reminder, here's the employee resource guide. Please reach out to your recruiter. Please apply to the job so that we get you priority application status, etc. etc. for the non-licensed folks. So, we we've kind of been doing things over the last 4 months to reach out to them um to try to try

107to get them placed. There was a some feedback that there was a recruiter that was was moved into another position so that there may have been a gap or delay in those that were assigned to a specific group. Can you talk a little bit about that? Has that gap been filled? Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Where are we with that? Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. So, Mr. Garrett was moved um into the second week of April. So, it it wasn't that long ago. And so, the he has told me that he has responded to anybody that has reached out to him and said, "I'm no longer your recruiter." That they could reach out to me. And I had one or two people reach out directly to me and I

108was working directly with them to try to help them navigate um certain things that they I can't It's HIPAA protected, so I can't share what they were navigating. Um but help help them through the process. Uh but it was it was only a a few weeks and then literally April 15th, my letter came out. So, it was maybe seven business days where Mr. Garrett transitioned and my letter came out engaging them again saying, "Please reach out." Um and a couple people did reach out to me. We had some pretty good conversations. Thank you. Ms. Jafari. Thank you, Ms. Willis. Okay. So, in January, we guaranteed staff positions at RBA. And if I hear you correctly, I I hear that one of the suggestions was that in lieu of the guarantee or in how should I

109say execution of that guarantee, they were invited to a job fair? 1 minute. Um So, I want to make sure that I understand your question. Are you Are you asking if in lieu of them being guaranteed a job, we didn't guarantee them a job and we instead invited them to a job fair? No, I Is that Is that what you're asking? >> I'm I'm I'm asking you. Yes, sir. >> Did we guarantee them a job and then invite them to a job fair? We guaranteed them placement in roles for licensed professional and the purpose for inviting them to the lot job fair was to give them choice so that they could meet with all of the principals that were there at the job fair and be able to say, "Yes, this is the job that

110I want." >> Okay, and and and again, I don't want to belabor that, but I just see the differences and I see a a number of different explanations that were given along the way. But, I'm talking about uh and and we'll talk about it in closed because I have information that basically refutes that. But, as to a report, as we stand here, we're talking about emails that it was contended that were sent out. Do we have uh copies of those emails so that I can see them? >> I can get them. I'd appreciate that. >> Yeah, I can get emails that were sent out and here are the records of the other outreach were in the report, the number of times, but I can get details of that. Okay, that would be real helpful in

111in supporting all of this. Okay. Thank you. Certainly. Mr. Cameras, could you just uh I'm just asking on behalf of the community, um if you could provide some clarity because I think there's this misunderstanding or maybe miscommunication. I'm not sure where to connect the dots here, but some folks are under the impression that they have to re- interview to land a position, right? Can you explain give some clarity around what that process looks like and if that is the actual intent. Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. So, we know that teachers are most successful when they're happy where they are and the person who hired them, the principal, is happy where they are. And so, yes, we guaranteed a job and we said it is best practice for you to find a place where

112you want to be and the principal wants you to be. And so, yes, go on interviews, find out about schools, hear the vision from the principal, meet other staff. If you go on an interview, go on to you wind up did not get a position, we will place you into a vacancy. But, it's better for you as a teacher and it's better for the school if it's a place that you want to be and the school wants you to be there. And so, that's the process that's we've been trying to facilitate. Um again, I think uh the lack of clarity around what exactly uh will ultimately happen um has kept some folks on the sidelines. But again, let me just say this as clearly as I can say, every single RVA staff member is guaranteed

113a job, the same job type that they have. If you're a teacher, a teacher. If you're a principal, a principal. You're an admin associate, an admin associate. To the extent that we actually have vacancies. To my knowledge, we still have vacancies for all of those positions. It is best if you begin to engage in that process now to find a placement that you think is a good fit for you. At some point, I will start directing the talent office to just place people into vacancies. I am I prefer when exactly I don't I don't know when exactly to begin to do that because things aren't completely settled it appears and so I I want to be respectful of the board's decision. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um just one question from me around um

114summer school. If transportation is not provided have you all considered what alternatives there might be for our families transportation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Transportation will be provided for summer school. What what we were talking about was elementary after school programming. After school. Have you thought through that as of yet? Transportation for elementary after school? I I mean I wish I had an answer. The The truth is I don't. Um Our uh discussions of this I believe we we pegged that out around 300,000 200,000. Um again, we're I have to come back to you with another $800,000 in cuts so um I will of course continue to look for opportunities but I also wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't if I wasn't transparent about the fact there are some things that we want to

115do that we are not going to be able to do. And I think we have to begin to uh collectively grapple with. Thank you. Um all right. Thank you for a very robust discussion. Obviously, this is something that is central to the hearts of all of us on the dais and so we appreciate the administration for sharing their perspective and time and giving us the answer that we seek on behalf of the community and the RPS family. Moving right along to 4.01 receive for first read title 1 2 3 and 4 budgets. Good evening board chair Fernandez, superintendent cameras and members of the board. I'm Sydney Gunter director of academic programs and supports and I'm here with my colleague Dr. Jennifer Blackwell, my other colleague Rodney Robinson to share an overview of our federal entitlement

116grants titles 1 2 3 and 4. Title 1 of course is generally the most widely known entitlement grant that provides supplemental funding to families who are economically disadvantaged to help close opportunity gaps. Title 2 is for supporting effective instruction. Title 3 is for our leap or multilingual learners and title 4 is for supporting well-rounded student. All four entitlement grant applications are linked in the presentation. They are workbooks that we have to provide to the VDOE explaining our expenditures and the distribution of funds. You'll see the allocation for each grant. Right now we are basing our grants off of level funding for next school year because we will not receive the actual allocation until later in the summer. So every year we build our grants off of level funding and then when we get our actual

117allocation later in the summer we have to adjust the grants. So, for Title 1, a summary of our expenditures, a large part of our Title 1 allocation is personnel and benefits. So, those are people like interventionist, reading and math, um that would be for things like tutors, as well. Um so, just all the personnel included in those grants. Also, instructional materials. So, these are materials purchased by the school and by the division. Early childhood receives a portion of Title 1 funding to support uh our C-Fit office also receives a portion of Title 1 funding. That is mainly dedicated to a a staff member in the C-Fit office. Our engagement team also receives a portion of Title 1 funding that is um through our family liaisons, as well as um some other funding to support some

118programs and initiatives. Equitable services, if you remember that was added last year. So, previously, uh Title 1 funding for private schools was taken off the top and it was administered by the state. Last year, they decided to give those funds back to the divisions, but we are still required to administer those funds to students in private schools, um who are economically disadvantaged and live in the boundaries of the city of Richmond. And then, indirect costs, which are just management services for the grant. Uh good evening. Um here to speak on the Title 2 grant for this year. Um you look first, uh personnel and benefits is the biggest cost. We have 12.4 uh people on the Title 2 budget. And so, that eats up 1.18 million. Uh professional development, that would be conferences, seed program,

119other programs that actually support uh the development and getting highly qualified teachers. Uh the thing this year is just $32,000 for a digital um marketing and recruitment campaign. We're going nationwide, going to a lot of big cities that have the the teachers and just trying to entice them to come to Richmond. And then there's 154,000 that goes to private schools. And yeah, the biggest change is now the marketing and recruitment is going into the budget this year. Hello, good evening. Uh Dr. Jennifer Blackwell, Director of Multilingual Learner Success. Um for Title III, this is directly uh supplemental programs um uh to be able to support our multilingual learners here. You can see that the majority of our Title III funds do go to personnel um and benefits um including coordinators um directly on my central

120office team uh and our amazing leap tutors, which is directly tied to our graduation initiatives. We also have academic supports with uh programs that help us uh to progress monitor uh the success of our multilingual learners. We also have funds dedicated for professional development, mostly for teachers, our leap teachers. Um and then we also have that private school set aside as well. I do want to note that we also have immigrant youth funds that typically typically come in, but those are calculated after we actually know how many students um we have that are um identified as immigrant youth. Um the other portion here that I just wanted to touch on is the migrant education program. Although it says here um that the grant is routed through Albemarle, um there is actually a change that just

121came out as of last week. Um and now the um the migrant education program is under reconfiguration with Shenandoah, and so more information will be to come. And finally, a summary of title four. Um title four can be used for a myriad of things, and so in that grant we have support for uh AP and dual enrollment. We have some supports that go to our wellness office, um such as SEL programs and supports. We're going to add a school culture and climate specialist on the wellness team as well. Um we also have to have a private school set aside for that grant, um and we also support some other instructional programs for some um content areas such as music education. Um so we're able to do a little bit more with title four funds. All

122right, any questions? Pretty straightforward. We thank you for your time. Thank We're going to move to 4.02, receive for first read, 23 to 27 score document. Good evening, Ms. Parks. Good evening, school board members and Superintendent Cameras. Dr. Dalton is unable to join us tonight. She's traveling um back home from bereavement, but I am happy to stand in the gap this evening. Some of the questions I may not have the answers to, as I was not a participant on the committee, but Mr. Jafari was. And so if there's any discussion um about things that were talked about as a part of the committee, hopefully you'll be able to help me out, Mr. Jafari. Uh Dr. Dalton wanted me to give a shout-out to the committee members that consisted of her, Ms. Tracy Harris-Mason, Principal Cheatham,

123uh Principal Stephanie Crushfield, AP Deonte Gail, John Beasley, Takisha White, who serves as our um executive director in special education. It's listed as coordinator. She was a fill-in for the coordinator. Our family liaison, Ms. Katrina Jackson, behavior specialist. Cal Jackson, as well as Jason Cooper, also filled in on some of those meetings. And then our parent was Ms. Thompson, and then Mr. Jafari. We do not have a lot of updates for you, but if you look on page four, you'll see the proposed updates that the committee is presenting as it relates to our BE codes for drugs and possessing controlled substances. They would like to add to include vapes, cuz we've had a lot of incidents with vapes, but our parent score does not call out vape specifically. And so the board, I mean, the

124committee felt that that was important to do. And then also, we've had quite a few incidents this year with students sharing edibles. And so the committee thought it was important to add including sharing and giving to others so that we could have it covered. Another recommended change was the addition of smart devices because there are all kinds of smart devices now, including smart eyeglasses. And so we wanted to make sure that that was included. The cover page in the superintendent's man message is something that's revised annually. And then we had some updated verbiage to our attendance policy. And then also, we revised the annual calendar. And with that, I'll take any questions that you may have. Before we start, is there any perspective you like to share, Mr. Jafari, since you were on the the

125board or a part of the committee? Yes, I would. Hard act to follow as usual, right? Okay. But look, um um one of the situations that we tried to address was we had a number of situations that occurred in schools where individuals youngsters have brought they not base but gummies candies or whatever and shared them. But there was not specific language to address that. And so if you go to page 18, you just see it or the frame 18 here, you will see in red the information that that was put there so as to just update it. One of the objects that we tried to shoot for and and that we were aiming for was to try to capture the ever-changing and evolving nature of our students. They are always a couple of steps ahead

126of us. And so what we thought was necessary was to put the language there that was explicit and specifically captured. We had a number of the statements that were provided which which said, "Well, I didn't intend to give them to anybody." And how that was broken down to give us some context when the administrators got to the point where they were applying corrective action they really were toothless. They really couldn't do anything because there was nothing in our language in the school uh brochure here that addressed sharing. So if you brought it to school and it was innocent and it was found that you really didn't have any intent to share it you literally just walked with that aspect of the corrective action. This changes that. This addresses that. And so that would be the

127really the only contest that I would offer to that one. Thank you. Any questions? Ms. Ricard, Ms. Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just Mr. Jafari, I wanted to thank you for being on the committee. I know you always look for consistency, and I think that's so important. And based on our time serving on discipline committee, I think the changes are good and the additional language clarification I appreciate. So, thank you. You're welcome. Ms. Burke. Thank you, ma'am chair. Thank you. For your report, I know this takes a lot it's a lot to do for saying updating. So, thank you, Mr. Jafari, and you, of course, Mrs. Parks and other committee members. Uh thank you, thank you, thank you. My My question is in regards to sharing this information. I know you all have a

128plan for that. Would you be so kind to um share how this information will be disseminated? Will it be posters? Will it be How will students know? So often when they have situations and they're brought to the administration at the school level, they're not familiar with the score, even though it's been shared with them at the beginning of the school year. So, how do we make sure they know what they're being held accountable for? Well, most of our secondary school teams, they have grade level meetings. And during the grade level meetings, they cover the score and what's discussed in there. Um this summer in particular, one of the things that we have learned through the our investigations this year is that some of our school leaders, particularly our our newer school leaders, uh need a

129little bit more training and massaging on what the score is, how to properly code, because the wrong code, even for something like a fight, could put us on the persistently dangerous list. Um and so, we have a summer learning series. It'll be open to all of our school leaders as well as some of our teachers who will be interested in knowing more about it. But certainly, we still have the posters, the score at a glance that are hanging up in our school buildings, and we intend to refresh as needed. Um and also the core that we developed. You worked with us. I don't know if you remember, but we also created a parent-friendly version um of these are the expectations of parents when they come into our buildings, and if not, these are the things

130that may happen. Um and even if you get restricted from one of our schools due to your own behavior, if you want to appeal, this is the steps to do that as well. Ms. Byrd. Thank you so much, and I'm so glad you mentioned the core. That that really worked well, especially the big copies being posted. So, my last thought is, which maybe this is not a responsibility for this committee. I'm thinking back to the last meeting or the one before that that we had. There were questions regarding the or concerns shared by people who spoke of the long lines um to be um admitted into the schools, and they sometime mix miss breakfast, which they shouldn't. But they have to get to class on time. At some point, will there be any any opportunities

131to address how we can have our students searched before um going to classes to more expediently move through the line. And then my next next question I'll ask is regarding the clear backpack. Because there are concerns. I know we're getting ready to meet next week to prepare, and we're going to do a more durable, I say we, VCU and CoStar, a more durable bag, but at the end of the day, the amount of items that's in the high school backpacks, no matter what plastic, when 30, 40, 50 dollars a bag, we haven't found one durable enough, I think, to hold all of their items. But we no longer have lockers at most schools. Why, I don't know. Cuz I just I just worry about our students having all that load on their backs throughout the

132day. I wonder if that's healthy. I know it's not healthy. For the first question, um that will solely be based on the board and their decision. You guys made the determination that we were going to go to clear backpacks, and so certainly if you determine that we're going to revert back to a different type of backpack, it is at the will of the board and we will move accordingly based off of your decision. Um the second part about being able to get through the line a little bit faster, we actually timed it. It's not as long as folks think it is, um but we're also doing some focus groups with students this week um on cell phones as well as backpacks because we realized that while we may have talked to some students, we wanted

133to get additional stakeholder groups. Um and so that is to come. Our student support specialists are having those groups during lunchtime at the secondary level. And on the elementary level, our behavior specialists are doing the focus groups. And so um probably not next month, but either in July or August when we do school opening, we'll have some information from our actual student feedback. And to really unpack what it is that they mean when they say we need to change or we're not feeling safe or things need to happen, but we're hearing directly from them. Thank you, Ms. Holton. Thank you, Ms. Parks. That's uh and uh and the committee for all the good work. Um this is my I I still get to claim my newcomer status for a little longer. Uh I don't see

134anything in the score document about our restorative practice uh a restorative justice practices programs. I know we have something, but I don't know much. Is there a a way maybe not this round but next round should it be in there something about because there's a lot in there both about substantive behavior requirements but also about process. So yes, ma'am. If you look at the beginning of the actual score document, it has all of our level interventions. And so for each level there's some recommended interventions. So it could be um restorative groups, it could be community service, it could be a parent-teacher conference, it could be a peer-to-peer conflict resolution group, but all of those are found I believe it's page nine um that starts our interventions. That's in there. >> justice is an interven- I'm

135sorry, ma'am. Follow up. Yes, you can you may. I think she was finishing her thought though. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. So all of the interventions from our schools that these are the things that we expect them to do before they come to like a disciplinary hearing committee. And then if you look towards the back of the book, again I don't know the exact page but I can send it to you. It talks about our restorative justice model. And so it doesn't outline each and every thing that we do to try to keep students engaged in school, but it does speak to it. So thank you. That does help. But so I am understanding that restorative justice programs are intervention options and that the the last piece you cited fits where restorative process where

136justice goes into the process and describes it. That's the one I couldn't find. So yes, if you can point me to it that would be lovely. And and I wonder if just as feedback for you all's next year conversation where the it might be highlighted more in the in the process description earlier on. But >> And it's not a change to change the language just as proposed. And so tonight is first read. You guys will vote on it next month. And yes, interventions are restorative in nature. So if a student steals something and we give them community service rather than suspending them out of school for the theft, we are giving them an opportunity to restore by doing community service. If students get into a fight, there's opportunities for restoration through having a peer-to-peer mentor

137group. So, there's a lot of things that we do in our interventions that are considered restorative. Ms. Holton. So, I So, that's very helpful to understand and I will go back and read it more closely. And I guess my suggestion if any is can it be highlighted a little bit more um prominently? Um but maybe it's there and I just didn't read closely enough yet. No, ma'am. I I absolutely like that idea. Um certainly if that is something that the board would like for us to do, we can do it. If you want it in narrative or if you want it in highlighted form, however you desire, we can take care of that. Again, tonight is just the first read. So, what I would suggest, Ms. Holton, if you have opportunity to take a look

138and provide suggestions via email for us to consider, I think that would be great. Thank you. Ms. Rizzi. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I totally agree. I think a real strong narrative even at the beginning that emphasizes our commitment to restorative practices will be a nice thing to add. Um I and I'm also really glad to hear that you are these focus groups and listening to students. My question is will we get any kind of report on their feedback? Yes, you will get a report on their feedback and we could probably give you the reporting sooner rather than later, but we want to do it in a presentation form to kind of These are the things that we've heard about our cell phone policy and our book bag policy. These are the things that we

139have heard directly from our students who are impacted by these things. And as a result, these are the things that we are proposing. And so, if students are feeling perhaps we should go back at least at the high school to do something different, we'll share that with the board. And then, of course, at that time the board can determine how you would like to move forward. Hello. Um yeah, so could you bring students with you when you make that presentation? Sure. Thank you. And then, you mentioned the score one-pager. Well, I think we called it a one-pager when we voted on it, but it's what? Score at a glance? It's two pages. It's yes, but okay. >> [laughter] >> But if you I know at one time it was I think we our purpose was

140to have it go home with the score manual. Is that still happening? Well, the score manual, remember it was an exorbitant cost to print the actual document. So, we do have some hard copies at the school because some people like to have hard copies. Um but the at a glance is in the front office or either somewhere near the front office hanging up poster size. And then, we have an electronic copy. And then, we make sure that we also have the core document that's available as well with it. Okay. So, I would like to know that we're drawing our parents' attention to those documents. Thank you. Miss Mr. Hedgepeth. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much, Ms. Parks. I appreciate you your presentation. Sorry. I I want to uh come back to the uh

141the the backpacks. And I'm glad that um Ms. Parks and Ms. Risley both uh mentioned it. Um and I'm so thankful that you you and you're doing the interest groups. I think that's really important to to get that perspective. I've I've had a lot of interactions with uh Huguenot High School students uh and them them sharing their concerns about the the backpacks and uh that you know perhaps the uh the the metal detectors are enough. Um and that the backpacks that they they really would like some privacy at at that age and deserve that that that dignity whereas perhaps you know I also have a lot of conversations with parents in elementary schools that say it is logistically a very helpful thing to have a clear backpack because you know that Joe has his lunch

142in his bag and or that Susie has her her socks for when she needs them. And so the fact that we don't have our metal metal detectors in our elementary schools the clear backpacks seem like a you know logical place for that that policy to lie. So just some feedback that I've heard so far from the community but I'm excited to hear more about that and so thank you. Ms. Rickard Okay. Mrs. Jafari did you raise your hand? You already spoke. You already spoke. Okay, give me just a second. Okay, do you want to share? Okay, before we move into you've already shared right Ms. Burke? No, you can. I just hadn't gotten a chance to speak. Yeah, thank you. >> [laughter] >> Just want to give everybody opportunity to share before we go into

143second thought. All right. I appreciate the to hear that you are getting some feedback. I just want to make sure and caution us to balance the feedback from our students with state safety. My goddaughter is in fourth grade. She goes to Barrack Elementary. She found out that I was chair of the board and that I make rules and so her question was please bring back phones. Why do we have cell Why have cell phones in school?" So, I want us to balance what our folks, um you know, our children have to say with some of the recommendations and and why. Um I wanted to um ask a question about uh just uh Oh, yes. I know this is going to be kind of controversial, but I I I want to get your thoughts about the

144area of vapes, gummies, and THC, marijuana in schools. We've seen an increased amount of usage and um possession um with that regard. Do you think that our policies reflect something that's too lenient based upon the volume that we're seeing in the schools? I I just want to get your thoughts what's on that. I think you started off with it's controversial because >> [laughter] >> one of the things that we've always said we want to do was be restorative in nature because at one point in time we used suspension as a measure of discipline for every single thing. Um and I think as we look at our restorative measures, no, we don't want our young people to use drugs, but we also want to educate them on the reason as to the why behind it and

145not necessarily because I told you not to do so. You can cause self-harm. You can go to jail. Like all of these things can be a reality for you. And if you're sharing it, someone else can get hurt. And we've had instances where we've heard in a disciplinary committee where student it looked like a cinnamon toast crunch. And so, but it really was laced with THC. And so, something harmless where they're just saying, "Taste it because it makes you feel this way, but we've had students that had to go to the hospital. So, it is a slippery slope. I will say that if the board determines that we need to take it back to the policy committee to put something a little bit more stringent in place, I would say that we have the restorative

146piece in mind, too. So, maybe if it's a level one, a level two, and certainly that's something that we can tease out during the policy committee to determine what that might look like. I would love to to see some more of another recommendation around that, like a level one, level two, simply because those of us that are on the disciplinary committee quite often, this is a reoccurring theme. And so, I want to be able to balance balance restorative justice with where we are in this fight against the the use of drugs. Can I ask a follow-up? >> Sure. >> Would that be a part of the score, or we just want to reflect it in our policy, and maybe allude to it in the score? The latter. Okay. Yes. And then, um, you you mentioned,

147um, that there is some type of score or core for adults. Is that in Is that called out in this? How do parents know about it? I know we've had some increase in some parents who've come to school that were quite upset and have been asked to leave. And so, just want to make sure that that is at the forefront as they um, are addressing staff, um, when it comes to their children. So, are they aware, like, what communications are out? I just want to get a a better understanding of that. So, I think that we can do a better job of showing it to parents at the beginning of the year, and then possibly, like we do with the score at a glance, have a core at a glance, so parents can see the

148expectation. We We're happy to do that. Um, but the the score itself is specifically for students. Um, but we definitely can highlight it anytime a parent is restricted from one of our schools, we give it to them because they often will send something to Superintendent Cameras or send something to the board to say that I'm restricted for the school, but what they failed to do is to admit to their own actions. We are not going to tolerate adults coming into our buildings threatening to beat our staff or use foul language towards them and think that it is okay. But you will be restricted from the building and the school team will work with you to make sure you can still engage with your child's teacher or principal outside of the school. And while I think

149that is a fair assessment, I totally agree. I think we have to we have an opportunity to make them aware that there are repercussions proactively. And so that is not reactive. While we think that it's something that people should know, um something like a handout or something at the beginning of the year just to level set with parents so they understand expectations. I think would be great. Work with my engagement team to make sure it goes out at our beginning of the school year. Um and we'll also share it with our school leaders and ask them to send in their memos to go out to their families at the beginning of the year. Thank you, Ms. Burke. Thank you, ma'am. Sharon, again, thank you so very much. And I'm so glad that you will continue

150to use the the one page in front and back because it didn't work. Especially posting in certain places. And I did go around the schools to see if it was posted where we stated you know about it. Okay. All right. Um my my thought is and our chair just stated regarding the balance. So when I asked regarding the clear backpacks, I'm in favor of clear backpacks. I'm in favor of children having a a small um And that is state that is stated inside of their pack there bags for something personal. At the end of the day, do we have any data to support I know what I see, but I I don't have any hard data to support if certain um incidents didn't take a place or fewer incidents took place because of the backpacks

151being revealed. And I know for a fact we some things that's taken place beforehand for the elementary level as well. That things were brought to school and it's it was really honest. All right, so my point is as we don't put all your time on the backpack. Let's have a balance. Cuz we have more than backpacks to worry about. All right, and I'm I also still don't understand. Maybe this goes back to the the buildings why we no longer use lockers. Some schools still have lockers. However, they're not being used. So, I know for the fact they're not being used. Okay, I know for a fact some schools have asked that they are removed. >> That's time. Thank you. Were you about to say something, Mr. Cameras? That is a a local school decision, but

152we're happy to have a locker discussion at a future date. If you could get my son to use a locker, that would be He uses He puts all his books in his book bag. Every last one of them. I know it. Mr. Jafari, you're next. And then Ms. Rizzi. Yeah, you had a I just had a couple of uh circle backs here. Uh one and I think it was a part of what was being asked uh when colleague Ms. Burks asked the question about how do we get this information home about the supplements, the additional, the new portions. And we elaborating on what we do in school. And so, I just wanted to circle back and see what are we doing to disseminate this to homes and parents and mothers, dads, students to let them

153know of the change. So, once the actual document is approved, we'll have our PD for our summer learning series for our new leaders as well as some of our leaders who just need to get caught up with all of the changes. But then, when school starts, we typically have at the secondary level grade level meetings. And during the grade level meetings, those things are discussed. We'll have to figure out strategy at the elementary level because it's not anything that we've ever done before, but it's not impossible. We can still talk to each of the classes and make sure that they understand it according to their grade band and age to make sure that it's appropriate, but that that they also understand that there are consequences to conduct behavior issues. Okay, so something as simple as

154just sending home uh a memo, a document, or whatever. Or an electronic email, cuz I think we do communicate with emails. So, the point here is just being just to make sure that we close the door on this by making sure the message gets home. Uh the other piece was uh the restorative measures. Uh basically, as I'm looking at it, since we're already doing it, maybe it's just incorporating the language. Revisiting the language, the caption, the marquee. Just making sure it's reflective throughout it. I think that will accommodate that. Thanks, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Rizzi. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um you know, I want to talk about, you know, in my many years of serving as a classroom teacher, I really find that when you have honest discussions with students, they will be honest

155with you. Mhm. And they know what, you know, will make young people safe. And they, you know, will will actually have, you know, a conversation with an adult about, okay, maybe this is not what I want, but maybe this is what's going to keep us safe, and this is something we can live with, right? And so, I do think that student voices are important in this process. And I don't think students are all going to just ask for something they know they shouldn't have. Right? Um and you know, to keep things within the um restorative range and not contribute to patterns that then get repeated out of school that lead to the school-to-prison pipeline, I would say, you know, are there ways we could bring in consultants or speakers, you know, dynamic speakers who can

156come in and talk to our kids about like the dangers of vapes and the dangers of gummies and and really get them engaged in the discussion. Sometimes that can work. Ms. Parks. Yes, we're open to all of that, um Mrs. Rizzi. The act The event that we're having on the 14th, we actually have the health department as well as another organization as a part of the breakout groups because there's going to be a lot of students there after they get their vision exam. They're waiting for their glasses. And so while they're waiting for their glasses, we have breakout sessions for them. And some of that very conversation will be taking place. We have really tried to to the greatest degree as is possible use existing partners because we don't have money to pay for outside

157consultants to do those things. But like our BHA and some of the child savers, they have substance abuse treatment groups and things of that nature. And really capitalizing on our existing partners. Yes, that those are things that we're actually doing now, particularly for some of our students who come through the disciplinary hearing committee. They have to do community service. There's some modules. And for some of our students, they have to attend a group and then actually show us the certification that they've that they've been through it. Thank you. I I do recall a time where I asked, "Do we have dare still? And then people laughed at me, but I remember when my you know, the police officer came and talked to us about that. So, perhaps we can revisit maybe a partnership with RPD

158and um what's around maybe some just awareness um that they can um intentionally share with our students. I know quite a few officers that wouldn't mind coming and sharing their thoughts and experiences. Us being included. Yes, right violent told. Thank you so much for your time. All right. We're at evaluation of RPS facilities at polling locations 4.03. For context, I want to yield the floor to um Ms. Ricard. This was a something that she had her and I in a conversation that we had shared and so I wanted to allow her context before whoever comes to present. Um thank you, Madam Chair. I have just received um several questions and concerns from community members about why our schools are still used as polling places when the city of course has many other spaces that could

159potentially be used, new community centers, maybe other churches, nonprofits. You know, our kids learning gets impacted cuz we don't meet. And it feels like if we are trying to constantly make sure that our students are getting the instruction that they need, is it possible to move polling places out of schools? It also requires that um I can't speak for RPS, but I know in past schools that I've been in, you know, the voting people come in the day before, they drop off their stuff. The buildings have to be open potentially early for for polling places. So, it's just a lot of logistics for RPS and I wondered if it could be moved out. And of course, you know, bringing this to all my colleagues for their thoughts. I also reached out to Mr. Stanley just

160wondering what would need to be done. And so, I don't know, Mr. Stanley, if you would mind just coming up and giving that background as well. Good evening again, Madam Chair, Superintendent Carraway, board members. Uh I have pulled up for you the state law in regards to requirements for polling places. Um and the state law is relatively vague. It does say each polling place shall be located in a public building whenever practicable. Um and for many localities in the Commonwealth, our school our public school buildings are uh one of the only publicly accessible buildings that can be used. Uh however, here in the city of Richmond, we do have many other public buildings that we believe could be under consideration. Um the proper process uh is to convey our wishes to the registrar and the

161Richmond City Council. It is the registrar uh of elections the office of elections who is responsible uh for identifying those polling places and it is City Council's responsibility to approve those polling locations and appropriate funding uh for the administration of the elections. Uh so, we do believe that if the school board were to uh request uh that the registrar and the City Council uh no longer use public school buildings as polling locations, uh that would be something that they would be able to comply with. Um of course, if they run into any issues with identifying another uh polling location in a specific precinct, uh that could certainly be a continued conversation. Um but just happy to provide any other answers uh and to any other questions that you have. Before we go into um conversation

162around this, I also want to remind us that um just recently we uh had a special election several several special elections actually um in uh 2026. Um, particularly just recently we did have a um a special election where we had to close schools. It affected our calendar. There was, you know, teachers who were concerned about having to to come in. So, there's a lot of implications here. So, just for full context as as we open the discussion. Um, Mr. Farooq, I saw your hand first. Yes, Mr. Stanley, if schools were not if our Richmond City Public Schools were not being used as polling places, would they then be open or would they still be closed because I think federal elections are a holiday, right? Or some elections are holidays. Yes, Mr. Farooq, members of the

163board, um the only holiday uh that our policy dictates is the November general election date. Uh no special elections would be deemed as a holiday. Mr. Kamaras. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to note though our holiday policy does state in the case of a school building being used as an election day voter precinct or uh in voting location, impacted schools will be closed that day for students or students will attend school virtually from home. So, um any election day that we are using our schools outside of the November election day, we are required to not have kids in person and either be fully closed or have virtual instruction from home. And so, um as long as we continue to be polling locations, um that will continue to be an issue unless of course

164you change the policy, but that introduces a whole new set of challenges. Right. So, that what you're reading is a policy a board policy, correct? Correct. Which I believe the board adopted because families and teachers were very uncomfortable having voters come into the building during the school day. Mr. Percival. Um I know this is theoretical at the moment, but is this an all or nothing approach? With this What if there's one school that we needed for a polling place? Would just that school close? Again, this is theoretical. Maybe I'm thinking out loud. Uh according to your policy, it says in the case of a school building being used. Um so I think it would apply individually. Um we typically reach a tipping point though, obviously, where most of the school system is being used. Um

165but um that's certainly could be a consideration. Um my humble recommendation would be an all or nothing approach though, given the uh bureaucratic work that goes into um holding elections. And so I think we should either stay in the business or get out of the business. Ms. Holton. Do we know how many of our schools are used as or approximately how many of our schools are used as election places? That's my question. And while he's coming up, my comment would be if we are to make a change, we may want to be sure and give the uh registrar a lot of lead time on this. Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair. We currently use 26 of our buildings as polling places. Two of those are Norrell and Clark Springs, so are not currently operated as schools.

166The remaining 24 are. The only other thing I would note in addition to what Mr. Stanley shared is that the elections office is required by law to send out written notification to update every voter of the change in polling location, which is obviously a very significant administrative task that they would also need to complete. Thank you. Yes, I've seen that happen before as, Any other? Mr. Hatchback? Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I'm I'm not necessarily completely opposed to that idea. I understand the the thinking of it and I do agree with the superintendent that it should be an all or nothing thing, although I do think it be would be difficult. I think of now three of the of the elementary schools in the fourth district serve as precincts and I think of other larger

167buildings that may serve in instead. I I'm sure they would find them, but I I'm not sure, but but I think one of my hesitations is that uh schools are community buildings and a lot of the community often times this might be the only time that they step foot in our buildings. And yes, maybe our our our humans might not be in that building at that moment, but they see our spaces. And so, you know, I think that that encourages a bit of ownership and some concern also that I think might be missing if they aren't being brought into those buildings. And so, uh I I wonder. I'm not opposed. I'm just wondering, putting that out there as as like is that a connector to the community that we may be like kind of sending

168a message that we're closed to the community. I don't know. Ms. Byrd? Thank you, Madam Chair. Flashback. A former mayor, Do recall this? Um wasn't your husband. A former mayor per se encouraged schools to be closed on election day so that the parents could take their children to see the process of voting. So I think that's pretty much encouraged us in the city of Richmond, which some parents do take their children and some don't. But during that time, do you recall that? You don't recall that? Yeah, I know you did. We were back there together. Oh, I know. So my question is I'm thinking along the lines of what Mr. Hedgepeth is also thinking. But I also understand how people folks want their children in school. So point of I guess there's some point for

169us to discuss this and get more information together and maybe see how parents feel about it. But there are some parents who take their children to vote. But that during that particular the time. And I was at Chimborazo then, so it wasn't that long ago. Okay. I'll tell you. Anyone else? Mr. Farouk. Thank you, Madam Chair. In the interest of maximizing in-school time for our students, I support exploring this idea. In the third district, almost every single school is used as a polling place with the exception of I think the Tech Center and Henderson Middle. Um even Maggie Walker is a polling place, so I do think logistically that we just don't have that many public spaces, but there's a Parks and Rec building in Northside that doesn't get used, so I think there are

170other spots. Um that being said, I think it's absolutely worth it. Uh, it is really disorienting as an RPS parent to suddenly be like, oh crap, another election. Now a special election. Who's working? Who's not working? Who has meetings in the day? Who can take the kids wherever? It's it's a lot to balance. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I I absolutely am open to exploring the option. I think um, I do hear the balance message and and what we're sharing and I would love for there to be some type of survey um, or something a feeler out to the community so that we can get the thoughts of RPS families to to see their thoughts, but as I think about how we've had to make some adjustments particularly in this last um, special election

171and um, having to vote to change the calendar, it just causes a lot of more undue burden on our um, families that I think um, we haven't really considered. Also, um, a lot of our, you know, a significant amount of our students um, look forward to being in school, um, parents who have to work, so on and so forth. So, there's a lot of things that I would love to hear from the community that we may not be considering. So, I'm I'm open to the idea. Um, I'm not I'm leaning toward one way or another, but I would like to continue the conversation. Ms. Ricard. Thank you, um, Madam Chair. You know, thank you to everyone for the conversation. You know, this would take time, so of course, this is nothing for next year, but

172we would also want to make sure that we give plenty of prior notice as soon as we can so everyone could start planning. Um, so I guess just thinking about next steps um, because my guess is would we want to take a board action in order to then send a letter to city council for the request in the future? Mr. Chambers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Rickard. I am hearing some energy around getting information from community from our families in particular. So, I think we can take that next step. I In full transparency, I don't think we could do that effectively until next fall. Um and so, we can take that as the next step, bring it back uh to the board late fall, early winter um after perhaps next November's election. Um

173and then if the board wanted to make a decision, I think at that point then yes, you would take formal action and then we would inform the registrar and um I believe they would like 2 years notice. Um so, we'll we'll take it from there. And sorry, one additional quick follow-up at the Sure. Um and so, what I'm hearing also is that kind of regardless our policy has set in stone that election day is off even if we were to make this change which would then still allow our children to go with their parents to vote which I agree with Ms. Burke is a real special thing when it can happen. Mr. Hitchcock. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just Oh, sorry. Mr. Chambers. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um the regular November

174election day, yes, is off. Everything else is not. Mr. Hitchcock. Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe um just a uh an idea that this could happen during election time that you know, this this could be posed as an election. Do we especially since it would be fresh in the mind of the community at the moment, but also an opportunity for our kiddos to express their voice. Um as their parents are in the election. Thank you. Any other thoughts? All right. Thank you so much for the conversation. Moving to 4.04 receive a first read policy committee recommendations. Mr. Heschbach? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um today we have four policies up for first read. Uh one thing to note is that uh we updated both our public participation in meetings policy as well as our annual operating budget

175uh meeting uh two policy excuse me to uh have consistent public comment. Um both in our regular meetings business meetings, but also at our annual budget hearing which also then does not detract from the need for translation. So if anybody is coming to to speak and needs translation services, the time that it takes for the translator translate does not count against their their time or our time as a whole. I like to highlight that I was the one who recommended for us to look into that policy. So thank you so much for adapting it. Um is there any other questions or thoughts around the policy revisions? I just have one that is semi-related or had me think about it. For safety drills, I noticed that in um for council meetings, they um they share out

176loud what our exits are just in case a fire were to occur. And I just wonder if that's something that we should be doing um for meetings as well. It's something that they typically would read out um or the clerk would read out um at the beginning of the meetings. I just wanted to raise that question. Does anybody know? Sorry, Mr. Stanley. Is that something that you have any idea about? Uh Mr. Hedgepeth, Madam Chair. It does not appear that we have anything in policy right now around uh uh organizational or or or beginning notices at the beginning of a board meeting. It would be something that would be very easy for us to put into policy. It's also something that the board could start doing in practice um at at your direction. I if

177there's a consensus, I do think we should probably um have something formalized, but also just in practice start sharing just exit procedures should something happen and we have to evacuate quickly. Any concerns about that? Thank you. Nothing further for policy recommendations? Then we'll move right along to 4.05 receive for first read contracts over 100K. Mr. Cameron. Thank you, Madam Chair. We are bringing back for consideration uh two of the contracts that we withheld at the last meeting for uh teacher pipeline programs. One from university instructors, one from Scoot, and I'm going to ask uh Ms. Louise to come up and speak to both of them. As she is doing that since this is in essence a second presentation, if the board wants to proceed, you could vote tomorrow night. Of course, if you do not

178and that is fine as well. Good evening, everyone. >> Good evening again. I believe that everyone received um the board memo with the FAQs answered, and I seek direction from uh Madam Chair and the board on if you would like me to review uh the contract again, or if you would like to just ask me questions. I'm open to either way. There was a ton of questions about Scoot, and if you could just at a very high level explain what that process looks like. I think that would be helpful as a as a start um because I think we are kind of starting from scratch. There was a lot of questions that were shared last meeting. Absolutely, my pleasure. So, I'm going to tackle this in two ways for you, okay? So, Scoot, also known

179as Teach Start, very similar to the contract that I spoke on a couple of months ago, university instructors. It is a very similar model. And so, what they are intended to do is they are a pipeline program, very similar to our very own SEED program. They, however, take on the liability of hiring the team member. They come into our school division as a long-term sub. They are given training on the front end, professional development throughout the year, and Teach Start and University Instructor coaches to help them along their pathway to a provisional license. Okay? They take on all of the recruiting activities and because their teams are larger than my team cuz right now I only have four recruiters and two who do long-term sub recruiting and day-to-day sub recruiting so they're they're very busy

180filling the day-to-day slots for call-outs and leaves, etc., etc. So they have um far more resources than we do to be able to recruit candidates into their programs. Our idea is to have one cohort each and I want to emphasize this is a pilot program. I am non-committal to these folks until they can prove themselves to RPS. I want to be very clear. Each group will get a cohort of 15 individuals. University Instructors 15, Teach Start Scoot gets to bring us 15. They put them through the program. At the end of the program, we get a provisionally licensed teacher that then we employ. And we help them get to their and fully endorsed license after that. So that's at a very high level what each of these organizations do. Now University Instructors, we already have

181something like a 20-year relationship with them because they um they do tutoring for us through um my partners in academics. So they have an academic portion a tutoring program on the academic side. Teach Start, this would be our first entryway with that organization. So, I'm going to pause for questions. Mr. Farouk. Oh. Good evening. Good evening. I have several questions. Go ahead. So, first, how many total long-term subs do we need year to year? Just a ballpark figure. Ooh, that really depends. Um it depends on a lot of different things. It depends on what what I've learned is it depends on how many vacancies we go into a new school year with, right? It could be 100, it could be 120, it could be 50, it could be 75. It really depends on the vacancies.

182So, about So, this year we had roughly I think we had um I want to say it was like 125 to 150, if if my memory serves me correctly. But, I can get that confirmed for you. >> That's okay. Okay. Do you know how many roughly like how many um people the SEED program is trying to recruit and grow into provisional teachers each year? Like 10, 5, 30? >> So, the SEED program, the forecast for the SEED program going into our new fiscal year, okay, is they are forecasting that we will have roughly applicants for the program. For the SEED program? For the SEED program, for the different components of the SEED program. Okay. And you said that yours you have about four staff that does everything with subs, not just long-term subs, but also

183the daily subs. I have two staff that work with all substitute recruiting. And that's right now because originally we only had one, and I reshuffled my talent acquisition team because we needed more help and we wanted to improve our service delivery to the schools. So, two who handle all things subs, day-to-day subs, annual subs, and long-term subs. And And that is a staff person that is in addition to the SEED program. Like that they're not in the SEED program staff. The two recruiters. Yeah. No, they I have a different department whose only focus is the development component and the coaching component for people who are in the SEED program, currently employed with RPS, either working towards a provisional license or um I think many of you got the invitation for the SEED graduation. Those folks

184are already working with us and are now fully endorsed. So, that's that graduation. Okay. But my final question is Yes, sir. Given that being a long-term sub, and I'm going to make some guesses, that it and I've worked in government a long time, when you do recruiting for certain positions, there are certain jobs that people will travel for, right? I don't know and you can tell me, is being a long-term sub with the potential of becoming a provisional teacher something that a lot of people will move from one state to another for? That's a really good question. I would I would venture to guess if it were an environment like ours where we really focus on teach with love, we love you here, we have a great environment, and we pay really well for the

185cost of living, I could see with strong marketing and relocation bonuses because very few people have the capacity to relocate from one state to another without some financial assistance, we could recruit outside of Virginia for long-term subs. I will say that if we and and I've I've made this recommendation, if we're going to make that investment even with title funding to relocate people, I would highly encourage us to relocate people who are already fully endorsed licensed. Because it's better for our kids. You You know what I mean? Not that long-term subs are not great for our kids. We've got amazing long-term subs at RPS, amazing ones. Um but we want people who are already fully licensed while we work on alternative pathways for others who want to enter the the education profession. My final question.

186What gives you the confidence that this company that will be recruiting for a position and I don't know how many staff they have in Richmond. I don't know if they have any. The nearest regional office I could find was in DC, but this is a national talking about Scoot. This is a national company. >> Yeah. What gives you the confidence that they can do this better than we can when we have lots of employees here and have been a long time and known employer? Yeah. Why will they do it better than us? Well, I don't know necessarily that they will do it {quote} {unquote} better than us cuz I've got great recruiters on the team, just saying. But they have a bigger team. They have a bigger team and so they they have a greater

187scale. You know what I mean? Um So, while they're they have a local office in DC, the way these models are set up is their national recruiting team recruits for a specific contract. And the only reason why I know that is because I've worked in organizations that do basically business process outsourcing, and we do the same thing. Right? Uh but we do it for corporate America companies. Um so, they're going to use their national resources to recruit for our cohorts. That's the first thing. The second thing that I I will say is um they've done it for other large school districts. Um they did it for Denver public schools. They they came with really good references. So, that that's where my confidence in in them lies, but I'm a big fan of trust but verify,

188which is why this is a pilot program. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Rizzi, then Ms. Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair. I um I you know, we've read a lot of things since you sent out that um email. Uh I cannot remember because I'd requested that we receive some kind of data about their success rates at other districts. Did you Do you have that? I thought we sent that. Um I thought we sent their data from Denver. Was that not included >> You may have. I'm just I'm just asking. I brought my printout. I mean I have I mean, I think maybe for the public's benefit, too, just a summary Yeah. of what that is and and how that worked for Denver. Yeah. Of course. Okay. So, here's what they wrote in in when I asked

189them for their specific data. So, outcomes to date, we retain 75% of our fellows through year end. There will be attrition. We have attrition as well. Okay? Their goal is 75. Their Their fellows reflect their communities. They're 25% parents, 70% people of color, 44% male. They have renewed 99% of their school partners year over year. That is a huge client retention rate. Huge client retention rate. The principals have a net promoter score of 65. Net promoter scores, that's from that perspective, that's a good score. Our fellows have a net promoter score of 82. That's gigantic for new teachers. Um they just turned four, so they don't have long-term retention rates because this they they just turned four in in how they've done this. Um What do you mean by they just turned four? I'm sorry.

190Is it the program just four years old? >> Four Four years old. Thank you. >> Yes. Sorry. Um they had a case study that they'd included for us to read. And this was with the South San Francisco Unified School District. They committed to them uh in fall of 2022. At that point, they had a 60% fill rate, meaning that 40% of the time they couldn't find a sub. Since the fall of 2022, they've had at least one Teach Start fellow at every campus, and through that partnership, they have driven the fill rate up to 95%. Um Fellows providing 10% of uh their Teach Start fellows provide 10% of their new teachers over the last few years. So, there is Yeah, they did they did provide data. Yeah. You're welcome. Thank you, Ms. Burke. Thank you,

191Madam Chair. Thank you for your report and you explained it very well, but I still have a couple of questions. Yes, ma'am. Um You just read that and if it's in this forgive me regarding um Denver and you stated that Scoot That's the name of the correct name? First Teach or what? They do business as Teach Start. But yes, it's the Scoot contract, ma'am. So my question is because you stated it it's all over the country, the United States, correct? Mhm. Are there any school systems in our locality on the East Coast? Denver is quite different than in San Francisco or whatever than than Richmond, Virginia. So are there I would love to visit a school system that has a program such as this right now? I'm very familiar with um university instructors as tutors

192that started many years ago when it first started. I remember it well. And it was pretty good. I wasn't aware until you all brought this to us per se regarding training people to be teachers, but I thought the last meeting when we discussed this, was it cost-effective to consider both you said we would bring this one and that one first and instructors to the table. At the end of the day I love the seed program. But I'm not the only one making the decision here. Right now to bring in persons from other parts of the country when we have some people right here in the city of Richmond. Correct? Um I want to make sure that I'm understanding the comment. Okay. They are not recruiting people from outside of our market. So they are recruiting

193people in our market. So what's our market? Um as far out I think um, we talked about the distance people would be willing to commute is an hour to come to work. So, if you drop a pin, if you do a heat map of our schools and you drop a pin in the middle of that and you shoot out 70 mi an hour in each direction, that would be that's how you target a recruiting population. Is there a guarantee this is going to work? Because 4 years isn't enough data for me per se to be able to make that kind decision. I mean, the I mean, there is no actual if you're saying, "Hey, if this doesn't work, will we get our money back?" No. Just being transparent. >> much, we wouldn't get our money

194back. And because of the budget is so tight as well, I'm wondering if there's some other more cost-effective. The reason for bringing this program before us is it will save the team that you have cuz you don't have a team to be able to handle that capacity of hiring persons, right? Well, it it will give us a lot more scale for recruiting, but also please know that when we ran the financial analysis comparing the cost of our vacancies, because we are using the cost of our vacancies as the monetary comparison rate, because they will be provisionally licensed teachers within a year. So, that was the most reasonable monetary comparison to make. This program will yield us about a $400,000 savings compared to our vacancies. So, we are using our vacancy dollars to fund this program.

195You're welcome. Mr. Hedgepeth. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Elise for the for the Elise for the report. I think that uh my my maybe my greatest concern is the trifurcation that this creates of the um that there's three different pay bands. There's three different I guess there's Scoot will offer benefits. We don't offer benefits. University instructors don't offer benefits. And then also there we have a clawback for RPS. Uh meaning that that if we uh that it that there's a a three-year requirement that that person stays or that money is taken back. Um and that's not the case for Teach Start or for university instructors. Correct. Uh so I I I worry first off that that it's creating three different classes of subs. Uh but then I also wonder like what would prevent

196Scoot from taking or get like uh basically taking all of the seed candidates who uh we we don't provide benefits to and we also require that they stay for three years. Okay. So, can I respond uh in two chunks if we can chunk this? So, the first piece is when it comes to uh things like temp recruiting or agency recruiting, which is what I equate these types of programs to, it is very common that agency recruiting creates different salary bands amongst people in the same positions. A great example is our neighbors at VCU Health. At VCU Health, you have emergency room nurses that are making say $100,000 a year working right alongside emergency room travel nurses that are making $165,000 a year. So, that is actually not uncommon when you're dealing with agencies to help

197bring in volume of individuals. Any questions on that one? No, that makes sense. Thank Okay. Okay. The second component um was remind me what was the other piece that Essentially the skill taking from our seed program. >> Right. Thank you. Um Okay. So, each one of these programs has a different benefit to it, right? Teach start they give them benefits out of the gate. They really invest in them. But Teach start doesn't pay their tuition. Our program, we don't give them benefits but we pay for their tuitions and their costs. So, when you look at these programs individually in comparison to each other, each program has an an uh an independent benefit of each other. So, it would really depend on what folks want. And university instructors is already actively recruiting in Central Virginia because

198they have a contract, I believe um in Petersburg. I believe Henrico, maybe. Uh but I can get you that data. Um so, they're already recruiting in our space. So, if our long-term subs were like, I really like what's going on over there, they're going to jump anyway. You know what I mean? So, it really depends on what people want. And having the diversity of strategies is actually really good than the kind of let's put all of our eggs in Is that all of our eggs in one basket? All of our eggs in one basket. So, it's really for me it's about diversification. And getting different different offerings for for who are in different phases of their lives. Thank you. Madam Chair, one more, please. Uh thank you. Uh how how many new RPS recruiters could

199we hire for the cost of these two programs? Well, the So, that's a difficult question to answer because the cost of these programs are being covered by our vacancies. So, if I were to take if I were to ask Superintendent Cameras, "Sir, can I have another six recruiters?" You add up that salary, FICA, FEUTA, SUTA, benefits, retirement, those are those are dollars that we're taking from openings at our schools. Did I Did I explain that the way that Yeah. So, it it's kind of hard to answer that question because we would be taking positions from schools to hire recruiters to then try to fill positions at schools. So, it's really not entirely cost neutral. Got it. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Jafari. Okay, thank you. And like some of my colleagues have already said, I'm

200really not on board with having RPS be the proving ground. I'd like to see a little bit more experience. But having said that, uh correct me if I've I've got this wrong, and I want to get this correct so that I give a proper judgment here. Um So, after the program, we would get a provisional license teacher. Correct. >> And that person that individual would have to stay with us for a period of 3 years, you say? No, sir. Not with Teach Start or university instructors. That is our seed program has the clawback because in our seed program, we are paying for the cost of the journey to a provisional license. Okay. So so basically we are setting them up to be what's being licensed teachers. What is the incentive for them to stay here

201and not just bolt with what we're giving them? Hopefully our culture. Hopefully in the year that they've been with us, the principal, the assistant principals, and the support staff at the schools have created an environment where they don't want to leave us. And you think that's doable given the competition out there? I think that data and research has shown that people will leave because of the person they report to most often and there's data everywhere that shows that. You can look at Gallup, you can look at Gartner, McKinsey, uh McLean and company and they will all share the same data. Your manager has a greater impact on your mental health than your spouse and your therapist do. So if we can create serious, that just came out in Harvard Business Review, you can look it

202up. Yeah. And so if we can if we can create leaders in our organization that understand and embrace the power of culture and engagement, I think we'll see our retention rates skyrocket. So then it would be accurate to say that morale plays a part in that. Morale? >> Yes. Yes, morale, engagement, culture, all completely aligned. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any other thoughts? Um I do have just one question. How many vacancies do we currently have? Okay, another little bit of a difficult question to answer. Okay, so currently, as of today, if you look at our vacancy tracker, we are hovering anywhere between 92 and 95 teacher vacancies. Please understand, that does not include potential numbers with folks who are on provisional licenses who may not have done all the box checking that they needed

203to do to be able to either extend their license or get to full licensure. And it doesn't include any resignations that we may be receiving by the deadline that we gave on Friday. Thank you. Um thank you for the presentation. I think we just want to do a pulse check now. Obviously, um Mr. Cameras has shared that there is um wanting to understand if there's a consensus for us to move forward. So, I just need to get an understanding from you all as colleagues. Uh would you be open to um this idea? I I got a feeling it's about half and half, but I don't want to assume. I just want to get everybody's thoughts so we could just go around the room and share. Yes. Um I just want to get a pulse check,

204you know. Mr. Uh It Madam Chair, is your question if we are okay with voting on this tomorrow? Yes. Uh I am okay with voting on it tomorrow, and I will be voting against it. You'll be voting what? Okay. Mr. Percival. Uh I'm all for voting on it tomorrow. Same. Ready to vote for tomorrow. Good. Everyone good? Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you all. All right, um moving forward to um 5.01 receive an update on care and safety. Good evening, everyone. Uh we'll make this a brief brief about graduations. Um so you can see last year we got some good feedback from the graduations at the Siegel Center. Uh and we were able to take some of the information that we got and um put it towards this year, our planning, etc. Um so

205really we'll go on to page two. The graduation partners are the most important about these events. Without the police department, without Richmond Ambulance, without VCU and RMC, we couldn't have these events as safe as they are. Without these partners, it's it's really a non-negotiable. I've met with RPD, VCU, RMC, and actually Richmond Ambulance. So I've met with everybody. Plans are being put in place. RPD and VCU will have theirs finalized this week. Uh as you see the um graduations start May the 22nd. Um the Virtual Academy is May the 22nd at the Downtown Library. And then we go from there, the week after Memorial Day, the 26th, 27th, and 28th will be at the Siegel Center. Exactly like it was last year, the same setup, same security staff, same RPD staff, etc. New this year

206for the specialty schools on May the 29th, we're using the Singleton Center for Performing Arts at 922 Park Avenue. Being on VCU's campus, again VCU's involved, RPD's involved. We have ambulance authority and RMC as well. So, the same partners will be participating. The venue I like a lot better than we had Union. Union was Union was hard to secure. We still had stuff going on with the school. This center is going to be ours for the day and it's a a great venue as far as I'm concerned. Um most important we're putting out communications to families. The engagement team has done a great job on planning this and putting out information to families about what to bring, what not to bring. We've worked with VCU this year to tweak what we can bring in the

207venue a little bit more. We've combined our stuff and their or or ambitions to make sure we have a good list of items not to come in. And again, they've the engagement team's done a great job. The police chief did ask us to put out information about please don't bring any firearms even into the parking lots. So, engagement's helped with that and putting that information out as well. Sorry, where did you put that information out? So, if you go to and it's in the presentation, but there's a whole link for what's it called? Graduation. Road to graduation. Um on that website gives you everything that we've talked about today and more. So, really that's everything in a nutshell at and it does include a lot of everything prohibited. Um but is there any questions? Yes,

208just to further that question. Do families just need to know to go to that website or have we pointed them to that information? Engagement team through Parent Square, through the schools, they force that information out to the um parents. Wonderful. Any other questions? Thank you all very much. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate your thoroughness. Who has close? Sorry, Madam Chair, can I ask a real quick question about one of the other informational items. >> Sure. I saw that there was a contract for 25K. It's for Anna Julia Cooper, which made me which reminded me that of course schools, private schools that have students on IEPs get a certain amount of funding from us, and I believe they had until um May or June to encumber that funding. So, do we know if there's

209any funding coming back to us? Mr. Kamras or Ms. Shang. I do not have the exact amount, but I will follow up and provide it. Thank you. And then I do have closed. Thank you. Madam Chair, I move that the School Board of the City of Richmond convene in closed session to discuss and consider the assignment, appointment, and performance of administrative personnel, and to consult with legal counsel regarding the same issues as authorized by VA Code 2.2-3711.A.1 and A.8 to discuss and consider the performance and possible discipline of classified employees, and to consult with legal counsel regarding the same issues as authorized by VA Code 2.2-3711.A.1 and A.8, and to consult with legal counsel regarding issues related to FOIA and personnel matters as authorized by VA Code 2.2-3711.A.8. Second. It's been moved by Ms. Ricard

210and seconded by Mr. Hedgepeth. Madam Clerk. Mr. Percival. Yes. Ms. Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes. Mr. Hedgepeth. Yes. Ms. Rizzi. Ms. Holton. Yes. Ms. Burke. Yes. Mr. Jafari. Yes. Ms. Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. We are now in closed