001Mr. Perl >> here. >> Miss Ricard >> here. >> Mr. Farooq >> here. >> Mr. Hedgepath >> here. >> Miss Rissy. >> Dr. Harris Muhammad >> present. >> Miss Burke >> here. >> Mr. Jafari >> here. >> Miss Fernandez >> here. >> Madam Chair, we have a qu. >> Thank you. We have a echo. Okay. It's you've triggered us. We've we've had some Okay. All right. Thank you. Um and now we will go into our pledge of allegiance and moment of m moment of silence. Uh Dr. Harris Muhammed, could you lead us, please? Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation with liberty for all And now we'll have our translation services announcement. >> Good evening everyone. On
002behalf of the 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 that 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. And uh this evening we do have uh several amendments. Mr. Pible. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to amend the agenda of the December 1st, 2025 Richmond Public School Board meeting as follows. Add items 1.05, Remembrance of Solomon Jefferson. 3.06, update from evaluation committee. 3.07, 07 update on quit claim deed for more street. 3.08 receive an update on the Commerce Road site relocation proposal and defer item
0034.04 receive an update on subgroup academic performance and adopt the agenda as amended. >> Thank you. It's been moved by uh Mr. Pible and seconded by Miss Burke. Madame Clerk, >> Mr. Perl, >> yes. >> Miss Ricard, >> yes. >> Mr. Farooq, >> yes. >> Mr. Hedgepath, >> yes. >> Miss Rizzy, >> Dr. Harris Muhammad. >> Miss Burke, >> yes. >> Mr. Jafari, >> yes. >> Miss Fernandez, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. And now we're going to move to a very special moment um for us as we remember Chief Solomon Jefferson who was taken away from us far too soon. Um Mr. Cameras. >> Thank you Madam Chair. On behalf of RPS wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on the extraordinary contributions of our friend and colleague Solomon Jefferson.
004who served RPS for just over seven years and has had served education children here and Reicho, Atlanta, New York uh for nearly 30 years. He brought enormous joy to every room that he walked into. And the biggest heart, loved his scholars, as he called them, and was thrilled the other day when he ran into some of them at the market. Couldn't remember their names, but he was thrilled to see them nonetheless. He made an extraordinary set of contributions here at RPS leading our secondary work. As you all know, we have achieved historic graduation rates, highest rates for economically disadvantaged students for black students in nearly 20 years. Um, and more than that, he just brought a a tireless spirit, a boundless love to the work every day. I was reading the really wonderful article in
005the Richmonder about the dropout recovery work um that he has led and it's such a wonderful testament to who he was. And I just wanted to read this one quote. He said talking to everybody assembled in the room, all the high school counselors and and some principles as well, just remember when you get weary, know that this is a huge payoff. When you make those phone calls, you don't hear back, try another phone and another and another. Guess what? It will pay off. And it certainly did. He always went the extra mile for his scholars, for RPS, and for all of us. And it certainly paid off. As I shared in my message, there are children today who have a diploma from Richmond public schools. There are young people today who are alive because of
006the work that's all. We are all better off for having gonna show a very brief tribute, open it up if there are any additional tributes board members would like to make and I would ask we close with a moment of silence to members. Wow. Um, you know, when we first heard the news of uh Chief Jefferson's passing, um, it was important to us as a board, one to just ensure that the leaders in the administration understood that we, uh, were here to support, um, in any way that we could. Um, but then also to ensure that we were very intentional about honoring him. It just didn't feel right coming into a board meeting and he not be the center of attention um because of the work and the legacy that he led. And so um
007several of our colleagues separately and um said, "Oh, we just have to do something. We have to share. We have to And I said, we are all on the same page. And so, you know, unfortunately, I've seen one too many funerals this year, um, starting with the loss of my mom and several other people, and we don't often get the opportunity to share. And so now I just want to give the opportunity for not just board members but also if anyone from the administration just wants to share a story or or would like to honor Chief Jefferson. Um the floor is yours, >> Mr. Pible. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'm gonna purposely not make eye contact with anybody. Um, what I am going to miss uh from Solomon's presence and I was talking
008to the chair after his passing and this is not to the detriment of anybody that works in RPS, but if if I had to pick sort of a face of RPS, I really think that Solomon was that face. He was passionate about everything that he did and and really that's the key word, passion. But what I am going to miss uh with Solomon not being here is um when you asked Solomon a question, you did not get an answer. You got attacked with answers. That man was always prepared. He always had a plan and he always had a multitude of answers to give to you. And uh so yes, RPS is poorer today for the absence of Solomon. Thank you. Please just feel free to chime in. >> Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess basically I'm
009just going to miss that smile and that welcoming demeanor that he always had with him. But I'm really thankful I got to that November 20th meeting right as it was ending. And I guess more than anything, the way he reported himself even then after such a long day really speaks to the real nature of the gentleman himself professional acumen you know after being I'm sure in and out of schools all day and being at that meeting an hour and a half he still stood outside with me about 30 35 minutes until every question was resolved and true to being Solomon Jefferson he smiled still held his position so I'm going to miss I guess our charge as a board and his professional colleagues dedicated to uplifting education throughout the division. Is there a charge to
010just carry on what he left us with? Smile and a driven attitude. Thank you. >> I just want to echo what Mr. Jafari said. I found Solomon so warm. Probably for a a new board member, someone that would just make you feel instantly comfortable and like belong there belonging. And while I was not at the November 20th meeting where he met with Kennedy alumni to talk about the renaming, I listened to it after we heard of his passing. And it was a master class in how to be a chief, how to lead with love but not shy away from difficult conversations, to listen. And um it is a real loss for RPS, but we are lucky to have had him for what we did. This is a hard one. Seven years great things happen. Seven
011seven7th district seven is the closest thing to heaven. And I know that's where he is. having all the opportunities to work with Solomon. Um he was one that no matter how I addressed him, he was just consistent in terms of listening. I thought he was one of the best listeners ever and whether we agreed or disagreed, he was always respectfully. And as Mr. First of those stated that he was warm, he was kind. It was like, "Come on now. I got to" and he was just always the same, serene, and always the opportunity to come back and ask questions or whatever else. I'm thinking back to the day after we returned from I received a lot of phone calls from person and I was on the phone. I said I did a home run. He
012did what? Oh, he was it was like I said he did he said what and you all agreed to do what? I said whoa. I said wait a minute. I got a phone call on the other line. May he rest. May he know that work continues to speak for him and may his legacy continue throughout the public schools. Let's not let him down. Let's keep lifting each other up and being patient and good listeners. Um, this, you know, has been truly a shock. Um, what I'd say about Solomon is he like a rock, right? He was something that you always took for granted. He was always there. And his presence, at least for me, made me know that everything ultimately would be okay. Um he was full of love love. He smiled more than anybody
013I ever knew. Um and in fact there were times when I would try to you know egg him on and be like come on now. You know you don't want to smile. Stop letting that person talk to you like that. And you know you want to cut somebody out. And you know I could see you know I mean having been from Richmond Solomon had it in him but it was hard to pull it out. He I've never been able to pull it out of him. Right. So, it was hard. You could you would never get him out of character. You would never um you know, even though I I tried sometimes, you could never get him to step outside of um the steady, calm presence that he um always demonstrated and showed. And so, I
014um would say that he's a better person than I am in that. Um, and I admired him for his ability to take one on the chin, keep smiling, and keep working. Um, and I know that he can see here how much he is roundly loved, universally loved, and uh we'll we'll keep witnessing Mr. Jefferson was truly a jewel to work with. Um, a void in our team of governance and academics and everything scholars, everything great for us scholars. Um, Mr. Jefferson and I will have a variety of conversations from how do you find the time to do all the things that you do to um talking about the state of affairs of public education for students. Um and we had courageous conversation that um always ended with I appreciate your honesty Dr. Harris Muhammad and
015I will always say and I appreciate in the way you receive it. So our work um in his name and his honor is to continue the legacy that he left in the city and that is to um make sure that we are modeling equity for all of our students regardless of their zip code that we are providing support for our families in transition regardless of their circumstances. our um modeling for his legacy is to do things in decency and order and that I believe that's what he believed. Um the the last moment that I spent in his presence was at the John F. Kennedy town hall discussion, work session if you will. And I just sat quietly in the back. Um, and that was a bit of a tough crowd and he just knew how
016to work with them and meet them where they were. And so I'm very appreciative um to have known him, to have worked with him, not just as a schoolboard member, but I will always say to him, but you're also my colleague because we do this work. We may, you know, I may be on the school board, but we see each other in so many other spaces because we do this work together. And so, um, he's in a blessed place. I believe that. I'm gonna continue to believe that and I'm just very grateful that he contributed to my growth as an educator. Um, and so that I would take with me and you know to to my um favorite schoolboard member from the seventh um to God be the glory for the great things that he
017has done in his life. And even though we believe it was shortlived, you know, a wise man said to me, "God makes no mistakes." And so I believe that and I'm standing in that. And so our job now is to honor him by continuing to do what he did when he was here with us. Thank you. Chief Jefferson had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room, that you were the most important person for to him at that particular moment. Nothing else uh mattered. And um that that sticks with me and I remember um not long after last year's elections at the Hugenat football game was talking with Dr. from NASA and he introduced uh Solomon to me and um and you know before even starting this position
018I felt at home because of the the the conversation, the care and the camaraderie that that he demonstrated. Um and and I'll I'll never forget that. Um, I don't think I'll say anything that anyone else hasn't already shared. Um, I remember when I was first appointed as um, a school board member. He was one of my first one-on- ons and we talked um for quite a while. But more than anything, we talked we started with education, but it ended with us talking about us as believers and we were quoting scriptures back and forth to each other. That was the type of person that I remember. and um and Chief Jefferson not just the educator but the man of God that he was. And um that gives me peace. Um, what I also appreciate about him
019is, you know, there will be a meeting in there might be one or two more answers than what questions that he would have probably liked because he was one that liked to have his stuff ticked and tied and his presentation tight and and um there may be additional questions that the board members have. There was not one time where he didn't if it might not be the next day, but the day after that I would get a phone call wanting me to make sure that I understood his position and his commitment and and I would always say to him, "You don't have to do that. I I got it. I'm with you." You know, I appreciate you. And it's interesting enough, the last time I spoke with him was two days after the school board
020meeting and it was a five-minute conversation and I always end it with, "Thank you for the work that you do. I appreciate you and I'm so glad that I was able to say that to him one last time." And it does serve as a reminder for us. as I saw all of the emails and phone calls um that I've heard about and um on social media of the outpour of love by so many people from all across the country, I asked myself, did he really know? Did he know how many people appreciated him? Did he know how many people were impacted by his work? And so it's just a reminder for us to give flowers and but I am honored to have known him and I believe that you know some say he didn't have
021children but I beg to differ. RPS was his child and that's the legacy that he leaves behind. and he was truly committed and you could see it in his smile. And I agree with um Miss Rizzy, even that it didn't seem like he should smile. He would tilt his head a bit, think about his response before he said it, he was always intentional in that way. And so, not only does he leave a legacy for education, but also in kindness. And we can learn a lot from that. Anyone else want to share? Of course. >> So, you know, I know we have a separation of church and state in here, but um you know, I think of scriptures when I think of people, and I think the one that always comes to mind when I
022think of Solomon is James 1:19 20. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. And that and that I think encapsulates what I really truly admire about. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, board members. I know there are many people watching tonight who will be deeply moved by all of your words and um we will make sure that his family gets to see them as well. Uh once we have the green light from his family, we will share the service information broadly with the public because I know there are many from near and far who would like to pay their respects. So, please be on the lookout for that.
023In a minute, I'll ask us all to rise. But I do want to note, and Solomon would want me to note that over the weekend, we also lost student Wilson, 15year-old uh who we tragically lost. And so, we mourn his passing as well. So if everyone could uh please join me in remembering both Solomon and the moment of silence. Thank you all. All right, we'll now transition into um the rest of the meeting this evening. Um but before we do, I I know I shared an email with the leadership and the administration But I do want to say publicly um just thank you. Um it is not easy to do the work that we do um but to do it under extreme circumstances when you yourself are grieving and you're comforting those that are mourning
024as well. It it takes a lot. It takes guts. And so, um, to Superintendent Camerois and to all the chiefs who over the past week have championed leadership in a manner that that was one professional, but just incredibly difficult. Thank you for leading with love and for sharing your transparency and heart. Um, we had an opportunity to just connect with some of the members of the administration that work closely with Mr. Jefferson and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house, but as folks started to come in, I saw your leadership on full display and comforting others while we know you were hurting, too. And I know that that takes a lot. And so I just want to publicly thank you all for your leadership. And um just know that us as
025a board is here to do whatever we need to um as we move forward. for me and you know Katie were there and we said if we have to field emails and I did a couple this weekend um take the time you need to just go and reflect and be with your family and sometimes we have to be reminded that they're not robots they are people too so thank you for your labor of love okay moving right along to dreams for our PS 2.01 received update um on the new state accountability system as Dr. Wiggins and Miss Wade are coming up. Um we've pivoted this a little bit to discuss bless you uh the new so cut scores and uh changes to ESSA the uh federal accountability system. Um do want to note that Miss
026Wade is one of Mr. Jefferson's direct reports and um to everything that Madam Chair just said, we we so appreciate you being here tonight and we have others uh from his team presenting tonight as well and I think it speaks to who you are as leaders and people and the heart that you have for RPS to carry forward in this name. So, I just want to say thank you to you. Good evening school board members, superintendent cameras. I am Valenca Wade, manager of testing, and tonight I am going to share the newly adopted cut scores um with you all. These cut scores are for our new our standard of learning assessment specifically for mathematics and reading. And then I'm going to share with you the ESSA changes that the state is proposing and they will
027meet on later this month. So what is a cut score? The cut score, it gives us insight on how a student is performing on the so test. There are three main levels of performances that students can earn. Starting with the highest being advanced, then proficient, then basic. Students who are testing in grades three through eight math and reading, they have an additional level of performance, which is below basic. It is not unusual for cut scores to change and to be adjusted. It happens every few years. In fact, whenever there's a change to the standard of learning and the essential skills and knowledge that students are required to learn, we do anticipate the cut scores to change. So, it's not unusual. Um, in my 20 years of education, I've seen the cut scores go up and
028I've seen them go down, but this is by far the largest increase that we've had in one single term. And so, as you can see here, um, these are our newly adopted club scores by the state department. Um, for reference, currently students only need to earn a 400 to pass the so test with proficient. And as you can see, um, the proficient scores are going to increase between on an average 40 points for a student to score proficient. So, this is by far the largest increase we've seen in a while, but we will our students will rise to the occasion. Um so the state did receive a lot of feedback from community members and various stakeholders and to that they determined they decided to put in a multi-year phase in model and have a new
029performance level temporarily called approaching proficiency. And the way the way this will work every year for the next three years the approaching proficiency score will be a little less than what the proficiency scores required for the students to pass the so test. So each year that proficiency score that approaching proficiency score it will increase and then the third year it will not increase anymore because it's going to drop off and then 2930 school year it will be full implementation of the new cut scores. I will tell you that things are changing very fast and this particular slide is need to be updated. So we know the 2526 school year is going to be considered a zero year. So what I want you all to do mentally is just shift every year down. And so we
030know that this is going to start your approaching is going to start in 2627. So third grade if you can look at it just for clarity for third graders this year they'll need a 400 on the reading so well test. next school year 2627 they'll need a 418 then a 426 then a 435 and then the the 444 and so this is the approaching level that the state is implementing and approaching it will count as a passing score but any student who scores with the approaching uh proficiency will count as a passing score. So we know that graduation u requirements will remain the same. Um however as noted earlier the students will need a higher score on the inner course test to pass and get a verified credit even with the approaching pass rates. Um
031the students still need to score 20 points higher than what they currently have um for the EOCC reading. Um students who already passed the EOCC test under the previous scores will keep those scores. And I do want to stay a little bit longer in this last bullet. U retesters will always use the passing score that was in place at the time of their initial attempt. This is really a great thing, right? But I do want to state the logistic the logistics that can be very tedious for our schools and additional burden that some of our school test coordinators may have because now they have to track every student in high school the year they took the test and the score that was attached to the test at the time they took the test. They have
032to track that until the student finishes high school. So you're looking at six years of tracking different scores for students to pass the test. And so my very last conversation with Solomon was was around sorry um this my very last conversation with Solomon was around the importance of getting school test coordinators at the high school level. And I told him I said hey I'm going to mention that at this bullet am I going to get in trouble? He said no of course not. In fact he said um I am going to advocate for it during budget season again. So um the school test coordinator is on high school level. The work is very hard. It's very tedious. The logistics of being a school test coordinator requires a lot of delicate work and it will be
033really helpful to have a dedicated person to be responsible for tracking these type of things in addition to a very complex accountability system. So that is um the updates to the new cut scores. Are there any questions about the new cut scores? Miss Berg, Dr. Harris Muhammed, Mr. Hedgepath. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your report. Every time I see the data, I see you and learn something different or more. Um, I'm so pleased that you asked in advance. I remember last year we discussed the budget, Mr. Cod stated that she work was That's That's the We're going to have to find a way. We're going to have to find a way because we don't want to slip back. I was This is on a personal note talking to someone in Washington DC
034today and she said Richmond public schools is all over the place. Your graduation rate, your attendance rate. And I was surprised. I said, "You knew all about Richmond." He said, "But you all are the model for others." So my point with that is we don't want to go backwards. We may have to sacrifice something else, but that that person is needed at school. that person I know it's not on you but please continue to put it out there and it's for us >> Dr. Harris Muhammed. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for this presentation. Um really appreciate it and you really he would be proud of you. You really did it with grace and poor. So thank you so much for that. I just want to to your point um I'm an advocate of
035school testing coordinators and I just want to share with the board that um some in the past you might remember this Miss Burke or Miss Renzy we were there were a qu there was a question excuse me about well what do what do the school counselors do? Well, there was legislation um two years ago that specifically stated because this conversation is coming back because of the ch and the responsibility that has to happen that school counselors have to be in front of children 80% of the time. And so, um it can't be them. I just wanted to put that plug in there for school counselors because I fully support them, but it can't be them. Second, so thank you for um advocating for that again. And then also um also thank you for advocating. The
036board may not know that you were one of many school testing managers, directors or whomever who was giving your voice on behalf of the division. So thank you for that. Um I saw you in those spaces and I saw your name on the screen. So I just wanted to publicly say thank you. You represented the division very well. Um lastly, how are we even though this is good news? This is really good news. Um and Mr. Cameron, I know you were one also advocating and sharing and just as as our superintendent. So, thank you as well. How will we um help calm some of the misinformation that's already out there within the schools? How can we That may not be a question you can answer maybe Mr. cameras or um Chief Wiggins, but there were
037there was still some misinformation out there and that happens because our community um sometimes do not get the right information. >> One minute >> when that when that information comes out. So, I just wanted to hear how we're going to communicate that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammad. Um we've certainly been discussing it with our school leaders. Um, and we will certainly do a lot more uh, communication over the course of the spring. As Miss Wade noted, one of the challenges is that things continue to evolve month by month as the Virginia Board of Education weighs in as as they should. So for example uh the current school year as a year zero meaning the new scores will not go into effect is a relatively new development which we've
038been sharing uh broadly. There might be some additional changes with a new governor coming in as well. And so we want to be uh we want to share as much as we can, but also uh try to figure out when is the kind of final uh place where there aren't going to be a ton more changes so that we don't uh continually have to come back to folks and keep changing. So I do believe come the spring things should be pretty set. We'll know what direction the the new governor will will want to go in. Um and then we'll make sure to to show that broadly not just with our schools but with our families too because um given the the changes in scores uh parents and caregivers whose students typically score uh in one
039band might find themselves in a different band. Again, not this year because the change isn't happening, but they need to be prepared for that going into the upcoming school year. So we will definitely focus on that spring, summer, and into the fall. >> Thank you, Mr. Hedgeb. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Miss Wade, very much for for the work that you're doing. Um, is there any indication that they might change the number of questions on tests or the waiting of particular questions because I feel like that might also change the the the score. Uh, so is is is that going to stay the same right now? Is there any indication for the makeup of the test? >> Right now, we don't know. I know there's some conversations about maybe going to a different
040assessment vendor, but it's just conversation. So, we just don't really know. Um, I know for the fall and for the spring, the test will remain the same. Um, but just have to wait and see. Um, the board decides, state board decides, >> Mr. Jafari. >> Thanks, Madam Chair. Thank you guys for your work this regard as I sit here and I look at my data coming in like I'm really interested in what actually drives how do we arrive and and I know my constituents fully expected over a period of time cut scores will change but even as I look at this point change seems to be a bit much. So this question I suppose but also I would like to ask give us some idea of the parameters. what drives uh what should be driving
041how we arrive at increasing these kinds of scores and requirements because again uh in a number of areas there were increases but the 40 points really grabs me and just looking at it it just looks like somebody moved a goal post so I'm just kind of wondering you know do we have somebody who is do we have a a number of folks that's sitting on a board and just making a decision and if they are what should be driving their decision. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Jafari. Miss Wade can share more about this, but at a high level uh the impetus uh from uh Governor Yncan and the Virginia Board of Education was to bring greater alignment between how Virginia students perform on the SOS and how they perform on what's
042called the National Assessment of Education Progress, which is the only national test given in all 50 states. It's given every other year in fourth grade and eighth grade in reading and math. It's considered the gold standard of American assessments and it's what the country uses to track progress over long periods of time, decades. If you look at the NAP, the NAPE, Virginia students are something like uh 30 40% proficient in reading. And if you look at the SOS, Virginia students are something like 70 to 80% proficient. And so the the goal was to bring these things into greater alignment by changing the cut scores so that the percentage of students scoring proficient on the SOS would more match those scoring proficient on the NATE. Uh, and if you look at the lack of alignment between
043those two tests, some studies suggest Virginia has the biggest gap. And so the the goal was to make Virginia the most rigorous in the country, which is why you see such a big jump. There are lots of different feelings, beliefs, research, uh, about that goal. I will say generally speaking I am a very big supporter of high standards and high expectations and so I do think some increase makes sense. Um I will note the national assessment of education progress and the SOS are built on different standards so they don't test exactly the same things. So I think there's some debate which is worthy there. But bottom line, as I've shared broadly and publicly, I support higher standards. It's what I think we all want for our students. And I support higher investment, which is what
044I think Virginia schools need to be able to reach those higher standards. As Miss Wade has said and continues to say, um, we will rise to the occasion and we will do what it is necessary for our students. We ask, uh, in particular the state to continue to invest in, um, to meet what I think are more significant obligations created by the higher cut schools. And so that's where my advocacy and I think generally our advocacy is best seen. this record. >> Do we have any sense of how the change in governor may may impact any of this? >> Mr. Cameron, >> I have not personally spoken to Governor Electburgger. Um, so I I I can't say for certain. Um, and so don't want to speculate. I think that would probably be the best course
045of action. >> Mr. reversible. >> Just a comment really and I'm I'm glad that the superintendent touched on the uh investment aspect of this because I do believe that we had a missed opportunity in Virginia to not only raise the cut scores by 10% but possibly have tied that to a a public announcement that we were going to invest 10% more in schools. Wouldn't that have been great? Uh but here we are. So here we're having a debate about how we can afford uh school test coordinators in order to manage all this and with the superintendent. I don't think any of us are afraid of high expectation. We would just really love to have the resources to go along with it. So just a commentary. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um aside of our conversation,
046I asked uh uh Mr. cameras. What would be the FTE for um the school testing coordinators? Um from my understanding, you'll need about three or four. Well, if you ask the high school principles, they would all like one, which would take us closer to nine. >> You get a car. >> I think they would be grateful uh for any support that we could provide. So I think at minimum three or four which would have to be shared across schools. Um but yes of course even more would be better. >> And payroll that would be about 90,000 >> 90 to 100,000 with benefits likely. Yes. >> Okay. All right. I just want to >> get an idea of as we go into budget season what we're going to be thinking about. Yeah. Right. Dr. Harris Muhammed,
047>> I know we're not having a budget discussion, but then when we get there, I So, let me make this recommendation for us to not all of us have high schools in our district, but I would recommend really having an open conversation with a building principal, a high school principal, or even an assistant principal if you know one. Um, I can definitely speak to having served as a school testing coordinator. Every high school needs their own SEC. To share them is going to make that six-year work turn into 12 years because they have to start tracking not only by cohort >> 30 seconds >> but also on the middle school level because we offer EOC courses on the middle school level. may have to track as early as seventh grade. So, I'm glad we're having
048this discussion, but really do the research so we can because we we really need to advocate. Um, and the and the advocation, that's not a word. I just made it up. But the advocating sounded real good. The advocating starts now. Thank you, Miss Rizzie. >> Thank Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I I agree with all of that. And I think along with it, it would be really great as far as I'm concerned to connect with other districts who are managing this and um collaborate and talk about how we can um you know work work with each other to support you know the work that we have to do. We don't want to continue to address these issues in vacuums when we have, you know, sister districts that are also um facing the same challenges. So
049um in any way if we could collaborate with other districts and talk about and share ideas for how to address this, I think that would be >> Thank you. So the next few slides are the ESSA updates. um getting communication out to parents and making sure it doesn't change. It's really hard as the superintendent mentioned because there's a lot of changes that are taking place within the state department. Um this is one of the changes. Um as I talked about earlier, there are three main level of performances for most tests except for uh elementary math and reading. They have four. And so where you have a test that only has three level of performances, they're going to change the the mastery index to 0.5. It's currently 7 five, but they're going to change it to
0500.5. And so if you look at ELC scores now, that's going to come out the next few weeks and you compare next year to next year's uh scores, it's going to be a little bit different because the weight is going to change. And so um the weight is going to now be a 0.5 instead of a 75 for any test to have three levels of performance which is mainly our high school test our EOCC test. Participation is required um by the atessa we are required to have a 95% participation rate. We do pretty well overall. That's not an issue. But the concern that the state has is with the student groups. Um right now they have lowered the amount of number of students that count as a student group. It was 30, now it's 15.
051So if you have one student absent, that's a 93%. You're not going to make it. That's not fair. So the state is going to talk about how they can change that policy um moving forward in the future. So we'll look forward to that conversation in the next week when they have their board meeting. We know that any student that does not take the test will count as a zero. Um that students who are refusing parent refusal or students who may get caught cheating, they will count as a zero. As far as the student growth model, we know the state is going to go back to the progress tables instead of using what we're currently using for this measurement of this new the data that's coming out the next few weeks. They'll be they were using
052the VBOS for growth. Next year they're going to be next year they'll be using the um Virginia progress tables which we like. We know how to use them. Our schools are familiar with them. Elementary and middle school teachers and principles are happy about this change. This is a positive change. This is a good change. The readiness indicator um and I reported to you all last time the integrated reading writing was under the mastery index. it is now going to be put down to the readiness index for elementary and middle school. Also for the advanced coursework, uh middle school will include earth science and royal geography in the next couple of years. As far as enlistment, the state wants to reward students who are actively um participating in GR JRTC and those who will potentially go
053into the military. We don't we don't want students just taking the ASVAB test because they get credit. Want to make sure that they're on track to go into the military. As far as the English learners, currently our students in elementary and middle school can be exempt for the first year of taking a reading or history test. The state is now going to be moving to um option B, which requires all students to take the so test and not be exempt. The first year the scores will not count. The second year growth will only count. And then the third year the scores and growth will count. And so that's option B that um our state is going to flip over to um for our English learners. And so the next uh Virginia board meeting is going
054to be December the 11th. And so we should be hearing all these proposed change go into action. That is the updates we have as of now. Stay tuned. There will be some more likely to come in the near future. Are there any questions about the cut scores or the changes to ESA? >> Mr. Farooq. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. About how many students do we have that either refuse to take the test or don't take the test? Roughly >> maybe about five or 10%. It's very low. >> Usually at our high schools. >> You don't anticipate that being a problem for us going forward? No, not at all. >> Thank you. >> Apparent refusals maybe, >> but not student refusal. >> So, um I still want my oneonone with you. >> Anytime. >> Let's get
055that on the schedule for December. Um I just wonder and obviously, you know, this is coming like they say the train is moving just, you know, you got to just hop on board and completely understand that. My question though is how are we truly preparing one our staff uh for these changes and and what direction are we taking in turn of preparing them and how they train our scholars for this change because obviously at our rate we're we're definitely moving the needle but we need drastic change. So what are we implementing or have we started that conversation yet? >> So we meet with principles. Um we actually did this princip this actual presentation the principles um Friday before last. So we do share the changes as they come. Um as far as >> so yes
056we do share the changes with principles. It has never really been a um the last couple of years there have been a lot of changes and so we are constantly trying to adjust to the changes but as we have information we give them information and then in the background we are also looking at student performance which we always do especially for our student subgroups we are constantly looking to see how are they performing what additional um strategies do we need to put in place what's working here let's share it over there. So, we're always looking for those things on the elementary and middle school level because that is a little different than high school. But in high school, they've been preparing too and looking at all of the things as Valencia talked about the accountability
057system last time last month. There is all those pieces that have been put into place on the high school level to make sure that we are taking accountability for the 3E models and all of the ways that you can gain points because it's the mastery index, but it's also the other pieces. And so, we've really had to educate the principles and prepare and structure our schools to be ready to do these things. And so, um, Dr. Bell, who's in charge of high school, principal director for high school, and then all of our other principal directors for elementary and middle, are constantly helping to educate Valenta overall, but then going in so that we can utilize the strategies that we have in place to continue because as you said, Miss Fernandez, we need big pushes forward
058and the goalpost is moving. So, we have to analyze every single thing. It's not about grade levels and it's not about schools overall. It is about every single student and what that student needs in order to progress. And so that is the work that we do every day a lot with um John Grove's team um um looking at every single student classes. Um, sometimes it'll be great to show you a breakdown of all the things that we look at um, in student performance in order to make sure that we are giving every student an opportunity to um, meet their goals and beyond. That would be great to to be able to get an understanding of what strategic plan is put in place. And while I appreciate engaging with the principles so that they're aware of
059the changes, we know that there can sometimes be a lack of consistency from school to school based upon whatever the strategic pri priorities are of that particular school. And so what I would like to understand and see is what strategic plan will be in place to ensure that everyone is moving with the right rhythm at the right time. Um and I know that this is all new but um I think that would be extremely important to ensure that everyone understands what the vision is and executes accordingly. >> We'd love to show you. So just as soon as we can get on the calendar, we will do a presentation. It'll take a minute to show you all the pieces. Um but um that is what we seek too that consistency school by school. Not just this
060school is doing it, this one over here, but every school. So we want to talk to you about um Dr. Bell could talk to you about the championship habits meeting habits meetings and then we can talk to you about the tactical meetings and how we're meeting with every school and going through their data talking about next steps moving forward. So we'd love to share that. Thank you, Mr. Jafari and Miss Rizzy. >> Thank you. Uh just as a followup and Madam Chair hit on it briefly there a moment ago, we clearly understand change that kind of thing. But I just I just think that we just need to be mindful of being in such a crunch to get a drive to get to those numbers that we The number one crux of what of what
061really pushes education and retention of what we're learning, stability. We're going to have to be able to balance the two, push for the numbers, as well as giving our scholars an ongoing feeling of stability and security, which gives them the confidence to to grasp all of the stuff we're going to be pushing. I just I just want to make sure that we don't miss that in that push to get to those 40 points. Real possibility. >> Abs. Absolutely. And one of the um things and we as a leadership team because we just don't look at academics, we look at all the other pieces. Um um Dr. um Green Bell talks about um making sure our students are in school because it's hard for us to teach them if they're not there. um um Chief Parks,
062the wellness department, all of these pieces work together. Getting um kids to school on time, all of those pieces, having highly qualified teachers in place in our schools and making sure that we have professional development that supports where we need our children to go. And so all of those pieces work together and those are the things we talk about in our leadership team meetings to make sure that we are moving forward with every school and putting those um things in place. So yes, and I remind the team all the time, every number is children. And so that's the thing. Yeah, we shoot for the numbers, but it's really about getting our children where they need to be. Um because that is the big question. Thank you, Miss Rizzy. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just
063want to back up a little bit. Um, would you please explain for lay people what ESSA is and what role it plays in accreditation? So ESSA is the every student succeeded act and it is um legislation from USCD and it's their accountability for schools and so it's federal accountability is what it is and our state has tried to merge state accountability and federal into one system. So whenever the federal system changes, it's going to automatically impact directly our state accountability because we are so much more aligned to the federal standards than we have ever been with our accountability system for our state. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving right along to receive an update on RPS goal seven enrollment. Good evening, Madam Chair, Superintendent Cameas, members of the school board. Uh my name is
064Luke Hosteder. I'm the director of enrollment placement and planning, and I'm excited to share an update on Dreams for RPS goal 7 enrollment. I'm going to talk about two things this evening. First is an update on our enrollment uh for this school year 2526 and then provide a brief update on school applications. Goal seven uh measures increasing student enrollment overall and for each subgroup which we use the fall membership the student record collection that's captured on the 30th of September of each school year to report our enrollment progress year to year. The numbers that you'll see in a moment include all preschool through 12th grade students as of September 30th in that fall membership count. This is different than the average daily membership which is a different calculation uh and is captured at the end
065of March each school year and looks at the average membership of students the total membership of students divided by the number of days that school was in session. So for the purposes of this presentation for goal 7 we're looking at the fall membership not ADM. I'm excited to share that enrollment is up from last school year and continues to increase from school year 2324. Since enrollment is an ongoing process and we never stop enrolling students in RPS, we've actually enrolled 221 additional students since the fall student record collection as of November I think it says 21st. I can't see um that slide, but it's as of November 21st. Um so we continue to enroll students. Um as you can see here, we haven't fully rebounded from um where we were shortly before um the pandemic,
066but we continue to increase. And while the data is not yet public um on all um school division um sites on the school quality profiles, we've been in conversation with a number of our colleagues and know that this is not uh universally the case in urban school districts in Virginia. So we're encouraged to see continued increases. This slide just shows u demographic shifts over the last three years. And we uh have been following American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau to see how does the population of Richmond City um track against our enrollment changes and see that those changes are um generally reflective of one another. So as the city undergoes changes, we see that reflective in enrollment as well. And then these charts here and this next one just show that demographic data
067visually that I shared on the slide before. The enrollment and planning department in collaboration with the wellness office, the welcome center, the CFIT team, of course, our fabulous school staff uh continue to improve the process by which we support families so that their child is enrolled ready to learn on day one. Uh we continue to focus focus on rising kindergarten students. This year, um, we contacted almost 800 rising kindergarten families that we knew of who were enrolled in preschool, um, many times, several times, plus to make sure that they were aware of the enrollment process and were ready to go and enrolled before the school year ended. That is, they were done with what they needed to do before the summer uh, last summer break. Uh, and we had over half of our rising kindergarten
068families ready to go. uh we look to increase that number this year so that we don't have folks waiting or waiting on us better to say um so that their child is uh in school learning on day one. We've surveyed about a thousand families who enrolled later in the season closer to the start of the school year to understand how we can better support them. And so we're planning some uh increased in-person support opportunities this coming August. Uh, and we've also leveraged new technology this year to create automated processes for our school teams so they can worry less about tracking the data and more about doing what they do best, which is connecting with students and families and helping them with the process. So, we're excited to see how that is speeding up uh the
069work and reducing weight times for families. I'm excited to share tonight something that our department at least has never shared with the school board which is a little insight into how we project enrollment for the coming year each year. So our department conducts an annual enrollment projections process that looks at uh historic data and says what might we think this uh that enrollment will look like at the school and grade level and we roll that all the way up to the district level. We're in the process of completing that work for this school year. So, or for the next school year. So, I don't have enrollment projections data to share this evening, but we are as soon as we wrap that up sharing that with school leaders to get on the ground insights from them
070about their community to make sure that we're layering that into the work. But this chart here, I'll do a very quick explanation of. You can see that as we go over left to right in time, we see these pairs of school years and we look how a grade is um metriculating into the next grade. So we see first grade in 22 23 and this is just an example was 100 students the next year is 106. So we would call that a grade progression rate of 106%. We look at those grade progression rate pairs over time and take an average. So in this case we have 104% as our uh overall grade progression rate. And if we have 97 students this year we would apply that grade progression rate and assume we would have 101 students
071next year. We do this at every school, at every grade with a couple of exceptions. For kindergarten, we don't do this. We use data from the Virginia Department of Health. We look at birth rate data from years past, apply it to inzone um location at the time, and then project forward. And then for fifth to sixth and 8th to 9th, we look at the grade progression rate, but also look at historical data around new resident enrollment into sixth and nth grade since we do see increases historically more so at those grades. and we look at historical open enrollment seat offers. And I'll just note that the grade progression rate um is something that is best practice across the country. Uh and we're in constant conversation with other departments, school divisions that do this work to
072kind of make sure we're staying on the cutting edge of thinking about this work. I want to skip an exciting uh data point to share, which was that um last year our projection uh for this current school year was 99.6% accurate. We're excited that we were so accurate. We want to be within two percentage points or so. That's generally what we understand within the field to be best practice or the the target to shoot for. These numbers are used for a variety of things for staff allocation for budget planning and other resources. Uh and we are in the process of doing that right now and be sharing it with school leaders and of course all of you for your districts in the coming month. Today was the deadline for our selective admission phase of the
073school application process. So, I know that all of those families um completed that uh application by 4:30 p.m. today. This is an in uh photo of one of our um school uh application support events at River City Middle School. This year we continued our focus on meeting everyone where they were and leaving no stone left unturned in terms of reaching families and students who are interested in applying to an out of zone school. We did school visits at every middle school. We had a variety of family support events like the one you just saw. We had teams on the ground at schools uh and um collaborated with our multilingual learners, exceptional education department, our communication department within the engagement office and a variety of others to make sure that everyone was aware of these opportunities.
074These are just some resources that you can see uh that we shared. The left is a checklist we shared with families. There are variety of events and we were um thrilled to see the turnout that uh we had from the community in terms of coming out to get support. This is just an insight into where we are with applications. Um as of November, um you can see that the um three types, open enrollment, selective admission schools, and our governor schools. And then we did pull out the open enrollment schools. These are our schools in RPS that don't have a residential zone and rely on their uh enrollment from the application process entirely. And finally, I want to share a little bit of selection result data. I'll note that this uh only shows data for the
075three schools that underwent a process change in their selective admissions mechanics a couple of years ago approved by the school board. We'd be happy to share additional data for the two schools that are not included in these slides. We saw that open high school saw an increase in the proportion of students who had an active IEP or 504 plan from the previous year as well as ED students and those who are English learners. We saw a stable uh number of economically disadvantaged students at Maggie Walker between last year and this year. And we saw increases at Richmond Community High School in the number of L students and maintaining their 50% plus economically disadvantaged incoming class. One question that we do get often uh about students enrolling in our uh selective admission schools is what happens
076after they enroll? Do they remain? Uh one of the the way we talk about this campaign is right for you. We talk about uh focusing on conversations with students and families to make sure that um they're choosing a school that is aligned to their interests that um you know culturally fits with what um they want out of high school. Uh and so what we see in this data is that right for you campaign coming uh kind of bearing fruit in most students staying at the school after their nth grade year uh to the next year. So this chart uh for anyone who may not have um I had to orient myself to it. Um you can see on the left we think about these are the ninth grade students coming in last school year the
077thick green bars mean these students 95% of the students that enrolled at those schools stayed there. A very small number I think seven of them exited RPS. Uh there may be um reasons for that of course and then five students remained in RPS but um went to a different school. So, um, almost overwhelmingly students stayed at these schools with a handful of outliers. Be happy to take any questions at this time. Dr. Harris Muhammed, Mr. Farooq, Mr. Jafari, Miss Rizzy, Miss Ricard, Miss Burke. Thank you so much. Um, I'm I'm just gonna say Mr. Luke H because I always butcher your last name. I apologize. >> Luke H is my name. >> Thank you. I would like to sit down and have a one-on-one with you regarding how um I don't have any high schools
078in the six, but I do have students at my middle school that travel across the city, but high school, but I don't always know where they go. unless I receive a phone call because they need something or unit of service. So, I would like to just sit down to see where they're going so I can track them as their schoolboard representative because they still reside in the six, but they're just going um not necessarily the Armstrong. So, I really appreciate that and thank you for the presentation. This is data that the board members no service were asking to unpack and it helps us to be able to explain to our constituency um the process of our selective school applications. And I do want to say Mr. Cameras, thank you so much for maintaining a stronghold
079with love and saying this is it. And I think the school board has supported that stronghold in terms of helping your office out that we are not going to reopen this process um once the process is closed. And so I just want to say thank you for um because I I support it. Um and and thank you all so much for making sure that it was clear um the varied opportunities that our families had to receive the information. That has been a change um and has been a positive change since I've been on the board. So thank you so very much for that. Thank you, >> Mr. group. >> Thank you. Uh I have several questions. So I'll just the one after the other. First, do we lose or gain students over the course of
080the year? So for example, in August whenever the school year starts until graduation, do you know if we tend to lose students or gain students? >> Typically, we gain students though there is uh sometimes it'll kind of do this and then that if that makes sense over the summer. Second is are there any grades where we tend to lose students or gain students like between fifth and sixth grade or whatever. >> Yeah, we do see um and be happy to pull historic data to show trends of this but um more likelihood of a drop off from fifth to sixth in past years though that trend I think is changing uh and um in 8th to 9th. My final question is, do we have a total enrollment goal? Meaning, what is the total universe of school
081age children in the city? And do we have a goal of where we're trying to get them? Our goal is of course to increase students. Um uh I do know that with um to your question about the total school age um students in Richmond City, I believe it's about 35,000. Uh so we have about 22,000 um of that. I know that with the city working on the um the code refresh that should very much have implications on our enrollment. So I think as we look to um get closer to a number we would want to work with them on that which I'm excited to share and I didn't share this in my presentation um our department has started um a new relationship with the city where we meet with them regularly to talk about enrollment
082to share data. we actually now have access to new construction so we can see uh construction in pipeline or even under construction and share that with school leaders uh so that we can be proactive in terms of how we we will react um but certainly um more to come and and develop in terms of the specific goal >> Mr. Jafari >> thank you nice to Mr. I want to thank you again for coming out. I'm going to echo my colleague about having students first of all having no high school within the district but having the students travel out of the district. And for future reference, I would like to see incorporated into this graph a reflection of numbers of people, students, constituents, constituent families that are traveling either out of school zone to other zones
083because we lack internal provisions for them to be educated or who are basically being taken to other districts anyway to school. So that's that's necessary information that we need to have. I would love to see that. Uh but but on another matter, I was looking at the uh the data and if we could go to slide five. I had a reference to slide five that that I I just kind of wondered about. As I look at slide five and uh it just kind of came to mind that you know sometimes we get caught up in doing things for the sake of history. We just repeat it. We repeat it. We repeat it. We keep on doing it and it just passes on one generation to the next generation. I don't just mean generation in terms
084of people. I mean generations in terms of have forms the format correspondence. As I look at this and I look at all of the interest of membership to the left column everybody over there is listed in terms of their national origin points of origin except black and white. And so I guess my question is what purpose does that serve? But for my reading of it, it really only injects skin color into the conversation, which really should not be an issue here. So that's been allowed to be carried over. But I kind of I guess I kind of wanted your reflection on this. Why do we not have below the African Asian African and in terms of white, we could put European or derivative, you know, origin. This just seems to be a waste, especially given
085where the federal government is moving away from having any of this be counted and they're looking at if you say white, then you're being favored to somebody else. I just think that we we sit ourselves up and also we may need to look at, you know, just severing this this attachment that we have to just constantly talking in terms of white and black, which takes away from the conversation. Thank you for that um first note about uh residents of the district. Um point well taken and we look forward to including that data in future updates. I will share that the demographic information we share uh is aligned to how the state collects that information and how we report it. though I certainly hear you and it's a point well taken about how we can better
086um represent our population and the utility of certain measures when we're talking about of course supporting all students and families regardless of any demographic group they're a part of >> a follow. Okay. Um and your reference to you know the state we copy off the state well that's between myself and my colleagues and administrators we know the state's history in that regard and again that in my estimation serves as another reason to re-evaluate hearing. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Rizzie. >> Thank thank you Madam Chair. Um, I guess I'll kind of have a converse argument in that, you know, we know that there are racial disparities in this country. We do need to be aware of them and think about how to address them. That's a very real situation um that I don't think
087at this time we need to minimize. Um, I'm sorry. Um, I have a few questions. um related to um no shows. Do you have data on no shows? I know in the past we've gotten updates on um how many students live in the city and have not enrolled at all and what we're doing to track down and make sure no shows um don't fall through the cracks. >> So I don't have that data offhand uh though I'd be happy to pull it. our department doesn't actually um manage the no-show process, though I'd be happy to pull together what the um the offices that do support, you know, making sure no-shows do enroll um have in terms of their outreach. >> Yeah. I mean, I just think that might be important when we think about enrollment
088overall. Um and then you know I was looking at you know I I I always want to be very cautious when we say things like open has increased um the number of students there with IEPs when we look at the data it's two people right and so we go from zero to two I mean certainly that's progress but I don't know that that is you know something that yeah do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yes. for a while it was zero. And I I I do have problems with um no students attending these schools with IEPs um for various reasons, but yeah, with those smaller schools when you highlight that data and you see that the number actually is like one or two, yeah, it impacts how you think about it. Um, and I
089also am a little concerned that, you know, MLK has very low acceptance rates at our specialty schools or, you know, we've changed the name. What are we calling? Uh, special >> selective admissions. >> Selective admission. Yes. Um, MLK's um, acceptance rate are really low. And, um, you know, I'd love to see what's being done to address that. A lot of students are applying, very few are getting in. and >> one minute. >> Yeah. Okay. And then, you know, I also noticed I think with the exception of Franklin Military and then one category, um, Richmond community nonrPS students are doing better getting into these schools than MLK students. And and and not to say that that's something we need to address, but I do think we need to pay attention to it. >> That's it. Thank
090you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ricard. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hoseter, for this presentation. It's that's so much good data in it. Um, I just wanted to thank everyone who worked on the in-person options for enrollment. Um when we enrolled our oldest many years ago, there was a kindergarten day and you went and it was a big thing and then COVID happened. So of course for our next two, you did it online through the portal and it just felt a little antiatic. Um and also was easier to put off because like oh I'll do it eventually. And this year, I know there were kindergarten signings at school. There enrollment events, the um the enrollment events at or the application events at River City that were in person. I think I
091know the return to in person is one more thing for our staff. But I do think it is bringing back that personal touch for our families and making it feel less daunting and less scary and that they get their questions answered and in the case of kindergarten, they get to go and see the school. Um, and so I would love to just see that continue because I do think it's reaping rewards and I'm just appreciative of the work it takes for them. >> Thank you. I'll just note that we are already planning for kindergarten signing day for the coming year. So, we'll be sharing more about that. And I'll share too just to highlight um one of my team members this morning shared an email with us where every family that we um had come
092to one of our inerson support events for an application that hadn't finished ended up finishing by the deadline today if they were applying. So, just if there are families listening to this, I would encourage them to please come out to or find us. we will find you however um you may need to help you uh get through the process. >> Thank you, Miss Burke. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so very much for this report. The data is excellent, something that's we've been wishing for and you've given it to us and which helps us to get better across the board as the decision we make. Um I have two observations. Number one, you've already this with Mr. and I believe Dr. um regarding trends, do you especially since 2023 and I'm asking that based
093upon what I see um racially as well as um let's do the first question first. Do you see any patterns across the board that continue that we maybe need to address or may be favorable? Um I think you know this is a small sample size and I think the city's um code refresh may have a large impact on what we see in the future. Uh as well as changes at the federal policy level um as housing prices change, interest rates change. There's a lot that my team who are not demographers do not know the answers to, which is why we're leaning heavily on the city. Um we did see um a uh increase in um in white residents in Richmond City over the last three years. Uh and did see a decrease um slightly uh
094in the city residents which is reflected in our uh enrollment of black residents. Um so the trends here are kind of mirrored in the city's um population overall. Um so that would be the the one trend. I will note that we are excited to be working with the operations office as they um begin the facilities master planning. Um Chief Herrell gave an update about the engagement process that they're going to be unfolding over the coming months. Phase two of which will focus on enrollment. And so we're excited about sharing a lot of historical enrollment data as a part of that work to understand um how has this work or how has enrollment looked and where might uh it be going based on the trends we see and how might that uh impact decisions to be
095made around facilities in the in the division. So more to come on that Mrs. follow up. Madam Chair, >> thank you for pointing that out on p on um slide five as well. I know percentage increase in white to me 265 is a drop with with students of color for black students. So my question to you is and I know we all have seen this there new apartments popping up everywhere across the city and then some and also certain neighborhoods are being demolished or people are moving on and receiving vouchers. Um, do you see a shift coming before us in terms of of maybe a more diverse inclusive, but yes, I want to say more diverse inclusive um, schools per se, just as what you state the beginning about community and Maggie Walker, which is
096that's that's taxpayers dollars. That's what we want. So my question with this is with all of the I'm thinking there's going to be a movement across the city and outside of the city. So I know you stated that we have space for 35,000. Correct. >> We have there's about 35,000 school age children in Richmond City. Um but as far as the space we have certainly not believe that >> in some places but um yeah I was going to say years ago. So some of those schools are still there. We just may have to restructure some things. So that means from the 22 that means we have over 10,000 13,000 students. We don't know where they are >> mostly in private schools or homeschool. >> Do we have it? Some may be homeschooled. I know a
097lot of people in my neighborhood are homeschooled a lot. So do we have data to pretty much keep up with that? >> Yes. Uh we'd be happy to share that at a future date with you all. uh the home instruction data, the home instruction process actually is managed by our department in terms of the annual notice of intent and the um evaluation of uh continued assessment for home instruction. So we'd be happy to share that and we report that to the state each year. >> That would be great particularly in our districts. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Good to have Thank you, >> Mr. Pel. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um no question really, Luke. is great. Thank you for this data. And um I think I may have asked a late question
098on the selective admission schools and looks like I got in here. I really appreciate that quick turnaround. Um not really a question, but you mentioned meeting with the city on construction. Um you know, what's coming in the future? If they are not tracking that data, maybe you could put a bug in their ear because every time I talk to someone in the city, anecdotally, I hear, "Well, we have apartments and they don't have kids. And I'm like that can't be right. Um but we don't know none of us know it's anecdotal. So, as we all experience or go through this experiment that is Richmond with all the new construction, maybe try to track in these buildings, what what's the demographic makeup of these buildings? Because I know I I hear something different in my district
099with the the high density buildings and we are getting more in kindergarten, but um I would be curious in the years to come how many young people we're getting in these highdensity buildings. It's a great point and it's something that we're uh in conversation already with the city on in terms of how can we collect data about the number of bedrooms in new constructions and then how can we turn that number of bedrooms into a potential um you know child generating estimate so we can understand based on various developments how many students might that add to the school that the zone is based on. uh and we've been partnering. We're talking to some other divisions um in Virginia who already do that work at a really rich level. Um so we're excited to be growing
100that work in the coming months. >> Well, I I just I I did want to recognize the folks at the city uh that we met with for being extremely amountable to making some changes to track that data. So for example, as Mr. that are noted currently there is no process to track how many are onebedroom, twobedroom, threebedroom. It does not exist but when we brought it up uh the immediate response was yes we can we should let's think about in the permitting process where we require that information be shared. Uh so u while it does not currently exist uh there was a great eagerness to partner with us to figure out how to capture that data on a recurring basis so that we can do a much better job of making this Mr. Mr. Hitchback.
101>> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hotsteader, for the for this data. It's uh really helpful and u also for uh promising more uh data in the future and uh with enrollment and um in tandem with the facilities plan. I think um that it's it's important to to mention out loud that that there's some just some schools in the fourth district that are seeing growth at really unprecedented levels that are um you know unsustainable. And so I would really hope that we'll use this data as well as the forthcoming data uh to revisit maybe um our tenant zones. Um I think whether that's a large scale or a small scale u movement I think that's really important to look at particularly at the elementary level. Thank you >> Mr. Faru. >> Thank you Madam
102Chair. Just to make a quick comment that I myself as a child lived in at least two to three apartments when I was young and I know for a fact that we have many families that live in apartments. Definitely in my district. I personally know several families that live in apartments. So definitely important though. Thank you. >> Thanks. So um really appreciate the presentation as always. Appreciate the work that you uh put into it. Um, I submitted a request specifically for the ninth district to the team um, as it relates to the development that's happening in the ninth district this year, next year, um, well, now through 2026. I appreciate that there's been efforts made to work with the city and trying to quantify that information, but until that happens, it's happening now in the
103ninth district. Um, I just want to know where are we with that data. I would love to see something laid out as we get information regarding developments and similar to what you've put here where you've kind of guesstimated what enrollment will be like year-over-year. I would love to see something like that for each district. I know particularly in the ninth where we're anticipating like 1,200 or some odd units in the next couple of months. um we got to get our arms around that um and really think about how we're going to address that. If you look at the enrollment for each district, I mean, ninth district is like 4,000 and something whereas others are like 1,000, 2,000. Maybe one was like 3,000, but by far we have exponential growth in the ninth. And I'm just
104concerned that we're not addressing it fast enough. Um, obviously new builds is something that, you know, if I had a magic wand, we would we would have uh a new school for every district. Um, but particularly in the ninth in the in the A2 and the fourth because a lot of our kids go there. Um, I just want to I just want to feel this sense of urgency that I'm not really getting right now. So, I just want to get an understanding of one, where are we with that? Two, can we somehow include that in the data? And then three, if we could do enrollment side by side in a in a graph to show where which districts are feeling the biggest impacts. Um, I think that would be helpful to continue to sell that
105story. >> 30 seconds. Um, I do want to note I want to make sure that I'm uh getting you everything that you need. Do want to note there are district comparisons of enrollment. So, I do want to make sure the public also knows that to see yearbyear and by school. Um, as it pertains to the new development particularly in the eth quarter. Um I do want to note we have gone so far as to call the developers call the developers to ask how many units they're going to be since we couldn't get the information directly from the city. Obviously some are more responsive than others. Um so I do think that outreach or I know that outreach is being done. Um I my sense is your greatest concern is the availability of seats for any
106eventual kids that are coming that way. So I think what would be helpful is for us to do a followup to say okay based on all the outreach or very vast estimates we think we're going to be an extra 120 kids in this district and here's where we think we have capacity or we don't I think that's the crux of your so why don't we take that as a very concrete next step to come back we can do that to the extent possible by district obviously it's a bigger issue some relative to others. Uh but yeah, >> and certainly I mean there was an email that I sent that laid out the development specifically in the ninth because I connected with Councilwoman Jones to get that information proactively to you all. So you at least
107do have that information and if you can couple that with what you've gathered, I think that will be a great starting point. But I do want us to really start putting this to paper. And the question that I had as it relates to the data by district, I saw what was in the appendix, but my request is to have it side by side in one graph so that you see the difference um between the districts. Does that make sense? Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammed. >> Thank you, Mr. Cameras. Can you also include in the six as well in Highland Park right behind OvaB Shepard? There's a brand new development and we do not know how many there are already four houses >> that are um occupied and point How many buildings for how many developments
108for how many I would say this >> does not have the capacity to take 250 more kids we don't have we do not have that capacity they need help right now because they're at capacity taking down the walls help but we just add up more remember it was um I meant being at right adding I'm sorry adding the help down the wall adding the walls helped however thank you >> thank you madam chair thank you Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes, we will do it uh for every district based on every bit of data we can grab. And then also with that information, if you could couple that with the plan of action. So, like for example with Reed, we did receive trailers, but it took almost a year and a half for them to be up
109and running and utilized. So, all of that is connected as we think through that until we get our new buildings, which we will get in short order. >> Thank you. All right, we definitely have to move full steam ahead, folks. Um, let's move to um board business. Oh, I did have a request, I'm sorry, for 2.01. There was a request by someone from the Richmond Ed Fund if they could receive talking points for the new standards and I thought that would be a good idea for the board as well. So whenever you I know you guys are still capturing that but if you could get that information something that we can share with them >> regarding the new cut scores. >> Yes. >> Well the totality of the changes. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Thank you.
110>> Okay. Moving on to receive an update from finance and audit committee 3.01. Mr. Pival and Miss Brager. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Just as a background in the finance and audit committee, I believe this is back in the June July time frame. Uh we thought it would be a good idea to have Miss Bragga give us a breakdown of the budget. Uh we had just come out of the budget cycle. we knew we're going back into a budget cycle and we thought we would move sort of from a general to a specific kind of get a general overview of the breakdown of the budget and as questions arose uh as uh as our meetings went from month to month to dive in a little bit. Um as it turns out the first presentation that
111Miss Braga brought brought into us uh was so riveting from a budget standpoint that immediately everyone on the committee said we've got to get this to the full board. So, we've had some packed agendas, but this is timely as we move into the next budget cycle um for us all to get a uh quite a good review of what the budget. So, yeah, pop your popcorn, buckle your seat belts. This is really exciting stuff. And take it away, Miss Brega. >> Good evening, board members. Um Superintendent Cameas, thank you for Pardon me. Yes. Oh, there it is. Now, even I can hear myself. Um, so, okay. So, when we talk about our um operating budget, it's a $524 million budget, but it really from our perspective has two distinct um segments. So, we have the
112general fund budget, which does most of our our day-to-day operations, and that's about 82% of that total, 524 million. And then our other piece is our special revenue budget. And those are um typically formula driven. They're very prescriptive on how we can spend the money. Um and typically they are applicationbased. From the revenue perspective for the full um operating budget um the over 47% of our resources are provided by the city. We've got 36% of those resources come from the state, uh 12% from federal, and then um a small percentage come from um something we call other revenue. And typically that's other local revenue that's not related to the city of Richmond. From an expenditure perspective, um looking at the operating budget, we spend 81.4% 4% of the budget on salaries and benefits. And that's
113pretty typical for how we spend from most of our funds. The only one that's a little different is school nutrition. School nutrition is a basically $22 million budget. And we spend 42% of those resources on personnel and 58% on non-personnel. And mostly it's attributable to spending about 11 million on food and supplies and things um that are very specific for that particular fund. So of note, our um state function codes follow the state chart of accounts. Um so this slide shows the operating expenditures by the different function codes and these function codes are um a statutory regulation through um the code of Virginia. So let's talk a minute about our general fund. Our general fund is what we use to do the majority of our day-to-day operations. State funds are allocated through a formula and
114the biggest drivers are student ADM, average daily membership and our LCI. A major shift has occurred over the past few years as our LCI continues to increase. A greater burden is placed on the city with 58% of the revenue coming from the locality. The category other revenue includes things like building rentals, the historic tax credits and rebates that we get from an expenditure perspective. This is a snapshot of expenditures by object group. our general fund budget over 80% of our resources 85% of our resources resources are spent on salaries and benefits um which leaves less than 15% to do anything that's non-personnel related. This shows us expenditures by what we call area and ex the area areas represent our internal hierarchy and responsibility by chief. The lion share of expenditures are schoolbased. Some expenditures although
115um although school-based are captured under chief's budgets for example under wellness it includes nursing contracts and nursing supplies and also social work services which obviously provide direct um support to our students. um expenditures by state function code. The um single largest expenditure after instruction is with regard to maintenance and operations. That includes our buildings, our grounds, our custodial supplies. Um you can see in this chart it lists facilities at a really small amount at 945,000. And so based on the state's definition, this category is specific to construction and acquisition which is not included in our operating budget. Another large expense for the division is under administration, attendance and health. And per the state definition, this category includes not only us, board services, finance, um, talent, but it also includes nursing, psychological, and speech services. Under
116state object codes, we have expenditure categories such as purchase services, and that um, equals $22 million. We have something called other charges for $21 million. and we have other uses of funds for $9.2 million. These are not very descriptive at the summary level. So, let's dig into what they are and what they mean. Um, under purchase services, for example, um the $22 million number, we spend um upwards of $5 million on um exceptional education, and this includes payments for CSA and for therapy. This category also includes tuition payments for our regional schools which are just around $5 million and it also includes repair and maintenance of buildings which comes to about 3.4 million under other charges um which is the $21 million price tag. It includes items such as specialized transportation which is about $6
117million. We have annual insurance payments for property and liability coverage which is about 2 million. And this category also includes utilities which cost us about $10.5 million. The category termed other operating expenses which is about 2.5 million includes items such as transportation costs for fuel, for repairs, and for parts. Under the other uses of funds category, this totals about 9.5 million and of that 9.1 of the 9.5 specifically related to transfers to other funds to support things that are uh have mandatory matches like our Head Start program and it also um helps pay with our CBA commitments for our grants under our capital appropriation in current year we were appropriated $2.5 million um and it's been allocated for fire safety, for plumbing, and for instructional repairs. This shows a breakdown of the projects by school.
118Um the single largest expenditure in this year's capital budget is for the roof repairs. Yes, the roof repairs at Richmond Community High. So, that was quick and fast. May I answer any questions? >> Dr. Harris Muhammed. >> Testing. Thank you. On page nine, um, Miss Bracken, thank you for the presentation. You and your team. Um, on page nine, can the school board have and for public viewing the breakdown of what falls under each line item on that page? So for example um and I am most appreciative that this presentation shares expedentials by area that functions within Richmond public schools. Thank you. But what I would like to know um is what actually falls under elementary education? what actually falls under the secondary ele secondary um secondary elementary I don't think that's supposed to be there
119secondary education I just caught that I'm sorry um >> oh my apologies >> yeah that's okay yeah you it's okay um school board office of the chief of staff and academic off all of those things what falls exactly under that um in terms of districtwide what does that look like does that involve marketing it just what it what is a part of each of those categories. Um I would like that um to be identified please. Thank you. >> Mr. Hitchb. >> Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Miss Bragga very much for this u u you know I guess overview at this point this primer for for the budget. Um my question is related to the LCI. You you talked a little bit about that earlier, the local composite index. U can you expand on how
120that's calculated uh what's included in that versus what's not included is that in that um for uh the lay person oops the lay person. So the LCI is an in my opinion an incredibly complicated formula and it 50% of the formula is the true value of real property, 40% is the adjusted gross income and then 10% is the taxable retail sales. And they do that for our division for Richmond and then they also do it for the state. And then they mush all of that together to um yield what the composite index is and that's what they use to aortion um revenue in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Um I do know that for the next bianium ours is going to squeak up again a little bit which is not good news for us. That hurts
121us. Um and actually Fairfax County is going to go down a little bit which is but there's a lot of things happening in the um the Northern Virginia corridor. So uh the composite index absolutely does not reflect the constituents that we serve in the city of Richmond. Um we are considered wealthier than Chesterfield, Henriiko, and Hanover. Um, so I know they've talked a lot about trying to revamp the funding formula, but like most things, there's going to be winners and losers when they do that. And usually what benefits us harms the bigger districts like the Northern Virginia, the Fairfax counties and and those sorts of things. So I'll be happy to share the formula with you if you'd actually like to see the calcul. >> This happens to be one of Mr. Perival's favorite topic.
122So, I'll yield the floor to him to add additional detail. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. We each get what? 30 minutes. Madam Clerk, I will try to keep this brief, but in the spirit of um Mr. Hedgepath's question, Miss Bragg is very much correct about what goes into it. The other important piece is that each one of those pieces is a ratio that involves average daily membership. So, going back to Mr. Husteders slides that average daily membership is what really penalizes us in the end and that's what causes our LCI score to go up because as Miss Bragg said if you looked at the LCIS with the surrounding counties we're starting to approach 10% or more above double digits higher than our neighboring districts. And you would think that if you looked at at the
123adjusted gross income and the households or the real property values in those areas that we would be 10% higher. We're not. We're actually lower. The city is actually lower in adjusted gross income and property values. Um but what is what is hurting us as the average daily membership. So that is huge. So yes, it has been tried to they people have proposed trying to change it, but there are winners and losers. There is one scenario where there aren't losers and that is you take average daily membership out of that equation and you make that equation have to do with the available students in a district whereas Mr. Hollsteader said 35,000 as opposed to 22,000 that would take everybody's score up and per the JARK study since we need to find $6 billion in the couch
124cushions anyway that would be a great way to distribute that $6 billion as commonwealth. So I just thought that was important to add to that. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, Mr. Cameras. >> Just one more note about the LCI is every school division's LCI affects every other school division's LCI because the state ensures by statute that 55% of education funding comes from the state and 45% comes from the locality. So everything is ultimately adjusted to reach that ratio across the state, right? So if ours goes up somewhere else, it's going to have to go down uh to balance that out, which just heightens the complexity and the interdependence of the Yeah. So the the overall formula is created such that when you in essence add up the LCIS for every all 134 school
125divisions that ultimately the kind of state LCI would be 0.55 55% of all education funding from the state and 45% from the locality. So as we go up, meaning more is coming from the locality, somebody else gets bumped down. Again, just making it even more complex and challenging to wrap your head around, but we are all connected. >> Thank you for the presentation. I also just like to add very quickly, it's one of the things that were raised in um the legislative committee um the education of um LCI and also JARK and how they are intertwined and hopes of aligning our focus to advocate for change. And so that's something that we're working through strategically. Um so fingers crossed. Thank you so much. Moving right along to 3.02, discuss traffic patterns concerns at schools. Um
126I will share as whomever comes forward to discuss. This topic has come up multiple times um at various schools um and so really looking forward to hearing more about how we're going to overcome those challenges. Good evening. >> Good evening, board members and superintendent cameras. I'm joined tonight um with Tara Fitzpatrick who serves as the safe route to school coordinator for RVA fit for kids who's been one of our long-term partners. Um RVA Fit for Kids conducted an audit about two years ago looking at all of our schools um and safer ways for students to arrive to school. So she'll talk a little bit about the audit. We do have on our radar MLK. There's been some work over there. Um, but we also know that West over Hills as well as River City are
127schools of concern. Um, there's no easy fix. It is going to take a continued collaborative effort between the schools as well as the city. So, I do want to preference that because I know that it is a huge concern to our constituency groups. Tara, >> good evening. Chair Fernandez, members of the school board, superintendent cameras. My name is Tara Fitzpatrick and I'm the coordinator of Richmond City safe routes to school program at Greater Richmond Fit for Kids. Um, in December 2023, members of the fit for kids team met with Eva Coen, Shireena Chang, and Reisha Parks to discuss improving active transportation safety for the RPS community. Um this came about in the wake of concerns raised by members of the crossing guard team at some of the schools that Miss Parks um just mentioned. Um
128and when we were looking at road safety, we like to think of this belief of a Swiss cheese approach and as of the gold standard. Um so our safe routes to school program works on that premise as well. We take different layers and try to plug in those holes by working that way. Um we combine these layers of prevention and we look to increase the likelihood of unsafe conditions as a result. So, examples of these layers can include education, encouragement, and enforcement. Uh the discussion in late 2023 found its way towards a focus infrastructure. Um so, and as you all well know, every school in RPS is there's diverse student enrollment, unique facilities, and different land use patterns that make RPS so great. uh but those variations can make it really difficult to apply safety
129strategy solutions. So in order to work on a strategy to improve school zone infrastructure, we needed to take stock of what was in place, what conditions were like at each school. We worked with the city to kind of develop a plan and what it was that we were going to try to collect here. And um we met with leaders uh to create an audit identifying what infrastructure does and does not exist adjacent to and on each RPS property. The audits were performed in the spring of 2024. Um and a colleague of mine presented the findings to Department of Public Works in the fall of 2024. Um please note that the Department of Public Works has actually done a lot of work even since that presentation and between the time you were doing the auditing and
130presenting it. So there have been shifts in you know what exists in the audit that you can access and what is currently in place today. Um so that's that's the good news is that work is constantly being done. Um we the audit included typical school zone identifiers like school zone flashers um and pavement markings. Um it also included the existence of and absence of particular types of infrastructure. There you um now I am not a transportation engineer but as an advocate I have um become versed in what creates unsafe conditions and what types of solutions can be applied. So, please note though that as you go through the audit and as you hear me speak or hear other transportation advocates speak that you are not alone if you find yourself feeling unfamiliar with some of
131the items and terms that are included in the audit. Um, what we did though was we created a column with links to some resources. So, if there is something you're not familiar with, you can work on looking at some of those resources to familiarize yourself with that. Um so that is a great way to include best practices. Um and a lot of the links that we used were something called NACTO which is um our city um transportation department. Um the DPW is a member of NACTO cities and that is um a very good sort of advisory and advocacy of transportation engineering for cities specifically. Um move on to the next slide. Um because the most serious threat to safety for people traveling by all modes of transportation is vehicle speed and for people walking, rolling,
132slower vehicle speed and increased visibility are extremely important. It's important to emphasize that visibility is not just about wearing brighter or lighter colored clothing um or wearing lights on your clothing. Infrastructure actually plays a bigger role in ensuring greater visibility. So some techniques that can be applied to improve safety using infrastructure are referred to as daylight. Okay? And that just opens up the ability for vehicles to see and people to be able to see vehicles a little bit better and make better decisions out on the roadway. Um when we talk about lowering speeds, we find that simply lowering the speed limit on the street um needs to be accompanied by an actual infrastructure change to see that behavioral shift. and we refer to that as calling traffic. So please note that we included a tab
133in this as well. There is going to be a tab for each of the schools in the audit. Um and there are drop downs selected. Again it identifies the um existence of or the lack of the absence of and then in many cases it will identify what shape. Um, but there is also a tab that will sort of rank by district the priority uh needs of the infrastructure at that school. Keep in mind that um some things are going to be a little bit heavily weighted if a school is um situated on a roadway that's considered part of our city's high roads. Um the city has created this network network of roads, a map that identifies roadways that have seen um significant serious injury or fatalities on. So that ranking is going to be a
134little bit higher in priority um just to make sure that safety needs can be accommodated. And I will add to that that uh for the city to be able to apply for grants to improve that infrastructure, having that be the case, it is often a little bit easier for them to find more funding for that. Um, so we have a few in this final slide. We do have um a few of our favorite lowcost quick build recommendations and um I hope that you have the opportunity to review the audit and to think about some of these um these these recommendations and maybe envision them at the schools where you are seeing and hearing that safety conditions are not great at arrival and dismissal. Um, and I would also encourage you to continue to have conversations
135with your colleagues and safety council, uh, DPW, different building administrators to see if there is communication, uh, that can be done within the community and, um, civic associations um, or even through communication through schoolboard and city council around trying to improve safety in those areas. Um, as well as us at Fit for Kids, we're here to continue this conversation. as you have questions or concerns, you know, again, we don't make decisions. We're just here really for from an advocacy perspective, but we are um wholeheartedly advocates for the students um and the safety and of course the whole community because, you know, if we have uh teachers and other community members who can and are able to walk in school, we definitely love to see that. We see that you know really at schools across the
136district. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Miss Matrick, thank you so much. Um, the actual audit is not included. Could you email that to me and I will out to the whole school? >> Yeah, I can send a link to that. >> Is that something that somebody could send? just seeing if we can compare notes because there was a copy that was sent that had in her office notes on it. So, understood. All right. Well, then let's get that cleaned up and uh out to the so I can get it out to the board so that they can review and uh be able to have a more informed discussion. But thank you so so much. Yeah, this is this was very helpful. Uh, thank you Mr. Jafari, Mr. For Mr. Hedgepath. >> Thank you, Miss Miss
137Patrick. Excuse me. Um, couple of things. Earlier in the year, there was a matter that arose uh with a school walking walking distance from the 17th Ingram area in the southside distance of about 14 or 15 blocks >> to Blackwell. >> Okay. >> And I'm not certain if you're familiar with the issue or I'm still trying to get some kind of closure to it. Inquiries continue to come in from those groups of youngsters that have to walk that distance. Talking maybe what 10 to 12 year olds. >> Okay. >> Uh many of them obviously are now being transported by parents. Again, I would like to know what if anything is being looked at in regards to resolving that issue. One of the suggestions have been um basically redirecting one of the school buses that stopped
138out on Richmond Highway just having it just stop back in that area. while in route. And so that is something to look at. So I would appreciate if you circle back and kind of let me know something. >> Sure. I don't think I'm familiar with that, but um was it did they drop a bus route? >> No, they didn't drop a bus route. Uh there was a bus that was going that way. Um but in this particular instance, it was a special needs bus and the youngsters got separated because one went to Dogwood, leaving the other one. So that created a problem. person doesn't want to put the special needs child on a regular bus for attention purposes and disruption kinds of issues. When a child gets to school, basically they're not in a mindset
139to learn and so that that had not been resolved at least to the satisfaction of the uh individuals that had inquired about it. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Um one other matter and that is in the southside as well for I have a couple of sites Oak Grove Childcare Center which deal which deals educational services to our preschoolers. There are city of Richmond families being served and city of Richmond scholars per se. But because it is a nonRPS site, basic things like crosswalks, >> kind of safety things that are how should I say enjoyed at other school sites are not enjoyed at this site. But I was wondering if you were aware of any federal sources because it's my understanding that those programs are federally funded. If you're aware of any federal sources that
140might allocate services to accommodate that. Um well I think that that is yeah the state has like a transportation alternatives program that the city applies for funding to do a lot of uh pedestrian and bike safety infrastructure improvements and then under that there is there's sometimes safe routes to school infrastructure funding money. Um, so that may be a possibility, but there's been a lot of shifts in how the funding is coordinated and managed at the state level uh under this administration and this transportation. There are some things that are but I would definitely say DPW um are the best people to talk to about that. I'm also happy to go check out. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Mr. Farooq. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Miss Fitzpatrick, can you explain if resources were no constraint, what
141is what is the right solution for our kids? >> Okay, that is um that is yeah, it's the the big problem that we have is the resources. Um I I think actually this list is pretty universal. Um, I think that every school should have at least one raised crosswalk. I think that um having uh no school zone have more than 20 miles an hour as the speed limit and if it's in tucked away in a neighborhood, it should be 15. And I think that the uh calming infrastructure should be commensurate with that. Um because you know we don't want to go to the enforcement side of things where we see the school zone speed enforcement cameras which are doing their job and it's a way to keep things a bit more equitable than you know
142we had previously seen. We don't have to see getting pulled over for that. Um, but I think that by calming the infrastructure, it makes it more inviting and we see that we we find more families will walk when they have the opportunity and it feels much safer for them. Um, so yeah, I I I think that a lot of these um if money were no issue would include a lot of things like bulbout. So using like hard curves um to make a a street feel tighter um so that people want to protect themselves as they're driving and they want to protect those around them. Um and obviously I think raised crosswalks are great. As I mentioned, at schools where we have um stop turn signals or stop lights, it is really hard for there to
143ever be an opportunity for students to cross because we don't have a no turn on red at most if not all of them. Um, so our crossing guards find themselves in a position where they're sort of fighting with the oncoming traffic and then when there it is finally their turn to go, the folks making a red on red don't they don't stop usually. They barely yield. So, you know, you're sort of jockeying for any time or space on that. Um, yeah. And I um yeah, I just think hardening the getting having more money. You know, it was interesting listening to the funding presentation just before this and the conversations around um education funding and infra transportation funding in particular, but infrastructure funding in the city really do go back to that LCI formula and it
144is one that does not typically benefit Richmond very well. Um, and especially when it comes to things like transportation, we are also hosting a lot of state and federal agencies and are don't always have the same control in decision making over the roadways here as other localities have. So, >> thank you, Mr. Hedgeb. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Miss Fat Miss Patrick. Your collaboration and your work is very important, so I'm very appreciative of that. Um, and Miss Parks and Mr. Harold, as as you already mentioned, WTover Hills being a particular project. I just wanted to thank the two of you all for the collaboration and the work that you've done to make it safer at West Hills. I know it's a long way to go, but I just wanted to call that
145out, too. Uh but to your point about collaboration and how that that really improves and and gets things done, uh uh I collaborated with uh city council woman uh and uh we've been working with RPD and DW and we've been trying to get uh calming measures put on Forest Hill Avenue and some of the early advocacy that we did uh proved fruitless. Uh but then when we were persistent and we got Mr. Vincent into the room and we had a meeting alto together, some of the things that we thought were unpossible became possible. As an example, they said that Fourth Still Avenue was not allowed we weren't allowed to have flash clashing lights because it was already 25. Uh but he said no that that's something that he could do. Uh or that they couldn't
146have extra signs or they couldn't have markings on the on the streets. Uh but he said yes, we could do that too and we could do that as well. And so we came out of that meeting with deliverables that we weren't we didn't think were possible. And while there's still work to be done, I just think that that your your point needs to be uh an exclamation point and highlighted um that collaboration does get things done. So, thanks very much. >> Yeah. And thank you for I don't know who organized that meeting. If it was you were the city councelor um I'm afraid I wasn't able to make it that day. We have um a commission called the safe and healthy streets commission. I'm the secretary of that as well and um keep an eye
147on that. We don't talk school specific. It's mostly across the city, but it is um a commission that works to inform city council on those matters. So, >> thank you, Miss Burke. >> Thank you so very much, Madam Chair. I just want to say thank you. You know, over the years, I've appreciated so much. I've seen the numbers grow in seventh district regarding bike rides. There are bikes everywhere. I remember years ago we had to really engage people to walk to school and it's it's tremendously well. But I'm still going to hold you responsible and you know why? >> Yes. >> Okay. Just before the Thanksgiving break, I was at one of the school and there was a big van and there were several students on the black riding bus and a lot of our
148students that was their first opportunity through this program to be able to ride bikes. And they had bikes there every size and all the reps. And they took a picture of me on the bike with my high heel shoes on. So, but I didn't move. I froze. All right. I I froze. Okay. Haven't seen the picture. But, um, thank you for all that you do. It's is and I see it more than Shimmer. I've seen other schools in East as well. Only school that I'm trying to work on with because it's on the line within Michael County. I'm sure Dr. Bell from the back knows what I'm talking about. Armstrong High DPW was trying to get a crosswalk swap of which we do not have. I don't know whether your support or what you do
149goes hand in hand with the county. It's very it's typically very hard and I the having cool lane go in and out of the county does make it very difficult. Um, I can keep pushing DPW to keep pushing >> collaborate with >> I think they're willing to collaborate. I don't know about the other end. We have to have a face to face meeting that district because we have a lot of students that take the city buses as they go to work or leave for other uh programs after school. So, it's always somebody walking across that is dangerous. >> And every time I go down cool lane, I see there's something called a desire path. When you look on the side of a roadway and you see a place cut out in the grass where people
150walk, that is something that should not exist. It should exist as a safe path for people to be able to access. Um and yeah, our work in advocating for transit um access goes alongside walking and rolling because especially as a transit user, your first and last mile is going to be on foot or by bike. We have bike racks on the front. um of all of our buses. We teach our students that in our learn to ride program. Um and I'm just glad too that the bike we had on hand really good with their outfit. So that was very helpful. >> A ball. I had a ball. Thank you so much and I look forward to following up with you regarding >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Pible. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair, and thank
151you, Miss Fitzpatrick, for the presentation. This is wonderful. Um what baffles me is that matter no matter who I talk to, everyone is in favor of safer schools. Um council members, everyone in the city, everyone in the school board, every parent I've ever talked to. So why we can't get more changes is the baffling part because everybody's in favor of it. So looking at your further consideration slide, yes. And can we superintendent, can can we take this slide and quantify it? Can we come up with a lowest common denominator that every school should have? So, no matter where I am in the country, when I pass a school, there's a sign that says school zone. There's paint on the on the on the street that says school zone. Can we take that to the next
152level? Can we get that in every school? Can we get no turn on red at every school? Can we get uh you know, if we if we can get um speed humps at every school, crossing guards at every school? if we could contact Google Maps and tell them to route people unfamiliar with the area around schools things like so and and I don't care what that list is can we just get a list and then we can sort of audit from there and say which schools don't even have these basic and that would allow us to prioritize some of those and and I I know what you're going to say it it's not in our purview to add speed humps or put the no turn around but it would allow us to advocate for such
153I was not going to pass the book. What I was going to note is everything you just articulated is in the audit. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm excited to get you the audit >> so you can see by school what is missing. Now, the audit is very comprehensive and so we may not it it might be prudent to say look we're going to pick five or seven items in the audit that we want to start with and make sure those are true everywhere and then work our way down the list. Um but I agreed there's I've never met anyone who is anti school safety. So um so I I do think it is like as most things it comes down to resources and the scarcity thereof. But um but I do think these are many
154of these things are relatively low cost and can have a huge impact when you think about the health and safety of children. Um, and so I do think there is a way to to take what you're saying, marry that with the audit and create a shared advocacy campaign around. >> Yeah. And I do I I do have to say school zone flashers, pavement markers, those seem to be the type of thing that I think most people can agree on is sort of a baseline on that front. I do appreciate the the comment about talking to mapping companies or submitting feedback to them. Um just thinking of the first district and West Morland. Um I know that there are like if you are coming from Midlothian I'm told by people I know they get routed in
155front of the school at arrival and dismissal and that's just bananas to me. You know that's you shouldn't be routing people through that. So Miss Rizzy, >> thank you. Um and thank you Miss Fitzpatrick for this presentation and for your work. Um, yeah. I just want to plug Richmond High School for the Arts. I'm tired of seeing kids like walking on the margins of Midloian. It's very dangerous. They're there's no speed cominging that I'm aware of there. It's dangerous to pull out of that parking lot to even make a turn on to the street. And so there's like nothing there for >> getting from the Belt Atlantic. You should be able to walk. >> Right. Right. It's dangerous. Very dangerous. And um so yeah, I just want to plug that. >> We'll keep plugging away.
156And actually, I do want to provide a little bit of a some additional context. Since this audit was done, DPW has contracted with um a transportation um planning organization who did conduct some audits and I will also follow up with links to the feedback from that as well. There is a slide deck there. parse through and find what the recommendations were for uh Swansboro High School for the Arts. Um Westover Hill, no, I'm sorry. Patrick Henry is included in that. Um I'll have to go through. It's been a minute since I've looked at it, but there were a lot of schools in Southside. Um and Mlenny was also included in the north side. Um I'm trying to remember. I don't know. They didn't do they weren't like like we would kind of pop around make
157sure we were covering all the council districts, but I don't think that that um that was something that they thought about this time around, but I know the long-term goal is to get all of the schools through that process. I just don't know what the schedule is for that. So, thank you. That that is great feedback. I appreciate it. >> Thank you, U Miss Fitzpatrick, for this presentation. Um and I am very concerned specifically about River City. Um it is a very very challenging location. Uh it is probably one of my top um constituent concerns that have been shared with me. I myself have gone and seen how how bad it really really is. And my concern is that if not addressed soon and this is not just for you, it's for the administration as
158well. Um, I don't want it to be a situation where something happens and then we react. And I I I really I'm excited to hear that my colleague um in the fourth had some um you know progress made. Um some of the things that you know were shared with you that were able to do I was told differently. And so I I'm concerned about this lack of consistency from district to district. Um and while we need it in all schools, we should consider top priorities. And where we are on on the corridor on Hall Street in the turn, we have a Starbucks for God's sakes. Right across the street, we have a empty um store parking lot where people are dropping kids off. We need more help and I just don't understand why there hasn't
159been a response as of yet, but I I implore the administration to really rethink schools like River City. Um, if RPD is not available, then perhaps we just get a CSA officer or someone in the morning. I don't know. But we need to think through something before something happens to one of our our children. Um, yeah, it's just and it's it's it's and then on top of that, we have development that's happening right in the backyard. So, it's going to make it's going to exacerbate already high level concerns. So, I just want to hear more about not just the knife, but those that are structured like a river city and what we can do now to address some of those concerns. Yeah, we'll keep looking into that. I know um it was interesting the first
160day of the virtual year in 2020, then councelor Michael Jones um did organized a walk with former mayor Lear Stone down Whitehead to show what that was what that route was like. Um and then we met a bunch of you there for the opening at River City which was really exciting. But then when we returned, we tried to do in advance, you know, I tried to advise in advance what we could do to prepare for it. But then that first year back, the school was extremely overcrowded and we had a lot of meetings and we put in again some of those more lowhanging things and sort of reorganizing the the the drop of the arrival and dismissal processes. Um, I mean, the great news is that there are a lot of students who are walking
161from nearby. Um, but we really need to try to support them and figure out how to accommodate all the different modes of transportation. So, and continuing to chip away at that and make big changes of neighborhoods in that area that still don't have sidewalks. Oh, yeah. >> So, if we have children that are walking, it's great, but there are no sidewalks. So, that's another concern. But, I I'd really like to hear from the administration on where we are and how we're going to move this forward. I will reach out to the city again and set up time for us to talk again about what can be done with whole street. Um uh you know fortunately as I've shared in the past the communications that I've received have been about the importance of whole street as
162a main artery into the city and that for those reasons doing traffic calming on hall is I don't know what the right word is not desirable. or or problematic for that reason. But um but I will bring it up again and um happy to include you madam chair and anybody else who would like to join and um you know re raise the concerns. Um yeah people go really fast down street. Um so yeah happy to to set that up. Yeah >> thank you so much. Great presentation. Okay, I won't for the sake of time um be long, but I wanted to just readress professional development opportunities now that we have VSBA training out of the way. Um this is an opportunity for us as a collaborative to decide what are some areas of professional development
163we would like to have as a group. Um I am very very very very happy and pleased that we have as individuals done an amazing job of doing our own professional development going to VSBA um trainings offerings and so on and so forth. Um but this is really an opportunity for us. I know that one of the things that I've heard from a couple of folks is budget. Um, and so, um, I think that might be a high topic item, but this is just our opportunity to have that conversation as a group, um, of some areas of professional development that you all may be interested in having so we can start working on planning that. As a reminder, we do have a budget um, of I believe it's $10,000 for professional development as a group.
164Um if I will also remind you that um back in I believe it was June, I sent a proposal from schoolboard partners um as it relates to different alocart trainings that they offer as well as um they shared that they could do kind of like a um a collaboration of different items per our request. they can kind of cater it to what our desire is. And and not to say that we have to go with them, but I think once we have an idea of what type of training we we we want, then we can really engage professionals. I had some conversation with the Richmond Ed Fund who would like to help partner with that. Um, and you know, we're certainly going to seek out subject matter experts at the lowest rate possible, but also
165um being intentional about the impact that we want the training to have. So, I just want to open the floor um just quickly if there's any specific uh topics that you all would be interested in so we can I can start that work on the back end. Dr. Mr. Harris Muhammed, Miss Ricard, >> because of so many changes on the federal level, um, and the state level for that matter, um, professional development that consists of um, board teaching board members how to advocate for their school division. I think often the community assumes that we know how to do that and we unless it's the work that you're coming out of. It's maybe not a skill that you are walking into as a schoolboard representative. Um I shared with you all that in January I will
166be attending the adv advocacy you attended before Miss Burke the NSBA advocacy um uh conference and training for schoolboard members. Um, and so I I think that's a um perfect opportunity to not only meet and network, but but to be able to to discuss these specific targets and have a like 30 second elevator speech. We want to be able to explain what we need so much, but just to be able to to be trained on um how to hit that nuggets in a certain amount of time, as much skills that we have um to do this work is viable. And also professional development's always better with a partner. Um, and so that's why I share out when I'm going somewhere to see if anyone else is interested. Um, learning together is better because you don't
167necessarily hear the same thing the same way. Um, but you know, I just wanted to to to share that. So advocacy um, and then of course being able to understand the nuances within budgets. Sometimes you have to go out in order to get what you need to come back in to make the decisions that are of of equitable stance for all students. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Ricard. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I think I uh would continue to love and I know it actually ties in with some of our evaluation committee and goals is um the governance and agenda setting and how can we continue to make sure that as we're setting our agenda, we're doing the things that we need to do as a board for governance, but also just keeping
168the focus on our students, their achievement, equity. Um, how to look at data through those lenses, questions we should be asking. Um, that's what immediately comes to mind. And and then the other end of course is what is the most beneficial way to communicate and engage with our communities? Um, we have parents that work all hours that don't have the ability to do things. Are there methods from other urban schools to help increase engagement and just understanding? Um, support of their children and what they're going through. >> Thank you, Miss Rizzie. >> Thank you. Yes, I I'd really love to have some more work on agenda setting and streamlining board meetings um and making sure that we are in line with um you know what are largely considered really effective boards and board practices. Um,
169I personally enjoy working with the Council of Great City Schools on those types of topics, but um, I know they're not the cheapest game in town and uh, you know, but yeah, I did find that that a lot of what they offered was powerful. Um, I do want to plug at the uh Virginia School Board Association's um convention this past week. Um I had the privilege of watching the documentary Multiple Choice which um it's called Multiple Choice with Schools Could Be and it focuses on the Emil and Grace uh Shiada in Innovation Center in Winchester, Virginia. And what they're doing is integrated career-based learning and um his name is Jason Van Ulm uh he's the superintendent of Chester County Public Schools. Um and um it was just such a powerful model of how um CTE
170can be integrated into all levels high school and how all students can be engaged um and how CTE can actually partner well and and inform academics um so that all students are elevated. It's just I mean they they've done an excellent job with um achieving this and it is a very very powerful documentary. I know we can reach out and schedule a screening so you know I don't know if that's something you all are interested in. Have you heard of it Mr. P? >> Oh it's it's it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. >> Thank you so much Mr. Hitchb. >> Thank you Madam Chair. I had the privilege of going to the BSBA conference. Uh didn't get to see the vid the video but would love to. I just wanted to echo a few of my colleagues
171really fast. One I would love uh more uh training on agenda setting. Alexandria City Public Schools did a an excellent presentation on that uh that Miss Ricard and Miss Rizzie got and I got to uh to attend. Um they worked with a consultant that I'm I'll be happy to share the name um of of that individual escaping me at the moment. Um and then also uh budget and advocacy I'd also like to see uh work on on those. So thank you. >> Sorry. Legislative advocacy like um to second Dr. Harris Muhammad. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Miss Burke. >> Thank you Madam Chair. The list is awesome. everything that was said. I'd like to suggest at some point maybe we'll have a committee or we've said so much looking at our data looking at
172the other Jason I'm on a committee with the Jason from from Winchester and that is an excellent model that they have done there in Winchester County and also the young lady in Alexandria's name is the chair of the school board there has a connection with the in Alexandria Virginia so there may it may not be as expensive as we think. But what I'm asking is that we could finetune the list for right now since we're just in school for a few months. And the evaluation committee also has a couple suggestions that we're going to share because that's a goal as well. But if we could just narrow it down a bit, maybe after having a poll or whatever, then that will help us to focus in as a like focus focus in as a a
173laser per se and not spread ourselves so thin with so much. Going back to what Dr. Harris Muhamad stated, "It's always best when you have a partner or someone else." And the four of us learned so much and we pretty much divided ourselves in what we attended at the school board association, but uh look forward to I look forward to giving that report as well. >> Great. These are all great. So, um Mr. Pible has written all of these suggestions down. And what we may do, I know we just love doodles. um we may figure out a way to do some type of um maybe a Google form or something or the other for us to narrow it down and then from there we can start doing the research to to your point. We can
174have a subject matter expert that just may be willing to come that has that level of expertise that we need that won't that we might just give a love gift to versus um them giving us a bill. So, we'll think about that. But I'm really excited about this. This is makes me very happy. Miss Burke, >> we could also take a field trip. >> I'm all for trip. Yes. >> Yeah. The sky's is the limit. >> All right. Thank you all so much for that. Um, next up we have received for first read policy committee recommendations. >> Thank you so very much. Schoolboard colleagues, you received the information that was uploaded in board docs. The school um policy committee members did not receive to my knowledge any feedback. However, I do know we have some
175questions um this evening. I do want to point out a couple of things. Um, all of the policies for your review are equitably important. One in particular is a new policy that's the observation of students by parents, guardians, and caregivers. This is not a document we're going to vote on tonight, but please, I am I am highly recommending that you review that policy in its entirety. The academic team did a wonderful job in trying to meet us as in terms of the policy committee at a medium even though there was still some discussion and some and some concerns but I do know this policy is needed. Um it has um come at a time where as board members we have received a plethora of emails and requests about you know what is your policy on
176visiting my child's class having breakfast or lunch giving my child a party. So it is necessary do we have some um a policy excuse me in place um and so I'm more than happy to take questions via email if we c if you all can CC all the committee members so we can all see the questions or feedback and um I'll be more than happy or any of us because the policy committee members are so intelligent igent. They have so much feedback. Um, we can take because it's a we um we can take any questions that you may have. >> Thank you, Miss Rizzie. >> Thank you. Dr. Harris comment, I actually did have a question about that one particular policy. I read through it and wondered if it is completely original to RPS. It's
177not based on any state policy. Is that correct? That is correct. >> And you did consult legal in the crafting of this? >> I did not consult legal. The academic team did their due diligence with that, I believe. >> Thank you, >> Mrs. Jafari. >> Thank you. I had one add uh and this kind of came out in the last meeting the committee meeting that we had and if we'll go to uh the actual policy and I think that's policy 3-3.13 >> and uh >> this the additional language that I thought was necessary was driven by a situation that we encountered wherein uh something was given to a school and and it required that work be done and materials actually be placed on the school. And so we thought it would would be appropriate to
178make sure that we had expressed language that addressed the giving of gifts of this type. And so as I look at uh line 24 well if you can look at lines what 11 through 24 you can see that they're captioned with line 24 being capital equipment. My suggestion was an additional land for capital materials uh gifts of materials. In other words, that there be nothing, no gaps or anything wherein anything was given to a school and actually placed on the school building itself without express dictates uh without express recording of it and dictates as to making sure that it was given to the BPC committee and that all of the necessary channels were followed. uh not just as a matter of checks and balances but also to protect their staff. Uh we simply can't have
179anybody placing anything on any property or anything without any recordation of it >> and and to add to that that's a live example or it was a live example um and also I would add that our facilities team um led by um Mr. Hathaway should also be a part of that conversation. We have to be very mindful. We we have so many partners that want to come in and build things um and add things, but they're not clear of the process. And our building leaders have to be they have to spearhead that knowledge, if you would. They got to be able to understand. You don't know what you don't know. It's not um many many years ago when um you know people could come in and just put up a a bookshelf or a couple
180of bookshelves or different things in your media center. That's a common practice um that where it may occur. But um change of times um and change of insurance policy premiums require us to be vigilant and um uh complete our due process. So thank you for that Mr. Jafar for for sharing that. Yep. Thank you. >> Just one point of clarity. Are you saying that what is included was per your request or are you asking for an additional addendum? I just want to make sure we capture what you've shared. >> We would have to have the language added in as much as what's there is not expressed. So it needs to be added. >> Okay. So, if you could follow up with the email to the committee and just copy the rest of the board so
181that we can have that amendment included. Thank you. >> We'll do. Thank you. >> All right. Moving right along to 3.06 evaluation committee updates. And um colleagues, it is uh close to 9:00, so I would just ask if we would be very expeditious in our presentation. Thank you. Miss Bus is this you said a word didn't come on teammate. All right. Thank you so very much. is attached in the on board docs. The evaluation committee has done a few things to update where we are. Number one, well, this past month of November, we did meet and we did finish up. We finished up the goals that we discussed earlier. We gave you all two and added asked if you wanted to add another one. So, we have been able and I'm going to share that
182with you shortly. So, we did um do that as well. updated that and tonight that's what our discussion will be. Thank you. We're good. We don't need that part yet. Well, we could you can leave that one there. You can leave it there. Okay. Yeah, because of the timeline. You have this in your attachment as well. So in December what our plan is the evaluation um committee which is now December asks that this is what our plan of action will include as I explained when we go to the um announcement the on the board our regular meeting is scheduled on the second Thursday of each month which is December the 11th. However, we're asking which we've already addressed this to change to December the 18th. So this is what we're going to do at this
183point. If you would be so kind before you, these are the boards proposed 2025 2026 school board that's a what? School board goals. All right. The first one is professional development which we submitted this earlier and we didn't have any feedback so we assume that you were good with that. The board will attend at least one full board professional development on governance in order to fulfill the memorandum of understanding of which we've done that in Charlottesville. So we can check that one off. Check. Check. All right. In addition, each board member each board member will attend at least one prof professional opportunity, professional development opportunity aligned to the strategic plan, dreams for RPS. Let's keep dreaming. And that goes back to what we stated earlier, just being mindful of what top three things we have
184in mind. And we also talked about a book study be it small group or individual. It's encouraged. Um board members will submit a excuse me is encourage. We talked about several books and I thought we listed them on here but we have a couple of books that we're going to ask if we're in agreement that we can purchase and then we can work out. For instance on Monday I may call up um Mr. Hedgepath and we'll talk about chapter one. next week call madame chair and do another chapter just something to connect us and to have that opportunity to dialogue in terms of reading reading reading which is aligned to our strategic plan. So board members will submit a brief summary of their professional development to the clerk to be included in the following board
185agenda under otherformational items. This is a challenge. We know that section is there and we all have attended great professional developments but we haven't taken the time to move forward. So what we're asking for this will be documentation and when our committee meets on the 18th maybe we'll come up with a small form with just two or three lines and then our community can see our administration can see that we're about the business. We are walking the talk. We're about the business of making sure that we are uh perfecting our skills as well. The second item is any any questions or shall I go on? Second item is su student success. The board will focus at least ask that we focus at least 30 minutes of the monthly work session on student success to include
186our strategic plans big three goals. Big three goals are number one RPS school accountability and school ratings, number two graduation, and number three academics which is pretty broad. Monthly agendas and minutes will serve as documentation to meet this goal. Number one, we ask that all three of these items are addressed each meeting. Okay. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. >> So, are you requesting for it to be 30 minutes total or 30 minutes for each individual? >> 30 minutes total. >> Okay. So, about 10 minutes or so a piece. Okay. And it may already be on upcoming agendas. Exactly. Exactly. And that will also be when we are evaluated by the Virginia Department of Education, we'll have our data. This is what we're doing. Bam. All right. And the last one that we added is on community
187engagement, which M. Vicard just mentioned something about that earlier. The board will host one in the board collectively will host one informal event to encourage community engagement outside of a regularly scheduled board meeting such as we've already done but we want to do more such as participating in a RPS festival or hosting a budget and advocacy collaboration dinner meeting for the community. However, we decide we'd like to move forward with community engagement, we will keep a record of attendance as documentation of the event and this will be our baseline for future years to come. So, Madame Chair, at this time I present to you the listing from the committee, Miss Ricard, Mr. Hedgepath, and yours truly, and we can take any questions as you so desire. Did I leave anything out? I may speak from
188>> this is uh phenomenal work. Thank you very much. But you you all have been all of the committees truly have been very intentional and really adding value to the board as a whole. And so I just want to thank you all. I think these are spectacular um and something that's very clear and measurable and I believe is attainable. Um so thank you Mr. cameras. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I do think these are great. My one uh friendly proposal would be for the student success. I don't know that we will have something that is substantive to report out on all three of those goals every work session. And so would propose a cadence of going through the three on a rotation. So we do accountability, uh, graduation, academics, accountability. That will give us
189a chunk of time for which there to be further progress. For example, school accountability. It's really hard for me to think through what we'd be able to report out on on a monthly basis. there's just not that much that occurs that would give us anything useful for you to learn about or respond to, but I think on that kind of a rotation, we could. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, our December 18th meeting, if you look at the calendar, it also lists that we can come back and address that. Um and we also are scheduling a meeting with you as well as the clerk and our new auditor when that happens. But um we'll we'll discuss that. But as of this point, whatever we can have, whether it's 10 lines or 10 pages, we just
190want to keep the main thing the main thing. If academics isn't before us, then then we're going to falter. Same thing with about accountability. If it's two lines, it's better than not anything at all. So, we had a lot of conversations regarding this. However, when we meet with you in December, if you want to um elaborate upon that, that's fine. Or any other feedback from the board because this is this we have time to move forward, but it's it's December, you all. It's December. One last thought. Um it's on the second page, Virginia Department of Education. And if you want to see the superintendent's performance standard and evaluation criteria, it's on page 33. You can go online and pull it up. Um, superintendent is already familiar with it. Nothing new for us, but we're in
191preparation for our midyear review. But thank you, Mr. Cameras, for that feedback and tomorrow we'll talk about it on the 18th, but we do need to move that forward this month. Thank you, >> Dr. Harris. Muhammad, you turned it off. >> Sorry, Mr. Cameras. Is it possible that in December the board can receive an update of the schools and I asked this um several months ago who have moved out of the 95% federal participation plan or who may be that is a added piece. It's not a whole lot but it does deal directly with student performance. So just thinking of a way that could fill that gap. Yep. Thank you. >> And I do think there are ways that we can be intentional about a presentation. It doesn't have to touch the full chunk of
192things, but I think the board can come up with several topics of interest that'll keep the main thing the main thing. All right. Thank you all so much. Moving right along to 3.07 update on quick claim D for more street. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Just wanted to provide a quick update because this is something which has dragged on for quite some time. As a refresher for anyone watching, this is about the Moore Street School, which is the building connected to Carver Elementary. It is a historic school uh here in Richmond. Uh I believe the first school that served African-American students here in Richmond. Um there have been efforts over the last couple of years to u in essence surplus the property the city would then give it to a local foundation the Carver foundation
193sorry the more street school foundation um uh designed to uh turn the space into youth and education related program programs. Uh we have found it exceedingly difficult to execute this transfer because the buildings are attached and to effectuate the legal documentation. We need a survey that bifurcates the buildings and that in itself requires uh several steps that um have proven to be costly and time consuming. Uh where this was laughed was with the the request made from our attorneys to the city attorney to draft a memorandum of understanding to um in essence do the necessary work to help us cross the finish line. I'll just leave it there. All that to say it has not happened. Um and we are uh a bit stuck. Um and so I have two thoughts. One is to re-engage
194the city attorney to see if we can get that memorandum of understanding executed. Uh my second thought is to explore the feasibility of taking a completely different approach which would be we retain the Moore Street School and simply lease it to the Moore Street Foundation for some very nominal fee and be clear in our lease agreement that they are responsible for the renovation, upkeep, staffing and so on and so forth. That path would not require us to do any surplusing any further activity with the city. Believe it is within our purview to do so since we do lease our properties for other short-term events. Um and that it would retain we would retain it in our portfolio. Um, but for all intents and purposes, we'd turn it over to the Mor Street Foundation for their
195operation, and that would not require us to go through all the red tape that currently seems to have us tied up and bound. Um, so that is my current thinking and um would welcome certainly Mr. card's uh thoughts as uh the more streets tools in our district would of course welcome the full board's guidance as to how proceed. >> Before we open the floor pack, is there anything you like to share perspective before we weigh in terms of the logistics if we were to move forward with the quick claim deed? >> The superintendent is correct that you are you can lease the building to more street Foundation. However, it has to um it can't be a gift. So, it has to have some fair market value attached to it. Now, there are ways to define
196what value there is. So, if the Morris Street Foundation were to renovate the building, that certainly is a value to the school division. And um and if that's the case, I think a nominal rent such as $1 would be permissible. But that's that we would have. That's the only caveat that I want to be aware of. >> Thank you, Miss Ricard. Miss Rizzy. >> Um I'm happy to defer to Miss Rizzie first as facilities and vacant property chair and then I can >> Okay. Um I would just love to see this process come to completion. >> Um it is a beautiful old building. I had the opportunity to tour it with Mr. legions and I don't want it to fall into any more disrepair. It's historic. Um there are great plans for it. Um Maggie
197Walker High School has also wanted to come along and help with it through programming and creation of things. So it offers and of course Carver Elementary is right there as well. And so it just offers so many wonderful opportunities for the community. And um to me, you know, we want it done right, but I also would like to see this done. I feel like it's been talked about for many years and um a lot of good could come, but no good is really coming of it right now sitting vacant. >> Thank you, Miss Rizzy. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I you know, I have been engaged with Mr. allegiance for a couple of years on this pretty consistently. Um I would like to know more about what the holdup has been with the city. Um
198the only concern I'd have for what you posed is that I think it's possible that the more street Foundation will bulk at renovating and not owning that property. Um but that is a conversation of negotiation have with them. Um I think they have historically expected to be able to completely own the property. This might be a little disappointing for them. Um there's nowhere in their they have a proposal that's about this. There's nothing in there about um leasing um that property from anyone else. So, I you know, I really would love to um there I know specific names of people that they've interacted with at the city level and I would like to know exactly what happened that and why it ended up stalling the way that it did. Um because that is absolutely not
199what we expected to share with Mr. Legions and the foundation. is record. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I think as a response to also what Mr. said, you know, if they're running and making improvements, they don't really get the value of those um because they're renting and when we rent, we only want to improve so much because it's not our property. Um so I agree with Mie. I think if we could once again kind of explore where the breakdown happened with theou if that is still viable with the city I would prefer that. Um but I think in general we just need to reopen conversations so that this can happen. Um um I would like for us to come to some type of resolution as well. It it appears that we're kind of kicking the
200can down the road. And so if we could just put a timeline that is reasonable. It's a followup by next board meeting reasonable to say that you've assessed the different um options and have come to some type of um you know can report back out on that. I just don't want a a situation for us to we thought that this was done and then it's well no it's not done and so there's like this not this clear path forward and I just we need to come to some type of resolution we owe it to everyone that has worked on this project. Miss Rizzy I agree with that. Um I think my only concern is if we pitch this to the Mor Street Foundation and they reject it we need to come up with um a
201way a path forward. It may be that they don't. Um I am just, you know, I just want to prepare for the fact that they may not um see this um as exactly what it was they were expecting. They've invested a lot of time and money in what they've done so far. >> Mr. Pival. >> Well, just real quick to amplify that. Um and it may not be entirely up to them. Sometimes funding is dependent on holding the property itself. So that this may upset whatever plans they had for funding that we may want to get to the bottom of. >> So the question is, are we in a consensus to to revisit or explore the idea of leasing this property or would we just like to move forward with where we are? Mr. Cameras.
202Um, how about I we uh because I do want to note that pack dutifully quasi badgered the city attorney for quite some time to get thisou uh we can re-engage um and try once again um and I can it with the chief administrative officer as well and necessary the mayor get some sort of response. Um uh I I do want to note we we might get a favorable response in that yes we'll do it. That does not mean it will get done on a timeline that I believe the board would like. And I only say that because I that's been my experience. All that to say, we will reach out, update you in January, let you know like this is where we think we are with the quit claim process. Um, and with the city,
203we think we can get this done in the next six weeks or what we're hearing from the city is it's going to be six to nine months and then uh we can make a decision at that point. >> Thank you for that. But I I want to make sure that we there's a consensus first because I'm hearing some skepticism behind exploring the leasing option. So I just want to make sure we are crystal clear on what we're asking them when we move forward. Miss Rizzy >> chair I I don't know what their response would be. I certainly am happy to take this to the Mor Street Foundation and offer it as a solution. Um, I think the contingency would be if they say no, this is not. >> So, does everyone feel comfortable with that?
204No concerns. Wonderful. All right. So, by next board meeting, obviously, we know nothing is going to be finalized, but we want to at least have some type of clear path forward, particularly by January's board meeting if possible. So, Miss Burke, I think that's great that Miss Rizzy will is she going to go by herself? Does someone from administration need to go with you to explain or the superintendent? And reason I'm asking that is yeah I know I talk to Jerome all the time too but I know he's going to probably take it back to the board. So you're not planning on meeting with the whole board just Okay. My other question is just for clarity, we didn't move forward because the buildings are connected. Is that what the city said? >> So, let let me
205just give you some clarity about um number one, in order to surplus this property right now, it's in one one piece of property. You have to precisely divide the you have to precisely divide the property that requires a survey and subdivision. And after that there needs to be inspection of the building because they're two connected. they've been so so it's not just it's not just the school board's willing to surplus the property because unlike the past you know when you surplus one property we know exactly what and in this case there is no value because it's one piece of property and depending on how the building will be used you got to think about the number of parking lots well if that's the case how much of the parking lot are you going to subdivide
206for this property that requires some thinking and some planning and also there's got to be permit per you know there's a permitting process for special use of this building how is it going to be utilized etc etc so so those are the moving parts that we that we have to take into consideration and that's and I think that the property being connected is a short way to to say, you know, that's that's the primary issue. So, okay, I'm going to ask it in another way. What exactly is the holdup? Is the holdup them? And are we waiting on them to do something else? Is it us? Is it the city? I think that's what Miss Burke is is wanting to and we all are wanting to understand. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. On
207June 7th, 2022, uh WY Wilson, which is a architecture and uh surveying type firm, responded to our request for a survey of the property so that we can give something to the city and move forward with this process. And forgive me, but I'm going to read some of this and it's a little dry, but I think it's important. Uh the letter reads, "After working with the city zoning official, it became apparent that in order to complete any type of subdivision on this building, a multiple of multitude of steps would be required to produce an accurate boundary, including one, the fact that a portion of the abandoned building in this scope is attached to the existing GW Carver School building would make the possibility of meeting any setbacks impossible. Two, the building will need to be
208inspected to ensure that the two quote unquote buildings would meet all applicable building codes and standards. This includes but is not limited to the following in their various lists. Three, in order to create the boundary, the intended use of the facility would need to be addressed before subdivision. Parking space requirements are based on the use of the building and at this time the actual use cannot be determined as the portion to be subdivided is currently abandoned. Four, zoning would require that the number of spaces currently in use by the working school shall remain as is. No spaces from the lot can be removed put with the building to be subdividivided as it may affect the quantity required by zoning for the working school itself. Note RPS raised concerns that the existing building may not currently
209be meeting the necessary requirements. Five, the future use would need to be determined for the abandoned portion of the building with the current zoning requirements. The building would need to be used in the same manner as its past use. Six, to achieve any type of subdivision of this parcel would require a special use. This would require public meeting, city council review, and approval. Seven, if the future use is not similar to that of the current use, a zoning variance may be necessary. This would need to be known before producing any type of subdivision. So all necessary setbacks could be followed based on the current state of the property and existing building. It is not possible to complete a subdivision until the items above are addressed. As discussed, this would add cost, time, and so on.
210Then this is an important final paragraph. It was decided that the best step forward would be to have the city attorney draft a memorandum of understanding between the city of Richmond and RPS where an RPS would transfer the operations of the facilities back to the city and maintain ownership of the property until such time that the city finds a buyer for the property. At that time a proper subdivision would be negotiated based on the new property. That is theou that pack was trying to get executed and has never been executed. What I was proposing is that we try once again to execute that get this dislodged and move forward. If by January we cannot get a favorable response from the city about thisou then I think it would be worth exploring the leasing. That is
211what I am proposing. >> Miss Rosie, >> thank you. I don't want to drag this on longer than it has to be. I forwarded to you um a response that was sent to me and on October 21st. Um it came from Mr. I probably butcher his name from the city. He outlined things that need to happen. And I think it has long been our position that once we quick claim the property city then they could continue with this and get some of this stuff done for them. um that hasn't been the case. And so I'm guessing what you propose here, Mr. Cameas, is a better route. And we'll see if we can figure this out and we'll let you know in January. It may be that they have no choice but to lease it from
212us. It's insane that it's taken three years almost four. So hopefully we can come to some type of path forward soon for everyone safe. Okay. Um moving right along to 3.08. receive an update on Commerce Road sites relocation proposal. Uh before Mr. Harold jumps in, um this was a late breaking development that um originally we thought for it to move forward if that were the board's desire would require action at tomorrow's meeting. That is no longer the case. So, I want to relieve what I think is very understandable anxiety about having to make a very quick decision about something very important. um we have a bit more time and so I thought it was important nonetheless to bring this uh project forward for consideration as there might be a win-win here that would get the
213city a lot of much needed housing and get RPS some much needed uh infrastructure. So with that I'll turn it over to Mr. and then we are joined um also by Brian Beex to provide some more content. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Good evening, board members. Uh like Mr. Cameron said, we received a request the Friday before last about what would need to be true for us to consider handing over the uh Commerce Road property back to the city for redevelopment purposes. And so what we want to do tonight is I'm going to turn it over first to Brian Jackson. He's going to speak representing the developers about what the underlying desire for this redevelopment opportunity would be and then I'll take over and talk about some of the background work that we did about what
214would need to be true for us to even consider doing this. Obviously all subject to the input of the board. One thing I want to make clear is we did not share this with Brian, the developers, or the city. We wanted this to come to you first for consideration. So, please do not ask uh Mr. Jackson at all about the proposal that you have because he has not had a chance to review it. We wanted to make sure you had it first and you were able to provide input on it before we went to the the city and the developers if at all about this potential opportunity like Mr. camera said that we think could potentially be a win-win. But with that, I want to turn it over to Mr. Jackson to talk a little
215bit about the background of the project and then I'll talk a little bit more about some of the analysis that we did for what we think would be would need to be true for us to even consider this as an opportunity. >> Thank you very much. Uh good good evening. I should say perhaps good night. Um my name is Brian Jackson. I'm a partner with law firm Hersheler here in Richmond. Um, Madame Chair and uh, Mr. Superintendent, members of the board, I appreciate you allowing us this little time on your agenda. Let me put this briefly into context first because I can understand something coming at a late breaking pace. Much like your Carver situation, we've been talking to the city for over two years. We were of the understanding that the city was talking
216to RPS to some extent. I just leave it at that. Um and we were trying to we were racing to uh what was a deadline for the developer as well as a urgency to get tax credit application file. Um, we've been relieved of that initial deadline and we would like to put something on the table um that would allow this body to thoroughly consider it um along with the other things that have been teed up by your own administration staff and even a decision in February would be fine for us at your February meeting. So, I just wanted to start at the outset with that on the timing front. With that in mind, I'll try to be very brief. Consider the hour I represent Harper Associates, which is a local developer, and they have an
217affiliate that owns the property in question on Commerce Road. That's called City Central. City Central bought this property um around 2006. Um at one point, they sold a portion of it to the city of Richmond. Part of that is now occupied by RPS for its maintenance and nutrition and other uh operations. The other part of this property is occupied by the Richmond Police Department. They were two separate parcels. The city u did a boundary line adjustment. So now it's one parcel. One parcel but two users. Um they could easily be divided. Again, this developer has made a proposal to the city u because again the property's in the name of the city and we didn't understand the RPS connection. Let me just say uh ownership issue that's pretty clear now to us and uh we've
218been going back and forth. Currently what we've sort of boiled the deal points down to and our proposal that this developer would pay the appraised value for the property. That's north of $7 million. And in addition to that being cost for the land, the developer would pay for the relocation expenses for both users RPS and the police department. That latter number would be derived by mutual agreement between the parties during a period of negotiation. But those would be the two key factors. Now, obviously that doesn't cover whatever the issues are. I call them issues because they're questions with respect to RPS and the city, right? Those things don't involve the developer, but the developers fully willing to participate in the relocation component as well as a cash payment of over $7 million for the property,
219which is the appraisal that the city got on the property. Um, which was higher than the developers appraisal. Yes. >> Really quickly, the 7 million, are we splitting that with RPD? or >> because the property is in the name of the city, that wouldn't be our decision obviously. >> Okay. >> But I I do think the >> I do think it's a conversation for RPS to have with the city over how that money is split. >> Thank you. >> The properties almost equal >> in terms of the way it could be divided again. So that would be the logical approach. >> Okay. >> That it would be have. >> Thank you. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but I just wanted to ask that question quickly. Thank you. Obviously, there are other
220issues. I'm not sure the relocation components for the RPD is the same as RPS. So, maybe there's some trade-offs there that that move some of those dollars. Uh, so the project at hand, I've given you a couple of handouts. The second page shows the first page shows the the two parcels combined. Second page shows the master plan concept approach uh that lays out what could be thousands of residential units. The developer wants to start first with 230 235 or so affordable housing units that come very close to the property in question that's now occupied by RPS and RPD. That's sort of the urgency of getting this project going. We're talking about a project that's going to be 5 to 10 years in full development. 60 acres total. It would be the largest residential effort ever
221undertaken by anybody in the city. and a lot of excitement. We met with community groups several occasions. We've been participating in the small area plan that's now passed and approved by the city. The administration's excited about it. Residents are excited about it. Civic groups are excited about it. Council person for that district is excited about it. We didn't realize the need to come talk to RPS. We didn't realize the the ownership interest that RPS has in the property. That was a legal opinion given recently to the city by the city attorney that said, "Whoa, you can't do anything this piece without RPS's commitment to it." That's why we're here now. >> Yes, >> Miss Rizzie. So, the city has already approved this development. The the council has. >> No, they have not. What we have
222done, we've resoneed the property piece that we that the developer owns. The city has uh about halfway reszoned the rest of the property. It hasn't been completed yet by council. They have expressed support for the project. There's been no vote by council. Um we would in terms of the next steps would need to have a contract for the sale of the property to this developer that would be approved with the surplus paper by the city council for us to move forward. And obviously they won't do that without RPS approval at least on this component of the property that you occupy. >> Now this is a conversation that they will have but I'm just curious when you say affordable housing how much of the AMI we talking? >> So this initial 230 some odd units would
223be 60%. Um, and we're targeting uh 230 units, looking at late 2026, early 2027. But there's capacity there. And we've already talked to the housing authority about potentially having an opportunity to help with um the Hillside Court development next door as a relocation opportunity. Uh we can have as much as 3 to 4,000 dwelling units, not all affordable because we want to have mixed use communities, but retail, other commercial uses, a mixture of uh high-rise type development as well as low-rise development. Toward the neighborhood, there would be a maximum of five stories, probably more like fourtory development. Up front, we could go higher. So, it'd be a mixeduse community of of 60 acres. And you can see from the diagram there, it's a massive massive undertaking and um the economic development piece is is a
224big exciting component as well. Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. I'm just stuck on the affordable housing piece of it. Yes. >> So the agreement is 230. That is the that is the the base number of affordable units. >> There's no agreement. So the developer is going to develop the whole site >> proposal. >> Correct. Well, no, that's just what we've identified as the first phase. >> So there could be more. Oh, I I'm sure there there will be a whole lot more. Um, but not all affordable. >> Right. Right. That's why I'm I'm talking just affordable. >> Yeah, we haven't gotten any further than that. >> Percentage. You have a percentage. >> We haven't gotten any further than this initial component because of the location of where we start. It's toward the back of the site
225where the existing homes are and it's going to be low-rise development. Yeah. >> Um, and so we figure that's the place to start for the first affordable housing, but we haven't gotten any further in terms of the percentage of affordable units. >> Dr. Harris Muhammad, >> thank you. I'm just going to address the elephant in the room if I may with a level of professionalism. >> I'm ready for it. >> I'm sure you are. I show up at my full authentic self every time. So that's never going to change. I received a call 40 minutes before this board meeting today to discuss this very topic and I find that to be on a level of disrespect to me because we're discussing property that resides in the sixth district. I had no clue that this was
226even happening. And and furthermore, because this is so close to the people that I serve in high poverty hillside court, has any correspondence or communication had with those residents? >> Yes, multiple. And they've been they were all invited to our community meetings. We've had multiple meetings with the housing authority executive director, their consultants, their administration. >> So, let me stop you there. Time out. Having a conversation with the housing authority is not the same as having a Let me finish because I'm showing up in my full authentic self. That's the only way I know how to do this. Having a conversation with the people at the housing authority is not the same as having a conversation of meeting people where they are in that in that area in that community. That's the point that I'm
227trying to make. Second, I serve that community. Those those are not just my people, but they're all of our people. And I'm I'mma just I'm I'm just going to say it. If I look different, would I have been treated different? I'm just going to put that out there because everybody in this city knows who represents the six. So, why wasn't I afforded the opportunity and the level of respect with a conversation and then and then the conversation this evening leads with we don't have to make a decision tonight. But why wasn't I important enough to even receive a phone call? >> One minute. >> I'm just saying that's how I'm showing up tonight about this conversation. It wasn't right. It was a level of diff disrespect and you can take that to anybody. Because what
228I'm saying to you, I said it earlier. If you want better, then treat people better. But then you're going to ask me as a woman of color to go and champion this project. Won't do it. >> 30 seconds. >> Because I was treated with a level of disrespect. Not even a phone call or email. I wasn't good enough. Maybe not to you all, but in my space I am. I need you all to check that and I need you to address it because it's not right. And I have to walk into my community in which I serve and say that I support this and when they asked me about it, I knew nothing about it. So just before you answer, just to provide some context what you might be feeling from um my colleagues and
229board members, we were just made aware today. And so for this conversation to have been going on for as long as it has and even for the administration to be made aware, you know, on the 21st of November, and for us to be in a position where we're having to have conversation today where we haven't really had time to digest and for the board, we have a requirement to upload documents like two weeks before to give transparency to the community. we're representing the community. We haven't even been able to engage the community before this conversation. So, that's kind of the frustration that you're feeling now. And I know that's you're here to champion your project, but just want to give you some context as to why you may feel a sense of a bit of
230frustration just because we're just receiving this information today. >> And I I fully understand that and I respect that. Um, and I don't I don't run from that. Okay, there's no intent to exclude anybody from the conversation. What I said at the top was very true. We've been talking to the city of Richmond, which on record is the owner of the property. We didn't realize there was a need to talk directly to anyone with Richmond public schools. In fact, we were told that the city was having conversations with Richmond public schools about relocation and with the Richmond Police Department. We were told that for months and months and months. We did not find out until recent. I was invited to this meeting today. Today. We found out a week ago that it was necessary to
231engage RPS because RPS has this ownership interest with in the the property. That's why I'm here today and wasn't here previously. We did engage with the council person for the for that district. We did engage with the residents of Hillside Court and RHA executives, board members, several community meetings, the small area plan. We wrote letters to the tenants association. We reached out to everybody like we normally do with all development projects, but nobody said to us that we needed to bring this to Richmond public schools. In fact, because we were in discussions with the city as the owner of the property, we felt that was the proper protocol and approach for those conversations to develop. >> Sure. And just one other question, have you engaged RPD yet? Where are they in this process? When did
232that conversation take place? >> The city has engaged RPD and they were at the same meeting where uh Mr. Camaris and I attended to have this conversation I guess a week ago. >> They attended that as well. And as you know the RPD is a component of >> the city administration. That's a different conversation than with the school board which is independent constitutionally. So I think the conversations there were internally in that case and again we were told that there were multiple meetings with RPS. I'm not going to take the blame for that not happening or somebody not telling the truth about it and you know I'm not going to walk away feeling bad about that because that wasn't on me. >> Understood. Heard very clearly. Miss Burke. >> Thank you Madam Chair and thank
233you Mr. Jackson. My question is probably the city need to answer this. You stated that meetings took place with the residents of Hillside Court, correct? So, you were told >> No, no, not singularly. We we held community meetings with and invited >> member did they come? >> We included them in the the invitations. >> This this is what my question is. Those are our children. That's what my colleague to my right was stating. >> Yes. So if we're in the process of demolishing where they are, is that what's going to take place? >> No. In fact, that conversation, those discussions didn't go anywhere because the housing authority wasn't interested in moving forward with that. That's something aspirational I was saying that we wanted to include in this project. So that has gone nowhere. That's not
234currently a part of this developer's project. The housing authority has other priorities, we were told. So, >> and they said they would I'm sorry. They said they would do a a request for proposals. >> So, at this point, Madame Chair, um I'm I'm not in a position to make any decision about anything because I'm hearing too much in terms of number one, the school board was aware, the city was aware. This just something isn't fitting together on behalf of our children well. And it's not it's not your fault. It's not our fault, but I would like to know how do we move forward. So my my suggestion, Madam Chair, is that we move back from this for the moment and have our our operations um chief to to move us forward at another time because
235at this hour right now to give me this and just to see it this afternoon and want me to we we don't we don't and it's not your fault. >> No. In fact, the reason >> I'm not saying it's anybody's fault, but right now it's not the time or the place to make a decision because we are all in shock. >> I would expect you to and I'm not asking you to make a decision. That's my whole point. I I jumped at the chance to be here tonight once I understood the playing field to to say just what I'm saying. >> Well, I still don't know what the field is. >> Well, I understand that. I still don't know. I understand that. I still don't know. And I I don't have a problem making a
236decision, >> but as of this point, I don't I don't know what this is. Well, we're asking to consider the opportunity. That's that's the full that's the full 100% of my request tonight to consider this opportunity. I I do know I've seen on site tonight there's a a list of options that been prepared by your administration. So, I presume that's going to be a part of the conversation. >> Well, I'll let it be known. I'm not This is it. I mean, I'm not I can't I don't think it's fair. I mean, we need the opportunity to study this and move forward. So I don't think we're going to make a decision tonight on this were we? >> No. So there's >> so madam madam chair respectfully in l of time can we come back to
237this and make a decision maybe tomorrow night or next week or week after whatever I don't know what the time or next month January whatever but tonight we we no disrespect intended sir >> we're not asking for a decision I can't be clear we're not asking for any decision tonight we haven't even read anything >> we haven't read anything we just got this today we haven't read anything >> I'm just here to introduce the developer >> and and what they're trying to accomplish with the development project. My thought was that there would be some other discussion >> beyond tonight and we're prepared to be a part of that to the extent you want us to be a part of that. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate you taking the time to be here and
238your commitment to sharing the information with us. Um thank you. >> I appreciate your courtesy and your respect. >> Absolutely. Um, there is a lot to digest here. I want to be clear that there is no way that we'll have the opportunity to make any decisions tonight. I mean, some of us have just came from work straight to the meeting and haven't even had a chance to digest the relocation options that are presented before us. um you know if you want to give us cliff notes today but obviously I don't think we'll be able to get into a major discussion this evening regarding this and um I just want it to be very clear that with anything that we have to make a a decision for especially one of this caliber the moment that the
239administration hears it's very important to engage us to just give us the opportunity. Um we don't want to be put in a position where we feel rushed. We really want to engage the community um do our own due diligence and with collaboration that's important. So I would appreciate that in the future. cliff notes and then we'll just >> the very high level cliff notes. Uh the property on Commerce Road is incredibly valuable to Richmond public schools. 11 years ago we were asked to as part of the Diamond District development project give up property that we had there. In exchange we were given a perpetual lease with no ongoing maintenance for Richmond public schools. That has an enormous long-term value. So we put together when asked what what would it take for us to even consider
240even contemplate getting giving up that very significant financial advantage what would that be this is what we put together very broadly it's option number one the city helps to find an applesto apples comparison where we would have a similar perpetual lease and similar no maintenance fee if that is not possible what are other options that could help us collaboratively solve some other collective problems that we have with our capital dollars in a more comprehensive way. That is at the very high level what's been put before you tonight. Obviously, we can take as much time as we need to to figure out if this is something we even want to consider. I'm happy to have future conversations, but I'll leave it there. >> Thank you, Mr. Jafari. >> Thank you. My colleague was kind of blown
241away presentation of but I keep hearing the diamond district. Can you give us give me context what about that area is important to the diamond. >> Our facilities maintenance used to be located in Diamond District. That's where our facilities team had their H shop and their um carpentry and all of the facilities that they needed to service all of our buildings. 11 years ago when the Diamond District was being redeveloped, the city wanted use of that property for part of the Diamond District redevelopment. And so in exchange for that property, they gave us perpetual use of this Commerce Road property with no maintenance fees attached to that in perpetuity. And so that's how our facilities maintenance team moved from the diamond district 11 years ago to the location where they are now which is this
242commerce road that now the city and developers are interested in currently madam chair to follow so that and correct me here if I'm wrong or misplaced but that and the ass center and everything all of that is being consumed in the diamond district for the for the purposes building a a ball dam. >> I'm sorry. The you said the ed center >> ash ash. >> Uh so within the diamond district there there were a a collection of developments that the city was doing not just for the ballpark but a collection of developments that the city was pursuing whether that was the Arthur Ash Center a whole collection of uh properties. They wanted to be able to use our old facilities maintenance location as part of that and so they gave us use of this current
243commerce road facility. Um, I would just like to see in this proposal in the future, um, the cost of the options that you've laid before us. I see some, but I just like to if if we're at a situation where we need to move, I would like to know what that cost would be and how soon we would need that that type of thing in terms of budgeting. Um >> sure, understood. I think we the approach that we tried to take was to say this is what would need to be true for this sort of exchange of land to make make sense for Richmond public schools. And we do not see it as our obligation to figure out all of the details of the price. We want to say if XYZ and Z are true,
244we would be willing to move forward with the board's input and permission. Of course, I think if we were to say we will price out everything, then that puts an enormous amount of financial obligation on RPS to price out everything when in fact it is the city and the developers wanting a concession from us. And so I think we wanted to structure this as if you can find a workable solution that is mutually beneficial to RPS and you can work out the financing for that, we would entertain it. >> True, but I think it's equally true that we want to understand what that value looks like so we don't get the short end of the stick either. Not to say that the city would do that, but I'm just sure saying as we think through
245what the next steps look like, we should have some type of assessment of what that value assessment should be so that we understand whatever's presented to us. It it's apples to apples. >> Sure. Um, and then one other question that I had is it it's my understanding that there is a part of this particular property that's the lease is up at the end of the year or coming up soon. Can you give us insight into that? >> Sure. In option number one, that is the applesto apples trade. The city helps to find a comparable property with similar space and a similar long-term lease structure that is advantageous to us. In the situation that where that is not possible and we would be asked to give up that long-term no maintenance fee $1 a year setup
246from my perspective we would want something significant in exchange for that. And the options that we proposed were a comprehensive solution to the capital challenges that we have for our transportation team. Right now, our transportation team is in four different locations. Location number one is this Commerce Road location. Our partner, First Student, is located there and stores about 45 buses on site. Number two, on the north side at Richmond Technology Center, we have our north side compound where we store buses and a large number of our staff are located. on the south side on Belt Boulevard, we have a second large location where our buses are stored and the southside uh team is located. And number four is the one that you referenced, Madam Chair, which is a small facility that we currently rent that
247has three and a half bays for us to do maintenance on our fleet. The owner of that property has indicated that they would like to sell at the end of the term of that lease, which would be at the end of uh uh the 27 year. And so at that point we may not be able to continue that lease as it happens 2027. Yes ma'am. As it happens that those three and a half bays are very very limiting in our ability to service our fleet. And so options two through four were an attempt to in exchange for giving up these favorable lease terms if that's not possible. What is a large solution that we could come to that would solve a challenge that we are having on the capital side for the transportation team as
248well as this facilities team and its need for a different location. >> Miss Rizzy, Mr. >> Bas would ask for some kind of deal that allow us to consolidate. >> Yes, that's exactly right, >> Mr. Fer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just wanted to put out a few quick thoughts. First, as we heard earlier in the presentation, the amount of money that we would get for this property was like 7 million. That would have to be split with RPD in some way. So, first I want to point out that I know there are people out there who have very strong opinions about RPS and the number of properties we own and how perhaps we own too many and should be getting rid of some. We're not getting that much money for these properties. I mean, how
249much does it cost to build a new school? 200 million, 250 million. I mean, we don't have 30 properties, 40 properties to sell off. So, one, I hope that has dispelled that myth for people that we can't just be selling property left and right to fund new schools. There's just not enough money for that. That's one. Two, stepping back from this being suddenly thrust upon us. I am in favor and like the idea of the city building more housing. I think that's an objective good for our students. I personally hear all the time about the high cost of housing for my constituents and the kids in RPS. We still do have many, many questions to talk through and work out about how this works for us and whether it's a net positive or net negative.
250Um, but I do think that it's worth it for us to give this serious consideration because we objectively just need more housing and I have worked in housing in the past and I can tell you many stories about crappy developers and their lies about how much of their development will be affordable. But the simple fact is we have not built enough housing over the last 15 years. And that has not only made housing more unaffordable for the people who always struggled, but it's really pushing up prices even for market rate housing. So even more market rate housing will create a little bit of downward pressure. So I think those are things that make this something that objectively we should take very seriously. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. And I I appreciate that you
251share that. And I I tend to agree in terms of I'm a huge proponent advocate for affordable housing and this is certainly not something for anyone to answer tonight. Um but just ensuring that it is actually affordable. So like what I heard him say 230 units for the first phase they're building 3,000 to 4,000 units. We can't tag affordable housing when it's a small percentage of the units that's being built because then we find ourselves in the same position that we were in before. That's not an issue for RPS to decide. I think that's more of where city council will, I'm sure, weigh in, advocate for more units than this and to make sure that it's in writing. But I want to >> one minute >> say that, you know, publicly to ensure that we're
252truly advocating for more units um if this project were to move forward because we do need more affordable housing units for our communities. Um but the manner in which we do it is important as well. So thank you. >> Moving right along. We will not be doing close tonight. Just FYI. We'll do that tomorrow. Um 4.01 receive an update on care and safety. Good evening board members. Given the interest of time, we will let director E. Ron highlight the highly anticipated food show update uh and then accept any questions. >> Good evening uh Madame Chair, Superintendent Cameron and school board. Um as Chief Park stated, I'm going to give a update on uh our food show. Um that's going to be the concentration of my my presentation this evening. Okay. Um I'm just going to
253skip right to the food show from where the SACE or the student advisory council left off. Um when they did their presentation, um they talked about the collaboration that they had with our uh school nutrition services team. um planning all the process the student food show and bringing all of their um their fellow classmates to the Hilton to celebrate and to um let them taste a variety of foods that we wanted to bring to the menu. So um as we have worked on this really hard, there are a lot of steps that go into bringing things onto the menu. Um, I know this this has been a lengthy and a long awaited process, but we've been working really hard with our vendors. Um, just trying to get the timing right, trying to make sure that
254things come to their warehouse so that we can then bring it on site um to serve our students. So, we're doing a lot of menu planning, a lot of logistics at this point, making sure that our teams are ready so that in the new year we're hitting with a new menu. So, we're really excited to launch everything in January 2026 um with our different rollout dates. Um this is just a visual representation of where we are. Um just due to seasonality, I was able to hit the menu with a taheen fruit bowl early in the school year from Thank you. from August to October. So, we ran that since it featured melon. So, it was a seasonal item. we were able to easily get that on the tray for our students. Um, and this is
255just something that I plan to keep rolling out with our social media that we started this school year. So, we'll just be posting along the way as we come out with number two, the along the way to Korean chicken. It is not coming from Korea. Um, that's not why it took so long, but um, we we will be bringing that to our menus in January. So, just stay tuned as we roll out things on our social media. No, I hope not. No tariffs. I'm not anticipating that. Um, so this is just the rundown um that the student advisory council shared. Um, the data that was pulled from all of our surveys at the food show. Um, as you can see um top top rated was Korean chicken. Um, but we did hit the menu with
256the fruit bowl with taheen just for the seasonal purposes. And if you can you see the average rating for my students and then the launch dates are here um to the right. So things will be debuted on these days but then they will fold into our regular cycle menu which is a three-week cycle. So these things will be rotated um multiple times through the end of the year. Um and we also listen to the secondary student feedback. Um the SACE also talked about the survey that they ran at the end of last school year. Um so the students spoke and we are listening to them. So we are improving our food presentation. As you can see here, we're doing more individual portions of our items just to give it pop. Um just to get the
257kids interested. I've just found that typically when we do things in individual portions and making it available for them to pick up, typically they grab it rather than asking our um you know team members and associates behind the line to serve them. So they are serving theirelves. They're really excited about what we're putting out there. Um and they are making note of the the new presentation that we're having on our lines. We are offering more vegetable choices as you can see here in these pictures, more seasonal fruit. Um, and we are trying to customize our meals with bowl bowl options similar to like the cavas, the um chipotles in the different places where we had a rice bowl. We featured a plantbased taco um meat and then we also had a teriyak chicken um on
258this stand and then we allowed the students to top it with various vegetable toppings and like uh chow mane noodles um so that they can customize the bowl to their needs. Um and we're super excited again about our roll out in 2026 with our new menu items. Um, but we aren't waiting until 2026 to do some different things. Um, this is just a representation of items that we have coming out this December. Um, so as you can see, we are coming out with a lot of uh spicy flavors, pastas, some more sandwiches. Some of these things are returning items that we are updating a little bit. Um, and we're really excited to like reuse and reinvent the things that we've already had on our menus just to get our students re-engaged. >> Yeah. And that's
259it. Um, so I'm really excited about the new items coming out. And that concludes my uh highlevel Thank you. my highlevel um summary of the student food show and the roll out. >> That will take any questions. Miss Ricard, Miss Rzzy, >> thank you for this. Um, it's really exciting. I just for those who are listening or who will listen later, I do want to shout out your social media. Um, it's great. Do you mind flashing to where it is? >> Oh, um, >> yes, you can find >> Yes. RVA School's food. It is really colorful and fun. And they had a survey the other day about what pizza to have. Um, and so it's just it's great. Thank you for that. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I saw another question. >> Making I
260wanted to make sure I was following you. I am. My bad. >> Thank you for the follows, >> Miss Miss Rizzy. >> So, does this involve like going into any contracts with vendors? >> No, we're using our um existing distributors. We're just working really hard with them, communicating almost on a daily basis, just making sure that we're hitting those benchmarks and the dates. >> Yeah. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, we're almost there. 4.02 receive an update on Armstrong High School renaming. Good evening. My name is Willie Bale, director of high schools and athletics. Chief Jefferson uh in his absence. Unfortunately, he would have been here to present this, but um he he spearheaded this project to have a discussion with the John F. Kennedy alumni. So, first given the protocol,
261Chair Fernandez, board members, Superintendent cameras, Chief Jefferson did an outstanding job with this project. um he wanted to meet with the Kennedy alumni to hear from them on how RPS could honor the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Through that conversation that night on November the 20th, uh we met with about 18 alumni members from the John F. Kennedy community and we focused on two things. how we could honor RPS of course board approval through a physical representation as well as rituals and routines and some activities. Go to that the next slide please. Next slide please. So you see here the six physical recommendations that were captured at night. Uh we captured it on chop paper. The alumni they were calling out some things that for the board to consider. You see the top three was
262to install a historical marker in front of the school. Display a commemorative banner on I64. When you pass by N says Armstrong Wildcats on the bleachers. But they were speaking of something that would say the former home of John F. Kennedy the Cougars. And then the third highest because we tallied each one. And the third highest was the designate front entrance display cases as soon as you come up the steps in Armstrong. One on the right, one on the left. Uh one is already there that I purchased before uh I moved to this role because we were going to honor John F. Kennedy on the front side. We already have two display cases on the back side that honor the Armstrong alumni. And then you see the ritual routine and activity recommendations um at the
263bottom with the alumni week and alumni day when the the community the Kennedy alumni association will continue to have the annual scholarships and the back to school drive that is already in place right now. So based on that in that slide, you would see that the administrator's recommendation is to maintain the school's official name as Armstrong High School, but adopt the recommendations that I just previously discussed on slide three. And you can read the rest of the bullets. I think tomorrow night you are supposed to make a decision on that, but this was this was what came out of the meeting November the 20th at no with the John F. Kennedy alone. Any questions? Yes, Miss R. Oh, I'm sorry, >> Mr. >> It's getting late. I'm sorry. >> Moving it along. Okay. >> Yeah,
264I think this is wonderful and um I would happily support that we do all of those things. I think it's possible to do all of this. Miss Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Dr. Bell, and thank you to Mr. Jefferson. But, um, the feedback I received in talking with the alumni association, including Armstrong High School alumni and also, um, Jonathan, I just have one. I like what I see. I love the idea of the historic marker up front because that's something no one can take away and that should be done like that. Only thing I ask that we're really talking about three schools here Armstrong, Kennedy and Armstrong. So I just ask with please consider with the um and maybe this is the ongoing committee to meet afterwards however things unfold the home
265of the the home of John F. Kennedy High School. You said Cougars then you're leaving out the wild not the Wildcats you're leaving out the Jaguars. So just something to because that school has been three different um places. But I thank you for this the and I do like the idea of what you stated and what you started when you were at Armstrong regarding acknowledging the persons from but you ran out of money. uh rather than having a room, I want I would like for our children to learn the history. And if it's in a room, second floor, I was even told there was a fourth floor, which I know there isn't. However, it unfolds that children students and people coming in are going to see what's in front of them as they're transitioning. Many
266of our students, if you ask who their school is named for or after, I can tell you some story. So, this is a teachable moment as well, not just for our current students. And my main thing here was I didn't want to have happen when Armstrong was, excuse me, moved into Kennedy and when students came back on that morning after the board decided their items were placed in the trash can. I've talked about that before. their trophies, their locks. So, I'm glad people have things at home that we can add. But, um, I appreciate this report. I'm glad there was a consensus. I have received some emails, um, stating that they're not near agreement or they weren't. This is a good start. >> Early second. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Jafar. >> Thank you. >>
267I've pretty much taken my lead. Um, those who came during the public comment period and and and the actual vote and what I've done uh I did talk to Chief Jefferson following that meeting the other night as earlier and always engaging always amicable person in everything but here I've continued to talk to people where I've met them on the streets the alumni from all of the schools, both of the schools. And when I say all the schools, I mean I talked to people from John Marsh who weighed in on it and what they felt. Um this past Thanksgiving, uh had an opportunity to go to what we owe alumni and athletes from our that's called the Turkey Bowl. And so uh none of us are under condition to play any football now. So we basically
268come out and retell the stories that we've told for years. It's just always amazing how what was a five yard gain last year is now eight yard gain this year. But it's all it's all in good faith. But to a te what I found and and what's been said to me directly is that even those who are fervent Armstrong Wildcats, they have no problem with the name Armstrong Kennedy. And I would point out to my colleagues that it's not a renaming, it's a resumption. We're talking about resuming something that was granted and that has been taken away. But you know what? As as as those charged with the duty to supervise the division, I want to take a look at this the word supervise for a moment. It's almost like we we're called to have
269almost like a supervision that looks at the issue not just in in terms of current standing, but what does it mean? What does it mean in terms of education right now? >> What does it mean in terms of who John F. Kennedy senior was and what he meant to civil rights, voting rights, educational rights. And so when we talk about taking things home and making sure that that forever lives, the best thing that we can do right now as those who are charged with education in addition to what the community has said they want to do is make sure that Armstrong Kennedy goes on the building. >> 30 seconds. >> Make sure that those students and scholars who walk across that stage receive diplomas with Armstrong Kennedy on it and preferably a likeness. We have
270to go beyond symbolism and do something that actually make sure that they always realize who John Fisher Kennedy was. And I rest, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. Thank you for the work and obviously in Chief Jefferson's absence um that you all have done and I'm in full support of the recommendations and I'm prepared to vote tomorrow as such. So, thank you. Last but certainly not least, 4.03 receive an update on support for early college academy students. Thank you for your patience this evening. Good evening. Good evening madam chair, school board members, superintendent cameras, and all assembled. My name is Courtney Ward and I'm the director of secondary success pathways. This evening I have with me Candace Sweeney Chaplan, our manager for college and career pathways, as well as Miss Juel Booker, the ECA coordinator for
271Ren Reynolds Community College. She's also a math instructor at Reynolds Community College. We'll be giving an update on ECA for fall 2025. >> All right. So, uh good evening. Uh, madame chair, board, superintendent camera, um, as Courtney indicated, uh, we're here to talk about ECA, uh, give you some overview of ECA and talk specifically about the supports that we provide to ECA students. So, in the current school year, we have about 78 um, students who are part of the Early College Academy. Those students are juniors and seniors and they come from all of the schools across the division. All right. In terms of supports, um I actually go over to Reynolds every other Friday and spend office hours there. Um sit with our ECA coaches who are there every day with our students. talk about
272any concerns that they've noticed, talk to students about how they're doing. Um, when they're when I'm there, they'll have issues or questions about their computer or anything else. And so, I'll support them with that. Um, additionally, we've had our future center navigators come out to Reynolds to talk to our students about um, academic and career planning, having postsecary conversations with students, particularly with our juniors, but also with our seniors in terms of having that opportunity. some other if you'll go back uh some other things that we've provided for them or that we have been working towards um there is a proposal that we have out to see if our students could benefit from the grass pathway scholarship. Some of our students um have indicated over time that they spend time working outside of school, which
273is very difficult for a student who is in a college program um as well as being in high school. And so trying to think outside the box in terms of ways that we can support our students um in that way. Um that proposal has uh been shared with grasp um and we are hopeful that that could be something that we can do with our students in the future. Um and then another piece that we are looking at as an across the board solution for students is the idea of scheduled study hall. We do have some um concerns that might uh be problematic for a student who perhaps does not have room in their schedule for that which would mean that if we require that that would mean that there would be students who would not
274be able to participate in the program. Um study halls in general are not for credit and so that's not helping a student to um earn credits towards a high school diploma. some other supports that we've provided for our students. All of our students participated in onboarding at the beginning of the year. Our juniors were there um for a day on their own with the coaches and myself as well as the rest of the team from Reynolds. Um and our seniors had a day also with the team from Reynolds, myself and our coaches. Um they learned how to navigate systems at Reynolds um during that orientation. Um, additionally, students who are in the program when they are juniors participate in SCB 100, which is called college success skills. Um, and that is to help focus students
275on the dispositions that will help them to be successful um, in an early college program. We also are reaching out to try to make sure that students know that we care about their experience. Um when we did our orientation with students, we made sure that we fed them and celebrated them. Our coaches are very celebratory of them. Um we make sure that we provide uh messages to keep them posted on what's going on in the program. Um they hear from their coaches every day. Uh and as I said earlier, they see me once every couple of weeks, once every other Friday, um for the entire time that they are in classes at Reynolds on those Friday. Um another thing that we have there is that last year we did schedule some additional support sessions for
276students over spring break and we do intend to schedule those this year as well. I did want to give some more details on study hall. There's some contextual information here about what study hall is, but in a nutshell, it's a non-instructional block for students. Many of our students in ECA are very ambitious. They're not willing to give up one of their class periods for a study hall where they won't get any credit. It won't help their GPA. Um, we also have to mode with the understanding that schools must have an assigned teacher for any student that's scheduled for a study hall. Many of our high schools do not have in their schedules room to give up a prep or a class so that a teacher can cover study hall. For that reason, it has not
277been included in the program of studies at this time. Um, we did do some data diving into the ECA cohort that we have. 62% of those students do have a free class period during the day. Um, but as Candace alluded to, we would not like to put the parameter in place that all ECA students must have room in their schedule for a study hall. It may cut off on um creating a very unique and rich cohort of students that may not have done as well in their freshman and sophomore year. and they really need to take all of the classes they're scheduled for in junior and senior year. Um, so again, we continue to review study hall. We'll continue to consider it. We want to keep all those pieces in mind. And next, we'll turn
278it over to Juel to give some insight on ECA coaches. First of all, thanks again for having me here and for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all. Um my responsibility on the Reynolds side is uh primarily to work with the instructors who teach the high school students who are there in dual enrollment. So I have meetings with them every month and we communicate about the needs of the students. Um all of the coaches know all of the students personally. They understand what's going on with their lives individually. they are the ones who are directly in contact with the counselors at the high schools regularly just to make sure that the students have everything they need and that if there are challenges that we recognize that we communicate to try to figure out
279what the solutions can be. So when it comes to the direct student support those counselors or um our coaches that are Reynolds employees are with those students every day. The students check in with them on their way to their classes. So they know them well. They build relationship with them. Um and they support them again both in terms of their academics as well as uh their personal issues a lot. Um they also serve as liaison between them and the instructors because sometimes it is difficult for the students to advocate for themselves for the co in front of the college instructors and so um those coaches help them to learn those skills to communicate as well. Um and then also indirectly those coaches are speaking directly to me as well as the other instructors on behalf
280of the students so that we can coordinate our efforts to make sure that they have access to everything they need to succeed. So they're the ones who are going to push the supports we have at Reynolds, the tutoring programs, the writing center, math central plus to make sure that they know if they're struggling where they can go to get the success that they need. and I work together to look at that information and it's been a really great partnership working to continually improve what it >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you ladies so much for your report. You know, this is a project of which I I'm very very very committed to because of the opportunity of our children to be able to have a college education to associate degree I should say to
281begin with. And I'm still stuck on page two, the second slide regarding Armstrong and the class of 2026 having one student and Richmond High School of the Arts only having two students. That concerns me greatly for all the great support system is a dual ethnicity. We talked about 62% our goal is 100%. Somebody still sticking to the crack. I can't wait to see their data in the end in January. On page three regarding grass, I am so happy that grass is a part of this. I serve on their board. The program is called the is named promise scholarship. It's no longer pathways is listed. That was last year. What the good part about is something that we're working on as a board and just not with Richmond City but across the state of Virginia is
282to find out how many students are still working and and also still receiving the stipen that's given because that's going to infringe upon their opportunity to be successful. What I do love about grass, if you went to Richmond public schools up until the age of 24, you can come back and get funds to go to your university or college of your choice. So, I don't know whether that's shared because I do know I've heard this past weekend some of our students that's dropped out of college that that are brilliant. So it's not for everybody from the beginning, but just maybe to come back and go to J Sergeant Reynolds and get whatever, but the money is there up until the age of 24. So if we can make sure that we know that it is
283the promise scholarship, not pathways, that was changed because there's so many different programs regarding stating the name pathway. Um I see on one page page four we speak about study sessions and >> one minute >> um study sessions and tutorials resources but then as I move on to the other page you just stated um students may not have the time in their schedules and who's helping them and I know I know this for a fact because they have tutorial sessions do we have any data in place to say how many students are calling their tutor at Reynolds or spend the time time with them. I I haven't seen that. I would like to end that. And again, um at the end of the day, I'm glad we have breakfast snacks. That's awesome. That's awesome. That
284was a challenge, but I am very interested in seeing the data. As a followup on our academics piece, the first of the year, every job, I'd like to clarify that this 62% figure represents the um percentage of students in ECA that have a free period during the day um not necessarily scheduled for study hall. And also to add that we have made a proposal to the city of Richmond and grasp to include the students in the promise scholarship. We will get that right going forward. It has not been accepted yet. And so we we truly appreciate your support on that, Miss Burke. Um because we know we have several students that are juggling home, high school, and college work as well as um employment. I just wanted to just speak quickly about the the supports
285that are available through Reynolds. Some of them are during the school hours, but they also have particularly math central plus has tutoring with individuals who are available outside of regular hours. So students can make appointments not only during times where they might have a free study hall, but anytime up to I think around 7 PM some of the tutors will go that far as well as some other alternative ways to get tutoring that are just a part of the Reynolds curriculum where they can get online tutoring through Brainfuse and other resources. So there are things that they can do outside of the study hall times. >> Thank you. All right. due to the time um we're going to adjust our close session item. It was just one for tomorrow and um go ahead and close
286out the meeting this evening. So with that we are ajourned. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening.