RPS School Board Meeting - July 7, 2025

001for uh July 7th, 2025 into order. Madame clerk, Mr. Perl here, Mr. Card here, Mr. Farooq here, Mr. Hedgepath here, Miss Rizzy here, Dr. Harris Muhammed present. Miss Burke here. Mr. Jafari, Miss Fernandez here. We have a quorum. I'm sorry. Thank you. At this time, we will do the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence. Miss, if we could, before you all move forward, we need to make a motion and a vote to allow Mr. Jafar to participate electronically when he shows up. He just sent me a message that his Wi-Fi is unstable, so he won't be able to. I was not aware of that. Thank you so much. He just sent it to me like right now, but thank you for keeping us on track. At this time, we will do the pledge of

002allegiance and moment of silence. Miss Rizzy, if you could lead us, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. and now we'll have our translation services announcement. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Luis Martinez. If anyone here needs interpretation from English to Spanish, we do have that available. Uh we have interpreters in the back with headsets. For anyone that's watching online, we also have interpretation available through Zoom. in Zoom. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Moving on to 1.04. Approve the minutes of June 2nd and June 3rd school board meetings for 2025. Dr. Harris Muhammed. I move that we accept the minutes from June the 2nd school board work session and June the 3 school board business meeting. Second. It's been moved by Dr. Harris Muhammad and seconded by Mr. Hedgepath.

003Madame clerk, I'm sorry. Mr. Perl, yes. Mr. Ricard, yes. Mr. Farooq, yes. Mr. Hedgepath, yes. Mr. Rizzy, yes. Dr. Harris Muhammed, yes. Mr. Burke, yes. Mr. Jafari. Mrs. Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving right along to the adoption of the agenda. Mr. Pival. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the school board of the city of Richmond amend the July 7, 2025 meeting agenda to add item 8.04, 04 receive an update on the empoundment of federal title 3 funds and adopt the agenda as amended. Second. Before we vote, where are we placing that item? 8.04. Thank you. It's been moved by Mr. Perl and seconded by Miss Burke to adopt the agenda with the amendment included. Mr. Pel, yes. Miss Ricard, yes. Mr. Farooq, yes. Mr. Hedgepath, yes. Miss Rizzy, yes. Dr. Harris Muhammed,

004yes. Miss Burke, yes. Mr. Jabari, Miss Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. And now for announcements, Mr. Hitchbath. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pleased to announce that I'm going to start a parent teacher advisory council in the fourth district. Um, if you are a uh a parent of a student or students that go to Hugenot, to Lucille Brown Middle, to West Otover Hills Elementary, to uh Southampton Elementary, or to Fiser Elementary, or if you're a teacher at one of those buildings, uh, I would love for you to join, uh, the council uh, which will meet regularly. Um and um you can follow you can get me on socials or you can also email me um or text me for details and how to apply. Thank you chair. Thank you Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes ma'am. I

005want to take this opportunity to announce this because we only have one meeting in July that my organization is hosting our 17th annual back to school rally this year on August the 2nd. We're partnering again with Summerfest at John Marshall High School. Um, if you would like to volunteer, please let me know. Um, you can go on what used to be hands-on greater Richmond, which is now S and Gage um, volunteer website, but we would love to see you all come out and get some school supplies and we also have supplies for teachers. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bert. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to announce that this past weekend, Engine Company number nine and Associates, you're not familiar with that, that's the uh first African-American back then colored um group of firefighters and

006this was their 75th anniversary. It took place at Main Street Station and it was absolutely beyond fantastic. And then some and I was absolutely ecstatic when two of our Richmond public school students received um scholarships really checks made out to them each in the amount of $3,000. I had one young lady's name. I have their names in my other phone at home but I'm going to post it. I haven't had a chance. One young man is from Armstrong High School. Make sure you use your spirit fingers, guys. Thank you. We're all excited. Trust me, I want to yell, too. Yes, it's great news. I think his name is Zane, those persons that are here from Armstrong. And the other young lady of whom gave an impressive story, her life story is um by the way

007the young man from Armstrong is going to North State University. Okay. And the young lady who is the one of the top students at um TJ and she's going to Hampton University. So I was just just carried away by that and if I find the names before I leave I'll share them. My other announcement is this morning the superintendent my and myself participated in the announcement press conference for our 8th annual East End Festival and this festival will take place this year as it did in the past last year on September 27th 2025 at Shimaranzo Park. All are invited. It is free and the purpose of this festival is to support all of the schools in the east end with with the arts. It's a free event, but we look forward to sponsors and persons.

008In fact, I see one of our entertainers in the audience tonight, a former Kennedy student um that will participate this year as well. But we have vendors. We have over a thousand some odd people. So, we invite everyone to come out. The all city band will perform. We have some well-known artists, Saxmo Gates and others to perform as well. So, please put that date on your calendar, September the 27th from noon until 700 p.m. And the peak activity this morning with the press conference was our young man, eighth grader from Franklin Military Academy, Dustin Scott, performed the Star Spangle Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing. And I must tell this, of course, everyone stood when he performed. When he finished, when Dustin finished, angelic voice and sat down, the audience was all still standing.

009I had to share with them like you do in church. You said, "It's okay. Sit down." We were just mesmerized. So, I know that he will be performing on that date as well, September 27th. And the last announcement is August the 7th, the ultimate backpack event that takes care of every student enriching public schools and we also give to the title one schools in our surrounding neighborhoods. This is sponsored by CoStar and many others and VCU alum. So if you want to volunteer, it's at the convention center, but I'll probably put it on my website. And the ultimate backpack also has um volunteers as well a site for that. So thank you madam chair for that opportunity to share greatness. Thank you. Wonderful. We have um Mr. Farooq and then we'll circle and Miss Rizzy

010and then we'll circle back around to you. Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to announce that on Sunday, July 20th, Shalom Farms, which is one of our important nutrition and food providers, will be having their open house from 1:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. at the North Side location. They're going to be having um a tour of the fields, cooking demos. You'll have a chance to shop at their mobile market. You can grab a bite from local food trucks and connect with neighbors and partner organizations. This is one of our important partners in the city. And of course, everyone in the region is invited, but especially would love to see my neighbors in North Side there. So, bring your kids. There'll also be local artists there that'll be doing crafts for children. Uh, thank you

011so much and would love to see you all. Thank you, Miss Rzzy. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I just want to announce that um this Thursday from 5 to 9 there is and it's under the lights. Perhaps Mr. Caner can talk more about it. Um, but it's a big celebration of tennis enrichment and it will be happening from 5 to 9. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammad. I just wanted to share um shared it with schoolboard colleagues and a superintendent, but my daughter is a graduate of Richmond public schools in and she has been accepted and I'm sharing this for a reason because we have awesome students in RPS um has a full opportunity to study abroad in Geneva, Switzerland for two years. And so when I was sharing that and I saw some of

012her former um um people that have watched her grow up um Dr. Vaughan uh who is here watched my children grow up. I was one of his teachers. Dr. Bale watched my children grow up. Um and so and then there are some others in the room that have watched in particular um my daughter grow up coming through RPS. So I just wanted to share that for our teachers who are watching, for our principles who are watching, the work that you're doing, you may not be able to see it come to fruition, but I am a walking witness is coming to fruition. You pouring into children every day. um our students are great and when they come through RPS and are exposed to these opportunities um the programs that she was involved in that's why we

013do the work that we do. So I wanted to share that um with humility because I want to encourage you all as you are taking a break over the summer. You are doing great things for our students and RPS and my both of my children are examples of that. Thank you. Thank you and congratulations to your daughter. It's all right. It's all right. Any other announcements, colleagues? Okay, moving right along um to public comment. Before we move forward, it has been brought to our attention that there is a slight um discrepancy in how we voted in cases where um there are more than uh the allotted amount of pre-registered voters. I keep saying voters, but speakers. We did this as you all can recall the the last few months. Um we've had several pre-registered speakers

014and um we wanted to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to share. Well, in doing that, we had not really touched on the speakers who come in and um walk in to to speak. So, for example, tonight we have 10 pre-registered speakers, which when you calculate it, it's about 24 minutes um total. Well, for public comment, we have 30 minutes, which gives us an opportunity um wonderfully to allow for folks who are here tonight to also speak. That being said, when we voted to have the temporary change for the pre-registered speakers, it was for two to three minutes consecutively. So, if you were just a regular speaker, it would be 2 minutes. If you were a organization, it would be three. That poses a bit of a challenge because for those who are um able

015to speak that are present, we have not considered in our vote that the current um policy states that they are still allotted 3 to five minutes. So, I wanted to bring that up for open discussion tonight, colleagues, so we can have a sense of um consistency across the board. There's a number of different ways we can do that, but I wanted to open it up for discussion and for the sake of of being fair and having transparency that the public can hear as we we talk about how we can make that happen. And I will say I obviously it wouldn't be necessarily fair for pre-register voters to only have two to three minutes and those if there's any time left over to have more minutes than those that pre-register. So that's something that we really

016want to just touch on in all fairness. So I open it up to allow your thoughts. Dr. Harris Muhammad. Thank you. So, I just want to be clear that I understand that those who are coming in after our pre-registered guests have less time to speak than our registered guests. they have more time. I'm sorry. It's the opposite of Okay. Yeah. And then um just as a reminder, it's only a temporary um fix until policy committee comes together to make a a more permanent type structure. So, couple of things. We have a standing policy that we have to read. So when the policy committee comes together to draft a policy um that is always a couple of meetings, it's not like in one meeting. Um we will expedite the process though this will be in conjunction

017with other policies that have come down from the state that are effective that we need to share out. um and then have it um bunched into that group of policies. But is it possible in the interim that because that could be September when we we only have one meeting in July policy committee meets? Nope. If we we may meet twice in August because of the number of policies that we have to review, but typically we do not meet twice because we're all pulled in so many different directions and so many different meetings and I the staff needs a break as well because they are working for us on behalf of the division. It may be September that we even bring a um sample policy. So is it possible that we can make it equitable this

018evening and while the policy committee comes together to draft a policy to bring forward? My fear is that if we don't and I'm glad that was brought to your attention. Um I don't think any of us realized it when we No, we didn't making the discussion. Um, and so, um, I think that if we prolong the adjustment, we're going to continue with the with the practice that we weren't aware of of not having equity between the type of guests that are coming before us to speak. So, um I just think that we should address it, fix it tonight, and then work with the policy committee to make sure we bring something back for discussion. Indeed. Um you know, obviously public comment is something that's very important to us and the more folks that we can

019hear from that's always in my mind a huge advantage for us as a as a board. Um but those are some something some items to consider. Mr. Hedgepath. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh could we please then treat the uh the speakers who would like to come up after the register pre-registered speakers the same as our pre-registered speakers. So, if we have uh the remaining time, whatever that remaining time of public comment is, allow for unregistered speakers to come up and use that time until it's exhausted. Um, is that fair to clarify? Are you um requesting that we give them the same time allotments as those that were pre-registered? Correct. Okay. So, in this instance, we would have we would stay consistent with what was voted on for a temporary fix for the two to three

020minutes, 3 minutes um for those that were pre-registered. And we would um follow down that same vein. And for consistency sake, for those that have walked in and are present, it would be two minutes for um for persons and then for organizations, it would be three minutes. Okay. Are there any other subject matter of debates concerning this topic? And if not, can we vote? Yes, Mr. Pival. Uh, just one more question for clarity because that's what we're trying to do here is, and again, this is intention. I thought that we had voted to reduce the speaking time if the number of speakers would overrun the 30 minutes. So in the instance of tonight, if we have 10, three minutes would be half an hour. Well, in that instance, when we voted, we didn't clarify that

021it was implied. So if you could read what the motion was for June, um, Miss Richardson, Mr. Hesp motion to amend the public comment period for future meetings to two minutes for individuals and three minutes for those representing organizations to accommodate for all pre-registered speakers. So it's in it's imp it's implied but it's not spelled out. It's not clear. Okay. So for clarity moving forward until we have official policy even if we had three speakers it would be two minutes for an individual if that is the will of the board. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Do I have a motion? Madame Chair, I motion that we amend our public comment period to allow for three minutes for groups whether they are pre-registered or not and two minutes for individuals whether they

022are pre-registered or not to exceed the 30 minute public comment period. Second. Can we just clarify that would be temporarily until such time as policy committee is able to come forth to come with a permanent solution? Yes. Would you mind repeating it so that it's clear to put you on the spot? I'm sorry. I just want to want to make sure we get this thing right. We we owe it to the public. I motion that until the policy committee uh presents the board with a new updated policy for public comment that we allow for uh speakers whether they are registered or not as individuals to have two minutes and speakers who are representing organizations whether they are registered or not to have three minutes but not to exceed our 30 minute allotted period for public

023comment. Second. It's been moved by U. Mr. Hedgepath and seconded by Dr. Harris Muhammed, but we do have a a matter of debate. Um, Mr. PCL. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do love to beat a dead horse. Um, in the prior meetings, the impetus for this vote, um, we also extended the public comment period from 30 minutes to, I believe, an hour 45. 45. So with this motion on the table, we would be locked into 30 minutes. Melissa gives you the latitude as it exists to adjusted at your leisure depending on circumstances. Okay, I'm I'm fine with that. So should we remove the the piece on 30 minutes or probably better to leave it in that? Leave it in. Okay. Okay. All right. So we are we're at at a vote. Miss Richardson. Mr. Pible.

024Yes. Miss Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes. Mr. Hedgepath. Yes. Miss Rizzy. Yes. Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes. Miss. Burke. Yes. Mr. Jafari. Miss. Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you for your patience while we sorted that out. Um at this time we do have um 10 pre-registered speakers. When I call your name, if you can begin to line up. Um there will be is the clipboard with you or on the podium? It's on the podium. Okay. Um as you um come forward, if you could sign your name and um and then ensure that you state your name as you come up. Um at this time, could you please u read the guidelines? Um, Miss Richardson. Conduct of speakers. Speakers shall state their full legal name prior to addressing the school board. Speakers will address the school board

025as a whole rather than individual schoolboard members, the division superintendent, schoolboard attorney, clerk, or any other staff member. The school board will listen to comments but will not respond during the public information period. Persons appearing before the school board will not be allowed to one, campaign for public office, two promote private business ventures, or three, use profanity or vulgar language. If a community member's comments during the public information session relate to school-based issues, the chair may refer that individual to Richmond Public Schools Administration for one-on-one consultation and followup. It's important that all community members who wish to participate in the public information period abide by the guidelines set forth in this policy. Refusing to abide by the policy will result in the forfeite of the remaining time that has been allotted to the speaker. Community

026members may express their views in writing in lie of any oral presentation. Comments received in writing in l of an oral presentation will not be read during the meeting but shall be posted to the school board platform board docs. Thank you. At this time I will call you up three at a time. Once you've signed the clipboard, if you could pass it back so we can try to move as quickly as possible to get as many people um the opportunity to speak. Uh, Dr. Carl von, Mariah White, Dennis Mallerie. Oh, no. You're you're up, Dr. Vaughn. Yes. Yes. Good evening. That's okay. Miss Richardson will keep us all honest on time, so no worries there. Good evening board members, superintendent cameras, and distinguished guests, staff, and community members. My name is Dr. Carl Vaugh. Most

027folks just simply call me Doc. I'm the founder of Jumpstart YouTube, a Richmondbased nonprofit focused on community empowerment through education, outreach, and opportunity. But more than that, I'm a proud Richmond resident of over 30 years with deep roots in our in our schools and neighborhoods. Tonight, I'm not just here to talk about a building. I'm here to offer a solution. We are requesting that the board surplus the former Thompson Middle School so it can be transformed into the Vasilios Education Center, a 24-hour resource hub that supports families, improve improves student outcomes, and relieves long-term pressure on our school system. This is not about acquisition. It's about activation. Instead of paying $650,000 to demolish the building and over one million to keep it boarded up, we're offering to privately fund and repurpose it into a community

028engine with no cost to the district. Why now? Because the building currently offers no educational value. Because the school board already approved its demolition back in 2020. And because the school board's vacant property committee's recent recommendation to renovate the building as a South Richmond swing school at a potential cost of well over $5 million still cost taxpayers tremendously amount of money. But with this center we meet the moment. Family stability is directly tied to school performance. National research from NCES and Pew in 2325 shows the link is clear. When homes are stable, students attend more, behave better, and achieve more. And when families face homelessness, the impact is devastating. Students transfer midyear, miss class, fall behind academically, and carry emotional stress that disrupts learning for everyone. In fact, 52% of homeless students were chronically absent

029last year. It's not just a family crisis. It's an educational crisis. The Vasilio's Education Center will provide transitional housing, family coaching, enrichment programs, and 24hour access to support to of support. 30 seconds aligning perfectly with your goals for equity, wellness, and academic success. We're not asking for funding. We're offering a partnership. One that eliminates maintenance costs, reinforces your mission, and turns an idle site into a space that truly serves. This is a win-win for families, for students, and for Richmond. The complete proposal was emailed earlier to each of you in which additional copies can be made available. Let's show what's possible when schools and communities collaborate. Thank Thank you. Mariah White, one last call. Okay, Dennis Mallerie, as you're coming up, if Kurt Jones, Robin Dickerson, and Otessa Miles could line up. Thank you. Good

030evening, members of the school board. My name is Dennis Mallerie. I'm the chairman of the John F. the high school alumni and friends scholarship committee as well as the event planner for the many events that we've been having. A thumb drive was supposed to been submitted as a slide presentation. I don't know. So sorry. Okay. Well, I think I made a copy. Yeah. Yeah. So there's an agenda item that is listed later for this topic perhaps. I'm not sure if that is what you're referring to in terms of the thumb drive the presentation. Who did you I was asked to present a thumb drive for a slide presentation. And who did you give that to? Dr. Willie Bale. Okay, then we're all set. We have that already. We'll be discussing it later on. I'm sorry.

031Yes. But no, you can still speak. You can still speak, please. Great. Well, the John Kennedy High School alumni is requesting a school name change school Armstrong. The name change will be Armstrong Kennedy High School as it was named in 1980. The colors will be blue and gold and the mascot will be Jaguars. Now, here's the benefits to the students and faculty. It will be increased participation and support from Kennedy Armstrong Kennedy and Armstrong alumni at sporting and other events will be heightened awareness of three separate alumni representing three different schools coming together as one towards a common goal that will benefit the students. It will be increased donations towards a scholarship fund due to the alumni taking an interest in the renaming of the school. The John F. Kennedy High School Alumni Monetary Contributions.

032On behalf of the JFK High School Alumni and Friends Scholarship Committee, as a kind gesture, a monetary contribution, however large or small, will be donated to the school board to help fund the transitioning process. Future plans to have an ongoing fundraiser drive spec specifically for this endeavor is a strong possibility. The Kennedy alumni truly recognize the great history of Armstrong High School. To compare Kennedy's history to Armstrong's history would be like comparing David to Goliath. However, we are not trying to slay the giant. We are just trying to coexist with it as it was established in 1980 for the better good towards the students and the school as a whole. The scholarship funds that these Kennedy alumni has presented these past years to the students of Armstrong has the potential to be increased from 1500

033per student to a possible 3,000 per student. Just food for thought. Kennedy High School was the only school in the city that was named after a 20th century President John F. Kennedy. What if Kennedy had not been built? Where will Armstrong students be housed today? Considering the demolition of Armstrong building on 31st Street and the high expense that the school board would have to had to endure to rebuild it, Kennedy became the anchor of Armstrong students future when Kennedy's history was erased to make room for Armstrong. We ask that the school board give JFK High School a fair shake 30 seconds. that the alumni strongly feel that it deserves to the fortunate unfortunate demise of it back in 2004. Please give Kennedy High School the opportunity to share in under one roof the greatness that

034Armstrong High School have had for so many years. Thank you for your time and your patience. Thank you, Kirk Jones. Good evening. and chair school board members and Mr. Superintendent. My name is Kirk Jones and I'm a proud member of the Armstrong High School class of 1977. My brother is a member of the class of 1966 and my mother, Mrs. Elizabeth H. Jones, was a member of the class of 1939. The history of Armstrong High School began in 1865. Our school has a long legacy and proud tradition of educating students in the city of Richmond. We have many graduates who have contributed greatly to the success and progress of not just Richmond but the Commonwealth of Virginia, the United States and the world. The name Armstrong High School has a reputation of respect known far

035and wide. Armstrong is an invaluable asset to the city and no name change should be considered. Please do not erase more of our history. Thank you. Thank you, Robin Dickerson. Good evening. Um, my name is Robin Dickerson. Um, I am a resident of the seventh district. Um, teacher at Armstrong High School, longtime RPS. I was an RPS graduate from John Marshall High School some 47 years ago. um John Marshall class stood in solidarity of not having the complex um system in Richmond public schools. We addressed um the then rich uh Richard Hunter and um Douglas Wilder at Al building because we did not want that history to be erased of the Armstrong Maggie Walker classic to happen. This has this is a disappointment of our history in in the city of Richmond doing away with

036the classic combining those schools for five years which we know what happened with that. We we spent a lot of money and then we had to come back and let the consolidated the schools come back as a seven high schools system um high schools individual high schools. as a resident of North 31st Street whose grandfather lost his horse in a well where the original where the building on 31st Street was built and I had several relatives who were teachers in that building on 31st Street. I started my career in that building on 31st Street. We do not want the history of that school erased. We've done enough eraser of history of the black community in Richmond, the city of Richmond, and we would like the community would like for Armstrong to exist in the community

037as as Armstrong High School. No name change. Thank you. Thank you. Otessa Miles, as you come forward, we'll ask that Nicole, Dr. Nicole Sparkman, Charles Willis, Marcel Pleasant, please line up and sign your name. Thank you. My name is Otisa Miles. Um, good afternoon. Good evening. I am a proud Richton Public Schools graduate, as everyone else seems to be, and I'm also a Rich Public Schools parent. And so I came to speak about a change that I've heard uh may be happening at Richmond Community High School where I have a current student and I have a graduate of Richmond Community High School and um Miss Renee Blackman is the compliance coordinator there and it's my understanding that she may be removed from the school to work in another school and I just came to advocate

038for keeping her at Community High School because she has been such a wonderful help during the six years that I have uh been affiliated with Richwood Community because I have a student there. Every time I um need help or a liaison or some support, uh she has been available and a lot of times our academically gifted students, we don't realize how much other support they need whether they have diagnosis, whether they have learning differences, whether they have social differences and she has been such a light and so much support. So, I submitted a much longer comment in writing that you can take a look at, but I wanted to give my son Jazz Miles, who a 2023 a little bit about his work. Before he speaks, I just want to make sure I'm following proper

039protocol from Can we in How do we handle her him speaking as well as her? She's pre-registered. He is as well. He is as well. Okay. Okay. Well, state your name for me, please. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jazz Miles and Good afternoon School Board and Superintendent Cambress. I'm a proud RPS graduate. I attended Richmond public schools uh from preschool all the way to 12th grade. It was an amazing experience, but somebody who made that experience even better and more meaningful was Renee Blackman at Richmond Community High School. From the second I walked in the door there, she was a support system for me. She helped me through some of the struggles every high schooler goes through and she's gone above and beyond and make my experience incredible and I want her to continue

040that work at Richmond Community High School. As my mother mentioned, uh often school uh students who are seen as gifted are often overlooked in other capacity and she really helps prioritize our mental health at the school and she's been a huge light in my life. You know, ever since I graduated from there, we've kept in touch and I've gone on to do things that I never saw myself doing. Right now I'm at Howard University. I've been able to maintain a 4.0 GPA. She's been a tremendous she had a tremendous impact on me and I want to continue to have that impact on students at Richmond Community High School. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Dr. Nicole Sparkman. Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Sparkman. This is not my first time here. Hi everybody again. Um

041I did not write a speech um because I wanted to look into your eyes. I wanted you to look into mine. I wanted you to understand why I'm here. I'm here on my vacation. Um because I love Armstrong High School. I love the staff that I work with. I've been a teacher for over 20 years. I know that employee relations or your co-workers, the people that you see every single day are the most important because they make the job doable. As hard as it is to be an Armstrong High School teacher, it has been a rough few years and we are coming out of it. We are doing well. Our students are doing well. Um, it's not perfect, but we're a family. To remove a third of one department, I mean, I'm not a math

042person. I have a math disability, so I I just dibble dabble, but that seems like a lot, even with a math disability. So, I'm just like, if three of you guys were sent somewhere else and those duties were put on the other six, what would that do to you guys? What would that do to your impact? You know, I know that's a smaller number, but eight teachers and it was at there's more. There were we already lost two. That's like 10. So, 10 members of the same department. You're destroying us. the there has to be another fix. You can't cut off a arm and give it to somebody who doesn't have an arm and think that it's all you're doing is transferring the hemorrhage. So, we are cool on cool lane and we want to

043stay cool on cool lane. So, please revisit the decision to remove our teachers, our family members. Thank you. Thank you. as Charles Willis comes up. Um, we also have Marcel Pleasant and Janice Wilkerson Harris is the last um, pre-registered speaker. If those two could line up as well and make sure you sign sign the clipboard. Thank you, Madam if I don't get in trouble. I offered the lady to be a gentleman to go before me, but I do believe in following order also. I wasn't a part of that conversation. My apologies. Obedience is better than sacrifice. You call my name, I'm here present, sir. My name is Charles Willis. To the board members that I have not met or seen. I am a very esteemed and proud graduate of John F. Kennedy High School. Want

044you to know that straight up. Uh, I served as the drum major. So, I was part of that spirit of the school. One of the things I I I wrote a speech, but I'm going to do like the last young lady that came up. I just want to look right at the boys members and close this book and just keep it real. Three, four years ago, Dennis Mallerie and some of the folks we got to talking, my class of 78, we got to talking about how disappointed we was that the history of John F. Kennedy High School was being eliminated. how folks were graduating and if you came to Richmond, you wouldn't even know that a John F. Kennedy High School exists. You just didn't know it. And there were so many proud students that

045came out of there, folks that graduated and and had succeeded, but our history had been erased. We were promised that the things would be kept and all of the artifacts would be kept, but the history had been erased. So we decided as alumni to just continue to meet and continue to do things. And Dennis Mallerie formed a band and he would have a alumni uh uh event every year just to remind us of the Scarlet and gold and the many things that we were proud of graduating from Cool Street or Cool Lane as they call it cuz we were cool too back then. Very cool. Especially the band cuz I was a drum major. But then we talked about also I I uh Dennis Mallerie I remember him calling me and said, "Brother Willis, we

046trying to find some of the yearbooks so we can remember the history of our school." And he said, "We can't get in touch with the yearbooks." And I said, "Well, I know the principal over there. He I dress better than him and sometime we try to dress better than each other." And it was Dr. Willie Bale. And we went to Dr. Willie Bale and we said, "Dr. Bale, we we got this vision. We want to get the yearbooks. We want we really believe that the school name should be changed back but and some of our folks say it should be changed to Kennedy Armstrong because Kennedy was there first and we said no because if you if you if you erase that then you we going to be treating the kids over there now like

047we were treated and we wanted to remember the history. We want them to know that Arrong there was a Armstrong Kennedy and there was a Armstrong and there was a Kennedy. So we at John F. Kennedy decided and came together and said we going to respect all the schools that attended there and then we met with Dr. uh uh Cheryl Burke and we shared that idea with her and then we also met with other members. We even met with the family of Dr. Dorothy Winfrey she's 100 years old pastor Winford's mother we met with Reggie Malone met with uh uh Bill McGee we met with Dr. Lucia Brown. We even met with folks from Atlanta and New Jersey to just to share ideas and I want to share with the board today that nobody was

048against changing the name back to Armstrong Kennedy. God bless you. Thank you Marcel Pleasant. Good evening superintendent cameras. Madame Chair, members of the school board, good evening. I stand here before you again, but a little more personal this time. I think it's important for you to know who I am. I spent 12 years as a student in Richmond public schools where I graduated from John Marshall High School during the first year of busing a long time ago. I received my bachelor's and master's degree and my math certification from Virginia State University. I have been a secondary teacher, specifically high school, most of my career. I have been at Armstrong High School since I returned to teaching after my first retirement in the year 2008. As an algebra 1 teacher for the last 13 years, please

049know I am so proud of my accomplishments with my students over these many years. Many of my students, general ed and special ed and EEL students have passed the algebra 1 so under my leadership. I am very very proud of that. And this past year I had quite a few to score above 450. So I really feel like I'm making serious progress with my students. Now I feel I have reached a point in a very long career. 30 seconds. where very long career but rewarding career where I can make a difference for many of the teenage students in Church Hill. Now I am definitely not at a point in my career for a restart. I am 72 next month as a restart of this magnitude. moving me to elementary school is not somewhere I feel

050comfortable or where I can continue to excel time. It's true. Thank you. Sorry your time is up. Thank you for sharing. Janice Wilkins Harris. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Janice Wilkins Harris. I would like to address the school board. I'm coming to you as humble as I know how. We, the special education team, Armstrong High School, hope that you will maintain our team. Again, let me say that. Maintain our team at our school. We have established relationships with our students, parents and the community. We feel that these students have faced many obstacles in their lives. We as educators have worked hard to make their transition to life after high school meaningful so that they may become better be become better prepared citizens whether in our city or anywhere in our country. Teamwork, as

051we all know, makes the dream work. I want you to know that we 30 seconds are cool on 2300 cool lane. Thank you. Madame Clerk, do we have any additional time available for public comment from those that are in the audience? Yes, we have 8 minutes and 47 seconds. At this time, if there's anyone that would like to speak, we will try to get as many people as possible, you could just line up, sign your name, and pass it to the person behind you. Once you come up to the podium, if you could state your name for us as well, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is president and teacher of the eighth and ninth district. I come to you this afternoon first as a parent. Um I have some

052very severe concerns. Um I have two high school students at Richmond High School of the Arts. Um one of those students have had D1 coaches to reach out to him for interest in college as he will be a rising 11th grader. um according to the VHL VHSL website, he doesn't have any stats, doesn't have any film, and apparently those things are required for students who play athletics and sports. Um the second thing is I see that the 4x4 block schedule is a discussion um that is up. Once again, the same student, he's on an honors track. Um his schedule doesn't have enough room for the amount of classes that he need to take. He currently need to take six classes for the upcoming school year. he will only be able to fulfill five. So, what

053is the plan for the extra one that he doesn't have space on his schedule for? Um, he also has failed three so tests and have not been offered retakes, none this past school year. So, I want to know as a rising 11th grader with upcoming SOS for his 11th grade year. He has those SOS for the 11th grade year and all the ones that he's also failed. And I was told that because he passed a class that he do not he's not eligible for summer school to take those classes. So I could not enroll him for summer school. I would like to also address you as a teacher. Teachers on the secondary level do bag searches when students come into the building. This past school year there was a student that imposed a threat and

054I asked a safety and security officer could she be searched. He was attempted to be reprimanded and I didn't like that. I didn't take it to the top. The principal addressed it. But I want to know if I'm good enough to search bags to let students into the building. Why am I good enough to address if a student may oppose a threat or a strange object in the bag? Thank you and I appreciate you for listening. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Timmy Fortune. I'm a proud JFK class of 96 member. Um, I'm came to speak of course about what everybody's talking about, the name change. Um, I see there's a lot of people that's saying that the legacy of Armstrong shouldn't be dismissed. We're not trying to dismiss Armstrong, but however, they dismissed

055our school totally. Um, as Mr. Willis said, we had a section in the back of the school that they put all of our stuff in. Only thing we want is fairness. It's a lot of us from the 60s on down to 96 97 who still get together and represent our school. We have to do it outside somewhere totally no school to go to. I actually am one of a proud parent of two three kids who came from Armstrong. So I was there going to Armstrong school supporting them donated my class have even donated in the name of John F. Kennedy. So we with fairness we would just love for our name to be back on our school because it is our building. It resides at 2300 Cool Lane which the mighty mighty Cougs held that

056building for years. Thank you. Good evening, school board. My name is Trina Davis. I am also an alumni of John F. Kennedy High School, class of 1995. So that's 30 years and I'm still looking good. But what I still don't like is that our name is no longer on the building where we were birthed. 2300 C Lane. Well, we are the mighty mighty Cougars and the Cougars can do. But one thing we can't do any longer is to see our name on that building. Armstrong was birthed at another location and then they were nicely transitioned to another location in Church Hill. That's now multi-income housing. That's not our issue. You didn't want your legacy erased, nor do we want our legacy erased. So, how about we merge those legacies together to support the new legacies

057that's behind us. Erasing us means that we no longer exist or you just don't care. Some of you are not from Richmond. And I know I got two minutes. So you don't understand the impact, the family, the the ties that we hold dearly to our school, not just from one class, but the entire school itself. So if you are from Richmond public schools, can you can I show see hands of anybody on this board? Okay, I get it now. So you don't understand that you just what you did was disrupted a family a family of red and gold scarlet and gold, excuse me, the home of the cougars. Yes. in the 80s, 90s, somebody made a mistake and merged all the schools together. Can't can't solve that problem any longer. Well, my suggestion is is

058that we do share both legacies. We combine those legacies until Kennedy's name on that door. Support from the Cougars, you see no more. Thank you. Well, good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Paula Williams and I am a proud graduate of Armstrong Kennedy High School, class of 84. I am the product of merging Armstrong and Kennedy together. My family that ran from 1980 to 1987 are products of that merge. We know that it worked then. We became a family then. It could become a family again. Instead of erasing the history of either building, how about emerging and rising up the history of both and merging them back together to form the blue and the gold, the Armstrong Kennedy Jaguars. You did a it was a not you all, but your predecessors did a disjustice of

059removing the history of John F. Kennedy Cougars. We realize that. But the bigger injustice is not bringing the children together. My class, we fought for this 20 years ago. 20 years ago, we fought for this, for the merge of Armstrong and Kennedy, so that no history would be erased. So, I stand here on behalf of Armstrong Kennedy High School, the Jaguars, to plead with you to please take a moment and think to merge those two together, bring back the history of John L. Kennedy along with the history of Armstrong, and bring back the blue and gold, the Armstrong Kennedy Jaguars. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Mariah White. Um good evening, Madame President and School Board. Um I want to talk about a little things. I hear everybody's talking about Armstrong and Kennedy,

060and they are correct. In 1980 to 1986, they were merged. uh 1988 I went a half a year to Kennedy, half a year to um John Marsha which was Megan Walker. All of them was combined and I graduated JHW in um 1983. Yes, the history was taken and it seemed like for some reason everything on that side of town is always taken. They're taken now teachers from one of the schools over there that is greatly needed. So when it comes to that side of town, I'm not sure. And someone made a good point because half of you are not from Richmond public schools and you would not know the legacies that have lied there. The principles, Miss Parker, the uh great uh ROC uh program that they had with Colonel Vesley, all of those things

061that you would not have known. So I would advise this board to agree to accept what the Armstrong and Kennedy legend stands for because it was legacy. Um my other thing I would like to say is I would like to thank the board or Mr. Cameron for uh re in re reinstating those um bus drivers. Um I think you did that was a due diligent although it was it was wrong at the beginning. Um, the last time I was here, I watched bus drivers cry, uh, distress, all of these things. They deserve the right to have full pay, not half pay. Full back pay. Now, I know what you know. I know what I'm talking about. I need full back pay, not half back pay because when you had the Thank you. human resource over

062there. Thank you, Miss White. Your time is up. Thank you. She just said time. two minutes. Yeah. Never mind. I'll come back as an organization. Thank you. Okay. As we move forward in the agenda, our esteemed colleague, Mr. Jafari is um is now able to receive his Wi-Fi and so we want to um get a motion to allow Mr. Jafar to participate virtually via Zoom as he is currently out of town. Do I have a motion? I don't know. Okay, Madam Chair, I'd like to motion to allow for Mr. Jafari to uh participate in our board meeting virtually. Second. It's been moved by Mr. Hedgehab and seconded by Miss Rizzy. Madame Clerk. Mr. Percal. Yes. Miss Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes. Mr. Hedgepath. Yes. Mr. Rizzy. Yes. Dr. Harris Muhammed. Allow Mrs. Jafari to Mr.

063Jafari. Miss Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. I apologize, Miss Burke. Miss B. Yes. Now the motion passes. Wonderful. Um, is there anything additional we need to do outside of that? Very, he's good to go. Yes, he's fine. We just need to make sure that he's all squared away. Okay. Okay. And if you could just keep me honest, if he has his hand raised or like to make a comment, you could somebody could help me with that. I can't see him, but um perhaps Mr. Could you be showing up here? Okay, we don't see anything just yet, but thank you so much. All right, moving right along. Um, external reports receive external compensation study findings. Hi, good evening. Thank you. PowerPoint just a minute to start up. You can move forward. We're just working out some technical

064difficulties behind the scenes, but you're totally fine. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Stacy Witchell with Evergreen Solutions and I'm here to present the update on the classification compensation study. I've got a presentation. We'll walk through the process, walk through the project, give you the findings along the way, and then the recommendations. You have any questions? Please uh don't feel like you have to stop and and wait till the end. I'm happy to address them during the presentation. In this presentation, we review the study goals. We'll discuss our internal review process, our external review process, uh the recommendations, next steps, and then ultimately um questions with our with our project, a classification compensation study. what the organization's goals were to do a to conduct a review of your internal um classification

065compensation system to look at your uh system how you're using it the strengths and weaknesses of that system to see how employees are aligned in that system how classifications are aligned in that system and we're looking for any areas of um any areas we have concerns related to internal equity or just inconsistency in how positions are aligned. Um, part of that we do what we call our assessment of current conditions. We conduct an employee outreach and then we also conduct what we call our job assessment. That's where we'll get into that a bit more later, but we allow employees opportunity to tell us more about their given positions. From an external standpoint, we're looking at your peer organizations because your goal here is to make sure you're as equitable as you as have as much

066market equity as you can and be as competitive as you can afford to be given the um your peers that that you compete with for quality staff. Recommendations is where we bring all of that information together to produce recommendations, provide the division with a system that's equitable both internally and externally. When we conduct our assessment of current conditions, the first thing we start off with with is a review of your data. So, we collected all of your employee data, your salary schedules, your classifications, your pay plans, and did an analysis. What we found is you had two salary schedules with 98 paygrades. Those schedules evolved over time um as as bargaining has come into the district that system has adjusted and been adapted to accommodate. You got 361 classifications representing about 3 3,800 employees. Uh

067your two plans are your unified plan and your instructional plan. Your average published range spreads for your plans are about 54% for your unified and then about 70% for the instructional. And I say published because the division has out of out of out of practice history allowed people to progress beyond the maximum. So they're not held to that maximum of each one of the pay. Now for salary distribution looking where your employees fall within the different pay grades. We look at at things any number of ways. Look for different areas of compression. We found that your average tenure for your included employees was 12.3 years. However, you have a group of employees that have been here for a really long time. One of them actually just over 50 years. So that group of employees that

068have been here with you for a while have kind of skewed that average. So when I look at a median distribution, the average years is seven and a half years. When we look at where those employees fall within their pay grades, about 70% of your employees are compensated below the midpoint of those pay ranges. But again, that's consistent with that median tenure of seven and a half years. You do have about 130 employees that are currently making above the maximum of their published range. And then when we looked at and again those are those long tenur employees. And then when we looked at the cortile analysis, so we looked by each of the pay grades up into quartiles and looked across those quartiles, the first, the second, the third, the fourth there, the average tenure

069in each one of those quartiles does like we would expect to see as people advance along in a in a step system like you have. As part of our internal review, we also conduct what we call our outreach sessions and our interviews. Um, as part of this, we also uh administered an anonymous survey to all of your employees. It was electronic survey. Uh, we had over 1400 participants in that anonymous survey. And then your focus groups were anywhere uh anywhere from five to 20 people per group. Um and it was both Ally and myself up here for um three or four days and we did them all day long. So we had a really good inputation from your employees. We always start those focus groups off with why why here? Why did you choose which

070schools start and build your career and then stay? Um we found and large it was community impact. the type of work they do there highly value that personally it was the location uh many of your uh employees as I've heard some this evening are products of the school system here division and they really like and value being able to participate back now um compensation benefits retirement the hours and the schedule um and also peer relationships your employees really do have what many of them consider the work when we ask them about areas of concern that they would like to see maybe addressed through this study. Um many offered that they felt like cost of living adjustments that have been done recently had just not kept up with inflation for the local market. Uh something that

071we hear many places that we go that pay plan should be evaluated for internal equity. So what they're talking about there is how positions and classifications are aligned to the pay grade system based on what they're doing. uh job titles and job descriptions and you felt they need to be updated to accurately reflect uh the roles that they have. And we end each of those sessions and even the online survey with give me your top three. What are your top three priorities for this study and you'll see the top four listed there because this is what we consensus across the board with with everybody. Adjust compensation to account for the local cost of living. Um they want to make sure the study worked to align pay according to those job functions. evaluate staffing levels. Uh

072there was a request across the board that many people felt that they needed more help to get the work done that folks felt that they were a little stretched um and then wanted to make sure that they were competitive in relation to market. Part of the intern review is also what we call our job assessment tool. Uh this is also an online tool. We do have a paper version that we also offered um for folks that weren't in front of a computer day in and day out. Um but the job assessment tool allows us to better understand everybody's position. So more so than what's just on paper, we ask them to we started off with, you know, give us that 30 second elevator speech about what and then we link their job description so they

073can take a look at them and give us information on they feel like they need to have anything added that is deleted to those current job descriptions. And then we also asked them to answer a series of questions that get these job factors through leadership, working conditions, complexity, decision making, relationships that really help us better understand what each position does, how it should how it's aligned on the schedule and how they all relate to each other. So it helps to inform that hierarchy of your classifications. It helps us to better understand where you have classifications. Uh coordinator, a manager, a director, those positions where you can have a lot of drift in what they do. Helps us to identify that and helps us to make recommendations on any adjustments moving forward. From an external standpoint,

074this is where we look at your external peers when how you stand in that market. So the purpose of this is to identify those equitable those peers that you um that offer good comparisons whether it's due to proximity services offer the types of students your socioeconomics the budgets size of the schools those are all the different types of things that we're looking for and we're looking those to see how how do your positions compare to those positions in those other peer markets. Um and we look at them based on the functions of the positions not job titles. you have enough drift in one organization, you have even more drift between organizations. So, we do it based on the functions of the position. Um, we also do apply a cost of living adjustment to that that

075salary data that we get back because we want to make sure everything's at the value of the dollar here with Okay. So, for your market peers, that's loud. All right. So, for your market peers, here's your list of your peers that were selected uh for this study. This was a collaborative effort uh with your project team. You'll notice a combination of peers in here, public sector peers, you see other school divisions, other local governments, um state level governments here. And then you'll also see economic research institute institute because for that one, what we were looking for is how you relate in the private sector to those positions that can easily crosswalk. The trades are a great example of that. So your HVACs, your mechanics, plumbers, electricians, we want to know how you compared to them

076in the private sector. So that was 20 peers on that list. We did get data from all of those peers. We had 122 classifications that were used as benchmarks for the study. Um like I mentioned earlier, we we also were looking at job functions, not titles. So about 74% of those positions had good quality matches amongst your peers. If they don't match good, if they aren't fundamentally doing the same thing, we don't include them in the data. So it gives you a little more than 870 data points with a match count of almost 10 per classification. So we pull all that data together and do the analysis. What this results is showing you here is we looked at your um data at the 50th, the 60th, and the 70th percentile. So again, standard, you know,

077distribution across a bell curve, the 50th percentile, 60th slightly more competitive position. 75th, you're kind of getting to that leading edge of the market. And you'll notice at the 50th percentile, at the market minimum, you're actually leading by 6.4%. At the 60th percentile, you're leading at 3.2%. As I get to that leading edge of the market, you're um just below market at 1.3% behind. Um you'll notice that your midpoint and maximums are there. Also, um we compare these against your published ranges, but keep in mind you do allow people with tenure to exceed those published ranges. So, we focused in on those minimums and those starting points. Um, when we compared you against those 20 peers we had listed on the other slide, division came in in the top five in relation to those market

078peers. Breaking that data down a little bit more, you'll see in many areas that you're actually leading in the market at the 60th percentile. Um, your clerical admin support staff, you were slightly behind the market, 2.4%. Um, and your trades slightly behind the market at at 1.6 almost 2% there. everywhere else you were you were leading the market again at that 60th percentile. Little further breakdown here to the positions that we pulled out just for the purpose of the presentation here. You look at your bus operators, you got 11 peers that we were able to compare the bus operators to. Um that bar going across the top at 25 is where Richmond is. Uh the rest of your peers are you'll see falling slightly behind that bar. your teachers with bachelors. You'll see there that

079the other peers are slightly behind you with the exception of one peer and that one peer was slightly more than you at the teachers with bachelors. Um so that really places you guys leading in buses and then also falling in second against those peers for teachers with bachelor's degree. So when we bring in that internal and external data together, we run a regression on that analysis from both of those those components. And what that does is that gives us the ability to make recommendations on pay plan, pay plan structure, and classification assignment to the paygrades. Um, what we're going to recommend moving forward is to implement three revised pay plans based on the 60th percentile. So you'd have one for certified, one for unified, and one for administrative. Um, we want to assign all those

080classifications to those pay grades based on internal and external equity. And then obviously the final recommendation is to implement the new plans based on a defined implementation strategy. So for your certified staff, um this would be the 1000 series bachelor's degree 35.98 would be the start of the minimum. There you'll see I'm just going to make this work. Uh your range spread right there is 59%. That's the distance between minimum to maximum. Um we're not recommending that the division stops its practice of continuing those long tenurs. Um that would continue. Your grade progression is a standard 5% throughout and that is the distance between midpoint at each paygrade. There's 5% between each levels. Your current step progression is 1.17%. Um it's working well in your system right now. So we're not recommending a change there.

081For your unified staff, uh this would be the 2000 series. This is for your all your non-instructionals. These your classified staff is what many divisions or districts call call them. So your minimum start here would be 1530 range spread 59%. Midpoint progression standard 5% throughout and then your step progression again 1.17% for consistency in that structure and then the rest of the the unified staff schedule because this go carries you all the way through those management level positions. And what this system will let you do is let you move back to a system with the 5% u between each pay grade. So your structure is now consistent. So how pe how positions are aligned and reviewed and classified would all have that same approach would all have that same break between levels for your administrative

082staff. Uh this would be assist principles, principles, leadership, executive team and the central office 3000 series. um fewer classifications at this point. So we are recommending the same range spread. Your midpoint progression does increase a little bit to 10%. Uh that is primarily so I don't have to make you 20 pay grades with the 5% break between each one and it allows us to align each of those positions and their role responsibility and risk appropriately. When we talk about implementation strategies and moving forward, uh the division is currently in the middle of continuing some of its bargaining efforts. It's not quite finished yet. So, we're looking at implementation in in another year is what we would uh recommend here. Uh what we did is we looked at what would that step placement be in a

083year's time based on the snapshot of employee data we have today and what step they're on now. If they're on a step 10, let's move them to that step 10 and make those adjustments. So, here's the cost impact of making these changes. To move everybody over to these new pay plans, um, all almost 3,800 employees, the total estimate is there are 5.9 million. Um, that is an average of about 2% of your current payroll. So, not much more than your standard step increases that you're doing right now. Um, that does include the the CBA additives and agreements that have been made to date. Um, that's that 2.8 8 for the upcoming year. So that'd be an additional 1%. So it would bring your total to 8 point almost 8 million. Keep in mind some bargaining

084is still underway. So it doesn't include anything that's currently in play. We did a lot of classification work with your team and so this is a very this is an abbreviated table of a much larger piece of work but we work to define what does it mean to be a specialist? what does it mean to be a coordinator, a manager, a director, a senior director, and a chief? And so this gives them a tool and it provides transparency to your employees of why a certain position is graded the way it is. And it is based on the role, responsibility, and risk of each of the positions. Recommendations moving forward, we want to review the collective bargaining negotiation strategies, promote consistency and internal equity to keep that drift from happening in the future. We want to

085conduct annual small-cale market surveys. you're doing that on an annual basis. It means you don't have to do a comprehensive of one for every three to five years. Um, and then review any of the compensation and personnel guidelines annually and revise as needed. I've been in the public sector, was in there for 25 plus years. Those are living documents and to be relevant, they have to be current. Final thoughts. Overall, Richmond is within the top five of the market in relation to selected peers at those market ranges to minimums. Second relation to pay for teachers with the bachelors and again those are adjusted cost of living figures. Um your current plan's been amended over time resulting in an inconsistent structure across the classifications. Um the unified plan would help address that moving forward. And then

086some of the positions within uh Richmond may also be misaligned according to responsibilities. So that's some of the work we did through that job assessment tool and we provided recommendations there. Last thing that we have is we're taking all the information uh collected during the course of study, working with your project team to provide updates to job descriptions based on pertinent information provided during the course of study. So that step is actually underway and uh we'll get those to you so you have all current and updated uh job descriptions. Any questions before we um open for questions? U Mr. Cameron would like to share. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank Evergreen for your partnership in this project. I know it was quite the task, but uh the team certainly appreciated working uh

087with you all and um though of course implementing all the recommendations will cost uh we we hope that we are able to do so and look forward to potentially partnering with you to help with all the implementation. So, I just want to say thank you. It's quite the herculean effort and this is a lot of great information that will help us chart a a more uh consistent and equitable path forward. So, thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that. Your team worked tirelessly on this project. Many many meetings. Thank you, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Farooq. Thank you, Madam Chair. So at the beginning you mentioned that we have currently have two salary schedules and about 98 paygrades and with your recommendation is to roughly half the payrades. Is that right? So we'd have about 50ish. Oh well

088it depend. We're breaking it up a little differently in how you would use it but less than what you have right now. So is it accurate to say it would almost half the pay grades? Let me go back and double check that. But definitely threequarters. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a gotcha. I'm trying to get a sense. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammed and Miss Rizzy. Miss Rizzy, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so I guess my question is, I mean, I really appreciate this work. Thank you. It's important, um, as we are dealing with collective bargaining and with, you know, complex issues that, you know, we have not had to address before. Um I guess my question is um what would be the impact of any future collective bargaining negotiations? Would

089that still make it easy for us to continue with what you've recommended here? Yes. And that that is something that we talked about during the course of the study too is approaches for that. Um and this unified system um should improve that moving forward. I'll look forward to someone explaining that to us. Could you elaborate a little bit on how that will how that would work? How would the what would be the advantages of the unified system um in conjunction with the collective and bargaining process? Can you just touch on that just a bit? We can touch on that some. So, one of the things that we find we work with different uh divisions and school districts around the country when they have bargaining and they have a plan for each and then sometimes plans

090within the plans, you end up internally with positions that are while they're doing something different and they end up at very different places on pay schedules. And so what we want to look at is if they're valued equally, they're working at the same level in division, let's align them appropriately and consistently within the plan. And so those are that that's what the unified system does for you. And the point factor system with the job assessment tool allows you to weight them all using the same tool. So that's another uh piece of it that helps you to do that. And then also we also discuss different things within bargaining um and a different approaches for bargaining. Thank you Mr. PL. Uh thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the presentation. Um I'm looking at the

091slide the external review market results. I'm sorry I don't have a slide number. Um this is some multi-dimensional data and I'm wondering if you could maybe I I don't need a half hour on this but just help me understand because it says we're competitive at the minimum starting salaries and I see for example in the 50th percentile 6.4%. Is that is that to say that at the 50th percentile we are paying the average teacher 6.4% more than peers? No, we're we're looking at those salary ranges and the pay grades you have currently. So at the minimums of all of your pay grades, so of all of those 120 classifications that we pulled and did the research on, on average those were 6.4% 4% ahead of the market at the minimums of their starting of those

092of the of the pay grades ahead of what does the word ahead ahead of your other peers. So you're paying more at your minimums. Does that mean dollars? Yes. So if if I'm paying a teacher $100 sorry if the peers are paying $100, we're paying them $106. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? I have a few, but I want um I I really appreciate the time that I was taken for this presentation. You can certainly see that there was a lot of work and effort, I'm sure, by you and the administration for pulling all this information together. So, I don't envy whoever was a part of that process. So, thank you very much. um you answered one of my questions which I got a chance to to to speak with you as it relates to

093um the unified plan which I was really excited to hear which is why I wanted to ask that clarifying question so that everybody else could kind of understand um some of what was shared with me but um and I'm excited to see how that will play as an added value to the collective bargaining process um because that's an extremely important process that we truly believe in as a board and um think it's important that whatever we put into place adds value to what's already being established through collective bargaining. My question was around the dollar figure um that was posed. I forget which slide is on. Please forgive me. I normally write down my numbers but um it escapes me. I think it was the 8.5 million dollar figure. 8 point is 8.7 8.7 I was

094I was close yeah um I asked this question but I think it's important to ask it openly and this is probably more for Mr. cameras than than you or someone from the administration understanding what is needed to get us back on track or to start the process of getting us on track with this unified plan. Has this been accounted for in the budget? And if not, what will we what are the plans in um getting us there to accommodate for what's needed to start this unified plan? Thank you, Madam Chair. These are the estimated costs for 2627. So that would be next fiscal year. Uh that's the one that we'll begin to talk about in the fall. So if collectively we decide we want to pursue this, that's something that we would have to figure

095out how to budget for. I will note that that 5.9 million number, which as the slide indicates is about two 2.2% 2% of payroll. A good chunk of that, a little bit about half um is already accounted for in our 1.17% step increase uh in our normal budgeting process. So that gets us, you know, about halfway of the way there with that 5.9 million. Um but as we've talked about, this upcoming budget season is likely going to be a lean one. So, we will have uh tough decisions to make and we'll have to consider whether um we're able to to make this change at this time. Thank you. And then um my last question is surrounding I know that there were um a lot of folks that you uh surveyed and got feedback from. Um

096does this reflect a majority of those that were surveyed that are still a part of RPS? I know there's been a little bit of turnover. Um, and so I just am curious to see if this is like how real is this data? When was this this data captured? So from the survey data that was done back um in fall and so there's been some change. I mean staff aren't static. There has been some change but I would say a vast majority of the folks that we talked to were are still represented in that data. And you say the fall that the fall of 2024, correct? Okay. Thank you. Mr. Jafari has his hand up, Mr. Jafari. Yes. Good evening. Um I hope my volume is up. Uh good evening, Miss White. And I want to

097thank the uh board there and and Dr. and u superintendent cameras for the Zoom meeting that was held uh last week. I found the information to be very informative really and very uplifting about where the division is at the present time. But I did have a question for Miss White and I wanted her to clarify um just to make sure that I heard this properly. Uh she was looking into one part of the study which was identifying or attempting to identify whether there were duplicated positions and uh I guess first of all the first part of the question is did I hear that right? And the second part would be what kind of methods can we identify to make sure that we're not overlapping or duplicating unnecessarily which would also mean we're pay perhaps paying

098unnecessarily others to do things that another position is already accomplishing. So there's a couple of things there in in your in your question and comment. We looked at all the positions that we have for the job assessment tool. We look to see what the individuals were doing within those positions and if they were working uh beyond what that job description said or different than what their peers were doing in that same classification. So example, you may have some managers that they were called managers across the board, but some of the managers are managing a a program or a function where other managers were managing a group of people in an area. So it allowed us to better distinguish to better align them within the pay system. Um, we did not do um, some of what

099I heard you talking about was led more a little bit more to like a staffing study. What you have people do, how many are doing it, how many people do you need to do that position, and can you realign them? That falls more into a staffing study than it does into what we did. We looked more at what positions were doing, did they align with their descriptions, and their classification titles, and then made recommendations for adjustments um, where appropriate. Does that answer? Yes, it does, Miss White. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammed. Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I think I went over your time that was scheduled, but thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Anyone else? And as I understand it, we have one board

100member that did not have a chance to connect, but we'll ensure that that is have that that opportunity to do so. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, Dreams for RPS update. Receive update on Dreams for RPS goal three, early literacy data. Thank you, Madam Chair. Given the length of our agenda, I'm going to be brief with some fabulous news. So, Matthew, if you could jump all the way to slide four, that would be perfect. All right. Uh, early literacy, this is K1 and two. For years, it has been assessed in Virginia by something called PALS, P A Ls. Uh this fall we moved to vowels which stands for the Virginia language and literacy screener. Sometimes it has an extra s for inner system but typically we just call it vowels. Uh this is

101a more robust more challenging assessment. And so you see the drop from last spring to this fall 65% to 51%. This was expected and the entire state of Virginia saw a similar fall. This typically happens when you have a new assessment, particularly one that is more robust. What is really exciting is you'll see over the course of this year, we made up all of the lost ground due to the transition to the new assessment. We are back up at 65% with an increase of 14 percentage points. This is absolutely phenomenal. Kudos to our elementary schools, our K1 and two teachers who did an extraordinary job this year. If we go to the next slide, one thing I want to note, I circled in red the jump from the fall to the midyear, 51 to 61%.

102The state has released data for the entire state for the fall and the midyear. They haven't done the spring yet. It's just not done yet. But what we know uh from the state data is the entire state of Virginia on average grew six percentage points from fall to midyear and we grew how much? 10 51 to 61. So uh almost double the state's growth. We are uh uh making that incredible uh upward trajectory. It's really quite astonishing. And then also if you go to the next slide on six we have all of the subgroups uh the individual grades and then all of the reporting subgroups you can see um almost all doubledigit gains and some in the 20s and 30s um really phenomenal work. And then if you go to the next slide if we

103look at the individual schools cluster one a few that we just have to shout out Cardinal Elementary at plus 27. And I see principal Manessa is back there. Let's give it up to him and his amazing team at Cardinal. We got Fairfield Court at plus 30. Um I don't know if Principal Wright is here, but she's not. But we're going to give it up to her and her team as well. Um we got Miles Jones. What What district is Miles Jones in? In the same district as Cardinal, the ninth district. Thank you. uh plus 28% and as you can see everybody uh was up really strong performance. Uh then if we go to cluster two also very strong performance broad rock elementary uh plus 27 red plus 22 JL Francis plus 19 Overby plus 16

104um Oak Grove plus 14. I do want to note Amelia and and RVA you see a negative numbers the N sizes for them are so tiny you just lose one kid and it throws everything off. So, I don't want anyone to read anything into that. Um, I actually think they're both uh doing some strong work. Um, but again, uh, really phenomenal gains this year, uh, across the board. And we are really excited because what we have found is the learning that we're seeing in our kiddos is sticky, meaning we're seeing it from K to one and one to two, which means we are likely to see it in third grade next year. And that is our big goal around improving reading proficiency in third grade. So still lots more to do, but just a phenomenal

105congratulations to our elementary principles, literacy coaches, reading specialists, and of course our elementary teachers, K12, the whole the whole group. With that, happy to take any questions. We'll start with Miss Ricard, then Mr. Farooq, and then Miss Burke. Thank you, Superintendent Camas. Um, as a parent of a first grader, I just want to thank the teachers for their work this year. Our daughter went through several risk categories in her journey. And um, I feel the curriculum is more rigorous. I saw it compared to my other two. Um, and so I'm excited to see where she ends up as a learner because of it. Um, so one, it does not surprise me that we started so low. Um, but I just really want to thank our teachers across the district for their work in having to

106do this new curriculum. Um, it's harder. They're asking their children to do more, but I know we're going to end up in a much better place. Thank you, Mr. Peru. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. cameras. As the slides mention, we shifted from one instrument to a new instrument. So, we saw a dip. Um, definitely not want to take away anything from our staff and teachers who work so hard. I'm also curious if some of it was that the students are sort and the staff are getting used to this new instrument. Is that part of it as well? Or do we think all of this gain is from just, you know, better curricul Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, the spring uh was really only the the third assessment of it. So, typically you won't see these

107kinds of gains from just familiarity um particularly given the increased complexity of this assessment. So, of course, every repeated encounter you have gives you a little bit more familiarity, but knowing this assessment, that's not going to do it. You got to learn got to learn the skills. Miss Burke, Dr. Harris Muhammad, and Dennis Rizzie. Thank you, madam. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, this data is absolutely standing. I'm incredibly proud of the gains that we are seeing. This data speaks for itself. From my observation, it is clear as I go to the schools. Everybody's talking literacy. Literacy is the heart of why we do what we do. If you can't read, success is not promised to you moving forward. So we must put the work in at the in the early years. This re this

108speaks for itself. I am overjoyed and many thanks to all the teachers. It is when you go into schools the conversation is about literacy, literacy, literacy. Books are everywhere. Book machines, library books, folks giving us books outside boxes in the in uh different organizations giving us books as well. So the expectation across the board in our community of the city of Richmond as well as within the schools is that literacy is first. You can only excel. So I'd like to commend the administration, every teacher, every volunteer, every administrator, every parent, every caregiver, those who help children that weren't their own and then some. Well done. This is how we soar. This is how we get to the place of being accepted that in Richmond public schools we are one of the best and then some.

109So when we outshine the others around us that's what I'm talking about. I'm very pleased. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Harris Muhammad. Considering that there were multiple curriculum changes, considering that there was no framework for the new curriculum that was brought forward to teachers and administrators at the same time, considering that there was still discussion about the history standards, um, and the adoption and the readoption and the back and forth with that. I'm saying this because under all of that very public state pressure, our students under the guidance of our teachers and our building administrators perform. I don't think the everyday individual understands that when there are curriculum changes with no curriculum guidance as teachers are used to in the past. The framework is developing in conjunction with the new curriculum. This did not happen

110the past couple of years. And so our students are to be commended for the work that they have done. Uh teachers are to be commended because they pulled together across the division. I know they were talking to their colleagues across the division. This was not just a RPS thing. This was the entire state of Virginia in turmoil educationally, but we still pulled together to make sure that we made the priority our students. And so it is very difficult to teach new standards under any umbrella without a framework, without guidance. And so I just applaud everything that has said has been said. I do agree with yes there is work to be done. We're not where we are, but we could have dropped much further had we not remained the focus of literacy being the focus.

111And so, um, I just encourage our division to continue to push our staff to be a part of the summer institutes where they develop, they review the assessment questions. There's not enough people of color in the room. I said that it's not because I am in the room. And so if we can continue to encourage that and have advocacy for our division um to make sure that we have people um in that space to ensure that the questions that are developed that are unpacked are equitable for all students um regardless of their zip code. So thank you Thank you, Miss Rizzie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh certainly this is something to celebrate. Um you know, literacy is also um can be traced to a direct line of critical thinking. Um it's interesting that language decoding

112is not that much different from, you know, actually working out math problems. So, um literacy itself impacts all subject areas and our students performance in those subject areas and their ability to excel in those subject areas. So this is vitally important and I'm so happy to see these improvements. Um I you know I want to go back to Ali's question. Um, what I'm looking for is um, some indication of what may have changed this time around besides, you know, adjusting to the new system to what do you attribute these gains? Mr. Cameron, are there any strategies that we should look at ramping up in the future? Mr. Cameron, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Rizzie, for the question. Uh about 18 months ago, uh a group of literacy coaches reached out to me

113because they had been piloting a program called UFly, which is a literacy program from the University of Florida in their K1 and two classrooms. And they saw extraordinary success and they asked me if we could pilot it more broadly. Uh which we did and we saw some great returns. And so this past school year, the data you're seeing was the first year that we implemented it across the school system. And not only that, but we organized all of our professional learning for K1 and two teachers as it pertains to literacy around the effective implementation of UFly chair and the vice chair were able to come to the conference where we had districts from other parts of the country come and learn about our approach. What's really exciting about this is this was just one this

114is year one of our implementation of UFI with teachers and this is what our K1 and two teachers did in the first year and so I'm extraordinarily optimistic obviously continuing with this but continuing to refine our professional development supporting teachers coaches reading specialists with professional learning communities at their schools to continue to enhance practice this I I feel cautiously optimistic we're going to see even bigger gains going into next year since it won't be the first time around for many teachers. Miss Rizzy um and given that then um you know and and the fact that we do have some improvements to make um what do you see as our continued challenges? Yeah, I mean I I think one is is just time. We always are looking for more time with with kiddos. Um I think

115two is uh just teacher capacity. There's only so much teachers can absorb at one time like any professional. And so as Dr. Harrison Muhammad noted uh there's a lot of new things coming from the state that teachers are absorbing all at once and sometimes in unpredictable ways. Um you know starting the year to teach history and not actually knowing what the history standards are and things of that nature. And so I think us continuing to partner with the state as effectively as we can to make sure that we're able to give teachers as much clarity as possible is is going to be absolutely critical. Um I just want to echo what what has already been shared. I mean these are um this really shows the resilience of RPS. I mean um we talked about teachers

116and you know certainly our principles as the leaders but the literacy coaches that that have really paved the way. And what I loved about what you just said Mr. cameras is um they came to you and the administration listened. And I think when we continue to have those types of relationships where um our our schools feel comfortable with coming to the administration and offering up um suggestions and um the administration is open to hearing it. I mean this is where we win. like, you know, English learners saw a 33% point gain. That is unbelievably incredible and um it just really shows that what can happen when we really just collaborate and work together. So, thank you to everyone involved, the community, parents, obviously, students, our scholars are just so smart and just um just resilient

117and able to adapt to any circumstance and um and I was able to see firsthand um the uh youly curriculum in in in real time and it was phenomenal to see kindergarteners rating was just um amazing. So, thank you. Um and obviously I want to shout out the Ninth District for all the incredible work. Um in most cases there were double digit gains and just can't express enough how appreciative I am of all the work that our schools are doing to just excel and overall RPS again is resilient. Thank you. All right, moving right along to board business. 6.01, receive an update on tennis revitalization project. Mr. Cameas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just pulling up the document second. Uh as you can see as was uploaded is a revised proposal uh from the group of

118uh local leaders who are hoping to build a tennis center including a hall of fame uh for black uh tennis players uh here in the city of Richmond. the uh I won't go through the whole presentation. It's not my presentation. It comes from them. But um this proposal is to uh build this on the field at Lois Harrison Jones. Um we've also uploaded the land assessment for that land uh in terms of the value of the land. And so we have been in some discussion about what uh this group of leaders and their organization could do as potential compensation if the school system were to surplus the property to the city and the city were to then move forward with this project or if we were to lease uh the land to this organization. And

119so uh you can see there's a a set of improvements that they are proposing to make uh refurbishing the tennis courts at JB Fischer, JL Francis, Mary Munford, JH Reed, Lucila Brown, Henderson, Albert Hill, TJ and Armstrong. um also give um access to RPS students uh to tennis clinics along with support to develop uh tennis programs across our schools. Um a number of other benefits they've laid out here. Um not asking the board to make any decisions tonight. Just wanted uh to get this latest proposal in front of you for your consideration. And we have Mr. Caner here who can answer any questions the board may have about the proposal. With that, Mr. Caner, I'll ask you to come on up. Good evening. Let me introduce myself. Um, my name is Irv Caner. I am

120the president-elect of the Richmond Tennis Association and I'm on the board of the Black Tennis Hall of Fame, which is now located in Richmond. And um I'll answer whatever questions you have, but let me let me go up to 100,000 feet with you guys. This was a uh project a couple years ago that a group of tennis folks got together and we talked to the mayor's office to talk to parks and recck talked to Mr. Cameas and what it was was we wanted to build an indoor facility at Bird Park. We have 12 outdoor courts there and we wanted to build eight indoor courts um right behind the Lois Harrison John school. Like Superintendent Cameron said, that uh project um got real exciting for us when there was a separate project going out in Gland

121that the Goodwin folks and the Second Serve Foundation was going to proceed with and they reached out to David Harris and me who were leading the charge for the tennis center at Park and join forces with us. After that happened, we we united the entire tennis community in Richmond. So, we have the Richmond Tennis Association, we have Metro Richmond Tennis Club, we have um Black Tennis Hall of Fame, we have the Second Serve Foundation, we have Parks and Wreck, all of us in the SEC in Second Serve uh leading the way um have combined to to put this project together. So, we're very excited about it and we're committed to build a state-of-the-art 15 to 20 million indoor facility at no cost to the Richmond public schools. This is a an incredible gift to the

122city and to Richmond public schools. And um I will answer whatever questions you have, but just I wanted to give you guys that background. My history is I ran the courts at Bird Park in the early 70s in the heyday of Richmond tennis. We had number of nationally ranked juniors that came out of Richmond. We have a in fact one of those juniors is being inducted in to the black tennis hall of fame in September. On September 20th, Juny Chapman who grew up at Bird Park is being inducted into the black tennis hall of fame which is located relocated to Richmond three years ago. And we're not creating the Black Tennis Hall of Fame. What we're doing is we want to house in this one facility the Black Tennis Hall of Fame, the Richmond Tennis

123Hall of Fame, which the Richmond Tennis Association um has and Metro Richmond Tennis Club all in one place. And um we also have as part of our 15 to20 million dollar budget, we intend to hire we put in in place hiring a staff of tennis instructors and that will be revitalizing tennis in the inner city of Richmond and and this is going to be a tremendous uh boost to the Richmond public schools students. And I predict I predict if we can get this done, we will have another Arthur Ash coming out of Richmond. By the way, I'm a I'm a 12 years public Richmond public school student. I went to TJ High School. So anyway, I'm here to answer whatever questions you guys have. Miss Razie, Mr. Hedgemat. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I'm very

124familiar with all of this and the nuances included. And I would just say, you know, I I mean um we're working on this, but to imply that there's no cost to us might be a little bit of a stretch just because of the value of the property, which is equivalent to what you plan to spend almost to have the property built. And so I just wanted to just kind of highlight that that's why some of this is not, you know, it's not a complete no-brainer, right? We have to think about this in terms of what's going to be best for our district. Thank you, Mr. Hitchpath. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Caner. Uh, appreciate the presentation. Two quick questions. You mentioned that the uh the grant or excuse me the the goal for

125the fundraising would uh would pay for staff at the building. How long would that last and would RPS be expected to pick it up afterwards? And then two um who's vetting the uh the donors? We that's those are good questions. Um the for the first question the we we intend staff to be in perpetuity. We've put in uh enough money for the first three years of staff pay and then once the center gets going between that and continued fundraising we intend to keep that staff and even grow it. Um and the second question vetting of the donors we've we've started out we've got a fundraising committee we've already put together and u there are a number of foundations uh there are a number of u benefactors who we've contacted and um um we've been we've

126been working on this for two years and we think it's realistic that we can raise 15 to 20 million dollars And as soon as we get a green light that the project is is something that you guys, you know, approve in in in theory, we will start fundraising. We put the committee together and we've we've been vetting a number of folks and foundations, corporations. We've talked to a lot of folks. Thank Thank you, Madam Chair. I just follow up just just wanted to say that I would appreciate that maybe RPS has a a seat at that table at vetting the uh the donors since there's a lot at stake for our kiddos and in our community. So, but I really appreciate this. It's very exciting. Yes. And we would we would welcome that. M record.

127Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'm just looking at the map and I see in the proposed site plan drawings for two additional parking lots. Shepard Street is not a big street. Um, I spend a lot of time at the ball fields across the street. So, I guess I'm just wondering what you're thinking. Like, have you talked to the city about traffic? You know, there's kids at the playground. That's just going to increase a lot of congestion to that area, which is just also a concern that I have actually I think it'll help because we've built uh if you saw in in a proposal the number of lots that we're going to build I think that will help the parking right now I'm very familiar my all three of my kids play little league as well

128as some tennis tournaments and so um you're right there there's it's very crowded on the street there but we're going to be creating a number of spots that aren't there now and We even have some spots across the street that that the parks and wreck will let us build on their property. So, I we're going to be adding parking spaces. I think this will really help the problem, not not create more congestion. Miss Burke, Dr. Harris Muhammed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for this presentation. I've played a little tennis but not the expectation of which you are presenting this evening but I will say that I have spent time with Arthur Ash many years ago and he was quite a gentle quite a gentle quite an athlete and quite a star. when we speak

129about history, this is a part of real Richmond in terms of acknowledging all that he did just not for the city of Richmond but across internationally. So, thank you for that vision. I love what I see in terms of u refurbishing the tennis courts at our schools. Right now, we're in a pinch facilities wise, so that's that's a plus as I look at this. But, I'm going to be sincere with you. I do want to make sure that I'm going to be careful how I say this politically correct. I don't want us to be in a position as what we were in with the Arthur Ash Center on the Boulevard or gym stadium or whatever and didn't see it before our very eyes as it was turned over to us per se which didn't have

130the money to keep it up. And now because of the diamond district everything will be be done which is a good thing. But I don't want to see that repeat of history. Because sometimes in the city of Richmond, we have great ideas, we build great buildings, and then as years pass, they deteriorate and it falls back on us or the city. We can't keep doing that. So what I'm trying to figure out and help me with this, the answer is very simple. I just haven't seen this. My I need you fly the literacy skills whatever to understand this. Um the millions of dollars that the the property is valued. One minute. One minute. Okay. The millions of dollars of which the properties are valued behind Lois Harrison Jones um elementary school. You're you're asking us

131to lease it to you or sell it to you or give it to you. That's all I ask. Lease it to us. And we're talking about a long-term lease such as very similar to like the Maymon Foundation. I don't know about the Mayan Foundation. I don't know about this foundation. What we're talking about doing is having the RPS lease us the land. And we would like a long-term lease because we're going to be building a a building $20 million building that we we intend to keep in perpetuity. And what we've done is put together all the groups in the city that we intend to run this the right way. And we we want RPS involvement obviously with the foundation that will be running this. We're talking about leasing the land. Okay. To make a long

132story short, I would like to know for a long term what that means because we can end up again. $20 million is a lot of money, but not a lot of mil money to build a facility. Our schools cost more than that. So, I just don't want us to be left at the end of the day with um and that's that shows dishonor towards Arthur Ash and his family and what you all do as well. So, I just need something this day and time with all the things that are happening politically and financially. I just don't want us to be left. Well, that's why that's why our found that's why we proposing a foundation that consists of all the tennis folks that we're talking about, folks from the city, folks from Richmond public schools, and

133that that foundation will run this run this uh facility the right way and keep it in perpetuity. I mean, we're talking about, you know, a facility like this, we want it to continue to to thrive and grow, and that's why we put together the foundation that we have. At the end of the day, you stated persons to be on this as Mr. Hatch Path just stated in terms of Richmond public schools being at the table because we have people that come in and out, in and out. They're here and then they're gone. At the end of the day, I just want to make sure we're not left. I know there's no guarantee, but that's just want to make sure that it's done correctly and in order, not in terms of you're preaching to the choir.

134I totally agree with you. Okay. And that's and that's why we've been so careful about the team we put together is, you know, we put together a team that can run this the right way. Team according to what you expect. Well, it's what it's what since this is a tennis facility, it's mostly the tennis folks that we that we put this together. And I understand that. I just want to make sure the people those children that you are serving get that opportunity. Oh, absolutely. Your your your children are active. We're doing this for your kids. Dr. Harris Muhammad. Yes. Um, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. One, what does the outreach look like for students, um, black and brown, indigenous people of color in high poverty areas in the city? Um, the

135city of Richmond is one of the areas that have the most housing developments, um, high poverty, high crime. So what what is what does the outreach look like? Um to connect with those student to and there is no history in their home of tennis. Um can you talk a little bit to that? Thank you. Yes. When we created this pro proposal, part of the proposal was to teach your teach the um the outreach. When you say outreach, teach people for the Richmond public schools how to teach tennis. Give clinics, give clinics in the areas that right now are not being served to um to start a u excitement for tennis because tennis tennis brings with it um everything. I mean it's just it teaches you responsibility. It teaches it gives you great exercise. It's the

136healthiest sport there is according to all the studies. And I worked with, by the way, Miss Burke, I worked with Arthur Ash's father when I was at Bird Park. And I'm a big fan of Arthur Ash. David Harris, who's my partner in this. This my time. Come on. This my time. Anyway, I was getting back. My time. Come on. We are a team. I'm sorry about that. I'm teasing her. Don't worry. I'm sorry. But that's uh but but that that is really what that's really what our outreach is. We intend to not only give clinics but then teach others how to teach tennis. We want to get and we need to there's been no involvement when I when I worked for the Richmond tennis patrons back in the 70s. We did that. We went to

137we went to from you know we were stationed in Bird Park but we went to some of the other schools. We went to some of the other playgrounds and we taught tennis. We put up nets sometimes that they in courts that didn't even have nets and so you're right. We but that is exactly what we put in the proposal. So thank for Okay. Thank you. So you told me what you do but we're thinking about families and I appreciate that. Thank you so much. because outreach doesn't look the same in no part of this city. And so we have to be intentional. I'm I'm recommending I'm encouraging for us to be intentional for your team to be intentional about connecting. Of course, every child is not going to um like tennis, like football, all of

138those different things. They're just they just don't. And that's okay. But to introduce an activity where probably 80 to 85% of children have never seen it on TV, not in person, nowhere in their community, right? We have to be intentional about introducing it to them. And so, um, I heard a lot and thank you in your response, but what I didn't hear was finding out who the pastors are. And maybe you didn't know that. Um, finding because a lot of our churches have um spots where something like tennis could be done. Okay. being in that space to have support because they can announce it in their vacation bible school, they can announce it in their church school. So, we have to be intentional about the outreach. And so, we don't know what we don't know.

139And so, I just wanted to share that with you that um we you all must be intentional about um introducing this to a variety of areas in our city. So, thank you so much. We we know that those are you're exactly right. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. Um Mr. Perl and then Miss Rzzy, did you have something? Okay. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Caner, for being here this evening. Um in your proposal under taxes, you have it as a 501c3 organization. Is what aspect of this is 501c3? The entire Yes. Entire. So, there's no profit center. No profit center to this. Okay. We you know, our P&L will be basically to break even, you know, as we run this and you we would we would hope that we could break

140even um in the facility. We but it's completely a 501c3. Okay. And the followup to that uh funding wise, a substantial portion of the funds will be raised through donations. How will the rest of the funds be raised? We we might for the indoor some of the indoor courts, we might, you know, sell some rights, naming rights to them. Um, you know, for folks for companies and for other foundations that might want to have their name on board, that type of thing, but almost 90 95% of it will be from charitable fundraising. Great. Thank you. Um, and as far as the lease to to circle back on Miss Burke's question, um, not putting dollar amounts on it, but are you anticipating paying a market rate for lease or are you looking for some sort of

141inkind? Well, we we agreed to refurbish all the tennis courts on Mr. Cameron's list that he just read out and we'll be building a 20 million 15 to20 million facility. We would think that whatever additional rent if there is any would be you know take that into into account which Mr. Cameras brings me back to my final point. Um while I love to see all these schools on here refurbishing the courts uh I'm no tennis expert so I can't tell you how long the resurfacing job lasts 10 years round number. Um, I'm looking long-term at how we continue to have these courts refurbished and I think the lease mechanism would probably be a substantial part of that. Thank you, M. Miss Rizzy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I'm glad you are now um clarifying that

142you're going to be a 501c3. you know, I'd ask a question about whether you were going to be for profofit or not, and I didn't get a clear answer at that time. Um, and so then your donors will have to be public, and that will be good for us to see. Um, you know, the fact that we're saying that tennis hasn't been promoted in the inner city. You know, that that frustrates me since my son spent every single summer since he was five years old teaching tennis. in the Big Five and um spent time there. He and his father um and has also conducted quick start tennis, you know, um clinics around town. There are photos of me helping with quick start clinics, right? And so this this work is being done. Um has it

143taken off? You know, I mean, I think there are a lot of questions for why it has not, but there are tennis courts in Richmond at our schools that have been refurbished and still don't have tennis programs. And so, those are things that we need to think about as we go through this. Um, there was something else and let me see what is it. Oh, so I think that Thank you. I think that, you know, we need to also know about what your fee structure is going to be, how you're going to, you know, conduct selling court time, um, what that's going to look like, what time you're going to reserve for RPS students. So, there are a lot of details I think we need to work out before we continue. Thank you. Yes, thank

144you. Thank you for being here this evening. Um, I have several questions, so I'll try to make them um, brief. So, I think um you know, appreciate the presentation. Certainly love um um wanting to bring back the history and richness of tennis and Richmond. I think that's um wonderful. I used to be in tennis club when I was younger. I won't say how long ago that was. And so, um it's definitely something that keeps our kiddos moving and active. Um so, I think that that is a plus. We have a lot of facilities in RPS that are definitely need some tender loving care. Um, but what I I feel like I'm I'm missing from the conversation and what we shared tonight is just really being able to understand and tap into the community that we're

145going to be serving here. Um, and so, you know, making tennis available is great. Um but how are we going to reach specific communities I think is the key right? Um because it's with anything. I mean I used to teach lurggical dance in the community for over 20 years. It's more than tennis. It's more than dance. It's more than whatever we're bringing to our students. We have to be able to encompass all of what comes with that. and um I haven't really heard you say that and so I just want to share that that bit of a concern. I also understand that this um property is worth around $18 million give or take. And so leasing out a property well first I need to understand can we do that as RPS? Like what would that

146look like logistically? Um, would we want to yield a property that's worth $18 million? Um, is another question. And the upkeep is also a concern of mine. Um, just in general, we have challenges with that right now. And so, I'm concerned about that as well. Um, I appreciate that you are a 501c3. Um, which is not profit, but I I just have those are really my concerns. I know that was a lot, but if you can kind of sum that up a little bit with a response, I would appreciate it. Fellas, we definitely need to reach the folks that are are not playing tennis now and that have never been exposed to it. Uh, we have right now programs at Bird uh Rising Stars and we have to get the word out for that. That's

147the one that Miss Rizzley's uh son teaches for us in the rising stars. We at Battery Park, we have George Banks has been key to that and he's had his own programs at at Battery and right now um that's about it as far as um as far as as far as formal programs. You know, maybe I'm missing some, but um those are the two big ones. We do need to get more and we would we'd love to get your input as far as reaching everybody in the city of Richmond. All the all the and this is for the youth in the city. That's why we put this whole project together to begin with. That was my background and that was what David Harris's background is. And so that's we would love your um suggestions on

148how to do that. We know that's going to be a it's that's part of the it's going to be a a struggle to do that. We got to get the word out. We got to reach those folks. We got to figure out how to reach them. And that's what we've that's what we intend to do. We have the instructors to do that in the budget. And one last question. Um, and you may have said it and I may have kind of missed it and or it may have gotten lost in translation, but um, just very simply put, how is your program going to add value to RPS? Well, you're going to get an incredible facility on a piece of land that's never been used. I've been I'm 72 years old. That piece of land has

149never been used ever. It's been used for parking for the Richmond Little League and you're going to get a state-of-the-art indoor facility on your property that's intended to benefit the Richmond public students. Thank you. All right, moving right along. discuss renaming of Armstrong High School. Good evening, Madame Chair, vice chair, board members, superintendent cameras. I know Mr. Mallerie uh did his presentation, but I wanted to give him the opportunity to highlight some other things and take any questions you may have you have around the Armstrong Kennedy renaming. Mr. Mallerie, thank you for hearing me once again. Good evening. Um before I start on behalf of the alumni, we really want to thank you for this opportunity to speak because we never had this opportunity 21 years ago. We like to thank the honorable Cheryl Burke

150because she gave us tremendous support and she gave us hope when we thought there was no more hope left. And we thank Dr. Willie Bear for presenting this to you. So if any question you want to ask me pertaining to what I presented to you earlier, glad to answer them. That's second. Dr. Harris Muhammed, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for working with Dr. Bale, Miss Berg, um, and others to present this. I have a question. Um, so the request to rename the school is, this is how I read the notes. Okay. Um, I don't remember how it's presented today that was the same information that was presented before. Um, was it some other was it a different um presentation or different information that was well surfacing? Well, someone had told me

151to ask just for the name of Kennedy be put on the building. Okay. And keep it status. Okay. Well, that didn't sit well with the alumni because we we just deserve more than that. The alumni of of John F. Kenned. Yeah. Yes. Sure. Yes. I mean, the school was Kennedy at first. Mhm. Now when Armstrong moved into the school really speaking on this, we were evicted. Nobody asked us, "Okay, um I start coming in, do you have any problem with that?" What other we were evicted. Okay. So when that happened, it was like a terrible blow. I mean, put yourself in your shoes. What if that happened to your high school? Your rivalry school took over your school just move you out of the way. We understand Armstrong history and everything. I lived in Kraton

152Court. I could walk to Armstrong five minutes. I went to Kennedy for six years. I went to Kennedy when was first built in 68 as a seventh grader because Armstrong was so overcrowded and Woodville. So the principal at Woodville, the the great Arnold Henderson, he invited us to come to um Kennedy because they had so many empty classroom. So we was there for the seventh grade. We participated in selecting the mascot, school colors, ammo, everything. They invited us to stay for the eighth grade. When the ninth grade came, they that's when they started to bust it. One side of Crane Road stayed at Kennedy, other side went to Austin. So I was at Kennedy for six years. So if anybody can tell you about the history of Kennedy, you you're looking at the person. So

153what we're trying to do is bring back that Aron Kennedy school they had back in 1988. It worked. The only difference was Armstrong was still on the site on 31st Street. Kennedy was on 23rd Street, but I mean on 2300 Cool Lane. But now since there's no more Armstrong on 31st, both schools will be under one roof. It worked in 198 1986. So what we saying is, okay, give us back now. I'll try to tell my alumni, forget about putting the name back on the bill. That's not going to happen. Our biggest enemy of that was time. Okay? So let's get back what we had at first. Let's join us. Now alumni, we have had drive-thru donations for the students at Austin where we would donate food, clothing, school supplies under the leadership of Dr.

154Pendergrass and Dr. Bell when he was there. People ask, well, why are you giving scholarships to students at you go to Kennedy? Don't you have some kind of hatred for that? At that moment, I tell them, look, it's at this moment, it's not about the name that's on outside of the building. It's about the name of the students inside the building for that moment. Okay. So, yes, we are asking for Armstrong Kend um come back the name. I just want to be clear. Aran Kennedy Jaguars. Kennedy Jaguars. And I did see that um it looks like to me a compromise where the colors will remain. The colors will be blue and gold like it was instant in the back. I'm sorry. Not remain because the colors now are remind me of Virginia State colors. Um

155and then the mascot Jaguar. Jaguar. Yes. Okay. So, was there a compromise to have the colors remain what they are now? And the mascot Jaguars, that's what I meant to say first. I didn't say it the way I I wanted to. What you're presenting are the colors blue and gold. Yes. Was there any discussion about the colors remaining what they are now? The Armstrong. If the color remain what they are now, which be orange and blue, it would be Armstrong Wild Cats, we will have nothing but the name Kennedy on the building. But the mascot will be Jaguars. No, because mascot will still be the Wild Cats. See what's going on here now? No. What what I'm saying is this. Was there any discussion if you if the name change was Armstrong Kennedy? Mhm. I

156see that the suggestion of the mas the for the mascot is to be jaguars. Yes. The colors blue and gold. Yes. But what I'm hearing you say is to maintain um the unity and the collab collaboration, but the only thing that I So the colors are not a replica of what Armstrong is. That's that's what I'm saying. When they started Armstrong Kennedy, the blue representing Armstrong, the gold represented Kennedy. Kennedy's colors were scarlet and gold. They combined both schools. They combined both schools. Instead of naming it wild or the Cougars, they named it the Jaguars. That's what we're trying to get. Understood. Thank you. Understood. Thank you. Can I also clarify the question? The presentation that we did was basically how the renaming process goes. We gave a little bit of history around uh Armstrong

157and Kennedy and also what the potential cost could be. Um and tonight their goal was to share what the specific ask was for and so again um to change the colors and also change the name and mascot would incur a cost. Um so Miss Rizzy, thank you madam chair. So my father went to Armstrong would have come out at 7 had he not been drafted. Um there is a sizable amount of people that age who like really love the name Armstrong. How do you plan to engage them and talk to them about this in a way um that also recognizes the very long history of Armstrong, you know, going back to when it was located in Raz, right? Um and evidently there was a building before that. So I mean Armstrong has a very long

158history and it's you know much longer than the six years that you're talking about right um and also um question um oh yeah so there was Jefferson Hugenot with right so we no longer have with right but suppose a group of parents or group of not parents but community members say hey we want to do Jefferson hugenot because of that that was the other like you know corporate school I mean I you know I think that we also need to think about the precedent sets just in case there are people who were a part of that that say hey we love that why can't we change the name back to that I don't know during those consolidations it was Jefferson Hug and I with it was Marshall Walker it Anan Kennedy diffic now if Anan

159Kennedy has been done before it was proven it could be done anywhere my mother went to was there on le I have an older brother and older sister they were done we was planning on going there as well however Kennedy was built now let's think about this they tore down Armstrong housing. Just think if Kennedy was not built, where would they move on from East End School? Well, that's Franklin Franklin military schools at Okay, so give us a fair shake. Give us a fair shake. Armstrong Kennedy was done before. Question is, why can't it be done again? We were evicted from our school. You know, we were evicted. We just trying to get that back. Thank you, Miss Bird. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Mallerie, for being here this evening. I know

160you have others with you as well. I see them in the audience and others that have spoken. um you've been pushing this for quite a while and um I commend you for that. What I'm looking for is a win-win situation because I know you all not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. And to be sincere, we have so many challenges right now at Armstrong. Um it breaks my heart. Things have happened, but they continue continue to soar. Our track field is the same track field that was in place when the school was built and now that's all rocks because of water pipe burst inside the school. Things have happened because of a white water pipe bursting that we have no colle no whatever to address but it will be addressed is going to look into

161that this week. Um Dr. Newell I know is working with the mayor. We've been working on this for the last seven years. I will give kudos to the endowment project. I don't know how many persons in the Kennedy group are part of the endowment project which has raised over hundreds of thousands of dollars of which been we've been able to put in place the big t big screens for teaching and learning. I can't think of the name of the screens. Um $10,000 for the students that just went to New York with their teachers. So, a lot's been going on. So, we commend you all. We have a beautiful new clothing closet which brand new clothes. Thank you for all that you all have done over the years. and you do have one of the best

162parties ever. Okay. Really, really, really, really, really. So, we thank you for your commitment. Um, I understand the part about um the school. I was there at Shimaranzo that night. The school board made the decision to change the name to delete Kennedy completely. And that was one of the saddest days in the city of Richmond. That was terrible because I know the next day when you all walked into Kennedy, trophies and things were in the trash can. But I have to give kudos to Dr. Bell because he really has made an effort during his principal ship and Mrs. Carter as well has continued. So there because there are showcases in the building downstairs and up. Um so he's telling the story. My question is and not for you to have on your shoulders by yourself,

163but my question is and what I would like to share with my fellow board members because however things unfold, I would like for all of us to be on the table together regarding this. My question is number one, I don't want to see what happened to our current students at Armstrong, what happened to you all at Kennedy. as we make a move. We have not nobody has called the children's name currently at at at Armstrong. Number two, Kennedy was birthed from Armstrong time because Armstrong was overcrowded. Madam Chair, can I get another minute since this is my district? If it's the will of the board, are there any concerns with her continuing? And I just a minute. I'm a group tonight. Yes. So my place is sure make it Armstrong Kennedy but it doesn't mean

164your history is going to be told. All right doesn't mean it's going to what happened during that era with the great ball players and the great teachers. You all had awesome teachers. My my my interim pastor Reverend Somerset was your English teacher. My husband's godmother was the math teacher. It was just just f phenomenal. So my point with this is I want you to be mindful is Dr. Harris Muhammad just stated because the original proposal that was shared at the last meeting Mr. Solomon Jefferson was different than what's being shared tonight. All right. So things were I didn't know that that that was going to happen. Okay. Nobody said anything to that. I am I don't want us to continue beefing and that's what's happening on social media and you know I'm not happy about

165that because all of y'all look near me my age okay and we're supposed to be an example for the children currently in place but I want us to know that as we bring this together and go through the process I would like the superintendent to address the process and let us know or somebody to tell us how many months what would happen and it cost money to do that but we still have children at Armstrong school that continue to need you no matter what the name is. You want your history told and you want your history preserved. So where's your museum? Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammed. And I I also just want to share I remember how students felt. I was a math teacher at Kennedy when they decided that Kennedy um Armstrong

166would be moved to Cooling. And I remember standing in front of my blackboard when the news came over the PA that the meeting was going to be that night. And I remained a lot of teachers at that time from John F. Kennedy remained for the meeting because the meeting was held at Kennedy High School. the schoolboard meeting was happening the time that we were meeting and I remember when the news came through the auditorium that time it had changed just five more seconds I'm just going to finish I I just want us to remember children thank you um just want us to be mindful that we have a very long agenda still ahead of us we're at 8:41 um I just have just um a clarifying question and then I think we have as a

167board a decision to make. Um yeah the well we need to consider um what the next step will be whether we'll um ask the administration to proceed and vetting out if this is something that is viable. Obviously there are some steps that would need to take place next. they'll have to have conversations with the community, current school members. They'll do um open meetings, etc., etc., etc. But my question is um to you, and I know that you are representing several alumni. Um but is this more about the history or is it about the name? It's more about both. Okay. It's more about Kenna was a great school. We had a cadet course that went they went to compete for the national championship in Texas and they won first place. That's just a um something that's

168a lot of history that a whole lot of people don't know about. Okay. Kennedy football team went to the championship capital championship in two years. I can go on and on and on. It's about the history. It's about the legacy. It's about the community. We as a whole. When Kender opened up, the students, the the seniors was only four years younger than the teachers. So, we was there together. Our teacher was our our parents. That's how close we were. What what hurt us the most was when they decided to move on in. Why didn't they just go back to naming kids again? Thank you. Um and I do believe that there's a shared responsibility to tell the story and the history um wherever that leads us. That's a part of our um dreams for RPS

169goals. Um the question is how do we accomplish that? And um that's up for discussion and some of for consideration. Um my only other question is for the administration. I see um Mr. Jafar's hand raised as well is um in order to do the rebranding um how much will that cost if we were to move forward in this direction? I would say between uh 75 and $100,000. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jafari. Yes. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues. Uh good evening, Mr. Mallerie. Evening, sir. as as I listen, I I hear a number of different things, but what concerns me is, and I think it's also been echoed by my colleagues, is that there may be some bickering and and and and there's going to be some push back and forth as people advance their

170own positions, but I I I don't want it I I don't think we're there right now to decide exactly which way to go with this. With what I'm hearing, I I'm hearing that there needs to be more uh resolve amongst the very people. This is almost like the third plan that I've heard for how they want this to come back. And again, we can't move forward like this. Um one of the biggest things that I do realize and recognize having gone to Maggie Walker and experienced what happened at Maggie Walker, much of the same kind of thing happened. But I think what we're losing in this whole site is what the school meant to the community and what was taken out of it when all of a sudden it wasn't there anymore. It's almost like

171saying that people just stopped existing. And I think that's the real painful part that JFK the the Cougars that I talked to uh I've talked to people that went to Armstrong as well. They're not resentful of it and they're willing to work along with it. But we got to find one plan to move ahead. And when we speak, we're going to have to be able to speak in such a way that we keep it alive in the community. Keep that history alive in the community because nobody, no community should have to deal with a situation where you go to bed one night, there's a whole group of people, and the next day they're all gone and nobody talks about it. It's like it's erased from history. And all too often we talk about marginalized. That's

172that's what being marginalized has meant in the city of Richmond. And you can take it from this green dragon. I know what that means. And just like you, Mr. Mallerie, I tried to stand in there and fight against that for years and years. But where do we go? I don't think there's a colleague that I have sitting there who's not empathetic with you. But we have to have one voice when we move ahead. And we have to have one plan that's going to work for everybody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, at this point, it would be helpful to hear if there's a consensus from the board as to whether to begin a formal process uh to rename Armstrong High School. your policy 6-2.9 6-2.9 governs

173that process. Uh it begins with a public notice of the school board's intention to rename a school and then there's a minimum one-month public comment period, a requirement for two public hearings uh within the community where the school is located. uh the opportunity for members of the public to submit names in writing. Uh obviously this body and previous iterations of it have done a number of renamings over the last several years. Um my guidance to the board is if you uh think there is a good chance that you would end up renaming the school then I would proceed. However, if there is not a consensus for that at this time, my guidance would be to to not do so. Uh you could also, if you would so choose, wait until the August meeting to uh

174decide whether or not uh to make the pronouncement to move forward. That said, I would strongly encourage you to do so this evening so that we can have clarity going into the new school year. Thank you. Um well, thank you u Mr. Cameras. Um I've heard from a few colleagues, but have not heard from everyone. Just a gut check where we stand and if we'd like to um have a consensus tonight or or wait until next month. Um Miss Ricard, Mr. PL. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I think part of my concern with formally going ahead is I would almost like some of the community outreach to happen first to see what do our students feel. What do both Armstrong and Kennedy feel? You know, I know some of our prior school renamings happened because

175the schools needed to be renamed due to their association with the Confederacy and other things. Um but this it to me feels not as clear um the reason for it at least understanding where all sides of the community stay. Um, so I don't know if it's possible to do some of do a survey um prior to if not then I would be in favor of um thinking on it a month and and talking forward or not in August. Thank you Mr. Pible. Thank you Madam Chair and just echoing uh Mr. Ricard. Um given and what's been stated here by my colleagues that when it was first presented to us, we were putting a name on a building. Uh last month it was presented to us as okay, it's a name change, but not a mascot,

176not a color, not any of this. And now it seems that we're going full scale name change. Um in that interest, I'm not arguing one way or the other. Um, it's certainly up to the community what we do, but it it may be in our best interest to sit on this until the August meeting to give our constituents the opportunity to give us that feedback. Uh, I know I got some of that feedback just today. Um, and I look pretty bad to my own city council representative for telling him, "No, no, this is just a name on a building." Um, so now I have to go explain that. So, uh, maybe just one more month, not to push off anybody unduly. I think this is an important conversation, but, uh, let our constituents tell us

177what they think. Thank you, Mr. Farooq. Thank you, Madam Chair. Question. So, first my comment would be that I'm open to us following the process and our policies, but I think that policy is if we know we're going to change the name and the policy is to figure out what the name will be. So, this is a slightly different situation. That being said, that policy does allow for public input and it's kind of a clear way to get public input. So, I feel like it's the closest policy we have. That being said, whatever we decide to do, there is clearly a need, given what Mr. Pival just said, for us to have significantly more community engagement. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Um, in consideration of all that has been shared, I do hear that

178the truest um, passion um, of what I've heard tonight and emails that I received is the history and making sure that the history is not erased. Um but I still have caution because we haven't heard from um the children that are currently in the schools and um we haven't really heard from the community and what we've heard it in my mind it kind of balanced itself out. We have some that are for some that are against and everybody has very um valid reasons why they feel like it should move forward. That said, I think the only way to really truly go about this the appropriate way is to um engage the community and get to get a clear path forward. Mr. Cameras. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I heard a number of times and and

179you just shared it, Madam Chair, a desire to hear from the students themselves, which uh certainly makes a lot of sense. to do that, we of course would need to be back in session. And so if the board would like to gather that feedback, uh, which I of course support, um, I would ask that we defer further discussion of this. Honestly, probably until the October meeting. I even think September might be a little early to properly gather that feedback. As well as from the community, we could do a survey and try to gather some more concrete information for you. Um and then in the October timeline you can make a decision about whether to proceed with the process formally or not. I don't think anything precludes you from gathering feedback as you always um uh

180desire to do. Uh and then you can make that decision if if that works for the is the consensus to defer until we can hear from the students and um staff until after September time frame. Yes, I hear I see nods. Okay. And that's what we'll do. We'll defer it. Um, I just think that's very important. That's a very important part of the process and I believe that our colleagues feel the same way. So, thank you for that. All right, moving right along for the sake of time. 6.02 receive an update on staffing. Good evening. Good evening, Madame Chair, school board members, and superintendent cameras. I am excited to update you with some highlights. I'm excited to update you with some highlights regards to staffing for the 2526 school year. And since our last meeting

181last month, we have hired an additional 42 classroom teachers across the district. So, we're very excited about I attribute that to a wonderful talent office team as well as I want to give a shout out to our principles. they are very much so um working with a sense of urgency. They interview when folks apply today, they get interviewed today. So that's that's the how we want to do things. So very excited about that sense of urgency and sense of um quality hires that we're getting on board. And um we have lots of events scheduled for July. Uh last month we had our lensure fair. We have one again tomorrow at Henderson. It was very well attended. Last month we had 50 attendees. So that was great. So we decided to have another one this month

182so that we can get people um educated on how to get licensed, get them partnered up with our teacher and leader pathways team as well as our lure specialists. And um the next few pages uh slides 3 through six goes through the different vacancies for each school, each cluster for elementary, middle, and high. And then also after that, it goes into the um update on the early commitment bonuses. We have 28 bonuses that have been accepted and the breakdown of those schools is listed there. And here I'm going to pass it on to Rodney Robinson to update you on growing our own programs. Uh good a sorry good good night. Um everyone um excuse me here to talk about some of the grow your own programs that are within the Richmond public schools teacher and

183leader pathways department. Um we call our grow your own program seed which stands for supporting and empowering educator development. Um three main goals of our department. One is promoting internally RPS employees. Um increasing teacher retention and expanding teacher leadership and recruitment. And with our CE program we currently have five tracks for those that want to become licensed teachers. Um we often talk about differentiation with students, but we don't think about that when it comes to adults and their needs. And so our goal right now is to have we have five uh licenser tracks. Um our goal by the end of next year is to double that and have 10. We want to be the number one district in the state of Virginia for teacher recruitment and development. And um I mainly want to focus on

184tonight one of our our newest program which is our associate teacher program. Um, and if you look at the slide, it tells you how many um, teachers we're getting out of each one of these programs. But the associate teacher program is a program for those employees without bachelor's degrees. When we have lensure fairs, one of the biggest things we hear is that I don't have a bachelor's degree, but I want to be a teacher. And these are often RPS employees who've been around for years. And so this is a two-year paid teacher residency which leads to a bachelor's degree in a full Virginia teaching license mainly focusing on elementary and special education general curriculum. Um this is a job embedded coursework meaning everything you do as a substitute long-term sub in the classroom will count

185towards your towards your classwork. So therefore you're not leaving work and going home and putting in six seven hours a night on the computer doing lessons. Everything you do takes into account the knowledge you already have and can demonstrate it and it doesn't retach you things you already know how to do. It just moves on to the next standard in the next class. And so during this two years, the teachers will serve as long-term substitutes with all the expectations of a full-time classroom teachers. Um they will get a onetoone teacher pedagogical coach from our office. In addition, they'll be part of the new teacher support plan. Um, and the best thing about this entire program is budget neutral. We're not adding a single dime to the RPS budget. With this program, what we're doing is

186we're taking the allocated vacancy and we're splitting it. The vast majority goes toward um salary um tu salary benefits and um well, excuse me, and benefits, which is a big deal to a lot of our middle-aged folks that are in this program. They have families. They have things they have to take care of. So having benefits, having sick days, these are things that are very important to them. And so while because this is a budget neutral program, the average participant in this program is 37 years old. On average, they have five years of experience in RPS. We have one our youngest is 24. Our oldest is I'm never going to say a black woman's age, so we're just going to say they're a little older. Um but in this role we have instructional assistants, long-term

187substitutes, um one family liaison and two office associates who have been working in RPS for years who want to become teachers. And they all became highly recommended by principles and our long-term substitute coordinator, Angela Delaney. Um and one of the main things we looking at as placements is we're looking at these high vacancy schools. So we intentionally we put five at Miles Jones, three at Francis McClennon, and then we're actually using two to tackle our middle school vacancies because the elementary license goes up to sixth grade. And so that allows us to take some of those teachers and put them in those sixth grade math position positions where they're comfortable. And so this is a really unique program. I'll be honest, a lot of eyes around the state, eyes around the state are looking at

188us to make sure we get this right. But we're determined. my team, Ashley Bland, Jod Granger, they've been working phenomenally to make sure we're fully ready to go. And this is one of our newest program, our newest programs. And like I said, our goal is to double the amount of grow your own programs. Right now, we have five. Um hopefully by the end of this week, we'll have seven. And then by the end of next year, we'll have 10. And so with that, I will also later on tonight, you'll be getting a contract um about um you have to vote on everything above $25,000, but we're investing about $250,000, but that gives our students a classroom teacher or 25 classroom teachers for five years. And to me, that's far worth the investment. So, thank Thank

189you. Question, Miss Burke. You Thank you, Madam Chair. Can Mr. Robertson come back to the podium? And thank you so much for your report as well. You know, this is this associate teacher program. It's been a long time coming. Yes. And years ago, there used to be a similar program in place. You probably weren't even born there, but I remember being it took place at Shimaranzo Elementary School. And most of the teachers I had when I became principal, they went through a program such as this similar. So this whatever we can do on whatever I can do on my end to make sure that persons know about this program because you're guaranteeing really beyond 5 years anytime a person's age 37 38 make that commitment they're going to stay with us for a while. What

190I would like to do is to see the number increase more so than what's here. That's my first question, my first thought. My second question is the can you give us a breakdown if that's permissible in terms of male, female, black, white, Hispanic. What's is it is is is what's listed meeting the needs of whom we need? We we talk about African-American males. Do we have many? And I know there are some who are interested. Um, off top of my head, and I I'll make sure I send you the correct numbers in the morning, but there are three African-American males in the program, it's about 20 African-Americans in general, one Afro Latina, and three white males and two white females. And so that gives us about 26 folks. And here the best thing about them,

19110 of them are RPS graduates. And on a personal note, four of them are my former students. So I'm really excited about that. But that that but it's it's about investing in community, investing in those who are willing to serve, who are comfortable with our students. One of the biggest things first year teachers say is they have to adapt to the climate of Richmond where these folks are born and raised and have been here their entire lives. So that is the biggest hurdle that is always already out of the way. That's music to my ears because we also need to give people especially our teacher assistants, our par profofessionals, our instructional assistants. They have already bought into the system. So, thank you for what you're doing. I would love to see the number increase. I

192think at the end of the day, we're going to see the the return here is excellent. Yes. So, thank you so much for that, Miss Ricard. One of my questions was on the contract because I saw that for Bloomberg Bloomboard later on. And so it's roughly 250 a year for two years. No, no, 250 total. It' be about 125,000 per year. Okay. Yes. Got it. And so thank you Dr. Harris Muhammed and then Mr. Farooq. Yes. The question I have is for um the superintendent um maybe a month ago and I can pull it back up in preparation for our staffing discussion that I knew was forthcoming. One of the questions that I asked was and um Mr. Robinson, this is not for you. This is for the superintendent, but you're more than welcome to

193remain standing there. how in the staffing I think it will help the board to understand out of the staffing updates, how many are long-term subs, how many are day-to-day subs, how many are licensed, how many and out of those who are licensed, how many have a restricted license, how many have a conditional license, and what areas they can work in. Um, the staffing updates I appreciate. Um, but I've been asking for some time that data to be broken up. And so when we request lens or when I say we, the talent office, not the board, but when the talent office requests license for um potential candidates or employees, they've already been employed with RPS. We're trying to find match them with a license, right, based on their official transcript or unofficial transcript. Telling us the

194staffing update is good, but things aren't always the way they appear on paper because when we're placing Shondaanda in a classroom, we're placing her there, but Shondaanda may not be fully licensed. Shondaanda may have a restricted license which means Shondaanda can only she's restricted to a certain place and so um I know that answer cannot be delivered tonight Mr. Cameron's but I did ask something similar um maybe last month I can pull that email because I haven't received the responses to the teacher survey and all of that. So, I just wanted to take this opportunity to ask that question if we can get that feedback. Thank you. Um, really quickly, Dr. Harris Mohammed, could you just um maybe in a sentence or less, um, share that just one more time so we can capture it

195on our running list just to make sure that we keep it top of mind. And I can send an email. Can I send an email? That that would be wonderful. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Farooq. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Question for Miss Haskins. So, I am really gratified because I looked I quickly looked through at the third district schools and I'm very excited to see the dramatic reduction in vacancies at Henderson. I know Mary Scott had some reductions in vacancies. So, thank you so much for all the work of you and your staff. Thank you. My question is about the June hires and exits. It looks like between the hires and the exits, we have a net gain of eight. And so my question is, is I'm guessing that perhaps the summer is a

196a high point for when we have exits. Are we over the exit hump? Do we still have more exits that might come? I think that we are over the exit hump. And I say that because our deadline has passed where our currently licensed teachers who have signed a contract with RPS, they cannot go to any other region one district unless it's a promotion. So I think we are over that hump. Thank you. Dr. Harris Muhammad, is that actually true though? I mean, I know we is it a code that they can't go to any other division? I'm asking because I know that we say that, but I have been told numerous times that is not a code. It is not law. It is something that we say and we have an agreement with our collaborative

197school divisions because the you know teacher may leave in the middle of the year and go to another for a lateral position. So, I just want us to be clear that if it is the law, if it is the code, if it is something that the Virginia Department of Education has thus said in a code or if it's what Virginia the Virginia General Assembly has stated, then we need to make sure that we have that in print. Us saying that they can't go to another division is actually not true. they can go wherever they go, want to go if it's lateral or not. So, we just need to be clear. Thank you, Dr. Harris Muhammed. Any other thoughts? Thank you. Okay, colleagues, for the sake of time, um I wonder if we might consider deferring

198some of the additional items to our August uh board meeting and um just putting um some thought into it with um Superintendent Cameras. he um is in agreement that some of these items can be transitioned um to August, namely um 6.04 receive update on 4x4 school and advanced placements classes. Um perhaps because this first read for policy committee recommendations and first I'm sorry I'm sorry my little notes perhaps for um the first read contracts over 100 um thousand um we can um you know email our questions and then we will have um open discussion in August already because obviously we have to have a second read. Um, and then all of administrative updates, we would uh also push to August. And then lastly, instead of discussing new business openly, perhaps we can email those uh

199after the fact. Are there any concerns to what I just suggested or shared, Miss Ricard? So would we then not receive 8.04? So yes, we would wait. What he has proposed is giving us information via email and then having the actual presentation discussed in our August board meeting. Yes. As a followup, of course. How does this then um impact the August agenda and September and October? I know we're also getting into budget season. That's my only concern. It's a valid question, Mr. Cameron. We we need to be judicious about what we put on our agenda. Yeah. And just be mindful that this was a very ambitious an agenda as we only have one for July and this was part of some of the concerns that was placed because it is very heavy loaded. Yeah. So

200this is something that as we move forward we can consider when we think about whether or not it's uh a value ad to have one meeting or perhaps continue with two. Mr. Hitchpack. Thank you Madam Chair. Are there uh staff members here who have stayed all evening waiting for their presentation and have planned to do it that otherwise wouldn't have been here? Um I I would would hate to say now you're not doing your presentation and come back the next month. Want to be respectful of time. Mr. Cameras. Yes. [Laughter] as well. If I may, um, you know, as a group of 10, I think we need to continue to think about what rises to the level of needing to be on an agenda versus what can be in a memo versus what can be

201in other information. um it is a lot of time for staff um to be here all evening away from their families and so I hate uh to send them home without the opportunity to do their presentations. At the same time I'm cognizant of the fact that there's a significant close session and it's already 9:15. So um we have a incredible team and and they understand the the zigs and zags of of governance and so they will accommodate as needed. With that said, um it's no easy decision to make. Um however, what is proposed is we defer item 6.04 6.07 07 administrative updates and totality 8.04. You will email us information for us to discuss at our next session and um new business will be emailed instead. Dr. Harris Muhammed Yeah, I didn't call that out.

202Yeah, I didn't call that out. So, essentially, we would just receive an update for um school opening for RPS 200 and then we would move forward to the consent agenda. I'm sorry. And Head Start. Sorry, Head Start. That's correct. Yeah. Mr. Cameron, technical matter. We need to keep the contracts in the agenda so that tonight is considered the first. We don't have to discuss them, right? Okay, that's correct. Are we all on the same page? Any other Okay, that does not require a motion. Correct. We're just deferring. Okay. All right. Okay. So, moving right along. Thank you all so so much for your flexibility and understanding. I think that this does give us something to consider as we think about having one board meeting versus two every month. Um so valuable lesson there. Um receive

203a update on school opening for RBS 200. Good evening. We are going to be beyond brief today, but thank you for allowing us to come and just highlight our um 200 day schools. Um I want to I wanted to bring our principles in because sometimes if they're not in your district, you don't necessarily get to know who they are. So I wanted to bring in Dr. Draper from Oakrove Bel Meade in the sixth district. And I wanted to bring in u Miss Dr. Abrago who is in the night. Um our two seventh district schools were not able to be here. One is at a conference and the other was not able to be here. But Dr. Alan Miller and Miss Wright also are part of our 200 day schools. So I just wanted to highlight

204them two because it is a fast turnaround from ending the school year in May until getting ready and um staff returns next week. And so that is a lot um for our um principles, but they do a great job at it. We have training all week this week and then they'll still be ready for next week. So I just want to highlight the great work um they've done and they are doing. So thank you. So we have our wonderful principal directors who are going to come up and just talk a little bit about our preparation um for our 200 days and we'll take any questions you have. Good evening everyone. How are you? Boy, that is loud. My name is Indira Lipskum Quarl. I am one of two elementary principal directors. I'm actually the principal

205director for cluster 2 and I bring you greetings. Um just wanted to provide a bit of update for our 200 day schools. They are off to a great start. Um as Dr. Wiggins shared, we will be opening in a matter of minutes. Um, our teachers will be in place on July I'm sorry, students will be in place first day July 21st and our teacher week begins July 14th. So, as I said in a matter of minutes, um, our wonderful schools, Fairfield Court, um, we have Woodville, Cardinal, and Oak Grove have been planning um, since school ended um, and are doing a fabulous job. Not to rush anything, but I just want to make sure that uh we understand school closings um for all of our schools will take place on uh May uh 29, 2026.

206Can you believe that? 2026. Next slide, please. So, I just wanted to share um a bit of the staffing updates. We are super proud of Woodville Elementary. Last year, they were in a different place. had about 10 uh teacher vacancies. This year we're down to one. So that is something to celebrate. Overall with all of our schools, we're looking at five teacher vacancies. So we are super excited um about the work that is taking place to make sure that our boys and girls have a caring adult in front of them. Okay. So um for our facilities updates um we are in a fantastic place. Um our facilities um department has been in the schools. They have been working to ensure such things as our HVAC systems are working properly that our uh intercom systems are

207working. Um we have been in collaboration with the city. Um, so there are scheduled cuts for our grounds. Um, so we are looking and anticipating all of our schools to uh to look fresh by the time school begins. Next slide. So I just want to give a major shout out to Jennifer Pontton who is with the engagement team. She has been organizing our meetings, making sure that schools are getting everything that they need to be successful. Day one, um the outreach has been wonderful. They have been walking our neighborhoods, knocking on doors, making sure that families have everything that they need to prepare for a successful first day. So, I really want to shout um the that department out. One of our focal points is around uh chronic absenteeism for some of our students. So

208that is an area that um we're looking at specific neighborhoods to ensure that families one know um what is needed for their uh kiddos to come to school and then secondly if we can connect them with any outreach opportunities. So that is a major push for us. I also once again want to shout out Woodville um who has s successfully um lifted a PTA um um organization as well as Fairfield Court. So they will be maximizing that platform to ensure that parents understand um the supports that are ready and available for them at school. And at this time I'm going to hand it off to my colleague Lucy Michelle. Good evening, Madame Chair Fernandez, vice chair came and members of the board stated I am Lucy Michelle Jones. I'm also an elementary principal director of

209school. I will continue very quickly through the remainder of the slides. So I will start with care and safety and I'm happy to report that Three of the four schools will have a care and safety officer on deck when schools open in a few weeks and partner will have a support aid that will be assigned for the school year as well. In collaboration with Mr. Beasley, the RPS 200 day principles are currently revising um and updating their crisis plans and their safety guides. Also, um to streamline the sign in and sign out process, all four schools have now been updated with their Raptor iPad system. The front office staff has also been trained and completing um the training on the new devices. and to port to support schools from day one. All of our schools

210will be fully staffed with social workers and their counselors will be returning as well as the outside partners, child savers will be there to support as well. Next slide. School nutrition. Um, three of the four schools are fully staffed. That's Fairfield, Woodville, and Oak Grove Bell meet. We are currently working to hire one final food service assistant. um vacancy at Cardinal Elementary School. Each of the 200 day schools will receive their food distribution and supplies the week of July 14th through the 17th. And school menus um for the RPS 200 days will be posted on the RPS websites as well as the school websites by July the 14th. Next slide. School health services update. Each of the schools will be fully staffed with full-time licensed nurse licensed nurses or registered nurses. Oak Grove Belme will

211have an additional bilingual agency certified nursing assistant. All supplies will be delivered to the schools by July 14th. And that will encompass our ready to administer EpiPens, our albuterol, the Narcan, and the emergency red bags will be ready by the first day of school. And finally, just want to announce that the second school entrance physical will occur at Henry Marsh on Thursday, July the 17th from 4 to 6:00 p.m. I will pause for questions. Mr. Farooq, thank you for staying with us so late into the evening. My very quick question is, are we, thank you for all this information. Are we sure that all of these schools also have the appropriate fire safety equipment and alarms that are all working as they're supposed to? So, yes, we are currently working on those um as well

212to make sure that all the fire and safety and all those pieces will be ready, especially at those four schools. Um, we plan to have all of our schools ready first day of school, but those four specifically, Miss Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Dr. Wiggins, Dr. Crawls, and our two illustrious principal directors. I am so pleased and excited about this information that's been shared this evening on so many levels. Number one, you have covered from the beginning to the end everything that should be in place for the opening of a school. And to see that for the facil facilities listing that nothing needs to be done is is miraculous. But I must say every time I go into Fairfield Court and Woodville Elementary, schools are clean, welcoming, warm, bright, children are happy.

213It's the environments. The environments in both buildings are just as we expect to see in the elementary school. Therefore, I look forward to this 200 day school plan to continue because it does make a difference. We can look at the data and see that. My question is out of curiosity under care and safety, why does Cardinal Elementary School have a support aid instead of a um CSA? Is there a reason for that? Here comes the wellness lady. Good evening board members. Cardinal Elementary School was not originally identified as having a care and safety associate. However, because of your generosity and allowing us to not only give our CSAs um a raise, we also were added 30 SSAs. And so for our schools that didn't have that who that that did not have any support, our

214elementary schools, most of them will have an SSA um assigned to them. We have 17 interviews this week. And so we hope that we're able to get uh a strong group of folks to support our schools. Madam Chair, yes. So what's the difference in the role? So the SSA is a role that we originally came up with. We developed this role probably about was it two years ago, Mr. cameras to support. We had some um issues in some of our high schools. We did not have a budget line. We received a grant. Um the board approved a strong connections grant if you all are familiar with um and that was specifically for SSAs to support high schools, but we saw that it was a a role that was an asset to our schools and so

215we asked the board if they would support us having some additional staff and you graciously did that. So, we're appreciative. One last followup question. Yes, ma'am. So, on I cannot believe it's time for school to open. Summer school is just ending this week, which I just was brought to my attention by someone in summer school. I said, "No way. I haven't gotten over there yet." My question is on the first day of school on the 21st, are we going to do the big balloons and everything we normally would do, but the other schools will? Okay, just want to know where we need to be. Thank you. Congratulations. Could you just send us a reminder of where to Thank you. All right, we're moving right along to head start. Yes. Um I want to we have

216our regular documents to um approve as we usually do but I want to say we also have our reapplication narrative. I want to thank the policy council who met today to ensure that we had um our um reapplication approved um by them. And so we we made a couple of minor changes and so the board will need to of course um make those changes again um make that um approval again. So I am excited. Thank you to policy council. I am sure they are listening right now but thank you for all the hard work they do because they don't get paid to do any of it. um they do it on behalf of their children. And so we um are just thank you for all the hard work and thank you to the school board

217for all the times that you met to make sure that we had everything we needed for Head Start. I am very appreciative of all um you all do. Are there any Dr. I'm sorry Mr. Cameras. Uh I just want to thank the policy council Dr. Wiggins, but also the the chair and vice chair as well for their uh steadfast involvement, support, um partnership, cajoling, um lots of other things. So, thank you very very much. And uh yes, and um Dr. Wiggins. So, the board needs to approve these normal things and then a motion to approve the amended um um head start reapplication. Yes. So, we'll do them separately. You can do if you will just name them um as you go through them. That's usually what we do. So, you'll approve the program reports, you

218approve the financial statements, and then you will reprove um approve the reapplication which we added to these um documents today. Okay. Do we have a motion? I saw whose hand was. Okay. Once we'll do the motion, then we'll open it up for debate. Okay. Go ahead. I was just making a recommendation. Maybe the relication should be a separate motion because it's an amended relication. It's an amended. So I don't want someone as long as someone says amended that has to be in there. Okay. Thank you so much for that Mr. Pipal. Thank you Madam Chair. I move to approve the Head Start program reports, minutes, financial statements presented by the administration as well as the amended reapplication. It's been moved by Mr. Perl and seconded by Dr. Harris Muhammad. Are there any other questions or

219feedback? Madame Clerk, Mr. Perl? Yes. Mr. Ricard? Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes, Mr. Hedgepath. Yes, Miss Rizzy. Yes, Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes, Miss Burke. Yes, Mr. Jafari. Miss Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. please. Um, again, thank you for policy council. I also like to thank um Dr. Wiggins for her efforts as well. We certainly could have done could not have done this without her leadership and Dr. Herod Muhamad's uh feedback as well. We um this is definitely a a team effort. So, thank you all. Oh, yes. And Miss Chang, thank you so much for your efforts. Okay. Um, so moving right along to consent agenda. I believe that there is Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes, colleagues, I would like to pull the personnel agenda out of the consent agenda. personnel enclosed. Yes. One point of clarification, Madam Chair.

220Oh, I'm so sorry. It's okay. We'll come back to it. Okay. Do we need a motion or just p asking to pull it out is is enough. I'm not clear on that piece. Yes. Okay. All right. If there are no concerns, then we can pull out um personal action to the discuss and close session. And possible action later. Thank you for clarifying that. All right. So, we do I have a motion for the other items? Miss Burke. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we receive for action board travel, the RPSRPD memor memorandum of understanding, the FY 26 salary schedule, the action contracts over 100,000, and the action budget transfers over 10,000. Second. It's been moved by Miss Burke and seconded by Miss Ricard. Madame Clerk. Mr. Principal. Yes. Mr. Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes.

221Mr. Hedgepath. Yes. Miss Rizzy. Yes. Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes. Miss Burke. Yes. Mr. Jafari. Miss. Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. My apologies. Uh colleagues. Uh 7.02. 02. Uh, that was totally a mistake in oversight and certainly not intentional. Um, we'd like to receive for approval the collective bargain agreement for central office, but it's my understanding that um, it has not yet been ratified. Could you clarify? I just got word that it has been ratified. Okay. And so, we would welcome the board's action tonight. Okay. Dr. Harris Muhammed, I move that we approve the collective bargaining agreement between the school board of the city of Richmond and the Richmond Education Association for support professionals located in central office. Second. It's been moved by Dr. Harris Muhammad and seconded by Mr. Hedgepath. Madame clerk, do I

222need to say the years? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do I need to identify the years? No. Okay. As stated. Yeah. As presented. Madam clerk. Mr. Perl. Yes. Mr. Ricard. Yes. Mr. Faroo. Yes. Mr. Hedgepath. Yes. Miss Rizzy. Yes. Dr. Harris Muhammad. Miss Burke. Mr. Jafari. Miss. Fernandez. Yes, motion passes. Wonderful. That's wonderful news. Congratulations to all involved a part of this collective bargaining agreement. That's a huge stride. Yes indeed. Okay. Um for the sake of time um we have um shared that we will email any new business. Um, so at this time we will move uh directly into close session. It's me. Madame Chair, I move that the school board of the city of Richmond convene in close session to one consider the appointment of hearing officers the assignment appointment promotion performance to motion salaries

223disciplining or resignation of teachers, principles, assistant principles, classified employees or appoint or appointees for discussion, consideration or interview of prospective candidates for employment for teachers, principles Assistant principles, classified employees or appointees, the personal actions for today as permitted by Virginia Code 2.2-3711A1. Also to discuss and consider the performance evaluation of two central office employees as authorized by Virginia code 2.2-3711A1 2-3711A1 and to discuss with legal counsel and receiving uh received briefing from staff members regarding a possible employment related litigation matter as authorized by Virginia Code 2.2-3711A7 and A8. also to discuss and consider the performance and possible discipline of classified employees and to consult with legal counsel regarding the same issues as authorized by Virginia code 2.2-3711 A1 and A8. Also to discuss and consider the hiring of candidates for a central office position as

224authorized by Virginia code 2.2-3711A1 2-3711A1 and to consult with legal counsel regarding issues related to use and potential lease of schoolboard property as authorized by Virginia code 2.2-371188. Second. It's been moved by Mr. Hedgep and seconded by Miss Ricard. Madame clerk, Mr. PL yes Mr. Ricard. Yes. Mr. Farooq. Yes. Mr. Hedgepath. Yes. Mr. Rzy. Dr. Harris Muhammed. Yes. Mr. Burke. Yes, Mr. Jafari. Miss Fernandez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. We are now enclosed. If we could move swiftly to our area. Thank you.